After a rough and tumble year in law and politics, I have taken a step back to focus one of my true passions, New York City history. I am launching a site, janos.nyc, that will take a hard-edged look at the city's history to provide context for current events. Today I posted my first piece, about how the ongoing protests in New York City are not really about the tragic death of one person, or even policing, but about whether black lives have ever mattered in New York's checkered racial history.
I've posted much of the text below the fold, but please if you like what you're reading, please support Gotham Gazette with at least a click.
The tragic deaths of Eric Garner, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu offer New Yorkers an opportunity to have a real conversation about our city's sordid racial history. Racial politics may have come a long way in a city that prides itself on multiculturalism and progressivism, but community memories are long, and discussing the past must be part of moving forward. Mayor de Blasio recently acknowledged that some of the conflicts that have surfaced in recent weeks "go back centuries in their origins."
In New York City's black community, those origins are rooted in nearly 400 years of distrust and mistreatment. From slavery to Jim Crow, from unchecked white mobs to oppressive white police forces, the black experience in New York has been marked by pain, destruction, and neglect. There is no question that many in power have made an effort in recent decades to correct the wrongs of the past. But examining our history has to be part of the healing. Doing so will reveal that the recent protests are not just about Eric Garner, and not even just about policing. They are indeed about whether black lives matter in New York City.
The article
then traces the slave revolt of 1712, the slave conspiracy of 1741 (basically the Salem witch trials for black people) and pre-Civil War riots, before getting to the biggest White Riot of them all.
The Civil War draft riots are considered by local historians to be the absolute low point in New York City's history. Politicians and business leaders steeped in racism and cotton trade interests were already stirring up anti-black hysteria – Mayor Fernando Wood had proposed seceding from the Union – when an 1863 federal conscription requirement ignited a fury among the city's Irish.
Angry white mobs, who had no desire to fight a war to free black people from slavery, ransacked the city, focusing on federal property, wealthy elites, and especially black people, who were hunted throughout the city for days. Many were murdered, some hung in the streets. A black orphanage was burned to the ground, though thankfully the children escaped. The police performed admirably in protecting hundreds of blacks from the rioting crowds, which were finally beaten back by the Union Army. The draft riots are considered the worst civil uprising in American history.
Following a 1935 riot, Mayor LaGuardia appointed a commission to investigate the incident, but then tried to repress the commission's report.
The commission had found that anger over racism and discrimination – nearly every institution in Harlem, from schools to hospitals to social service agencies, was whites-only – had been the underlying cause, noting, "As long as these conditions persist, no one knows when they will lead to recurrence, with possibly greater violence."
The piece goes on to discuss some of the worst 20th century confrontations between the police and black community, including one incident provoked by an entirely different Patrick Lynch from the current PBA leader, and the incident that struck me profoundly during high school, growing up in New York: the death of Amadou Diallo. A truncated conclusion of the article is as follows:
William Faulkner once wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." The young minority organizers of the Black Lives Matter protests say that the ongoing demonstrations are not only about Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Akai Gurley, but about expressing the emotions of a community that has always been discriminated against. Today's activists respond to demands that they "respect the rule of law" by asking for whom laws are designed, and for whom they are enforced. Politicians who unconditionally back the NYPD or call for "law and order" fail to acknowledge that for some communities, the rule of law has been seen and felt as a weapon and not a shield for centuries. Even today, racial disparities in the criminal justice system amplify this legacy. Changing that perception and that reality will take time.
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Yet despite these positive steps forward, we are still not a city of racial trust, let alone peace and harmony. For those who can envision a unified city, and want to put in the work, perhaps the first step is to admit that the past is real, and as long as we share these streets, it's not even past. Perhaps a Truth and Reconciliation Process could move New York City forward.
In a city of constant change, replenished with new immigrants, professional transplants, and dream-seekers who work and live alongside communities that have passed down these stories for generations, perhaps New Yorkers need to have this conversation more explicitly than most. As we begin 2015, let us respect how far we have come, and let us respect how far we have to go.
Thanks for listening. As always, feedback much appreciated. I'm curious to hear whether folks from across the country also feel that historical context is critical for discussing current events, especially emotionally intense issues like criminal justice.
Janos.nyc is going to have its full launch later this January. For any Kossacks interested in New York City history, whether you live here or not, I'll try to have daily content, which I'll cross-post here as often as possible. For people looking for a readable history of the city, I recommend The Epic of New York City by Edward Robb Ellis.