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Phil Hutchings

Phil Hutchings addresses a press conference at Spirit House in July, 1967. (Amiri Baraka Papers, Columbia University Library)

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Hutchings was a member of the NAACP Youth Council growing up before attending Howard University in Washington, D.C. At Howard, Hutchings was a member of the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG), whose membership included other notable figures in the Civil Rights Movement, such as Stokely Carmichael, Courtland Cox, and Ed Brown. In 1964, Hutchings and other NAG members travelled to Mississippi to work with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in their voting campaign to challenge the white-only primary for the 1964 presidential election.

After returning to Washington, D.C. from Mississippi and then Cambridge, Maryland, Hutchings found himself in Newark in December of 1964, having been recruited by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) member Tom Hayden. ‘Tom was shameless,’ Hutchings recalled. ‘He got me to come to a party in New York City, and after I had a few drinks, he told me how important Newark was, and why I ought to be there. To me, after the civil rights stage, [the power structure] was going to create Birminghams all over America, where everybody could sit on the bus wherever they wanted, eat at any restaurant, and the problem of racism would become less obvious. But we still have all those other problems related to class. Newark’s majority black population and its size made this a place to find some of the answers for the problems of race and class.’

As a member of the Newark Community Union Project (NCUP), Hutchings organized around principles of self-determination for the city’s Black communities in the fields of housing, policing, and education. To Hutchings, organizing in Newark was not just about improving conditions in housing, education, policing, etc., but to establish Black institutions and Black Power in the city.

Hutchings was also a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was responsible for SNCC Chairman, Stokely Carmichael, coming to Newark in 1966. Carmichael’s visit to Newark marked a shift in Hutchings’ political consciousness in Newark away from interracial organizing and toward Black Power, which provided a more realistic approach to organizing in the predominantly Black Central Ward.

Community organizers at a press conference during the 1967 Newark rebellion. Left to right: Jesse Allen, James Hooper, Donald Tucker, Marion Kidd, and Phil Hutchings. (Newark Public Library)

Hutchings and others attempted to bring Black Power into the political arena in Newark in 1966 by supporting the first, unsuccessful campaign of eventual Mayor Ken Gibson. In 1967, Hutchings was beaten by Newark Police during the rebellion in July and helped to organize the National Conference on Black Power, which took place just days after the rebellion had been suppressed. He was also a founding member, along with Junius Williams, of the Newark Area Planning Association (NAPA), which was instrumental in the fight against the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry urban renewal plan. In 1968, Hutchings succeeded H. Rap Brown as the national chairman of SNCC.

“What’s interesting in terms of the Newark experience looking back on it is…we had some real power,” Phil Hutchings later reflected. “And nothing I’ve worked with in the same way since has had that type of grassroots base where the mayor and city council were very concerned…of what we were going to do.”

References:

Junius Williams, Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power

Interview with Phil Hutchings, conducted by Joseph Mosnier in Oakland, California on September 11, 2011, for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Library of Congress.

Who’s Coming In, Who’s Going Out?

World War II kicked off the second Great Migration, as African Americans from the South sought better living conditions in Newark and other cities. Between 1940 and 1950, the African American population of Newark increased from 45,760 to 74,965—growing from 10.7% to 17.2% of the city’s total population. In many ways, this population influx marked a tipping point for recognition.

For most of Newark, the depression ended. “Help wanted “ signs went up. But African Americans could not always find a job. The New Jersey Afro-American wrote in 1941 that while contracts for nearly a billion and a half dollars in government defense orders have been placed with firms in New Jersey, the Urban League finds that these firms have steadfastly refused to hire colored workers.”

 

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“Help wanted “ signs went up. But African Americans could not always find a job.
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But some African Americans did find employment. Jobs for blacks in the Newark defense workforce improved from 4% in 1942, to 8.8% in 1943. With the overall economy booming, Newark’s downtown stores began hiring some African Americans as elevator operators and janitors. Large restaurants hired blacks as chefs, cooks and waiters—they could work, but not sit down to eat. The war years helped enhance the prospects of some, while still denying prosperity for the many.

Whites Begin to Leave

Around 1947, the white middle class started deserting Newark for the suburbs, along with the businesses that sustained them. The post World-War II boom was good for businesses for a while, but factories, schools, and streets had been neglected during the war. Overcrowding was a problem, especially in the ghettos. These conditions made the suburbs very attractive as alternatives to Newark.

The G.I. Bill of Rights and FHA loans made it easier for whites to buy a house, and brand new highways built by the federal government with taxpayers’ dollars made it easier to drive those new automobiles to the suburbs, in Essex County and further west. These same mortgages were unavailable to most African Americans; and most suburbs were off limits.

 

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These same mortgages were unavailable to most African Americans; and most suburbs were off limits.
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But Newark’s heterogeneous ethnic character remained intact in the early and mid-1950s. Newark was described as follows by writer Joseph Conforti:

The Germans had given way to the Irish who in 1950 shared political power with an Italian and a Jew. The ethnic division of the city could also be observed less directly. Many occupations were ethnically identifiable: the police and fire departments were overwhelmingly Irish; the construction trades were Italian; the merchants were largely Jewish, the small luncheonettes were Greek, the large businesses were owned and operated by WASPs, skilled craftsmen were likely to be German, and the factory operatives were Irish, Polish and Italian. Even the city’s taxicabs had ethnic identifications…yellow cabs were operated by the Irish, 20th Century cabs by Jews, Brown and White cabs by Italians, and Green cabs by blacks.

Newark’s Changing Demographics

Ghettoization continued in Newark. By 1940, the Third Ward (today’s Central Ward) alone contained more than 16,000 black residents. By 1944 nearly one third of the apartments and housing in the black areas were below the standards of minimum decency. Some houses still had outside bathrooms.

The slums were among the worst in the nation. The situation was particularly grim for African Americans, clustered on “the hill” just west of the Essex County Court House. Public Housing did not help a lot. There were 7 low-income projects finished before the war, but by 1946, there were 2,110 white families and only 623 black families in the buildings. Four of the projects housed no black people. The best low-rise public housing, such as Bradley Court, was reserved for whites; while the poorest units, such as F.D.R. Homes, were reserved for blacks. Ultimately, the majority of African Americans were steered into the growing number of high rise public housing which just happened to be built in the center city where black people had been confined beginning at the turn of the 20th century.

 

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Four of the projects housed no black people.
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The 1950 Census showed the trend in population increases for blacks, and decrease by whites. Newark’s total population rose only slightly from 429,760 in 1940 to 438,776 in 1950. Black residents had increased from 45,760 to 74,965—more than a 60% increase. When newspapers took a look at the faces of misery, increasingly they were black.

Even though the city began hemorrhaging jobs (250 manufacturers left between 1950-60; 1,300 manufactures left during the 1960s), the more dramatic change in the city’s socioeconomic structure was the rapidly changing composition of the city’s population.

African Americans were rapidly become politically and economically obsolete in a city where they would soon be in the majority. Segregation and discrimination by race and class defined Newark’s offering to the city’s newest immigrants.

Listen to the people speak about their experiences as newcomers to Newark below…

Phil Hutchings discusses how Black political nationalism was defined in Newark and its implications for interracial organizing. — Credit: Junius Williams Collection

Invitation to Newark Organizers Training Institute

Invitation to Newark Organizers Training Institute

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Invitation to participate in the Newark Organizers Training Institute in June, 1967. Hutchings was one of the organizers of the institute.  — Credit: Junius Williams Collection

Phil Hutchings UCC Resignation Letter

Phil Hutchings UCC Resignation Letter

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Letter of resignation from Phil Hutchings to the United Community Corporation in April, 1967. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Explore The Archives

African American Repairman

African American Repairman

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Photograph from the PSEG archives of an African American repairman at work. — Credit: PSEG

22 Clayton Street Stove

22 Clayton Street Stove

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A look inside the apartment of an African American family at 22 Clayton Street in Newark. — Credit: WPA Photographs, NJ State Archives

22 Clayton Street Bathroom

22 Clayton Street Bathroom

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A look inside the apartment of an African American family at 22 Clayton Street in Newark. — Credit: WPA Photographs, NJ State Archives

African American Stoker

African American Stoker

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Photograph from the PSEG archives of an African American stoker at work. — Credit: PSEG