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Albert Mersier, Jr.

thumbnail of John Patrick White Deposition on Albert Mersier
Deposition of John Patrick White on the fatal shooting of Albert Mersier, Jr. (Newark Public Library)

Albert Mersier, Jr.’s parents, Albert Sr. and Mrs. Gussie Mersier, had moved to Newark from Lincolnton, Georgia thirty years before the rebellion. Mr. Mersier, Sr. had managed to purchase two bars in the city, the Cozy Corner and the Babalu Club, after years of hard work. During this time, the Mersier’s had five children—four daughters and a son, Albert, Jr., who graduated from East Side High School in 1965. Instead of eventually inheriting his father’s businesses, the 20-year-old Albert Jr. was fatally shot by Newark Police just before midnight Friday, July 14th—down the street from the Babalu Club.

Journalist and author Ron Porambo followed the case…

“The scene of Mersier’s death was far from the riot area. He died because police behavior was becoming uglier and uglier as the riot persisted. Mersier was sentenced to death for a petty crime, as were other victims, and he was executed on the spot.

The youth, over six feet tall and heavyset, managed to squeeze through a 14-by-20 inch opening in a sliding door after he and a companion had kicked in the panel. Nothing inside W.W. Grainger, an electric motor company, was worth shooting a man over.

‘When someone’s running from you,’ his father said, ‘you know damn well they’re afraid of you. I want to know why they had to kill him.’ A year later, Albert Mersier, Sr.—a gravel-voiced man who smoked three packs a day—was still grieved enough to retrace the steps again, as he had done many times before in his mind.

Grand Jury Report describing the fatal shooting of Albert Mersier, Jr. on July 14, 1967. (Newark Public Library)

From the truck platform door the younger Mersier had run some twenty yards to reach the street, another fifteen to cross it and then down Mulberry Street’s sidewalk some twenty-eight more yards where he was overtaken by a .38 caliber bullet that kept on going after it killed him. ‘That’s my belief on the right hand of God,’ his father said. ‘They just killed him because they wanted to kill him. A month after the riot two cops came into my bar trying to sell stolen television sets—stolen! He wasn’t doing no God damn other than what they were doing but nobody shot them.”

Albert Mersier, Jr. was dead at the age of 20 after having been shot in the back by Newark Police officers, who fired seven to eight shots at the young man for stealing from a warehouse. As witness John Patrick White testified, “The police were shooting as we ran…I went back and saw Albert laying on the ground, face down. He was dead.”

The Essex County Grand Jury found “no cause for indictment” of the officers involved.

References:

Ronald Porambo, No Cause for Indictment: An Autopsy of Newark

Witness Testimony of John Patrick White before the Essex County Grand Jury

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…

Death Certificate of Albert Mersier, Jr.

Death Certificate of Albert Mersier, Jr.

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Copy of the Death Certificate for Albert Mersier, Jr., issued by the City Of Newark’s Bureau of Vital Statistics. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Ruth Moody Deposition on Albert Mersier, Jr.

Ruth Moody Deposition on Albert Mersier, Jr.

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Deposition of Mrs. Ruth Moody, in which she describes witnessing the shooting of Albert Mersier, Jr. by police officers. — Credit: Newark Public Library

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

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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

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