Article from The Star-Ledger covering the demands of Governor Hughes that North Ward vigilante Anthony Imperiale disband his followers. Imperiale and his North Ward Citizens Committee gained notoreity for the cache of weapons, including an armored car, that they claimed to have and for giving voice to white fears and resentment after the 1967 Newark rebellion.
Proposal for the establishment of the Newark Legal Services Project as a Community Action Program within the United Community Corporation (UCC). The Newark Legal Services Project (NLSP) was designed to provide poor communities with access to otherwise costly legal services. In addition to providing legal services to the poor in civil and criminal law, the NLSP also offered legal support to civil rights organizations and individual claims in Newark. — Credit: Newark Public Library
Clipping from an unmarked newspaper covering a meeting of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) on October 11, 1965. The meeting, attended by roughly 100 people, was held to address Mayor Addonizio’s responses to community demands for a police review board in Newark. Those who attended the meeting, including Robert Curvin, Fred Means, and Carl Katidus, criticized the shortcomings of Addonizio’s proposals for police reform. Newark Human Rights Commission director James Threatt was “booed repeatedly” when he spoke in support of Addonizio’s plans. — Credit: Newark Public Library
Press release from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey summarizing a letter from ACLU executive director Fred Barbaro to Mayor Addonizio. The letter critiqued Addonizio’s rejection of the police review board, taking particular exception to the Mayor’s plan to forward all allegations of police brutality to the FBI. The referral of these cases to the FBI was seen by many Black and Puerto Rican communities as a token gesture that would provide no redress to victims of police misconduct. — Credit: Newark Public Library
Newsletter from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU) summarizing the ways in which various organizations acted in response to the fatal shooting of Lester Long by Newark Patrolman Henry Martinez. The shooting of Lester Long was one of the most well-known and contentious cases of alleged police brutality in Newark during the 1960s and reinvigorated community demands for a police review board. — Credit: Newark Public Library
Letter from Emil Oxfeld of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey to Mayor Addonizio in support of a proposed police review board. Following an influx of allegations of police misconduct and brutality in early 1963, African American community leaders advocated for the establishment of a “review board” or “advisory board” to handle allegations of police misconduct. — Credit: Newark Public Library
Deposition of Edna Clair Bell before the Essex County Grand Jury, in which she describes learning of the death of her husband, Tedock Bell. Mrs. Bell states, “To the best of my knowledge and belief Tedock Bell was shot in the back by Newark policemen for no reason at all.” — Credit: Newark Public Library
Press release from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey announcing an investigation into “police brutality charges” stemming from the violent arrests at a Black Muslim house on the Newark-East Orange border on July 7, 1967. The close proximity of this incident to John Smith’s arrest and beating on July 12th brought police-community tensions to a head and “sparked” the 1967 Newark rebellion. — Credit: Newark Public Library
