Testimony of Harry Wheeler, director of the Committee Against Negro and Puerto Rican Removal, before the Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorder on December 8, 1967. The Commission was held following the 1967 Newark rebellion to investigate the causes of the rebellion and called witnesses to testify like a Grand Jury. –Credit: Rutgers University Digital Legal Library Repository
Notes taken by Junius Williams, head of the Newark Area Planning Association (NAPA), on demands that NAPA and the Committee Against Negro and Puerto Rican Removal would issue to Governor Richard Hughes during a meeting about the Medical School Negotiations on January 19, 1968. This meeting was seen as a turning point in the Medical School Negotiations. NAPA and the Committee Against Negro and Puerto Rican Removal led the charge to develop an alternate plan for the College of Medicine and Dentistry that would have originally displaced approximately 20,000 Black and Puerto Rican residents of the Central Ward. — Credit: Junius Williams Collection
Statement prepared by Junius Williams, head of the Newark Area Planning Association (NAPA), explaining the political implications of the planned Route 75 construction on the 1970 mayoral election. Route 75, an eight lane highway planned to run North to South, would have cut the Central Ward in half and displaced thousands of Black and Puerto Rican residents, thereby eliminating them from the voting rolls of the Central Ward.
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.
Transcript of address given by Governor Richard J. Hughes to the Governor’s Select Commission for the Study of Civil Disorder in New Jersey on August 8, 1967. The Commission was convened by Governor Hughes to study “the causes, the incidents, and the remedies” for the 1967 Newark rebellion. The Governor’s Commission, also known as the Lilley Commission after its chair Robert Lilley, held months of hearings from Newark residents and later published its findings in Report for Action. — Credit: New Jersey State Archives
Letter to the Editor of the Newark Evening News on March 21, 1963 from William Mercer regarding the controversy over a proposed police advisory 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 investigate allegations of police misconduct. The struggle over a police advisory board continued through the 1960s and was a polarizing topic along racial lines in Newark. — Credit: Newark Public Library
Telegram sent by Rev. John Collier to President John Kennedy, Attoenry General Robert Kennedy, Governor Richard Hughes, and NJ Attorney General Arthur Sills regarding the beatings of peaceful demonstrators at the Barringer High School construction site in July 1963. Members of the Newark Coordinating Council and their supporters were attacked by construction workers and police officers as they demonstrated against hiring discrimination in the building and construction industries at the construction site. — Credit: Newark Public Library
Address given to the Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorders by an unidentified member of the Commission, about a year after the publication of the Commission’s findings in Report for Action. In this address, the speaker criticizes the city of Newark and State of New Jersey for failing to implement the vast majority of the recommendations of the Commission, “the fulfillment of which it considered mandatory to the establishment of order and justice.” Only 26 of the Commission’s 99 recommendations were implemented. — Credit: Newark Public Library
Draft article by Newark Evening News reporter Doug Eldridge describing Ken Gibson’s comments on the report issued by the Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorders. Gibson, a member of Newark’s Business Industrial Coordinating Council (BICC) and 1966 mayoral candidate, became the first African-American mayor of Newark in 1970. — Credit: Newark Public Library
Letter from Rev. Kim Jefferson, Executive Secretary of the Greater Newark Council of Churches, to Robert Lilley, chairman of the Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorder, on February 26, 1968. The Commission was convened by Governor Hughes to study “the causes, the incidents, and the remedies” for the 1967 Newark rebellion. — Credit: Newark Public Library
