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Isaac Harrison

thumbnail of Hollie West Statement on Isaac Harrison
Notes of Washington Post reporter Hollie West on the fatal shooting of Isaac Harrison by Newark Police. (Junius Williams Collection)

Isaac Harrison left Jamaica in the 1910s for a new home in Burlington, New Jersey. There, Harrison and his wife, Evelyn, started a family before eventually moving to Newark in 1943. The Harrisons raised nine children in Newark while Isaac worked in iron foundries around the city. In February of 1967, Evelyn passed away and Mr. Harris went to live with his eldest son Ike’s family in their apartment on the 10th floor of the Scudder Homes project.

Around 5:00 P.M. Friday July 14th, Mr. Harrison and three of his sons, Virgil, Bussy, and Horace, were standing in a crowd on Broome Street outside of the Scudder Homes project when three police cars coming from Springfield Avenue turned onto the block. Springfield Avenue had been the setting for much of the “rioting” and “looting” over the past two nights, but Broome Street had been relatively calm that day.

According to witnesses, as soon as the cars turned onto the block, police officers got out and opened fire on the crowd. ‘It was a matter of seconds,’ Bussy Harrison said. ‘They pulled up, got out of their cars and started firing. There was no warning, nothing.’ Virgil Harris echoed his brother’s account: ‘They just got out of the cars and started shooting. There weren’t any looters running around us…At first I thought they were firing blanks ‘cause they were shooting directly into the crowd.’

“When we saw they were really shooting at us, we went for the entrance there,” Virgil Harris continued. “My father got hit then. I thought he had just fell because everyone was pushing, so I picked him up and I was helping him up the steps when I got shot in the arm. When I got by the door, I got shot in the knee and I went down. Somebody pulled me in the doorway. My father was already in there, he was bleeding badly and moaning. They were still shooting at the building outside.”

The presentment of the Essex County Grand Jury, which heard testimony on the killings during the rebellion, asserted that “Newark police responded to a radio call, checked the location, and upon return to their car they were met by sniper fire apparently coming from the Project. The police retaliated by firing upon the Project…”

Although “sniper fire” was widely reported by police and National Guardsmen, very little evidence was found to support the 258 reports of “sniper incidents” claimed by city and state police. Furthermore, reporting “sniper fire” was used as a justification for the indiscriminate shooting of innocent civilians, as in the case of Isaac Harrison.

Given the lack of radio communication between law enforcement agencies during the rebellion, it is likely that the reported “sniper activity” was actually the multiple shots fired at 22-year-old Robert Lee Martin by police around the corner on Mercer Street just moments before.

According to Mr. Harrison’s stepson Horace Morris, who was with him outside the Scudder Homes, ‘We were under fire, I would say, for approximately ten minutes by the Newark police. They said they were looking for a sniper on the roof or the upper floors of the building but they were still firing at ground-level range.’

Isaac Harrison was dead at the age of 73 after having been shot five times in front of his home by policemen firing indiscriminately into a crowd of people. According to witness Denise Harris, “Mr. Harrison was by the fence that runs along Broome Street on his way to the stoop when he was hit in the back by a bullet. I saw him hit a number of times. Mr. Harrison was not doing anything wrong.”

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

References:

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

Witness Testimony of Denise Harris 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…

Denise Harris Deposition on Isaac Harrison

Denise Harris Deposition on Isaac Harrison

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Deposition of Denise Harris, in which she describes Isaac Harrison being shot in the back  by Newark policemen on Friday, July 14th. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Grand Jury Report on Death of Isaac Harrison

Grand Jury Report on Death of Isaac Harrison

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Grand Jury report describing the fatal shooting of Isaac Harrison on July 14, 1967. The Grand Jury found “no cause for indictment.” — 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