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The Newark Experience

The Sixties in Newark

Newark in the 1960's: A Decade of Transformation
Robert Curvin. Newark History Society program, September 24, 2012.
Hearings Before the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Newark, New Jersey, September 11-12, 1962.
United States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington, D.C., 1963.
Special Collections Call Number: SNCLNJ F144.N6U5
Securing Equality : The Operation of the Laws of New Jersey Concerning Racial Discrimination
New Jersey Commission on Civil Rights. 1964
"The study of minority groups was focused upon the Negro. The Law School, through the cooperation of Rutgers Urban Studies Center, was fortunate in obtaining the services of Leonard Zeitz, a sociologist and cultural anthropologist, who designed and supervised a depth study of Negro attitudes toward law, lawyers, legal processes and the law relating to discrimination. The students in Social Legislation, second and third year law students at Rutgers, conducted many of the 130 depth interviews of Negro residents of the south side of Newark in December 1963 and January 1964. Professor Zeitz's article, explaining and evaluating the research, is the third part of this study. His findings will be utilized throughout this study as a basis for evaluating the behavior of governmental agencies."
"Reasonable, Warranted and Consonant": Police Violence and Police Sovereignty in 1960s Newark
Imani Radney. Journal of Urban History October 2023.
"This article examines the defensive politics of police advocacy, which prized independence and was explicitly tied to the issue of police violence, that emerged in Newark, New Jersey, during the mid-1960s. In response to charges of brutality and calls for civilian review of police misconduct, law enforcement officers and their supporters advanced a vision of policing that was entrenched in a belief in police sovereignty—a term I offer to name the notion that law enforcement officers alone should define the boundaries of police work." Rutgers-restricted Access
Angelo DeCarlo Tape Transcripts, 1962-1965.
United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Between 1961 and 1963, federal agents began wire tapping conversations between Angelo DeCarlo and his mob associates. These wire taps revealed corruption among law enforcement, prominent businessmen and state officials, including...Newark Mayor Hugh Addonizio...."
Manuscript collection in the Cummings New Jersey collection at the Newark Public Library." Newark Archives Project description
Revisiting Female Activism in the 1960s: The Newark Branch of the National of Islam
Cynthia S'thembile West. Black Scholar 26(3/4), 1996, 41-48.
Contrary to the way that they are usually portrayed, women in the Nation of Islam were agents of change in the black Newark community during the 1960s. Rutgers-restricted Access
Nation Builders: Female Activism in the Nation of Islam 1960-1970.
Cynthia West. Thesis (Ph.D), Temple University, 1994. Available?
Narrating Muslim Masculinities: The Fruit of Islam and the Quest for Black Redemption
Zain Abdullah. Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men 1(1), Autumn 2012, pp. 141-177.
"During the modern Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements, struggles for racial equality were represented by a quest for manhood...And the Fruit [of Islam] in cities like Newark symbolized the presence of a new Black manhood...This article presents an exploration of masculinist performances, or more specifically how the Fruit of Islam displayed different kinds of masculinities, and the role these practices played in the Black struggle toward liberation and redemption." Based on eight life histories of former members of Newark's Temple No. 25. Rutgers-restricted Access
With No One to Help Us
U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity documentary "demonstrating how the formation of a food-buying club by a group of Newark welfare mothers brought about a necessary change in the community."
The Newark Frontier: Community Action in the Great Society
Mark Krasovic. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2016. Rutgers-restricted Access
"The Newark Frontier shows how, during the Great Society, urban liberalism adapted and grew, defining itself less by centralized programs and ideals than by administrative innovation and the small-scale, personal interactions generated by community action programs, investigative commissions, and police-community relations projects." Available?
The Struggle for Newark: Plotting Urban Crisis in the Great Society.
Mark Krasovic. Thesis (Ph.D.), Yale University, 2008.
Looks for the origin of the Newark urban crisis as a cultural, rather than socioeconomic fact. Available?
Inside Newark: Decline, Rebellion, and the Search for Transformation
Robert Curvin. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 2014.
An insider's history of Newark from the 1950s to the 21st century. Available?
Inside Newark: Interviews
The Newark Public Library has 40+ DVDs of interviews that Robert Curvin conducted in preparation for his book; they have digitized most of these.

Oral Histories

Inventory to the Rutgers-Newark in the 1960s and 1970s Oral History Collection
"The collection consists of cassette recordings of oral history interviews conducted by librarian emeritus Gilbert Cohen. These interviews document the city of Newark and Rutgers University-Newark in the 1960s and 1970s. Sixty people associated with the Rutgers-Newark campus were interviewed including students, faculty, administration, and staff representing a wide spectrum of political beliefs and levels of activism." Includes links to online audio and transcripts.

What it Looked Like

Aerial View of Newark, New Jersey.
1964. Thumbnail. Larger Images display only at the Library of Congress.
Berg Picture Collection (1960-1968).
Search or browse more than 2,800 digitized photographs, mostly Newark street scenes, taken by Bernard Berg between 1960 and 1968. From the Cummings New Jersey Information Center at the Newark Public Library.

Maps

1966: Downtown Newark
Includes the "new" Rutgers-Newark site as well as the "old" location at Fulton and Rector streets. From the Old Newark site.
1967 U.S. Geological Survey Map of the Elizabeth Quadrangle (includes Newark)
Place cursor anywhere on map and click on the zoom icon in lower right to open map to full size.
1967 Essex County Road Map
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