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1992-08-29
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April 26, 1968New Script in Newark
Not the least surprise of the spring has been the readiness
of some black firebrands to preach peace and "Realpolitik" in the
ghettos. In the fearful days after Martin Luther King's
assassination, Mau Mau Chieftain Charles Kenyatta joined with New
York's Mayor John Lindsay in lowering Harlem's temperature. In
Los Angeles' Watts, Black Nationalist Ron Karenga and others
militants passed the word: no riots, at least for the present.
On paper, few black separatists have sounded more
intractable in the past than Playwright LeRoi Jones, 33, who was
found guilty in October of having prowled through Newark's riot
area last summer armed with a brace of revolvers. "We must make
our own world, man," he wrote recently, "and we cannot do this
unless the white man is dead. Let's get together and kill him."
Yet when the fires started up this month in Newark, Jones got
together with Mayor Hugh Addonizio and city leasers of both races
to search for peaceful political solutions.
Behind Jones's and other black zealots' "volte-face" is a
hard-won awareness that Negroes themselves take the heaviest
casualties in any riot. Though he still promises to lash back
with vigor if attacked by whites, Jones, currently appealing his
conviction for possession of deadly weapons, is more interested
now in achieving black power politically in his native city,
where 52% of the 410,000 residents are Negro. As head of the new
United Brothers of Newark, Jones said last week: We are out to
bring black self-government to this city by 1970, and the ballot
seems to be the most advantageous way. We are educating the Negro
masses that this city can be taken without a shot being fired."
Back in the Framework. In June, the United Brothers will
hold a convention to nominate black candidates for two city
council seats. With voter-registration drives, Jones and other
militants predict that a Negro will occupy Addonizio's office two
years hence, though LeRoi himself disavows any interest in the
job. "I'm a communications specialist," he grins. Admits an
Addonizio aide: "The argument isn't whether a Negro is going to
take over, but which Negro. With that, you're right back in the
framework of American politics." Another question is whether
Negroes, along with Newark's white ethnic-minority groups, can
keep their tempers long enough for the peaceful change to occur.
One promising sign is that Jones has already met three times
with Contractor Anthony Imperiale, leaser of a vociferous group
of angry whites who have been arming themselves and patrolling
Newark in "jungle cruisers" in order to "repel an invasion".
Surprisingly, the black militant and the white vigilante have
reached an understanding. "I respect him," says Jones. "He
doesn't lie like white liberals. He knows exactly what I'm trying
to do, and I know right were he's at."