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In the Heat of the Summer: The New York Riots of 1964 and the War on Crime by Michael W. Flamm

2020; Volume: 101; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/nyh.2020.0030

2328-8132

Ann V. Collins,

Race, History, and American Society

Reviewed by: In the Heat of the Summer: The New York Riots of 1964 and the War on Crime by Michael W. Flamm Ann V. Collins (bio) In the Heat of the Summer: The New York Riots of 1964 and the War on Crime By Michael W. Flamm . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 368 pages, 6″ x 9″, 21 halftones. $34.95 cloth, $27.50 paper, $20.69 e-book. Studies of 1960s racial discord in the United States often begin with the Watts uprising in Los Angeles that occurred mid-decade. A year earlier, however—in July and August 1964—eight major rebellions erupted in four states throughout the Northeast and Midwest. The historian Michael Flamm's well-researched and extremely readable narrative explores the first of that summer's unrest, which occurred in New York City's Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods. Placing the disturbances in the context of the underlying conditions and the immediate incidents that precipitated the violence and the destruction of property that ensued, he also deftly lays out the political and social ramifications that followed with Lyndon Johnson's desperate attempt to assuage the American public's growing fear of widespread bloodshed with his War on Crime initiative. In the Heat of the Summer offers scholars and casual readers alike an interesting account of a critical time in New York, but also a pivotal moment in the history of the country. Indeed, 1964 proved to be a year in which the events that unfolded had political, economic, and social implications for decades to come. Flamm successfully conveys the gravity of this era and the important role that the first long, hot summer played. For these reasons and more, this book is a must read, particularly for anyone interested in race relations and racial violence in the United States. As with many instances of racial unrest throughout American history, the events that led to it in New York in the summer of 1964 were disputed. Not in doubt, however, was the fact that on the morning of July 16, white off-duty police lieutenant Thomas Gilligan shot and killed fifteen-year-old black student James Powell across the street from his summer school in the Yorkville neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Some witnesses at the scene suggested Powell had charged Gilligan with a knife; others suggested Powell did not even have a knife. In the end, the specifics mattered little. Two days later, a livid crowd filled the streets of Harlem in protest. What had initially been envisioned [End Page 383] as a peaceful gathering organized by the Congress of Racial Equality to acknowledge the disappearance of three civil rights workers in Mississippi had shifted to the matter of police brutality. Although some of the leaders of the march stood down after meeting with officials at Gilligan's regional precinct, the rest of the crowd remained agitated and soon acted on their frustrations. For the next six nights, hundreds of black residents looted and destroyed businesses in Harlem and then in the neighboring borough of Brooklyn. A few days later, Rochester—following a similar pattern of accusations of police brutality—would follow suit. A new era of racial violence had begun. Flamm's analysis draws on a wide variety of sources, both primary and secondary. By relying predominantly on personal interviews, political archives, and contemporary newspaper accounts, he weaves together a riveting story of the events as they played out in 1964 New York. Moreover, he explores the political backdrop of the presidential race that year that stoked the flames of racial animosity, even as incumbent Lyndon Johnson and his main opponent Republican Barry Goldwater made a public display of taking race and civil rights issues out of their campaigns. The call for "law and order," however, continued to remain constant, and especially after the violence erupted in Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Rochester. Flamm also covers such topics as allegations of Communist agitators stirring unrest among African Americans; disagreements between black moderates and radicals; economic and educational disparities creating the conditions that allowed the uprisings to occur; the disconnect between the police and the citizens they served; the tensions between federal...