Black Violence: Political Impact of the 1960s Riots 9781400867615

Citation preview

Black Violence

James W Button

BLACK VIOLENCE Political Impact of the 1960s Riots

Princeton University Press

Copyright © 1978 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, NewJersey In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book This book has been composed in VIP Caledonia Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

Contents

List of Tables List of Diagrams Preface List of Abbreviations

viii

χ xi xiii

CHAPTER I

The Urban Riots as Collective Violence: What Were the Political Consequences? Perspectives on Collective Violence Federal Responses to the Riots: An Overview Emphases and Methodology of This Study Macrolevel Analysis: The Vfew From the Top Microlevel Analysis: The View From Two Riot Cities Format and Importance of This Study

3 4 9

12 15 20 23

CHAPTER II

OEO: The "Fire-Brigade" Approach to Riots Response to Early Riots The Later Riots (1967-1968) Comparative City Analysis Employment Programs The Community Action Agency The Kerner Report and OEO Long-Term OEO Reactions: Nixon I Aggregate Analysis Nixon II and After Summary and Conclusion

24 27 33 34 37 42 44 46 49 52 53

CHAPTER III

HUD and HEW: The Case of Moderate Response Rochester, Watts, and the Initial Riots The Later Riots (1967-1968) and HUD Aggregate Analysis The Model Cities Response Dayton as a Model City Some Final HUD Innovations

58 61 67 69 73 75 78

vi HEW and the Ghetto Violence of 1967-1968 Influence of the Kerner Report The First Nixon Administration and the Urban Violence Macrolevel Analysis Impetus to Housing The Mode] Cities Emphasis Nixon and HEW Summary and Conclusion

Contents 79 82 86 89 92 96 98 102

CHAPTER IV

Justice and Defense: From Riot Prevention to Riot Control Historical Overview: Riots, the Police, and the Federal Government The Early Riots: Limited Federal Law Enforcement Role of the FBI The Watts Riot The Riots of 1967-1968: Increased Involvement of the Federal Government The Trend Toward Riot Control The Role of the Military The Growth of Military Intelligence Nixon I and the Quest for Law and Order LEAA and the Riots Rochester, Dayton and LEAA The Growth of Intelligence Systems The Responses of Other Agencies Summary and Conclusion

107 109 111 115 117

121 126 128 131 134 138 144 148 149 152

CHAPTER V

Toward a Theory of the Political Impact of Collective Violence

156

National Executive Responses to the Urban Disorders: A Recapitulation Shift to "Liberalism" The "Conservative" Trend Violence and Social Change Elite and Mass Attitudes Toward Violence When Does the Squeaky Wheel Get the Grease?

158 160 163 166 169 174

Contents

vii

APPENDIX 1 Methodology Interviews with Federal Elites

180 188

APPENDIX 2 List of Interviewed Federal Influentials

192

APPENDIX 3 Interview Questionnaire for Federal Officials

196

Notes Selected Bibliography Index

199 232 241

List of Tables

1.1 2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

3.1

3.2

3.3 3.4

3.6 3.6 4.1

List of Riot Characteristics for Sample of Forty Disorder Cities 18 & 19 Rochester Influentials: SummaryofPerceived Reactions of the Federal Government to Rochester's Black Riots 29 Correlations of Riot Characteristics and Other Independent Variables with Per Capita Antipoverty Expenditure Increases for mid-1967 36 Through 1969 Correlations of Riot Characteristics and Other Independent Variables with OEO Per Capita Expenditure Increases for 1970 Through mid-1972 50 Summary of the Antipoverty Agency's Responses to the Urban Riots as Perceived by Influential OEO Officials 55 Correlations of Riot Characteristics and Other Independent Variables with HUD Per Capita Expenditure Increases for mid-1967 Through 1969 69 & 70 Dayton Influentials: Summary of Perceived Reactions of Federal Government to Dayton's Black Riots 77 Summary of HEW Responses to the Urban Riots as Perceived by Influential HEW Officials 83 Correlations of Riot Characteristics and Other Independent Variables with HUD Per Capita 90 Expenditure Increases for 1970 Through mid-1972 FederalBudgetforMajorHUDPrograms 93 Summary of HUD Responses to the Urban Riots as Perceived by Influential HUD Officials 94 Correlations of Riot Measures and Other Independent Variables with LEAA Expenditures (1969-1971) 141 & 142

List of Tables

5.1

ix

Views of Federal Executive Officials Toward Violence and Social Change 170 A.1 Frequency Distribution of Number of Disorders Per City 181 A. 2 Intercorrelations of Riot Variables and Riot Indices 183 A. 3 Summary of Non-Riot Independent Variables and Their Sources 185 & 186

List of Diagrams

2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.1

Path Models: OEO Expenditure Increases (1967-1969) Path Models: OEO Expenditure Increases (1970-1972) Path Models: HUD Expenditure Increases (1967-1969) Path Models: HUD Expenditure Increases (1970-1972) Path Models: LEAA (State Action-Grant) Expenditures (1969-1971)

38 & 39 51 72 91 143

Preface

This study was conceived in the fall of 1970, just a few years after the intense urban riots of 1967-1968. So shocking and se­ vere were these black riots, and so great was the attention fo­ cused upon them, that it seemed crucial to explore the politi­ cal ramifications of these dramatic events. How, and to what extent, the national government responded to the black riot­ ing is the central theme of this research. However, a second emphasis also emerged. The turbulent decade of the 1960s raised the more general issue of the role of collective violence in a democratic society. Thus, this study examines, to a lim­ ited degree, the critical yet unanswered question of the utility of collective violence as a strategy of change for dispossessed minorities. The formative ideas behind this research were primarily stimulated by Robert L. Lineberry, my dissertation adviser. His useful criticisms and continual encouragement have been instrumental in the successful completion of this project. Another major source of ideas, expertise, and criticism has been Joe Feagin. The influence and inspiration provided by these two men have been extensive, and I am very grateful. Herbert Hirsch, David Perry, Larry Dodd, Carl Leiden, and Richard Scher have supplied necessary criticism and sup­ port, and I wish to thank each of them. I would also like to express gratitude to Bryan Downes, Sally Matheny, Steve Thomas, Grant Carter, Kristine Mayer, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Button, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Tim Morrison, and Congressman J. J. Pickle, all of whom facilitated the gathering of data for this study. Great appreciation is also expressed to the National Science Foundation for its financial assistance for this project, although the views stated herein in no way reflect those of the Foundation. Additionally, special thanks go to Marian Morse, Molly Loughlin, and Edee Herwig for the typing of this manu­ script through its various stages. I am also grateful to Sanford

xii

Preface

Thatcher, social science editor at Princeton University Press, and to Gail Filion, for her judicious editing of the manuscript. Finally, I am most deeply appreciative of Chris, who not only has provided her thoughtful ideas but, more importantly, has given me so much emotional and intellectual support. Without her inspiration and love, this book would never have been completed, and it is to her that I dedicate the following pages. September, 1977

James Button

List of Abbreviations ABC BWP CAP CEP CIA CRS DOJ FBI HEW HUD IACP IDIU JOBS LEAA MC NAB NYC OEO OLEA RJi SEARCH VISTA

(Action for a Better Community) (Bureau of Work Programs) (Community Action Program) (Concentrated Employment Program) (Central Intelligence Agency) (Community Relations Service) (Department of Justice) (Federal Bureau of Investigation) (Department of Health, Education and Welfare) (Department of Housing and Urban Development) (International Association of Chiefs of Police) (Interdivision Information Unit) (Job Opportunities in the Business Sector) (Law Enforcement Assistance Administration) (Model Cities) (National Alliance of Businessmen) (Neighborhood Youth Corps) (Office of Economic Opportunity) (Office of Law Enforcement Assistance) (Rochester Jobs Incorporated) (System for Electronic Analysis and Retrieval of Criminal Histories) (Volunteers in Service to America)

Black Violence

CHAPTER I

The Urban Riots as Collective Violence: What Were the Political Consequences? "Violence is necessary and it's as American as cherry pie." —H. Rap Brown1 "The nationwide deterioration of respect for au­ thority, the law, and civil order reached its peak this past summer (1967) when mobs in 100 cities burned and looted and killed in a senseless attack upon their society. . . . This country cannot tem­ porize or equivocate in this showdown with anar­ chy. " —Richard M. Nixon2

Although domestic collective violence* has played a promi­ nent role in American history, few other episodes of urban vio­ lence in this country's history have been so destructive or so dramatic as the black riots of the 1960s. As a result, the causes, precipitating events, and participants of the outbursts have been thoroughly studied over the past several years.3 Yet what is remarkable about this extensive analysis is the almost com­ plete neglect of the political effects or consequences of these pervasive disorders. By concentrating instead on the factors that may have caused the riots, most investigators have im­ plicitly reflected a normative bias concerning the disutility of domestic violence for affecting social and political change. For many, such conflict has been viewed as "the negation of politi* For purposes of this analysis, collective violence is defined as an instance of group coercion which includes injury or destruction to persons or property. A black "riot" is considered an act of collective violence, and the term "riot" is used synonymously with revolt, rebellion, disorder, disturbance, and up­ heaval. For an operational definition of "riot," see Appendix 1.

4

Black Violence

cal order" and the antithesis of normal political participation.4 This view has effectively precluded rigorous attempts by social scientists to explore fully the results of the 1960s urban up­ heavals, especially their impact on public policy. The fundamental purpose of this study is to evaluate some of the political consequences of the urban black riots of the 1960s and early 1970s. More specifically, the focus will be on the major responses of the executive branch of the federal gov­ ernment. Some activists have argued that the black violence was politically meaningful and that it galvanized the national government into action to remove the basic social and eco­ nomic inequities underlying the disorders. Others have con­ tended that the riots were apolitical and even anarchistic, and inspired a virulent law and order "backlash" at the federal level. Hence, the political effects of the urban disorders re­ main undetermined. I hope the present investigation, al­ though exploratory in nature, will shed some light on how na­ tional political authorities responded to the riots. Moreover, it should pave the way for the development of various theoreti­ cal formulations about public elite reactions to occurrences of major domestic violence. Finally, this analysis should help to clarify the utility or disutility of collective violence as a viable minority group strategy for attaining certain political rewards. PERSPECTIVES ON COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE The urban disorders of the 1960s were not the only collective actions of intense domestic violence in American history. As one report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence has emphasized, "the United States has regularly experienced episodes of mass violence,"5 includ­ ing the numerous Indian wars, the revolts of the Appalachian farmers, the countless slave rebellions, the terrorism of white vigilante groups, the immigrant riots, and laborers' warfare with industrialists. Nevertheless, the great amount of protest and rioting in the 1960s convinced many observers that such violence was indeed a "creation" of the last decade.

Urban Riots as Collective Violence

5

With the increasing prevalence of collective violence on the American scene recently, a number of explanations have been advanced to interpret the causes and consequences of these upheavals. Almost all of these explanations put forth by prom­ inent analysts have been subsumed under three basic perspec­ tives of collective violence: the "conservative" view; the "lib­ eral" view; and the "radical" view.6 The "conservative" explanation, which is popularly held, conceives of collective violence as essentially "rare, needless, without purpose, and irrational."7 In this view, as advocated by Banfield, Methvini and Luce, violence is considered de­ viant and aberrant because it is destructive and often appears to be a threat to the fundamental norms of any given society.8 These norms generally stress stability, consensus, and the ra­ tionality, orderliness, and predictability of social and political change. Thus violence and disorder are characteristic of groups that are an "underclass" consisting of the unemployed, criminal elements, or wild adolescents.9 However, these ele­ ments might not resort to rioting without the impetus or "spark" provided by outside agitators or conspiratorial leaders who seek the systematic disruption of American society. Be­ cause such groups often resort to some form of civil violence rather than to more conventional, pluralistic methods of con­ flict resolution (such as peaceful negotiation, bargaining, and eventual compromise), these groups are perceived as being pathological. In addition, the "conservative" perspective emphasizes the uselessness and futility of group violence. The assumption here, and one supported by most political pluralists, is that existing institutions are adequate for advancing the interests of deprived minorities and that violent activities are therefore unnecessary. Furthermore, even when forceful tactics are employed by disadvantaged groups, these tactics are rarely successful in achieving any kind of meaningful societal change. Besides being considered useless and futile, collective domes­ tic violence is also irrational because of its antidemocratic na­ ture and "loss of individuality and civilized behavior" in the

6

Black Violence

psychological engulfment of the "crowd."10 Thus, those who adhere to this paradigm stress a repressive, control-oriented response by public officials. The immediate emphasis is on such measures as new and improved riot control materials and techniques, riot control training for law enforcement officials, increased intelligence activities, and incarceration of deviant individuals. The long-run remedy is a moral restructuring of violent individuals through the basic institutions of the home, the church, and school. Finally, the "conservative" view defines collective violence only in terms of the use of force by one discontented group against another or against public authority. The use of force by public authorities against such groups is rarely viewed as vio­ lence. Rather, it is usually defined in terms of necessary and normal social control actions or law enforcement.11 Hence the normative aspects of such a view undeniably support societal stability, peaceful pluralistic forms of change, and the legiti­ mation of the state and its public authorities. The second basic paradigm of collective violence is the "lib­ eral" perspective, or "middle position." Those who adhere to this view perceive such violence as generally inevitable under certain historical or societal conditions, but maintain that vio­ lence is at best only moderately helpful in alleviating the con­ ditions that provoke such actions. "Liberals" view the causes of group violence not so much in terms of aberrant individuals as in "relatively impersonal social causes" for which no con­ temporary person or group is to blame.12 They stress the more neutral problems of migration, family structure, urban over­ population, or historical underprivilege of minorities.13 Some­ times the "liberal" perspective emphasizes the role of racial prejudice in contributing to violence by minorities. When it comes to cures for violence, the middle position tends to endorse socioeconomic reforms coupled with a conservative-like emphasis on "law and order" control meas­ ures. The "liberal" call for socioeconomic reforms is some­ times far-reaching, such as in the areas of jobs and housing.

Urban Riots as Collective Violence

7

However, these reforms, as seen in the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, are limited to those that would never bring about any major restructuring of the existing political or economic system.14 Thus, such reform proposals usually involve a modicum of "tinkering" with the system in order to correct certain malfunctions but no attempt to alter completely the power relationships within society. The underlying normative emphasis is upon moderate change, sometimes due to violence and instability, but with a minimi­ zation of turmoil through both reform and control measures. The third perspective, the "radical" view, is a relatively recent phenomenon that interprets collective violence as ba­ sically structured, purposeful, rational, and politically mean­ ingful.15 As sociologist Charles Tilly has suggested in an histor­ ical and comparative study of violence in Western Europe: Far from being mere side effects of urbanization, indus­ trialization, and other large structural changes, violent protests seem to grow most directly from the struggle for established places in the structure of power. . . . Fur­ thermore, instead of constituting a sharp break from "normal" political life, violent protests tend to accom­ pany, complement, and extend organized, peaceful at­ tempts by the same people to accomplish their objec­ tives.16 Advocates of this view, such as Rubenstein, Skolnick, and Gamson, stress the normality, legitimacy, and efficacy of col­ lective violence as a strategy employed by groups that are en­ gaged in a struggle for power.17 Rather than being irrational and unnecessary, violence is usually employed only after con­ ventional strategies have been tried and found wanting, or when there is an absence of societal structures capable of ac­ commodating basic demands. Hence the basic cause of such violence is found not among those who revolt but among those in positions of power who have systematically excluded other groups. Accordingly, the utilization of coercive actions by

8

Black Violence

these excluded groups are "ways of making demands on au­ thority, whether for changes of specific acts or rulers or of structures of authority."18 The "radical" perspective perceives violence to be purpose­ ful behavior in a number of different ways, from serving as a "catalyst" for social change to functioning as a danger signal to those in power of a serious social or political dysfunction. As Lewis Coser has argued: It follows that if the incidence of violence increases rapidly, be it in the society at large or within specific sec­ tors of it, this can be taken as a signal of severe malad­ justment. I would further suggest that this signal is so drastic, so extremely loud, that it cannot fail to be per­ ceived by men in power and authority otherwise not noted for peculiar sensitivity to social ills.19 "Radicals" also perceive certain forms of collective violence, especially racial violence, as incipient colonial rebellions and as manifestations of the "proletariat's" worldwide struggle against capitalism. Furthermore, as part of this anti-colonial perspective, violence may serve, as Frantz Fanon has claimed, a certain therapeutic function (or psychological "cleansing force") for the individual who rebels.20 In terms of solutions to violence, those adhering to the "rad­ ical" view contend that public responses should consist of sig­ nificant increases in power and resources for the powerless and even major alterations in the existing political system. Moreover, this view expressly rejects the contention that only disaffected groups, and not public authorities, can be violent and destructive. In fact, "radicals" claim that "institutionalized behavior may be equally destructive as, or considerably more so than, riots,"21 and repressive actions by authorities often serve to escalate the intensity of disorders rather than control them. In stark contrast to the "conservative" view, the norma­ tive emphasis of this paradigm is on the functional necessity of change in society and the legitimacy and efficacy of collective

Urban Riots as Collective Violence

9

violence (other than by established authority) as a means of enhancing the transfer of power. These three perspectives on the causes and cures for collec­ tive violence have been reflected in many aspects of public (and private) reactions to disorders in this country. By explicitly setting forth the characteristics of each view, we should be able to categorize and theorize about federal execu­ tive responses to the urban riots of the last decade within a meaningful framework. Whether this delineation of perspec­ tives under three rubrics is adequate to the empirical reality of federal responses remains to be determined. FEDERAL RESPONSES TO THE RIOTS: AN OVERVIEW Unlike most previous black riots in the United States, the up­ heavals of the 1960s were initiated and dominated by blacks rather than whites.22 These disorders were unique too in that black rioters tended to focus, either explicitly or implicitly, on the political system itself. The Report of the NationalAdvisory Commission on Civil Disorders, the most comprehensive study of the riots, concluded that the "ineffectiveness of the political structure and grievance mechanisms" and the "in­ adequacy of (government) programs" were major complaints in most of the ghettos that had experienced upheavals.23 The general restraint and selectivity of targets for assault by most of the rioters also signified a conscious attempt by blacks to communicate their basic grievances to political leaders: For all the violence and destruction most blacks struck out exclusively against local policemen, ghetto mer­ chants, and other obvious sources of their grievances. . . . In other words, the violence was directed at the system's abuses and not the system itself because the rioters were trying to alert the society rather than overturn it.24 Not only did the black rebellions have clear political over-

10

Black Violence

tones but, it is important to note, this violence was directed, to a great extent, at the federal (or national) level of govern­ ment. The rapid expansion of federal power since the 1930s generated an emphasis among dissatisfied groups on redress of grievances by Washington. From the New Deal through the 1960s, blacks in particular viewed the federal government (es­ pecially the executive branch) as the foremost symbol of gov­ ernmental benevolence and their hope for future equality.25 Indeed, the scope and intensity of the black riots—more than 329 important instances in 257 cities between 1964 and 196826—inevitably made the disorders a national issue in which the federal government soon assumed the critical role. In addition, the results of a national survey taken among blacks not long after the major riot period of 1967-1968 indi­ cated that 77 percent felt that they should pressure specifically the federal government for increased support in order to com­ pensate for a perceived decrease in assistance from the white community.27 More important, perhaps, was the emphasis given to the federal role by those in white leadership posi­ tions, as stated in the Ninth Annual Report of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations : From the standpoint of federalism, a significant feature of the racial unrest and civil disorder was the tendency of local officials and news media to speak almost entirely in terms of remedial action by the Federal Government, oc­ casioned perhaps by the feeling that only through access to Federal financing could sufficient resources be mobilized.28 With such evidence that the massive black rioting of the last decade was political in nature and was directed extensively at the national government, it would seem crucial to ascertain how the federal government responded to this violence. How­ ever, what little empirical research exists on the policy impact of the riots has been focused at the local level and is primarily in the form of case studies.29 The policy effects of the disorders at the federal level have been almost totally ignored. The few

Urban Riots as Collective Violence

U

investigations that have been carried out at this level have tended to examine short-term impact and to lack rigorous em­ pirical evidence.30 The results have therefore been suggestive rather than conclusive. Perhaps the federal response most thoroughly studied has been the establishment of two executive commissions (the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and the Na­ tional Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence) to document the causes of, and propose solutions for, the black violence. The response of these study commissions has gen­ erally been considered a symbolic one; they served primarily to "buy time" for federal officials, and their recommendations for change have been largely ignored.31 Moreover, there was "a built-in tendency toward the whitewash, to the extent that riot commissions minimize criticism of the public officials to whom they must look for primary implementation of the report."32 The few analyses of substantive policy responses at the federal level have concluded that the major emphasis was on repression ("law and order") with no or token social and eco­ nomic reforms. For example, One Year Later, a general as­ sessment by Urban America and the Urban Coalition of the nation's responses to the riots within the year following the National Advisory Commission's Report, summarized the role of the federal government in responding to three major areas of need in the ghetto: poverty, education, and the environ­ ment. Its conclusion was that most national programs to meet such grievances were, depending on the area, too limited, un­ derfunded, or nonexistent.33 Many federal officials seemingly feared that new public programs might be interpreted as "re­ warding violence," and therefore were extremely hesitant to approve any new measures to aid the ghettos. A majority in Congress, on the other hand, perceived the riots as basically a crime problem,34 and much federally ap­ proved legislation had a decided emphasis upon law enforce­ ment, including the antiriot act and the Crime Control Act of 1968. As a result, at least one comprehensive study of the ef-

12

Black Violence

fects of the disorders concluded that "the federal law enforce­ ment response to ghetto rioting and other civil disturbances does seem to have been perhaps the most substantial reaction at any level of government."35 Even general historical evi­ dence suggests that the national government has responded to civil disorder in this country with a combination of "long-run recommendations for social change" and "short-run calls for better strategy and technology to contain disruption," with an emphasis on the latter measures.36 Besides lacking empirical support, however, most of these investigations have tended to assess governmental responses within one year or less following significant disorders, whereas the initiation and development of new public programs may have required several years. Because many of these analyses were confined to case studies of one or just a few cities, there was also a significant chance that variation in federal responses between cities might have been overlooked. Finally, there is the crucial problem of inferring causal relationships among so­ cial phenomena. Without exception, previous studies have as­ sumed causality between black riots and federal policy outputs with no controls for other seemingly significant variables nor any consideration of other competing causal explanations. EMPHASES AND METHODOLOGY OF THIS STUDY With a focus on the national executive branch, this work will attempt to develop a more thorough and complete evaluation of the impact of the black urban riots. In fulfilling such a task, this study will seek to answer several fundamental questions: First, and most important, did the riots affect executive offi­ cials' decisions and ultimately federal public policy and, if so, how and to what degree? Closely related to this basic concern is how these public elites perceived the causes of the black upheavals and why they responded in the manner they did. At issue is whether the federal reaction was as repressionoriented as previous analysts have suggested. In addition, it is important to know what political factors, other than the vio-

Urban Riots as Collective Violence

13

lence itself, simultaneously acted upon these policy makers to influence their ultimate decisions (i.e., factors such as study commission reports, congressional influence, public opinion and voting, and other competing events). Second, did the federal executive branch respond differ­ ently to the initial, less intense riots (1963-1966) than it did to the later, more severe disorders (1967-1968) and, if so, why? It may be that differences in intensity, number, precipitating events, and temporal sequence of the episodes of violence af­ fected policy makers in unique ways. Third, was there a difference in the short-term and longterm responses of the national government? Some evidence suggests that federal officials have repressed domestic violence as immediate reactions, while in the long run they have at­ tempted to bring about more basic social reforms to alleviate conditions underlying the violence. Fourth, in terms of the federal system in which national pol­ icy makers must operate, how have national executive re­ sponses to urban rioting been affected by the local political and environmental context and by local reactions to such vio­ lence? Although the federal-local relationship tends to be re­ ciprocal, the interest here is primarily in local (urban) factors and conditions that influence national reactions to municipal crises. Fifth, and somewhat more generally, how do public officials tend to view the role of violence in American society? Ulti­ mately I will attempt to develop a theory of public response to collective domestic violence; that is, what are the conditions under which officials tend to react to internal disorders in specified ways. In examining federal policy reactions, I decided to concen­ trate on three agencies that were directly affected by the black riots; (1) the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO); (2) the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); and (3) the Department of Justice (DOJ). These agencies were selected because each has been increasingly active in urban affairs, especially those concerning central-city blacks. Too,

14

Black Violence

ghetto residents in riot cities tended to express grievances about these federal organizations most directly, criticizing the antipoverty program (OEO) due to "insufficient participation by the poor, lack of continuity, and inadequate funding," and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for in­ adequate housing and an indiscriminate Urban Renewal pro­ gram.37 In a less direct manner, black criticism was also leveled at other federal departments, including Labor, for "in­ adequate employment programs," and Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), for segregrated schools, inadequate edu­ cation, and welfare programs.38 As the black violence esca­ lated, moreover, the Justice Department (and to a lesser ex­ tent the Department of Defense) was increasingly called upon for manpower, information, training, and financial resources in order to help control the burgeoning riots. Though OEO, HUD, and DOJ will receive the most attention, less intense riot impact analysis will also be carried out for the Depart­ ments of Labor, HEW, and Defense. To investigate thoroughly the effects of the urban upheavals upon policies emanating from these national bureaucracies, I employed a variety of methodological approaches. By utilizing a number of measurement indicators, each with particular ad­ vantages and disadvantages, I hoped to formulate more effec­ tively the pattern of federal responses to ghetto riots. Thus, in addition to interviews and questionnaires, this research em­ ployed aggregate statistical techniques, census and other nu­ merical descriptive data, archive and additional primarysource data, and an abundance of secondary-source material. Besides the use of multiple techniques of investigation, the significance of the "level-of-analysis" problem was also recog­ nized when looking at national responses to local units (cities). Microlevel phenomena cannot be satisfactorily explained solely by macrolevel data, nor vice versa.39 Hence it became necessary, for maximum explanatory capability, to explore the federal government vis-a-vis the cities both from a national (macro) level and from the individual urban, subunit (micro) level.

Urban Riots as Collective Violence

15

Finally, there is a significant longitudinal dimension in this study. Collective violence may have differential effects on pol­ icy depending on the frequency, magnitude, and temporal se­ quence of the violence; thus, a time dimension was selected that ranges from the period of the earliest important urban riots (1963-1966) to several years beyond the era of the most severe and frequent upheavals (1967-1968). Each agency's re­ sponses are therefore divided into three time periods that re­ flect the major differences in federal response patterns: (1) the early riots (1963-1966); (2) the intense riot years (1967-1968); and (3) the later riots and the long-term impact (1969-1972). By combining the dual level of analysis (macro and micro) with the use of a battery of measurement indicators at each level, and over a considerable period of time, I anticipated that it would be possible to corroborate and effectively confirm many of the conclusions of this investigation. The strength of this approach has been suggested by several social scientists who have claimed that: Once a proposition has been confirmed by two or more independent measurement processes, the uncertainty of its interpretation is greatly reduced. The most persuasive evidence comes through a triangulation of measurement processes. If a proposition can survive the onslaught of a series of imperfect measures, with all their irrelevant er­ ror, confidence should be placed in it.40 Macrolevel Analysis: The View From the Top

Case studies of cities that experienced black violence are plagued by the serious methodological limitation that one cannot generalize from their findings to include other riot cities. A case study can usually explain how only one city or a few similar cities were affected by violence, whereas most urbanologists increasingly seek explanations and theories that account for uniformity over a large number of communities. To move beyond the limitations inherent in the case-study ap­ proach and to develop a cross-community perspective, this

16

Black Violence

study employed an aggregate comparative analysis. By using certain statistical techniques, it was possible to generate prob­ ability explanations about federal expenditure responses to riot cities in general. Obviously the major independent vari­ able in this approach was black urban riots. Since, according to Spilerman, the number of cities experiencing black disturb­ ances in the 1960s was too large to allow comparison with a sufficient number of nonriot cities of approximately the same size and percentage of black people, only cities experiencing riots were used for this investigation41 (for further discussion, see Appendix 1). However, the continuum of riot severity among selected cities ranged from the most minor incidents involving only small numbers of participants to the worst riots of the decade. Forty cities were randomly selected by riot-intensity level from the National Advisory Commission's listing of cities that had riots in 1967.42 Besides differentiating among these cities for intensity of their worst 1967 riot (this year having been the most violent riot year in the 1960s),43 I attempted to delineate the number of black riots each of these cities experienced dur­ ing the period (1963-1970) of most of the violent upheavals of the era. Furthermore, an index of overall riot severity, whereby the number of riots is multiplied by the intensity of each and added together, was established for each city. I ex­ pected that not only the severity of a single riot but also the number of riots experienced over a period of time and their total intensity effect may well have had an impact on the ex­ penditure increases of the federal government. One further dimension of the 1967 riots was investigated, and this variable was the immediate precipitant of each city's worst 1967 riot. I hypothesized that official knowledge of the grievances under­ lying a particular riot, as reflected at least somewhat in the immediate reported cause for the outburst, might have in­ duced federal aid increases or decreases. Table 1.1 presents a summary of these riot characteristics for each of the forty dis­ order cities in the sample. Other independent variables probably also affect the rate of

Urban Riots as Collective Violence

17

expenditure increments of the federal government to Ameri­ can cities. Among these other possibly significant variables are size of city, number and rate of change in number of blacks in a city, "deprivation" indices (percentage poor and percentage black) of those in a city, the political power of those who repre­ sent a city in Congress, various characteristics of a local gov­ ernment, the political mobilization level (voting) of the popu­ lation within a city, and the municipality's crime rate. For a more complete delineation and explanation of all independent variables utilized in this aggregate analysis, see Appendix 1. The dependent variables in this aggregate analysis were per capita federal expenditure increases or decreases following the riots from OEO, HUD, and Justice (the Law Enforcement As­ sistance Administration, or LEAA) to these selected disorder cities. The per capita rate of increase for OEO and HUD (LEAA was not created until 1968) was measured in terms of expenditures a city received over a two-and-one-half-year pe­ riod following the major riot summer of 1967 compared to funds received during the two-and-one-half-year period prior to mid-1967. This increment was expressed as a ratio: July 1, 1967-December 31, 1969 per capita expenditures / January 1, 1965-June 30, 1967 per capita expenditures. As part of the longitudinal dimension of this analysis, the per capita fund in­ creases to these cities were also investigated for the two-andone-half-year period from January 1, 1970 through June 30, 1972, and these increments were also expressed as a ratio comparison to the previous two and one-half year funding rate. These two-and-one-half-year time sequences seemed adequate in length to reflect any major programmatic and funding responses to riot cities by the federal government. For Justice Department (LEAA) per capita expenditures,44 the time period from January 1, 1969, through December 31, 1971 (three years), was utilized since funding to cities did not begin on a large scale until 1969 under this new program. To test the effects of riot measures, as well as other inde­ pendent variables, on the dependent variables of federal per capita fund increments, this analysis employed simple bi-

Birmingham, Ala. Oakland, Cal. New Haven, Conn. Wilmington, Del. Riviera Beach, Fla. Tampa, Fla. Alton, 111. Rockford, 111. Des Moines, Iowa Wichita, Kansas Cambridge, Md. Detroit, Mich. Flint, Mich. Kalamazoo, Mich. Mt. Clemens, Mich. Pontiac, Mich. Saginaw, Mich. Ypsilanti, Mich. Minneapolis, Minn.

1 0 4 3 2 10 0 1 1 2 2 16 1 1 0 5 2 0 2

1967 Riot Intensity 4 3 2 3 1 1 1 1 5 2 4 6 1 5 1 1 2 1 3

Number of Riots (1963-1968) 5 1 5 8 2 10 0 1 3 3 5 21 1 3 0 5 2 0 2

Overall Severity of all Riots (1963-1968) 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0

Number of Riots (1969-1970) 5 1 5 8 2 10 0 1 4 3 5 26 1 3 0 5 2 0 2

Overall Severity of all Riots (1963-1970)

List of Riot Characteristics for Sample of Forty Disorder Cities

TABLE 1.1

1 1 1 1 1 1 5 2 5 5 4 1 5 1 5 2 3 5 3

Immediate Precipitant of Most Severe 1967 Riots*

1 1 2 18 2 2 11 0 4 3 1 1 11 1 1 1 1 0 2 3 12

1 4 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 3 1 1 3 6 3 1 5 5 2 1 1 1 5 2 20 2 2 11 0 15 4 1 1 14 25 3 1 19 13 4 3 12

1 2 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 1 0 1 0

1 8 2 23 2 2 11 0 15 4 1 1 14 25 3 1 19 13 4 3 12

5 2 5 1 5 5 2 5 1 1 5 5 1 2 4 4 2 2 4 1 5

* Immediate Precipitants: (1) killings, arrest, interference, assault, or search of Negro by police; (2) interracial rock throwing or fight, no mention of lethal weapons; (3) civil liberty, public facilities, segregation, political events, and housing; (4) inflammatory speeches by civil rights or "black power" leaders; (5) no apparent precipitant, or unknown precipitant.

SOURCES: Most of the data on riot severity for the above cities were obtained from the riot archives of Bryan Downes, University of Missouri at St. Louis. Other sources included the Chicago-Tribune, The New York Times Index, and the Congressional Quarterly Almanac (1967).

Kansas City, Mo. Omaha, Neb. Englewood, N.J. Newark, N.J. Plainfield, N.J. Albany, N.Y. Buffalo, N.Y. Lackawanna, N.Y. Rochester, N.Y. Syracuse, N.Y. Wyandanch, N.Y. Durham, N.C. Cincinnati, Ohio Cleveland, Ohio Dayton, Ohio Springfield, Ohio Philadelphia, Pa. Pittsburgh, Pa. Nashville, Tenn. Houston, Tex. Milwaukee, Wis.

20

Black Violence

variate Pearson correlations first and then the more sophisti­ cated multivariate technique of path analysis. The concern was with riot characteristics and how they interacted with the other independent variables to explain the level of change in federal fund allotments to riot cities. Moreover, the use of path analysis (with multiple regressions) made it possible to control mathematically for the effects of other significant inde­ pendent variables and thereby to measure the singular effects of riots (see Appendix 1). The other major approach to data-gathering at the macrolevel was to interview federal officials to gain access to elite perceptions of the urban violence and its after-effects. The type of interview employed was the "semistandardized" inter­ view45 in which the interviewer asked a number of specific major questions of all respondents but was free to probe be­ yond the answers to these questions. Of crucial importance in this approach was the process by which interviewees were selected for questioning. This study utilized a "quasireputational" approach similar to that employed by Floyd Hunter in his study of Regional City.46 However, instead of using community "judges" to select "influentials," a procedure that would have been very difficult at the national level, I sim­ ply asked each interviewed official to suggest other "influen­ tials" in his department or elsewhere. "Influential" was used here to signify those who could speak knowledgeably about the department's responses to the urban disorders (see Ap­ pendix 1 for a more thorough discussion of this data-gathering procedure, and Appendix 2 for a list of the names and formal positions of those interviewed). In all, fifty federal influentials were interviewed and ten more completed lengthy question­ naires. Microlevel Analysis: The View From Two Riot Cities

The second way of looking at federal executive responses is from the local level. Many of the national programs selected for analysis here emphasized local initiative as a means of achieving federal funds. This has been most evident in the

Urban Riots as Collective Violence

21

Community Action Programs (OEO) and Model Cities Pro­ grams (HUD) where "citizen participation" has been a pre­ requisite for receiving such program allocations; but many other types of federal programs required some kind of local initiative as well. Furthermore, the ghetto violence that is the major focus of this analysis occurred at the city level, and its impact was undoubtedly most salient within the confines of the urban complex. Hence a microlevel view was imperative for a more complete explanation of federal policy responses to the urban disorders. Rochester, New York, and Dayton, Ohio, were the two riot cities this study analyzes. The reasons for their selection were several. First, Rochester was chosen for the initial case study because of my varied personal contacts in and general knowl­ edge of it.47 This information seemed vital to the successful undertaking of any local community analysis. Second, I at­ tempted to select cities with contrasting types and degrees of federal program responses, thereby hoping to generate some hypotheses about why the national government responded dif­ ferently to riots in some cities than in others. Dayton received sizable federal expenditure increases for most of its programs following the 1967 riot summer, while Rochester's increments were more moderate. Third, since most black riots occurred in the northeast, mid-Atlantic, or midwest regions of the coun­ try,48 I limited case studies to those regions so as not to intro­ duce a possible regional bias in response patterns. Finally, for comparative purposes, it is useful to examine cities of comparable size and environmental context. Both Rochester and Dayton are medium-sized cities, highly indus­ trialized, with sizable and rapidly increasing black minori­ ties.49 Each city also has "reformed" political structures (man­ ager-council government and at-large local elections, though such elections are partisan in Rochester and nonpartisan in Dayton). These notable similarities have led high-level offi­ cials in both urban areas to refer to the cities as "sister cities." The methodological approaches used to analyze each city were basically the same as several of the multiple indicators

22

Black Violence

utilized at the national level. Lists of local "influentials" were compiled for each city, and personal interviews were con­ ducted with as many of these local elites as possible using an open-ended questionnaire very similar to that employed with the federal executive elites. In Rochester, 37 of 52 persons who were identified as local "influentials" were interviewed, while in Dayton the total was 27 of 36 "influentials." Thus in each city the total number of individuals interviewed was more than 70 percent of those delineated as "influentials." Additionally, local newspaper files, public libraries, and vari­ ous public records were surveyed in each city to corroborate interview facts as well as to provide a general description of the broader community context in which the black riots and their aftermaths occurred. It should be emphasized that neither Rochester nor Dayton is completely typical or representative of the cities that expe­ rienced black violence in the 1960s. Nevertheless each of these cities contained basic problems in common that were endemic to most riot cities, including serious black grievances in the areas of housing, employment, education, and police practices. Most of the elites in both Rochester and Dayton, moreover, were galvanized by the violence to the degree of implementing a number of substantive programs for the ex­ pressed purpose of alleviating black frustrations. Similarly, a white "backlash" reaction to the violence, partly a rejuvena­ tion of white ethnicity, occurred in each of the cities by the late 1960s, affecting primarily the pace of school integration but seemingly reducing some other program commitments as well. Yet these obvious parallels should not obscure fundamental differences in the riot experiences of Rochester and Dayton. The major black rebellion in Rochester took place considera­ bly earlier (1964) than the three low-to-moderate intensity upheavals in Dayton (1966-1967). More importantly, "influen­ tials" in Rochester (as compared to those in Dayton) tended to be representatives of the private sector and quite parochial— they believed the "city of culture" could adequately cope with its problems without extensive assistance from outside. Thus

Urban Riots as Collective Violence

23

most of the local responses to the violence in Rochester were privately initiated and even privately funded to a great extent. Dayton, on the other hand, lacked this degree of business wealth and aristocratic culture and therefore responded to black demands with a variety of public programs, many of which were supported by expenditures from the national gov­ ernment.50 FORMAT AND IMPORTANCE OF THIS STUDY In terms of structure, the core of the book (Chapters II-IV) will focus upon specific federal departments (or agencies) and their particular response patterns to the black riots. Chapter II will deal with OEO; Chapter III will elaborate on HUD and HEW reactions; and Chapter IV will detail the federal law en­ forcement responses of Justice (and Defense to a lesser ex­ tent). By employing the analytical constructs of "conservative"-"liberal"-"radical" perspectives, I will attempt to classify and explain the various national executive orientations toward the urban disorders. Finally, the last chapter (V) will present a summary of federal response patterns as well as a broader theoretical perspective concerning the political consequences of internal group violence. Gabriel Almond contends that the special mission of politi­ cal science has historically been to better understand and to help solve "the problem of violence and coercion in human af­ fairs."51 If this is true, then this investigation certainly focuses on one of the most crucial issues in American political life. Yet mass violence on the domestic scene, at least that violence not perpetrated by those in authority, has generally been consid­ ered to be pathological—aberrant and even dysfunctional to the existing political system. Only recently have a few social scientists begun to question this conventional wisdom con­ cerning the causes and political utility of collective violence. I hope that this study, though exploratory in nature, will tend to further the special mission of political analysis as well as shed new light on the possible dynamic relationship between domestic violence and social change in the American context.

CHAPTER II

OEO: The "Fire-Brigade" Approach to Riots This social dynamite comes from discontent with joblessness, discontent with inhuman hous­ ing, discontent with money-hungry landlords and merchants, discontent with the raw differences between justice, health, and convenience for the poor and the rest of America. These are the combustibles that fire up a riot. But even if there were no riots, even if every impoverished section of America remained quiet and uncomplaining, the conditions are wrong. They are wrong socially, politically, and morally. And they just must be corrected—wherever they exist. Through the Economic Opportunity legislation, you have provided a variety of mechanisms in the best traditions of America to right these wrongs. —Sargent Shriver, Director of the War on Poverty, 1967.1

During the early 1960s, there was a tremendous upsurge of concern in this country about the great amount of poverty in an otherwise affluent society. Harrington's The Other America, published in 1963, catalyzed much of this popular concern. Federal officials and intellectuals were influenced to a great degree during this period by the Ford Foundation's Gray Areas Project and the Mobilization for Youth program, a product of the President's Committee on Juvenile Delin­ quency. Both of these programs were based upon a systemic, as opposed to an individualistic, view of the causes of poverty, and both advocated expanded opportunities and increased local initiative as means of alleviating the problem.2 These early seeds eventually blossomed into the federal Antipoverty Program of 1964, and the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) became the nation's antipoverty agency.

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

25

Established as an independent agency in the Executive Office of the president, OEO was a unique organization. With its emphasis on "opportunity" rather than on "handouts," it aimed at the alleviation of the causes of poverty rather than simply relief of its symptoms, which was the role performed by traditional welfare programs. In addition, the Economic Opportunity Act embodied an important coordinating func­ tion, a need that was occasioned by the proliferation of federal programs on behalf of the poor.3 Finally, there was the later controversial emphasis upon "maximum feasible participa­ tion" of the poor who were to be served by the program, thus insuring maximum local choice and flexibility.4 In final form the antipoverty act comprised a myriad of basic programs, and OEO was assigned the task of coordinating these numerous components. First, there were several pro­ grams organized in the Bureau of Work Programs (BWP) that emphasized either education or job training or both, and these included Job Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Adult Basic Education, and Work Experience and Training. Some of these programs were manned by the Department of Labor, and in the later 1960s OEO helped fund two distinctly Labor pro­ grams: the Concentrated Employment Program (CEP) and Job Opportunities in the Business Sector (JOBS). Second, there was the popular Head Start program, which was to pro­ vide preschool training for "disadvantaged" children, although this program was transferred in 1969 to HEW. Third, the Vol­ unteers in Service to America (VISTA) program was estab­ lished as the domestic analogue of the Peace Corps, and pro­ vided for volunteers to work among the poor both in rural and urban areas. Finally, the last and most important of the major OEO programs was the Community Action Program (CAP), which served a variety of functions, including mobilization of resources, provision of services and assistance, coordination of programs, and inclusion of the poor in antipoverty efforts.5 Although the antipoverty program was established sup­ posedly to reduce all forms of poverty, its greatest impact was intended to be on two groups: poor blacks and young people, and these categories were not mutually exclusive.6 Poverty

26

Black Violence

was found to be disproportionately prevalent among the young and blacks, and the feeling was that the "cycle of poverty" had to be broken while these people were young and before they became parents of still another generation of the poor. Yet the antipoverty program was very much a Negro-oriented pro­ gram for other significant reasons as well. With the first phase of the modern civil rights struggle, the quest for political and social rights gave urban blacks an organizational base that many poor whites lacked.7 Furthermore, by 1960 more than a third of all blacks in the country were concentrated in nine key presidential election states, and this increased the leverage of the black vote on presidential politics.8 As one analysis of the war on poverty concluded: "The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, a prime example of presidential legislation, was drafted principally for the poor Negro, although public discussion of the program has seldom been completely candid in acknowl­ edging this fact."9 Other social scientists suggested that the war on poverty was more of a conscious attempt by the na­ tional Democratic Administration to "placate and integrate a turbulent black constituency" by stimulating black demands for services at the local level.10 Once the antipoverty program was instituted, it seems that the greater ease of organizing programs in urban ghettos (as opposed to rural areas) and the increased urgency represented by the first black riots of 1964 through 1966 led to an increased emphasis (especially in CAP) on urban blacks.11 By 1967 OEO reported that 57 percent of the persons involved in antipov­ erty programs in 1966 were nonwhite.12 No doubt the image of being a "black man's" program eventually made OEO a political liability, but there also seems to be little question that this poor Negro orientation was intended by the planners and was a primary objective of those who administered the poverty programs.13 Once the wave of urban riots began to sweep the country, another goal of OEO became apparent. This was the goal of "reducing urban violence through the elimination of economic poverty."14 Hence, one would expect that if any socially

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

27

oriented federal department or agency responded to the ghetto riots with increased expenditures and new programs (or both), it would have been OEO. RESPONSE TO EARLY RIOTS The black violence of the mid-1960s was the initial test of how the antipoverty agency would react to such disturbances. The major riots that broke out in Harlem, Rochester, and Phila­ delphia in the summer of 1964 marked the nation's most tur­ bulent summer in twenty years.15 Profiles of OEO responses to important riots in Rochester and Watts (Los Angeles) clearly illustrate the pattern of antipoverty reactions during this period (1963-1966).16 Rochester experienced four days of intense rioting in July 1964, in which four persons died, hundreds were injured, 976 were arrested, and property damage was estimated at close to $3 million. So widespread was the rioting in this city that Gov­ ernor Nelson Rockefeller was forced to mobilize 1,500 Na­ tional Guardsmen to help quell the violence.17 The upheaval in Rochester demonstrated the early commitment to utilizing OEO funds and programs as the main means of alleviating the ghetto conditions that seemed to spawn the violence. Roches­ ter is an affluent, technologically oriented city whose leaders have prided themselves on being able to solve their own urban problems with little assistance from other levels of govern­ ment. Nonetheless, so shocking was the black violence that flared in the city in 1964 that one immediate reaction of local officials was the preparation of applications for assistance from the federal government.18 It is significant that the Rochester city manager appointed an antipoverty task force as an initial response to the riot. This appeared to be an indirect appeasement of the black leaders who had met with the mayor during the height of the violence and requested greater Negro input-into local policy decisions as a prerequisite to ending the riot. More specifically, these black leaders had asked for the development of a "mayor's

28

Black Violence

committee" made up, in part, of blacks selected by the resi­ dents of the riot areas. Also on the proposed committee were to be members of the city administration and other civil lead­ ers, and this group was "to encourage the establishment of more Negro businesses" and "the use of more Negro workers in public agencies."19 Although the mayor refused this de­ mand during the riot, less than a month later the feature editor of one of Rochester's two major newspapers called for the consideration of "how the federal poverty program can be adapted to Rochester. "20 Thus, not long after Rochester's worst black riot the task force on poverty had organized Action for a Better Community (ABC)—the local community action agency—and federal antipoverty funds began to flow into the city. Rochester "influentials" (at least those interviewed for this study) most frequently cited the establishment of the poverty program as a federal re­ sponse to the riot. In fact, it was the only federal program mentioned by more than half of these local elites (62%), and it was one of the few federal responses upon which both white and black influentials in Rochester tended to agree (see Table 2.1). That is, a majority of private and public white elites (ex­ cepting the police) as well as the vast majority of black leaders, all perceived the existence of ABC as due, at least in part, to the black violence. The later director of the local poverty agency went a step further and claimed that "the OEO pro­ gram would not have come about at all (in Rochester) without the rioting. "21 A majority of the Rochester leaders contended, moreover, that the local antipoverty program was well-funded due to the urban violence, and the annual OEO funds provided to the city seem to confirm this suggestion. Rochester experienced riots in both 1964 and 1967, and it seems significant that the largest annual poverty outlays of the decade to the city were in 1965 and 1968, the years immediately following these up­ heavals.22 If the antipoverty program response to the black revolts in Rochester is clear-cut, the response in the case of Watts just a

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

29

TABLE 2.1

Rochester lnfluentials: Summary of Perceived Reactions of the Federal Government to Rochester's Black Riots*

Types of Responses

Categories of Local lnfluentials Whites-WhitesTotal Private Public Police Blacks Others (N=37) (N=7) (N = IO) (N=4) (N=IO) (N=6) % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Antipoverty program established and well-funded 62 (23) More and better housing for poor 35 (13) Emphasized youth summer programs 32 (12) Provided more job training and jobs for blacks 30 (11) Model Cities program established 22 (8) More funds for police force 19 (7) Emphasized Urban Renewal programs 19 (7) Other 8 (3)

57 (4) 80 (B)

0(0) 80 (8) 50 (3)

43 (3) 60 (6)

0(0) 20 (2) 33 (2)

14 (1) 30 (2) 75(3) 30 (3) 33 (2)

29 (2) 30 (3)

0(0) 40 (4) 33 (2)

14 (1) 60 (6)

0(0) 10 (1) 0 (0)

0

(0)

20 (2) 100 (4) 0 (0) 17 (1)

14 (1) 40 (4) 14 (1) 20 (2)

0(0) 10 (1) 17 (1) 0(0) 0 (0) 0 (0)

* Question: "Do you think that the racial disorders had any impact upon federal aid to the city of Rochester? If so, what?" All respondents answered "yes" to the first question, and this table is a categorization of replies to the second question. Percent­ ages in the table do not total 100 percent because of the multiple responses of many of the interviewees.

little over a year later was even more pronounced. Unlike any of the 1964 riots, the Watts explosion of August 1965 reached catastrophic proportions. In six days of rioting, thirty-four per­ sons were killed, more than 1,000 were injured, almost 4,000 were arrested, and property damage was estimated at about $40 million.23

30

Black Violence

Shortly after this major riot President Johnson appointed a special task force, led by Deputy Attorney General Ramsey Clark and including the deputy director of OEO, to report on the causes and solutions for the outburst in Los Angeles. At the time of the appointment of that task force, the president declared: We have all felt a deep sense of shock and dismay at the riots last week in Los Angeles. I have expressed my con­ viction that there is no greater wrong in our democracy than violent or willful disregard of law. At the same time, we cannot let the actions of three or four thousand rioters stay our compassion for the hun­ dreds of thousands of people in the City of Los Angeles—of every race and color—who neither partici­ pated in nor condoned the riots. Many suffered at the hands of the rioters. Many are in need of help. We must eliminate the deep-seated causes of riots such as those we witnessed. Recent studies paint a stark pic­ ture. The Watts district is in the center of an area in Los Angeles marked by: —the largest number of school drop-outs. —the highest crime rate. —the highest population density. —the lowest median family income. There are complex problems and the solutions are neither quick nor easy. Long-term answers must and will be found.24 Later in this statement the president stressed that the panel's report would point the way for the federal government, as well as the state and local governments, to proceed "to make avail­ able the best programs now known to wipe out the causes of such violent outbursts."25 It is apparent from these statements, as well as from the en­ tire speech, that the president perceived the Watts riot in "liberal" and even somewhat "radical" terms. There was no mention of the outside agitator or "riffraff" view of causality,

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

31

and the proposed solutions assumed the form of alleviating the "deep-seated causes" that motivated the riot. Instead of rec­ ommending increased repression or recrimination for those who rioted, President Johnson emphasized social and eco­ nomic program improvements. Specifically, one week later, based upon the interim recommendations of the task force, the president authorized more than forty-five employment, health, education, and housing programs for Los Angeles cost­ ing $29 million.26 Many of these new programs following the Watts riot were funded through the antipoverty agency. In fact, OEO funds per poor family for the city of Los Angeles increased more than sixfold in the year following the Watts outbursts, and a great variety of Community Action Programs (CAPs) sprang up in the aftermath of this large-scale violence. For example, between 1966-1968, a local Community Action Committee se­ cured substantial federal and private funds for construction of neighborhood parks, small farms, a service station to be used as a training facility for auto maintenance, a consumer educa­ tion program, basic education and training programs, and other activities.27 A number of Manpower and Training pro­ grams, largely supported through federal poverty programs, were created by Washington and administered by local per­ sons in Watts.28 According to one study, the explanation for this dramatic change was that "the Watts riot, the most violent of all Negro outbursts, so disturbed OEO officials that com­ paratively vast sums of money were allocated to the city."29 Besides the presidential task force that investigated Watts, an executive branch interagency committee reviewed the Los Angeles riot and made recommendations, but left each de­ partment or agency free to respond in its own way. OEO was one of the few agencies to react in a significant manner, as de­ scribed by a former high-level CAP official: "Watts literally shocked us all and we responded vigorously. . . . There was a special OEO concern for restoring public services, providing new opportunities, and reducing tensions in Watts. CAP was part of this. We sent people to Los Angeles to review the situ-

32

Black Violence

ation and make recommendations, and CAP funds increased measurably after the riot."30 Sargent Shriver, the first director of the antipoverty agency, personally went to Los Angeles to announce the start of the new programs, and OEO money "poured into Watts," especially money for employment pro­ grams.31 In addition to the shock effect and magnitude of the Watts violence, other factors seemed to affect the dramatic OEO reactions as well. Several members of the large Los Angeles congressional delegation applied direct political pressure on the antipoverty agency for more money after the riot.32 The existing controversy over Mayor Yorty's refusal to spend much OEO money allocated to Los Angeles because of the federal regulations as to the structure of the CAP board was soon re­ solved after the impetus of the riot, and poverty money was quickly disbursed within the city.33 And of course the White House was also very much concerned that OEO should re­ spond "positively and constructively" to Watts.34 Harry McPherson, a close assistant to President Johnson, has written that the president feared the Watts riot might "erase the ac­ cumulated goodwill of many months and years" (as quoted from a presidential speech).35 Thus "sending Ramsey Clark to Los Angeles" and "regenerating the local poverty program" seemed to be the appropriate measures to take at the time, though in hindsight McPherson claims the remedies were woefully inadequate.36 In summary, it is evident that the initial urban riots of the 1960s were generally interpreted by many in OEO from a per­ spective somewhere between the "radical" and "liberal" paradigms. Though the dominant antipoverty agency response was to emphasize social and economic programs for riot cities, the programs accented were not what prominent advocates of the "radical" perspective had in mind, for they stopped short of major power alterations. Nevertheless, the Johnson Admin­ istration was at its pinnacle of power, having won a landslide election in 1964, and had committed itself to the poor and blacks as necessary constituents. Moreover, the early violence

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

33

of the decade was not so frequent and massive as to threaten unduly the degree of power that Administration officials held. Thus, OEO responded quickly and generously to the early riots, which were perceived as desperate cries for help from the most disadvantaged ghetto masses. THE LATER RIOTS (1967-1968) The conservative pressure not to "reward violence" gained momentum with the widespread urban conflagrations of the latter 1960s. In the first nine months of 1967 alone, more than 160 riots occurred.37 Congressmen tended to view the causes for these riots in "conservative" terms (a "law and order" prob­ lem), and they became increasingly reluctant to vote for more funds for the ghettos.38 Many congressmen also became more and more disenchanted with the antipoverty program in par­ ticular because of its "advocacy" efforts on behalf of blacks and the poor, its alleged corruption and inefficiency, and its gen­ eral lack of success in alleviating poverty. The growing antiNegro "backlash" among the white majority in the country seemingly affected Congress as well as the president. A Harris poll in late summer of 1967 showed that the president's rating on his handling of civil rights and the racial turmoil had dropped from a 50-percent favorable rating in June to a new low of 32-percent.39 Moreover, many officials perceived that the war in Vietnam was taking attention and money away from commitments to the cities as well. Yet the wave of intense black violence that struck the cities in the later 1960s had a quite different impact upon many executive policy makers, and President Johnson was no excep­ tion. In The Vantage Point, the president interpreted the riots in the following terms: The effect on the black man of centuries of discrimina­ tion had become all too visible in the form of apathy, hatred, anger, and violence. . . . As the mask of black submission began to fall, the

Black Violence

34

countless years of suppressed anger exploded outward. The withering of hope, the failure to change the dismal conditions of life, and the complex tangle of attitudes, is­ sues, beliefs, and circumstances all led to the tragic phe­ nomena known as "the riots"—"the long, hot sum­ mers. "40 Predictably, the president called for increased action from the federal government as the primary solution to these up­ heavals, stating that the "problems at this stage could not be solved by goodwill and compassion; they required large ex­ penditures of public funds."41 Most of his staff and cabinet leaders agreed with him. In the words of McPherson, what was vitally needed was "the appropriation of new billions by Congress—what was wrong with the programs was that they were starved for money."42 Caught in the cross-pressure be­ tween its aspirations for more social programs and a political atmosphere that called for retrenchment, the executive branch attempted to respond to the ghetto grievances under­ lying the 1967-1968 riots. Once again it was the antipoverty agency that was the focus of much of the programmatic responses. Comparative City Analysis The aggregate data analysis on OEO post-riot expenditure increases to riot cities clearly illustrates the dramatic impact that the massive black violence had on antipoverty policy. The first step of this analysis was to see if the simple occurrence of riots, regardless of their intensity or other characteristics, made a difference in fund increments to riot cities. The ab­ sence of an equal number of non-riot cities in the sample made a truly valid test of this proposition impossible. But it was pos­ sible to compare post-riot expenditure increases to the sample of 40 riot cities with the overall OEO budget outlay increase over this same period. Assuming that the OEO total outlay in­ crement was generally indicative of the average expenditure increases to all cities during this time, it was expected that the riot cities would have experienced greater than average in­ creases if the occurrence of a riot itself attracted OEO money.

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

35

With the antipoverty outlay increases averaging 1.8 times greater over the two-and-one-half-year period following the intense riot summer of 1967 (compared to the previous twoand-one-half-year period), it was found that the riot cities' OEO fund increases averaged 2.7 times greater over the same period.43 This is a general indication that the occurrence of a 1967 riot in itself may have attracted greater than average OEO increases to cities experiencing ghetto violence.44 Yet this kind of analysis failed to take into account other sig­ nificant characteristics of these riot cities, as well as other pos­ sibly important riot variables, that may have affected antipov­ erty increments. The Pearson correlations listed in Table 2.2 suggest that several characteristics of the 1960s riots, espe­ cially the total number and overall severity, are highly intercorrelated with antipoverty fund increases. But other inde­ pendent variables, such as size of city and number of Negroes, are also highly correlated with these program increments. To explore more fully the independent effects of riot variables when in combination with the other significant explanatory variables, path analysis (utilizing multiple regressions) was employed. Diagram 2.1 presents the path models for OEO (by total and by individual program) with the normalized regres­ sion coefficients, or beta weights, depicting the magnitudes of the statistically significant path relationships. Statistically in­ significant variables have been omitted in each model. The results of this analysis show that all OEO program in­ creases were directly affected by certain riot characteristics, usually by the total number of riots a city experienced from 1963 through 1968. And all of these direct riot paths were positive and statistically very significant, especially in the cases of total OEO and Work Program (BWP) increments. Though OEO was thought of as an agency for the poor and the blacks, such variables had only indirect effects on antipoverty increases (except for the CAP program where the percentage of poor in a city had a significant direct influence). Moreover, a measure of conventional political participation (voting) gen­ erally had a much less significant direct effect than collective violence upon antipoverty fund increases. Thus, this analysis

36

Black Violence

TABLE 2.2 Correlations of Riot Characteristics and Other Independent Variables with Per Capita Antipoverty Expenditure Increases for mid-1967 Through 1969 (Calendar Years) OEO (Total) 1967 Riot intensity Number of riots (1963-1968) Overall severity of riots Size of city Number of Negroes Deprivation index A. Percent Negro B. Percent poor Percent Negro change (1960-1970) Percent Negro change (1950-1960) Congressional power A. Seniority B. Political motivation C. Power index D. Democratic party member E. Committee assignment Local Government Characteristics A. City-manager government B. Non-partisan elections C. Percent council elected at large D. Reformism scale Political mobilization A. Percent voting B. Percent voting Democrat Crime rate (1969) Crime rate change (1963-1968) * ρ < .05, ** ρ < .01, *** ρ < .001

CAP

.05 .21 .55*** 37** .47** .36** .31* ** .33* .14 .25 -.25 -.29* .33* .33* .36** .11 .06

BWP .18 .27* .35* .34*

.21 .03 .38** .05 -.18 -.16 -.34* -.11 .23 .19 .18 .16 .00

-.31* .10

-.27* -.15

.24 -.04

.08 -.08

.09 -.15 .27* .13 .25 .43** -.19 -.03

.22 .25 .29* .04 .07 -.14 .24 .23 .02 -.26* -.05 .31* .09

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

37

strongly suggests that the black riots had a greater direct, positive impact than any other independent variable upon total OEO expenditure increases in the latter 1960s, as well as upon most individual poverty program increases. In fact, number of riots alone (controlling for other significant inde­ pendent variables) accounts for almost30 percent of the varia­ tion in total OEO increments to riot cities, while the model as a whole explains a little less than half of the total variation. Employment Programs The program component of OEO that was most affected by the ghetto violence was the Bureau of Work Programs (BWP), and the results of interviews with OEO officials confirmed this conclusion. Although the antipoverty agency shared the fund­ ing and implementation of many of these job programs with the Department of Labor, two work programs in particular benefited from OEO increments: the Concentrated Employ­ ment Program (CEP) and the JOBS program. With unemployment and underemployment as serious grievances in most black ghettos,45 the Manpower Develop­ ment and Training Act program, established in 1962 to train people for jobs in which there were shortages, shifted its em­ phasis by 1965 to a program mainly for the socioeconomically disadvantaged. Consequently the Manpower Program changed into "more of a job guarantee program" and "even an income transfer program" to some degree,46 and between fiscal 1963 and 1968 the black share of participants in the pro­ grams rose from 21 to 45 percent.47 According to a high-level Department of Labor official, this noticeable shift occurred "because of the declaration of the war on poverty and the as­ sertion of the right of equal employment opportunity that seemed to imply more instant reparations than training or re­ training would have time for . . . and the riots inspired part of this."48 CEP was a key portion of this major transformation, and it was established in January 1967 to coordinate and deliver em­ ployment services through local Community Action Agencies.

DIAGRAM 2.1 Path Models: OEO Expenditure Increases (1967-1969)

40

Black Violence

Emphasizing the ghetto poor, CEP was able to train and find jobs for 30,000 hard-core unemployed by July 1968, and ap­ proximately 85 percent of those enrolled in CEP were nonwhite.49 There was also a serious concern among some federal officials about creating employment opportunities for black GI's returning from Vietnam who, if discontented, would be very adept at carrying out violence in the inner cities, or so it was perceived. Spurred on by the intense riots of 1967, the president an­ nounced a more ambitious job-training and employment pro­ gram in early 1968. Known as JOBS (Job Opportunities in the Business Sector), this program provided for on-the-job train­ ing of the poor in jobs in private business, with the federal government subsidizing part of the training. Involving private businesses in the war on poverty was an important goal of this job program, and the National Alliance of Businessmen (NAB)—modeled after the successful Rochester Jobs Incorpo­ rated (RJI) program in Rochester—was set up to obtain pledges of job slots from businesses. Within a year and a half, the JOBS-NAB dual program had placed approximately 150,000 hard-core poor in jobs and was making a "meaningful dent in job needs."50 Though not intended to be primarily a black program, JOBS quickly became just that, with blacks ac­ counting for three-fourths of those hired in the first two years.51 In Rochester almost half of the $4 million in OEO funds granted to the city in 1968 was appropriated for RJI, whose success in that city was unparalleled in mobilizing businesses to provide jobs for the black poor. A predominant share of the antipoverty budget in Dayton was also earmarked for em­ ployment programs (CEP, JOBS, Neighborhood Youth Corps) in the 1960s, and more than a third of those leaders inter­ viewed in Dayton claimed that increases in job programs were a federal response to the riots within the city. Indeed, in 1968 alone, little more than a year following the ghetto disorders in Dayton, the OEO fund allocations to the city rose to almost four times what they were in any other single year of the dec-

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

41

ade, and fully three-fourths of the increase was for employ­ ment programs.52 However, many of the OEO work programs emphasized summer youth opportunities, which were mainly temporary employment and summer recreation types of services. So common did these temporary seasonal programs become that many of them, especially the summer Neighborhood Youth Corps (NYC), were labeled informally as "antiriot insurance" programs.53 As an original part of the President's Youth Op­ portunity Campaign, which was inaugurated in the summer of 1965, OEO summer programs began as just one facet of the overall federal attempt to help the more than two million 16to 21-year-olds who wanted summer jobs. But as the long, hot riot summers increasingly focused attention on unemployed ghetto youths, a concerted effort was developed at the federal level to combat this problem. As of 1967, the executive branch began to ask Congress for special appropriations for summer programs, with most of this supplemental money going to OEO because of the speed and flexibility with which antipoverty funds could be dispersed.54 Thus in 1967 Congress passed a special appropriations bill of $75 million to finance these summer programs, and NYC, which served more blacks than any other manpower program, received $47 million of it.55 Nevertheless, in the minds of many OEO officials and some blacks, NYC and the other summer programs were little more than "fire-brigade" approaches that attacked the symptoms but not the real causes of ghetto disturbances. Robert Levine, former OEO assistant director for research and evaluation, frankly stated that the objective of these programs was "to keep kids off the streets during the day as much as possible and give them spending money they could use at night so at least they wouldn't be looking for low-cost trouble."56 Another OEO official described the summer programs as "mainly a cosmetic response . . . with many of the program monies being injected for short-term, band-aid approaches."57 The pacifica­ tion intent of many of these temporary programs was alluded to by the black director of Rochester's antipoverty agency:

42

Black Violence

"Those active in community action agencies know that 'peace-keeping money' pours generously out of the federal till before Independence Day and dribbles after Labor Day. "58 In some cases other OEO programs suffered due to the emphasis on summer youth services. A good example was the proposed year-round Head Start program, whose costly conversion from a summer program was delayed because the president wanted more money for the hot summer months' programs.59

The Community Action Agency Although it is evident that OEO's greatest response to the 1967-1968 riots was in the area of job training and employ­ ment, there was at least one other antipoverty program that showed a moderate response to the crisis generated by the later urban upheavals. This was the Community Action Agency. Established to counteract the lack of control poor people have over the institutions that serve them, CAP by 1967 had ceased to play a major role in coordinating multiagency programs. In fact, this role was increasingly conceded to Model Cities. But as an advocate of the interests of the poor and an organizer of the poor, CAP was at least somewhat successful.60 Many of CAP's activities, however, were anti-establishment in nature, and the Community Action Agency was widely criticized for its alleged role in fomenting many of the black riots. This criticism, especially in Congress, has been aptly de­ scribed by Daniel Moynihan: [Congressmen] were uniquely threatened by a seemingly government sponsored effort to politicize the black masses of the Northern cities and the Southern coun­ tryside. . . . As Negro rioting grew endemic, the associa­ tion between community action and violence also grew in the minds of the legislators. . . . In no time at all, the an­ tipoverty program was in trouble in Congress, and the focus of this trouble was community action and the provi­ sion for "maximum feasible participation" of the poor.61

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

43

In addition the press and certain political leaders, such as Mayor Addonizio of racially troubled Newark, charged OEO with funding "black power advocates, assorted agitators, and other foes of the status quo.'62 Even President Johnson, upon hearing in 1968 about the CAP funding of the Blackstone Rangers youth gang in Chicago, accused OEO of "being run by kooks and sociologists."63 The antipoverty agency investigated the charges that many Community Action workers helped to provoke the urban vio­ lence and found the allegations to be mostly untrue. In fact, in a sample of 27 cities that experienced riots in 1967, a total of 6,733 persons were arrested and property damage was esti­ mated at more than $273 million. Only six of the 12,128 pov­ erty workers in these cities were arrested, however, and dam­ age to OEO-rented facilities consisted of only a few broken windows. Indeed, instead of instigating riots, there were numerous reports from local officials that antipoverty person­ nel had worked during the riots "attempting to pursuade people to 'cool it,' providing communication, assisting police and firemen, cleaning up rubble, . . . and generally helping to restore order."64 Nonetheless the intense criticism of OEO took its toll in the long run. Congress ultimately cut appropriations for the pro­ gram, the president became "less and less enchanted with the agency," and there was a pronounced reduction in the degree of "risk taking" in the antipoverty program.65 Following the Newark and Detroit violence in the summer of 1967, the Ad­ ministration claimed that there would be no increases in an­ tipoverty funds for riot cities, explaining that "any action that can be interpreted as a reward for rioting would defeat it­ self."66 Though this claim proved to be more rhetoric than re­ ality, it did demonstrate the degree to which the urban disor­ ders had dissuaded the Administration from maintaining an all-out effort against urban black poverty. Yet the evidence clearly indicates that OEO responded di­ rectly to the heightened black urban violence of 1967-1968 with increased funds and some revitalized programs. In this

44

Black Violence

sense, OEO again hovered close to a "radical" perspective in its approach to the riots. On the other hand, a number of cru­ cial factors seemed to be instrumental in muting many of the agency's efforts to respond more fully to these later disorders. Increased criticism of the anitpoverty program, the widening war in southeast Asia, and the growing white "backlash" were all forces that began to retard OEO actions, and in the end were the primary forces that served to fundamentally restruc­ ture and alter the antipoverty agency itself.

THE KERNER REPORT ΑΝΌ OEO Appointed by President Johnson just after the Detroit up­ heaval in July 1967, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders issued its final report (popularly known as the Kerner Report, in honor of the chairman of the commission, Otto Kerner) on March 1, 1968. Most of the literature on the consequences of national governmental study commissions suggests that their impact on public decision makers is usually insignificant and that they often function as "a symbol of offi­ cial concern and . . . as a vehicle for political pacification. "67 The Kemer Report, however, was one of the most widely pub­ licized of all the federal study reports of the decade, and it might have been expected to influence national policy makers. Yet instead of influencing executive decision makers, the Kerner Report was very much a product of the suggestions and task force reports of various federal agencies.68 Because of a lack of expertise and time, many of the research staff mem­ bers of the National Advisory Commission were forced to rely almost solely upon what officials in the executive departments told them, and this seems to have been especially true for the departments or agencies of HUD, HEW, and OEO. It may also have been true that the liberal bias of many of these social science researchers69 made them the natural ideological allies of these departments, and so they were easily persuaded to accept the views of these executive officials. OEO in particular argued its case well before the commis-

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

45

sion. Sargent Shriver and Theodore Berry, director of CAP, testified at public hearings, generally praising antipoverty programs and calling for increased funds.70 In a private letter to the chairman of the commission, Shriver reiterated these ideas and called for greater emphasis on the NYC summer program as a "direct riot-control program," and for a greater stress on jobs.71 Other antipoverty officials also reported giv­ ing information and advice to staff members of the commis­ sion. As a result, the Report of the NationalAdvisory Commis­ sion endorsed almost all of the OEO programs, singling out many of them for praise including Legal Services, Head Start, Upward Bound, Family Planning, Adult Basic Education, NYC, Multi-Service Centers, and CAP. No antipoverty pro­ grams were condemned, and the commission recommended that most of the programs be expanded because current fund­ ing levels were inadequate.72 The impact of the Report on OEO officials was predictably negligible. Fifteen of the seventeen OEO influential inter­ viewed had read at least summaries of the Report, and none of them felt that the national study had had any significant influ­ ence on the antipoverty program. Eight of the fifteen officials stated that the Report simply reinforced what was already being done in the agency. Seven other officials claimed that the intense criticism of OEO or the lack of resources at the national level precluded the agency from doing more to fulfill the Report's recommendations, and so they ignored the study. President Johnson also maintained that he agreed with the essence of the Kerner Report, but that the necessary funds were simply not available to fulfill the host of recommenda­ tions for social and economic programs. He stated: This analysis [the Kerner Report] reflected extremely close agreement between the commission's proposals and the administration's program. The major difference lay in the scale of effort recommended. The commission called for a substantially increased outlay of resources, doubling or tripling each on-going program. The Bureau of the Budget estimated the recommendations would cost in the

46

Black Violence vicinity of $30 billion, in addition to the $30 billion plus already in the budget for the poor.73

At the same time, Johnson claimed that Congress was de­ manding a $6 billion cut in the existing programs and to ask for any additional funds would have been fruitless.74 Perhaps an even more important factor in the president's reluctance to push for more money was his almost total preoccupation with the war in Vietnam and his increasing disillusionment with the poverty warriors. Nevertheless, after receiving the Kerner Report the presi­ dent instructed each cabinet-level official to analyze it and re­ port on which recommendations were already being carried out, which would be covered in the 1968 legislative program, and which had yet to be adopted.75 The Bureau of the Budget coordinated the agency responses and three weeks later re­ ported that several OEO actions on commission recommenda­ tions were under way. These actions included: —Use of CAA projects . . . for Neighborhood Action Task Forces, including work with gang and street leaders; —Funding for employment for ghetto residents; —Funding for Neighborhood Centers.76 But the Bureau of the Budget also signified that the OEO ac­ tions were not on as large a scale as called for in the Report.77 All of this suggests that the antipoverty agency influenced the Report of the National Advisory Commission considerably more than the Report affected OEO. Though the White House and many antipoverty officials wanted to do more to fulfill the National Advisory Commission's proposals, various political and financial factors limited these aspirations. Some eight months later many of these political forces reached frui­ tion with the election of Richard Nixon to the presidency. LONG-TERM OEO REACTIONS: NIXON I The way the Nixon administration was expected to respond to the urban riots was indicated by the future president's reac-

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

47

tions to the National Advisory Commission's Report. In March 1968, Nixon sharply criticized the Report for its "undue em­ phasis on the role of 'white racists' " and its "failure to indict the perpetrators of the riots themselves."78 In an uncanny semblance of the "conservative" view of violence, Nixon claimed that the commission "blames everybody for the riots except the perpetrators of the riots. And, I think that that defi­ ciency has to be dealt with first. Until we have order we can have no progress."79 In references to the rise of antipoverty and other social and economic programs, Nixon also scored the Report for leaning "too much on Federal programs" to achieve housing and jobs for blacks, and said that what were needed were "more imaginative" approaches to poverty.80 While most OEO officials anticipated a complete scrapping of the War on Poverty once Richard Nixon took office, they were pleasantly surprised by his August 1969 proposals. The new president mildly criticized past OEO programs for "in­ efficiency" and "waste," and stated that the antipoverty agency "suffered from a confusion of roles, and from a massive at­ tempt to do everything at once. "81 Instead of asking for the abolishment of the program, he called for the simple reorgani­ zation of OEO so that it could perform new functions: The Office of Economic Opportunity is an innovative agency—and thus it has a vital place in our effort to de­ velop new programs and apply new knowledge. . . . We have assigned it a leading role in the effort to develop and test new approaches to the solving of social problems. OEO is to be a laboratory agency, where new ideas for helping people are tried on a pilot basis. When these prove successful, they can be "spun off" to operating de­ partments and agencies. . . .82 President Nixon thus endorsed OEO as an instrument of so­ cial experimentation and innovation, creating an Office of Pro­ gram Development in the agency and strengthening the ex­ tant Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation. This was indeed a surprising move for an official who, during his cam­ paign, had suggested he would abolish the antipoverty pro-

48

Black Violence

gram. Moreover, the time seemed politically propitious for doing just that. These programs, especially CAP's, were not popular with Congress nor with the white majority, and many of the antipoverty programs were being duplicated by the Community Development Agencies of the Model Cities programs.83 Yet through the first three years of the first Nixon Adminis­ tration, OEO was not radically changed. Its outlays for fiscal 1971 were $1.5 billion, approximately the same as 1967 (not controlling for moderate inflation). The program's original goal of "eradicating poverty," a very unrealistic goal in light of its annual budgets during the Johnson years, was modified, but most of the initial programs were maintained with several simply transferred to other departments. Moynihan accounts for this surprising durability of OEO in terms of a national commitment that could not be foresworn: "it represented a promise made by the national government and the argument for maintaining the effort was stronger than that for reneg­ ing."84 President Nixon was also sensitive about the narrow­ ness of his victory over Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and did not feel that it was politically wise to carry out far-reaching re­ forms that might further alienate large numbers of voters. No doubt too, the antipoverty agency had many allies by this time, including many local officials, some congressmen, much of the liberal establishment, its own bureaucrats, and, of course, the constituents it had served, who by now numbered in the millions.85 In addition, as of June 1970 the Lemberg Center for the Study of Violence reported that the number of black upheavals was "holding constant" with the moderate rate of 1969, and the Justice Department confirmed that the riot potential in urban areas remained great.86 As in the two previous years, the mayors of many cities, fearing more riots, carried out a concerted lobbying effort for more summer youth programs, and the Administration and Congress responded. Including the approved supplement of $50 million, a total of more than $670 million was spent for summer youth programs in 1970,87

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

49

a figure somewhat higher than the more intense riot summers of 1967-1968. Much of this money was channeled through the antipoverty agency or OEO-developed programs. Further­ more, the Neighborhood Youth Corps summer program was allotted large increases in funds for 1971-1972, and the vast majority of its program enrollees were black youths.88 Aggregate Analysis Nevertheless, the number and intensity of ghetto riots that occurred during the period 1963-1970 tended to have a mod­ erately negative impact upon OEO increments for riot cities in the early 1970s. Support for this contention is found in the macroanalysis of OEO expenditure increases to 35 of the 40 riot cities selected for this study.89 The period of fund incre­ ments was the two-and-one-half-year period from 1970 to mid-1972 (calendar years), or a major proportion of the first Nixon Administration. Table 2.3 lists the simple correlations between antipoverty per capita fund increases and riot and other independent variables for the 35 riot cities. While the mean OEO expenditures to these cities did increase some­ what during these Nixon years (up $1.64 capita), this in­ crease was considerably less than during the preceding twoand-one-half-year period of mid-1967 through 1969 (mean in­ crease of $6.32 per capita). The transferral of BWP from the antipoverty agency to another federal department (Labor) un­ doubtedly accounts for some of this change in mean OEO funds. Yet, among independent variables, the list of correla­ tions suggests that the overall severity of riots (1963-1970) ex­ perienced by these cities was the greatest retarding influence upon OEO fund increments. In fact, the path models for total OEO and CAP expenditure increases depict overall riot sever­ ity and number of riots (1963-1968) as the most statistically significant variables having a direct (and now negative) impact upon these funding allocations (Diagram 2.2). Thus the greater the number and intensity of black urban upheavals, the less the antipoverty fund increases to riot cities in the early 1970s. In the case of CAP, funds were also significantly less for

TABLE 2.3 Correlations of Riot Characteristics and Other Independent Variables with OEO Per Capita Expenditure Increases for 1970 Through mid-1972 (Calendar Years)

Number of riots (1969-1970) Number of riots (1963-1968) Severity of riots (1969-1971) Total number of riots (1963-1970) Overall severity of all riots (1963-1970) Size of city Number of Negroes Deprivation index: A. Percent Negro B. Percent poor Percent Negro change (1960-1970) Percent Negro change (1950-1960) Congressional power: A. Seniority B. Political motivation C. Power index D. Democratic party member E. Committee assignment Local government characteristics: A. City-manager government B. Non-partisan elections C. Percent council elected at large D, Reformism scale Political mobilization: A. Percent voting B. Percent voting Democrat Crime rate (1969) Crime rate change (1963-1968) * p < .05; ** ρ < .01; *** ρ < .001

Total OEO

CAP

-.15 -.37** -.23 -.31* -.39** -.27 -.29*

-.11 -.39** -.07 -,29* -.36* -.34* -.32*

-.22 -.21 .11 .11

-.19 -.27 .08 .02

-.23 -.19 -.20 -.30* -.23

-.28 -.32* -.32* -.37* -.28

.34* .01 -.23 .00

.31* .24 -.13 .08

.08 .08 -.30* -.03

-.13 -.16 -.25 -.13

DIAGRAM 2.2 Path Models: OEO Expenditure Increases (1970-1972)1

1 The Bureau of Work Programs (BWP) was transferred to the Department of Labor by this period and is therefore excluded from this analysis.

52

Black Violence

cities with Democratic congressmen, thereby indicating pos­ sible "favoritism" the Administration bestowed on cities hav­ ing predominantly Republican congressmen. However, it is important to note that the riot variables at this time are associated to only a moderate degree (statisti­ cally) with OEO increments. Indeed, black violence explains less than 15 percent of the total variation in antipoverty in­ creases for this period, while during the latter 1960s, the riots accounted for almost double this proportion of change in OEO monies for riot cities. Though the impact of the riots on OEO increments was only moderate, the negative direction of this impact does indicate that the first Nixon Adminis­ tration tended to fulfill its campaign promise of not "reward­ ing" rioting. Nixon II and After

By the beginning of the second Nixon Administration, seri­ ous ghetto riots, and even the threat of such disorders, had all but disappeared. John Spiegel, director of the Lemberg Cen­ ter for the Study of Violence, claimed in August 1973 that "this marks the end of an era in which (collective violence) was dom­ inant," and the center, established in 1966 to analyze the causes and frequency of riots, closed by the end of the year.90 In 1973 President Nixon requested no fiscal 1974 budget funds for OEO and openly acknowledged his attempt to do away with the Community Action Agency, stating it "no longer seems either necessary or desirable."91 Though a federal court refused to allow the immediate dismantling of the antipoverty agency, the OEO budget (outlays) was reduced to a miniscule $660 million by fiscal 1974. Some of the more controversial programs, including NYC, Legal Services, and VISTA, were transferred to other agencies, while Administration plans called for the abandonment altogether of CAP. However, a number of local officials, many of them former critics of CAP, lobbied for the continuation of Community Action. Although OEO was abolished in 1974, a Community Services Adminis­ tration was established in HEW and assigned the same basic role as CAP. Emergency job programs for black youths, especially the

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

53

NYC summer program, continued to be well-funded during the summers, but the black share in most manpower programs declined noticeably in the 1970s due to the recession and to the priority placed on employing other minorities and vet­ erans.92 By the summer of 1974, new President Gerald Ford indicated that his views on the antipoverty programs coin­ cided with those of his predecessor and that he had no plans to revive OEO. He also pointed out that, under revenuesharing, cities had the local autonomy to either abolish or continue CAP.93 Hence, the Oifice of Economic Opportunity survived longer than many would have predicted, though its emphasis and thrust were eventually transformed and re­ duced. As Walt Rostow evaluated the changed character of the antipoverty program during the Nixon years: "on balance, there was a relaxation of efforts to liquidate by head-on action the Negro ghetto."94 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION The antipoverty agency responded dramatically to much of the early black violence of the 1960s, especially the upheaval in Watts. Furthermore, as the number and intensity of the riots multiplied during the decade, OEO continued to address many of the black grievances underlying the riots despite the surfacing of political forces inimical to such responses. Through the 1960s, OEO views of the riots clearly fluctuated between "radical" and "liberal" perspectives, with emphasis upon extensive socioeconomic reforms for the ghettos but with seemingly little political power alterations. Such a pattern of responses suggests a "transitional" perspective between "radi­ cal" and "liberal" views as a more precise paradigm of antipov­ erty policy reactions. Not until the early 1970s, when severe ghetto riots had subsided, did this "transitional" OEO policy change to a more "conservative" emphasis as the forces of "backlash" finally asserted themselves. Thus, while many analysts have characterized the federal reactions to the black riots solely in terms of a renewed emphasis upon "law and or­ der," this conclusion is not valid.

54

Black Violence

Many policy makers in the antipoverty agency, the organi­ zation at the national level that focused most directly on poor blacks, interpreted the Negro rebellions in "liberal"-to"radical" terms. Of the 17 federal OEO officials interviewed, all stated that they perceived the riots as being caused by either feelings of relative deprivation among blacks or by white discrimination against blacks. As one high-level OEO official explained, the feeling of relative deprivation was due to "deteriorating economic conditions combined with a new­ found freedom to express themselves" which eventually resulted in an "accumulation of frustration and anger."95 Another version of this theory put forth by an antipoverty offi­ cial emphasized the "rising expectations" of blacks due to "in­ tense feelings that they were not participating in the American Dream."96 Convinced that the turmoil in the cities was spawned by the deplorable social and economic conditions in the ghettos, many OEO policy makers revitalized their efforts to eradicate the conditions underlying black frustration. A summary of agency responses to the riots mentioned by interviewed OEO officials is presented in Table 2.4. Once again the antipoverty agency is depicted as "transitional" in attempting to meet the desperate demands of rioting blacks through a variety of pro­ grams. Summer youth programs, education and social serv­ ices, greater mobilization of blacks (primarily through CAP), and more jobs and job training are all mentioned specifically as riot responses of the agency. The impact of the ghetto violence on OEO over the period from 1964 through 1972 was not completely consistent, how­ ever. Various cross-pressures and the "backlash" phenomenon effectively diluted and somewhat distorted certain agency re­ sponses. For example, almost one-third of the interviewed officials mentioned that there was a lack of noticeable OEO re­ sponses to the later riots because "we were already doing ev­ erything we could for the ghettos," and somewhat fewer offi­ cials stated that "we did not want to appear to be 'rewarding' rioters." Several policy makers also mentioned agency reac­ tions that were defensive bureaucratic strategies designed to

55

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

TABLE 2.4 Summary of the Antipoverty Agency's Responses to the Urban Riots as Perceived by Influential OEO Officials*

Perceived Responses Emphasized summer youth programs Provided more education and social welfare services Great responses after Watts riot—then leveled off with abundance of later riots Little response—felt we were already doing everything we could for the ghettos Investigated the riots, mainly to see what role CAP officials had played Tried to provide greater chance for blacks to participate at local level Provided more jobs and job-training for blacks Little new money for the cities—did not want to appear to be "rewarding" rioters Tried to reinforce existing programs against public and/or Congressional "backlash" Other

OEO Officials Mentioning the Response (N = 17) % (N) 53 (9) 47 (8) 35 (6) 35

(6)

35 (6) 29

(5)

24

(4)

24

(4)

18 (3) (4)

24

* Question: "Do you think that the urban racial violence of the 1960s af­ fected policy-making in your department to any degree? If so, how?" All re­ spondents answered "yes" to the first question. The table above is a categori­ zation of replies to the second question. Percentages in the table do not total 100 percent because of the multiple responses of most of the interviewees.

safeguard controversial programs. One of these reactions was the agency investigation to verify the extent and nature of the involvement of CAP workers in the riots. Furthermore, conservative political pressures dictated that OEO summer youth programs (like the Neighborhood Youth

56

Black Violence

Corps) be developed partly as short-term, pacification efforts to squelch the summer symptoms of riots but not to attack the deep-seated causes. As black upheavals persisted and in­ creased in severity, officials in the White House and in OEO became somewhat conditioned to the violence. As a result, the shock-value and catalytic impetus of the early riots lost their effectiveness. In the words of one high-level OEO official: "With each succeeding eruption after Watts we responded in decreasing magnitude and with more delay. Watts shocked us all and we responded quickly. But ultimately we got used to living with that kind of disruption and terror."97 Finally, OEO responses to the riots were increasingly inhib­ ited by the drain on resources for the growing war in Vietnam. From fiscal 1965 to 1972, more than $128 billion were spent in the Vietnam war while federal grants for the "war against pov­ erty" totaled little more than $15 billion.98 As Sargent Shriver put it: "Vietnam took it all away, every goddammed dollar; that's what killed the war on poverty."99 Considering all of these pressures, it seems remarkable that the antipoverty agency could respond in such a "transitional" manner for as long as it did. With most congressmen and the white majority committed to a generally "conservative" view of the riots,100 and with knowledge of the political repercus­ sions that would most likely result from appearing to "reward" violence, it was assumed that most federal organizations deal­ ing with urban blacks would assume a low profile (at least temporarily). However, OEO was quite different from the typical federal bureaucracy. Experimentally conceived and crisis-oriented, the antipov­ erty agency was the special project of President Johnson and a group of liberal intellectuals and was therefore somewhat more protected from political pressures, at least initially. Too, OEO was a new and expansionist bureaucracy within the Johnson Administration and therefore an organization that was eager to claim and satisfy its new constituents as a way of es­ tablishing a secure place for itself among the more entrenched agencies.101 Dedicated to attacking poverty, especially that of

OEO: "Fire-Brigade" Approach

57

blacks who were disproportionately affected by such condi­ tions, OEO was also committed to reducing violence through the elimination of poverty. A number of OEO officials were convinced, moreover, that the rhetoric of the antipoverty pro­ grams itself helped to cause many of the riots by promising too much and delivering too little, thereby unduly raising black expectations. This conviction seemingly resulted in feelings of culpability among some OEO officials, and a number of them attempted anew to fulfill the agency's promises by responding vigorously to the riots.102 Finally, the antipoverty program was led through its initial three years by an extremely dedicated and charismatic figure, Sargent Shriver. His persuasive public relations efforts at placating a critical Congress were well-known,103 while his strategy for reducing the riots was aptly described by a highlevel OEO official as a "fireman's approach: 'get out and do something.' "104 No doubt this view had considerable bearing upon OEO's activist-oriented response to the disorders. Thus the black riots of the 1960s had a dramatic impact upon the antipoverty program, with OEO responding very signifi­ cantly, given various constraints, to the crisis generated by the violence. As one CAP official summarized it: "The riots did play a major role in creating an increased awareness of the problems, in mobilizing OEO to do more, and in stimulating more money to go to ghetto areas."105 Nevertheless, the ulti­ mate irony was that the president who had done the most for black people in this century, and the federal agency that re­ sponded to the grievances of black rioters most emphatically, were both eventual casualties of the forces unleashed in part by the urban disorders.

CHAPTER III

HUD and HEW: The Case of Moderate Response The riots had a very complex effect with differ­ ent types of impacts. There was great sympathy for the downtrodden and feelings of guilt helped focus attention and bring about a noticeable re­ sponse. On the other hand, King's assassination and the riots also brought fear, which made some people move and made others say, 'We won't give in!' This sometimes was a rationale for not doing anything. —Robert Weaver, Secretary of HUD (1965-1968)1

In an attempt to forestall the growing urban crisis of the early 1960s, the Department of Housing and Urban Development was established in 1965 to provide, according to President Johnson, "a focal point for thought and innovation and imagi­ nation about the problems of our cities."2 As the successor to the earlier independent agency, the Housing and Home Fi­ nancial Administration, HUD was concerned primarily with public housing, mortgage insurance, urban renewal, commu­ nity facilities, and related programs. Although the major public housing programs grew out of the experience of the Depression, the beneficiaries of such housing by the mid-1960s were quite different from the recip­ ient groups of the New Deal period. Those who received pub­ lic housing in the 1930s were not perceived to be dependent and were considered to be a cross-section of the American population. By 1965, however, this image of governmenthousing families had been altered a great deal. As one housing policy analyst explained this new conception: "Public housing is perceived to consist of a relatively high concentration of de­ pressed, untutored, and dependent families. And most of these are thought to be Negro."3

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

59

In fact, approximately 50 percent of public housing resi­ dents were black by the mid-1960s as the federal government became increasingly concerned about the urban slum areas.4 In order to alleviate the housing shortage in these areas and to correct many of the problems of large-site public housing, the Johnson Administration instituted a number of new programs. These supplemental programs included a rent subsidy pro­ gram, a dispersed public housing site program, and a new "turnkey" approach to the acquisition of public housing units whereby private builders were encouraged to construct such housing and then sell it to local housing authorities.5 Never­ theless, the effectiveness of these new programs was deterred to a great extent by the growing fears of many middle-class whites that public housing might mean low-income black families living next door.® In addition to public housing programs, one of the earliest attempts to rid the cities of slums was Urban Renewal, author­ ized in the Housing Act of 1949. Originally designed mainly as a slum clearance program, Urban Renewal provided federal grants for the redevelopment of entire sections of cities. Though Urban Renewal projects succeeded in clearing many slums, they often failed to relocate successfully those who were uprooted by renewal efforts. Since many of the displaced were blacks, Urban Renewal was often bitterly referred to by blacks as "Negro removal.'"7 Furthermore, rarely was lowincome housing built in the renewal areas but instead middleincome dwellings, shopping centers, and businesses. This was done in order to provide a profitable incentive for private in­ vestors and to attain a maximum tax value on the property.8 Not only were blacks and middle-class whites increasingly critical of HUD's traditional housing and renewal programs, but even former liberal supporters became more and more disillusioned by the seeming unconcern with the problems of low-income families. As HUD and other Johnson Administra­ tion officials became aware of these criticisms, they attempted to reform existing programs as well as to develop new ones to satisfy these demands. Thus the Model Cities program, passed in 1966, was in many ways an eclectic, innovative program de-

60

Black Violence

signed to quell many of these criticisms. Calling for the cities to coordinate their attack on urban blight, Model Cities em­ phasized local initiative and innovation in the solution of social problems, of which slum housing was perceived as only one part. By departing from the conventional Urban Renewal, "bricks and mortar" approach to city redevelopment, the Model Cities program instead attempted to assist in a restruc­ turing of the "total environment" of a demonstration neigh­ borhood.9 At the time HUD was established and during the crescendo of criticisms of many housing and renewal programs, the early black riots further focused attention on ghetto housing prob­ lems. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders mentioned housing grievances as one of the most serious com­ plaints of ghetto dwellers in the riot cities it studied.10 Urban Renewal programs were also found to be a major object of black grievances, especially because of "too little community participation in planning and decision-making."11 Hence, it would have been surprising if HUD had not responded in some manner to the heightened criticism and ghetto violence of this period. A somewhat less significant black grievance than housing in riot cities concerned "inadequate education," especially the prevalence of de facto segregation and the poor quality of in­ struction and facilities.12 Even though the famous Brown de­ cision of the Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, the first ten years after Brown saw little enforcement of this decision. The judiciary had assumed almost complete responsibility for effectuating school desegregation during this period, but the judiciary's success was "extremely limited."13 However, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the major role of desegregating the schools passed to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. HEW was given the respon­ sibility for enforcing Title VI, which provided that schools that practiced racial discrimination faced termination of their fed­ eral funds. Although the Office of Education within HEW as-

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

61

sumed control of these compliance efforts at first, the respon­ sibility ultimately shifted by early 1967 to a special central coordinating unit located in the secretary's office. This special unit was the Office for Civil Rights.14 Despite the stringent sanctions available in the 1964 act, the Office of Education found it difficult to enforce school deseg­ regation. With an inexperienced staff and inadequate re­ sources, the office was also in a department headed by a secre­ tary (Anthony Celebreeze) who played a "passive civil rights role."15 Chances for enforcement improved by 1967 as the staff of the Office of Civil Rights became more experienced and began to work out of the office of the new secretary, John Gardner. Gardner was not only very sympathetic to the cause of civil rights but also "enjoyed the respect of the Presi­ dent."16 Whether the ghetto riots further encouraged school desegregation or not is one of the questions addressed in this chapter. Other HEW programs concerning aid to education and welfare are also investigated, though these programs were not the direct focus of any significant number of black rioters. Other than public education and a few other HEW pro­ grams, the primary emphasis of this chapter will be on HUD and its responses to the ghetto violence of the 1960s. Estab­ lished as the key federal department for combating the bur­ geoning ills of the cities, HUD was one of the few federal offices that was specifically mentioned by a great number of blacks in riot cities in terms of its need for increased funding or reformed programs.17 Furthermore, with budgets larger and considerably more concentrated on urban problems than OEO, HUD and HEW, to a lesser extent, were the major na­ tional departments whose positive responses to black riot grievances could potentially have made a marked difference in the area of social and economic change in the ghettos. ROCHESTER, WATTS, AND THE INITIAL RIOTS The black upheavals of 1964-1965 were the first episodes of the decade of large-scale violence in the cities, and the re-

62

Black Violence

sponses of HUD and HEW, though somewhat less dramatic and innovative than OEO, were still substantial. In his shock and concern at these initial outbursts, President Johnson tended to emphasize social and economic federal programs as the ultimate remedy for the deep-seated causes of the riots. While most of the immediate, short-run federal program re­ sponses were developed and funded through the antipoverty agency, HUD and HEW also reacted to the first violence in a decidedly "liberal" (although at times moving toward a "radi­ cal") manner. Thus, while the funding from these two depart­ ments to certain initial riot cities rose substantially, the major programmatic emphases tended to change little. The upheaval in Rochester in 1964 proved to be a good example of the approach HUD and HEW would take in terms of responding to many of the early riots. Decision makers in these two departments expressed little of the intense emotion that seemed to grip many officials in OEO. Clarence Mitchell, director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP and a noted civil rights lobbyist for many years, characterized these differ­ ing reactions to the initial ghetto outbursts:"OEO panicked. They were deceived by appearances and catered to the 'radi­ cal' black approaches. HUD and HEW, however, were more realistic, but they also tended to give priority to persons who made the greatest noise."18 Thus HUD and HEW responded to the riot in Rochester in something more than a "liberal" fashion. Large amounts of HUD money (all for Urban Renewal) poured into Rochester following the ghetto violence there. In fact, HUD grants for the city totaled more than $32 million in 1965-1966, a sum much greater than for any other two-year period in the dec­ ade. In addition, more than 50 percent of the interviewed leaders in Rochester claimed that either "more and better housing" or an emphasis on Urban Renewal were federal reac­ tions to the city's black violence. The Urban Renewal emphasis, however, generated a great deal of antagonism among many in Rochester's black com­ munities. The first big power display by FIGHT, the grass-

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

63

roots black organization developed as a result of the 1964 riot, was in 1966 at a public hearing on a proposed Urban Renewal project. The proposal dealt with the redevelopment of the Third Ward, one of the two major all-black areas of the city. FIGHT protested that the plan had been prepared without the "maximum feasible participation" of the residents, as 800 families were to be displaced and only 135 new housing units constructed.19 The black confrontation strategies were suc­ cessful, at least in this instance. As part of the Urban Renewal project, a subsidiary of FIGHT was made developer for a large, low-cost housing complex called FIGHT Square. With the assistance of a $3 million loan backed by the Federal Hous­ ing Authority, the complex was ultimately completed in 1971 and housed about 700 people.20 The Rochester riot also served as an important impetus to HEW aid to the city's public schools. Under a pro-integrationist superintendent, Rochester's school system had insti­ tuted a voluntary, open-enrollment plan by 1963. Though only modest degrees of school integration between inner-city schools and the suburbs occurred at first, by 1969 some 2,400 black children were being bused to predominantly white schools and approximately 350 white youngsters were volun­ tarily attending inner-city classes.21 Recognized by federal officials as a "progressive school system" that was "trying to do something about integration," Rochester's public schools re­ ceived vast amounts of HEW aid and the city's ghetto violence tended further to promote such aid.22 Most of the HEW money was earmarked for compensatory education (Title I) and vocational education, but substantial amounts also sup­ ported the urban-suburban transfer program. In fact, almost one-half of the costs of the limited and voluntary busing pro­ gram were borne by HEW grants.23 Furthermore, a series of innovative educational programs, devised at the time of the 1964 riot and calling for the creation of a World of Inquiry School, the appointment of school advisers to parents, and community teachers, won an Office of Education grant and considerable "nationwide praise. "24

64

Black Violence

The nature of HUD and HEW responses to the major riot in Watts in 1965 were remarkably similar to the Rochester pat­ tern, although on a more massive scale. Approximately a year after this major riot, substantial amounts of HUD money were authorized for Watts. Totalling more than $19 million, these funds were almost twice as large as all other direct HUD grants to Los Angeles over this time period.25 Most of these appropriations, however, were earmarked for Urban Renewal, the HUD program most widely despised by blacks. According to one study of the aftermath of Watts, few of the area's resi­ dents were satisfied with the Urban Renewal grants and plans, and many "insisted upon their right to full participation in the planning process."26 Yet the same study concluded that "the mention of Watts in a proposal for a government contract or grant had a magic effect, as funds began to pour into special programs."27 Hence, the massive infusions of HUD grants for Watts re­ flected a new emphasis within the department upon injecting urban assistance programs into racially tense and potentially explosive, areas. As one HUD official claimed in May 1966: "More and more programs administered by this agency will be used explicitly to try to remedy old grievances or prevent new outbreaks in ghetto neighborhoods."28 Besides substantially boosting Urban Renewal grants for Watts, HUD confirmed its new funding emphasis by announcing in mid-1966 a special grant of $2 million for the state of California to be used exclu­ sively for improving bus service for ghetto residents in Watts.29 HEW, too, increased its flow of funds to Watts after the violence there, assisting the high school to obtain a new auditorium and other physical benefits and adding some spe­ cial educational programs.30 It is evident that the first major riots of the 1960s, or at least those in Rochester and Watts, generated a substantial influx of HUD and HEW money to these cities. It is also clear that most of the HUD monies went into conventional Urban Re­ newal programs, while many HEW grants were appropriated to support non-integrationist programs such as compensatory

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

65

and vocational education. On the other hand, the early riots did inspire a degree of innovative funding in each of these fed­ eral departments, as illustrated by the special transportation grant to Watts and the unique, federally funded education programs in Rochester. But perhaps the most original and creative new program spawned by the initial black violence was the Model Cities program of 1966. Walt Rostow, an influential adviser in the Johnson Administration, has written that: "Stimulated by the urban riots of 1965, plus some thoughtful observations of Wal­ ter Reuther, the Johnson Administration turned to a some­ what different approach (to the cities), which became the Model Cities program."31 As stated even more forthrightly by the secretary of HUD at the time of the passage of the bill: "I am sure that Model Cities would never have come out of the Congress if it were not for the riots."32 The Model Cities program originated in a task force on urban problems convened by President Johnson in 1965. Con­ cerned with the growing criticism of Urban Renewal, the task force (headed by Robert Wood, later secretary of HUD) sought to rejuvenate the program such that it would "recreate not just the physical environment but the social environment as well."33 In the midst of the task force's deliberations, how­ ever, the nation was shaken by the Watts violence, which served to envelop the task force's purpose in an air of crisis.34 Less than six months later the Model Cities bill was submitted to Congress for approval. Yet the developing "backlash" due to urban rioting (as well as other forms of protest and domestic conflict) began to be felt in 1966, especially in Congress. Great Society programs re­ ceived less and less public support, and many members of Congress objected to the cost and length of the proposed Model Cities program—$3 billion over a six-year period. A further objection to the bill involved its provision that housing programs that were to receive aid under the act would have to eliminate segregation as an objective. The bill was finally passed, but only after this integrationist provision was

66

Black Violence

dropped and the authorization had been reduced to three years with the funds being cut back accordingly. Even after these substantial changes in the Model Cities bill, the criticism on Capitol Hill was widely voiced that the program would have the effect of "rewarding the rioters." In the words of one adviser to the president: I think that there's no question but that every time there was a riot, that riot made it more difficult to get the pro­ gressive social legislation passed. One of the best exam­ ples is the Model Cities bill which was originally called the Demonstration Cities bill and which was almost de­ feated on the proposition that, although we meant "dem­ onstration" in the sense that we'd show how you could rebuild the city under this bill, in debate on the Hill and elsewhere it was characterized as the bill for, or in re­ sponse to, or in support of, demonstrations. And that's why we changed the name to the Model Cities bill.35 Despite serious congressional reservations and the aura of increasing "backlash" sentiment, the Model Cities bill passed because it represented what most federal officials felt was the best possible answer at the time to the growing urban unrest. The national government was still engulfed in a mood of gen­ eral sympathy for the civil rights movement, and many execu­ tive decision makers viewed more social and economic pro­ grams as the panacea for the black disturbances. Even several new HEW programs were spurred on due somewhat to the riots, and these included medicare, medicaid, poverty, and health service programs, all under the "general assumption that an amelioration of some of the worse social conditions in the country could be made."36 But no new program was af­ fected as much, in both design and passage, by the early riots as Model Cities. As Sundquist and Davis concluded in their study of the development of this program: "By the end of 1966, the country's latent racial hostility in the cities had exploded with blinding visibility, and model cities was ad­ vanced at a time when it could appear as a possible solu-

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

67

tion."37 By promising somewhat more political power and more resources for the powerless, Model Cities bordered upon the "radical" perspective. THE LATER RIOTS (1967-1968) AND HUD If HUD and HEW responses to the initial riots could be termed "transitional" ("radical"-to-"liberal") with significant fund increases and even some program reforms, the effects of the massive urban violence of the latter 1960s could be seen as having a much more "conservative" impact upon these two federal departments. The ever-enlarging war in Vietnam, budget deficits, growing disenchantment with Great Society programs, and the increasing protest and violence at home all helped engender the public "backlash" mood that reached its zenith during this period.38 This potent "backlash" seemed to have its most immediate and far-reaching influence on Con­ gress as well as on federal bureaucracies least immune to such political pressures, including HUD and HEW. The perva­ siveness of the riot "backlash" in Congress by 1968 has been aptly described by one key White House aide: . . . with the budget running a heavy deficit, with angry constituents demanding that the government restore law and order before paying out more tax dollars for programs whose effect appeared to have been minimal or even con­ ducive to riot, Congress would not commit new funds. . . . And while most Congressmen and Senators under­ stood that conditions in the inner cities were so poor as to encourage violence, they were not convinced that public funds and programs would be more successful in chang­ ing them in the future than in the past. (In addition Con­ gressmen) were angry and frightened by the fires that came so near their doors. . . .39 HUD officials in particular felt susceptible to the growing conservative sentiment in Congress. As first evidenced in the congressional alterations and delay in passage of the Model

68

Black Violence

Cities bill, the mood of Congress was more and more opposed to new and increased social programs. According to one HUD secretary: "We were very concerned with the 'backlash' in Congress by the summer of 1967, and we did not want the vio­ lence to undo the social reforms that had taken place in the mid-1960s. In fact, we were very careful not to allow a riot city to receive a lot of new money, as we didn't want to appear to respond to violence."40 This fundamental fear of carrying out actions that might be interpreted as "rewarding the rioters" was also clearly enun­ ciated by Secretary Robert Weaver in 1967 Senate testimony on HUD appropriations: SENATOR YOUNG: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. Weaver a question which is rather delicate, but also im­ portant, and the decision on this matter will not be an easy one. There are many cities being damaged badly by riots now. They are going to have to be rebuilt. Will these cities receive a priority over other cities now? SECRETARY WEAVER: No. SENATOR YOUNG: If they did, and were built up better than they were before, I can see where there might be some encouragement to destroy cities so they would be built up quicker and better. SECRETARY WEAVER: I can assure you no priorities will be made on this basis. SENATOR YOUNG: The priorities will be established on the basis of your findings in the past. SECRETARY WEAVER: And on what they propose to do, and what they have been able to perform in the past. SENATOR YOUNG: I know it is a difficult situation for you to deal with. And it is difficult one for us, too. SECRETARY WEAVER: I can answer that categorically.41

In addition to Congress, there was pressure from the White House as well not to reward the rioting. In terms of basic elec­ toral strategy, to "give in to violence" was deemed suicidal;

69

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

that is, according to one high-level official, such actions were sure to "get us clobbered at the polls."42 Aggregate Analysis The macrolevel analysis of 40 riot cities supports the conten­ tion that HUD programs were generally unresponsive to ghetto demands growing out of the disorders. The only excep­ tion to this conclusion was the possible HUD expenditure re­ sponse to riot occurrence. For example, while total HUD budget outlay increases for the two-and-one-half-year period following the intense riot summer of 1967 averaged 1.8 times greater than the previous two-and-one-half-year period, the riot cities selected for this study43 averaged ratio increases of more than 4.2. Though these increments may have been due to factors other than riots, these results do suggest (as in the case of OE O) that the simple occurrence of black riots in 1967-1968 may have attracted greater than average HUD ex­ penditure increases to disorder cities. Nevertheless, it may be that riot characteristics other than occurrence alone, as well as other significant variables, af­ fected HUD fund increments. Table 3.1 presents simple PearTABLE 3.1 Correlations of Riot Characteristics and Other Independent Variables with HUD Per Capita Expenditure Increases for mid-1967 Through 1969 (Calendar Years) Total Urban Model HUD Renewal Housing Cities 1967 riot intensity Number of riots (1963-1968) Overall severity of all riots (1963-1968) Immediate precipitant of 1967 Riot: A. Killings, arrests or interference by police

-.13

-.05

-.11

.13

-.03

-.03

.02

.00

-.09

.08

-.18

.01

—.21

—.25

. 04

—.03

Total Urban Model HUD Renewal Housing Cities B. Interracial fighting C. Civil liberties, public facilities segregation, housing D. Inflammatory speeches by civil rights' leaders E. Spontaneous Size of city Number of Negroes Deprivation index A. Percent Negro B. Percent poor Percent Negro change (1960-1970) Percent Negro change (1950-1960) Congressional power A. Seniority B. Political motivation C. Power index D. Dem. Party member E. Committee assignment Local government characteristics A. City-Mgr. gov't. B. Non-partisan elections C. Percent council elected at large D. Reformism scale Political mobilization A. Percent voting B. Percent voting Democratic Crime rate (1969) Crime rate change (1963-1968) * p < .05;

** ρ < .01; *** ρ < .001

.11

.25

-.25 -.38** .12 .01 .08 .09

.02 .12 .33* .32*

-.10

-.18

.08

-.09

.16 -.13 -.24 -.23

.02 .27* .16 .17

-.09 .18

.04 -.10

-.06 -.12 .46** -.15

-.19

-.16

-.06

-.10

-.03

-.11

-.01

.09

.31* 37** .34* .23

.03 -.25 .06 -.23 .03 -.20 —.41** -.09 .23 -.10

.17 .11

.08 .11

.02 -.02

-.02 -.02

-.17 -.15

.08 .05

.13 .20

-.03

-.08

.06

-.11

-.05 .14 .04

.08 .05 -.11

-.19 .14 .32*

.00 .14 -.16

.06 .12 .12 -.13 .33*

.27* .25

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

71

son correlations of riot numbers, intensity, and precipitants with total HUD increases and with specific programmatic in­ creases. Also included are HUD correlations with other inde­ pendent variables that might affect the flow of HUD monies to urban areas. It is evident from this table that very few riot characteristics are significantly correlated statistically with HUD expenditure changes to the 40 riot cities. Furthermore, few of the other independent variables are highly correlated with HUD increases either, with the exception of the Urban Renewal program. Yet, as in the case of the OEO aggregate analysis, it was possible to explore the combined effects of all these independent variables on HUD increments through the use of multiple regressions and path analysis. Diagram 3.1 presents these path models for HUD. Once again the analysis indicates that various riot charac­ teristics had only a moderate influence on HUD appropria­ tions to urban disorder areas. In fact, results depict a some­ what statistically significant negative direct path between overall riot severity and total HUD expenditures; that is, the greater the severity of all riots (1963-1968) in these cities, the less the fund increases from HUD. However, it is clear from the path models that congressional power variables, especially the type of committee assignments, had a much greater direct influence on HUD increments than did riots. In the case of total HUD per capita expenditures, for example, the overall severity of riots alone explains only a little more than 8 percent of the variation while congressional committee assignments accounts for 13 percent of the variation. Though it was ex­ pected that the riots might substantially influence the flow of funds for certain HUD programs such as Model Cities and Housing, the model showed no statistically significant direct relationships between any riot characteristics and these de­ pendent variables. The Urban Renewal expenditure model did conform to prior expectations in the sense of depicting a direct negative path between Urban Renewal increases and riots ignited by disputes over civil liberties, public facilities, segregation, or housing. With many blacks strongly criticizing the Renewal

DIAGRAM 3.1 Path Models: HUD Expenditure Increases (1967-1969)

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

73

programs for being "black removal," it is understandable why HUD officials might have reduced such expenditures as local disputes related to these unpopular programs exacerbated frictions, leading to eventual riots in some cities. Besides tending to reduce funds to certain riot cities for Urban Renewal programs, the disorders also served as a catalyst in the alteration of the emphasis of these programs. According to top-level HUD officials, Urban Renewal was transformed from an economic and physically oriented pro­ gram to a more "community and human-oriented" one due, at least in part, to the riots.44 Instead of favoring local political and business interests, Urban Renewal administrators began, by the summer of 1967, to give much greater priority to proj­ ects emphasizing low- and moderate-income housing.45 The result of this was that for the three years from mid-1966 to June 1969, the number of new low- and moderate-income units begun on renewal sites almost equaled the total number of such units begun in the entire previous 16 years of the program.46 The Model Cities Response One of the more surprising results of the aggregate analysis was the indication that neither number, severity, nor pre­ cipitating factors of riots was related significantly to Model Cities (MC) funding through 1969. If indeed Model Cities originated partly in response to the early riots, and was de­ signed as a preventive for future urban disorders, then it was expected that such a program would have reacted to alleviate the conditions that spawned the violence of 1967-1968. In fact, most other evidence does indicate that Model Cities did re­ spond in a moderate fashion to black grievances underlying these riots. Less than a month after the major upheavals in Newark and Detroit in the summer of 1967, President Johnson announced that, instead of recommending any new major urban meas­ ures, the Administration had decided to concentrate on seek­ ing increased funding for just three programs: Model Cities,

74

Black Violence

rent supplements, and the antipoverty program. It was claimed that the President believed that pushing any sweep­ ing new measures at that time "might be construed as 'reward­ ing' the participants in this year's urban riots."47 Thus even within a policy period of domestic retrenchment, the Adminis­ tration was continuing to emphasize the Model Cities pro­ gram. Though the originally funded model cities were selected through an interagency review process that was completed be­ fore the occurrence of the major riots of 1967, a high-level HUD official claimed that "the threat of racial disorders in a city was at the heart of the funding review."48 That is, Model Cities applications were perceived as very good depictors of the "rottenness" and "riot-proneness" of a city, and such con­ ditions were instrumental in determining whether or not the city received funds. In a special report on HUD appropria­ tions presented by Model Cities administrators at a congres­ sional hearing in 1969, the efforts of this program to assist riot-torn cities as well were made very clear. Of the 118 cities having experienced one or more serious riots sometime be­ tween 1964 and mid-1968, 83 applied for Model Cities grants and all but 14 of these cities received such funds by 1969.49 Thus of all cities experiencing serious riots and making appli­ cation, approximately 83 percent received Model Cities grants by the end of the decade. This compares to the more general Model Cities initial funding ratio of only 63 cities out of 193 (33 percent) that submitted planning applications in 1967,50 al­ though this ratio improved somewhat by 1969 as more funds became available. This suggests that the occurrence of a riot, not the number or severity of riots, was a key variable that in­ fluenced the flow of Model Cities funds. Of course, there is little doubt that the disorders encour­ aged many local decision makers to apply for Model Cities aid, and a number of these officials might not otherwise have done so. According to one HUD secretary: "Many cities that had riots were awakened and became more sophisticated in mak­ ing their grant proposals to Model Cities. And, riot cities were

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

75

definitely more concerned about their problems and about getting more money."51 A particularly good example of the riot process and its impact upon the acquisition of Model Cities funds was the case of Dayton, Ohio. Dayton as a Model City

Following the first black upheaval in Dayton in September 1966, and after the two later riots in 1967, local decision mak­ ers became much more concerned and aware of the growing ghetto problems in West Dayton. With this new concern de­ veloped "the recognition that some of the ills that triggered the riots needed to be dealt with promptly and massively."52 Officials realized that the local government did not have the necessary resources to confront these problems, so almost immediately they sought alternative resources at the national level. With the Model Cities program pending before Con­ gress (and passed into law less than two months later) and the city in the midst of drafting an application for such funds, the September (1966) violence was the crucial impetus to the ac­ tive solicitation of MC planning money.53 Moreover, Dayton's traditionally oriented city manager of 14 years suddenly re­ tired at this time (prompted somewhat by the increasing racial hostilities in the city) and a much more progressive city man­ ager soon took office. Unlike the retiring chief city official, the new city manager was "tremendously sensitive and perceptive of urban racial problems. "54 He soon began actively to solicit federal aid, and proved to be very skillful in securing such money as well as knowing where and how to apply for it. Dayton's original Model Cities application was formulated almost exclusively by professional administrators, thereby provoking considerable criticism from the city's black leaders, who charged that the residents had not been involved in the plans for the new program. This highly volatile and important issue was alleviated by Dayton's selection in late 1967 as one of the original Model Cities, one of only three Ohio cities so selected. With one of the basic goals of the MC program being (as stated in the city's application) to "obtain fullest member-

76

Black Violence

ship for target area residents in the community-at-large, to ob­ tain their fullest participation in the benefits,"55 the City Commission, with a good deal of prodding from angry black leaders, passed an "equal partnership" resolution in early 1968. This resolution authorized the Model Cities Planning Council, made up of elected neighborhood residents, as the key resident's policy-making body and a "full-partner" with city hall in all decisions affecting the local MC program. The "equal partnership" guarantee was instrumental in the success of the Model Cities venture in Dayton. It was proba­ bly even more significant in encouraging and legitimizing black political participation at the local level. According to Graham Watt, the new city manager, more than 25 percent of the eligible residents cast their ballots in the first neigh­ borhood MC election, thereby setting a national record at the time for citizen participation in an election conducted as part of a Model Cities or War on Poverty Program.56 Furthermore, Congressman Charles Whalen from Dayton stated that "in terms of'community involvement,' the Model Cities program seems to have been quite effective in West Dayton."57 How successful Model Cities has been in Dayton is an un­ answered question, but there is widespread agreement that its impetus and high levels of funding were due, to a great extent, to black violence in the city. The overwhelming majority (19 out of 27) of interviewed local "influentials" signified that the MC program in Dayton was one of the major federal responses to the local riots (Table 3.2). No other type of federal reaction mentioned by these local elites received such a sweeping en­ dorsement. As one Dayton city commissioner stated: "The Model Cities program owes its existence and success to the riots,"58 while a leading black official claimed that "Dayton was one of the first recipients of MC funds, and having had a riot certainly influenced this flow of money."59 Not only did the disorders attract the Model Cities program to Dayton in the first place but they also played a key role in ensuring high rates of funding. Beginning in 1967 with an ini­ tial planning grant of $136,000, the MC funds rapidly in-

33 33 76 33 33 0 33 67 0 0

(19) (16) (10) (6)

(4) (4) (4) (4) (4) (3)

70 59 37 22 15 15 15 15 15 11

Total (N = 27) % (N)

(0) (0)

(2)

(0) (1)

(1) (1)

(2)

(1) (1)

20 10

20

10 10

(1)

(2)

(2)

(1) (1)

0 25

0

0 0

0 0

(3)

30 10 (1)

0

(2)

20

50 100

(9) (5)

90 50

0 25 13

(0) (1)

13 25

(0) (0) (0)

13 25

63

63 50

(0) (0)

(0)

(4)

(2)

(1)

0 0

0

(0) (2)

100 0

(1) (2)

50 0

50

(5) (1) (2)

100 100

(5) (4)

(0) (0)

(0)

(0)

(2)

(0)

(1)

(1)

(2) (2)

Categories of Local "Influentials" WhitesPublic Police Blacks Others (N = 10) (N = 4) (N = 8) (N = 2) % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

* Question: "Do you think that the racial disorders had any impact upon federal aid to the city of Dayton? If so, what?" All respond­ ents answered "yes" to the first question, and this table is a categorization of replies to the second question. Percentages in the table do not total 100 percent because of the multiple responses mentioned by a number of the respondents.

Model Cities program established More funds for police force More funds for job training and jobs for poor Increased aid for educational programs for the disadvantaged More housing for blacks Increases in antipoverty program funds Emphasized youth summer programs Encouraged private sector (mainly business) to respond to black needs More funds for health and other social service programs Other

Types of Federal Government Responses

WhitesPrivate (N = 3) % (N)

Dayton Influentials: Summary of Perceived Reactions of Federal Government to Dayton's Black Riots*

TABLE 3.2

78

Black Violence

creased to an annual amount of more than $2.9 million by 1969,60 thus making Dayton one of the most heavily funded (per capita) MC programs in the country.61 Of course, factors other than the 1966-1967 riots were influential in luring such vast amounts of federal money to this city; these factors in­ cluded a sympathetic congressman, an innovative city man­ ager (who was strongly supported by the city commissioners), and a highly effective "Man-in-Washington" program. The lat­ ter was a program established in the late 1960s through the National League of Cities, and it allowed Dayton, with its rep­ resentative in Washington, to tap into new federal programs quickly and to keep congressmen and bureaucrats informed about local needs. But none of these factors alone was as im­ portant as the riots in affecting the flow of federal aid to Day­ ton. As one local official put it, "Having had a riot puts you in a special category for receiving federal assistance,"62 and cer­ tainly Model Cities was the most responsive federal program in the city of Dayton. Some Final HUD Innovations

Beyond the response of Model Cities to the mass of upheav­ als in 1967-1968, there was very little innovation in HUD pro­ grams during this period, as most attempts to develop new programs foundered in an era of increasing national conser­ vatism. Many policy makers in HUD also felt that the agency should emphasize long-term responses rather than shortterm, "crisis" solutions. But one final, major reform was enacted before the impending "backlash" completely engulfed the country. This major innovative act was the 1968 Open Housing law, which secured final congressional approval only after the assassination of Martin Luther King and the resulting riots. "Fair housing" had long been considered the most sensitive area of civil rights legislation and proved to be the last major area in which the federal government took action in the 1960s. Two earlier attempts by the Johnson Administration (in 1966 and 1967) to push an open housing bill through Congress had failed disastrously. There was tremendous opposition to the

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

79

bill at the grass-roots level, and the same conservative slogans were expressed everywhere: "Open housing is forced hous­ ing"—"A man's home is his castle."63 But the shocking trag­ edy of King's murder in early April 1968, and the urban riots that occurred in its wake, galvanized new support, not only for the 1968 Civil Rights Act, but for other urban legislation as well.64 In the words of presidential aide Harry McPherson: "Martin Luther King's death provided the final impetus for one more civil rights law, just as the abuse he bore during his life had helped to persuade the nation, and then the Congress, that the earlier laws should be passed."65 Besides the Open Housing law, which would by 1970 le­ gally prohibit discrimination in the sale or rental of about 80 percent of all housing, federal legislation in the form of a Na­ tional Housing Act was also passed somewhat later in 1968. This latter act, though less widely publicized than the Fair Housing law, was generally considered one of the landmark achievements of the Johnson Administration and was the ini­ tial step toward the president's goal of 6 million units of new or rehabilitated housing in the next ten years.66 Again, most of the interviewed HUD officials (as well as other interviewed federal elites) agreed that the heightened racial tension sur­ rounding King's assassination and the riots made the passage of these bills (especially Open Housing) possible. However, it is also clear that crucial support for Fair Hous­ ing was due, as well, to the "antiriot" provisions that were amended onto the original bill.67 These provisions made it a crime for persons to travel in interstate commerce with the in­ tent to incite or take part in a riot, or to make or transport firearms or explosives for use in a civil disorder. Yet even with an "antiriot" amendment, it was truly remarkable, given the generally disadvantageous political climate, that either of these innovative acts was passed during this era. HEW AND THE GHETTO VIOLENCE OF 1967-1968 If the effects of the large-scale urban violence on HUD could be characterized as moderate in scope and mostly non-

80

Black Violence

innovative (except for Model Cities and the two 1968 housing acts), then the influence of the riots on HEW could be typified as almost non-existent. Of the 11 HEW officials queried, al­ most half (5) responded that the urban violence of 1967-1968 had no obvious effect on policy in this bureaucracy. In fact, these were the only federal officials contacted in any of the executive departments who replied that the violence had had no significant impact on their organization's programs. There are several reasons for HEW's lack of response. First, this department, unlike HUD and OEO, had little discretion­ ary money with which to respond to crisis situations.68 Most HEW funds were authorized through formula and other types of specific grant programs, and this left very little money free to be moved into emergency programs or to be quickly shifted into new departmental priorities. Second, many policy makers in HEW felt that the major social and economic legislation of 1965-1966 contained all the progressive programs necessary to solve the nation's urban ills, and they perceived that many of these programs simply did not seem to work. Increased fund­ ing might have been helpful, but with the war in Vietnam and threatened budget cuts, it was all these officials could do to maintain present funding levels.69 Finally, HEW officials tended to become "desensitized by all the riots of 1967-1968," and the wave of "backlash" senti­ ment seemed to affect this department more than most other federal bureaucracies.70 Unlike OEO and HUD, HEW was an older, more established bureaucracy whose clientele groups were rather solidified and comparatively status-quo oriented. Even if HEW had attempted to respond energetically to the black grievances underlying the violence, it is doubtful that it could have done so, given the bureaucratic inertia and prior commitments (both to Congress and to its constituents) of the organization. What few programmatic responses emanated from HEW during this period were extremely moderate and almost insig­ nificant, especially when one considers that this department was allocating more money to the array of urban poverty pro-

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

81

grams than any other single federal department.71 Small amounts of discretionary funds were reportedly sent to some of the riot cities, and this aid was earmarked primarily for health and education.72 Moreover, there was a somewhat greater emphasis on participation by those for whom these so­ cial and economic programs were designed. Thus HEW diverted some funds to HUD for the Model Cities program, and also supported several decentralization experiments at the urban level, as means of stressing increased neighborhood participation.73 For example, Dayton was one of the urban communities selected for educational emphasis through its Model Cities program. In this city the education component of Model Cities was well-funded after the violence, with most of the money directed toward vocational education, "black awareness" programs, and more services for predominately black West Dayton schools.74 In connection with education, one might expect that the urban disorders would have stepped up HEW's school de­ segregation efforts since de facto segregation of schools was a major complaint of blacks in most riot-torn cities. If anything, however, black violence served to slow down HEW efforts in the area of school desegregation, especially in the North. With the growing "backlash," as well as normal political pressures against integration efforts, HEW was increasingly hesitant to take on large northern cities (such as Chicago or Detroit) where widespread school segregation existed.79 Hence federal school integration efforts through 1968 continued to be cen­ tered in the South, though strong conservative pressure from Congress limited HEW's progress in that area as well.76 Perhaps the most significant HEW response to the massive urban riots was the vast increase in welfare benefits. As Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward have argued so effec­ tively, it is only when the poor become disorderly and violent that relief-giving expands as a means of pacifying these people. They claim that this has been true historically in this country and that it was demonstrated once again in the 1960s. In their words:

82

Black Violence

. . . modernization, migration, urban unemployment, the breakup of families, rising grant levels, and other factors contributed to a growing pool of eligible' families in the 1950s and 1960s. Nevertheless, the relief rolls did not rise until the 1960s. And when they did, it was largely as a result of governmental programs designed to moderate widespread political unrest among the black poor.77 Piven and Cloward point out that, during the period of widespread protest and riots (1965-1968), the relief rolls climbed 58 percent, whereas they had increased at a rate of only 31 percent in the preceding four years. Furthermore, the 121 urban counties depicted an increase of 80 percent from 1965-1968, and the largest five urban counties (sites of many of the riots) showed welfare rises of 105 percent.78 Obviously factors other than the urban riots alone may have played significant roles in affecting welfare increases, and Piven and Cloward do not control for the influence of these other factors. For example, community-oriented federal pro­ grams such as CAP, and various interest groups such as the National Welfare Rights Organization, promoted "advocacy" and information services that made people more aware of wel­ fare programs, thus becoming significant factors in the welfare explosion of the 1960s.79 Federal legislation, court decisions, and administrative actions extended eligibility, which also in­ creased the growth rate of welfare recipients.80 Yet the disor­ ders in turn served to instigate these political developments and the efforts of a number of these advocacy groups. In addi­ tion, interview information from HEW officials tended to cor­ roborate the Piven-Cloward thesis. Of the eleven influentials queried, six reported that the provision of more educational and social welfare services was a response of their depart­ ment to the black upheavals, and among these HEW officials this was the most frequently mentioned type of response (Ta­ ble 3.3). Influence of the Kerner Report The issuance of the Report of the National Advisory Com­ mission on Civil Disorders in March 1968 might have been

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

83

TABLE 3.3 Summary of HEW Responses to the Urban Riots as Perceived by Influential HEW Officials*

TypeofDepartmentalResponse Provided more educational and social welfare services No obvious responses Greatly reduced enforcement of civil rights laws, especially in education Tried to provide greater chance for blacks to participate politically at local level Great response after Watts riot, then leveled offwith abundance of later riots Other

Hew Officials Mentioning the Response (N = 11) % (N) (6)

55 45

(5)

27

(3)

27

(3)

18 36

(2) (4)

* Question: "Do you think that the urban racial violence of the 1960s affected policy-making in your department to any degree? If so, how?" The above table is a categorization of replies to these questions. Percentages in the table do not total 100 percent because of the multiple responses mentioned by a number of interviewees.

expected to precipitate policy reforms directed against the conditions that seemed to spawn the black upheavals. As in the case of ΟΕΟ, however, it is evident that many of the executive departments played influential roles in developing the commission's major recommendations, thereby diluting the Report's role as a possible stimulus to reforms. In fact, all of the 26 HUD and HEW officials interviewed had read at. least a summary of the Report, but only 7 believed that it had had even a moderate influence in encouraging these organiza­ tions to carry out its recommendations. The remaining 19 offi­ cials agreed that the influence of the commission had been insignificant as far as their respective departments were concerned, though this was reportedly less true in HUD than in HEW. Robert Weaver, secretary of HUD at the time of the Re­ port's disclosure, claimed that none of the suggestions was

84

Black Violence

new to HUD officials but that the Kerner Report did "pinpoint the issues and lend support to those of us who were already moving in that direction. It somewhat facilitated what we wanted to do . . . and helped to create a more receptive audi­ ence both in the Congress and elsewhere."81 Another highlevel HUD official stated, "the Report urged us on in terms of things we were already starting to do,"82 especially in the area of emphasizing local influence and participation through a reoriented Urban Renewal program and an enlarged Model Cities approach. Yet this seemed to be the extent of the National Advisory Commission's positive influence on HUD, since most officials criticized the Report heavily for its imperceptive analysis and unrealistic recommendations. Secretary Weaver himself strongly scored the Report for its proposal that the federal government provide six million low and moderate-income housing units in the next five years. The Administration had already proposed to do this in ten years, and Weaver and other officials saw this as a politically and financially unfeasible demand over so short a time period.83 In addition, both HUD and HEW officials criticized the long lists of recommendations of the commission for being too much like a "laundry list" and for failing to decipher what es­ sential programs were necessary for the ghettos in the im­ mediate future. As one high-level HEW official put it: I think the great failing of the Kerner Report was to not really have any priorities. It threw everything, including everything they could think of, into it. It was too much in too short of a time. They didn't develop any real priorities, but said "here are all the things that ought to be done," . . . It was based on the general idea that here's an opportunity to put everything in including the millen­ nium. Well, you don't enact the millennium overnight.84 But what seemed most to incense the White House and HUD officials about the National Advisory Commission's Re­ port was its failure to acknowledge what they felt the Johnson

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

85

Administration had already accomplished in the area of civil rights. Instead, they saw the Report as placing most of the blame for urban racial problems on the Johnson Administra­ tion. These two things especially "turned President Johnson off" concerning the Report,85 and according to Moynihan, the result was that the White House refused to receive the final document officially.86 Not all public study commissions during this period were as ineffective in promoting urban reforms as was the National Advisory Commission. For example, several HUD decision makers cited two extra departmental task forces as having been particularly important during this period. One of these task forces was the Douglas Commission (headed by Senator Paul Douglas), which was created by Congress in 1966 to study the problems of urban development. Since its purview extended to much more than inner-city problems, and since it was accountable more to Congress than to the president, this commission had less effect on HUD policy than did the second task force.87 This second group was the President's Commit­ tee on Urban Housing, better known as the Kaiser Commit­ tee, and was established by President Johnson in 1967 to de­ velop proposals for increasing production of low and moderate-income housing. Several high-level HUD officials mentioned this committee as having had a substantial impact on Administration housing policy, specifically in terms of rais­ ing the national housing goal and contributing to the 1968 legislation on housing.88 No other study commissions were widely cited by either HUD or HEW officials as extragovernmental groups that had had significant influences on public policy during this riotprone period. The widely publicized Kerner Report itself was, as mentioned, more a direct product of the ideas promulgated by national executive policy makers rather than an impetus to reform for these departments. Yet if the Report of the Na­ tional Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders was nothing more than a slightly veiled attempt by certain federal de­ partmental elites to gain publicity and support for expanded Great Society programs, it was an obvious failure because the

86

Black Violence

political climate was just not conducive. In the words of Daniel Moynihan: The (Kerner) report called for more, far more, than the Administration could conceive the public wishing, or the Congress willing to provide. It was assumed that the civil rights ardor of the earlier period had waned, and it was—finally—understood and accepted that the war had preempted resources. And yet the promises persisted, not least because those who made them genuinely hoped that they might someday come true.89 All in all, it appears that the massive series of urban riots in 1967-1968 had a very moderate, and at times even negative, impact on funding increases and program innovation in the major federal departments of HUD and HEW. With the vio­ lence helping to generate a potent "backlash" mood through­ out the country and in the Congress, many officials in HUD and HEW were fearful of appearing to "reward" the rioters. What response there was to ghetto grievances took place mainly in HUD, with Model Cities funds increasingly allo­ cated to riot cities (or riot-prone cities), moderate reforms in Urban Renewal emphases, and the passage of the Fair Hous­ ing and National Housing Acts of 1968. In HEW, only the dramatic welfare increases coincided with the rise in numbers of riots. Most other HEW programs were seemingly unaf­ fected to any great extent by the urban violence of this period. The response pattern of these two departments was a moder­ ately "liberal" one, with a small degree of tinkering with exist­ ing programs such as Model Cities, Urban Renewal, and wel­ fare. There were no major changes in structure or emphasis of these departments in response to the ghetto upheavals, and therefore no major alterations in political or economic power relationships in the ghetto. THE FIRST NIXON ADMINISTRATION AND THE URBAN VIOLENCE Although the Report of the National Advisory Commission

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

87

had depicted a society becoming increasingly polarized along racial lines and this quickly became the prevailing wisdom, newly elected President Nixon and his influential assistant for urban affairs, Daniel Moynihan, did not necessarily view the future with such feelings of inevitability.90 Moynihan judged that the massive urban rioting of 1967-1968 would not recur "barring exceptional events or singularly clumsy govern­ ment."91 This judgment was based on the results of the Sup­ plemental Studies to the National Advisory Commission, which Moynihan perceived as showing less racial division than predicted earlier in the Commission Report itself. He was also influenced by a study by Elliot Luby of the outbreak of the 1967 Detroit riot, which interpreted this violent event as "autoimmunizing," meaning that those involved had gone through a learning experience and would not wish to become reinvolved. Even if the riots had not decreased in number and mag­ nitude as Moynihan predicted, the new Administration still had a very limited view of what the national government could do to ease another ghetto crisis. In Moynihan's words, "events occurred on their own; they were not in any significant sense the consequence of policy," and even if one perceived the ef­ fects of federal policy as important, the national government lacked "the resources, political and other, to attempt any definitive response."92 According to this view, "the crucial role of policy was to facilitate, or at least not to interfere with, whatever easing of crisis was going to take place."93 More specifically, the Administration felt that "as little as possible should be done to reward violence and as much as possible to discourage it."94 However, what was so surprising in light of these Adminis­ tration views was that it not only kept many of the Great Soci­ ety programs that it had previously criticized as riot-provoking or riot-rewarding but also increased sharply the funding of many of these social programs. This was especially true in the case of various HUD programs. This apparent contradiction between philosophy and actions might be viewed as a kind of compromise policy that would help reduce the proclivity for

88

Black Violence

further violence while not being considered a reward for past riots. Termination of most Great Society programs would have thoroughly alienated a whole new class of clientele groups (most of whom were previously poor blacks) who, for the first time, had something to lose. As Moynihan perceived this "nouveau bourgeois": "They had won their new status in the contest of real or threatened violence. Faced with the prospect of losing it, they would inevitably seek the restoration of vio­ lence, which for the first time would be induced and not spon­ taneous, a wholly different situation."95 (Emphasis added.) On the other hand, the rhetoric of the first Nixon Adminis­ tration and the reports emanating from the press tended to stress that most of the previous Administration's social pro­ grams were being closed down or cut back. Moynihan's leaked memo concerning "benign neglect" of blacks was an especially good example of such conservative rhetoric, and the press was quick to give this controversial note a good deal of publicity. Though this rhetoric was misleading to some extent, it con­ veyed the impression that the "riot" programs were being completely phased out, thereby appeasing the Administra­ tion's supporters, imposing a certain "sobriety" on many of the new federal bureaucracies, and reducing the expectations of many blacks who felt that more violence might be rewarded. Thus, the memory of past riots and the threat of renewed violence in the cities affected the first Nixon Administration's social policies to an unexpected degree, and in no other de­ partment was this effect so obvious as in HUD. Just a few months after taking office, President Nixon announced a spe­ cial HUD program to clean up or restore urban areas damaged by rioting. To accomplish this, $9 million in emergency funds were disseminated by HUD to riot-torn cities in the spring of 1969 (along with an additional $200 million formerly ear­ marked for various other HUD programs).96 The purpose of this Interim Assistance Program, according to one HUD offi­ cial, was "to give some attention to these (blighted) areas, and tell people they haven't been forgotten. "97 Though most of the money was not used for riot cleanup but for financing projects

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

89

ranging from portable swimming pools to rat extermination,98 it did seem to be a limited attempt by the new Administration to let the ghettos know that it was not about to cut them off— not with the possibly long, hot summer of 1969 quickly ap­ proaching. Nevertheless, in accordance with the Administra­ tion's philosophy, this special "riot" funding was limited enough so as not to infuriate Nixon's conservative constituen­ cies. Macrolevel Analysis Yet the black upheavals influenced HUD expenditures far beyond this small-scale Interim Assistance Program. The aggregate data analysis for the 35 disorder cities and their per capita HUD fund increments for 1970 through June 1972 tends to support the contention that the riots affected the flow of HUD monies in a very significant manner (Table 3.4 and Diagram 3.2). As depicted, expenditure increases for total HUD, Urban Renewal, and Housing programs are all signifi­ cantly correlated statistically with riot characteristics and, based on the path models, are directly and positively affected (except for Urban Renewal) to a highly significant degree by the number of riots. In terms of riot frequency, total HUD and Housing increases were influenced most by the number of riots that occurred between 1963-1968 and not by the later riots of 1969-1970. This indicates that HUD expenditures of the early 1970s were being affected greatly by the frequency of riots that took place several years earlier during the mid-1960s period of numerous and intense disorders. In fact, the number of riots (1963-1968) alone, mathematically controlling for the influence of other significant independent variables, explains 18 percent of the variation in total HUD increments. Urban Renewal programs were also significantly correlated to a moderate degree with, and were directly influenced by, the number of riots experienced (1969-1970), although this variable had a negative impact upon Urban Renewal fund in­ creases. This negative influence was perhaps due to the de­ precatory view that many ghetto blacks (especially in disorder

TABLE 3.4 Correlations of Riot Characteristics and Other Independent Variables with HUD Per Capita Expenditure Increases for 1970 Through mid-1972 (Calendar Years) Characteristics of Cities Number of Riots (1969-1970) Number of Riots (1963-1968) Severity of Riots (1969-1970) Total Number of Riots (1963-1970) Overall Severity of all Riots (1963-1970) Size of City Number of Negroes Deprivation Index A. Percent Negro B. Percent Poor Percent Negro Change (1960-1970) Percent Negro Change (1950-1960) Congressional Power A. Seniority B. Political Motivation C. Power Index D. Democratic Party Member E. CommitteeAssignment Local Government Characteristics A. City-Mgr. Government B. Non-Partisan Elections C. Percent Council Elected at Large D. Reformism Scale Political Mobilization A. Percent Voting B. Percent Voting Democrat Crime Rate (1969) Crime Rate Change (1963-1968) * p < .05;

** ρ < .01; *** ρ < .001

Total HUD

Urban Renewal Housing

Model Cities

-.16 .29* .01 .15

-.35* -.07 -.30* -.17

.18 .43** .26 .34*

.11 .13 .18 .14

.23 -.14 -.11

-.16

.38* .25 .28*

.30* .03 .03

.19 .27 -.11 -.07

-.06 .08 .19 .18

.24 .24 -.39** -.32*

.22 .06 .06 .08

-.08 -.22 -.04 .23 -.18

-.34* -.32* -.29* .03 -.27

.20 -.02 .19 .24 -.03

.16 .12 .20 .19 .10

-.04 .13

-.03 -.16

.09 .47**

-.07 -.16

.03 .07

-.06 .02

.02 .15

.10 -.07

— .40** -.10 .25 .26

_ 43**

—.41**

.04 53*** -.05 -.12 .07 .12 .46** -.12

-.33* .16 .38* .07

DIAGRAM 3.2 Path Models: HUD Expenditure Increases

(1970-1972)1

1 Model Cities per capita increases were not significantly (statistically) and directly affected by any riot characteristics and therefore this causal model is not shown in this diagram.

92

Black Violence

cities) still shared toward the traditional Urban Renewal ap­ proach, even though this program had begun to transform its earlier "bulldozer" emphasis in slum clearance. Indeed, in partial response to the complaints of those previously dis­ placed by Urban Renewal, federal officials provided for some modifications of the renewal program in the 1968 Housing Act. The Neighborhood Development program in the act, for example, provided that cities could have more flexibility in handling problems of relocation of slum dwellers and could speed up the often slow rebuilding of cleared renewal sites. Though several hundred cities applied for this new program by the late 1960s, there were still insufficient renewal funds to allow more than 80 cities to participate in this accelerated approach." Impetus to Housing

The clear indication that frequency of black riots greatly af­ fected increases in Housing program funds for disorder cities is quite meaningful. By far the most dramatic increases in HUD expenditures from 1969 through 1972 were for lowincome housing and Urban Renewal programs (Table 3.5). In­ deed, with the Urban Renewal emphasis shifting more and more to rehabilitation and construction of housing for families with moderate and low incomes,100 it meant that total federal funds for housing subsidies skyrocketed from less than $1 mil­ lion in fiscal 1969 to approximately $3 billion by fiscal 1973.101 This made moderate- and low-income housing subsidies one of the most rapidly growing areas in the entire federal budget during this period. In addition to the aggregate data results, further evidence suggests that the riots were a major impetus to this ultimate low- and moderate-income housing boom in the cities. A number of HUD officials of the Johnson era maintained that the urban violence was a prime motivator of the Housing Act of 1968, often referred to as "the magna carta of housing," and most of these new housing programs were a direct result of this act (especially sections 235 and 236). Furthermore, of the

478

—

391

—

81

1967 $445 1

1966 $357

1965 $324

948

1968 $438 4 872

1,279

1,243

1,512

1,420

Fiscal Years 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 $572 $1,043 $1,028 $1,189 $ 992 500 590 15 86 328

* Low and moderate-income housing aids are listed according to function, not by agency. Therefore, not all the annual outlays listed under this category are necessarily HUD outlays, though the vast majority of the funds were HUD expenditures.

SOURCE: U. S. Federal Budgets, 1965-1974.

Program Urban Renewal Model Cities Low and Moderate-Income Housing Aids*

Federal Budgetfor Major HUD Programs (actual outlays in millions)

TABLE 3.5

94

Black Violence

15 HUD influentials that were queried for this study, 11 men­ tioned more and better housing for the poor as a departmental response to the riots, and this was by far the most frequently cited category among HUD officials (see Table 3.6). This role of the riots was also emphasized by Harold Wolman, a federal housing expert, who claimed that: It was the Negro revolution of the early and mid-1960s which brought poor housing, as well as other problems of low-income Negroes, to the level of visibility and which TABLE 3.6 Summary of HUD Responses to the Urban Riots as Perceived by Influential HUD Officials*

TypeofDepartmentalResponse More and better housing for the poor Tried to provide greater chance for blacks to participate politically at local level Tried to give black people more equal rights and to end discrimination Provided more educational and social welfare services Great response after Watts riot, then leveled off with abundance of later riots Encouraged greater state and local government efforts Other

HUD Officials Mentioning the Response (N = 15) % (N) 73

(11)

40

(6)

33

(5)

27

(4)

20

(3)

20 33

(3) (5)

* Question: "Do you think that the urban racial violence of the 1960 s af­ fected policy-making in your department to any degree? If so, how?" The above table is a categorization of replies to these questions. Percentages in the table do not total 100 percent because of the multiple responses mentioned by a number of interviewees.

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

95

led to demands on the political system for action. The riots of 1964-68 reinforced this trend and focused atten­ tion on housing needs, since poor housing is probably the most visible deprivation suffered by low-income groups.102 It was also generally admitted that the political justification for the low-income housing programs had been altered by the late 1960s, partly because of the urban black violence. Instead of being viewed only as a means to help poor people in general who could not otherwise find decent shelter, by the end of the decade the programs were perceived as "a key element in fed­ eral subsidies to the cities themselves,"103 whose condition was seen as steadily worsening due partly to the growing pro­ portion of low-income blacks. Although President Nixon opposed (and even vetoed) the initial congressional HUD appropriations bills of 1970 and 1971, he did so primarily for economic reasons (to help control inflation by cutting government spending) and not because he intensely opposed the well-funded social programs entailed in the bills.104 In fact, once the appropriations bills were revised downward slightly, the president signed them into law. No doubt, too, Nixon realized that those who would benefit from these immense new housing subsidies included, in addition to a number of low-income blacks, many low-middle income whites, real-estate developers, and a host of construction companies.105 Despite these caveats, it is important to note that the first-term Nixon Administration, urged on by a liberal Congress, continued to authorize and spend strikingly in­ creased appropriations for these new HUD programs. Not only was federally subsidized low-income housing one of the most rapidly expanding programs in Washington at the time, but poor housing had been one of the major complaints of blacks living in riot-torn ghettos. Without question, Roches­ ter was a good example of a riot city whose leaders perceived that new housing was a partial panacea to its ghetto ills. As one Rochester public official claimed: "The riots here alerted a bas­ ically smug community that they had some very serious prob-

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Iems in the central city area—and crucial to those tensions was bad housing."106 As a result, federal Urban Renewal and low-income housing funds poured into the city in the early 1970s as Rochester's Urban Renewal program became the thirteenth largest in the country, although the city ranked only forty-ninth in terms of population. Earlier Urban Renewal efforts had served mainly to demolish vast areas of blight and decay, but in the process these efforts thoroughly antagonized many poor blacks who were being rapidly displaced from their homes.107 Several confrontations with FIGHT over Urban Renewal, as well as the occurrence of the 1967 riot, signified to City Hall that the emphasis of renewal would have to be altered. Hence, by 1971-1972 Rochester was constructing (with vast federal as­ sistance) more housing than it had during the whole previous decade, and most of the new units were designated for Iowand moderate-income families or senior citizens.108 The Model Cities Emphasis

The final HUD program to experience major fund increases during the first Nixon Administration was Model Cities. In fact, this controversial program achieved greater percentage increases than any other single HUD program during this period—up from $15 million in fiscal 1969 to some $500 mil­ lion in fiscal year 1972. Although the aggregate data analysis depicts no statistically significant direct impact of any riot characteristics on Model Cities fund increases, there was a dif­ ferential effect according to size of the cities. Though riot characteristics were not correlated significantly with Model Cities (MC) increases in the larger disorder cities (250,000 in population and over), overall severity of all riots (1963-1970) was highly correlated in a positive direction with fund incre­ ments in riot cities of less than 250,000 (r = .65, ρ = .00, N — 17). This correlation remains high even when controlling for other significant independent variables. This suggests that as MC grants became more and more plentiful, they were dis­ tributed in smaller riot municipalities partially on the basis of severity of black riots.

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

97

An example of a medium-sized riot city that received vast amounts of new MC funds was Dayton, whose Model Cities program expanded as much as almost any in the country dur­ ing these years. Having been selected in 1971 as one of twenty cities to participate in the MC project called "Planned Varia­ tion," Dayton experienced an MC expenditure increase from $2.9 million in 1969 to $5.2 million by 1971.109 Although the Planned Variation project offered a wider latitude to cities in their disposal of grants, its expressed purpose was to gain political support for Nixon's revenue-sharing plan by "demon­ strating the ability of local communities to manage their affairs effectively."110 A much less expressed function of this new project was the attempt to mollify many whites who perceived Model Cities as another well-funded "black" program. But the political strategy of utilizing MC to gain greater ac­ ceptance of revenue-sharing was hardly the only rationale for the suprisingly large increments in MC funds. Once again, Daniel Moynihan suggests several plausible reasons for the maintenance and even enlargement of the MC program dur­ ing the early Nixon years: Programs were continued not because they were thought effective, but because it was not thought worthwhile to try to discontinue them. The Model Cities program was such an instance. The President's first impulse was to close it down. He was dissuaded on grounds that while the program was almost certainly useless, if not indeed fraudulent, the press believed it to be an enterprise of great consequence and would judge the Administration's commitment to the 'urban crisis' by its commitment to Model Cities. There was no possibility of getting the press to see otherwise. The Administration was going to be accused of abandoning the cities regardless of what it did (any administration would have been so accused) but it was worth $100 million or so to keep the accusations from becoming too concrete. In any event, commitments had been made to persons in Model Cities neighborhoods which the Federal government had to honor. . . .111

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Perceiving Model Cities as a "symbol of federal commit­ ment to saving the cities," Moynihan feared that a dismantling of Great Society programs would lead to further divisions in the country.112 No doubt the MC program had also gained considerable support among congressmen and many local offi­ cials who wanted "a piece of the pie," and this served to boost the demand for more funds as well. Yet certainly a major in­ gredient of the "urban crisis" that Moynihan refers to was the recent ghetto violence. Thus the first Nixon Administration strategy was one of ap­ pearing to maintain important HUD programs, while in real­ ity the Administration was actually increasing expenditures for these programs. These sizable increments were authorized to some extent to pacify poor blacks in the cities through such programs as renovated Urban Renewal, low- and moderateincome housing aids, and Model Cities. Yet the rhetoric of Administration leaders largely de-emphasized these social program increases while stressing "law and order," thereby de-fusing any potential criticism of "rewarding rioters" and seemingly carrying out the mandates of white middle-class constituents. As one HUD official, in office during the first Nixon Administration, put it: "More money for social pro­ grams was substantially increased. But this did not gain verbal support and acknowledgement of Administration leaders be­ cause the majority of white constituents did not perceive that as beneficial to them, so attempts were made to placate this white constituency—the lower and middle-income whites who dominate society and where the voters are."113

Nixon and HEW The same Nixonian political strategy was applied to the in­ itiation and implementation of several key HEW programs. To appease white southerners (and northern suburbanites), the Administration's efforts to encourage school desegregation lagged considerably. On the other hand, the Nixon Adminis­ tration initiated and pushed for a Family Assistance Plan (FAP) to replace the traditional welfare system in hopes that at least

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

99

one function of the new program would be to discourage more violence by poor blacks. The Kerner Report indicated that lack of school integration was a major grievance of ghetto blacks. Yet even before he be­ came president, Richard Nixon had made it clear that he op­ posed busing and favored preservation of the neighborhood school. Hence the Administration attempts at school desegre­ gation were soon characterized as ones of "vacillation, incon­ sistency and weakness."114 Employing a southern strategy de­ signed to bring more southerners into the Republican party for the 1972 re-election bid, the Administration's desegrega­ tion procedures proved to be a "blueprint for failure,"115 For example, HEW and the Justice Department de-emphasized the most successful technique for achieving school desegrega­ tion, that of HEW fund cutoffs. Standards for school desegre­ gation were being constantly changed and frequently not enforced. Most importantly, the Nixon Administration's guidelines did not cover de facto school segregation,116 thereby declaring the Administration's strong opposition to busing to achieve racial integration in the schools. By late 1971, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission had strongly criticized the Administration for the third time within the year for its inadequate enforcement of civil rights laws and regulations, especially in the area of school integration.117 The riot cities of Rochester and Dayton were at least partial victims of this federal "slowdown" in school desegregation. Antibusing school boards were elected in each city in the early 1970s, and without sufficient federal pressure to continue their extant limited-busing programs, previous integration attempts were soon abandoned almost completely in both cities. However, the fact that a particular city had had a ghetto riot or not did seem to have at least an indirect effect upon the focus of HEW school desegregation efforts. As stated by an in­ fluential official in the Office of Civil Rights of HEW who served throughout the first Nixon Administration: "Whether these cities have had racial disorders or not does not seem to directly affect whether HEW tries to investigate for integra­ tion or not, though more complaints usually come from such

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cities and this may affect HEW's activities."118 Yet HEW's in­ vestigations of school desegregation in riot-prone as well as other cities were substantially limited by insufficient funds and manpower. Though the federal civil rights enforcement budget increased from $75 million in 1969 to more than $600 million by 1973,119 HEW still lacked the necessary funds to allow it to investigate many of the larger cities' school integra­ tion programs. As a result, HEW was forced to concentrate its efforts on desegregating public school districts in mainly middle-sized communities.120 By far the most innovative of the Nixon proposals during this period was the new approach to welfare problems of families with children. Called the "Family Assistance Plan," the proposal was first put forth in 1969. Designed to help the poor, especially the black poor, the FAP would have enabled the indigent to have a guaranteed annual minimum income ($1,600 for a family of four) with a work incentive system.121 Although this proposal covered only poor families with chil­ dren, included extremely low support levels, and failed to pass Congress, it was a significant attempt by a generally conserva­ tive Administration to pass a somewhat liberal welfare pro­ gram. More importantly, it seemed to be a key element in the long-term Nixon strategy to pacify urban blacks by "putting dollars into black people's pockets,"122 and to help southern blacks to "dismantle Southern rural feudalism once and for all. "123 As stated more cogently by Moynihan, the presidential assistant most responsible for this plan: The events leading to and from the proposal of FAP have a conceptual unity that admits of separate treatment as a long range development in social policy. The proposal was made, however, as part of an over-riding short-term strategy to bring down the level of internal violence—To avoid misunderstanding, two points about this short-term strategy should be made. First, it was my judgment that urban rioting would tend not to reoccur barring excep­ tional events or singularly clumsy government. Second, although FAP was designed to help the poor, and espe-

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

101

daily the black poor, I assumed it would have no shortterm impact of any particular consequence on the behav­ ior or attitudes of this group. The short-term impact would be on middle and upper class persons taking the measure of the new administration.124 There was no effort by the Administration to push the FAP through Congress, however, as the fear of more massive ghetto violence faded. The actual number of riots fell from a high of 176 in 1967 to 46 in 1971,125 and by the end of 1972 the Nixon Administration no longer seriously concerned itself with the plight of poor urban blacks. The FAP was finally dropped by the Executive branch. Nevertheless it is evident, despite the failure of the Family Assistance Plan, that the first Nixon Administration responded to the ghetto riots in a clearly "liberal" manner, at least in terms of the departments of HUD and HEW. While clothing its actions in "conservative" rhetoric, the Administration al­ lowed, and in some cases even encouraged, a welfare reform proposal and major increases in HUD funds for housing, urban renewal, and Model Cities. These socioeconomic pro­ grams were direct responses, in part, to the black upheavals of the 1960s. Although the president attempted to apply some braking efforts to the growth of these programs, the Great So­ ciety thrust of the previous decade had gained an inertia of its own and continued to escalate.126 By early 1973, however, President Nixon declared a mora­ torium on all federally subsidized housing in order to cut costs in a period of serious inflation. Presidential impoundment of funds and vetoes of appropriation bills abounded in the crucial areas of housing and education.127 After four years of acceler­ ated activity in public housing, the federal costs had proved to be much greater than anticipated. Furthermore, the programs did not always reach those with the greatest need, and many projects were criticized for high default rates, vandalism, and a lack of racial integration.128 Model Cities, whose operations were supposed to start flowing on a large scale in fiscal 1974, instead was melded into revenue-sharing block grants for

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community development. MC target areas were altered to in­ clude entire cities, thereby diluting the share of funds for the areas of greatest need, which were disproportionately black. These actions seemed to signal a critical transformation be­ tween the first and the second Nixon Administrations, as 1973 marked the final demise of executive support for many of the remaining legacies of the Great Society. Undoubtedly the overwhelming mandate that Nixon received at the polls in 1972 (unlike the narrow plurality of 1968) encouraged the president finally to assert his conservative opposition to a number of social programs, especially since federal funding for most of these programs had risen so rapidly since 1968. In ad­ dition, by 1973 most of the first-term liberals in the Nixon Administration—Robert Finch, James Farmer, Daniel Moynihan, Walter Hickel, George Romney, and Leon Panetta—were gone, and little intra-Administration opposi­ tion to the conservative actions of the second term remained. Then, too, even the threat of more black unrest in the cities had disappeared from officials' views by this time. As Moyni­ han wrote in 1973, "Urban disorders all but ceased in the summer· of 1969, while by 1971 the topic itself had receded from public attention."129 President Nixon, in his State of the Union Message of 1973, declared that, "America is no longer coming apart—the hour of (urban) crisis has passed." SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION As in the case of OEO, the departments of HUD and HEW reacted significantly to many of the initial major riots of the decade, though the reactions (unlike OEO) were somewhat traditional, non-innovative, and more "liberal" than "radical" in nature. In the cases of Rochester and Watts, for example, HUD poured in vast amounts of Urban Renewal funds follow­ ing large-scale disorders, while HEW responded to riots in these cities with increases in appropriations for compensatory and vocational education programs. The HUD approach em­ phasized the old "brick-and-mortar" renewal of selected sites

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

103

and was vehemently criticized by many blacks as being equated with "Negro removal." In the same vein, the HEW funding emphasis, though somewhat new with the Elemen­ tary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, still attempted to "gild the ghetto" rather than encourage racially integrated schools. Only the passage of the Model Cities program in 1966 represented a moderately innovative effort by HUD to re­ spond to some of the expressed grievances of the black rioters and to redistribute power in the ghetto to a small degree. The numerous later black outbursts of 1967-1968 had a dif­ ferent impact on these two federal departments. With the growing and virulent public "backlash, " neither department dared to give the appearance of "rewarding" violence. The in­ creasingly expensive war in Vietnam was perceived by many policy makers as pre-empting the ability of HUD and HEW to devote more funds to the urban ghettos during this period. For the most part, the forces of domestic backlash and foreign war effectively stymied any significant attempts by these de­ partments to respond to the riots. There were several notable exceptions, however. In HUD, the traditional emphasis of the Urban Renewal approach was changing and Model Cities grants were more likely to go to riot-prone cities than to other cities. In addition, the major Open Housing and National Housing Acts of 1968 were passed due, in part, to the impetus of the urban violence, while dramatic welfare increases in HEW were also affected by the riots. Still, the overall HUD riot response during this time period was moderately "liberal" in scope (especially when compared to that of OEO), and HEW reactions for the same period could easily be typified as practically non-existent if one perceived welfare increments as affected more by local initiative than by reforms at the na­ tional level. Much of the social and economic policy of the first Nixon Administration (1969-1972) was also moderately affected by the lingering memory of the massive black violence and possi­ ble threats of more of the same. Although the new Administra­ tion's rhetoric stressed "law and order" and the discon-

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tinuance of many of the Great Society programs, in reality Nixon officials (with pressure from Congress and liberal bu­ reaucrats) not only maintained most of the new HUD and HEW programs, but substantially increased the funding of many of them. This was especially true in the case of HUD, where funding for Urban Renewal, Model Cities, and low- and moderate-income housing aids was dramatically increased (even when the effects of inflation are considered). These pro­ grammatic increments, along with the proposed Family As­ sistance Plan of 1970 and other less important social programs, were designed, at least in part, with the idea of responding to previous riot grievances and helping to alleviate the possibility of more ghetto violence. In this sense, the policy responses of this period were quite "liberal" in terms of collective violence perspectives, but no programs were implemented that were capable of substantially altering socioeconomic power relationships. The rhetorical stance of the Nixon Administration, in addi­ tion to its rather adamant denial of executive authority to en­ courage the racial integration of housing and schools, served to ameliorate relations with its southern and white suburban constituents. Indeed, in light of the conservative mood that prevailed among the public during the first Nixon Administra­ tion, it may have been that only a conservative-sounding pres­ ident would have had the necessary support to allow him to continue many of the Great Society programs. Moynihan strongly encouraged Nixon to chart a course of moderate re­ form that was "liberal" or "progressive" but was also "compat­ ible with Republican principles in their broadest sense, e.g., giving the poor cash payments instead of social services dis­ tributed through a governmental apparatus."130 Appealing to Nixon's sense of history, Moynihan urged the president to think of himself as a modern-day Disraeli (Queen Victoria's conservative prime minister who became a reformer), doing what the liberals dared not propose. Nevertheless, as the noticeable levels of urban violence diminished and the inhouse liberals left office, the Administration began to move

HUD and HEW: Moderate Response

105

ahead with its original conservative plan to re-order social priority, to cut back on federal spending, and to progress to­ ward a general strategy of revenue-sharing for the cities. One conclusion suggested by this analysis is the general dif­ ference between HUD and HEW in terms of the magnitude and quality of policy responses to the riots. Athough officials queried in each department cited relative deprivation and white discrimination most often as the major causes of the dis­ orders, HUD post-riot policies were clearly more innovative and sensitive to ghetto demands than were those of HEW. Re­ forms in Urban Renewal, initiation and enlargement of Model Cities, and a greater emphasis upon housing for the poor were all significant HUD policies developed, at least in part, due to the riots. Although the data on HEW are less complete, it ap­ pears that only the mildly innovative Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 afforded HEW a mech­ anism for responding to the major educational grievances of rioters. Yet welfare increases, due partly to local initiative, were probably HEW's most clear-cut policy reaction. Indeed, a number of HEW officials interviewed for this study sug­ gested that they were unaware of any fundamental responses to the violence within their department. Perhaps the best explanation for these disparities in policy responses pertains to the bureaucratic organizations of these departments. HEW has long been considered one of the most "massive and fragmented" of any of the federal departments131 and an agency whose clientele-groups had been previously well established. The effect this may have had on the depart­ ment's ability to respond to crisis is aptly stated by political scientist Matthew Holden in his discussion of "bureaucratic imperialism": "Since administrative agencies tend to be coopted by particular constituencies, other constituencies whose interests are affected have difficulty entering the process as agent boundaries are stabilized and, indeed!, ossified. This is the source of pathological disinclination to adapt to new cir­ cumstances."132 This is at least one plausible explanation of the bureaucratic inertia that marked the Department of

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Health, Education, and Welfare's responses to the ghetto up­ heavals. Compared with HEW, HUD was newly organized and still in the process of stabilizing many of its clientele-groups at the time of the urban violence. Led by Robert Weaver (a black), HUD was quite sympathetic to ghetto grievances, as depicted by the general nature of its responses to the riots. Moreover, Model Cities and the Open Housing Act were innovative at­ tempts to meet the expressed demands of HUD's new black constituents during the period of urban crisis. Nonetheless, neither of these federal departments reacted to the riots in the same direct, innovative, and "transitional" fashion that characterized most OEO responses. Less immune to political pressures than OEO, the departments of HUD and HEW reacted to the riots in a moderate, incremental, and "liberal" fashion with only a few improvisations. Yet even at the time of the early disorders and later on through the first Nixon Administration, there was a concerted attempt, espe­ cially in HUD, to attack some of the basic grievances of ghetto blacks, and the urban violence played a crucial part in stimulating these actions.

CHAPTER IV

Justice and Defense: From Riot Prevention to Riot Control In the long run, however, we cannot solve the problems of our slums by police power. To en­ deavor to do so would not only be foreign to our ideals, it would betray a tragic misunderstanding of the profound problems of the slum. It is no more possible to suppress rioting where its causes are fermenting than it is to hold the lid on a boiling pot. —Deputy Attorney General Ramsey Clark, 1965.1 There's a difference between my philosophy and Ramsey Clark's. I think this (Justice Depart­ ment) is an institution for law enforcement, not social improvement. —Attorney General John Mitchell, 1969.2

The massive cries for "law and order," especially from the public and many congressmen, paralleled the rapid increase in the number of urban riots through the 1960s. These increas­ ingly pervasive cries put tremendous pressures on the Justice Department (and to a lesser degree, on the Department of Defense) to control and repress black rioters using almost any available means. In order to encourage more repressive fed­ eral law enforcement policies, Congress hurriedly passed the Crime Control Act and the antiriot law in 1968. Federal offi­ cials in the Justice Department were clearly compelled to re­ evaluate the tenuous balance between the increased demands for domestic control and stability and the more general judicial values of political liberty and equitable law enforcement. The influence of the black violence on the resolution of this conflict at the national level is the primary focus of this chapter.

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The "law and order" emphasis on physical control and re­ pression of black militants did not really dominate the De­ partments of Justice and Defense during the period (19631966) of initial, sporadic rioting. Although the 1960s were wracked with protest and political upheavals, there was gen­ erally widespread public sympathy for the plight of most black Americans, and this feeling of empathy was seemingly no greater than among many federal executive officials, including a number of those in the Justice Department. Attorney Gen­ eral Nicholas Katzenbach and Deputy Attorney General Ram­ sey Clark both viewed the ghetto violence in "liberal"-to"radical" terms, seeing it as "a symptom of deeper social ills and a police-community relations problem,"3 and both officials attempted to encourage constructive ways of preventing such disorders. With this emphasis upon prevention of riots, these two decision makers (especially Clark) advocated the need for basic social reforms, and more immediately, an improvement in police-community relations and better intelligence in order to predict possible outbreaks. The major riots and protest activities of 1967-1968, followed by the change in presidential administrations and the ap­ pointment of John Mitchell as attorney general in 1969, sig­ nificantly transformed the emphasis of the department, in­ cluding the general nature of its responses to the urban violence. Domestic intelligence surveillance of alleged black militants by both Justice and Defense was increased substan­ tially, and Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) funds for local police agencies were stepped up. Moreover, the former Justice Department emphasis upon police-community relations was denigrated to a great extent. Perhaps the most obvious and far-reaching policy continuation during the Nixon Administration, however, was the increasing centralization of law enforcement policy making,4 a direct re­ sult of the internal "law and order" crises of the 1960s. Yet be­ fore elaborating these major themes, it is important to take a brief look at the historical precedents of law enforcement re­ sponses to urban black violence in America, as well as a look at

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some of the unique issues presented by the massive upheavals of the last decade. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW: RIOTS, THE POLICE, AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT Law enforcement in the United States has traditionally been a local community function. However, the increased urbaniza­ tion, industrialization, and social heterogeneity of American society contributed to the severe and somewhat frequent episodes of civil violence, thereby giving rise to larger and more formalized agencies of social control. Beginning in the late 1800s, black riots began to assume a significant proportion of urban upheavals, and this continued into the present cen­ tury, appearing most markedly around the times of World Wars I and II. As in other forms of urban violence, the law enforcement reaction to most of the black riots was to utilize local police as the primary control agency, calling upon Na­ tional Guardsmen or regular federal troops only as an option of last resort.5 Nevertheless, the employment of this strategy for controlling ghetto violence of the twentieth century, espe­ cially that of the 1960s, proved to be quite inadequate. Historian Allen Grimshaw has claimed, "There is agree­ ment—that in almost every major (black) riot local police forces have been ineffective and inefficient."6 This has been true for a variety of reasons. First, police forces in almost every city that experienced large-scale ghetto violence were understaffed in terms of being able to successfully control such upheavals. Second, not only did the police lack sufficient numbers, but most police departments lacked any sort of de­ tailed plans for actions in the event of massive racial violence.7 Third, in many instances, the police failed actively to enforce the law. This was partially due to understaffing and lack of planning and technical control capacity, but was also due to police sympathy for the rioters (who before the 1960s were predominately whites in the act of attacking blacks).8 Finally, and most importantly, when the local police did at-

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tempt to maintain law and order during a riot (such police ac­ tions being the rule rather than the exception), their practices were "frequently not in a neutral and impartial manner."9 The use of illegal police actions, partisanship toward white rioters, and discriminatory treatment of black rioters have all been valid criticisms of police behavior during most urban black upheavals. In addition, the police sometimes even joined the riot themselves on the side of the white mob, and "this in­ volvement has varied from statements of support to active par­ ticipation in violence directed against non-lawbreaking Neg­ roes."10 If, historically, police responses to major ghetto riots have been slow (if at all), partial, discriminatory, and even illegal, the actions of the National Guard and federal troops in riot control situations have generally been much more praisewor­ thy and impartial. The only noticeable drawback in the utiliza­ tion of such troops was the tendency of municipal authorities to wait too long before summoning federal forces.11 The suc­ cess of these outside troops was most likely due to several no­ table factors. Not only did army and state forces usually have the advantage of coming in fresh at the end of a riot, but they were perceived by almost all as being uninvolved in local is­ sues, and therefore generally neutral. Furthermore, federal troops had the necessary numbers, training, and military or­ ganization to deal effectively with massive disorders.12 With the advent of the 1960s came the most widespread and severe urban riots of any single decade in U.S. history. In the attempt to control such pervasive violence, local police forces proved to be more professional, impartial, and well-prepared than previously in American history.13 Yet even with these improvements, most local police forces had grave difficulties de-fusing the massive urban conflagrations of the 1960s. The nature of black violence had changed from earlier times, as blacks increasingly took the initiative in attacking targets of perceived white suppression—the most obvious of these being the police themselves. Indeed, the most frequently cited grievance of blacks in riot cities was "police practices" vis-a-vis

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Negroes,14 and no other single factor precipitated so much violence so often as did some form of incident involving blacks and the police. In addition, most local police forces were illprepared to control successfully major acts of collective vio­ lence. They lacked the necessary numbers, knowledge, or­ ganization, and equipment with which to confront such crises, and therefore turned increasingly to the state and federal gov­ ernments for assistance. More and more the national government was called upon during the 1960s for the manpower, information, training, and financial resources necessary to control the violent urban dis­ orders. Within the federal government, it was the Justice De­ partment (and to a lesser extent the Department of Defense) that was the focus of local community efforts to obtain assist­ ance in law enforcement. In fact, one might conceivably argue that no other single federal department was affected so much by the ghetto riots of the 1960s as the Justice Department. In the words of Ramsey Clark, attorney general during the most intense riot years of 1967-1968: "The Justice Department had been historically quiet and remote. But crime and civil rights made people focus on the Justice Department for action to meet the crisis, and the riots were the greatest manifestation of the crisis. Indeed, the riots had the greatest impact (on the Justice Department) of any events during that period.'15 (Emphasis added.) THE EARLY RIOTS: LIMITED FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT Until the riots of the 1960s reached the massive proportions of 1967-1968, the Justice and Defense Departments were not seriously concerned with the maintenance of order at the local level. As part of the American tradition of domestic law en­ forcement, the federal government left the function of social control up to local and state officials except when called upon in situations of serious crisis. Hence, the sporadic early riots of 1963-1966 were never numerous nor intense enough to pro-

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voke a significant national response in the form of an increased emphasis on "law and order." Indeed, the predominant fed­ eral reaction to these first black upheavals of the decade was a social-service, "transitional"-type response (part "radical," part "liberal"), with moderate attempts to alleviate some of the perceived black grievances underlying the riots. Al­ though a noticeable repression-oriented "liberal" or even a "conservative" national response might have been anticipated, at least to the severe initial violence, the cases of the riot af­ termaths in Rochester, Watts, and other cities tend to refute this contention. The large-scale outburst in Rochester in July 1964 was the most intense ghetto riot of the decade up to that time. Like many later black disorders in the United States, the Rochester violence was precipitated by a police incident in the Negro community, although police-black community relations had seriously deteriorated in the city over a considerable period before this incident. Of the five major demands presented by black rioters to the Rochester mayor as necessary conditions for ending the violence, two dealt with suggested im­ provements in police-black relations.16 But the mayor refused to consider any of these demands until the violence subsided, and the immediate cry of many Rochesterians was for the quick restoration of "law and order." As one of the city's two major newspapers editorialized during the riot: The rioting in Rochester is a shock and shame to our community. All the progress in good race relations achieved here in recent years is threatened unless lawlessness is halted immediately and remains halted. That means that every law enforcement officer the community can muster, from any agency, must enforce the public safety and decency of Rochester. . . . Every community leader, Negro or white, must use all his or her influence for law and order. Nothing that in­ cites further rioting can be tolerated.

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City officials' first obligation is to enforce the law, to stop the looting and rioting, to protect the safety of the city. There can be no laxity in that work, for any reason.17 Only after several days of violence and the arrival of 1500 National Guardsmen did the rioting finally subside. Shortly thereafter Rochester Police Chief William Lombard, whose car was overturned and life threatened during the upheaval, moved to improve the riot control capabilities of his police force. Urged on by an FBI report on nine riot incidents that concluded that specialized riot training for police was neces­ sary,18 Lombard instituted such training for more than 300 local policemen within two months of the violence. This fivehour special seminar emphasized police intelligence, mobili­ zation of police, arrest procedures, police formations for crowd control, and police conduct during riots.19 New riot control equipment for the police was also purchased, and a new em­ phasis placed upon police-community relations, especially upon "rehabilitative work with youth," the most explosive part of the inner city population.20 Practically none of these immediate law enforcement re­ sponses in Rochester was affected by federal reactions. Al­ though National Guard troops had been called in for a short period and the FBI riot report may have stimulated the im­ plementation of special police training, the initiation and fund­ ing of all of these programs were local. The pronounced em­ phasis of the new Rochester programs was control-oriented, with the much-discussed police-community relations unit not being implemented until almost two years after the 1964 riot. Nevertheless, this somewhat neglected stress on riot preven­ tion programs in Rochester, especially the police-black rela­ tions' efforts, received at least some support from two Justice Department programs—the Community Relations Service and the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance. The Community Relations Service (CRS) was originally set up in 1964 to deal with local problems that were expected as a result of the public accommodations desegregation efforts of

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the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As part of the Commerce Depart­ ment (though transferred to the Justice Department by early 1966), the CRS was to "function as a peace-making body by providing assistance in the resolution of racial conflicts" at the community level.21 In its first years of operation, the agency was crisis-oriented and concentrated its meager staff (twentyfive professionals) in the South. However, with the urban riots of 1964-1965, the CRS began to enlarge its staff and to shift its resources to the large cities of the North. With this geo­ graphical shift came a functional shift, as the CRS moved "to attempt to organize community resources for change,"22 rather than simply conciliating disputes on an ad hoc, shortterm basis. The Community Relations Service also assisted troubled cities in obtaining substantive federal programs or aid in the areas of job-training, Model Cities, education, police-community relations, and media relations. Finally, by 1965 the CRS was doing considerable work in gathering intel­ ligence on riot cities, and it soon became a key adviser to the attorney general and the White House on the causes and solu­ tions to the ghetto disorders.23 As a result of the 1964 urban violence (including that in Rochester), the Community Relations Service directed in 1965 an interagency federal Task Force on Urban Problems, whose general purpose was to "increase, coordinate and study Federal assistance to the ghetto areas of a number of northern cities."24 The emphasis of this executive task force was "riot prevention" in the form of expanded social and economic pro­ grams for certain target cities, but the effect of this task force was also to create a permanent CRS presence in major racially tense cities. Among the nine large target cities assisted in the summer of 1965 was Rochester (the others were Boston, Gary, New York, Philadelphia, Newark, Cleveland, Detroit, and Oakland).25 The CRS team in Rochester encouraged the de­ velopment of a police-cdmmunity relations program there,26 and, as part of the interagency task force, the team assisted in increasing federal aid to the city from the Departments of OEO, HEW, and Labor.27

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The other Justice Department agency that gave some postriot support to Rochester, especially in the area of policecommunity relations, was the OfBce of Law Enforcement Assistance (OLEA). Established by the Law Enforcement As­ sistance Act of 1965, OLEA was designed to "foster new ap­ proaches, new capabilities, and new resources for dealing with crime and criminals."28 Though meagerly funded (it spent only a little more than $20 million in its almost three years of operation),29 it did represent the initial intervention of the na­ tional government into the funding of local law enforcement activities. This federal funding increased dramatically with the new Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) of 1968. Although this office had little money for meeting local police needs, most prominent among these grants was assist­ ance for police-community relations. Newark, Washington, New Orleans, Detroit, and Pittsburgh received early grants for training police to better understand racial minorities and how to cope with civil disorders should they occur. Over the next two and one-half years, 34 large cities received special OLEA grants to promote the planning and development of police-community relations programs,30 and among these cities was Rochester. Although the Rochester OLEA grant of $14,888 was small, it helped to expand the new policecommunity relations effort, including Spanish-language train­ ing for 30 officers31 (the Puerto Rican population in the city was growing rapidly during this period). Role of the FBI

The emphasis of federal law enforcement assistance to Roches­ ter and other early riot (or riot-threatened) cities was clearly on riot prevention strategies, especially police-community re­ lations programs and attempts to alleviate other black griev­ ances perceived as causes of the violence. The only obvious exception to this generalization, as of 1963-1966, was the re­ sponse of the FBI. Investigating the causes of these early riots, the FBI, headed by J. Edgar Hoover, was one of the very few

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federal agencies to adopt a decidedly "conservative" view of the riots. In its report on nine riot incidents in the summer of 1964, the FBI concluded that: Whatever the cause, in each instance there was first violent interference with the policeman on the scene, fol­ lowed by the gathering of a crowd. Then, either because of exhortation of rabble-rousers or further incidents caused by the disturbance, the crowd was increased by the arrival of youths looking for excitement or violence or worse. As mob spirit swept through the crowd, it became increasingly unruly, began stoning police officers and civilians, and the ominous surge of a mass of violent people bent on destruction spread through the streets.32 Although the FBI concluded in the same report that "there was no systematic planning or organization of any of the city riots," it also cited individuals "with histories of Communist affiliation," black militants, and "violent agitators" as the in­ stigators of many of the urban disorders.33 With this "conservative" interpretation of the black riots, it is not too surprising that the FBI stressed repression and con­ trol strategies for lessening such violence. In the fall of 1964 the FBI, at the direction of President Johnson, began to make riot control training available to local police departments, and by mid-1967 such training assistance had been extended to more than 70,000 officials and civilians. In addition, a training booklet entitled "Prevention and Control of Mobs and Riots" was published by the FBI in early 1965, and over 27,000 copies were distributed to local and state officials within a two-year period.34 No doubt there was an increasing demand from chiefs of police in large northern cities for aid in riot control training since few police departments were adequately prepared for such major crises. Thus, the expanded FBI training in this area fulfilled a vital need in many communities, and until the latter 1960s, no other federal agency developed any sort of similar program to meet these local demands. Nevertheless,

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Attorney General Katzenbach and later Clark (and most other Justice Department agencies before 1969) strongly disagreed with the FBI's view of riot causality as well as with its predom­ inant response to the early disorders. As a result, most officials in the Justice Department tended to seek intelligence on the riots from sources other than the FBI,35 and strategies other than control methods of alleviating the violence were stressed by the department's leaders.

The Watts Riot The major outburst of violence in the Watts section of Los Angeles in August 1965 served mainly to heighten the kind of federal law enforcement response already underway as a result of the previous summer's riots. Like the Rochester upheaval, the Watts riot was precipitated by a police incident in the black community, as police practices had long been an emo­ tional issue in Los Angeles' black and Mexican-American sec­ tions. The focal point of much of the black hatred of the police in Los Angeles was the chief of police, William Parker, whose "arrogance and insensitivity in relation to minority groups" was well known.36 Parker's death in 1966 and his replacement by a racial moderate improved relations between the police and the black community.37 Other local efforts in the area of police-community relations also improved interracial prob­ lems. A follow-up study by the McCone Commission one year after the Watts riot concluded that there had been a general improvement in law enforcement even though there were still some "deficiencies."38 The most immediate reaction of the federal government to the Watts rebellion was the presidential appointment of an executive task force to investigate the causes of, and to rec­ ommend solutions for, the riot. The task force was headed by Ramsey Clark (then deputy attorney general) assisted by sev­ eral other federal officials including Roger Wilkins, an influen­ tial black in the Community Relations Service who shortly thereafter became head of the CRS. Wilkins, who worked closely with Clark after the Watts riot, "made sure that Clark

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actually got into the ghetto, met the black leaders, and could see what was going on. "39 Not surprisingly, Clark quickly rejected the "riff-raff," con­ spiratorial and other "conservative" views of the riots. The task force report assumed a very "transitional" perspective with recommendations for large increases in federal aid for so­ cial and economic rehabilitation of Watts. Ramsey Clark's per­ sonal view of the grievances underlying the riot in Los Angeles was vividly expressed a few years later: The people of Watts knew they suffered far greater misery than any other part of the city. To many there it seemed as though white society intended to keep them in poverty, on relief, uneducated, unemployed, out of the way. . . . All power, wealth and opportunity were absen­ tee. . . . They lived amid a new colonialism—a colony of poverty, ignorance, sickness, unemployment, vice and crime—isolated in central city. Order had been maintained by white police through force. Nearly all blacks in Watts believed the police were brutal, deliberately brutal, as a technique of control.40 As a result of the task force's suggestions, President Johnson authorized a number of additional employment, health, edu­ cation, and housing programs for Los Angeles. However, no significant new federal programs of law enforcement assistance were made available to the Los Angeles police department fol­ lowing the Watts riot, and this was apparently due to several circumstances. As in the case of Rochester and the other initial riots of the decade, the Justice Department perceived law en­ forcement as primarily a local (and state) function and felt that the riots, as of then, did not constitute a crisis of the propor­ tion necessary to warrant the massive intervention of the fed­ eral government. Additionally, most federal executive officials did not believe that a "law and order" response would be very productive in alleviating the fundamental grievances underly­ ing the disorders. Finally, the city of Los Angeles itself was not receptive to

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law enforcement aid from the national government, especially in the form of riot prevention activities. When the Community Relations Service offered to send in a "riot prevention" team in the spring of 1965, Los Angeles officials refused to accept it.41 The police department in Los Angeles thought of itself (and was generally respected by others) as a very capable and efficient force compared to most other large cities.42 Even dur­ ing the Watts riot it tended to refuse offers of outside sugges­ tions and help, although the National Guard was ultimately called in. The refusals of intransigent top-level officials in the Los Angeles Police Department were often quoted: "We know how to run a riot and we are going to handle it our way." "Negro police officers are not as competent as Cauca­ sian officers and the only reason for sending them in would be because they have black skins and are invisible at night." "We are in the business of trying to quell a riot and we haven't got time to engage in any sociological experi­ ments."43 Although Los Angeles received little or no direct federal aid for law enforcement activities immediately following its major riot, this shocking display of violence had a noticeable impact upon the Departments of Justice and Defense and their con­ cerns for maintaining order. Besides a moderate increase in emphasis upon the riot prevention activities of CRS44 and the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance, a new concern was growing about gathering information and intelligence on the riots and their causes. As of 1965, for example, the FBI re­ ported that it "had under investigation a number of Negro nationalist groups which are anti-white and actively promote racial hatred."45 These organizations included the Black Mus­ lims, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and the Black Lib­ eration Front, all of which, according to the FBI, had "consid­ erable potential for violence."46

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Because most local police forces had not yet developed a ca­ pacity for gathering intelligence about black militant groups and community tensions related to riot causation factors, the Departments of Justice and Defense believed that they had to augment FBI operations in order to provide adequate intelli­ gence on the growing urban violence. Thus in the summer of 1966 the Criminal Division of the Justice Department organ­ ized the Summer Project, a unit "which had the capability for receiving information (about serious ghetto disturbances), col­ lating it, and preparing reports for the Attorney General on a weekly basis."47 Operating seven days a week, the Summer Project served as an "early warning system" for urban riots. It gathered information on trouble-potential cities from various sources, including U.S. attorneys in each major city, FBI re­ ports, army intelligence, local police departments, other fed­ eral agencies, and the news-tickers. Nevertheless, the quality of its information was never of the caliber that would have en­ abled it to predict riot-outbreaks reliably.48 To supplement this Justice Department intelligence organization, as well as to gather more information about disorders in which its troops might be deployed, the U.S. Army Intelligence Command "broadened its mandate (after Watts) to include early warning of possible disorders. "49 This was the beginning of a major change in the role of army intelligence, whose primary func­ tion had been investigations of persons for security clearance. In summary, it seems apparent that the early riots of the 1960s, and most certainly those in Rochester and Los Angeles, resulted in no dramatic changes in federal law enforcement ac­ tivities. Maintaining order was still presumed to be a local and state function. The black violence of 1964-1965 did, however, bring about a moderate and increasing emphasis on riot pre­ vention activities by the Justice Department, whose riot per­ spective was "radical"-to-"liberal." Through the CRS and OLEA, the department attempted to encourage effective police-community relations programs in racially tense cities. Riot control activities were little stressed at the federal level, with only the FBI initiating a limited (but growing) police

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riot-training program. Finally, the seeds of a national domestic intelligence apparatus were planted by 1965-1966, due mainly to the large-scale Watts outburst, and this incipient surveil­ lance network foreshadowed much of the federal response that developed more fully later in the decade. THE RIOTS OF 1967-1968: INCREASED INVOLVEMENT OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT The urban riots of 1967-1968 were the zenith of black violence during the decade and probably the worst single period of ghetto conflagration in United States history. More than 160 disorders occurred in some 128 American cities in the first nine months of 1967,50 and, following the April 1968 assassina­ tion of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the nation was rocked by another wave of riots in more than 100 cities. One comprehen­ sive study of this period of intense and widespread violence concluded that: "There is . . . substantial agreement that the 1960s riots (especially 1967-1968) confronted Americawith the greatest threat to public order since the dreadful industrial disputes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen­ turies."51 The "threat to public order" during this period was best exemplified by the major riot in Detroit in July 1967. Presi­ dent Johnson himself claimed that "Detroit provided one of the worst instances (of rioting)—so bad, in fact, that the events of July 24-28, 1967, will remain forever etched in my mem­ ory."52 After several days of uncontrollable violence, Gover­ nor Romney finally requested that federal troops be dis­ patched to the city. The Detroit riot thus marked a significant turning point in federal policy toward local law enforcement since this severe upheaval clearly demonstrated to federal offi­ cials the inability of local and state forces to contain disorders. Henceforth the Justice and Defense Departments began to as­ sist local police to a much greater degree in the prevention and control of the spiraling urban violence.

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As during the earlier riots of the decade, the primaiy em­ phasis of the Justice Department was on the prevention of such disorders. Though the voices calling for more "law and order" and more control-oriented police strategies became in­ creasingly potent, the Department of Justice rarely wavered from its earlier philosophy. No one better epitomized this phi­ losophy than Ramsey Clark, who was one of the most influen­ tial cabinet-level secretaries in the Johnson Administration.33 According to Clarence Mitchell, director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP and one who had close relations with the president and his cabinet, Ramsey Clark was: . . . the most rational cabinet-level official to respond dur­ ing the riot period. Other public and private officials had an 'extra-repressive' notion, or the notion that you could 'buy-off' the rioters by giving them lots of money. But you had to have a balance between the protection of life and property and freedom of movement. . . and you also had to recognize that people were in need of assistance. And this is what Ramsey Clark seemed to grasp.54 In addition, Roger Wilkins, director of the CRS and a close associate of Clark's after the Watts riot, also claimed that the "law and order response was not as great as one might have expected at Justice due to Clark being Attorney General."55 As a crucial part of the Justice Department's growing con­ cern over the urban violence, the department, along with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), sponsored a series of national conferences in the winter of 1967-1968. Urged on by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Dis­ orders, which had recommended such conferences,56 the Jus­ tice Department set up four one-week sessions at Airlie House, a conference center near Washington. The sessions were attended by some 400 mayors, city managers, and police officials from the 136 largest cities in the country.57 These Washington conferences were followed by regional meetings in California, Georgia, Oklahoma, and West Virginia for key police personnel. In assessing these conferences, Ramsey

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Clark claimed that "90 percent of the effort was devoted to analyzing and developing methods of riot prevention" and that "police-community relations were seen as the key."58 Moreover, the director of the IACP stated that the meetings were: "decisive in shaping understanding of disorder preven­ tion and control—recognition that the important questions are not so much tactics, like whether to use V-wedge riot forma­ tions, but community relations, close command supervision, and the capacity to respond to incipient disorder quickly. "59 As another major component of the Justice Department's emphasis upon riot prevention activities, the Community Re­ lations Service (CRS) was enlarged and began to concentrate its resources in 35 major cities where it was thought it could be most effective for the greatest number of blacks.60 Though CRS continued to assist hundreds of other communities on an ad hoc, crisis basis, both Clark and Wilkins eschewed this "fireman's" approach and "endeavored to get the service further involved in (riot) prevention operations."61 As the at­ torney general expressed it: "We had high aspirations for the CRS. It was more than an early warning program. It was our hope of coordinating federal programs that alleviate riot condi­ tions in ghetto areas, . . . and the CRS would also help to im­ prove police-community relations."62 With its new goal of "constructive social change, " the CRS by 1968 was working closely with black leaders in the commu­ nity "to give technical advice and support. . . to assist them in achieving the specific goals which they desired."63 The service also worked through the media as a means of reaching the ghetto masses, and "helped mature the media . . . who (as a result) were not as haphazard in covering racial disorders."64 Furthermore, as it had earlier in the decade, the CRS proved to be a vital source of intelligence on riot-prone cities. In all these riot prevention activities, however, the Com­ munity Relations Service was rarely as successful as Clark and others had anticipated. Lacking resources and staff, the CRS could adequately assist only a few troubled cities, and Clark himself had estimated it would have taken 10,000 offi-

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cials to handle the whole nation.65 Due to the nature of its ac­ tivities, the CRS worked confidentially, and therefore gained little prestige in the eyes of other departments, which often conceived of the CRS as having "no philosophy and no pur­ pose."66 Another serious problem confronting most local police de­ partments in their attempts to prevent and control riots was their lack of adequate intelligence and information about what was occurring in the ghetto. While the Justice Department encouraged local authorities to develop their own intelligence programs, most cities lacked the money and experience to do so. The FBI and the CRS both attempted to supplement exist­ ing local information programs, but this was still woefully in­ adequate in many urban areas. As a result, the Justice De­ partment (again with a recommendation from the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders) established in late 1967 an intelligence center and clearinghouse called the Interdivision Information Unit (IDIU). Inspired by the summer riots in Newark and Detroit and the antiwar march on the Pentagon in the fall, the IDIU (later renamed the Civil Dis­ turbance Unit) was an enlargement and formalization of the Summer Project of 1966. With an Interdivisional Information Unit and an Intelligence Un'it, the IDIU served to develop, evaluate, and disseminate data relevant to the riots (and to antiwar protest to a lesser degree). This special unit utilized a computer to compile and correlate information, which soon ranged in the thousands of items daily and was retrieved primarily from the FBI.67 The new intelligence center allowed the Justice Depart­ ment to oversee more effectively the national urban situation, to better enforce federal laws, and to disseminate more effi­ ciently federally gathered information to metropolitan offi­ cials. It is apparent that its original purpose was to prevent riots; that is, to present rapidly a variety of data about a city in trouble or about the patterns of behavior of a black militant so that local and federal officials might be better prepared to deal with possible crises.68 The attorney general himself was clear

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about the use of this intelligence by local police. Police should utilize such information to "wove fast and Brmly . . . against such (black militant) leadership whenever a violation of the law is found." Whenever there was no "unlawful conduct," Clark affirmed, police should only "rely upon their intelli­ gence and their ability to act whenever any violation might oc­ cur. "69 It was clear that civil liberties were not to be abused regardless of the extent of the violence. Other, less significant Justice Department operations also tended to emphasize riot prevention and alternatives to the use of deadly force for riot control. For example, as of the spring of 1968 the Civil Rights Division began to move into urban areas of unrest where there seemed to be "legitimate Negro grievances" in an effort to achieve "maximum enforce­ ment of the civil rights laws."70 Formerly this division, with its approximately ninety lawyers, had been confined mainly to the South. The Civil Rights Division also made substantial ef­ forts to ensure that local criminal justice processes operated effectively and fairly with respect to the masses of people arrested during certain disturbances.71 In addition, the Justice Department demonstrated the use of nonlethal riot control agents for purposes of mob control, and sponsored a program under the direction of the IACP to assist local police departments in "developing a more effective chemical agent capability. "72 No doubt the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, issued in early 1968, tended to reaffirm what the Justice Department was already doing.73 Though a special letter to the president in October of 1967 had played a role in inspiring the national training conferences for local offi­ cials, the commission later made few recommendations that the Justice Department had not already incorporated into pol­ icy. In fact, many of the Kerner Report's recommendations seemed to be at least a partial result of the testimony before it by several Justice officials.74 Nevertheless, the National Advi­ sory Commission Report, along with the president's Crime Commission Report of 1967, lended a degree of moral support

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and political legitimacy to the violence-prevention orientation of the Justice Department.

The Trend Toward Riot Control Despite the increased efforts of the Justice Department in 1967-1968, the major activities in most local communities dur­ ing this period were increasingly in the area of riot control and repressive strategies. With pervasive and severe riots an im­ mediate issue, chiefs of police and other municipal officials were overwhelmingly concerned with simply "keeping the peace" (as well as maintaining their own positions in office, which they perceived would directly result only from a re­ stored "law and order.")75 In Rochester, for example, the police-community relations agency was a meager and rather symbolic response to the 1964 riot, as most local riot-response money for the police was used for riot-control training, intelli­ gence, tactics, and equipment such as helmets, riot sticks, a riot shotgun, and chemical Mace.76 Countless other major cities also quickly stockpiled riotcontrol weapons and intensified riot-control training, using mainly local funds to do so. The following description, written in April 1968, vividly portrays what was occurring in many cities—what one author called preparations for "the Second Civil War":77 In the atmosphere of tension that has prevailed since last summer, salesmen of arms and armor have found themselves welcome in police stations across the land. Before the riot at Newark, Police Director Spina was greatly interested in a many faceted program of policecommunity relations. In the wake of the troubles, he has­ tily equipped his 1,400 policemen with $300,000 worth of bulletproof helmets, armored cars, anti-sniper rifles and "all the tear gas we could ever need."— All across the country, cities have laid in vast supplies of anti-riot hardware. Chicago spent $168,000 on three helicopters to serve as airborne command posts during riots, and to survey rooftops for caches of bricks, bottles

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and concrete blocks. New York City bought 5,000 riot helmets at a cost of $100,000. In Virginia, the state police ordered six armored cars costing $30,000 each, although the Advisory Commission warned that displays of exces­ sive force—tanks, for example—would probably only in­ flame the passions of the crowd. In Los Angeles, the sheriff's department thriftily built its own armored car for $7,000 by modifying an old war-sur­ plus model, . . .78 Certainly the "law and order" reactions of the Congress and various other federal departments or agencies encouraged the repressive tactics of local officials. As early as the summer of 1966, the House of Representatives passed an antiriot meas­ ure that would have made it a federal crime to cross state lines with the intent to incite or participate in a riot. This measure died in the Senate that year, but two years later it was enacted as an amendment to the Open Housing Act of 1968. Known as the "Rap Rrown bill" (H. Rap Rrown and Stokely Carmichael were the outspoken, itinerant black militants of this period), this antiriot act was considered too broad in scope by the pres­ ident and the attorney general.79 Ramsey Clark labeled it "fear legislation" and felt that it might well impede free speech or peaceful assembly.80 Others in the Justice Department saw the act as virtually unenforceable since it would shift jurisdic­ tion in this area from the local to the federal level, and the fed­ eral government simply did not have an adequate police capa­ bility for enforcing it.81 Nevertheless, the attorney general reluctantly accepted this amendment as "part of the price for open housing legislation. "82 A much more important piece of legislation passed by Con­ gress in 1968 was the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. Enacted for the essential purpose of upgrading state and local police forces and law enforcement methods, it also specified that the Law Enforcement Assistance Adminis­ tration (LEAA) in the Justice Department give "special em­ phasis to projects dealing with the prevention, detection, and control of riots and other violent civil disorders."83 In terms of

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this riot control emphasis, the act provided a financial incen­ tive for the federal funding of riot programs. Thus 75 percent of the cost of police antiriot projects would be paid for by the federal government, whereas federal funds would only cover approximately 60 percent of the cost of other law enforcement programs. The new crime measure also provided for the allo­ cation of funds through block grants to the states rather than through direct grants to local communities, and these block grants were to be under the direct authority of a threemember Law Enforcement Administration. Direct control of these funds, which soon increased to sizable amounts, was not given to Attorney General Ramsey Clark because he was con­ sidered "too liberal" by many congressmen.84 Again, both the president and the attorney general opposed various parts of this legislation, especially the riot funding priority and the lib­ eral wiretap provisions, but both officials also viewed the gen­ eral act as necessary in order to improve the local criminal jus­ tice system.85 The Role of the Military Congress was not the only branch of the national govern­ ment to stress "law and order" to a greater extent than previ­ ously. Because of the abundance of riots in 1967 and 1968, President Johnson was increasingly of two minds when it came to suggested responses to the urban violence.86 He under­ stood that long-term solutions entailed substantial social and economic reforms in the ghetto, but he was mystified as to why blacks continued to riot just at the time the federal gov­ ernment was beginning to carry out some of these needed re­ forms. Too, he feared the rising crime in the streets and more urban rebellions, and, with an election approaching, there was the political necessity to reduce violence in the cities. It was apparent by the summer of 1967 that local police forces were not sufficient in size, training, or capability to control massive rioting successfully, and the Justice Department had no siza­ ble police force for such purposes. As a result, the president was forced to turn increasingly to the U.S. Army and National

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Guard forces for the trained manpower necessary to establish stability in the cities. The major back-up force for local police was the National Guard, which was nominally under the control of the state governor but was paid (up to 90 percent), trained, and equipped by the federal government.87 Until the civil disor­ ders of the late 1960s, the National Guard's primary responsi­ bility had been to augment the regular Army in time of war or national emergency. But by the summer of 1967, the Guard was being called upon repeatedly to help handle the growing ghetto riots. For example, between 1945 and 1960 the Na­ tional Guard was called out only 55 times, whereas in 1967 alone the Guard was used 29 times, and in 1968 it was called out on 106 different occasions, almost always to help quell black riots.88 Moreover, because of the legal restrictions on the use of federal forces such as the Army, the National Guard was the "only organization with sufficient manpower and ap­ propriate organization and equipment to assist local police de­ partments in riot control operations."89 The National Advisory Commission, however, reported a number of instances of substandard performances by the Na­ tional Guard during the 1967 riots, particularly in Newark and Detroit. As a result, the president and the commission both recommended "immediate action to improve the Guard's ef­ fectiveness," including increased riot control training, a re­ view of standards for officers of the Guard, and a substantial increase in the recruitment of blacks.90 Reacting swiftly, the National Guard Bureau initiated a special 32-hour program of intensive riot control training for all Guard units and a 16-hour course for all officers. In the spring and summer of 1968, the Army National Guard followed up this original program with a refresher course of from 4 to 33 hours, depending on the po­ tential for rioting in a given area.91 Additionally, in November 1967, the secretary of defense authorized an increase of 12,000 men for the National Guard so that more units would "be available for riot control duty."92 This move was necessary not only because of the increase in domestic riots but also because

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the war in Vietnam was siphoning off Guardsmen at an accel­ erated rate. The effort to recruit more blacks for the National Guard was another major priority program following the intense urban violence of 1967. As of December 1966, only about one per­ cent of the personnel in either the Air or Army National Guard was black,93 and Cyrus Vance, among others, had reported the noticeably greater effectiveness of integrated (versus nonintegrated) forces in riot control activity.94 To attempt to al­ leviate this condition, the National Guard Bureau first carried out an extensive survey of black attitudes toward military serv­ ice (and Guard service in particular) in order to plan a more effective recruiting program. Second, with federal financial support the bureau helped establish a pilot recruitment cam­ paign in New Jersey, which after almost a year of intensive efforts, showed a gain in percentage of black National Guardsmen from 1.82 percent to 6.34 percent. Similar cam­ paigns in other states produced more meager results, how­ ever, and the integration of the National Guard, like so many local police departments, proved to be an insoluble di­ lemma.95 Despite all these efforts to improve the performance of the Guard in riot control duty, Army regulars were increasingly sought during urban disorders because of their obvious advan­ tages over the National Guard. Better trained and disciplined than the Guard, Army troops represented much less of a financial burden to state and local governments, which had to pay almost the entire cost of riot operations for National Guardsmen. In addition, the regular Army was well-inte­ grated, with almost every riot unit being approximately 20 percent black.96 Even though the Army was slow to arrive at the scene of a crisis and usually appeared when the violence was near completion, local officials still called upon the regular Army more frequently in 1967-1968 than they had in all of the previous 45 years.97 No doubt, too, most Army officials en­ joyed their new role in riot control activities. As one Justice Department official expressed it: "The Army, for all its protes-

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tations, loves war games. It came to riot control with alacrity. It has spent millions in establishing military command capabilities, riot potential intelligence, liaison and training with local law enforcement. "98 With trained manpower and financial resources that were usually unavailable to local police departments or National Guard units, the U. S. Army quickly began to play a significant part in maintaining order in urban America. Not long after the outbursts in Newark and Detroit, the Army Military Police School at Fort Gordon, Georgia, initiated special riot-control planning and training courses for police officials at the local and state level. With the greater likelihood of being called out to help quell disturbances, the Army set up numerous special teams to visit potentially explosive cities for the purpose of gathering information for antiriot planning. The urban data gathered included street maps, aerial photos, details on com­ munications' networks, proposed command posts, and emergency camp sites. The teams also attempted to coordi­ nate their riot contingency planning with that of the National Guard and with that of state and local officials." So extensive was this pre-riot planning that by March 1968 the Army was reported to have "advanced" and "sensitive" material on 124 American cities.100 The Army also stockpiled riot control equipment in strategically located areas across the country,101 and seven task forces, totaling more than 15,000 men, were specially trained so that they could be "specifically earmarked and available for civil disturbance duty" (and other Army forces were prepared if needed).102 The Growth of Military Intelligence

Definitely the most comprehensive response by the U.S. Army to the urban riots of 1967-1968 was the major step-up in military intelligence activities. As of 1965, military surveil­ lance had been moderately increased to provide an early warn­ ing of civil disturbances in which the Army might be called to help quell. However, following the Newark and Detroit riots and the march on the Pentagon in 1967, the Justice Depart-

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ment and the White House pressed the Army to broaden dramatically the scope of military intelligence to include civil­ ian political activity of all kinds. According to one former Army intelligence officer: By January, 1970, the Army had amassed a score of re­ gional and national data banks on the membership, ideol­ ogy, programs, and practices of virtually every activist political group in the country. These computer tapes, dossiers, card files, and microfilms described not only such violence-prone organizations as the Minutemen and the Weathermen, but such nonviolent groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, Women Strike for Peace, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.103 With more than 1,000 plainclothes agents working out of some 300 offices and dozens of military bases,104 the Army gathered information on approximately 18,000 American civil­ ians between the summer of 1967 and the fall of 1969.105 Most of this military intelligence was picked up from local police officials and the FBI, but Army agents, having infiltrated groups under surveillance or posing as newsmen or bystanders, supplemented this vast amount of data.106 Military intelligence activities were tremendously ex­ panded during this period because the FBI and Justice De­ partment, as well as state and local officials, did not have the "capability to provide the quantity and types of information believed to be necessary effectively to cope . . . with the emergency (civil disorders) then prevailing. "107 Evidence, in­ dicates that the White House and the Justice Department en­ couraged the Army to become more active in gathering infor­ mation related to the civil disturbances.108 But Army surveil­ lance increased also because a number of senior military offi­ cers seemed to overreact to the riots and protests, fearing "a true insurgency should external subversive forces develop successful control" of the black and antiwar dissidents.109 Civilian and military guidelines for military intelligence-

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gathering were often imprecise and broad, thereby further encouraging the tendency of the Army to overrespond to the domestic crisis.110 Besides numerous undercover agents, the enlarged Army intelligence operations included the Continental U.S. Intelli­ gence Communications Center, set up in the fall of 1967 at Fort Holabird, Maryland. This center, complete with a nationwide teletype network, gathered information on inter­ nal security and made this data available to both military and nonmilitary agencies. As civil disturbances grew in number and intensity, other extensive military data banks were begun in 1968 at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and at Fort Hood, Texas.111 The major military consumer of this Army intelligence was the Directorate for Civil Disturbance Planning and Operations (later called the Directorate of Military Support), established in June 1968 in the basement of the Pentagon. Better known as the "domestic war room," the directorate had 150 officials to carry out around-the-clock monitoring of civil disorders, as well as to oversee federal troop deployments when necessary. At the cost of some $2.7 million, this massive directorate also developed policy advice for the secretary of the Army on all disturbances and maintained intelligence "packets" on all major U.S. cities.112 The full extent of military intelligence activities was not known to most federal executive officials outside the Army until several years later. But by 1968 many Justice Depart­ ment personnel knew that the military was preparing "to move in massively" if needed to quash urban riots, and some officials feared the development of a large national military riot force.113 It was well-known among top officials that the De­ partment of Defense was spending far more funds than the Justice Department on civil disorder preparations. In the words of Ramsey Clark, "Justice had to sweat blood to get $2 million for the CRS . . . while the military would spend $12 million or more on riot control activities."114 This was indica­ tive of the growing trend at the federal level toward repression and control of the urban black (and antiwar) rioters. Thus, the violence-filled period of 1967-1968 saw the steady

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evolution of the Johnson Administration from one dominated by Ramsey Clark's "transitional" view and prevention-ori­ ented responses to a more "liberal" perspective that coupled socioeconomic programs with a strong military to suppress the rioters. Besides the military, the U.S. Congress and local offi­ cials as well began to emphasize a "law and order" approach to the reduction of black violence in the cities. Though the attor­ ney general's concern for restraint in response to the disorders was credited with reducing the level of urban violence below expectations in the spring and summer of 1968,115 these new riots seemed to unleash further the rising voices of fear and repression. The political consequences of this continuation of rioting and protesting played a crucial role in the demise of Lyndon Johnson's bid for another term in office and helped to catapult Richard Nixon into the presidency on the promise of achieving "law and order." NIXON I AND THE QUEST FOR LAW AND ORDER In late 1967 when presidential speech writer Harry McPherson asked political analyst Richard Scammon what could be done to help President Johnson, Scammon replied, "Get him photographed with a man in blue."116 As Scammon perceived it: "The voters were becoming quietly enraged by crime and disorder, and by what they regarded as permissiveness on the part of institutional authority. Politicians who wanted to es­ cape that rage should identify themselves with the forces of law and order."117 The results of a Harris poll in September 1968 strongly supported this contention. It reported that 81 percent of the public believed that "law and order has broken down in this country," and 54 percent responded that "they personally feel more uneasy on the streets." In addition, the poll showed that 53 percent contributed their uneasiness to a "fear of racial violence,"118 and another national poll reported that the single most frequent proposal by whites to prevent more riots was bolstering the police force.119 Richard Nixon's expressed views appealed to the escalating

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fears of most Americans. In a 1967 article in Readers Digest, Nixon claimed that the ghetto riots were chiefly the result of "the decline in respect for public authority and the rule of law in America. "120 He also stated that this new permissiveness toward violations of public order was encouraged by "opinion-makers (who) have gone too far in promoting the doc­ trine that when a law is broken, society, not the criminal, is to blame.'121 Although Nixon did admit that injustices to the Negro had also been a factor in the occurrence of the riots, his first two prescriptions for preventing the disorders were (1) better pay and training for police, and (2) more policemen. By early 1968 and in the midst of his primary campaign, Richard Nixon offered an even harder line on controlling the urban disorders: ". . . we must take the warnings (of more riots) to heart and prepare to meet force with force if necessary, mak­ ing it abundantly clear that these preparations are made and that retaliation against the perpetrators and the planners of violence will be swift and sure."122 In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Con­ vention that summer, Nixon personalized his attack on the lawless society by blaming the attorney general (Ramsey Clark) for the increases in crime and disorder in the country. Throughout the fall campaign, Nixon continued to focus on Clark as being "soft on crime" and promised to appoint a new attorney general as a panacea. Once elected, Nixon quickly named his campaign manager, John Mitchell, as the new head of Justice and the man "to restore order and respect for law in this country."123 Mitchell's view of the role of the Justice De­ partment was summed up shortly thereafter when he stated: "There's a difference between my philosophy and Ramsey Clark's. I think this is an institution for law enforcement, not social improvement."124 And so the election of Richard Nixon and his appointment of a new attorney general marked a clear shift in federal strategy toward achieving a society of order through quick repression and even massive force if necessary. No doubt some of the charges leveled by Nixon (and vicepresidential candidate Spiro Agnew) during the campaign

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were political rhetoric designed to appeal to the frightened masses. Once the new administration took office, however, one was advised to "watch what we do instead of what we say,"125 as John Mitchell stated it. Right from the beginning, the actions of the Nixon Administration, and especially the Justice Department under Mitchell, largely coincided with their rhetoric. Less than eight months after the new president took office, one in-depth article on the Justice Department concluded that the new attorney general had become a firm advocate of: ". . . wire taps, preventive detention, the prosecution of peace de­ monstrators and the 'surveillance' of Black Panthers. It is in this area, more than any others, that Mitchell wants the de­ partment 'to work', and it is law and order with which the de­ partment is largely occupied."126 Furthermore, most of the new officials in Justice had con­ cluded that the urban riots (as well as the antiwar protests) were the product of a few confirmed militants who successfully manipulated the masses. This view closely paralleled that of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, and nothing better epitomized this "conservative" paradigm of collective violence than a film promoted by the Justice Department in the early 1970s. Enti­ tled "The Riotmakers" and based on a book of the same title by Eugene Methvin, this documentary film historically traced the role of "frustrated, compulsive, revolutionaries" in fo­ menting mass violence to overthrow "existing law and order." Comparing the manipulative techniques of the "riotmakers" of the 1960s with those of Lenin and Hitler, the film claimed that "the riots of the '60's came about because there were those who wanted them to come about, who did everything in their power to cause them."127 The film specifically mentioned black militants Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael as "agitator leaders" who were essential in organizing and sparking many of the ghetto disorders. Within two years, "The Riotmakers" was distributed to some 278 police departments and viewed by more than 5,000 policemen.128 Former Attorney General Clark had perceived that the

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basic causes of the riots lay in deplorable societal conditions, and therefore saw no clear and present danger arising from the actions of a few black militants. Though he did prosecute H. Rap Brown for open violation of a federal firearm statute, Clark refused to take legal action against other leading black militants despite congressional passage of the antiriot provi­ sion and regular FBI warnings of the threats posed by these leaders. However, with a substantially different view of the role played by black dissident leaders, the new Justice officials began actively to prosecute and gather extensive intelligence on black agitators, especially the Black Panther party.129 By mid-1969, J. Edgar Hoover singled out the Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country," and Jerris Leonard, new head of the Civil Rights Division, as­ serted, "The Black Panthers are nothing but hoodlums and we've got to get them."130 In one of his first actions after taking office, Attorney Gen­ eral Mitchell granted permission to the FBI to engage in elec­ tronic surveillance of the Black Panthers under a national security authorization. Shortly thereafter, the Justice De­ partment brought charges against Panther leader Bobby Seale and seven antiwar leaders under the antiriot law for conspiracy to incite disorders at the 1968 Democrat National Convention. By summer of 1969 the Justice Department had set up a spe­ cial interagency intelligence task force to coordinate activities against black militants, and by fall the department had stepped up federal legal and extralegal action against Panther leaders as well as against white Panther supporters. There is evidence to suggest, for example, that the late 1969 massive police raids on Panther headquarters in Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as in several other cities, were requested (or at least strongly encouraged) by federal agencies.131 More­ over, it was later divulged that secret FBI counterintelligence forces actively campaigned between 1967 and 1971 "to harass and disrupt black militant organizations and their leaders."132 Such harassment was directed at the Black Panthers as well as at such moderate groups as CORE and SCLC. The long-range

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goals of the counterintelligence activities, according to secret FBI files, were to prevent the coalition of black nationalist groups, to block the "rise of a 'messiah' who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement," and to pre­ vent the groups from engaging in violence.133 On the verge of "overt repression" of black militants, the Justice Department's activities were somewhat moderated by the public outcry over the alleged excessive police violence in the Chicago Black Panther raid and by the ultimate investiga­ tions of that raid by the FBI and Civil Rights Division.134 By 1972, most militant black leaders were either in jail, had left the country, or had gone "underground," and with the demise of the riots the Justice Department and FBI began to focus more of their attention on antiwar protestors and other leftwing groups.135 LEAA and the Riots Perhaps the most substantial federal law enforcement re­ sponse (at least in terms of dollars) during the 1969-1972 pe­ riod was in the form of LEAA grants to state and local officials. Having been established by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) was to provide for major police sup­ port programs, with special emphasis upon increasing their riot control capabilities. In a short period of time the LEAA budget increased dramatically. From $63 million in fiscal 1969, annual appropriations rose to $268 million in fiscal 1970 and to almost $700 million by fiscal 1972.136 In terms of LEAA funds allocated for "civil disorders, " a special provision of the Safe Streets Act directed LEAA to make riot-related grants to states in advance of approval of state comprehensive plans, and $3.9 million of such grants were made in the first month of operation in August 1968.137 In fiscal 1969 the states, which received the greatest propor­ tion of LEAA money, dispensed 22.5 percent of their LEAA block action-grants for the prevention and control of civil dis­ orders. This was the largest percentage of action grants appor-

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tioned to any single categorical area in 1969. Taking advantage of the special funding priority given to riot-related grants, municipalities quickly stocked up on riot control hardware such as tear gas, firearms, protective gear, floodlights, and communications equipment.138 According to the first annual LEAA report, 65 percent of all state riot-related funds went for hardware (mainly communications gear) in 1969, while only 35 percent of these monies were allocated for community relations efforts.139 Although the National Advisory Commission and the Presi­ dent's Crime Commission had both stressed police-community relations as the key law enforcement remedy to urban riots, LEAA grant priorities emphasized more riot control weapons, training, and equipment for local police. As Judge Higginbotham, vice-chairman of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, perceived the results of LEAA's civil disorders work: ". . . we get more expertise on getting mace and riot guns than we have on community rela­ tions."140 Once the police became better armed, however, the proportion of LEAA state action-grants for the prevention and control of civil disorders dropped noticeably. As of fiscal 1970, these civil disorder funds totaled only 3.9 percent of state block action-grant money, and by fiscal 1972 the proportion was down to 2.5 percent.141 But in actual amounts, the number of federal dollars devoted to control of civil disorders actually increased markedly over this period because the total LEAA budget went up so rapidly. While $5.6 million were appropriated in fiscal 1969 for riot prevention and control, al­ most $10.4 million were dispensed in fiscal 1972 for this pur­ pose. On the other hand, LEAA state action-grant funds for police-community relations achieved their highest proportion in fiscal 1969, a meager 4.3 percent, and these proportional allotments were reduced even further to 1.9 percent by fiscal 1972.142 Though actual amounts allocated to community rela­ tions also increased greatly over this period, these dollar totals were always considerably less than riot control allocations, es-

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pecially in 1969. Obviously the initial concern of LEAA was to "develop a police ability to curb disturbances, rather than to develop long-range community relations projects."143 To explore more precisely the effects of the ghetto riots on LEAA state action-grants, it was decided to look at the 40 riot cities previously analyzed for OEO and HUD expenditure in­ creases. Since the vast majority of LEAA funds to the cities assumed the form of block action-grants administered by the states, the decision was made to scrutinize these fund allot­ ments for 1969 through 1971 (calendar years) to the sample of 40 riot cities.144 The LEAA state expenditures to these cities were categorized into riot control programs (riot equipment purchases and riot control training) and riot prevention pro­ grams (mainly police-community relations, but also programs for minority recruitment to the police force, summer youth employment, rumor control, and sensitivity training for police). Over the period of 1969-1971, these 40 cities received (on the average) 2.3 percent of their total LEAA state action allotments in the form of riot control grants, with most of these grants coming in 1969 and 1970. In terms of funds earmarked for riot prevention activities, these cities received an average proportion of 10.5 percent of all LEAA state action monies sent to them over this same period.145 To explain more fully the effects that riot characteristics may have had on the apportionment of these federal Law Enforce­ ment Assistance funds, riot variables and other independent variables were correlated with LEAA expenditures to the 40 riot cities (Table 4.1). To test for the direct, independent ef­ fects of riot variables in combination with other significant variables, path analysis was employed to explain LEAA fund allocations (Diagram 4.1). The correlations suggest, and the path analysis confirms, that few independent variables are sig­ nificantly associated statistically with these law enforcement expenditures. But the riot variable most highly correlated with total LEAA allotments and with riot control funds is "kill­ ings, arrest, or interference by police" as the major precipitat­ ing factor of the 1967 riot. This variable also is depicted as hav-

TABLE 4.1 Correlations of Riot Measures and Other Independent Variables with LEAA Expenditures (1969-1971) Total Riot Riot LEAA ControlPrevention 1967 riot intensity Number of riots (1963-1968) Overall severity of all riots (1963-1968) Immediate precipitant of 1967 riot: A. Killings, arrests or interference by police B. Interracial fighting C. Civil liberties, public facil­ ities, segregation, housing D. Inflammatory speeches by civil rights' leaders E. Spontaneous Size of city Number of Negroes Deprivation index A. Percent Negro B. Percent poor Percent Negro change (1960-1970) Percent Negro change (1950-1960) Congressional power A. Seniority B. Political motivation C. Power index D. Democratic party member E. Committee assignment Local government characteristics A. City-manager government B. Non-partisan elections

.15 .13

.07 -.05

.15 .07

.16

.01

.23

.31* -.02

.34* -.14

.11 .08

-.14

.04

-.10

-.15 -.07 .05 .00

-.07 .04 -.10 -.09

-.15 .20 .06 -.05

-.18 -.01

-.01 .33*

-.23 -.21

.33*

-.22

.38*:

.33*

-.15

.57*:

-.08 .12 .04 .01 .03

-.19 -.17 -.18 .01 -.15

-.23 -.16 -.50*** .10

-.10 .04 -.02 -.17 -.04 .04 -.38*

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Total Riot Riot LEAA Control Prevention C. Percent council elected at large -.14 D. Reformism scale -.22 Political mobilization A. Percent voting .15 B. Percent voting Democratic .18 Crime rate (1969) -.09 Crime rate change (1963-1968) .07

.16 -.03

-.11 -.15

-.15 -.29* .03 -.13

.19 .08 -.15 -.01

* ρ < .05; ** P < .01; *** ρ < .001

ing a statistically significant, direct, and positive effect upon total LEAA and riot control expenditures. Communities in which "police incidents" in the ghetto pro­ voked rioting tended to be cities with poor police-community relations. The riots in these cities, however, affected not only significantly greater amounts of total LEAA funds per capita to be expended there but, in terms of civil disorder monies, sig­ nificantly larger amounts of federal riot control expenditures. Specifically, the 13 cities of the 40-city sample whose major 1967 riot (as well as other riots, in most cases) was precipitated by a police incident, received on the average almost three times the amount of per capita riot control funds as did the other 27 riot cities. Thus riot cities with perhaps the poorest police-black relations tended to respond directly to ghetto up­ heavals by obtaining significantly more LEAA funds (per capita) than other riot cities, and the expressed purpose of much of the increased funds was to arm and train their police for control of civil disorders. It is also important to note that no riot variable significantly affected the flow of riot prevention funds to these disorder cities. However, the relationship between overall riot severity and disorder prevention expenditures proved to be cur­ vilinear, rather than linear. Beyond a certain overall riot se-

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143 DIAGRAM 4.1

Path Models: LEAA (State Action-Grant) (1969-1971)

*p