Races: Mind Over Mayhem

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For a while last week, it seemed as if the black-power fanatics were all too accurate in predicting anarchy in the nation's slums this summer. In cities as disparate as Tampa, Fla., and Prattville, Ala., Cincinnati and Los Angeles, fire bombs flared and mobs coursed the streets. Store fronts were smashed by looters, and the flames of riot blazed intermittently—but they never reached the roaring pitch of a Watts or a Harlem, a Chicago or a Hough. In most of the cities, cool tactics by police and city governments kept the flare-ups from becoming "the fire next time," and proved once again that riot is as much a state of mind as of mayhem.

The Real Heroes. Tampa's three-day upheaval began when a white patrolman shot and killed a 19-year-old Negro burglary suspect as the youth ran from him. The patrolman claimed that the youth was about to get away when he pulled the trigger at a distance of 25 ft. Negroes who were standing near by said it was a much closer shot; indisputably, the victim was shot in the back. With that, the mobs began gathering. Arsonists set fires in stores, a lumberyard, half a dozen vacant houses. After rioters broke into a gun store on Cass Street, firemen found slugs snapping around them; a white couple, attracted by the flames, were dragged out of their car and beaten.

For their part, the police and National Guardsmen kept their gunfire to a minimum (two Negroes were treated for minor gunshot wounds). The real heroes of Tampa were the members of the "City Youth Patrol," a hastily organized band of 150 young Negroes—many of whom had hurled rocks and fire bombs the night before—who tramped the slums in white hard hats and warned the mobs to cool it. By midweek, thanks to their efforts, the temperature of violence had fallen enough for Governor Kirk to order the National Guard back to their homes.

Tin Badge. In neighboring Alabama, trouble was triggered not by shooting but by shouting. Black Power Prophet Stokely Carmichael started it with a wild argument at a voter registration meeting in Prattville, a reputed Ku Klux Klan stronghold ten miles from Montgomery. Stokely's target was Prattville Assistant Police Chief Kenneth Hill, who shot and killed a Negro early this year during a jailbreak attempt after a mistaken arrest for murder. When Hill showed up at the meeting, Carmichael yelled: "Take that tin badge off and I'll take care of you myself!" After getting reinforcements, the cops arrested Carmichael on the spot.

With that, Negro marchers took to the streets in nearby Montgomery, a city whose mayor, Earl James, prefers to handle civil rights demonstrators without violence. Although Alabama's Governor Lurleen Wallace sent in National Guardsmen, Mayor James's police gave the Negroes an escort and thus precluded a direct confrontation. Released on $500 bail, Carmichael tried to whip up the mob with black-power speeches, but its members—mostly youngsters—only cheered a bit and sang a few songs, then broke up and went home.