Rochester race riot papers

These papers chronicle the July 24-26, 1964 racial disturbances in Rochester NY and their aftermath. The collection consists mainly of newspaper clippings, painstakingly collected and organized by William J. Bub, Jr. (1926-1980). Bub was a student at Syracuse University's Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. This archive is the product of his research for a Masters thesis. Violence and looting in Rochester spanned a period of approximately sixty hours, resulting in four deaths, at least 350 injuries, over 800 arrests, and property damage totalling more than a million dollars. The National Guard was called in to keep the peace. Dubbed"'smugtown" in the 1950s because of the comfort and complacency borne of the economic prosperity and amicable labor-management relations fostered by the Eastman Kodak Company and other large, successful, high-tech corporations, the riots represented a profound blow to Rochester's positive self-image. As the flames of discontent were replaced by the glare of the media spotlight, black and white Rochester residents were forced to reflect--from different perspectives and with different conclusions--on the causes and meanings of this devastating event. The "riot" was precipitated by the arrest of an allegedly drunk and disorderly African-American man at a Joseph Avenue street dance. But even in its immediate aftermath, many looked to underlying social and environmental conditions to explain the events that followed. These conditions were analagous to those that existed in many Northern cities. They included a large and rapid influx of African-Americans from the South, the de-facto segregation of black arrivals in specific areas of the residential urban core, a failure to extend economic opportunities from white to black residents, the physical decay of black neighborhoods due to poverty and inadequate services, the routine exploitation of African-American tenants by white landlords, the neglect and persecution of blacks at the hands of an overwhelmingly white police force, inequities in educational instruction and facilities, and the inability of African-Americans to redress grievances through legitimate political channels. Rochester's was one of a trio of 'riots' in the summer of 1964. Together, they inaugurated the "long hot summers" of racial strife that marked the mid and late sixties. It is to the origins, effects, and implications of such events that the items in this collection ultimately speak.