Uncovering the York Riots of 1969

By P. A. Dutch

After a member of the Newberry Street Boys made a death bed apology for his part in the murder of Lillie Belle Alien, a grand jury investigation was begun into the death of Alien and a rookie cop during the York race riots of 1969.

Realities in York would be familiar to anyone liv-ing in Baltimore. York in many ways is just a smaller version. An industrial town, whose industry has retreated. A town of neighborhoods, where the kids stand up for their hood, if only just to have something to stand up for. And of course, particularly 30 years ago, a segregated town.

It all started like a cautionary tale from an after school special. A young black boy who had been play-ing with matches caught himself on fire, afraid of getting in trouble he says it was the Girarders--a white youth gang from around the way on Girard Street. A posse forms to go deal with them and a fight breaks out. Later that night two black youth were shot by a Newberry Street Boy (another white gang), who did some time for the shooting and is now the primary defendent in the murder of Lillie Belle Alien. By the next day the riot was on, gunshots echoed around the city with 8 people get-ting hit. One of them, officer Henry Schaad, ends up being the first fatality.

Police investigators have bemoaned the widespread silence that has shielded these events from official view. Many witnesses and participants have recently decided to tell more of what they know, providing the framework for the prosecution of 11 defendants in two separate murders. We could guess what led so many to decide to talk to the police: it could be that many no longer fear retaliation, others are likely trying to save their own ass, and then there are no doubt some reaching for their 15 minutes of fame or some kind of confessionary release. Nonetheless, despite the avalanche of loose lips these days, the story of the '69 riots is still largely unknown outside those who took part. We could try to present the "true story" here, but it'd be mostly a lie. All we hope to do is illuminate a few moments or characteristics of the conflicts for whatever benefit might offer us.

YOUTH: By all accounts the participants were no older than 21 or 22, most were in their teens. In most accounts the adult citizenry lurk behind the scenes, with never a mention. In the white neighborhoods, the stated rational for the violence was always "protecting the neigh-borhood". Whether or not this "need" arose out of a realistic evaluation of the situation, a surrealism haunts the understanding that it was crews of 15 and 16 year old boys who did it Violence in black neighborhoods was also exclusively the practice of youth, where the target often had the distinc-tion of being me cops. If there was a war on against police harrasment and violence in the black neighborhoods, again, it was the youth who were fighting it More than that, in both cases, the fighting was carried out by the kids who had been self-organized in the various neighborhood cliques that divided up the city. The one defendent in the current inves-tigations who was not a youth at the time was Charlie Robertson. Robertson was 35 and in his role as a city cop rallied the white kids in northwest York with an infamous cry of "white power" and some ammunition.

PANIC: Its probably safe to say that the cliques, though following the segregation of the neighborhoods, represented first of all for their neighborhood and second of all for their race. Business as usual would find Newberry Street Boys rumbling with Girarders more often than either of them would be rolling against boys from College Ave. An essential dynamic of the riots was that this script got flipped and first of all was race, it was serious. Reading accounts of the events you start to get the feeling of panic on the part of the white kids.

For at least a day before Lillie Belle Allen was shot nd killed the Newberry Street Boys and their allies were preparing themselves for battle with the passengers of a Cadillac that had driven through the neighborhood and fired off a number of shots. A white man driving a cadillac had already been fired on the day before so when Alien got out of her sister's Cadillac after it broke down along the tracks crossing Newberry Street, the crescendo of jittering nerves exploded and Lillie Belle Alien was cut nearly in half. The sad joke in this, is that the two brothers who by some accounts were the ones who had done the drive by in the Cadillac, swear they were driving a Dodge back in the day.

As was the script at the time, in these moments of crisis the whites became panicked inside a siege mentality and the blacks discovered a spirit of militance and insurrection. This being the inevitable consequences of fighting to hold on to what you have, or think you have and fighting for what you never dared dream of. This difference gets expressed (if partly by accident) in the list of fatalities. The white youth kill an unarmed young black woman, the black youth kill a cop on patrol in the cities prized new armored trucks.

BLACK POWER AND THE POLICE: On the night that officer Schaad was shot, Joe Jackson was sitting on his porch in the Codorus Projects. "[The police] were going real slow, kind of like they wanted to draw them out so they could fire on them... They felt invincible inside the armored cars. They weren't worried about the gunfire until after that night... It is just my opinion, but i feel the cops provoked it." After circling the block two or three times, Jackson said he heard the cops call out into the dark, quiet street, "Niggers, where are you?" The response came in the form of several gunshots, among them a powerful blast from a .30-40-Krag that pierced the armored vehicle and struck down Schaad.

The truck Schaad was riding in was called into the neigh-borhood to provide backup for an ambulance. The ambulance had already left when the truck arrived and then a call was recieved that a white motorcyclist had been shot near the College Ave bridge. As the police truck passed the intersection a number of shots went off. Something close to a cannon blast made the truck lurch. The small crowds gathered on the street threw up a cheer. Certainly a more worthy prey was found than the white factory worker riding home on his motorcycle.

York had been rumbling with same tremors thatwere shaking the rest of country, with rising anger over the assaults of a k9 core and harrassment of a number of black community activists. The two defendents in Schaad's death were organizers of a fledgling militant group known as Black Unity Movement. Despite the confused and minor origin of the riots, opportunities soon opened up for a wider course of action, having connected to underlying animosities in black neighborhoods. In the few days that the riots were to last, the youth riot was only able to make the first tentative steps towards a generalized insurrection. Nonetheless the police had to recognize the seriousness of that possibility.

It was with this understanding that the police inserted them-selves into the moment of white panic and secured a number of shock troops against the nation-wide specter of black insurrection. Was Charlie Robertson a lone rogue, spurring the white youth gangs on with ammo and exhortations to "kill all the niggers you can"? Or did he act with the complicity of the department? This is one question neither the local papers nor the grand jury have decided to investigate.

Beyond making sense of the past, we're faced with taking a stand on it in the present. A typically malicious DA has brought murder charges against 11. The families of both Alien and Schaad have expressed relief that some "justice" might finally be gained for their loved ones. Yet at times like this, it is more painfully obvious than ever, that the only justice America offers is the opportunity to ruin another life. With the exception of Robertson, we feel no malice towards the accused on either side who were mere boys caught up in the wars of men. And how can we back the city's prosecution, when the role of the city's police and mayor's office has never been investigated, despite the clear participation of one of its officers? Our idea of justice can only come with an understanding of how working class people get played against each other and the same bastards keep coming out on top.