Anthony Imperiale is the man pictured leading this political rally, arguing that he spoke for the “decent people” who lived in fear of the “criminal element” of Newark. His critics argued that he trafficked in “race-baiting…demagoguery.” He rose as a public figure in the wake of the 1967 Newark Riots, when he led a “squad” of residents in the Italian American North ward in what he considered a justified campaign of armed self-defense against Black rioters. He is said to have pronounced that “when the Black Panther comes, the white hunter will be waiting.'’ In the aftermath, he was elected as a Newark councilman, and later as a State Assemblyman and Senator. Many would argue that these 1979 protests were both a reflection of popular fear and frustration about rising crime, and part of a broader pattern in which politicians like Imperiale mobilized white voters by playing up racialized grievances about crime to attack the Black political leadership of Newark.

Anthony Carrino, the protest organizer who also claimed to speak for “decent people” who were fed up with crime, was a former police officer who became a major political figure in Newark, serving seven terms on the city council between between 1974 and 2002. He was a fierce critic of Newark’s first Black mayor, Kenneth Gibson. In one famous 1976 incident, Carrino stormed Gibson’s office with Imperiale and a group of followers to protest a recent police hire, actually breaking down the door with his shoulder.

This section references the mayor of Newark, Kenneth Gibson, who became the first Black mayor of Newark (indeed, he was the first Black mayor of any significant Northeastern city). He first won office in 1970, defeated Anthony Imperiale to win re-election in 1974, and ultimately held that office until 1986. During the 1970s and 1980s, dozens of cities across the country elected their first Black mayors, including Tom Bradley in Los Angeles, Harold Washington in Chicago, and David Dinkins in New York. These democratic trends owe significantly to the changing racial composition of American cities, and Black voters became larger proportions of urban electorates. However, these Black leaders gained political power at a particularly challenging historical moment, having to deal with the unenviable political task of dealing with the social problems associated with the urban crisis, including rising crime.