Rochester 1964 Race Riot - Riot

Riot

The police response to the call included a K-9 Corps dog. Rumors alleging police brutality action against blacks spread quickly, and an angry crowd formed on Joseph Avenue and became violent. The riot broke out in two of Rochester's predominantly black wards, near the location of the intersection of Nassau Street and Joseph Avenue, as well as downtown.

Peace was restored after three days, and only after Governor Nelson Rockefeller called out the New York National Guard, the first such use of troops in a northern city. By the time the disturbance was over, four were dead (three in a helicopter crash) and 350 injured. Almost a thousand people were arrested and 204 stores were either looted or damaged.

A police officer lost his eye when hit by a bottle and a reporter for ABC News was shot in the face, but it only grazed his facial structure.

Although the riot was initially blamed on "outside agitators," almost all the rioters arrested were from the local area, with only 14 people arrested who resided outside of Monroe County. Third Ward Supervisor Constance Mitchell, stated, “I know the kids here. I know the hard ones and the good kids. And it was the good kids in my ward who first threw the bricks through the windows. Then the adults stepped in. This community just went insane.” This led to a reappraisal of policies and practices which had not changed in face of a tripling of the black population in the previous 10 years.

At that time, most blacks held low-pay and low-skill jobs and lived in substandard housing, and Rochester was the last city in the State of New York to implement a public housing program. Although the low-pay and low-skill poor whites who attended the same public schools did not riot, most historians consider racism the cause.

Throughout the decade following the riot, the City of Rochester acquired the land blighted by the riot, leveled remaining buildings, and removed or repositioned many of the streets. One of the first housing projects built after the riots was the Chatham Gardens Apartments, which opened in 1965.