Chapter I: Hough Explodes

It’s a loaded gun, waiting for someone to pull the trigger.^[1]

Riots start with small incidents. Small incidents are all that is necessary to ignite the tinder of latent frustrations and passions that have built up over the years. In Cleveland, Ohio, the Hough riots of July, 1966, certainly were no exception to the pattern.

The Seventy-Niners’ Cafe stood at the corner of East 79th Street and Hough Avenue (see Appendix One for Hough diagram), the geographical center of the Hough neighborhood. It was owned by the Feigenbaum brothers, Abe and Dave, both of whom had experienced poor relationships with the surrounding black community. In January, 1966, someone had tried to set fire to their car. On Monday, July 18, their relations became much worse.

At about 5:00 P.M., Dave Feigenbaum ordered a prostitute who was in the bar soliciting funds for a deceased prostitute’s children to leave. The woman hesitated, and soon the bar owner and the prostitute were exchanging curses and vulgarities. The woman finally did leave, but only after the tension had heightened. Customers present at the time said that Feigenbaum then muttered something about serving Negroes. Later the same day, a Negro walked into the bar and bought a pint of cheap wine. He also asked for a pitcher of ice water and a glass. However, this request was denied by the owner who told the customer that since the sale was a take-out item, he would not serve him any ice water. A young man in the bar at this time then heard Feigenbaum tell the bar maid not to serve “no niggers no water (sic).” The customer who had just been denied the ice water arose and shouted to his friends that he had been refused a drink of water. He angrily left the bar, and in minutes a sign scribbled on a brown paper bag which said, “No water for Niggers” adorned the front door of the bar. As news of the latest incident and the earlier one spread, a crowd gathered outside the cafe. A call to the police was quickly placed by the owners, and they soon appeared on the sidewalk in front of the bar, one armed with a pistol and the other armed with a rifle. The police arrived after some delay, and suddenly the rioting erupted “with the explosiveness of a firebomb.”^[2]

As the police attempted to disperse the crowd, the mob spread toward 79th Street, and vandalism and looting became widespread and prevalent. Rocks and bricks were thrown at police as well as store front windows, and soon fires broke out in many of the neighborhood establishments. Wire mesh grills were wrenched loose from store fronts so that the stores could be looted and torched. Three chain grocery stores, a “cut-rate” drug store, and an easy credit clothing company were among the first buildings to go up in flames. The worst damage occurred in the area bordered by East 71st and East 93rd, and soon the police blocked off entrance to this area from the outside. Specifically, the two block area between East 84th and East 86th received the heaviest damage, and it was reported that “so many businesses were looted that the police could not keep an accurate account.”^[3]

Fires were soon spreading everywhere, but firemen were having difficulty getting their vehicles through the crowd that lined the perimeter of the riot zone. Even after penetrating the riot area, the firemen faced more problems as they were pelted by rocks and bottles. Firehoses were cut, and, despite police protection, occasionally the firemen were ordered by their commanding officer to withdraw with the admonition to “let it burn.”^[4] Police cruiser windows were smashed, tires were slashed, and the policemen themselves were also objects of hurled missles.

The shouting began amidst the vandalism and looting, and soon the area resembled a battlefront. A mobile police command post was quickly established at the corner of East 73rd and Hough Avenue, and the police hastily shot out the streetlights when the post fell under attack by snipers in nearby apartments. Police Captain James Birmingham described the situation as “like the part in an old western where you’re caught in crossfire in a box canyon.”^[5]

The rioting the first night seemed to reach its peak at midnight, at which time every available policeman and patrol car was ordered to the area. Even Police Chief Richard Wagner arrived on the scene, attired in a green golf shirt, work pants, and armed with his own shotgun. In an effort to combat the dangerous situation, policemen entered homes along Hough Avenue to find the sources of gunfire. Many private residences were entered by force, and personal property was occasionally destroyed and individual rights neglected in the frantic searches which occurred. In the heat of the rioting irrational behavior became the rule rather than the exception.

People were ordered off the streets and into nearby buildings for their personal safety. Occasionally this measure was ineffective. Mrs. Joyce Arnett, 26, was returning home at about 1:30 A.M. when she was ordered into a nearby apartment by police. She became frantic about the safety of her three infant daughters who were at home, and so she yelled from the second story window that she was going to come out. As she shouted shots were heard, and three bullets from an unkown assassin hit her in the head and chest. She died on arrival at Mount Sinai Hospital, the first victim of the riots. Police later explained that she had been caught in a crossfire “between police and one of the many snipers lurking in the shadows of the area.”^[6] Three other Negroes were shot and injured the first night before the shooting stopped. A light rain began to fall in the early morning, and the widespread shooting and looting ended at about 4:00 A.M.

The toll of the first night was not light. A woman had been killed, and three persons had been injured by bullets. Seven policemen and one fireman were injured by thrown rocks, bottles, and other missles, and eight other people were treated at hospitals for similar injuries. Fifty-three people were arrested for disorderly conduct, looting, and throwing objects at police, and damage in the Hough area was estimated to be almost a million dollars the next morning.^[7] One patrolman who was on the scene commented, “I was in London in the bombings of World War II — that’s what it was like here last night and that’s what it looks like this morning.”^[8] Police Chief Wagner ordered all the policemen to work in definite twelve hour shifts, and he prophetically declared that he felt his police “could contain any further trouble.”^[9]

The next morning attention focused on Mayor Ralph Locher to see what his response would be to the previous night’s activities. He said that he was not considering calling in the National Guard, but that he would not hesitate to do so if he thought that the situation had moved out of control. He met for two hours with his top advisers, and instructed Bertram Gardner, director of the Community Relations Board, and Barton Clausen, Urban Renewal Director, to meet with community leaders and submit recommendations for remedial action. An appeal was directed by the mayor to “all responsible citizens” of the Hough area to help restore normalcy.^[10] Normalcy, however, was not soon to be found in Cleveland.

Tuesday in Hough found only the looters profiting from the activities of the previous night. Many small businesses, some of which represented lifetime investments, were quickly picked bare by the plunderers. One resident of Hough claimed that suits were being sold for ten dollars, scotch whiskey for three dollars a fifth, wine for fifty cents a fifth, and prime beef at the low price of only a dollar and a quarter per pound.^[11] Even a policeman was seen carrying a pack of flashlight batteries under his arm from a looted Hough store. The situation was definitely not under control.

At City Hall, the toll of the previous evening, the uncontrolled looting, and the threat of new violence that evening began to weigh heavily on Mayor Locher. At about noon he talked with Governor James Rhodes and, from Locher’s own account, he was given assurance by the governor’s office that the National Guard could arrive by sundown.^[12] In the hours that followed, Locher came under tremendous pressure to request the governor to call up the Guard. Because he reasoned that the delays in calling up the National Guard in both Watts and Chicago had cost so much in lives and damage, and because of the previously mentioned factors, Locher made the decision to request the National Guard at 3:30 that afternoon. Locher then called the Governor, and Safety Director John McCormick later reported that the guardsmen were supposed to arrive three hours after the order was given.^[13] McCormick also stated that the City was “prepared to meet force with force. We were on top of the trouble that erupted after dark Monday night.”^[14]

At 5:00 P.M., the mayor reported that one thousand men were alerted and available, and that the callup action seemed to be the “prudent, proper, and correct action to take.” It was also announced at this time that all bars, taverns, and cafes had been ordered to close for the night.^[15]

Sundown arrived and the National Guard had still not appeared in Cleveland because of transportation difficulties. No convoy trucks were available to the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the unit ordered into Cleveland, since the unit had lent many of its trucks to the 37th division, and they had been driven to Grayling, Michigan. In the absence of the Guard, activities in the Hough area were resumed with only slightly less enthusiasm than the night before.

The pattern was the same: looting, vandalism, and sniping. Armed police were stationed at strategic roof locations around the area to prevent attacks from the rioters, and the police command post was moved to East 79th and Hough, the scene of the inciting incident the previous evening. This heavy show of force apparently scattered gangs into the fringe areas, and so it became difficult for the police to find the fire setters and looters. Many abandoned houses and commercial buildings were torched, and police were posted on firetrucks to prevent any injury to the firemen.^[16] Sixty-seven fire alarms were reported, and firemen battled some forty fires, almost all of which appeared to have been set by the rioters.^[17]

Gunfire Tuesday night tapered off from Monday’s activity, and fewer snipers were encountered by the police. Isolated instances did occur, however, and another person was killed by gunfire. Percy Giles, 36, was on his way to help a fellow Negro board up his place of business on Hough Avenue when he was shot in the back of the head. Police explained that the victim was probably killed by a stray bullet from an exchange of gunfire between snipers and police.^[18] He died later at 8:55 P.M. at Mount Sinai Hospital. Two other men were shot and wounded later in the night.

Finally, at 11:00 P.M., several hundred men of the l07th Armored Regiment arrived in Cleveland. Armed with bayonet-tipped M-1 rifles, the helmeted guardsmen were sent in to reinforce the police command post and the surrounding area at midnight, after waiting an hour for ammunition to arrive. Simultaneously in Columbus, Governor Rhodes declared that “a state of tumult, riot, and other emergency exists in Cleveland.” He added that as many guardsmen as necessary to control the disorder would be sent to the City.^[19]

The Hough area was quiet after the troops were deployed, but the delay in reaching Cleveland had been costly. One man had been killed, and at least twenty-four persons, including twelve policemen and one fireman, were injured. Fire damage was considerable, and almost eighty persons were arrested for looting and disorderly conduct.^[20] And the damage was not yet over.

As Wednesday dawned on Hough Avenue, only one grocery store was left unscathed and no open drug stores were to be found. Some neighborhood residents expressed hope that the disorder would end soon, and surrounding neighborhoods took precautionary steps to avert rioting in their areas. Area Council President Solomon Harge and Opportunity Center Co-ordinator Howard Reed led efforts in the adjacent impoverished Central Area in an attempt to keep the violence from their region. Door-to-door campaigns were instituted which implored “responsible residents” to refrain from partaking in the disorder.^[21]

Traffic was sealed off on Hough Avenue between East 79th and East 93rd Streets. Patrol forces of guardsmen were doubled, but they did not succeed in halting much of the widespread looting that went on during the day. A hurled firebomb ignited an apartment building at East 73rd and Hough, but no other major fires were reported during the day.^[22]

DuBois Club activity in the form of pamphlets distributed in the Hough area which criticized police practices was reported, and the news was quickly met by a report that police were investigating the backgrounds of some of the persons arrested to determine whether they were members of any extremist or militant organizations. Police also announced that they were investigating possible links between subversive groups and the widespread violence to determine whether the rioting was organized and by whom.^[23]

Mayor Locher conferred with the head of the National Guard contingent, Ohio Adjutant General Erwin C. Hostetler, and later announced that the guard manpower was being increased to 1700 men. He added, “The National Guard will be here as long as necessary . . . Our job is to end lawlessness in Cleveland.”^[24] He also spoke with Vice-President Hubert Humphrey in an effort to obtain low interest or interest-free loans for the merchants whose businesses were destroyed in the activities of the Hough area. Once again, saloons were ordered to close at sundown, and a curfew proposal of City Council President James Stanton was considered but not enacted. Five rioters, each under twenty-five years old, were sentenced to the work-house for their roles in the first evening’s festivities.^[25]

Darkness fell over the city accompanied by relative order in the Hough area. Three guardsmen were stationed at every intersection on Hough Avenue, and police patrols were escorted by guardsmen. The new strategy helped to avert any new major acts of violence, but the atmosphere was described as “tense.” Small fires and acts of vandalism kept the police and guard busy, but the main show of police and guard strength along Hough Avenue had resulted in increased trouble in the outlying Glenville and Kinsman areas. Fire alarms poured in from the surrounding areas, and all fire equipment was being utilized at 11:00 P.M.^[26] Shortly after midnight, Police Chief Wagner announced, “We have secured the Hough area, but the trouble has spread to the fringes.”^[27]

Suddenly, at 4:00 A.M., fire swept through the University Party Center, located south of the Hough area, and immediately the area was inundated with police, guardsmen, and firemen who attempted to battle the blaze. Inside a house closeby, Henry Townes thought it best to evacuate his wife, 16, and their two young children from the impending danger. They loaded some belongings in Townes’ 1957 convertible, and with their two children and Mrs. Townes’ younger brother, they attempted to drive out of the area to the home of Mrs. Townes’ mother. The car pulled out of the driveway and into the street, which had been barricaded by police to seal off all traffic, and it was immediately stopped and surrounded by the police. Hot words were exchanged by Townes and the police, and soon the argument turned to a physical struggle as the policemen attempted to keep Townes from driving any further by pulling him out of the car. On the other side of the car, a policeman sought to pull Mrs. Townes away from her husband, to whom she was clinging tightly. The policeman suceessfully pulled Mrs. Townes away by her hair, and the sudden release by Mrs. Townes coupled with the struggle between Mr. Townes and the police caused the manually operated car to lurch forward quite suddenly. Panic stricken, Townes tried to gain control of the car and leave the area. Police immediately opened fire, and Townes’ car was riddled by bullets. Mr. Townes himself was not hit, but Mrs. Townes and the youngest child were seriously injured and received permanent disabilities. The other two youngsters in the car were injured, but not seriously. Twenty-one bullets in all ripped into the vehicle, none of which were fired by guardsmen, although one guardsman was injured by a ricocheting bullet. Ernest Williams, the twelve-year-old younger brother of Mrs. Townes, reported later, “It sounded like they were using a machine gun. There were so many shots, so fast.”^[28]

All of the injured were taken to University Hospital, and Townes was arrested and charged with using his automobile as a deadly weapon in an attempt to crash through a police roadblock. The County Grand Jury later refused to indict him.^[29] The event served to once again heighten the tension surrounding the entire city, and the city braced for another outbreak of violence.

Those who predicted further trouble were not disappointed. The fears of the Central Area Community Council became realities early Thursday morning as fires and vandalism spread to that area southwest of Hough. The switchboard of the fire department was flooded with alarms, and by late afternoon of the fourth day of the disturbance, 115 fires were reported, almost half of which were set off by Molotov cocktails.^[30] Once again, all vehicular traffic was barred from Hough Avenue, and the area was given the strictest security surveillance since the riots began. Councilman M. Morris Jackson, a Negro from a predominantly Hough ward, requested the mayor to place the Hough area under martial law.^[31]

Mayor Locher reported that martial law was not being considered, and that a curfew had not been instituted “because of the great difficulties of enforcement and the tremendous hardships it would place on innocent people.”^[32] He and Major General Hostetler conferred and decided that no additional Guard troops would be needed because Major Hostetler felt that the available force could handle any new developments in the situation.

Locher also came under attack from two different sources. The NAACP blasted Locher for failing to act on previously made recommendations by the Negro community, and it demanded the ouster of Safety Director John McCormick. The police department was charged with an “inability . . . to realistically understand the grievances and sensitivity of the Negro community.” The charges also included demands for the complete integration of the Police Department, new housing in Hough within sixty days, and a meeting of black leaders with the mayor.^[33]

A group of Negro pastors on the East Side also addressed some requests to Mayor Locher. This effort called for more Negro policemen, enforcement of all housing codes, establishment of additional playgrounds, and the immediate start of new construction in blighted areas. It also requested the mayor to declare Cleveland’s East Side a disaster area and sought to have emergency housing and supplies made available to the people of the damaged area through the health and welfare agencies.^[34]

Thursday also witnessed an increased espousal of the conspiracy theory as applied to the riots. Police Chief Wagner stated that the rioting of the third night and early Thursday morning “definitely seemed more organized than the last two nights.”^[35] Council President Stanton concurred with the police chief, claiming that the rioters were organized because of the selective looting that had occurred. Many people expressed the belief that the organizers were from outside of the community, and one priest declared that some cars without of state licenses should be impounded.^[36]

The courts were quite busy with preliminary hearings on many of those arrested in the course of the disorder. It was disclosed that about one-fourth of those arrested up to this time were juveniles, but most of the persons having preliminary hearings were between twenty-five and thirty-five.^[37] However, the disorder still smoldered beneath the relative calm that passed over the city as the day ended.

Once darkness had set in, the pattern of arson and vandalism began once again. In the four hours following sundown, firemen battled some fifty-five fires, most of them set by arsonists. It was estimated that ninety more fires were set in the time between 9:00 P.M. and 3:00 A.M. on Friday, and the fire department found itself hard pressed for equipment for the fourth straight night.^[38]

In the Kinsman area, a quarter of a mile from the horne of Mayor Locher, a fifty-four year old Negro, Sam Winchester, was fatally shot as he waited for a bus. Reports stated that Winchester told the police before he died that his assassin was white. The murder, like all the others, however, was not solved, and despite its distance from the center of the disturbances, it only further hampered interracial relations.^[39]

Police were ordered to record out-of-state license numbers of cars in troubled areas in an effort to pinpoint any “outside agitation,” and there were reports that FBI agents were in the area to uncover any leads on professional troublemakers.

Looting and sniping were considerably down by comparison to the rest of the week’s activities, and as a result, it appeared that the period or disorder was beginning to draw to a close.

Friday was the quietest day since the riots began. Mayor Locher met for ninety minutes with Wagner, McCormick, and Hostetler, and announced that there would be no further call-up of guardsmen. He also rejected both the imposition of a curfew and the declaration of martial law, claiming that there were many legal questions involved (e.g., who could legally declare a state of martial law) and that the consequences of such action were too broad.^[40]

Police Chief Wagner claimed that the J.F.K. House,^[41] run by Lewis G. Robinson, was serving as a “fire bomb training school,” and pictures showing gasoline cans and empty bottles in the building appeared in the local newspapers. Some public officials claimed to have talked with students of the “school,” as well as other people who described how the school operated.^[42] Police, however, made no arrests, and no charges were filed against Mr. Robinson. One high-ranking city official admitted that no youths questioned by police had admitted to receiving any firebomb training at the youth center.^[43]

National guardsmen stopped an automobile at East 81st and Chester early in the morning and confiscated many “inflammatory leaflets” prepared by the W.E.B. DuBois Club. The four men in the car with the leaflets were questioned and released, but the incident added fuel to the conspiracy argument being advocated by many people in Cleveland.^[44]

Friday night was almost normal. Only twenty fire calls were turned in all night, and fewer people were arrested than was normal for a summer Friday night. Everything was relatively quiet in the riot-torn area, and conditions were much improved. For the fifth straight night, however, gunfire interrupted the calm.

Benoris Toney, 29, black father of five, was driving alone when he was hit in the face by a shotgun blast from another car in the early morning hours at the corner of 121st Street and Euclid Avenue. The police immediately apprehended six suspects, all white, and Toney was rushed to the hospital.

The close proximity of the incident and the tension that prevailed stirred many of the residents of Murray Hill, known to city residents as “Little Italy,” and so police and guardsmen spent the rest of the night subduing some crowds that had gathered in this area, only a short distance from Hough.^[45] Apparently Toney had been the victim of a self-appointed vigilante group that was attempting to secure the area from the black threat. Only a year and a half earlier, Murray Hill residents had vehemently protested and rioted against the bussing of Negro students to schools in the Italian neighborhood, and the strained racial relations had once again hit the boiling point with the outbreak of the disorder in Hough. The Toney shooting came after a false rumor circulated through the area that two Italian residents were shot and wounded by Negro marauders. Toney died on Saturday night, the fourth Negro killed by bullets since the rioting began, and charges of second degree murder were issued against two men and a juvenile on the following Monday morning.^[46]

On Saturday, an announcement was made by the mayor that Cleveland was applying for $150,000 of federal funds to help clean up the riot area. He also announced his unwillingness to meet with a group of Negro ministers who had requested to see him until after order had been restored in the area. An appeal was again made to all concerned citizens to help correct the problems that had been raised by the riots.^[47]

A few isolated cases of sniper fire were reported Saturday night, but otherwise, a peaceful pall spread over the entire city. Detectives in Shaker Heights, an upper middle class suburb on the East Side, stopped a car with six black youths on Lee Road at the south end of the suburb and discovered an abundance of raw materials that went into the production of firebombs in the car. However, fires, vandalism, looting and murder were finally absent from the evening’s activities. The guardsmen stationed in Murray Hill also proved to be deterrents from any further violence in that ethnic subculture.^[48] Talk was beginning to circulate that the National Guard would be released in a few days, and the entire community appeared ready at last to return to normalcy.

Sunday was normal. There was very little activity of any kind during the day, just as on any normal Sunday, and that night saw no outbreaks of any kind. A rainstorm, late by perhaps six days, the police and the presence of the National Guard, combined with the attitudes of the people in the community, all contributed to making Sunday night abnormally quiet. By 11:00 P.M., the fire department had responded to only one call. However, no definite plans were yet announced regarding the release of the Guard.^[49]

On Monday, July 25th, exactly one week after the incident occurred in the Seventy-Niners’ Cafe which set off the disorders, the Pick-N-Pay grocery store on Hough Avenue reopened, and normal life slowly tried to return to Hough and the rest of Cleveland. A filling station attendant in the Hough neighborhood, however, aptly expressed the feelings of many others in the area when he said, “You can’t say it’s back to normal because it won’t be as before.”^[50] The damage was totaled, the situation was surveyed, and the city reflected on the events of the previous week and plotted its course of action in the months to follow.

The National Guard, first called out on July 19th, was gradually released from active duty during the week of July 25th. The process ended when the last guardsmen were released from duty on July 31st and given thank from Mayor Locher for the rest of the community. It was computed that 2215 guardsmen were paid $187,488 for service from three to thirteen days.^[51]

The City Safety Department estimated their share of the cost at $248,181. This figure included almost 70,000 hours of overtime work for firemen and policemen, as well as damage to vehicles of the Fire and Police departments.^[52] But the damage to the riot-stricken area was impossible to estimate. Some guesses went into several millions, whereas others hovered between one and two million. However, damage in riots is not measured only in dollars and cents. Four people had been killed, many others injured, and intangible damage was beyond computation. Scores of individuals had been arrested during the disturbances, and their ages provided interesting evidence as to who were the actual rioters.

Although many people said that it was mostly teenagers who looted and burned, others recalled seeing scatterings of older men in the crowds. Still others believed that the teenagers in the area had been incited by outsiders. Mrs. Juanita Stepps, a neighborhood youth worker, admitted, “It would not take much to stir up the teenagers; they have nothing and need everything.”^[53] Statistics of those arrested and given hearings tended to support the belief that the majority of the participants were young. Although juveniles were not listed in the paper, a sampling of those appearing in court during the week following the disorders showed a concentration of nineteen-year-olds who had participated. The median age of those appearing was twenty-two, and the average figure was pulled up to twenty-five by isolated cases of older men becoming involved in the action (see Appendix One).^[54]

While observers computed the damage and analyzed the disorders, the City of Cleveland, still reeling from the shock of the previous week’s activities, strained to return to normal. The mass violence and disorder were over. Unfortunately, the problems were not.