‘Where there is oppression, there is resistance’: the 1967 Newark riots – in pictures

In the new book The War Is Here: Newark 1967 edited by Chris Campion, Life photographer Bud Lee documents the five-day-long riot that was sparked by the arrest and beating of a cab driver. In that time, 26 people were killed by police gunfire and thousands were arrested

The following gallery was originally published in The Guardian on May 19, 2023.

Newark Police officers fire at a fleeing Billy Furr

Bud Lee was on assignment for Life magazine in Newark in the summer of 1967 covering the riots sparked by the arrest and beating of a cab driver.

Outside Amiri Baraka’s Spirit House in Newark during the first national Black Power Conference

‘There was a riot breaking out, so they sent a limousine,’ said Lee. ‘So here I am in the backseat of a limousine with a chauffeur going into the worst ghetto in the country.’

A National Guardsman stands watch in Newark, July 1967

‘I didn’t realize that I had anything that great, because I assume other photographers are getting similar stuff,’ said Lee. ‘I knew that violence was all over and there were many, many more people killed, and more tragic events. But they weren’t recorded, because the photographers weren’t nearby.’

Military police in Newark, July 1967

‘The camera acts like a shield,’ said Lee. ‘You feel like you can’t get hurt ... I didn’t feel in danger at all, in other words.’

Chained arrestees being loaded into a Sheriff’s van, Newark, July 1967

‘I believe that the press does cause riots,’ said Lee. ‘Because when you have TV cameras and press people, people act. They all become James Bond. They all become superheroes. They act in front of the lenses.’

Newark police in a patrol car, July 1967

‘Essentially, there were two riots in Newark,’ said Eric Mann, Newark Community Union Project organizer. ‘One was started by black people and one by the state police. The first riot was over in two days, it took very few lives but a hell of a lot of property. The second riot was pure retribution on the part of the national guard and state police.’

Newark police officer stands over the body of Billy Furr

‘The state police were accosting people, pulling them out of cars and hitting them over the head,’ said Mann. ‘A sniper would shoot from a roof and they’d shoot one or two shots at the sniper and he’d run away. Then they would empty three hundred rounds into the entire apartment building, shooting from the first floor to the fifth or sixth floors.’

Billy Furr (right) and friends emerging from Mack Liquors on Avon Avenue, Newark

‘The policy of the national guard was to use the sniper – and there were very few by Friday – as an excuse to put down what they understood to be a very popular rebellion and as a result they felt that anybody in the neighborhood was fair game,’ said Mann.

Joey Bass Jr lies wounded on the street as Officer Scarpone, one of the Newark policemen whose bullets hit him, stands over

‘When I talk about the rebellion, first of all, violence was brought into that Black community,’ said H Rap Brown, speaking at the 1967 Black Power Conference. ‘Black people did not become violent until the racist honky cops came down up in there, with all their arms, and then Black people began to defend themselves.’

Newark street scene, July 1967

‘The point is, where there is oppression, there is resistance,’ said Amiri Baraka. ‘And as long as the society is unjust and inequitable, you will have resistance – and much of it will be violent.’

The War is Here is edited by Chris Campion and released by ZE Books.

The War is Here: Newark 1967

With a foreword by the Honorable Ras J. Baraka, 40th Mayor of Newark, NJ, The War Is Here is Life magazine photographer Bud Lee’s dramatic, empathetic, and still shocking record of the Newark uprising of 1967—a pivotal moment in a summer of protest and rage across the country, whose reverberations we still feel today.

US Release: May 16, 2023 • UK Release: May 22, 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 9781736309360 • 192 pages

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Guardian Picture Gallery: 'The War Is Here' Captures the 1967 Newark Uprising