Because photographers were largely safe with authorities, the pictures show a stark power divide
A black youth has his face pressed to the ground as Tampa police subdue him in a slum area near the downtown city section as racial trouble flared anew in Tampa, Florida, June 12, 1967. The man hesitated when police cautioned him to move on, saying he wanted to lock his car. He was grabbed, handcuffed and taken away in paddy wagon. (AP Photo/Jim Bourdier)
Unlike today, when breaking news events are covered as much by civilian participants as credentialed members of the press, chronicling the Long Hot Summer of 1967 was almost exclusively the domain of professional photojournalists. It was the golden age of mass media, and though TV was commanding an increasingly bigger piece of the audience, plenty of people still got their news—and entertainment—from the printed page. Over time a rich trove of well composed archival news photos have come to define the events of that summer—but they are skewed towards the perspective of law enforcement. There are almost no pictures originating from within the simmering communities of Roxbury or Avondale at the time. Rather, our impression of how these riots played out is defined by the presence of lawmen, and the experience of the photojournalists embedded alongside them.
The riots of ‘67 weren’t tactically planned forays. They were impulsive, responsive, cathartic spurts of violence—and their participants sure as hell weren’t honoring press passes. The mostly white newsmen responding to these scenes weren’t immune from the violence. Indeed, some were targeted by rioters themselves. In Milwaukee in late July, “a UPI reporter was knocked to the ground and kicked by members of the mob. Other reporters had their cars pelted with rocks.”
Visiting photographers would have had no choice but to embed with law enforcement in order to access the action. And the result, though often enticingly cinematic, should be read within that context. In these moments, rioters appear criminal or helpless, while their arresting officers are humanized, righteous individuals in control. It was a familiar narrative for much of America: a determined authority restoring calm to a futile uprising of characterless, nearly invisible outsiders.
Note: These archival newswire photos are presented with their original captions, some of which lend insight into the biased terminologies of the time.
Police blockade a street on Detroit’s Near West Side, about three miles from the downtown area, July 23, 1967. Violence erupted early Sunday morning when police raided an unlicensed after-hours bar known as a “blind pig”. (AFP/Getty Images)Gov. George Romney, left, is guarded by an unidentified policeman holding a shotgun as he toured the scene of Detroit riot, July 24, 1967. Rampaging blacks bombed, pillaged and burned their way through a wide area of the city. (AP Photo)(left) A young man in a suit and waistcoat sits handcuffed in the back of a police wagon during a riot, Newark, New Jersey, July 1967. (London Daily Express/Hultlon Archive/Getty Images). | (right) A black who, according to police, had refused to heed an order to stop after being caught looting a burning building in Newark, lies dead on Mulberry Street early July 15th during [a] third straight night of rioting by blacks. (Bettmann/Getty Images)Detroit, MI: A National Guardsman on duty in a devastated area of this riot-torn city takes a watermelon break as he stands amid the rubble of damaged buildings on the west side of Detroit where the racial violence erupted. Guardsmen exchanged shots with snipers harassing firemen fighting a new blaze July 28, but the city otherwise was returning to normal with summer schools reopening and traffic the heaviest since the rioting began. (Bettmann/Getty Images)National Guardsman patrolling street after race riots in Detroit. (Declan Haun/Life Picture Collection/Getty Images)National Guard in the streets after the rioting in Detroit in July 1967. (AP) | Policemen arrest suspects in a Detroit street on July 25, 1967 during riots that erupted following a police operation. (AFP/Getty Images)Police take cover behind parked cars during the riots in Newark, New Jersey, 14th July 1967. The disturbances, which began after a black taxi driver was arrested and beaten by police, lasted from the 12th to the 17th of July, resulting in 23 deaths. (Harry Benson/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Tampa riot police, almost aim-in-arm, walk down Central Avenue in the riot area near downtown Tampa at dusk, June 12, 1967, warning all residents in the predominantly black area to stay off the street and in their homes. At right is a burned out building from the early morning riot. (AP/Jim Bourdier)Detroit, MI: A telling symbol of protection—a Michigan National Guard bayonet sharply sticks out from a truck touring the damaged, riot-torn west side of Detroit. The official death toll, July 26, after four nights of rioting in the motor city stood at 33. The unofficial count was much higher as tanks rumbled through the streets and machine gun and rifle fire crackled over a 200-square-block riot zone four miles west of downtown Detroit. (Bettmann/Getty Images)Detroit, MI: Policeman lining up suspects after race riots. (Declan Haun/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)Two of eight blacks are frisked by police at the doorway of boarded-up supermarket in heart of Cold Spring district in Buffalo’s riot-torn east side, June 30, 1967. They were caught throwing rocks, and did not move on when told by police. Police confiscated three knives before the men were carried off to jail. (AP/Richard J. Sroda)Michigan National Guardsmen relax for the first time since last Sunday when they were brought into Detroit to help put down widespread rioting, July 27, 1967. It was calm in the area on Wednesday night and after four days of violence that swelled into one of the costliest riots in the nation’s history. (AP)
