“A NEW DAY DAWNS OVER RIOT-TORN NEWARK”: 12 ORIGINAL UPI PHOTOGRAPHS RELATING TO THE 1967 KERNER COMMISSION

(CIVIL RIGHTS) UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL. Photographs of governmental deliberations on the “race riots” of 1967. New York: United Press International, 1967-68. 12 original glossy photographic prints in various sizes (largest 8 by 10 inches). $850.

Twelve original UPI captioned photographs of meetings and events during the “long hot summer” of 1967, in which riots were reported in 128 American cities.

“The summer of 1967 marked the apex of a cycle of ‘urban unrest’ that began during the mid-1960s in Harlem and Watts and tapered off by the early 1970s. During the ‘summer of love,’ 164 ‘civil disorders’ were reported in 128 American cities. Of these ‘disturbances’ that took place in the summer of 1967, Newark and Detroit were arguably the most severe… Both ‘riots’ were sparked by police activity in predominantly black neighborhoods, but the underlying causes were quite complex, including police brutality, persistent poverty, and a lack of political representation for African American residents” (Rutgers University). The Kerner Commission, appointed by President Johnson in July of 1967 while the riots were still in full swing to investigate their causes and how to prevent them, was headed by Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois and included Mayor Lindsay of New York, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, and other politicians. These photographs include numerous ones of the comission, along with one of a damaged corner in Newark, one of H.Rap Brown and Dick Gregory, and three of rural African-American poverty in the South.

Fine condition.