In 1967, police arrested an African-American cab driver in Newark, N.J. setting off six days of rioting. Last week, the police fatally shot black Briton Mark Duggan; an event that many are calling the spark that ignited four days (to date) of rioting in the U.K. But do the similarities end there? Many would argue that the underlying causes of the 1967 Newark riots – rampant joblessness, alienation and racial disparity – are the same as those that incited riots in the U.K. this week, as well as the riots that overtook America’s cities in the late 1960’s. Bob Herbert, distinguished senior fellow at Demos and former columnist for our partner, The New York Times, was living in neighboring Montclair in July 1967, and talks about the underlying causing of civil unrest.
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