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The Old Neighborhood Strikes Back: Anthony Imperiale, White

Backlash, and Narrative Construction

During the latter half of the 1960s, the perceived inability

of law enforcement to address urban disarray shaped public

attitudes about crime, helping to lay the groundwork for the

emergence of urban vigilante groups. Although public officials

and journalists criticized vigilantes for their actions, often

deeming the activists as racist, many average Americans applauded

their ability to directly address a problem and take action to

fix it. In Newark, a group of citizens led by Anthony Imperiale

responded to the city’s perceived turmoil, vocally and

physically. White backlash against crime and the perceived rise

of unruly African Americans and other minorities necessitated

control over the public narrative concerning urban decay and

racial tensions. Anthony Imperiale was adept at using the media

as a tool for discourse and image-shaping and exploiting the

fears of his white peers, using racially-charged language and

right-wing anticommunist rhetoric to catapult his inconsequential

political career while using white racial fears to counteract

expressions of Black social and political activism.

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The Newark Uprising of 1967

Poor housing, lack of economic opportunity, and police

brutality against African Americans plagued race relations within

Newark. Moreover, the lack of representation in the mayor’s seat,

the City Council, Board of Education, or the Planning Board,

incensed African Americans, despite being a majority of Newark’s

population. After the uprising in mid-July 1967, the activist Tom

Hayden asserted, “The city’s vast programs for urban renewal,

highways, downtown development, and most recently, a 150 acre

Medical School in the heart of the ghetto seemed almost

deliberately designed to squeeze out this rapidly growing Negro

community that represents a majority of the population.”1

Like the disorder in Watts in 1965 and the later Detroit

uprising in October 1967, police brutality was one of the main

causes of Newark’s disorder. On the night of July 12, 1967, two

white Newark police officers stopped a black taxi driver’s car.

The officers beat up the taxi driver, breaking his ribs and 1 Richard Maxwell Brown, Strains of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 229-231; Tom Hayden, Rebellion in Newark: Official Violence and Ghetto Response (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), 6.

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charging him with assault and battery. Through taxi radios, a

rumor spread that police murdered an African American taxi

driver, which trickled into the streets and homes of Newark’s

black community, thereby lighting a fuse and setting off an

explosion of rebellious behavior that engulfed Newark for five

days. Ultimately, around ten million dollars’ worth of white-

owned and black-owned properties and businesses were destroyed.2

The Old Neighborhood Strikes Back: Anthony Imperiale and the

North Ward Citizens Committee

The uprising devastated many portions of Newark’s African

American community, leaving smoldering ruins of black-owned

enterprises and straining relations with the city’s white

population. One Newark resident, Anthony Imperiale, a deli owner

and butcher by day and a defender of whites in Newark’s North

Ward by night, voiced his opposition to the supposed unruliness

of African Americans. Standing at about five feet and nine inches

2 Brown, 229-231; Kevin Mumford, “Harvesting the Crisis: The Newark Uprising, the Kerner Commission, and Writings on Riots” in African American Urban History Since World War II, Kenneth L. Kusmer and Joe W. Trotter, eds. (Chicago, IL:The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 203-204.

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and weighing around two-hundred and thirty pounds, Imperiale

appeared emblematic of white working-class resentment at the

apparent disorder of American society. During an interview with

journalist Ronald Porambo in early 1968, Imperiale revealed his

humble roots. According to Imperiale, three years after his

father was found dead, floating in the Passaic River, he dropped

out of high school at sixteen and commenced his journey as a

drifter who was subject to the throes of economic uncertainty. He

moved from one job to the next (often due to his youthful

unruliness), enlisting in the Marine Corps at one point, then

working brief stints as a garment factory worker, a welder, and a

charity worker. In response to the rise in criminal activity he

viewed as infiltrating his neighborhood, Imperiale formed the

North Ward’s Citizens Committee in 1966, an organization that

promoted self-defense tactics for people. In July 1967, Imperiale

stood his ground with a baseball bat in hand, protecting his

neighborhood from potential looters. In fact, at Newark’s

Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association’s (PBA) riot hearings,

Imperiale “testified” before the committee, telling stories of

how his group successfully defended itself and the North Ward

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against looters, often during gunfights. Yet, Imperiale’s

statements were odd, considering the North Ward was largely

unaffected by the destruction wrought by the uprising and

punitive actions of National Guardsmen and police officers in the

Central Ward.3

Imperiale’s appeal lay within his ability to portray himself

as a concerned white citizen whose daily toil was threatened by

disorder, no matter how unrealistic his claims. As noted by

Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki, racial isolation tends to

amplify the meaning of mass-media messages that Whites receive

about Blacks.4 Imperiale’s job as a butcher and deli owner

exposed him to the toil of attempting to sustain the economic

well-being of his family. During an interview in early April 1969

with Newspaper Enterprises Association’s Tom Tiede, Imperiale

stated, “I’m a member of a minority myself. I got an $8000 home,

I grew up in the slum, my old man built houses to feed seven 3 David M. Halbfinger, “Anthony Imperiale, 68, Dies; Polarizing Force in Newark,“ The New York Times, December 28, 1999; “Anthony (Tough Tony) Michael Imperiale,” Find A Grave, July 8, 2004, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9070589(accessed 21 January 2014); Ronald Porambo, No Cause for Indictment: An Autopsy of Newark (Hoboken, NJ: Melville House, 2007), 179-180.

4 Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2001), 1-2.

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kids. I’m not threatening anybody. I just believe in America,

see, and in law and order.” 5 In multiple interviews, Imperiale

stressed his difficult childhood, recalling that he walked to

school with cardboard in his shoes and sold milk before school to

support his family. For Imperiale, poverty was not an excuse for

deviant behavior, stating, “‘I’m strongly against anyone who uses

poverty as an excuse. We had it rough. We knew poverty. But we

were taught that poverty did not give us a right to steal.’”6

Imperiale touted the classic American creed about the ability of

anyone to raise above his or her economic class. Within such a

society, a set of rules are required so that each person has a

fair chance. Hard work and dedication necessarily entail

financial, political, or social success. By implication, failure

is individualized. As noted by historian Lisa McGirr, during the

1960s, social conservatives placed “a good deal of weight” on

social order and authority, thus opposing the contemporary

liberal emphasis on sociological arguments for explaining social

and economic problems, which undermined “individual 5 Tom Tiede, “Head-Cracking, Jail Tough Tony’s Solution,” The Ocala Star-Banner, April 10, 1969.

6United Press International, “Imperiale: Diamond in the Rough: New Jersey Senator Packs Influence, Punch and Pistol,” The Palm Beach Post, January 20, 1977.

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responsibility and morality;” Catholic conservatives especially

stressed “order” over personal freedom.7 Moreover, white

audiences roared with applause to Imperiale’s statements, such as

“Are there no poor whites? But the Negroes get all the

antipoverty money….The whites are the majority. You know how many

of them come to me, night after night, because they can't get a

job? They've been told, 'We have to hire Negroes first.’”

Conditions in Newark’s North Ward gradually deteriorated over the

course of the 1960s. Although the ward’s 43,000 citizens were

predominantly Italian Americans, many whites associated the

ward’s deteriorating financial state with the influx of African

Americans; state and national funds injected into Newark for

internal improvements failed to improve the North Ward. Imperiale

appealed to his audiences’ economic sensibilities. To Imperiale’s

audience, the once-strong white middle-class ward faltered while

it seemed that Newark’s African American population was receiving

undeserved financial help.8 Lower middle-class whites carried the

burdens of integration while affluent liberal whites “were often

7 Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 1588 Paul Goldberger, “Tony Imperiale Stands for Law and Order,” The New York Times Magazine, September 28, 1968.

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sheltered, in their private lives, and largely immune to the

costs of implementing minority claims.”9 By knowing his audience

and subtly appealing to their ethnic pride, Imperiale won over

his audiences, suggesting that if the sons and daughters of

Italian immigrants could overcome adversity and hardship in the

United States, then African Americans only had themselves to

blame, hence conveniently ignoring centuries of racial, economic,

political, and social forms of discrimination, which were deeply

embedded within societal structures.

In addition, Imperiale portrayed himself as a defender of

democracy by using anticommunist rhetoric about internal

subversion to explain the main cause of uprising and dismiss the

social and economic issues confronted by African Americans within

Newark. Internal subversion by “foreign” agents represented by

civil rights groups such as SDS, Newark Community Union Project

(NCUP), and New Left groups were blamed for the uprising in

Newark. On several occasions, Imperiale equated “black

unruliness” with communist subversion. For example, during a

9 Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1992), 12-13.

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speech to a white community in Nutley, New Jersey, about alleged

rumors of “Negro plots to kill police and white families,”

Imperiale stated, “‘That’s one of the oldest commie tricks, to

instill fear. They’re making a mistake. It’s only making people

more angry....’”10 Imperiale suggested that communists were the

authors of the rumors and potential executors of the plots, yet

audience members would have most likely assumed that Imperiale

was implicating African Americans in the plot/s as puppets of

communists. Although at first it may appear Imperiale’s claims

about communist subversion would not have been taken seriously,

within this time period right-wing anticommunist rhetoric

subsumed issues of morality, authority, economic worry, and

concern about evolving cultural and racial mores.11 Moreover,

Catholic conservatives within Newark’s North Ward would have

understood such rhetoric, recognizing familiar language that

suggested American liberalism was “tainted red,” and communist

infiltrators threatened to undermine “community and both

religious and civic authority.”12

10 Porambo, 175-176.11 McGirr, 175-176.12 Joshua M. Zeitz, White Ethnic New York: Jews, Catholics, and the Shaping of Postward

Politics (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 117.

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Furthermore, during a radio broadcast and interview by Steve

Flanders with Anthony Imperiale, LeRoi Jones, and Captain Charles

Kinney of the Newark Police Department on April 13, 1968, all

three participants partially blamed communist influence for

disorder in Newark. For example, Imperiale’s nemesis, Black Power

activist, LeRoi Jones, explained that political activism as a

means to power by “Black Nationals in Newark” was hindered by

their exploitation by “white-led, so-called radical groups…” and

stated, “We know that there have been a lot of professionals

working in the communities—a lot of white people working in our

communities to do things that were not beneficial to black

people.”13 Jones’ use of the word “professionals” suggests

objective detachment, yet obligational white paternalism towards

African Americans. In fact, Stokely Carmichael stated,

psychologically, “only black people can convey the revolutionary

idea that black people are able to do things themselves…” and

black people “cannot have the oppressors tell the oppressed how

to rid themselves of the oppressor.” Like Carmichael, Jones

recognized that the failure of Tom Hayden and other white

13 Porambo 196.

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activists within Newark to understand how their racialization and

whiteness entailed class privileges would lead to

misunderstanding between Whites and Blacks and possibly

violence.14 Whereas Jones asserted that Black political activism

was misdirected by the efforts of white radicals, Imperiale

continued to rely on the theme that African Americans were

politically naïve and guided by communist subversives, stating,

“Now we’ve had Negro ghettos since I was a boy. We never had

revolutions like this. Somebody had to come in and spark it. You

can’t tell me that black people did this on their own, because

they never did it before.”15 Imperiale’s equation of Black self-

determination to communist subversion suggested that it was

“alien” to white American society. By implication, popular

sovereignty was reserved for Whites. In essence, Imperiale used

racially coded language in order to delegitimize Black political

activism and assert White political supremacy.

Following his radio address in April 1968, Imperiale

continued his campaign for a seat in Newark’s city council.

14 David Barber, A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why It Failed (Kindle) (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2008), 282-327/4395.

15 Porambo 198.

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Imperiale’s popularity soared when he was subject to two

“assassination attempts” on his life, one involving the explosion

of three bombs outside of his karate dojo on July 25, 1968, and

another involving an alleged drive-by shooting. After his

election in November 1968, Imperiale continued to appeal to the

racial fears of whites, stating “[S]ome Negroes don’t deserve any

favors. I read this book…titled ‘Look Out Whitey, Black Power

Gonna Get Your Momma….’ [I]f that kind ever thinks they’re gonna

start anything here in Newark again, well, here’s one white

that’s gonna be ready.”16 What Imperiale mistook for aggression

was actually self-defense against police brutality. As noted by

civil rights activist Tom Hayden, “[T]he Police Department was

seen as the spearhead of organized hostility to Negro action, an

armed unit protecting the privileges of the shrinking white

community of the city.”17 If Imperiale and other white

conservatives were unable to contain the supposed threats

entailed by Black Power, then all would be lost. The loss of

political power would signify an upheaval against the white power16 Tiede, “Head-Cracking.”

17 Tom Hayden, “A Special Supplement: The Occupation of Newark,” The New York Review of Books, August 24, 1967, <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1967/aug/24/a-special-supplement-the-occupation-of-newark/?insrc=toc> (accessed 16 February 2015)

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structure within Newark. The colonizers feared that they would

become the colonized.

Of the racial attitudes and intents of Imperiale and the

North Ward Citizens Committee, the picture was complicated.

According to an article published in the Bergen Record on February

15, 1968, “’They (The North Ward Citizens Committee) estimate

their strength at 1,550, claim to own an armored car and a

helicopter, patrol the streets in cars called ‘Jungle Cruisers,’

urge the use of dogs by police and vow they are ready to defend

themselves… ‘”18 The denigration and exoticization of African

American citizens within Newark by Imperiale within his speeches

and their reproduction through newspaper articles allowed

Imperiale to dehumanize African Americans and strip them of their

rights as humans and citizens of the United States. Newark was

simultaneously a battleground and “jungle.” As noted in the Report

of the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders, the lack of mass media

to portray events in a way that considered the “anxieties and

apprehension[s]” of the subjects increased the susceptibility of

readers, listeners, and viewers to the rumor and fear-mongering

18 Porambo 175.

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of people (such as Imperiale) who were able to grasp their

imaginations.19 Imperiale’s language invoked classic racial

stereotypes and imagery of a socioeconomically and culturally

underdeveloped environment inhabited by less-than-human people.

At the same time, it demonstrates the interchangeability and

adaptation of old stereotypes into a contemporary setting where

domestic psychological distress about war abroad (i.e. the

Vietnam War) was transposed and expressed as internal warfare

against crime and racial strife.

A little more than a year later, journalist Tom Tiede

participated in a ride-along with members of the organization and

he commented on how they were “all young, sport-shirted men…. In

the rear there is another prepster, a college student and a man

who doesn’t give his occupation…. They just sign up for duty,

they say, and are accepted…”20 The ostensible breakdown of law

and order prompted some concerned white citizens to come together

and vow to protect their neighborhoods from “black

19 “Report of the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders” in Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America, Darnell M. Hunt, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 27-30.20 Tom Tiede, “Newark’s Vigilantes ‘Don’t Like Militancy Period,’” The Ocala Star-Banner, April 11, 1969.

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encroachment.”21 During the ride-along, Tiede spoke with the

driver, who stated, “If we can stop a mugging, or a rape, or if

our women are safe walking the streets, that’s our only reward….

That’s our job: to make the streets safe, understand?” Yet, the

driver’s coded language was made explicit when he stated that

Imperiale was “building this neighborhood back to what it was

before everybody got scared of the niggers.”22 As the majority,

whites asserted their hegemony over their African American

neighbors through political and economic dominance.

Imperiale and his group quickly renounced the vigilante

label used by journalists to describe them. Some people believed

that Imperiale was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a charge that he

denied. Moreover, the New Jersey branch of the American Civil

Liberties Union believed that he was the leader of a “secret,

uniformed, paramilitary organization composed of white persons

dedicated to opposing by force and violence attempts on the part

of the Negro American to achieve equality.” Imperiale responded

by stating, “Vigilantes are usually out to lynch somebody. But

21 Brown, 118.22 Tiede, “Newark’s Vigilantes.”

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we’re not to lynch anybody. Our job here is to not act as police

officers, but just to see that our families can come home from

church, schools, subways, and stores in peace.”23 In his article

“Television and Black Consciousness,” writer Molefi Kete Asante

contends, “The message content of television during the

insurrections of the 1960s was frequently of a confrontation

between (white) property rights and (black) human rights.”24

Imperiale’s utilization of the word “lynch” conjured images of

Southern brutality against African Americans, yet he attempted to

distinguish the Northern version of racialized violence and

oppression from the Southern form/s. As a result, Imperiale

implied that respectable citizens (namely Whites) had a personal

and economic attachment to the community, whereas criminals

(namely Blacks), who were non-citizens, did not have a meaningful

attachment to it; their pursuits were enervating, draining the

community’s essence so that they could fulfill their transitory

and empty desires.

23 Ronald Sullivan, “Newark’s White Vigilante Group, Opposed by Governor, Sees Itself as an Antidote to Riots,” The New York Times, June 24, 1968.

24 Molefi Kete Asante, “Television and Black Consciousness” in Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America, Darnell M. Hunt, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 62.

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Conclusion

Because many of Newark’s police authorities were implicated

in accepting bribes, brutality against African Americans, and

political corruption, Imperiale and other whites felt

disempowered. Nonetheless, Imperiale sought to fill the power

void, knowing the perceived absence of state authorities and

uncertain political conditions would allow him to interpret the

“popular will” of “the people,” which the local government was

unable to do.25 Decades of segregation and the systematic

colonization of African Americans within substandard housing and

redlined real estate markets made it difficult for African

Americans to assert their political rights in urban areas across

the North. However, the mass migration of African Americans to

urban areas in the North during the two world wars, white flight,

and suburbanization posed threats to white dominance in politics

and other areas. The gradual transference of political power to

African Americans within Newark worried Imperiale and other white

citizens. Imperiale attempted to ride the white waves of 25 William C. Culberson, Vigilantism: Political History of Private Power in America (New

York: Praeger, 1990), 36-49; Jennet Kirkpatrick, Uncivil Disobedience: Studies in Violence and Democratic Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 49.

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discontent into the upper echelons of political society as a

media celebrity, yet his efforts were largely unavailing. Prior

to Imperiale’s failed mayoral race against Kenneth Gibson in

1970, Sam Raffaelo, the lawyer who introduced Imperiale to

politics, stated, “They say all Maddox did in Georgia was wield a

pick handle and catapulted himself to the governor’s chair. Tony

can be mayor of Newark, he can be governor. Tony is sweeping the

country, everybody’s talking about him.” Yet as a politician

divested of his dramatic flair by Governor Richard J. Hughes via

the outlawing of vigilante groups and the cessation of wearing

army fatigues by members of the North Ward Citizens Committee,

Imperiale’s sparkle burned out over time, despite winning three

state legislature elections until the end of the 1970s.26 During

a period of social, political, and economic uncertainty,

Imperiale and his followers found security by aligning themselves

against some African Americans, who they perceived as threats.

The recurrent use of law and order themes concerning communal

26 Porambo 203-204; “Imperiale, Anthony,” Our Campaigns, February 5, 2012, http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=15847 (25 February 2015)

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solidarity, an us/them dichotomy, and implied racial solidarity

by Imperiale legitimized his ascension into political power.

Bibliography

Asante, Molefi Kete. “Television and Black Consciousness” in Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America, Darnell M. Hunt, ed. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Barber, David. A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why It Failed (Kindle). Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2008.

Brown, Richard Maxwell. Strains of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Culberson, William C. Vigilantism: Political History of Private Power in America. New York: Praeger, 1990.

Edsall, Thomas Byrne and Mary D. Edsall. Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics.New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1992.

Entman, Robert M. and Andrew Rojecki. The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Hayden, Tom. Rebellion in Newark: Official Violence and Ghetto Response. New York: Vintage Books, 1967.

Hunt, Darnell M., ed. Channeling Blackness: Studies in Television and Race in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Mumford, Kevin. “Harvesting the Crisis: The Newark Uprising, the Kerner Commission, and Writings on Riots” in African American Urban History Since World War II, Kenneth L. Kusmer and Joe W. Trotter, eds. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2009.

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Kirkpatrick, Jennet. Uncivil Disobedience: Studies in Violence and Democratic Politics.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Kusmer, Kenneth L, and Joe W. Trotter, eds. African American Urban History since World War II. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

McGirr, Lisa. Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right. Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

National Advisory Committee. “Report of the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders” in Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America, Darnell M. Hunt, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Porambo, Ronald. No Cause for Indictment: An Autopsy of Newark. Hoboken, NJ: Melville House, 2007.

Zietz, Joshua M. White Ethnic New York: Jews, Catholics, and the Shaping of Postwar Politics. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Newspapers

Goldberger, Paul. “Tony Imperiale Stands for Law and Order.” The New York Times Magazine, September 28, 1968.

Sullivan, Ronald. “Newark’s White Vigilante Group, Opposed by Governor, Sees Itself as an Antidote to Riots.” New York Times, June 24, 1968.

Tiede, Tom. “Gibson Battles an Image.” Tuscaloosa News, July 29, 1970.

Tiede, Tom. “Head-Cracking, Jail Tough Tony’s Solution.”Ocala Star-Banner, April 10, 1969.

Tiede, Tom. “Newark’s Vigilantes ‘Don’t Like Militancy Period.’” Ocala Star-Banner, April 11, 1969.

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United Press International. “Imperiale, Diamond in the Rough: NewJersey Senator Packs Influence, Punch and Pistol.” The Palm Beach Post, January 20, 1977.

Websites

“Anthony (Tough Tony) Michael Imperiale.” Find A Grave, July 8, 2004, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9070589 (accessed 21 January 2014)

“Imperiale, Anthony.” Our Campaigns, February 5, 2012, http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=15847 (25 February 2015)

Hayden, Tom. “A Special Supplement: The Occupation of Newark.” The New York Review of Books, August 24, 1967 <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1967/aug/24/a-special-supplement-the-occupation-of-newark/?insrc=toc> (accessed 16 February 2015)