Plainfield riots - 1967

Current Plainfielders might be interested in this article about the 1967 Plfd. riots and their legacy, that appeared recently in The Nation magazine, written by a graduate of the PHS class of 1966

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml...

Don't believe everyting you read.
What they said about officer Gleason is not true.

I normally don't get into things like this but I check the forum as I has a different topic going.

I grew up in Plainfield and although I was not living right in town when the riots happened, I was near by. When I saw the name "officer Gleason" I had like an instant memory recall. I said, I knew him. I never got in trouble but we used to talk to a lot of the cops. We had hotrod and yes, I did live in Sleepy Hollow but the cops would always chase us away from out hangouts like they did to everyone. They were good and they would joke around a lot with us as they did with everyone, I have seen it with my own eyes. From what I have seen, they treated every one fair. We had black friends that we hung around with, went to parties with and we were all good friends.

Ok, I'm reminiscing a bit. I have read that article before and I just read it again. I see many things written that just are not correct. The more I read that, I know it is not right, the more I read, the more I think the entire article is some one's opinion or just hearsay. Knowing the police in general as I did,(In fact one cop in town dated my sister)not a one of them would go running off shooting at anyone unless they were shot at first. That is my opinion after living there for 20 plus years. I could go on and on but not now.

The tensions were nation wide as they still are today and it was like just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one will ever know the true answers so why make up stories. My $0.02

John
http://home.cfl.rr.com/inskeep/Leaping%20Elep...

i lived in plainfield until 1967. my mother family dates back to early 1900s. my grandfather was a policeman there as was my uncle. my uncle was friends with officer gealson. what was writen about him is false.

My father was a policeman in Plainfild until 1962. I was very proud to be a policemans daughter. I loved Plainfield. I left when i got married in 1962. I remember officer Gleason

mike wrote:

i lived in plainfield until 1967. my mother family dates back to early 1900s. my grandfather was a policeman there as was my uncle. my uncle was friends with officer gealson. what was writen about him is false.

I was a reporter in 1967 and covered the Plainfield riots. Besides killing John Gleason, the blacks ambushed and shot and killed another officer and wounded a second. We were at war in those days, and not the one in Vietnam.

the person who said he was a reporter is full of shit. there were know other policeman killed or wounded. if you are what you say you are get the faxs.

nanahow wrote:

My father was a policeman in Plainfild until 1962. I was very proud to be a policemans daughter. I loved Plainfield. I left when i got married in 1962. I remember officer Gleason
<quote
text>

I am his daughter. Thanks for rembering him.

mike wrote:

i lived in plainfield until 1967. my mother family dates back to early 1900s. my grandfather was a policeman there as was my uncle. my uncle was friends with officer gealson. wh
at was writen about him is false.

I just stumbled on this web site. Officer Gleason was my father. Thank you for what you said. Our family did not recieve the justice he deserved. No one is in prison anymore. Those murderers got the best of the civil rights lawyers and my father's case was botched up. Who was marching for him when it happened and when a lot of people got away with murder.

John Inskeep class of 58 wrote:

I normally don't get into things like this but I check the forum as I has a different topic going.
I grew up in Plainfield and although I was not living right in town when the riots happened, I was near by. When I saw the name "officer Gleason" I had like an instant memory recall. I said, I knew him. I never got in trouble but we used to talk to a lot of the cops. We had hotrod and yes, I did live in Sleepy Hollow but the cops would always chase us away from out hangouts like they did to everyone. They were good and they would joke around a lot with us as they did with everyone, I have seen it with my own eyes. From what I have seen, they treated every one fair. We had black friends that we hung around with, went to parties with and we were all good friends.
Ok, I'm reminiscing a bit. I have read that article before and I just read it again. I see many things written that just are not correct. The more I read that, I know it is not right, the more I read, the more I think the entire article is some one's opinion or just hearsay. Knowing the police in general as I did,(In fact one cop in town dated my sister)not a one of them would go running off shooting at anyone unless they were shot at first. That is my opinion after living there for 20 plus years. I could go on and on but not now.
The tensions were nation wide as they still are today and it was like just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one will ever know the true answers so why make up stories. My $0.02
John
http://home.cfl.rr.com/inskeep/Leaping%20Elep...

You said you knew him? You are right that he would not have shot that black youth prior to his death without warrant. They used that against his good name. Easy to say anything about the dead who cannot defend themselves. That nasty defense lawyer w. Kunsler for sure used that against him. How about how brutal the murder was that they could not present pictures to them to the jury because they were too gruesome. Was that justified. So many of them got away with murder. Just pray those involved are suffering every day and they are haunted by it. Most likely not because they were animals with no soul. Hope people remember my dad well

That was Beck& Perry and then another one at St MAry's Church. Not the same dates, but months apart as I recall

Thomas wrote:

I was a reporter in 1967 and covered the Plainfield riots. Besides killing John Gleason, the blacks ambushed and shot and killed another officer and wounded a second. We were at war in those days, and not the one in Vietnam.

That was Perry & Buzeck. Not sure when but around the same time.

Everyone is always trying to put plainfield down. Why? Because we're black. Well let me tell yall something we are not going no where no time soon so yall need to get use to our faces. Whites care nothing about us and we need to realize that and stand together instead of fight and fuss and get no where. No disrespect but we're worried about riots in the 1960s what about those that are living in the 2000s starving, people in Darfur, Hurricane Katrina. Have anything been fixed yet? NO. WHY? BECAUSE WE'RE BLACK!!!!!!!!!!

I was nine years-old at the time of the riots in Plainfield. The most frightening events for me were seeing the National Guard in their tanks traveling the streets and scrambling under my bed when bullets hit my bedroom window.

The 1967 riots forever changed the demographics of the "Queen City", which has never been able to recover educationally, socially, economically, politically, etc.

Seven years ago I relocated to another state. However, I keep abreast of its current status via the online newspaper and friends. Honestly, I am appalled and disappointed regarding the present status of my hometown.

God help Plainfield, NJ!

WHY? BECAUSE WE'RE BLACK!!!!!!!!!!
It's that kind of moranic self pitty that helps to continue to fuel the fires of racism. You can't forget what happened 40+ years ago, the same way you can't avoid looking at incidents from a 100 or 200 years ago. The present is shaped by the past, and if you wonder why most major urban areas, and some suburban, like Plainfield, have large minority populations you could put much of the blame on the lawlessness promoted by many in the black community at that time (the 1960s). If white flight was a trickle in the 50s it became a tidal wave after the race riots of the 1960s. The previous writer claims he was scared of the National Guard vehicles. Why wasn't he scared of the roaming gangs looting and destroying his neighborhood, and hacking a police officer to death for being at the wrong place at the wrong time?
Sure injustices were unfairly suffered by African Americans for centuries, but that was no excuse to "burn baby burn."
Just at the moment when serious government intervention to end discrimination was taking place, black rebellion starts. Of course the white man is going to say "they got to much already." The black community in America was bated into a trap set by hooligan teens and adult youths. Rabbi Meir Kahane said Jews are their own worst enemies. Thanks to black disturbances in the 1960s the same could be said about African Americans.
Get a life. End the attitude and sel pitty. Brother: it's time to consider the advantages of ending the finger pointing and get into the enfranchisement business!

When we all learn to spell, we will be able to put together cohesive thoughts. The fact that half of the posts have absolutely horrid structure and grammar are indicative of those expounding on the needs of the situation in an absolute vacuum of intelligence. How about cracking a few books first, learn from the past, and carry it into the future. Do you think President Obama became the editor of the Harvard Law Review based on his color or his need to prove something? No,it was because he had reason and logic on his side, hands down.

My older brother witnessed what happened to Officer Gleason and was sickened by the sight. I was only four years old and my brother was ten. We used to live a block away from the scene. My heart still breaks over this story. As for the prejudice in Plainfield, it will never heal, it still continues. I witnessed so much from both black and white. I'm sorry Plainfield could not rise above it. I hope that someday, it will.

I TO LOST A LOVED ONE IN THE RIOTS! iT WASNT IN THE 66 RIOT, BUT ITS BEEN IN 2005 RIOT! WE'VE BEEN HAVING RIOTS FROM THE 60'S UP INTILL NOW WITH-IN THE COMMUNITY WITH OUR OUT OF CONTROL YOUTHS AND NOTHINGS BEEN SAID OR DONE ABOUT IT! TRUE, OUR YOUTHS NEED HELP, AND WE ALSO NEED HELP SO THAT WE CAN HELP OUR YOUTHS. THE ONES THAT AT LEAST WANT THE HELP!

The problem today is essentially the same problem that existed back in 1967. Blacks and Whites live in two different worlds...neither really listening to what the other feels of cares about.
I was to start the 10th grade at PHS in the fall of 1967. The riots changed all that. I graduated high school in Washington D.C. I personally knew some of the parties involved in the turmoil that summer. I for my part have no bones to pick with anyone except to say that the article was in my opinion factual. As a Black male I can say without equivocation that Plainfield had serious racial problems that only an ostrich could not see coming. I don't wish to regurgitate the hard feelings and pain many Plainfielders still carry from those very despondent and bleak days but as an I witness to some of those events I chose to forgive and move on with my life.
To the woman who lost her father to the violence I offer my sincere condolences. No one deserves to die in the manner that officer Gleason did. I'll leave it at that.
I'm 57 years old and currently working on a book that highlights some of the most egregious attacks on the Constitution in the 20th century. Sadly to say that the house to house search for the stolen guns rates in my top five. That is what bought me to this web site.
I hate revisionist history so I will definitely not re-hash my version of what happened or even why it happened. All I will sat is that it did happen and like most things in life there always seems to be a myriad of reasons why. None of which are relevant in 2009...but then again it maybe. I do know that name-calling; self-justification and recrimination will do nothing more than land your ass as well as mind back in 1967.

I wish you all well.

I am as informed as anyone regarding what took place in Plainfield in those days and I don't recall that at all. Please supply names and dates.