Anti-Brutality Activism and Neighborhood Anti-Crime Activism During the 1970s

Abstract

On a mid-August day in 1978 when temperatures reached a sticky 92 degrees, roughly 3,000 Philadelphians—predominantly Black and working-class—converged on Philadelphia's City Hall. The demonstrators had marched across the city from the north, south, and west to participate in an anti-police brutality protest that, to one journalist, “had the air of a grass roots movement.” In recent days, Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) officers had gunned down two restrained and unarmed Black men and viciously beaten a third unarmed Black radical in front of rolling television cameras. State representative Dave Richardson, a young Black politician, stood before the demonstrators and urged them to register to vote so that they could oust the “psychopath,” Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo. A large sign loomed over the crowd reinforcing Richardson's call to action: “Vote for your life. Pull the switch on Rizzo before he pulls the switch on you.” After the speeches at City Hall, the demonstrators marched another eight blocks to the federal US Court House. As demonstrators then rallied for federal judicial action, Representative Richardson raced from the gathering to Washington D.C., where he joined a delegation urging the US Attorney General to open a case against the PPD. 1