Strike the Hammer: The Black Freedom Struggle in Rochester, New York, 1940–1970

Abstract

Drawing on oral histories and archival material, Strike the Hammer reconsiders historians' understanding of riots, the relationship between Black power and Black capitalism, corporate responsibility, and the importance of smaller cities in the Black freedom movement. Laura Warren Hill argues Rochester's July 24, 1964, riot transformed the city into “an important laboratory, and national model” in a “quest for the new Black political economy” (p. 2). Rather than an incident of mindless looting and burning, it was an uprising—a “state of war” “hand-to-hand combat” in the streets (p. 55). It was a militant protest with a “heart and head” against the “unholy trinity” of poor housing, police brutality, and unfair economic practices (pp. 66, 54). The uprising was not an end, but a beginning, for Rochester and the nation. Strike the Hammer rethinks the Black freedom movement and Black capitalism. Most uprisings were not in major urban centers. Rochester was a small city with a small Black population fueled by an “East Coast Migrant Stream” that brought Black workers north to harvest vegetables and fruit (p. 13). Black Rochester sidestepped divisions seen elsewhere, with the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People welcoming Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam protests against police brutality (pp. 33–34). Following Peter B. Levy's The Great Uprising (2018), Hill reconsiders the label “riots,” arguing uprisings were willful and deliberate; “insurgents” were not only young men but also women and the elderly (pp. 56, 67).