Crown Heights conflicts
The Crown Heights conflicts refer to a series of racially charged events that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, which is home to a diverse population, primarily consisting of Black residents of Caribbean descent and Orthodox Jewish communities, particularly the Hasidic Lubavitchers. Tensions escalated due to perceptions of unequal treatment by local authorities, with Black leaders alleging favoritism towards the Jewish community, while Jewish leaders expressed concerns over rising antisemitism and violence against their community.
The situation erupted into violence in August 1991 following the tragic death of seven-year-old Gavin Cato, who was struck by a car carrying a prominent Hasidic leader. The subsequent departure of the driver led to public outrage and culminated in riots that saw both communities clashing violently. The unrest was further fueled by the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum, a Jewish man, by a Black youth, intensifying communal hostilities.
In the wake of the riots, which lasted several days, both communities voiced dissatisfaction with law enforcement and government responses, prompting investigations into the events and the handling of the situation by city officials. The Crown Heights conflicts remain a poignant example of racial and cultural tensions in urban America, highlighting the complexities of community relations and the impact of systemic issues on marginalized groups.
Crown Heights conflicts
Crown Heights, a racially mixed section of Brooklyn, New York, began to experience civil unrest in the late 1980s. Many of the residents were either low-income Black individuals who immigrated from Caribbean countries or Lubavitchers, Orthodox (Hasidic) Jews who maintained a strong religious identity reflected in their dress and their insularity. Both groups have been subject to stereotyping and victimized by discrimination, from both within and outside the Crown Heights community. Relations between Jewish and Black residents in the community were tense. Black leaders charged that Lubavitchers had received better treatment from local authorities than that accorded Black residents, and Hasidic leaders countered that Black antisemitism had made Lubavitchers victims of street crimes and subject to continual harassment.
The racial unrest erupted into full-scale rioting in Crown Heights in the summer of 1991, on the heels of the accidental killing of a seven-year-old Guyanese American youth named Gavin Cato. On the evening of August 19, a car carrying the Lubavitcher Grand Rebbe and Menachem Schneerson, a Hasidic spiritual leader, ran a red light at the intersection of President Street and Utica Avenue, striking and killing Cato and injuring his cousin, Angela. As a crowd gathered at the scene, a private Jewish ambulance whisked away the Hasidic driver, Yosef Lifsh, and his two passengers. Their departure spurred an angry reaction, leading, three hours later, to the fatal stabbing of Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting Hasidic professor from Australia, and the arrest of his alleged attacker, a sixteen-year-old Trinidadian American and Brooklyn resident, Lemrick Nelson Jr.
In the predawn hours of August 20, after Rosenbaum’s death at Kings County Hospital, protests escalated into mob violence, with Black individuals and Hasidic Jews fighting with words, stones, and bottles, ignoring police efforts to stop the rioting. The violence continued through the next two days, fed by the rumor (later shown to be true) that the Hasidic driver, Lifsh, had left on a plane bound for Israel. Black leaders, including the Reverend Al Sharpton and Alton Maddox, demanded the arrest and return of Lifsh, and their followers rebuffed the efforts of New York mayor David Dinkins and Police Commissioner Lee Brown to restore peace, especially after learning that Nelson had been charged with second-degree murder in Rosenbaum’s death. By August 24, rioting finally gave way to protest marches and an uneasy peace maintained by auxiliary police units sent into Crown Heights to restore order.
In the months following the demonstrations, both groups complained that the police and city officials did little to solve the community’s problems. In September, the Brooklyn grand jury refused to indict Lifsh in the death of Cato, angering Black citizens and their leaders. More unrest followed in October 1992, when Nelson was acquitted of all charges in Rosenbaum’s death. Hasidic Jews in the area protested and, within a month, filed a class-action suit against the city government on the grounds of unfair treatment in the 1991 riots.
The disturbances led to investigations at both the state and national levels. One major New York report issued in July 1993, by Richard Girgenti, state director of criminal justice, was highly critical of both Mayor Dinkins and Commissioner Brown. The report, forwarded to the US attorney general, also led to ongoing Justice Department investigations of possible civil rights violations.
Bibliography
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Getlin, Josh. "Two Years after the Riots in Crown Heights, Blacks and Hasidic Jews Are Still Demanding Justice and Nurturing Peace: Rage and Atonement." LA Times, 29 Aug. 1993, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-08-29-vw-29286-story.html. Accessed 20 Oct. 2024.
Goldman, Ari L. "Telling It Like It Wasn't." Jewish Week, 8 Sept. 2011, www.jta.org/2011/08/09/ny/telling-it-like-it-wasnt. Accessed 20 Oct. 2024.
Goldman, Ari L. "The Region; As Blacks Clash with Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights, Who's in Control?" New York Times, 25 Aug. 1991, www.nytimes.com/1991/08/25/weekinreview/the-region-as-blacks-clash-with-hasidic-jews-in-crown-heights-who-s-in-control.html. Accessed 20 Oct. 2024.
McFarland, Stephen, and Katie Nelson. "Timeline: How the 1991 Crown Heights Riots Unfolded." Daily News, 14 Aug. 2011, www.nydailynews.com/2011/08/14/timeline-how-the-1991-crown-heights-riots-unfolded. Accessed 20 Oct. 2024.
Smith, Anna Deavere. Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Other Identities. Anchor, 1993.