DC Riots of 1968

NYAPC History

This page contains some stories about the rich history of our church. However, there's much more to tell so watch for significant expansion of the history portion of our website in the months to come.

The Community Club and the Washington Riots of 1968

In the early evening of April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King was slain by James Earl Ray outside a Memphis motel.  The sad and shocking story was strewn across television and radio, and by 7:15 that evening the first crowds were starting to gather at the intersection of 14th and U Streets, NW, the center of a major commerical area of Washington's Black community..  Over the next several hours, the crowds grew in size, uncontrollability and lawlessness.  Initial efforts by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to close businesses as a sign of mourning soon deteriorated into window breaking, looting and arson.  By the end of the four-day trial by fire, 12 people had died, 1199 had been injured, 7600 had been arrested, 645 buildings containing 909 commercial establishments had been damaged and nearly 40 percent of those had been determined to be unsalvagable.  Still today, more than 30 years after the riots, one can see vestiges of empty commercial properties abandoned after the disturbances and never again occupied.  It is difficult to convey today that combination of sadness, excitement and helplessness that marked the Spring and Summer of 1968.

April 4th was a Thursday, and so the Community Club of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church was scheduled to meet.  At that time Community Club had two components.  The first, the original Community Club, was a recreation program with a basketball court, a ping-pong table and a juke box.  It had begun a number of years before in response to the need for recreational opportunities for the Black youth of the Shaw neighborhood who were grossly underserved by the segregated Police Boys Clubs of the District.  Community Club met four evenings a week in the basement of the New York Avenue Church.  In February 1962 the Community Club Tutoring Program was formed to respond in some fashion to the fact that nearly all the kids in the recreational program had dropped out of school.  The tutoring program soon evolved into a one-on-one mentoring relationship for one hour each Thursday night..  All of the tutors at that time were white.  All of the youth were black.  Most of the tutors were members of the church.  Most of the kids came from Shaw, although, even in 1968, some children had begun to find their way to New York Avenue from other neighborhoods in the City.

At least early on the Community Club activities were the carrot that brought the kids to tutoring.  Youth who came for Community Club were required to come upstairs for tutoring, and, when the tutoring hour was up, they could wend their way back down for recreation.

Which brings us to April 4, 1968.  Although Dr. King died of his wounds after Community Club had begun, at 7:05 PM, Dave Brown, Co-Director of the Club, then and now, remembers that there was a perceptible buzz as kids entered the Peter Marshall Hall that night.  Perhaps the youth had already heard that Dr. King had been shot.  When he knew that Dr. King had died, Dave announced it, and a radio remained on the remainder of the hour.  Tutoring continued, but Dave recalls vividly that one particularly outspoken young man came up to him and remarked, "The City's going to burn for this!"

Only after the students left that evening was it clear how right he was.  Over the next three days and nights, the city burned -- first north of downtown along 14th Street, then spreading to the 7th and H Street corridors and sporadically in other areas of the city.

In the immediate aftermath of the rioting, two needs among the families of Community Club students were evident.  For some it was shelter, and the Church made the Peter Marshall Hall available for families who had been burned out of their homes.  Pew cushions from the sanctuary were laid out to serve as bedding.  For more, as Mr. Brown remembers, the need was food, since one of the principal targets of the looting and burning was neighborhood food markets.  Under the leadership of Thelma Odom, members of the church called on parents and guardians of Community Club students and brought food for those who were without.

A week passes.  By the following Thursday evening, the City was quiet but restive.  Dave reports that both tutors and youth showed up for tutoring in full force and that the buzz of the week before had somehow evaporated.

Even now, when a snowstorm is approaching on Thursday night and students and tutors call inquiring whether Community Club will meet, more often than not the answer will be: If we met in the Spring of 1968, then how can we not meet now?

Information from conversation with David Brown;
and Ben W. Gilbert and the Staff of the Washington Post.
Ten Blocks from the White House: Anatomy of the Washington Riots of 1968
Washington: Frederick A, Praeger;
and George M. Docherty.
I've Seen the Day.
Grand Rapids: Eerdman's Publishing, 1984.