Homer Floyd, who as a former director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, led efforts to diffuse tensions in the city and address issues, reflects that excessive police force and brutality underscored the violent eruptions. “They characterize any demonstration as a riot.” “The black community does not get a label for a demonstration,” James said. James argues that any time a black community stages a protest or a demonstration - whether in the wake of police shootings in Ferguson or the countless other demonstrations following fatal shootings of unarmed black men at the hands of police - it is labeled a “riot”. It was a positive thing and it wasn’t the only mass demonstration that we had.” Instead, the disturbances involving fires, arson and rock throwing captured the headlines of the day. The peaceful demonstrations got little attention, James said. They didn’t know what to do.Harrisburg was a quiet town.”ĭuring those troubled times, James helped lead hundreds of students in peaceful demonstrations, urging them to resist violence.Īdults also took to the streets, led by a core of black and white clergy. “Nothing like that had ever happened in Harrisburg. Manigault, who is black, recalls that tensions in Harrisburg - both among the white and black communities - were high. Scott, who had no gun, received five pellet wounds from a shotgun. The patrolman testified that he shot Scott after seeing him throw two Molotov cocktails at a service station. Scott, an 18-year-old enrolled in summer school at John Harris High School, was shot by a police officer, Raymond S. There was just a lot of young people doing crazy things.”Īmid the turmoil, as demonstrators - most of them Harrisburg school students - took to the streets, pelting firefighters with bricks, and throwing bottles and stones, one life was lost.Ĭharles A. “They just burned a couple of stores down.It was a lot of bottle throwing and breaking windows.but there wasn’t too much fighting or beating up of people. “There was no fighting,” said Manigault, now 87. “My role was to prevent violence and stop the outbreaks and channel positive energy in a positive direction,” James said.Īnother Harrisburg resident on the street in those days was John “Joe Smooth” Manigault, who as a member of the Harrisburg American Legion Post 733 Emergency Police, was called out to assist law enforcement during the disturbances.

He worked with low-income kids, kids from middle-class families and kids involved with gangs. He ran a community center that offered a youth basketball team, a boxing program and martial arts classes.

If anyone knew the kids in Harrisburg, James did. Hundreds left classes and walked out and flooded the streets.” “There were mass demonstrations but there were no riots,” said James, who at the time ran the Tri-County Commission on Economic Opportunity, part of President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty. Richard James argues that what played out that summer in Harrisburg were disturbances - some violent - but were not riots. Indeed, the passage of time affords a new perspective on the troubled times, but more importantly, of its enduring legacy and place in the current national discourse. The upheavals bear witness to the enduring debate in the city - and the country - over race relations, racial inequality and injustice.

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