"Burn, Baby, Burn": Small Business in the Urban Riots of the 1960s.

• Author: BEAN, JONATHAN J.

On August 11, 1965, a routine arrest of a drunk driver in the Watts section of Los Angeles sparked a riot that lasted five days and took the lives of thirty-four people. African American rioters looted and set fire to stores, as bystanders chanted the slogan of a popular disc jockey, "Burn, Baby, Burn!" The Watts riot ushered in four "long, hot summers" of mayhem. Between 1965 and 1968, more than three hundred riots occurred, resulting in two hundred deaths and the destruction of several thousand businesses (Thernstrom and Thernstrom 1997, 158-61; Graham 1980, 12). In this article, I examine the effect of the riots on small business, an issue neglected by government officials, who embraced an ideology that focused sympathetic attention on rioters but ignored their victims.

The Riot Ideology

As America's inner cities burned, contemporary observers searched for answers to the question, "What do the rioters want?" Black militants and their white sympathizers considered the "rebellions" a form of political violence designed to force concessions from governmental authorities. In that view, the doters were "political dissidents" who targeted "hated examples of outside oppression and exploitation" (Feagin and Hahn 1973, 44, 47).(1) The media publicized the views of militants, such as Stokely Carmichael, who characterized the riots as "uprisings" against poverty and white racism.(2) Black radicals argued that by rioting, the masses were abandoning racial integration in favor of separatism. They also maintained that the nonviolent tactics of the civil rights movement had failed to produce real economic gains for the inner-city poor.

The "fire in the streets" lent credence to this militant interpretation. The rioters resisted peaceful overtures from moderate civil rights leaders. Watts residents booed Martin Luther King Jr. when he appeared in their neighborhood in the aftermath of the riot (Crump 1966, 21). Likewise, during the Detroit riot of 1967, African American congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) rushed to the streets in a vain attempt to calm the crowd. Surrounded by an angry mob, Conyers beat a fast retreat to safety and told reporters, "You try to talk to those people, and they'll knock you into the middle of next year" ("Explosion in the Cities" 1967).

Surveys of African American public opinion confirmed elements of the militant "protest" interpretation. Most white Americans blamed the riots on criminals or communists and thought that looters should be shot. African Americans, on the other hand, were much more sympathetic. A large majority thought that the riots were caused by a lack of good education, jobs, and housing. Nearly half of African Americans American respondents cited police brutality as one of the reasons for the riots, though only 7 percent thought that it was the "main cause" (Erskine 1967, 664, 666, 673-75; Thernstrom and Thernstrom 1997, 164).

There were, however, many problems with this interpretation of the riots. The "rebellions" resembled giant shopping sprees; most of the looters appeared to be in the melees "for fun and profit." Their targets often included stores containing goods that could be easily consumed, such as liquor, cigarettes, drugs, and clothing. Looters generally avoided stealing goods that would have to be sold. The rioters stole clothes from dry-cleaning establishments and merchandise from pawn shops, property that belonged to black residents. These facts fit the conservative interpretation of the riots as an outbreak of mass criminality (Banfield 1968; Gilbert 1968, 180). Liberal sympathizers explained away these facts by inventing a corollary to the militant interpretation: the looters were acting out the acquisitive impulses of the larger society. According to one writer, the looting was "a statement about the nature of our consumer society [rather] than an expression of the lack of morality" (Gilje 1996, 159). Deprived of the opportunity to own desirable goods, rioters were "redefining property rights" by rejecting the "norms of private property" (Gilje 1996, 159; Quarantelli and Dynes 1970, 168-82; Feagin and Hahn 1973, 176; Fogelson 1980, 87-88; Fine 1989, 346). However, this dubious justification was more a reflection of revolutionary romanticism than a serious explanation of the riots.(3)

The militant explanation also failed to explain why the initial reaction of African Americans to the riots was highly negative. Survey takers in Watts found that "the actual events of the riot were almost universally condemned." When asked "What did you like about what was going on?" two out of three respondents replied, "Nothing." Detroit blacks believed that the rioters were motivated by the "chance to get things" (42 percent) or the "opportunity, lack of sanctions" (12 percent) rather than revenge. Indeed, a high percentage of those arrested during the riots agreed that they were acting upon a "desire for material gain" (Thernstrom and Thernstrom 1997, 161-62; Singer and Osborn 1970, 28, 37; Sears and Tomlinson 1968, 492; Fine 1989, 346). Nationwide, blacks hoped that some good would come of the riots and viewed them as in some way a protest against unfair conditions, but there was little support for the arson and looting that took place (more than two-thirds of blacks thought that "looters steal property and are criminals"). Moreover, after the terribly destructive riots of 1967, a strong majority of blacks thought that the violence hurt the cause of civil rights (Erskine 1967, 662, 671, 677).

The conservative theory of the riots offered a better explanation of the civil disorder. Critiquing the militant view, conservatives emphasized that a minority of ghetto residents participated in the riots and that most African Americans disapproved of the arson and looting. They noted that rioters rarely attacked government buildings and that the looting of stores was done more for "fun and profit" than for making a political statement. Although recognizing the real grievances of ghetto residents, conservative writers disputed that those grievances were the cause of the riots. Instead, they blamed the unrest on a weak police deterrent, media coverage, and a general breakdown of law and order. Televised newscasts unwittingly informed potential looters where they might join the mob and enjoy "safety in numbers."(4) Furthermore, by responding paternalistically to the riots and refusing to take a hard line against violence, liberal policymakers spawned a self-fulfilling prophecy that encouraged further self-destructive behavior. In effect, rioters were granted a moral holiday, and their neighbors paid the price (Banfield 1968; Van den Haag 1968; Burnham 1968; Methvin 1970).

Despite the shortcomings of the militant interpretation, the notion that the riots were a collective protest against racial injustice became part of an influential "riot ideology."(5) The riot commissions of the 1960s concluded that ghetto residents were reacting to "the dull devastating spiral of failure" or to "white racism" (Governor's Commission 1965, 128; U.S. Riot Commission 1968).(6) The "root causes" of the violence supposedly lay in a lack of "good" jobs; therefore, liberal policymakers responded sympathetically to the rioters. President Johnson stated privately that "The Negro ... [is] still nowhere. He knows it. And that's why he's out in the streets. Hell, I'd be there too" (Flamm 1998, 321).(7) Johnson's speeches were replete with calls for social spending in response to the riots. Improving conditions in the inner city would, Johnson argued, "make us all a happier and more guilt-free people" (Johnson 1968, 836). Consequently, an increasing percentage of federal antipoverty dollars went to the ghettoes, transforming the color-blind War on Poverty into a series of "black-oriented" programs (Feagin and Hahn 1973, 27, 244, 253; Button 1978; Singer and Osborn 1970, 35; Weir 1992, 83-88; Gale 1996, 59-85; Skrentny 1996, 89).

The riot ideology reflected the loss of moral confidence that underlay the civil rights liberalism of the early 1960s. Former presidential aide Harry McPherson recalled that "too often the White House would issue a strong statement against rioters and then follow it with an apologetic `Of course, we understand why you rioted.' ... It was that ambivalence of the liberal" (quoted in Flamm 1998, 355). The neo-conservative writer Midge Decter described this position as "the very liberal and very racist idea that being black is a condition for special moral allowance" (Decter 1977, 54). But that paternalistic attitude was not confined to liberals. Although "law-and-order" conservatives in Congress had accused the Johnson administration of "rewarding violence," Republican president-elect Richard Nixon pursued similar policies, such as promoting black capitalism in the ghetto (Kotlowski 1998).

During this period, officials at the Small Business Administration (SBA) used the riot ideology to justify racial preferences for black business. Agency officials argued that the creation of black businesses in the ghetto would sooth the disadvantaged by giving them hope for a better future (Foley 1968, Zeidman 1968, Samuels 1969). In fact, the SBA had pioneered government support for black capitalism long before the riots broke out. In January 1964, the agency established a pilot loan program to promote business ownership among African Americans. That affirmative action was the brainchild of Eugene Foley, a young administrator who took office in August 1963, the month Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington. Based on his brief experience with the pilot project, Foley persuaded Congress to include Economic Opportunity Loans (EOLs) in the War on Poverty. The goal was to get poor people off the welfare rolls by helping them start businesses. Despite high failure rates, the SBA pushed ahead with the experiment against the better judgment of the agency's loan officers.(8) The riots gave...