New Bedford, Quiet but Tense, Still Faces All Its Problems

(Special to the CRIMSON)

NEW BEDFORD, Mass, Aug 3-The former whaling capital of the world, now holding the highest unemployment rate in the country, has been quiet for two days following a week of militant revolt by blacks and Puerto Ricans. But the truce is unacknowledged, and perhaps non-existent.

Last Friday morning, 75 local and state police raided the makeshift headquarters of the National Committee to Combat Fascism, an organizing arm of the Black Panther Party, and arrested 19 blacks, including five Boston Panthers. Bail for the 19, most of whom are still in jail, totals $1,200,000. tions Friday and Saturday to protest.

Ghetto residents held demonstra-the arrests, and officials re-imposed a 9 p. m. citywide cunfew. Over the weekend, police arrested 28 people for alleged cunfew violations, including Jimmy Magnett, a member of Senator Edward Brooke's ad hoe committee to handle the New Bedford uprising.

Tense

The city lifted the curfew Monday night, but the West End ghetto remained tense as young blacks clustered on corners and heavily-armed police patrolled the streets.

The turmoil in New Bedford began in mid-July, after the arrest of a black man in the West End on a minor traffic violation. The conflict escalated two days later with the killing of one black youth, 17-year-old Lester Lima, and the wounding of three others by a band of whites who shot at them from a moving car.

Selective

During the next several days, blacks hit a number of carefully selected targets, some of which were distant from the black community. The targets included the Model Cities headquarters, the Masonic Temple (a gathering place for local black bourgeoisie), houses owned by ghetto slumlords, and some stores in the downtown area including a food wholesale shop which was burned to the ground.

One of the burned out buildings, Piercinni's Variety Store, became the makeshift Panther headquarters. Police raided the headquarters on a pretext of searching for weapons and for the assailant of Steven Botehlo, a white youth who had been shot in the leg a few hours before.

The "black" population of New Bedford, unlike that of most major cities,is divided between American blacks and blacks from the Portugese colony of Cape Verde, off the coast of Africa. But Cape Verdeans, who constitute 80 per cent of the black population, have traditionally regarded themselves as Portugese, not blacks.

The killing of Lima, who was a Cape Verdean, contributed to a growing sense of solidarity between Portugese and American blacks. During the recent disturbances, many in the streets have been Cape Verdeans.

But Lima's death was not the only basis on which the protesters were able to unite. The demands of the protests, centered on more jobs and construction of low-income housing, have far-reaching appeal in both communities.

Highest Unemployment

Non-white unemployment rates in New Bedford, which has sprouted no new industry since the decline of the whaling trade, reaches 30 per cent, the highest in the country. Extensive government funding in the past several years has failed to make a dent in these statistics.

Highway and other government construction has caused demolitions of some 1200 units of low-income housing, which official funding has yet to replace.

Community organizers here say that working class whites suffer almost as much as blacks from the city's economic stagnation. Though they may have had cause to join the protest, few have done so.

Instead, many are buying guns, and an abortive "hard hat" march through the West End was organized. Thus far outright black-white confrontation has been avoided.

"Listen, they're not that bad," a white gas station attendant remarked today. "I went to school with a whole shitload of 'em. It's just that in the summer it's hot and there's nothing for them to do. So they get drunk and raise some hell."

"If it was really us against them." "it'd be Custer's Last Stand. They'd be Custer, we'd be the Indians. We'd pave the streets with black skin."