YORK, Pa. — July 20, 1969.
York City was at war.
Police were still reeling from a shooting that had left one of their own paralyzed. They drove around town telling local white gangs to meet for a rally at Farquhar Park. There, officers led the young men in chants of “White power!” Elsewhere in the city of 51,000 entire neighborhoods were barricaded off from traffic and a curfew was imposed.
Racial tensions had been building for years over police discrimination. The black community claimed police consistently harassed people in black neighborhoods and quelled protest with police dogs. Yet the all-white city council would not approve a proposal for a biracial police review board.
On July 17, a 12-year-old black boy burned himself while playing with lighter fluid and matches. At the hospital, he told police the Girarders, a local white gang, had burned him. Though later discovered to be untrue, the rumor spread fast.
Then a black teenager broke the windows of a hangout for the Newberry Street Boys, another local white gang. While being questioned by a police officer, a member of the gang shot the teenager.
By the next day tensions were boiling over. White and black gangs fought by throwing rocks, firebombing buildings and shooting at each other.
Police responded to fires and fights around the city. Three cops were responding to a shooting when someone fired a gun at the vehicle. Though they were riding in Big Al, one of the city’s two armored trucks, the bullet went through the wall. It hit 22-year-old Henry Schaad, a rookie officer, instantly paralyzing him; he later died of his injuries.
“That kind of stirred the white people up a lot more,” said Bob Mann, who was 14 at the time. For a week, he said, he saw people walking down the streets with rifles.
“They were shooting people,” Mann said. “The whites were shooting at the blacks and the blacks were shooting at the whites.”
The night of July 21, a white car drove past Mann’s house at the intersection of Newberry St. and Gay Ave. The black passengers did not know about 100 armed white boys and men were gathered across the train tracks.
There was a rumor that the night before, a white car had driven up Newberry St. When it stopped, a black man popped out of the trunk and fired a gun. When the men saw this white car, they may have believed it was the same car.
The driver saw the group and tried to turn around, but the car stalled right over the train tracks.
Mann said he saw a woman get out of the car, raise her hands and call, “Don’t shoot.”
“Then there was one shot. And then there were 100 shots,” Mann said. “When the shooting started, bullets were bouncing off the house that I was sitting in. I ran and jumped underneath the car so I wouldn’t get hit.”
Lillie Belle Allen, a 27-year-old mother from Georgia, was killed.
Fifty years later, Mann still remembers. Last summer he said he was inspired to bring flowers to two benches in Farquhar Park honoring Henry Schaad and Lille Belle Allen. The benches, installed in 2005, are inscribed with the victims’ names. But Mann said people would come up and ask why he brought flowers and were surprised when he told them about the 1969 race riots.
He eventually installed plastic signs explaining the history.
Now he wants York City to replace his signs with permanent plaques, so visitors who don’t know what happened can learn. He hopes the descendants and families of the victims will play a part in deciding what the signs say.
York City Mayor Michael Helfrich has said the city intends to erect permanent explanatory signs, the York Daily Record reported, but so far there’s no set plan.
Until a permanent memorial has been set up, Mann said he will continue to deliver fresh flowers every day, so anyone who comes to sit on the benches can enjoy their color, and perhaps learn more about the 1969 York race riots.