Ghetto Voices: "You Can't Help from Being Angry"

As in many race riots, the explosion in Miami appeared to those most centrally involved in it as a sudden swirl of senseless violence. And when it was over, the main victims were those who could least afford it: the blacks of Liberty City. Some views from people inside the ghetto:

"A DUMB RIOT"

Linda Fullwood, 27, who supports herself and two children on $195 a month from welfare, was standing in front of her dilapidated housing project on 62nd Street, when she saw a white youth run down the street toward her, chased by a crowd of angry blacks. "He was messed up real bad," says Fullwood. "A bunch of blacks surrounded him and hit him a couple of times, but he didn't fall.

Then a black guy drove up in a big truck and got the white man inside and got him away. He had to pull a pistol to get people back from his truck." Fullwood tried her best to stay out of the melee, but she was later hit by a bottle and now has a gash on her left arm.

"It was a dumb riot," says Fullwood. "You get hurt taking other people's stuff. It ain't like they put it in the street and say 'Come and get it.' The only thing they tore up was the black area. Now I got to go way across to Hialeah to shop."

She hopes to start work in a computer keypunch training program soon "so maybe I can get a good job and move away from here." Says she: "These apartments are ragged. They need to just tear 'em down. You can come around here at night and see all the rats. We haven't had any mailboxes the whole time I've been living here. We used to have to go to the post office to get the mail. Well, now the post office has been burned."

THEY BUST HIM"

"Mostly I just worked on cars during the trouble," says Oliver Andrew, 42, the owner of a small auto repair shop that stands on the eastern edge of Liberty City. Andrew says he did not feel that he was in great danger, at least not from fellow blacks, " 'cause I'm pretty well known in this neighborhood."

As the rioters rampaged across the street, the owner of a grocery store watched outside Andrew's shop. "After they busted into the liquor store next to his, he went inside to ask them not to set it on fire," says Andrew. "He was worried that the fire would spread to his store. After they left, he started boarding up the store so nobody could throw no fire inside. While he was there two National Guard drove up. They bust him 'side his head and pointed their guns at him, just like he was a looter." Although Andrew condemns the police action, he also criticizes his own people for their part in the violence. Says he: "We only speak up after something happens."

"TIMES ARE GOING TO GET HARDER"

Lamar Rushion, 21, watched neighbors take part in the riot but refused to join them. Says he: "My friends liked it.They really enjoyed it. They got some thing out of the looting like some car parts or some clothes. But how far is that going to take them? What are they going to do tomorrow?" Rushion is a high school dropout who works as a baker in downtown Miami and wants to go back to school to study photography. "This thing messed up the whole area," he says. "What little business we had is gone. So now where is everybody going to work?

"Times were hard before and they're going to get harder. The man downtown is still going to sit behind his desk and make his money. He's gonna get paid and the ghetto still gonna be the ghetto."

"IT JUST BROKE MY HEART"

Alma Parks is a handsome woman of 40 who is a good advertisement for her beauty parlor. Early Sunday morning one of her customers called her at home to tell her that her shop had been ransacked by looters.

"It just broke my heart," says Parks. "I saved my money for three years to have my own business and work for myself." She rushed down to the shop to check on the damage. "I was really worried about the big hair dryer -- that's the most expensive thing I've got." That was saved, but the business is in limbo because there are few buildings left in the area to house it.

Fortunately for Parks, her husband, who is a Government employee, can support both of them. "I'll be all right," she says, "but my partner is the head of her household. You can't help from being angry. The looting didn't solve anything. I believe all of this didn't come just from McDuffie. It's just something that set off the anger that's been here a long time. It's a shame, just a shame."

"YOU GUYS HAD YOUR SHOT"

Marvin Dunn, 39, has achieved success by any standard. He has a Ph.D. in psychology, a comfortable home in Coconut Grove, a good job as a community psychologist, and he is running for a seat in the Florida state legislature. He was at home when he heard about trouble in Liberty City. "Ten minutes after I got there," he says, "I saw my first dead person. He was white. I saw other people lying in the street. One had his ear cut off, his tongue cut out and a rose stuck down his throat. I have kids, and I hope none of them ever have to see something like that in their lifetime."

He says that there is a big difference between Miami's latest disturbance and the riots of the '60s. "White people who got hurt or killed in the riots in '68 got hurt or killed because of a stray bullet or an individual confrontation. In this riot, black people who participated did so with the express desire to kill white people because of the outrageous insult of the McDuffie case."

Also unlike 1968, there were no black leaders who could calm down the violence. Says Dunn: "Black people said to me out there Saturday night: 'You guys had your shot at this. We waited, let the system take its course. Now if you guys would step out of the way, we'll take care of it.' The tragedy of it is they're right."

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