By Scott Cummings

5 The Adolescent Menace: Beyond Racial Stereotypes

6 Sexual Violence in Rosedale

7 The Wilding Incidents of 1982

8 The Underclass of Rosedale:

9 The Struggle to Create New Institutions:The Crisis Deepens

10 Public Policy, Social Change, and the Fall of Rosedale

11. Race Relations, Social justice, and the Future of Urban Neighborhoods

We have to get together and remove the evils, the vices, alcoholism, drug addiction, and other evils that are destroying the moral fiber of our community. We ourselves have to lift the level of our community, the standard of our community to a higher level, make our own society beautiful so that we will be satisfied in our own social circles and won't be running around here trying to knock our way into a social circle where we're not wanted.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every bamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of an old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God almighty, we are free at last!"

RACIAL OPPRESSION IN AMERICAN SOCIETY has claimed the lives of many people. Slavery was conceived and sustained by violence. The war bringing slavery to an end was the most violent in our nation's history. Lynchings and beatings were common in the South, especially during the late 1890s and early 1900s. Race riots have been a prominent part of American urban history. Between 1906 and 1943, serious race riots occurred regularly in cities, with major disturbances erupting in Springfield, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; Springfield, Illinois; Tulsa, Oklahoma; East St. Louis, Missouri; Washington, D.C.; and Chicago.' During the 1940s and 1950s, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Harlem were the sites of extreme racial conflict. And in the 1960s and 1970s, Detroit, New York, Newark, Watts, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Philadelphia, and Boston were only a few locations where urban racial violence claimed lives and property.

Racism has severely affected the civil rights of minorities, undermining their opportunities to earn a decent living, pursue educational goals, and exercise other routine liberties taken for granted by members of the majority. Racism has hunted and claimed other quarry as well. The community of Rosedale was a casualty of America's racial legacy. Rosedale did not pass through the period of racial transition in a smooth or harmonious manner. Residential integration was not desired or pursued by the white residents of Rosedale. Racial harmony was never identified by them as a valued objective. Most of the white residents made it clear through their deeds and actions that they were not willing to coexist in the same community with African Americans.

When it became clear to the white families of Rosedale that federal policies to ensure equality of educational opportunity and open housing could no longer be resisted, they simply moved to the suburbs. In the suburbs, they could continue living in white neighborhoods and send their children to neighborhood schools that were largely exempt from federal desegregation orders.

Like all accounts of racial victimization, the story of Rosedale is a tragic one. As stated in the opening chapter, the story of Rosedale is rooted in racial oppression and inequality. It is about insensitivity and neglect. The case of Rosedale chronicles the failure of public officials, business leaders, and community residents to manage the process of racial change in an effective and humane manner. The story documents the failure of both white and African American citizens, of both white elderly and minority underclass families, to forge any sense of solidarity, respect, and mutual support during the process of institutional and cultural change. The fate of Rosedale is not unique. Numerous other urban neighborhoods in American cities have been equally ineffective in managing racial change, have suffered comparable heartbreak, and have shared similar destinies.

We know from recent history that very few cities have managed racial change in a competent and constructive fashion. Urban planners and sociologists tell us that the case of Rosedale is the norm rather than the exception. The major fair-housing law in the United States is Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The act was recently expanded in 1988 under the Fair Housing Amendments Act. Urban planner Richard Smith maintains that after twenty-five years of experience with Title VIII, efforts to achieve racial integration have accomplished very little: "While levels of discrimination in US cities have, arguably, declined, levels of segregation have been reduced only minimally and much of this reduction appears to derive more from the deconcentration of ghetto areas than from the creation of integrated living patterns.

Although Donald DeMarco and George Galster are generally optimistic about the future of integrated neighborhoods, they reach similar conclusions. They report that most multiracial neighborhoods are only temporary aberrations and will eventually resegregate and become one-race communities. According to them, stable and integrated communities require a unique set of policy interventions and innovative political leadership. After examining recent evidence describing the process of racial and ethnic change in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, urban geographer William Clark pessimistically concludes: "The process of neighborhood transition is not creating mixed integrated tracts in very large numbers and, although there are differences between the old automatic patterns of white to minority neighborhood transition, there is still a strong tendency for continuing change to minority predominance once it has been initiated.

Sociologist Harvey Molotch argues that public policies designed to manage the process of racial transition will probably fail. Taking a position similar to Jane Jacobs's and consistent with the logic of triage theory, Molotch suggests that urban neighborhoods inevitably age and decline and eventually lose their attractiveness to white, middle-class consumers.7 Middle-class consumers have many more housing options available to them in comparison to minorities entering the housing market. Normal housing turnover, made possible by residential mobility among white consumers, creates housing opportunities in neighborhoods vacated by them. As a result of strong but normal market processes, racial change in many urban neighborhoods is very difficult to reverse or control through strategic policy interventions.

Economist George Galster views efforts to achieve stable, integrated communities in a similar manner. Racial steering in the real estate industry to increase the volume of housing choices available to middle-class whites makes residential integration a desirable but elusive policy objectives He observes: "Whites' preferences for predominantly white neighborhoods must be understood as a contingent product of twentieth-century urban racial history. This history is characterized by decades of racial residential separation, explicitly enforced by a host of private and public actions, institutional practices, and statutes, coupled with large secular growth in urban black populations."

In order to manage racial transition more effectively, urban neighborhoods need the support and wisdom of external agencies and political bodies. Public officials have regional or metropolitan responsibilities and are not usually able to invest the time and resources necessary to address problems occurring in one area or neighborhood. The problem of gathering sufficient external support to reverse neighborhood decline, an event that often accompanies racial transition, was clearly evident in the Rosedale case. Public recognition of Rosedale's problems was eventually mobilized, but long after racial change was in its advanced stages.

In East Cleveland the rate of racial change and community transformation and decline was comparable to that occurring in Rosedale. Urban planner Dennis Keating reports that between 1960 and 1965, 159 out of 172 real estate parcels in one part of this community changed hands at least once." Although white residents were wary of the racial changes confronting the community, they took no direct action to deal with the issues before them. In the face of increasing evidence that racial transition was occurring in the schools and in the neighborhoods, panic selling was initiated in the early 1960s. According to Keating, city leadership failed to act decisively and made only inept attempts to manage the rapid escalation of real estate transactions in the community. Committed to a free market economic philosophy and convinced that any form of public intervention in the community might block minority access to newly emerging housing opportunities, the city manager made only token efforts to curb white flight.

The city did initiate contacts with the local real estate community and asked that it not contribute to the process of white flight by encouraging panic selling or assist in blockbusting activities. These efforts were not effective. Keating reports that the city manager's office failed (1) to make public pronouncements designed to show leadership in the face of rapid racial transition, (2) to alleviate white fears over the process of racial change, and (3) to deal forcefully with the real estate industry, whose practices were accelerating the process of white flight and resegregation. The local clergy also took no stand on the changes taking place; nor did the local media address the issues in a constructive manner.

As a result of a conspiracy of silence and a complete absence of local leadership, according to Keating, the resegregation of East Cleveland took place in three stages. In the early 1960s, those whites who did not desire to live with blacks and who were able to leave the community did move. During the mid-1960s, those white residents who feared significant loss of equity in their housing investment and increasingly worried about the economic effects of blockbusting practiced by the local real estate industry also left the area. The last stage of resegregation occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when East Cleveland lost its remaining white residents. Initially supportive of integration, they stayed as long as they could but eventually left the community discouraged and disillusioned.

Like Rosedale, the community of East Cleveland attempted to mitigate the worst effects of white flight but waited too long to be effective. And like Rosedale, its efforts to restore and rebuild the community were not successful, despite passage of the 1968 fair-housing law. Keating reports that in 1990 the population of East Cleveland was 92 percent African American. It had the highest rate of poverty of any suburb in Cuyahoga County, and the median sales price of a house in the community was the lowest of all suburbs in the county. In the late 1980s, the state of Ohio was compelled to take over the finances of East Cleveland in the face of political corruption and deteriorating public services. A 1993 survey of residents measuring satisfaction with local government showed that among the thirty-five largest suburbs in Cuyahoga County, East Cleveland registered the lowest ratings.

Freedom of choice is a fundamental American value. The right to live where one chooses, to pursue educational and employment opportunities consistent with one's abilities, and to associate with whomever one desires are basic rights protected by our legal system. Freedom from religious persecution is also a protected legal right, as is protection from discrimination based on one's racial or ethnic origin. On the matter of achieving racial integration in our communities and neighborhoods, however, it is clear that a fundamental conflict of rights exists within the American population.

Advocacy planners, veterans of the civil rights movement, and public officials committed to achieving racially stable communities acknowledge the potential conflict of rights between freedom of choice and public policies designed to promote residential integration. The nub of this important policy dilemma is succinctly posed by economist George Galster and public official Donald DeMarco: "Should we strive to do more than eliminate housing market discrimination and, if so, what sorts of affirmative, prointegrative efforts are appropriate?" They maintain that explicit antidiscrimination efforts will probably be insufficient to achieve socially desirable amounts of residential integration. More is required if the nation is to overcome high rates of residential segregation within its metropolitan regions.

Galster and DeMarco coined a new term that they think more effectively summarizes the goal of prointegrative public policy: stable integrative process (SIP). SIP is defined by them as "a dynamic in which homeseekers representing two or more races actively seek to occupy the same vacant dwellings in a substantial proportion of a metropolitan area's neighborhoods over a period of time." After reviewing a large body of research findings, they concede that promoting stable integrative processes depends on the substantial reduction of prejudice and discrimination among the majority population: "History has provided ample evidence to reinforce the common belief that desegregation is synonymous with inevitable resegregation and decay." Consistent with this belief, the story of Rosedale shows that most residents were willing to abandon their community rather than pursue or accommodate residential integration.

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., stood in the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial and shared with us his dream of racial harmony for America. Significant progress has been made in the civil rights arena since his famous speech. African Americans exercise voting rights in significant numbers and have become an influential interest group in local, state, and national politics. Racial gaps in educational attainment levels are slowly closing. Blacks and whites casually mingle in public places, shopping malls, downtown stores, and restaurants and at sports and entertainment events. Although much remains to be accomplished, the nature of intergroup relations has dramatically changed over the past four decades.

Public opinion polls also show a reduction in racial tension. In 1958, just 35 percent of whites indicated they would vote for a well-qualified African American candidate. In a recent Gallup poll (June 1997), 93 percent of white respondents said they would support a well-qualified African American candidate for political office.16 In 1958, only 4 percent of whites expressed approval of interracial marriages. By 1997, 63 percent of whites were expressing approval of marriages between races. And 80 percent of white Americans indicated in 1958 that they would leave their current neighborhood if blacks entered it in significant numbers. In 1997, only 18 percent of whites stated they would flee their communities if African Americans moved there.

Despite these attitudinal trappings of progress, approximately 80 percent of Americans still reside in segregated communities. Churches remain highly segregated. Fortv-five percent of African Americans in 1997 still report experiencing discrimination, and nearly 70 percent of black men between eighteen and thirty-four report that they encounter discriminatory treatment regularly. The majority of both groups (54 percent of whites and 58 percent of blacks) continue to believe that race relations will remain a serious problem in the United States well into the future.

The case of Rosedale shows how difficult it is to achieve common ground between African Americans and whites and the serious social and institutional consequences that follow from this failure. Achievement of common ground was in the interest of all those left behind in Rosedale, but efforts in that direction were consistently undermined by racial antagonism, hostility, and distrust. The story of Rosedale makes it clear that we still have a long way to travel as a nation before achieving the vision articulated by Martin Luther King over three decades ago.

On a more positive note, my research experiences in Rosedale showed that the female children of the community occasionally provided brief hope that Dr. King's dream might actually be possible to achieve. An elderly white woman in Rosedale explained to me that her racial views had changed because of her association with a young African American girl:

"We've always been glad to have children in the neighborhood. And now these colored back of me, they have children. And I've never seen them out of their fence only one time. I was going down the alley to the mailbox here on the corner to put my utility bills in and I saw one of the cleanest and nicest dressed little colored girls and she said, "Good morning" or something. And I spoke to her and we walked a few steps together, you know, and I said, "I've got to go this way," and she said, "I've got to go this way, and it's very nice to have met you." She was just so cute. Now they live back here on the corner. So I believe that colored are just like white."

Other elderly citizens of Rosedale reported similar experiences with female children: "The Mexicans that were such bad housekeepers, they had three little girls that were very fond of me. And they came and sat on my porch with me if I was out on the porch. And I'd read Bible stories to them. They'd come and ask me to read a Bible story to them, and they were real nice little children. And I believe the Mexican man was a pretty nice man." One white woman spoke lovingly about her experiences with two African American girls:

"They've got two real sweet little girls, twelve or thirteen years old. They come over here and visit with me. The one little girl, she's always making me things. She made me a picture and brought it to me. It was a valentine. it was the cutest thing. It's right yonder in that Kleenex box. I want you to see it. I asked her, I said: "Who made that?" She said, "I did.' She made me another picture. She had cut out the trees and she colored the back part for the sky and sun. And there's a row of trees that she cut out, and there were little tiny flowers that she colored to put along the trees. And there were children playingin the picture. I hung it in the living room."

In light of the terror spread by teenage males in Rosedale, these small but very positive joys experienced with female children created an oasis of compassion and kindness within the otherwise harsh and barren human landscape of the area. An elderly white woman said:

"I try to help the little black children next door. I don't do enough. For Thanksgiving they didn't have anything. They were going to a party, so I bought a hat and a little cape for the younger girl and let the older girl have a dress which she hasn't brought back. But I didn't want her to especially. It was a pretty good dress and I try to see, like when they're going on a picnic, I try to give them a little job. The mother has a lot of pride, and I'll let the little girl come over and sweep my floor and give her a dollar so she'll have something to take to the picnic. I think they love me and I know I do them and they are real sweet."

A few of Rosedale's elderly spoke positively about their African American neighbors: "I had two very dear black families that helped me. When they didn't see me out and about, they would come up to my back door and check and see if I was alright. One of them even went to the store and bought us groceries." Another reported: "You know, when that rapist was going around, they came over here and told us that anytime we needed help to just give them a buzz or knock on the door or do something."

All too often, however, even the most elementary forms of human contact were tainted by racial biases. Proudly proclaiming his commitment to racial equality, one elderly white man was unable to comprehend the racist implications of the story he was telling:

"I know all of these people personal here at the center. There was a colored woman that came in. She's a good woman, I know. And one of our white women met her and embraced her. Well, that's common among the whites, but that's a little unusual between the two races. And I made the remark to one of the boys here: "Now, that's an example of good Christian fellowship. How many of these other white women would hug that nigger and welcome her here. Not many. She practices what she preaches." And most of these people here are good Christian people. That's the reason I like to associate with them."

Possibilities of racial harmony glistened like gems within the rough terrain of life in Rosedale, but they were extraordinarily rare. And without a basis upon which to establish common human ground between whites and blacks, efforts to engineer residential integration through enlightened public policy and appeals to a higher morality or shared humanistic values were futile exercises. In the minds of most whites, residential integration equals community deterioration. The logic of this social equation was too compelling to be reversed by aggressive federal interventions, too persuasive to be transformed by Christian goodwill, and too predictable to be altered by making simple adjustments in one's racial attitudes.

The nation remains sorely divided on the desirability of achieving residential integration. As a culture, we are legally and morally committed to freedom of choice. Our legal system strives to ensure that all of our citizens can choose to live wherever they can afford to purchase housing. But when African Americans move into a neighborhood, our legal system cannot compel whites to remain there. And as the case of Rosedale clearly establishes, serious, undesirable institutional and social costs accompany white abandonment.

In pursuit of racial justice and harmony, we have failed as a nation to establish an accepted set of principles that enable us to resolve competing and conflicting claims between minority and majority. The moral and ethical quagmire is complicated by the fact that individual acts of racism can be camouflaged behind the cloak of freedom of choice. Racially biased whites can extricate themselves from addressing the issue of racial justice by simply moving to another segregated geographic location. Suburban developed a wide range of market choices for white consumers. Only the most impoverished are left behind in changing neighborhoods. Without the assistance of the civil rights movement and the aggressive federal interventions that accompanied it, it is highly unlikely that the very worst aspects of racial discrimination and segregation would have been addressed voluntarily by state and local government or through the goodwill of our citizens and public officials. What, then, can be done to promote socially desirable amounts of integration within our communities while simultaneously protecting freedom of choice? What can be done to protect the rights of minorities while simultaneously preventing the creation of incentives that produce majority flight and abandonment?

Despite widespread evidence to the contrary and the immense difficulties involved, some communities have successfully managed racial transition and change. Others have prevented or reduced white flight, but in a manner that has increased racial hostility and intergroup conflict. Even among the limited number of success stories within our cities, no community has completely transcended or eliminated conflict between minority and majority during the process of residential transition and change.

Sociologist Jonathan Rieder profiles the intense intergroup conflicts that erupted in the Brooklyn community of Canarsie during the process of racial transition and change. The Jewish and Italian residents of Canarsie mobilized in opposition to the liberal policy changes confronting them during the 1970s. In response to school desegregation orders and expanding interest among the black middle class to live in Canarsie, many residents initially mobilized to block residential integration. In an effort to prevent white flight and panic selling, many citizens of Canarsie attempted to control the sale of housing to African Americans through violence, intimidation, and the establishment of a clandestine market in housing. Informal ethnic and social networks frequently prevented the sale of homes to potential African American buyers. Organized boycotts of Canarsie's public schools by residents opposed to busing also characterized the response of this community to racial transition and change.

Whereas the case of Canarsie provides no blueprint detailing how successful integration can be managed, it does explain very clearly the depth and strength of the belief among whites that community decline will inevitably follow in the wake of racial transition and change. As explained by Rieder, "Busing edicts and racial tipping undermined the faith of whites in the stability of their neighborhoods." The case of Canarsie makes it painfully clear that busing and open housing are two of the most unpopular liberal policy initiatives of the past three decades. Given the experiences of Canarsie and numerous other urban communities, it is highly unlikely that contemporary elected officials and civil rights leaders will be able to mobilize much public support for renewed interest in civil rights as a major public policy issue facing American society.

Other communities, however, have managed to achieve more positive results in their efforts to manage residential change. Cleveland Heights, Ohio; Shaker Heights, Ohio; and Oak Park, Illinois have earned strongly positive reputations as national leaders in managing residential integration. Several consistent themes characterize these three success stories: (1) early intervention and planning, (2) progressive leadership and guidance by public administrators and community officials, (3) stabilization and strong community support of public schools, (4) the provision of housing and loan services to stabilize the private housing market, and (5) systematic promotion and marketing of the community by residents and public officials.

African American movement into Cleveland Heights began in the late 1960s. Unlike in Rosedale and East Cleveland, residents responded early and directly to real estate initiatives promoting blockbusting. An ordinance banning For Sale signs was passed by the city as well as other aggressive measures directed toward curbing the negative sales practices of local brokers. According to Dennis Keating, progressive Jewish and Catholic elements within Cleveland Heights effectively mobilized community support to manage integration in a constructive and positive manner.

Among the more positive interventions undertaken by the residents to manage more effectively the process of racial transition and change, Keating identifies the following as critically important: (1) initiation of a preferred realtor program based on a firm's past record of compliance with fair-housing provisions, (2) implementation of a vigorous code enforcement program designed to counter the perception that property values decline in response to racial transition, (3) the monitoring and review of local lending practices to ensure equal access to credit, and (4) establishment of various community review bodies to monitor and evaluate the city's compliance with fair-housing practices. Of special significance was a lawsuit filed and won against a local real estate firm for having engaged in racial steering and blockbusting.

In addition to directly addressing local real estate practices, residents of Cleveland Heights took strong measures to maintain high standards in the local school system and in the delivery of government services. Keating concludes that Cleveland Heights, in partnership with community organizations committed to racial justice, "has forged a long, enduring community consensus in which racially integrated housing, neighborhoods, and public schools are accepted and supported by the city's residents." Although the city's management of racial change has not been devoid of conflict and expensive litigation, Cleveland Heights remains a national leader in open housing and community stability.

The case of Shaker Heights is similar to that of Cleveland Heights. In the wake of racial change, the city banned use of For Sale signs as a strategy to reduce potential blockbusting efforts by local realtors. Initially, many African American realtors strongly objected to this policy on the grounds that it severely limited black access to the area and undermined their business and sales opportunities. The city took early and positive actions to address racial change in its educational and housing policies. In 1966 and 1968, the board of education voluntarily addressed racial isolation in the schools by initiating a busing and magnet school plan. Citizen groups created progressive organizations designed to recruit and disperse potential African American homebuyers throughout the region. Efforts were also made to attract African Americans with housing alternatives throughout the region in order to undermine racial concentration.

According to DeMarco and Galster, efforts to manage racial integration were successful in Shaker Heights because of (1) a deliberate and strategic advertising campaign to promote the community as stable and racially diverse, (2) the delivery of housing and counseling services designed to promote racial diversity within all the community's neighborhoods, (3) the provision of mortgage services and loans in areas where one race is underrepresented, and (4) strong monitoring and enforcement of open housing laws. They summarize the success of Shaker Heights: "Experience and marketing surveys have convinced Shaker that a high percentage of mid and upscale homeseekers will buy into a racially diverse community if safety and order prevail, schools produce award-winning scholars, home values are appreciating at a favorable rate compared to the competition, and community values and lifestyles are comfortable."

Oak Park, Illinois, also experienced the initial waves of racial change during the early 1960s. A nearby white community, Austin, did n6t successfully address racial transition, and by 1980 nearly three-fourths of its population was African American. Like the Cleveland suburbs of Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights, Oak Park adopted a positive strategy of affirmatively marketing the area as a racially diverse, stable community: "White homebuyers and renters were encouraged to consider living in Oak Park's southeast area, while blacks were encouraged to look elsewhere in Oak Park where they were underrepresented." The leaders of Oak Park also responded with early intervention and planning.

Oak Park initially experimented with the establishment of a controversial racial quota system in response to widespread fear that once a hypothetical tipping point was reached, an irreversible process of white flight would soon follow. Although the quota policy was narrowly defeated and never implemented, it did elevate community discourse over the best way to manage racial transition and change, and it promoted other more positive solutions to the emerging social crisis. Rather than establish a quota system, Oak Par adopted a combination of several policy interventions designed to more effectively manage racial change in the community: (1) implementation of strict housing code enforcement program, (2) establishment of progressive housing rehabilitation procedures, (3) creation of an innovative home equity assurance program in which participants were guaranteed 80 percent of the difference between the assessed valuation of their home and the actual sales price, and (4) provision of financial incentives to apartment owners who increased racial diversity in their buildings.

All three of these communities directly addressed racial transition during its early phases, well before white flight could become a major social problem. Most of the policies and strategic interventions, in one way or another, were directed toward maintaining established social institutions: public schools, local businesses, community and housing standards, property values, city services, and law and order. More recently, policy researchers Philip Nyden, Michael Maly, and John Lockhart reported that nine other cities have registered similarly positive experiences.28 In addition to maintaining community institutions and standards, residents and public officials of Oak Park, Shaker Heights, and Cleveland Heights recognized the importance of maintaining class homogeneity during the process of racial transition. Deliberate efforts were made to recruit and cultivate African American homeseekers from middle-class backgrounds. The maintenance of class homogeneity helped stabilize the community and prevented radical shifts in culture and lifestyles, events that characterized the decline of Rosedale and East Cleveland. Although racial diversity was pursued in these three cornmunities, social class diversity was not.

As in Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, and Oak Park, the first wave of African American homeseekers who entered Rosedale had middle-class backgrounds. Like their white counterparts, they too abandoned Rosedale in response to housing opportunities in the suburbs. Rosedale's failure to retain members of the black or white middle class was pivotal to its rapid and precipitous decline. It is clear that middle-class African Americans are no more enthusiastic than middle-class whites about living in high-crime neighborhoods dominated by street thugs and adolescent gangs. It is also clear that the institutional instability and leadership vacuum created when the African American middle class abandons urban neighborhoods is as devastating to a community's future as is the loss of the white middle class. And as the case of Rosedale clearly establishes, white racism and traditional forms of pre'udice and discrimination are not the only reasons behind our failure as a nation to achieve residential integration in the 1990s.

A social problem of crisis proportions has been emerging within our cities for the past two decades. In 1994, African Americans accounted for 31.3 percent of the nation's total arrests. This group accounted for 33.1 percent of all arrests for crimes against property and 44.7 percent of arrests for violent crimes. More significant, among youths under eighteen years of age, African Americans accounted for 50.2 percent of all arrests for violent crimes in 1994.

Other statistics convey the gravity of this increasingly serious social problem among African American youth. The homicide rate among black youth is rising at an alarming pace. The homicide rate among African American teens was 46.4 deaths per 100,000 youths in 1985; by 1992 it had risen to 128.5 deaths per 100,000 youths. In 1992, black mates between twelve and twenty-four experienced violent crime at rates higher than any other age or racial group in American society. Their rate of violent victimization was almost double that reported among white youth. Between 1973 and 1992, the rate of violent victimization among African American youth increased by 25 percent, and it is still rising.

The likelihood of becoming a victim of violent crime has risen sharply among young black males. One out of every 10.3 African American males between twenty and twenty-four was a violent-crime victim in 1973; by 1992, the rate had risen to 1 of every 8 persons. Among black males between sixteen and nineteen, 1 of every 11 was a victim of violent crime in 1973; by 1992, the rate had risen to 1 of every 6 persons. Black youth are more likely than any other racial or age group to be a victim of crime involving weapons. Among young black male victims of crime, the probability of facing a weapon exceeds 50 percent. Too many young African American males are armed and dangerous.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Report shows that even though blackmales between twelve and twenty-four compose only 1.3 percent of the population, they accounted for 17.2 percent of single-victim homicides in 1992. The Uniform Crime Report also establishes that an African American male in this age range is nearly fourteen times more likely to become a homicide victim than is a member of the general population. The murder rate for older black males was 67.5 per 100,000 individuals in 1992, a figure approximately eight times that found for the general population.

The problem of substance and alcohol abuse is extremely serious among young African American males. Street gangs involved in drug trafficking have emerged in most major American cities. In many cities, young African American males are extensively involved in drug sales and distribution through organized gang activities. Facing an uncertain future in the declining labor markets of cities experiencing deindustrialization and decline, many African American youngsters find opportunities for illegal enterprise to be extremely appealing. Some researchers contend that in cities such as Detroit, gangs and their illegal activities provide more job opportunities than major employers in the region, for example, General Motors.

There are more youth gangs in operation today than in the 1950s, a watershed period in public recognition of the problem. More important, today's gangs are more violent and more inclined toward criminal activities than at any prior point in recent history. Despite the increasing presence of gangs in African American communities, we have available fewer and fewer resources to understand their growth and development and less will to treat the causes that produce and sustain them. More important, the increasing rates of violence among African American youth, the increasing presence of gangs in inner-city communities, and the escalation of drug trafficking and other forms of illegal enterprise pursued by gangs have taken their toll on racial tolerance within the larger society.

A terrible irony within the contemporary civil rights movement has been posed by the escalating rates of violence among African American youth. The increasing absence of civility flaunted by a growing proportion of African American youth is slowly but systematically eroding the monumental achievements of the civil rights movement and the social programs that accompanied it. The case of Rosedale clearly reveals how traditional forms of prejudice and discrimination contributed to the community's decline. But the case of Rosedale also establishes that an elementary social contract was hopelessly shattered by the uncivil behavior of its youth.

Irrespective of the social and psychological circumstances influencing the behavior of the wilding gang members responsible for the violent murders of Rosedale's elderly residents, little sympathy can be marshaled for them. And whereas some form of compassion can be mobilized to understand that racial victimization influenced the personalities of the Rosedale and Roots rapists, it is small compensation to the victims and their families. In light of the outrageous behavior displayed by the young predators of Rosedale, it was extremely difficult for public officials and community leaders to sustain rational discourse and dialogue about the virtues of racial harmony and residential integration. The violent and careless behavior vaunted by some of Rosedale's youth contributed to the community's demise as surely and forcefully as the racial biases that sabotaged and frustrated efforts to retain its middle class.

As a microcosm of a much wider set of social problems and issues, the case of Rosedale is painfully instructive. It is clear that the violence and criminal behavior being pursued by an increasing number of African American youth and the accelerating presence of gangs in inner-city communities have undermined the nation's interest in participating in the "great and unprecedented conversation about race" recently proposed by President Clinton.

In June 1997, the president addressed the graduating class at the University of California at San Diego and introduced his plan to address the racial divide in American society. In that speech, he condemned the "tendency to wrongly attribute to entire groups, including the white majority, the objectionable conduct of a few members." He recommended to the graduates: "If a black American commits a crime, condemn the act-but remember that most African Americans are hard-working, law-abiding citizens." Later in his speech, he also stressed the importance of individual responsibility and the maintenance of law and order:

"Beyond opportunity, we must demand responsibility from every American. Our strength as a society depends upon... people taking responsibility for themselves and their families, teaching their children good values, working hard and obeying the law, and giving back to those around us. . . . No responsibility is more fundamental than obeying the law. It is not racist to insist that every American do so. The fight against crime and drugs is a fight for the freedom of all our people, including those-perhaps especially those-minorities living in our poorest neighborhoods. But respect for the law must run both ways."

The case of Rosedale shows how difficult it will be to achieve the goals articulated by the president in his San Diego address. In order to extend a compassionate hand to all of our citizens left behind in our nation's cities, the "year of honest dialogue" proposed by the president must entail frank and candid discussion of the ways in which youth violence, gangs, and drugs have influenced the direction of race relations in contemporary American society.

On June 15, 1997, more than 1,000 African American men marched in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, the city in which I currently reside. They marched in celebration of Father's Day and pledged to stand up against neighborhood crime. The rally came in the wake of a series of murders involving young black men. Since Father's Day, six more murders have occurred, all involving young African American males. Drug and gang violence have arrived in Louisville, a community deeply committed to the idea that these problems are big-city issues. As I write these final sentences for this book (June 27, 1997), the headlines in the local paper read: "Two Killed, Four Wounded Within 3 Hours."

At the Father's Day rally in Louisville, veteran civil rights leader Reverend Walter Malone thundered from the podium: "We didn't come here just to have a good time. Gang violence and drugs have no place in our community, and we have the power to take them out. We aren't waiting on government or any private group to give us a future. We're coming out on our own! There are some things that black people must do for themselves!"

It is fitting that the male organizers of the Louisville march selected Father's Day to take their righteous stand against gangs, drugs, and violent crime. Their challenge was clear: Black fathers need to take care of some important business at home and get their sons off the streets. Our collective future as a multicultural, nation depends upon doing whatever is necessary to help them achieve this objective.