Case Study: York Race Riots Revisited
In the summer of 1969, the city of York, Pa., was the scene of lethal rioting. It was just one example of racial tension that gripped many American cities and towns in the mid- and late 1960s. Before calm was restored in York, two people – one African American, one white – had been killed. No one was arrested in either homicide.
Thirty years later, the two newspapers in York, the Daily Record and the Dispatch, published retrospectives on the rioting and noted once more that justice had not been done. Politicians and civic leaders were not pleased. They wanted to put the riots behind them, arguing that nothing was to be gained by bringing up the unpleasantness of the past.
But the newspaper’s stories stirred interest. Calls began to trickle into the district attorney’s office: bits of information that might lead to the killers of Lillie Belle Allen, 27, a black woman who was shot to death by snipers when she drove into a white neighborhood, and Henry Schaad, 22, a white police officer who was ambushed while on duty.
District Attorney Stan Rebert and his first assistant, Tom Kelley, reopened the investigation that had lain dormant for three decades. Rodney George, a former county detective, started with the 33-page State Police report from 1999 and began reinterviewing witnesses.
One person interviewed in 2000, a white man named Donnie Altland, confessed that he had shot at Lillie Belle Allen’s car. After the interview, Altland made two audiotapes – one for his family, telling them he was sorry, and the other for police, admitting his guilt. Then he drove into the country and shot himself. On the seat of his truck were the tapes and a note written on a napkin, “Forgive me, God.”
Another person caught up in the investigation was Mayor Charlie Robinson, who had been a police officer in 1969 and was one of the first to arrive at the scene of Mrs. Allen’s death. When the prosecutors impaneled a grand jury to investigate the 1969 homicides, Robertson denounced them at a City Council meeting. He said, “Is it being done now for political reasons? I don’t know. Is it being done to embarrass the city? I don’t know.” The grand jury heard testimony that Robertson had handed out ammunition to white gang members in the 1969 rioting. The jury indicted Robertson as an accessory in Mrs. Allen’s murder. (He was acquitted at trial.)
In June 2001, one month after the mayor’s arrest, 94 of the most powerful people in York County sent letters to the York Daily Record and the York Dispatch expressing their displeasure with media coverage: “We believe newspaper coverage has been excessive as well as irresponsible. We believe that in the guise of covering the news the local papers have done a grave disservice to the community. We believe that this unrelenting attention to the tragedies of 32 years ago, if continued, will have grave consequences which have already begun to be manifested.”
The newspapers – and the prosecutors – were undeterred.
In 2002, a jury convicted six white men in Mrs. Allen’s death and acquitted Mayor Robertson.
In 2003, a jury convicted two black men in Officer Schaad’s death.
Robert Power, vice dean of Widener University Law School’s Harrisburg campus, said the verdicts showed that “cases that probably should have been investigated 30 years ago, but weren’t because of tensions, distrust and hatred, can be taken through investigation to prosecution and fair trial.”
District Attorney Rebert said the prosecutors “proved ourselves throughout the trial.” He said, “We faced every possible legal hurdle, but with the facts before the jury, they agreed with our position. And yes, we proved the naysayers wrong.”
Questions for class discussion:
· Do you think the public interest was served by the newspapers’ detailed stories recounting the terrible events in the town three decades earlier?
· Why would the editors want to recall the past? Why would town officials and leaders want to bury the past?
· If you were the editor or publisher of one of the newspapers, how would you react to the letter from some of the most powerful people in the community – people who could inflict financial harm on your paper?
· Note that the civic leaders mention the phrase “the best interest of the community.” How do you think they define “the community”? Do you think everyone in York would agree with their definition?