Apartheid. USA 1988

December 29, 1986:

Mayor Edward Koch went to Our Lady of Grace Roman Catholic Church on 159th Avenue, a short walk from where 23-year-old black Michael Griffith lost his life nine days ago in a racial attack by a group of white men. Koch found

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himself interrupted, booed, shouted down and snubbed. Shouts of ‘Go home’, ‘Resign’ and ‘You have no right here’ greeted the Mayor's arrival. Within minutes after Mr Koch opened the session to questions, the discussion degenerated in a verbal cross-fire. ‘You want a racial war?’ asked one woman, while another shouted, ‘Where were you when we women were being robbed and mugged, mainly from these poor, underprivileged people coming into our neighborhood?’ Mayor Koch kept saying that racism existed everywhere, that the only way to address it was to acknowledge it and discuss it.^14.

14. The New York Times, from a report by Joyce Purnick