Apartheid. USA 1988

January 7, 1988:

Governor Mario Cuomo of New York, reacting to the beating of three black men in Howard Beach, has announced he is establishing a Task Force on Bias-Related Violence to suggest state actions ‘to deter bias-directed violence and to address its causes and effects.’ ‘I believe,’ said the Governor, ‘it is essential to take a renewed look at the causes of this form of violence and to develop remedies and strategies, in addition to those already provided in our criminal justice system, that attack the roots of hatred that result in violence against others.’

Of the 60 racial incidents that occurred in the Essex County communities of Maplewood and South Orange over a period of three years, the case of spray-painting racial epithets on the home of a black couple, Jean and Marie Pierre has gone to trial in Newark, New Jersey. The defendant, Edward Davidson, a senior student at Elon College in North Carolina, admitted that he had used racial slurs and had drawn pictures of burning crosses and figures with the letters KKK, but he said, he had done so as jokes ‘for my friends, some of whom are black.’ If convicted of criminal mischief, damage to property and putting people in fear of bodily violence, as charged, Mr Davidson could be convicted to a maximum of eight years in jail and 22 500 dollars in fines.^200.

200. The New York Times, from a report by Alfonso A Narvaez