Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the August 1991 race riots in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, in which Black residents attacked Orthodox residents and businesses for three days after an Orthodox driver accidentally ran over two children.
Crown Heights Riot
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News The Crown Heights riots, 30 years later: Insiders recall tense three days between the mayor and the Jewish community
In the summer of 1991, following an accident that killed a young Black child and the fatal stabbing of a Hasidic yeshiva student, tensions erupted between the Jewish and Black communities in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. In the riots that ensued, more than 200 people were injured. Property damage was extensive. Jewish leaders…
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News Decades after the riots, Crown Heights’ anger is not what you think
Jewish Crown Heights residents remember microscopic details about the riots of 1991 — 29 years ago, on Wednesday. They recall the acronyms used to differentiate between the different types of ambulances that served the victims of the car crash that started it all. They remember the ins and outs of the court cases for one…
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Fast Forward Coretta Scott King Rebuked Al Sharpton For His Role In The Crown Heights Riots
Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton shared for the first time on Monday the story of when Coretta Scott King harshly criticized him for his part in the deadly 1991 Crown Heights riots, JTA reported. Speaking at a conference in Washington organized by the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, Sharpton didn’t directly bring up the…
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News Will Crown Heights Blacks And Jews Unite Against Gentrification?
A developer’s plan to erect two luxury buildings in a low-slung residential part of Brooklyn with large Hasidic and black communities sparked the latest wave of concern over skyrocketing rents in the neighborhood, which threatens the two groups who had a history of tension, culminating in the Crown Heights riots of the earl ’90s. Cornell…
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Community Remembering The Carnage And Crises Of The Crown Heights Riots
Twenty five years ago, on October 29, 1992, Lemrick Nelson Jr. was acquitted of the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum. That event — as well as others that both preceded and followed it — had a significant impact on my life, stirring up a host of personal memories and evoking a chapter in the larger story…
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News Slain Jew’s Family Denounces Crown Heights ‘Fun Day’ as Divided Neighborhood Marks 25th Anniversary of Riots
The family of the Australian yeshiva student killed in the Crown Heights riots condemned as “shameful” a street festival jointly planned by black and Jewish leaders to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the racial unrest that tore through the Brooklyn neighborhood. “The decision to hold a ‘Community Festival’ to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the…
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Opinion Al Sharpton Winks at Rabbi Heschel
In what is the closest he will probably ever come to an apology, Al Sharpton (onetime firebrand turned soon-to-be MSNBC host) writes in today’s Daily News about his conduct during the Crown Heights riots that “our language and tone sometimes exacerbated tensions and played to the extremists rather than raising the issue of the value…
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