New Script in Newark

Not the least surprise of the spring has been the readiness of some black firebrands to preach peace and Realpolitik in the ghettos. In the fearful days after Martin Luther King's assassination, Mau Mau Chieftain Charles Kenyatta joined with New York's Mayor John Lindsay in lowering Harlem's temperature. In Los Angeles' Watts, Black Nationalist Ron Karenga and other militants passed the word: no riots, at least for the present.

On paper, few black separatists have sounded more intractable in the past than Playwright LeRoi Jones, 33, who was found guilty in October of having prowled through Newark's riot area last summer armed with a brace of revolvers. "We must make our own world, man," he wrote recently, "and we cannot do this unless the white man is dead. Let's get together and kill him." Yet when the fires started up this month in Newark, Jones got together with Mayor Hugh Addonizio and city leaders of both races to search for peaceful political solutions.

Behind Jones's and other black zealots' volte-face is a hard-won awareness that Negroes themselves take the heaviest casualties in any riot. Though he still promises to lash back with vigor if attacked by whites, Jones, currently appealing his conviction for possession of deadly weapons, is more interested now in achieving black power politically in his native city, where 52% of the 410,000 residents are Negro. As head of the new United Brothers of Newark, Jones said last week: "We are out to bring black self-government to this city by 1970, and the ballot seems to be the most advantageous way. We are educating the Negro masses that this city can be taken without a shot being fired."

Back in the Framework. In June, the United Brothers will hold a convention to nominate black candidates for two city council seats. With voter-registration drives, Jones and other militants predict that a Negro will occupy Addonizio's office two years hence, though LeRoi himself disavows any interest in the job. "I'm a communications specialist," he grins. Admits an Addonizio aide: "The argument isn't whether a Negro is going to take over, but which Negro. With that, you're right back in the framework of American politics." Another question is whether Negroes, along with Newark's white ethnic-minority groups, can keep their tempers long enough for the peaceful change to occur.

One promising sign is that Jones has already met three times with Contractor Anthony Imperiale, leader of a vociferous group of angry whites who have been arming themselves and patrolling Newark in "jungle cruisers" in order to "repel an invasion" (TIME, March 29). Surprisingly, the black militant and the white vigilante have reached an understanding. "I respect him," says Jones. "He doesn't lie like white liberals. He knows exactly what I'm trying to do, and I know right where he's at."

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