The Second Summer: Calm or Chaos

The one-hour documentary concerns itself with two of the cities hit by street riots in Negro neighborhoods last summer. Focusing on New York Citys Harlem section and Rochester NY, this program examines what the man-on-the-street is talking about at the outset of the summer of 1965. Through interviews and discussions with people in the locales involved, the special report surveys what the people think caused the riots last year, what they believe has been done to improve conditions, and what the mood is this year.

A highlight of the Rochester sequences is a visit to a meeting of FIGHT, a new and militant Negro organization formed since the riots. The organization hopes to become the bargaining agent with the city in matters of civil rights. The film footage of FIGHT is the first ever permitted by the organization for showing on television. Throughout the program, Hulan Jack, former president of New York Citys borough of Manhattan, describes the mood of the people of Harlem.

Basil Paterson, president of the New York chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, discusses general conditions in Harlem. Captain Lloyd Sealy, captain of New York Citys 28th precinct in Harlem, the first Negro police precinct commander in the citys history, is followed on a tour of duty and at a political meeting. William Epton, head of New Yorks Progressive Labor Movement, and Jesse Gray, Harlem rent strike leader and leader of anti-police demonstrations during and since the riots, both denounce New York Citys administration, particularly in the area of police brutality.

At the time of production, Mr. Epton was under indictment as a result of his role in the previous summers riots. Harper Sibley, Jr., millionaire businessman who gave up private business after last years riots to become Rochester Public Safety Commissioner, talks about why he became commissioner and what he hopes to achieve on the job. Saul Alinsky, head of the Industrial Areas Foundation of Chicago which recently moved into Rochester to organize the Negro community in its civil rights drive, describes the Rochester white power structure as he sees it and discusses what his group hopes to achieve. The Second Summer: Calm or Chaos was produced for National Educational Television by station WNDT, New York City. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)