This 1964 Harlem footage shows Rustin trying to calm an outraged community, revealing how poverty and police violence undermined the appeal of nonviolence in the urban North.
The Harlem riots erupted on July 18, 1964, just two days after off-duty police Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan shot and killed 15-year-old James Powell following a confrontation on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Witnesses disputed Gilligan's claim that Powell had attacked him with a knife, and the incident ignited long-simmering anger over police violence, poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing, and pervasive discrimination. The uprising spread over six nights, eventually engulfing Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn as well. By the time the violence subsided on July 22, one person had been killed, more than 100 were injured, over 450 were arrested, and hundreds of businesses had been looted or damaged.
Bayard Rustin's involvement during the riots placed him in an untenable position. Having just helped organize the historic 1963 March on Washington and riding the wave of the recently passed Civil Rights Act of 1964, Rustin found himself confronting an entirely different kind of struggle—one where legal victories and moral persuasion felt hollow to people facing economic desperation and daily indignities. As documented in this footage and corroborated by historical accounts, Rustin attempted to calm crowds alongside other leaders but was often met with derision and accusations of being disconnected from the reality of street-level Black life. The riots marked a turning point in the civil rights movement, revealing the deep frustrations of Northern urban Black communities and foreshadowing the broader wave of urban uprisings that would sweep American cities throughout the mid-to-late 1960s.
This rare archival footage captures Bayard Rustin on the streets of Harlem during the height of the 1964 riots, attempting to appeal for calm and urge protesters to return home as violence escalated around him. The video documents the chaotic atmosphere of those nights—crowds throwing projectiles from rooftops, police deploying tear gas, fires burning in the streets, and the palpable tension between officers and residents. Rustin's voice can be heard over loudspeakers and in direct conversation with angry community members, many of whom responded by shouting "Tom!" and "Uncle Tom!" rejecting his calls for nonviolence. The footage also shows Malcolm X's name being invoked by some in the crowd as they demanded a more militant stance. Despite the hostility, Rustin persisted in his efforts alongside other civil rights leaders, moving between locations and attempting to de-escalate confrontations even as the situation spiraled further out of control.
The video reveals the profound generational and ideological divides within the Black community during this period. Rustin's message of strategic nonviolence, which had proven effective in the South against legal segregation, faced a very different reception from Harlem residents whose daily reality was defined by economic deprivation, substandard housing, police brutality, and systemic disinvestment. The footage conveys the raw frustration and hopelessness that fueled the uprising—emotions that no moral appeal or call for patience could contain. This visual record stands as a sobering counterpoint to Rustin's written pamphlet, illustrating the immense challenges he faced in translating nonviolent philosophy into practice within an urban Northern context where material conditions, rather than explicit legal barriers, shaped Black suffering.
British Movietone. "Harlem Riots - Sound." Archival news footage, July 19-20, 1964. YouTube video, 3:22. Posted by British Movietone, July 21, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2X6C8bTBvo.
