Nothing has changed: ‘Protesting’ and ‘looting’ are not the same | Opinion

It was Friday, August 28, 1964, and once again the memory sends chills down my spine.

I was 14 years old and walked into our home to find my mother crying uncontrollably.

My dad operated coin laundromats in North Philadelphia; one was on Columbia Avenue.

On that day, a storm was gathering in the air. There was a moist summer heat erupting, but not weather-related.

Instead, a full-blown riot was brewing that lasted for three hellish nights as roving bands of looters methodically went from the butcher shop to the liquor store to the appliance store and to every merchant in between, including my dad’s laundromat, smashing windows and setting fires.

There was no contact from Dad for hours. Cell phones did not exist. The angst was unbearable.

He finally called to say he was safe and that his other store at 31st and Montgomery Avenue was not touched because his workers stood as a human barrier to protect that store. Their allegiance to my father showed their commitment of loyalty. Dad and the African American workers had a mutual respect for each other.

My father was a kind, thoughtful and generous human being who worked seven days a week. He understood what discrimination was about, being a Jewish immigrant who came to this country with NOTHING!

Dad was a member of the NAACP and could relate to the doctrine to eliminate racial and religious-based discrimination to ensure that everyone is treated equally.

When Columbia Avenue erupted in August 1964, it was near the beginning of civil rights era. History records in Wikipedia that tensions between black residents and the police had been escalating for months over several well publicized allegations of police brutality.

North Philadelphia was the city’s center of African American culture, and home to 400,000 of the city’s black residents. The Philadelphia Police Department had tried to improve its relationship with the city’s black community, assigning teams of one black and one white officer per squad car, Wikipedia says.

However, those fateful three days resulted in 341 injured, including 100 police; 774 arrested; one man killed; and property damage that would be $23 million in today’s dollars.

Dad rebuilt his store, as many on Columbia Avenue eventually did.

But rebuilding brick and mortar does not really show the impact on the psyche of what was then in America’s fourth largest city.

By the time the shards of glass were swept and the sirens stopped echoing, many people — both black and white — would never look at Philadelphia, or each other, quite the same.

The same obviously holds true for today, 56 years later. Nothing has changed.

I do not know how to fix the problem.

But what I do know is that there is a powerful lesson in practicing tolerance, and a great danger in unchecked hatred on all sides.

Roz and Bill Altman have split their time between Sun City Hilton Head and Ventnor, New Jersey, since 2004. Prior to retirement, Roz was the international mission coordinator for four governors of Ohio.