Bud Lee was a young novice photographer for America’s Life Magazine, when he received an assignment that would change his life – and that of many others – forever.
His brief: to document a civic uprising taking place within the state of New Jersey, USA.
Little did he realise back then in 1967, the profound impact the images he captured would hold.
As he and fellow journalist Dale Wittner spent days pounding the city streets of Newark, the pair managed to lay bare the tense stand-off between the city’s Black community and an authoritarian police force.
However, it was their encounter with a man called Billy Furr, that would truly bring to light the horrors of that time, after he was gunned down in cold blood by two police officers.
12-year-old bystander, Joey Bass Jr. was also caught in the crossfire and left wounded and bleeding on the pavement – he became a tragic symbol of the innocent victims caught up in the five-day long violence, which ultimately saw the loss of 26 lives.
With Bud Lee’s poignant collection of photographs, recently published in the book ‘The War Is Here: Newark 1967’, many of the images continue to resonate today.
As his work shows, the undeniable parallels of 1967 Newark and the ongoing struggles in modern-day America remain, with gun violence and police brutality tragically still the pressing issues that grip the nation.
*Warning: distressing imagery
A National Guardsman stands watch in Newark, July 1967. In July 1967, following the arrest and beating by police of black cab driver, John Smith, an uprising broke out in the black majority city of Newark. After two days of protests, looting, and burning, with the situation still out of control, New Jersey Governor Richard Hughes called in the National Guard to lock down the city and institute a curfew. (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
Over the next five days, the city sustained millions of dollars in property damage and thousands of people were arrested and chained. At least twenty-six people were killed and hundreds more were injured, as police and soldiers patrolled the city, indiscriminately letting off 10,414 rounds of ammunition. The scars on the city remained for decades. (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
Owners of black businesses painted ‘Soul Brother’ or ‘Soul Sister’ on their premises hoping they would be spared destruction. But after the city was secured by troops, the signs marked them as targets, when soldiers, and state and city police systematically moved around the city torching black businesses in retribution for the previous two nights violence. (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
While covering events in Newark, Life journalist Dale Wittner and photographer Bud Lee met a 24-year-old man named Billy Furr (right). It was a hot summer’s day, so Furr and his friends decided to get some beer from a liquor store on Avon Avenue that had been previously looted, while Lee took pictures, inadvertently drawing attention to them. (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
No sooner had Furr and his friends left the store than a Newark Police squad car pulled up on the block. Furr ran up the street, clutching a six-pack of beer. Two policemen shot at him, felling him from behind. This photograph ran in Life magazine two weeks later, and was likely the first image ever published of an extrajudicial murder by police of a black American. (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
One of the Newark policemen who shot Billy Furr stands over his body. Furr would be left to die on the street unattended. Behind them, another tragedy was unfolding – the bullets fired at Billy Furr had a hit a young boy playing at the next intersection. (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
Newark policeman, Officer Scarpone, stands over twelve-year old Joey Bass Jr., hit in the neck and thigh by police gunfire, as a crowd of onlookers gather. The image would later be used on a poster supporting the 1970 campaign for Newark’s first black mayor, Kenneth Gibson, with the legend, “Don’t Let This Happen Again!” (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
Two weeks after the Newark uprising, the first National Conference on Black Power was held in the city, marking a turning point in the civil rights movement. It was attended by some of the most radical black political figures of the time, who expressed their outrage at the military incursion and police killings. A press conference for the event was held at the Spirit House, a community centre and arts commune founded by esteemed writer and political activist, Amiri Baraka. (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
Inside the Spirit House, Amiri Baraka sports a bandage on his head from his own encounter with police during the uprising, when he was beaten almost to the point of death by one of the same policemen involved in the murder of Billy Furr and the wounding of Joey Bass. In 2014, Amiri Baraka’s son, Ras J. Baraka, was voted into office as the Mayor of Newark, a position he still holds today. (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
Bud Lee’s stark and controversial photo of Joey Bass Jr., lying wounded and bleeding on a Newark street from police gunfire, was published on the July 28, 1967 cover of Life magazine, sparking a national conversation in America about race, police brutality, and gun violence that continues today. (Picture: Bud Lee / Estate of Bud Lee)
Writer and journalist Chris Campion, is the editor of The War Is Here: Newark 1967.
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