CONFERENCE WITH ROY WILKINS 349

MR. WILKINS:

The Governor did not ask me about "riot control" since this con-
ference was not in the context of preventing riots. I would expect that
Governor Agnew would consult with the Negro citizens of his own
State and with the white citizens of his own State on "riot controls. "
There isn't any use in my answering an iffy question.

QUESTION: Would you have a formula you would give Governor
Agnew?

MR. WILKINS:

No one has a formula for preventing riots that will guarantee their
prevention. There is one formula after a riot starts — all people who
believe in law and order believe that riots should be stopped once they
get started. Our business, and I presume it is the business of the
Governor, is to try to prevent riots from starting.

QUESTION: Mr. Wilkins, on the Hill yesterday there was an allega-
tion that in Newark it was Federal antipoverty workers who have
agitated the Negro community to the point of helping precipitate the
riot. In your experience in that city or others where Federal workers
are involved, do you think there is any substance to such an allegation?

MR. WILKINS:

I only saw it as an allegation. I have no knowledge that there is any
authenticity to it. As a matter of fact, I understood that the whole
thing started over the arrest of a cab driver and it was the reaction
of the cab drivers to his arrest which caused the riot. Now someone
else said it was the "poverty workers, " so a rumor mill like Newark
can turn out all sorts of things. In Plainfield they said a policeman
shot a 7-year-old boy, and then they found out that no 7-year-old boy
had been involved in a riot at all. In Harlem we had a riot about 15
years ago, or 20 years ago, in which they charged that a boy had been
taken out of the back room of a W. T. Grant store and beaten to
death. Actually, the kid had stolen a knife off a counter and had been
apprehended. The knife was taken away from him and he was scolded
and scooted out of the back door in order to get him home, but some-
one spread the idea that he had been beaten to death. They said his
bloody body was in the back room. I don't know about the poverty
rumors.

QUESTION: At the same time, Mr. Wilkins, the NAACP passed a
resolution blaming the city officials of Newark for a good portion of
the riots. Will you comment?