The Plot Against Newark: The Great Depression-Era Scheme to Deport A Brick City Minority

New Jersey’s history is more interesting, tragic, triumphant and fascinating than most people know. As a history teacher my students know little about the state’s past, apart from where Washington slept and a few Revolutionary War battles. The more I study the pages of old newspapers, journals and letters the more I realize that the Garden State’s epic and sometimes disturbing past is

Newark charity soup kitchen, 1930's

worth writing about.

When it comes to great writers, Philip Roth is one of Jersey’s treasures. In 2004 Roth published an astounding masterpiece, a novel titled The Plot Against America. Set in a familiar alternate universe of the 1930’s and 40’s, Roth imagines Newark and the U.S. under the presidency of the isolationist Charles Lindbergh, and traces, in suspenseful and masterful style how conditions for Essex County’s Jews deteriorate as Lindbergh’s fortunes rise. Scary stuff, to be sure, but just fiction, right? No one ever, of course, in real life proposed sending a large portion of a state minority off to camps or distant locales?

Tragically enough, various forms of ethnic deportation and cleansing were widely and publicly proposed, from some of the highest levels of Newark’s city government, in the summer of 1932. It was, in short, Newark’s own plot against America. Had it actually worked, sights similar to the coming Holocaust in Germany would have surely panned out on the streets of New Jersey’s largest city, with African-Americans as the target.

We need to paint the scene here, to understand the context of a horrifying proposal that almost came to be. In 1932 the Depression was already in its grinding third year, and Newark, as one of the East Coast’s industrial hubs, was hit particularly hard. The New Deal was still over a year away and no end to the troubles were in sight. Factories closed. The number of the unemployed ballooned and urban aid programs were scant. There was no unemployment insurance, Social Security or Medicaid to speak of. In Newark, most aid to the poor was in the form of free distribution of flour.

Within the Brick City’s economic cauldron, racial hatred festered. New Jersey’s African-American population had grown dramatically in the 1920’s as hundreds of thousands of blacks had fled violence and Jim Crowism in the South for opportunities in the North. In the booming economy of the 20’s many men did find jobs and a better life, but with the Depression, the ebbing tide stranded all ships. Black and White in Newark faced a new, seemingly permanent world of joblessness and desperation.

It was in this atmosphere that Owen A. Malady, Newark’s official “Overseer of the Poor,” along with several allies, proposed a terrifying plan. The city of Newark would act to “deport” or “resettle” most of its African-American residents “back” to the South. More specifically, the plot was that all black residents living in Newark for less than five years would be removed from the city and forced “back to Dixie.”

The scheme was publicly discussed and debated behind the doors of Newark’s stately city hall building on Broad Street. Some of the city’s commissioners wanted prompt action taken by the police, who would apparently engage in mass arrests, processing and forceful relocations. How the city would determine who was to be deported/arrested was never fleshed out. It probably would not have mattered anyway; I’m sure every African-American living in Newark would have been a target.

Though he rejected ‘force’, Malady was intensely determined to make his deportation plan work. He told one paper that he had written public officials, including governors, in Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. He even called on local Essex County churches to assist him in his efforts.

Opponents quickly made themselves vocal in newspapers North and South. Writing in the Atlanta Daily World, one Jesse Thomas scorned the plan as regressive, unwise and blatantly unconstitutional. First, Thomas openly wondered why the City of Newark had discriminated in its deportation plans against African Americans? Hadn’t many white people settled in the city over the past half-decade? Additionally, from a logistical point of view, so-called “Southern Resettlement” wouldn’t help anyone, as:

“Practically every city in the South is already taxed to its limit in an effort to take care of those who are now unemployed and living on charity.”

And most importantly, Thomas wrote, why would it matter what region anyone came from who settled in Newark? Doesn’t every part of the nation belong to every inhabitant equally? Of course, Thomas was legally correct. The United States Constitution, in its "privileges and immunities clause," blatantly forbids this kind of regionally-based discrimination. 

Newark, to my knowledge, never did adopt this appalling mass deportation plan. And while the later New Deal programs of the Roosevelt administration certainly eased poverty in Essex County, none of the programs (such as the Civilian Conservation Corps) were ever specifically targeted to help African Americans. Many New Deal agencies actually engaged in racial discrimination themselves. It would take World War II to bring full employment and opportunity back to Newark, but in 1932 that was still almost a decade away (and nobody knew it was coming at the time either).

The Great Depression is over, but the Great Recession is not. Though such schemes for mass deportations of minorities are fortunately non-existent in the United States, they’re currently enjoying resurgence in Europe. There, in nations like Greece and Hungary, Fascists are again on the march and ruthlessly targeting immigrants and Jews. And these Fascists are gaining political power by winning local and national elections. We need to remember, such conspiracies did once visit our shores. We can never let such ideas gain a serious audience again. We’re all in this economic mess, yes, but we’re in it together.

China's Newark Lights the Way: Wuxi Adopts Free WiFi

Located right outside of booming Shanghai is, at least in my opinion, the closest community to being “Newark’s Twin” in rising China: Wuxi. The city of Wuxi’s population is considerably larger than the Brick City, but its relationship with its metropolitan neighbor is akin to Newark’s with New York. As with Newark, so much of the smaller Chinese city’s economic, cultural and educational links are connected with the larger, being Shanghai. Again as with Newark and New York, both Chinese cities are not only geographically proximate but also connected through a complex web of rail and road links. Every day hundreds of thousands pass through both cities en route for greater employment and financial opportunities.

The government of Wuxi isn’t under any illusions; it’s not going to surpass Shanghai and doesn’t seek to. Instead, it actively works to coordinate its growth and economic development with its larger neighbor. Wuxi has to do this, because Shanghai is quickly becoming the “New York City” of not only China but all of East Asia. Shanghai, within this generation, could very well wind up to be the urban pivot that the entire Pacific Rim swings upon.

Again, the administrators of Wuxi know this. They’re counting on it. They know that their close neighbor is investing billions of U.S. dollars in critical infrastructural improvements, such as modern highways, increased public transportation, and especially communications systems. So just last month, Wuxi made a big decision, a decision that Newark desperately needs to make and implement within the very near future, if the Brick City is serious about its growth, safety and employment potential. Wuxi has decided to establish its own “wireless cloud,” it’s own urban Wi-Fi system that will cover nearly every square foot of the city.

Ten years ago this would have been a colossal prospect for any city or town, anywhere. Some cities, like Philadelphia, experimented with the prospect, called “Municipal Wi-Fi.” But they found that the equipment was extremely expensive, fragile, and with limited geographical range and benefit. Then, over the past decade, time and the electronic marketplace exercised their magic and now what was expensive yesterday is more or less peanuts today. In short, a $350 Internet router from 2003 can be had for $25 or $30 in 2013, with the contemporary equivalent being better, more durable, with dramatically wider range capabilities.

Wuxi’s leaders were aware of these market changes, and have acted accordingly. Over the next year and a half, they’ve pledged and budgeted, in an ambitious private-public partnership, to “light up” the city with 40,000 Wi-Fi hotspots. Yes, you read that right; not 4,000…but 40,000!

Yesteryear’s equivalent of the “Moon Shot” is this year’s parallel of paving a road, or something like that. Regardless of whatever lame way I put it, within a year or so Wuxi’s residents: young, old, rich, poor, middle-class, homeless, lost, employed, and jobless will be able to access email and the full benefits of the web, at least when they’re on the streets, trains and busses of the municipality. And here’s the kicker: it won’t cost that much money. Actually, costs will be a fraction of what they were projected even five years ago. And with the possibility of added economic development due to the network’s deployment, the new system may actually wind up quickly paying for itself.

Newark, to my knowledge, has nothing like this in its planning books. In fact, the Brick City is caught up in one of the worst crime waves of the past 25 years that threatens to erase two decades of civic progress. To make matters worse, the city’s unemployment rate continues unabated while the Federal government cuts one of its most essential benefits, food stamps. Well, if you’re going to cut food stamps, and tell a city with a huge jobless population to “get a job,” then don’t be a hypocrite:give them the means to find one. City and state officials need to get their heads out of the clouds and turn on an electronic cloud in Newark, before the city is permanently left behind as a 20th century urban backwater.

Newark citywide Wi-Fi doesn’t have to be put in place all at once to be immediately successful. As a person who lived in the city for years, and now works there, I can tell you that there are places where Wi-Fi could be rapidly installed for maximum effectiveness. Newark’s downtown core, its parks and its long, major boulevards could be “illuminated” first. Also, streets adjacent to schools and schoolyards would be included, as would busses. This would immediately better the lives of those who transit through these areas daily (like my students). Then, after six months to a year, the city’s outer zones, its residential neighborhoods and housing projects could follow.

The city leaders of Wuxi know that Wi-Fi is an urban need, like water or sewers or other utilities. A globally-connected city simply cannot exist and prosper without it. When will Newark’s leaders come to the same conclusion? 

In the 1840's, the Brick City Threw A Brick that Landed in China - And Helped to Stoke a Rebellion

Sometimes the best of intentions wind up doing the exact opposite. I tell this to my Arts High students from time to time, especially when we study the roles of the variousidealistic movements throughout American and global history. One of the most interesting examples of this that I’ve brought up in class involves the efforts of many of the most religious, “upstanding” people of Newark in the 1840’s. Their extensive and expensive efforts to spread their version of Protestant Christianity brought new institutions of learning and healing to distant China. But, inadvertently, their undertakings would also bring upon the greatest rebellion and humanitarian disaster in Chinese and all of human history. It is the greatest event that most Americans have never heard of: The Taiping Rebellion.

Let’s start at the beginning of this convoluted and fascinating story. China before the 1840’s was one of the world’s most ancient and developed civilizations. While Europeans were living in the darkness of the Middle Ages, the Chinese were manufacturing paper, ammunition and using advanced machines. In the century before Columbus landed in The Americas, Chinese ships sailed the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, looking for new lands and new partners for trade. Then, due to internal political developments mixed with a healthy dose of ethnocentrism, China shifted into swift decline. This decline continued into the 1840’s, as the once-great empire was soundly defeated by the British in the Opium Wars. One of the main effects of the war – and this is where Newark, New Jersey enters into our story – is that Christian missionaries would now be allowed into China to “spread the good word of the Gospel.”

The Christian ideal was a central part of Newark’s entire existence since its founding by Puritans in the 1600’s. After American independence, the city became home to every conceivable and competing Christian sect, from Presbyterians to Anglicans to Catholics to Unitarians. In the early 1800’s these religious sects dominated social and political life in the Brick City. Their beautiful stone churches still line the city’s great boulevards to this day.

With China now open to Christian missionaries, Newark’s Protestants openly planned, funded and sent representatives to China’s coastal cities to spread the faith. One of the most dramatic stories from this time comes from a November 16, 1843 speech at one of the city’s churches. The speech, given by Reverend Dr. Boone, electrified the entire religious community of the city.

Boone had come to Newark to galvanize support for his missionary program. He told one congregation that while the recent British war in China had been unfortunate, it had opened “the heathen” to the Christian message. Boone claimed that the time was ripe for Newark’s churches to fund and send missionaries to the ancient kingdom, to bring “redemption” to the whole land.

Boone informed his listeners that missionaries had already arrived there, establishing new churches, making public speeches, and handing out Bibles and religious tracts. These tracts, he claimed, were eagerly welcomed and read by the masses. What he told them on one level was correct: the religious publications had made a deep impact on the Chinese, particularly in the Southeastern portion of the country. What he failed to mention was that most missionaries were sloppy. In China at this time, many a Christian preacher entered a town, gave out tracts, preached a bit, baptized many, declared a Victory for the Lord, and then moved on. Christianity had indeed come to China, but one rather twisted but brilliant man would interpret and spread a version of it that would lead to a civil war like no other. In some respects, the war would be so destructive that parts of China would not recover from it until the late 20th century.

In the late 1830’s and 1840’s, inspired by those very same Christian publications he had received, a Chinese man named Hong Xiuqan convinced himself and eventually millions of others that Christianity was needed in China – or at least, his version of it. Hong claimed in a series of visions that he had journeyed to Heaven and was informed by both God and Jesus that he was “God’s Chinese Son.” Hong asserted that he was not only Jesus’ brother, he was THE Divine Instrument on Earth that would rule China with Holy Authority. Using a combination of Christianity and widespread hatred for China’s rulers, Hong’s movement took off. He called it the “Taiping” (Chinese for “Heavenly”) Kingdom.

Between 1850 and 1864, Hong raised a colossal army that occupied, at its height, 1/5 of China. His troops at one point threatened the entire Chinese regime and threatened to topple it entirely. Between the two sides, the Chinese Empire on one and the Taipings on the other, there was no mercy. They slaughtered each other without pity, burning villages and entire cities, even killing each other’s prisoners of war. Like modern day fanatical holy warriors, millions of Taiping soldiers preferred suicide to capture.

Meanwhile, missionaries from America, and especially Newark, kept arriving in China. Records from the time show us that, except for a few Westerners, for the first years of the rebellion few knew of Hong’s distortions of Christianity and monotheism as a whole. During one of the fiercest periods of conflict, one local newspaper reported of a large gathering and send-off in Newark of several missionaries. Thousands had gathered at a church off Broad Street to praise Mr. and Mrs. Myers and one Mrs. Knight, as they left for the troubled Asian country. At another meeting one inspired member of a Newark audience offered up an immediate donation of $100 – a huge sum in those days for anyone, rich or poor. Meanwhile, speaker after speaker at meeting after meeting offered an endless stream of good news. Christians were establishing new schools…caring for orphans…spreading God’s word. They spoke of a transformed China headed towards Heaven, instead of the real state of the land, transformed into a hell.

Meanwhile, Hong had made serious mistakes and his most fatal one was the belief that those in the West would come to his defense in the name of a common Christianity. But by the early 1860’s word had gotten out of Hong’s megalomania and this all but shut the door for British, French or American support.

When the Taiping Rebellion finally faltered and failed in 1864, over 10 million were certainly dead. Some scholars today claim that between the war and the famines it caused, over 50 million were lost.

Whether anyone in Newark was aware of Hong’s ideas or not, their concern for the souls of the Chinese mattered little by 1861. By that time their attention had firmly shifted from the Pacific Rim to the impending conflict in America. The American Civil War had begun, and Newark’s churches and citizens would be at the forefront of modern hospital construction and the funding and provision of medical care for tens of thousands of wounded Union soldiers.

I always tell my students that Newark’s History is America’s history, but Newark and its residents have impacted the world, both near and distant, with their industry, energy and ideas. The Taiping Rebellion certainly wasn’t the fault of anyone in Newark, per se, but well-intentioned citizens of the Brick City undoubtedly played a part in laying the groundwork for it.