As Governor of Maryland when the King Assassination riots exploded across the city of Baltimore, Spiro T. Agnew immediately called up the National Guard, who moved in with full equipment, including rifles with bayonets to quell the violence and destruction taking place. Armored tanks rolled down the streets of the city.
By April 9th, there were 100,000 troops involved in the Baltimore operation.
On April 11th, Governor Agnew called for a meeting with the top leaders of the African American community, which included pastors, community organizers, educators, and other prominent Black citizens.
At this infamous meeting, Agnew read a prepared speech that criticized the riots leaders as a "caterwauling, riot-inciting, burn-America-down type of leaders."
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| Photo: James V. Kelly/Langsdale Library Special Collections |
Agnew's own words were both calling for order and moderation, while at the same time repeating the most inflammatory statements from radical activists who promoted violence. Even as he spoke, from the bully pulpit, 100,000 armed troops were sweeping the city to stamp out the riots with force of arms. The level of internal conflict is apparent, if you can imagine sitting and listening to this, while your city and neighborhoods are in flames:
"It is deplorable and a sign of sickness in our society that the lunatic fringes of the black and white communities speak with wide publicity while we, the moderates, remain continuously mute. I cannot believe that the only alternative to white racism is black racism. Somewhere the objectives of the civil rights movement have been obscured in a surge of emotional oversimplification. Somewhere the goal of equal opportunity has been replaced by the goal of instantaneous economic equality. This country does not guarantee that every man will be successful but only that he will have an equal opportunity to achieve success. I readily admit that this equal opportunity has not always been present for Negroes—that it is still not totally present for Negroes. But I say that we have come a long way. And I say that the road we have trodden is built with the sweat of the Roy Wilkinses and the Whitney Youngs—with the spiritual leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King—and not with violence.
Tell me one constructive achievement that has flowed from the madness of the twin priests of violence, Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown. They do not build—they demolish. They are agents of destruction and they will surely destroy us if we do not repudiate them and their philosophies—along with the white racists such as Joseph Carroll and Connie Lynch—the American Nazi Party, the John Birchers, and their fellow travelers.
The bitterness of past and present days has been brewed by words like these:
We have to retaliate for the deaths of our leaders. The execution for those deaths will not be in the court rooms. They're going to be in the streets of the United States of America.... Black people know that they have to get guns.—Stokely Carmichael: Washington, D. C., April 5, 1968
And:
To hell with the laws of the United States.... Your brothers in the ghettos are going to wake up with matches... if a white man tries to walk over you, kill him... one match and you can retaliate. Burn, baby, burn... We're going to tear the cities up....—Stokely Carmichael: Miles College, April 4, 1967
And:
Get yourselves some guns. The honky is your enemy. The brothers are now calling Detroit destroyed. You did a good job here. [This City's riot will] look like a picnic [after black people unite] to take their due. —Rap Brown: Detroit, August 27, 1967
And:
Black people are being forced to become both judge and jury. We must arm ourselves with rifles, shotguns, pistols, bow and arrows (with poison arrows), BB guns (with poison BBs), gas, rags, bottles and knives. The only way to get justice in this evil land is to kill the white devil before he kills you.—Willard Dixon in a publication, "The Black Dispatch, a voice of the Black Ghetto. "
What possible hope is there for peace in our community if these apostles of anarchy are allowed to spew hatred unchallenged? If we are to learn from bitter experience, if we are to progress in the battle for equal opportunity, we must plan together and execute those plans together. To do this we must be able to communicate. We cannot communicate and progress if the lunatic fringes are included in the problem-solving team.
I publicly repudiate, condemn, and reject all white racists. I call upon you to publicly repudiate, condemn and reject all black racists. This, so far, you have not been willing to do. I call upon you as Americans to speak out now against the treason and hate of Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown. If our nation is not to move toward two separate societies—one white and one black—you have an obligation, too."
It isn't a huge surprise that many of those present stood up and walked out.
And for the record: Agnew was the only holder of the highest executive office to resign in a plea deal having been convicted of a crime (bribery). Nixon pardoned him. And he received a Federal pension. Later he had to pay the state of Maryland a fine of more than $200,000 stemming from bribery while in office. Then Agnew filed an appeal to have his payment of the fine considered tax deductible.
Sources:
Spiro Agnew Speaks to Black Baltimore Leaders, Chicken Bones
A Time of Great Pain, by Katie Pierce, Hopkins History (11 Apr 2018)
Is Baltimore Burning? Archives of Maryland.
1968 and the Invention of the American Police State, by Daniel Denvir, City Lab (30 Apr 2015)
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