Michael Griffith
Howard Beach is surrounded by three neighborhoods, Lindenwood, South Ozone Park, and Old Howard Beach(all of these town make up the 10th district). 1 mile to the east of Howard Beach, is John F. Kennedy International Airport. About half a mile to the north of Howard Beach is the Aqueduct Race Way. Jamaica Bay is directly South of Howard Beach.
Howard Beach is one of the many neighborhoods located in Queens, NY. Howard Beach is part of the 10th district of Queens. The 10th district is one of the 13 districts in Queens, which are used for voting and choosing representatives. Out of the 107,768 residents living in the 10th district, there are many ethnicities. The Majority of people are white and non-Hispanics, making up 54% of the population. African Americans make up almost 20% of the population, and men and women who have Hispanic origin make up 18% of the population. Another 8% of the population is a mix of Asian and European. Howard Beach offers a very diverse community compared to some communities in New York whose populations are mostly white.
Michael Griffith was a 23 year old African-American male from Queens, who was a construction worker. He lived with his mother Jean Griffith, a 42 year old nurses aide. He was murdered on December 20, 1986. Michael was driving with two of his other friends, Cedric Sandiford and Timothy Grimes, they were not planning on stopping in Howard Beach. Their car broke down near a local pizza parlor. They walked into New Park Pizza and asked to use a phone, but they were refused and then they sat down to eat a slice of pizza. A few moments later, two police officers walked into New Park Pizza, answering a call of "three suspicious black males." The two cops left when they realized the call was unwarranted. A group of white men harassed Michael and his friends. When they spotted them in the pizza parlor, they yelled “There’s niggers at the pizza parlor. Let’s get them.” (Breindel, 1987:22) The white men’s names were John Lester, Scott Kern, and Jason Ladone and they were all 17 and 18 years old. The black men left the pizza parlor and walked up the street, where a gang of white men were waiting for them with baseball bats and tree limbs. They beat Griffith and Sandiford, but Grimes pulled a knife on the angry white men and got away unharmed. Sandiford was knocked unconscious and Griffith was severely beaten. Griffith then dove through a hole in an adjacent fence and he staggered onto a parkway, trying to escape the attackers. As he was attempting to get across the street and flee from the attackers he was struck and instantly killed by an automobile on the Belt Parkway. The man driving the car was Dominick Blum, a court officer and the son of a police man, from Brooklyn. Lester, Kern, and Ladone were found guilty of manslaughter and assault charges. Dominick Blum was found innocent. Even though he did not run Griffith over purposely, many spectators of the case believe that because of Blum’s ties to the police department he got off easier then he should have.
The community reaction to the Michael Griffith incident was very mixed. They all showed the different lenses through which the incident was viewed. There were three main points of view. These different standpoints were from West Indian and black American leadership, the family of Griffith, and white people in general (source: the United Nations University). These reactions came from individuals in the New York City area, but were seen in the media all over the country. Because of the bias viewpoints this was viewed from, and the incidents that were associated with it, New York City was viewed as a center of racial tension throughout the 1980s. Accordig the the United Nations University, the initial reaction from West Indian and black American leadership was one of irritation. On top of the crime itself, the insensitive treatment of Sandiford by the police added to the reaction. Immediately after the case was brought public, the leadership figures became incensed and claimed that the incident was part of an institutionalized conspiracy of white people to repress black people and occasionally kill them. Sandiford initially cooperated with the police and the district attorney examining the case, but two African-American activist lawyers, C. Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox advised him to stop going along with them. The two activists argued that since the driver of the car was a court reporter for the criminal justice system and his father was a policeman, the police were therefore involved in a plan to protect him. It was because of this that the lawyers contended a cover-up of Blums involvement of the crime was highly possible. This argument was countered because his car was proceeding on the highway and he had been elsewhere. But the activist lawyers, along with Reverend Al Sharpton, accused the district attorney and criminal justice system of participating in a cover-up. The reaction from the family of Griffith was quite different. According to the United Nations University, Michael’s mother, Jean Griffith, reacted from a “mother’s” standpoint in this situation. Rather than being an African American leader, she was a mother. Michael was her son and she was more hurt by the fact that he was dead than by the logistics of the incident. Jean came out and said, "It still doesn't sit in my mind what whites did to my son... But I don't feel that whites are all the same. I've worked with children and most of the kids are white. I worked with one white child that I loved so much that when I got home at night I called his house to see how he was doing" (Hynes and Drury, 1990: 47). Her reaction wasn’t as loud and hostile as that of the activists. She wasn’t trying to make a statement; rather she was reacting to the tragedy that had befallen her. The final response from whites. According the United Nations University, race was not involved in the attacks. They used two main approaches to this. The first approach was they denied that race had anything to do with the crime committed. What this means is their interpretation was that the crimes weren’t race and ethnic related, that the races of the three men had nothing to do with it. The attorneys argued that the black men had not been attacked because of their race, but because they were suspected of being in an all white area simply for the purpose of committing crimes. This was a racist and chauvinistic assumption. According to the United Nations University, the second response from whites was that the white men couldn’t have been racist because they had previous friendships with blacks. Jon Lester’s mother stated, “Jon is not a racial person,” and noted that he had dated a black girl for some time. These facts tried to prove the point that Lester wasn’t a complete racist. Not only did some black people like him; he also liked some of them. The responses to the Michael Griffith incident were all from the different identities and backgrounds of the people involved.
Almost a year after Michael Griffith’s murder, a trial was held concerning the case. The Griffiths were represented by “African- American activist lawyers,” C. Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox. Both lawyers believed that there was a conspiracy concerning the police and the mob, which tied in the driver of the car which struck and killed Michael Griffith. They believed that because the driver of the car, Dominick Blum, worked in the criminal justice system, he was questioned little, and held responsible for no part of the crime. Although it was later proven that Blum, the driver, could have had no part in the crime, both lawyers and many other African- American activists believed that the police force, certainly in that particular area of New York, were hesitant to be on the sides of blacks in crime cases. Within months of the murder of Michael Griffith, Maddox and Mason along with other African- American activists began to use Howard Beach as an example of “ black-white race relations throughout the country.” They began to arrange boycotts of the white owned businesses of Howard Beach, causing racial tension to grow. Stated above was result which the murder of Michael Griffith had on the activist community. But the Griffith family itself was impacted in a slightly different manner. Michael Griffith’s mother, Jean Griffith, was quoted as saying, “ It still doesn’t sit in my mind what whites did to my son…But I don’t feel that whites are all the same.” Although her son’s murder was devastating to her, Jean Griffith didn’t hold the same hate as some of the strong activists held. If we look at the community of Howard Beach, or even the entire 10th voting district of Queens, which includes Howard Beach, it becomes apparent that one of the underlying changes which may have caused or worsened the racial tension situation is gentrification. Gentrification is the process of renewing or rebuilding an area accompanied by the influx of middle to upper class people into deteriorating areas. As the African-American community of Howard Beach and the rest of the 10th voting district began to see the arrival of white affluent or middle class citizens, tension grew to feelings of competition and power. Many blacks felt that the increase in well educated middle to upper class citizens would reduce their chances of success. They felt that they would have less of a chance to open a successful business or have power over the economy and trade in their neighborhood. And so, tension grew between the many races which began to inhabit the 10th district of Queens, including Howard Beach, the place of Michael Griffith’s murder.
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