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where her brother Arnold worked as a clerk,and Kim’s Kaps, which sold hats, Afro wigs, and costume jewelry. But they were both run by Jews, old-style ghetto merchants who weren’t very popular. Rachel’s was one of only two black-owned stores in the neighborhood. She felt sure the kids wouldn’t molest a “soul sister.” If they gave her an argument, she’d explain that she’d been on welfare until she opened the store a few months before, that she had six kids to feed and simply couldn’t afford to close up. But then the marchers were on her shouting, “Lock up the doors, sister, this is no time to be doin’ business!” Quickly she realized it was no use, so she placed some cardboard over the hole in her window, locked the door, and went home.
    Rachel didn’t notice that Richard, George, and two of her younger sons—ten-year-old Freddie and nine-year-old Wayne—were tagging along behind the marchers, who then numbered nearly a thousand. When they reached the Jeremiah Burke High School they burned a flag flying at half-staff outside, then forced their way into the school and burned another flag. From there they marched to a Stop & Shop supermarket on Columbia Road which was still open. The white manager took one look at the vast throng building up outside his plate-glass windows, then called it a day. By 4:30, the crowd had broken up into roving gangs which began heaving rocks through store windows and car windshields. Back in the Orchard Park project, a light-skinned Negro was riding his motorcycle through one of the courts when a gang of young blacks knocked him off and beat him, stopping only when Bill Wimberly, director of the Roxbury YMCA, persuaded them the man was black. “It isn’t safe to be a white man in Roxbury today,” Wimberly told reporters.
    The mood in Roxbury that afternoon would not have pleased the apostle of non-violence whose memory the demonstrators sought to honor. A leaflet distributed by the Black United Front said flatly, “Non-violence Is Dead. The Black Community Faces Disaster.” Another, issued by two black community groups, warned, “When the riot starts, you can expect martial law which will confine you to your home for as long as a month or more. Start your survival plans now. We must unite for the attacks upon our communities from the police, armed forces, and the white communities. Have a gun and plenty of ammunition. Nothing wrong with a bow and arrow …”
    Others counseled caution. The Roxbury Youth Patrol passed out leaflets that afternoon saying, “Cool it. The riot squad has M-16 rifles—Mace—a machine so high-pitched it will make you deaf. They’re not playing. Keep off the streets. Defend your home and family. Don’t start anything.” Youth patrol members circulated in the crowds shouting the same message through bullhorns.
    They urged young people to stay home that night and watch rhythm-and-blues star James Brown on television. “Don’t go downtown, brothers,” the patrol said. “Stay home. Put on the TV and watch cool James do his thing.” Snake and Sly wouldn’t miss James Brown, so they stayed home, huddled around the tube, pounding their feet as James wailed “Please, Please, Please.”
    On Sunday morning, Rachel and several of her children walked throughmuted streets to Union Methodist Church, where the Reverend Gilbert Caldwell admonished the congregation, “Don’t give way to anger. Don’t destroy your own community.” Rachel picked up the same theme, telling her children at home that night, “Who do you think you’re hurting with all this stuff? Your friends and neighbors, that’s who. You can’t burn yourself up.”
    Partly as a result of such efforts, Boston began to cool off that weekend. By early the next week peace had been restored at relatively little cost—21 injured, 30 arrested, barely $50,000 in damage. This was mild in comparison with what happened in many of the 197 other towns and cities where riots broke out in