How Could The 1989 Greekfest Riots Been Avoided?
A commission reviewing the racially tinged violence that gripped Virginia Beach last Labor Day weekend has concluded that city leaders failed to plan properly for the event or to communicate adequately with black leaders (Paust, 1989). According to Thomas, (1990), after the riots, a 17-member Labor Day Review Commission was formed by city leaders in the weeks after the violence. It held eight public hearings, receiving testimony from city and law enforcement officials and leaders of black organizations. Commission members emphasized that their primary goal was not to criticize or to point out mistakes by specific city officials, but to provide a framework for the prevention of future melees.
The panel's recommendations include:
* Formation of an umbrella organization to plan for such future events. The organization, according to commission members, would include fraternities and sororities, black leaders, city leaders, the Urban League and local businesses.
* Increasing communication among black leaders, city officials, students and business leaders.
* Including more black officers on patrols assigned to keep order during Labor Day weekend.
* Providing for sufficient law enforcement personnel. "There will be some people who will come back specifically to try to make trouble," a commission member said. The key, the member said, was make sure that revelers know that the police are there to keep order, not to harass them.
* Establishing some type of welcoming process.
* Including hotels in the communication network. One commission member said this recommendation would involve using the hotels to disseminate information about Labor Day festivities and guidelines.
In reviewing the events of that weekend, the key areas that would have would have helped to prevent the riots are better communication and planning, crowd control managment, sensitivity and diversity training, and responsible behavior from the Greekfest goers.
Think And Respond:
Do you agree or disagree with the recommendations? Why
The panel's recommendations include:
* Formation of an umbrella organization to plan for such future events. The organization, according to commission members, would include fraternities and sororities, black leaders, city leaders, the Urban League and local businesses.
* Increasing communication among black leaders, city officials, students and business leaders.
* Including more black officers on patrols assigned to keep order during Labor Day weekend.
* Providing for sufficient law enforcement personnel. "There will be some people who will come back specifically to try to make trouble," a commission member said. The key, the member said, was make sure that revelers know that the police are there to keep order, not to harass them.
* Establishing some type of welcoming process.
* Including hotels in the communication network. One commission member said this recommendation would involve using the hotels to disseminate information about Labor Day festivities and guidelines.
In reviewing the events of that weekend, the key areas that would have would have helped to prevent the riots are better communication and planning, crowd control managment, sensitivity and diversity training, and responsible behavior from the Greekfest goers.
Think And Respond:
Do you agree or disagree with the recommendations? Why
Better Communication and Planning
As we look back and try to determine how the riots could have been avoided, we must start with the lack of communication from the city and its rejection of plans for Greekfest from the city-appointed Beachfront Committee.
According to Paust, (1989 p.1), Joe Buchanan charged the city with virtually snubbing the work of a city-appointed group he led that recommended well before Labor Day that the best way to handle the Greekfest crowds would be to take steps that included making entertainment available as well as identifying locations of special programs. . "I had been trying to develop in my own mind a rationale for why they were turning down our suggestion for a welcome tent," where Greekfest participants would be informed of local attractions as well as law enforcement policies, said Buchanan. Watts, contacted in his office last week, said the welcome tent idea was discarded because the city attorney's office decided the city could be legally liable for damage and injuries from a riot if providing a welcome tent were construed as city sponsorship of an event that it couldn't control. As proposed, the tent would have been sponsored by the Coca-Cola Co. The tent idea was basic to the strategy the beachfront committee espoused, Buchanan said.
Why didn’t the city accept the proposed plans? It is no secret that the city leaders didn’t accept a plan for handling Greekfest because they had already decided that they didn’t want the event to begin with. This ideology left the city unprepared for what would happen later. The local black leaders and the NAACP should have worked harder to have a plan for the students also. Knowing that the city was not actively planning anything, they should have stepped forward and worked with the promoter. Working with Norfolk State University to have more than one event would have been a reasonable plan of action to give the Greekfest goers something to do.
According to Paust, (1989 p.1), Joe Buchanan charged the city with virtually snubbing the work of a city-appointed group he led that recommended well before Labor Day that the best way to handle the Greekfest crowds would be to take steps that included making entertainment available as well as identifying locations of special programs. . "I had been trying to develop in my own mind a rationale for why they were turning down our suggestion for a welcome tent," where Greekfest participants would be informed of local attractions as well as law enforcement policies, said Buchanan. Watts, contacted in his office last week, said the welcome tent idea was discarded because the city attorney's office decided the city could be legally liable for damage and injuries from a riot if providing a welcome tent were construed as city sponsorship of an event that it couldn't control. As proposed, the tent would have been sponsored by the Coca-Cola Co. The tent idea was basic to the strategy the beachfront committee espoused, Buchanan said.
Why didn’t the city accept the proposed plans? It is no secret that the city leaders didn’t accept a plan for handling Greekfest because they had already decided that they didn’t want the event to begin with. This ideology left the city unprepared for what would happen later. The local black leaders and the NAACP should have worked harder to have a plan for the students also. Knowing that the city was not actively planning anything, they should have stepped forward and worked with the promoter. Working with Norfolk State University to have more than one event would have been a reasonable plan of action to give the Greekfest goers something to do.