The unrest was sparked by an arrest at a street party off Joseph Avenue, during the late evening hours of July 24, 1964. Violence spread up and down the Joseph Avenue area. Before the night was over Rochester Police Chief William Lombard's car was overturned on Joseph near Kelly Street and many stores on Joseph were trashed. The next day City Manager Porter Homer declared a state of emergency, with a curfew going into effect at 8 p.m. Rioting broke out across town and ended on the third day, with 450 state troopers and 1,500 National Guardsman occupying the city. Almost 900 arrests were made, with nearly 250 stores looted. Five people died and about 350 people were injured. The frustrations were largely vented by Rochester's growing black community, which had tripled in size during the 1950s, from 7,845 to 23,586 in 1960, and continued to grow to more than 32,000 in 1964.

Associated Press ID #640725187

On recto: typewritten title and date.
On verso: manuscript title, date stamp and newspaper stamp with manuscript title and date stamp.

Wire photographs were originally transmitted over phonelines, then later, by satellite. They were first used in the early 1920s. Associated Press became a leader with this. After pigment touch-ups, etc., the print is put into a drum (like a drum scanner). The image gets converted into audio tones that are transmitted. The tones are received and beamed onto photo-sensitive paper. Wire photographs are copies without originals---they are hybrid, transmitted objects. (Britt Salvesen, Curator and Department Head, Photography Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 30-31, 2022)

This object has the following keywords:

• Arrest
• Civil Rights Movements
• Injustice
• Night
• Police
• Racial Discrimination
• Riots
• Rochester
• Street Scenes

• Image Dimensions: 6 1/8 x 8 7/16 in. (15.56 x 21.43 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen
• Sheet Dimensions: 8 1/16 x 9 15/16 in. (20.48 x 25.24 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen