The four days of violence and destruction during the 1967 riots left many parts of Newark devastated. Large-scale investment in the city practically disappeared for decades. And tens of thousands of residents left Newark for the city's outlying suburbs, including most of the city's white population.
The Weequahic neighborhood, in Newark's South Ward, had been mostly Jewish in the post-war years. By the end of the 1960's, Weequahic was a majority black neighborhood.
"If you take a look at the high school pictures from the early 60's until about '64, they were all white," said Hal Braff, a Weequahic native who moved out of the neighborhood in 1965. "After that, the...community immediately changed."
An attorney, Braff moved to the neighboring city of East Orange upon getting married. But he stayed involved in Newark, and in the 60's, he worked as counsel for the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), led by the prominent civil rights advocate Robert Curvin.
"The Jim Crow laws of the South were not applied in New Jersey," said Braff. "But there was really a sense, and the realtors made it clear, that we were not going to live with the black community. And I found that appalling."
Braff worked on local civil rights cases, like integrating East Orange's municipal golf course. He later went on to co-found the Weequahic High School Alumni Association, which provides scholarships to eligible students.
The Weequahic of Braff's youth is immortalized in the works of acclaimed novelist Phillip Roth, another Newark native.
But Roth isn't the only famous writer from the neighborhood. Novelist Paul Auster also spent a big part of his childhood in Newark and struggled with his decision to leave the city.
Auster was with his stepfather, who worked for Mayor Hugh Addonizio at the time of the riots, when they heard the National Guard had been called to Newark. They walked into his office to find the mayor with his head in his hands and crying.
Auster was disturbed by what he saw in Newark, particularly when he toured the jails in the basement of City Hall on the riot's third night.
"The jails under city hall were crammed with black men, no white people, all black men," Auster said. "And they were all bleeding every single one had blood coming out of his head or his face. And they'd all been roughed up horribly by the police or the troopers or the Guard whoever it was."
Auster ultimately chose to pursue a career as a writer outside of the city, but he told WNYC it's a decision he thinks about to this day.
"I believed so much in my future as a writer that I felt I couldn't become a full-time activist," Auster said. "I had to choose. It was a tormenting decision to be in."
Click on the listen button above to hear Rebecca Carroll's interview Paul Auster and Richard Hake's interview with Hal Braff. Radio producers Joseph Capriglione and Annmarie Fertoli contributed to this report.