After watching news coverage of the Ferguson Riots resulting from the shooting death of Michael Brown, and after watching a scene from James Browns movie, "Get On Up" not too long before, where they showed television news footage of the historical 1968 14th Street King Riots in DC, I searched some youtube videos on the King Riots and found this particular peace of footage very moving. It's in HD format showing the aftermath of the riots. It gives a much clearer and more colorful image of how things looked during that time, more than I've seen since it happened.
As some here may have already guessed by now, I was raised on 14th Street NW during my early childhood, and my old neighborhood got caught in the middle of all of this. Until I saw this youtube video the other day, I didn't think I would ever again see another image of that area the way it was when I was growing up. They made it look so live and colorful as if I was there yesterday. Over the years, when they use to show news coverage of the riots every anniversary, the footage would be in black and white, just like the images they showed in the James Brown movie. What's kind of strange is, I will probably never see an HD quality video of the suburban neighborhood we moved to, the newer neighborhood where I spent the other part of my childhood. Unfortunately, the only reason I can see my older neighborhood in HD is because Dr King was killed, and it made a time in history, and the riots happened in my old neighborhood.
But on the other hand, a lot of the scenery in my old DC neighborhood is gone as the result of the riots. However I do have a chance now to see HD images of stores and some buildings I considered landmarks in my childhood, that are gone now as I said. On that note, there are two scenes in this video I will probably cherish. The first scene is our old Safeway grocery store on 14th Street. We lived directly across the street from it. Although it got ruined, this youtube video is the first time I've seen that grocery store since we moved, and it's in color and in HD. It moved me so much I had to call my older sister this morning and tell her about this video, since this was the Safeway she got caught stealing raisins from when we were kids...lol. The other scene is at the 10:33 seconds mark. You'll see a tall dark brown brick building on the corner with a steeple on top. This building was located at the bottom of the street of where we lived. Whenever we were driving down 14th Street and I saw that building, I new we were near home. It used to have this big colorful clock not far below the steeple that used to light up at night. My sister told me that building was a flower shop, but I'm not sure about that. Unfortunately, the other tall building across from it, which was the white tall building with a steeple, was where I saw my first dead body. He was laying not too far from the corner of the street. They say he had been shot. Really all I heard was, "Dead man down the street". I assumed he was shot because he had his hand on his heart. It took me years to realize he wasn't really wearing a maroon shirt. It was a shirt covered in blood. Both of these buildings are gone now. To me, tearing down the tall dark brown building with the clock below the steeple, was almost like taking away the Statue of Liberty from a New Yorker. Just looking at some of the scenes from I guess the helicopters looking over the city, remind me very much of the view I used to see when I would sometimes go to our 6th floor hallway window and stare out of it. After all these years, it almost felt like I was looking out that same window again when I viewed that part of the video.
Anyway, here's the 18:34 seconds video. By the way the video doesn't have any sound, which takes away even more from the feeling of being there. However the HD images of these older personal cars, police-cars, patty-wagons, and fire-trucks will take you back. These colorful images are rarely scene, not only from the King Riots, but from the 60's period.
I would turn my old buddy on to this youtube video, but I'm scared he may tell me again that I need too prove to myself I can live around all black people. Okay, I'll leave him alone.