Riverdalians join the national fight for equality

1965

Civil rights

Riverdalians joined in the fight for civil rights in 1965, with 300 people gathering at the Monument on Riverdale Avenue to march to St. Stephen's Church in Marble Hill. The march protested the bloody events that occurred at the voter registration drive in Selma, Ala. The march included activists from Manhattan College and members of the Riverdale Committee in Defense of Human Rights.

But care and concern for others weren't seen everywhere in the neighborhood.

Early in the year, vandals ripped their way through PS 81, leaving in their tracks broken glass, empty beer cans and trampled American flags. Closet doors were taken off their hinges, paint bottles were smashed and two pianos were overturned. It was hardly an isolated incident at the school.

Child vandals struck once again in May, when a 7- and 8-year-old boys faced charges of setting the neighborhood's oldest synagogue, the Kingsbridge Center of Israel, on fire. The two PS 7 students were tried at the Bronx Children's Court on juvenile delinquency charges. The boys were seen playing with altar candles and setting fire to the Holy Ark where the Torahs were kept, The Press reported.