CORE Meets Counter-Protesting “SPONGE”

Apr. 25, 1965 - One hundred pickets of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) demonstrated at the New York World’s Fair today and found themselves picketed in turn by youths (pictured) carrying placards saying: “SPONGE, the Society for the Prevention of Negroes’ Getting Everything.” 

There were several shoving matches, and on one occasion punches were thrown. The only casualty was a CORE marcher, Irving Barton of Brooklyn, who received a bloody nose. The demonstration took place in front of the New York City Pavilion. 

The paid attendance on the first Sunday of the fair’s second season was 110,614. This was regarded as disappointing. Attendance was probably held down as much by the cold, windy weather as by the prospects of picketing, which had been announced Friday.

After the outbreak, the fair’s police quickly restored order. No arrests were made. 

The CORE pickets, who began marching in front of the pavilion at 11 a.m., were protesting Mayor Robert Wagner’s asserted failure to deal adequately with slums, segregated schools, and police brutality while approving lavish city expenditures on the fair. Their organization has already announced it will oppose the Mayor’s reelection.

The first group of SPONGE pickets arrived at noon. They carried signs proclaiming Alabama Governor George Wallace as “the only true American statesman left.” Some wore gray Confederate Army caps.

“We’re here because the trains aren’t safe with all these savages,” one SPONGE member said.

Cries of “Bigot, bigot, freedom now” came from the CORE demonstrators as they encircled the smaller group.

One SPONGE demonstrator, who identified himself as Bruno Cascino, 19 years old, said the group was from the East New York section of Brooklyn. He declined to give any information on the organization itself. Officials expressed some doubt that it actually existed.

The youths left at 1 p.m., saying they would return after getting a bite to eat. They didn’t, but at about 1:45, a second group, younger, wearing black leather jackets and without signs, arrived. They said they also were from SPONGE and were students at Thomas Jefferson High School, which is in East New York.

This second group cursed and taunted the CORE marchers, and the brief flurry of violence followed.

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