University of Central Florida student Walter Clark, editing a sequence, Tuesday,
October 18, 2005, on his film, Beyond The Blacktop, a narrative based on Clark's
experiences from a race riot in St. Petersburg. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

Filmmaker’s work guided by the first time
he saw life in black and white

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The images were terrifying: Rocks being thrown, police decked out in seldomseen riot gear.The smoke and the flames stood out the most.

St. Petersburg, literally, was burning. But it wasn’t 1967, the year when riots wracked Detroit, Newark and even St. Pete’s neighbor,Tampa.

This was 1996.

It began Thursday, Oct. 24, of that year – four years after Rodney King asked the nation,“Can we all get along?” After hip-hop had become the sound of the nation. And not too long before Bill Clinton, the white man in the White House, would be labeled “America’s first black president” by Toni Morrison, one of the nation’s most celebrated black authors.

This wasn’t supposed to happen now, and certainly not here. St. Petersburg was a quiet place, known disparagingly as “God’s Waiting Room,” a haven for retirees.

But like most of the riots of the ‘60s, the disturbance was ignited by police action. In this case, it was the shooting of 18-year-old Tyron Lewis.

Police said Lewis tried to run them over during a routine traffic stop. Before he reached the hospital, he was dead. Within hours, St. Pete erupted. News clips from the time show a city bewildered. Eleven people were injured, a police officer was shot and about 20 people were arrested.

“They were tossing everything at us but the kitchen sink,” St. Petersburg Police Sgt. Denny Simmons told CNN at the time. Police Chief Darrel Stephens told the media it was “inappropriate” to speculate on the reasons behind the uprising.

Walter Clark, then 12, saw the images from his home in Pinellas Point, a short distance from downtown St. Petersburg. Clark had grown up in the multiracial neighborhood, and had attended integrated schools.

He says he had never really thought much about race. But suddenly here it was, smack in his face.

Clark says most of the white kids didn’t show up for school the day after the unrest. And when he rode his bicycle home from school and decided to stop at a convenience store for a snack, he came upon a scene he says he’ll never forget:Two black men chasing and cursing a white man.

When they saw him, the black men told him he should treat white people the same way, he says.

The experience shocked Clark to his core. He was conflicted. Was he really on the same side as these men just because they shared skin color?

“I grew up sheltered,” Clark says, adding that he and his parents didn’t talk about race much.The only conversations about the subject that he really remembers are his father’s warnings that he shouldn’t attend parties where he would be the only black kid.

“I didn’t pay him any attention,” Clark says.

In time, the calm returned to St. Petersburg. President Clinton sent his housing secretary, Henry Cisneros, to the city to promise millions of dollars to revitalize government-owned property populated mostly by some of Pinellas County’s black residents. The money never materialized, city leaders and activists say.

Mindful of the need to restore positive relations with the city’s black community, the city promoted Goliath Davis III, its highest-ranking black officer, to police chief, a few months after the riot.

Davis’ tenure brought important changes in the police department, says Omali Yeshitela, a black activist who founded the Uhuru Movement, a grassroots advocacy group some city leaders accused of fomenting the uprising.