By Junius Williams

This month marked 50 years since the most visible and successful community struggle in Newark's history took place.

In March 1968, Newark community members known as the "negotiating team" celebrated the historic Medical School Agreements, which would govern the conditions upon which the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry (now part of Rutgers University).

Built in Newark's Central Ward on urban renewal land, the agreements reach by among community members, city and state officials, and the federal government stated:

Reduced the size of the medical school from 150 acres to 66 acres.

Brought construction job training, and hundreds of construction jobs to black and Puerto Rican men at the medical school site, and later, the Newark Airport, and projects built by the Passaic Valley Sewage Commission

Brought construction union membership to black and Puerto Ricans in almost all white unions .

Provided 60 acres of vacant land to nonprofit community developers which eventually produced 900 apartments for low and moderate income families.

Provided an improved hospital and health care delivery for the residents of Newark.

Why was this most successful struggle in Newark's history?

In 1966, Newark was one of the first major majority black cities in America, but governance, including the power to make land use decisions, was held by whites who sought ways to hold onto this power in face of thousands of black migrants coming from the South and Puerto Ricans coming from Puerto Rico and New York City. Urban Renewal, a federal program designed to clear land for urban redevelopment, was used to clear land for public and private uses, and moved mostly poor people of color to other slums, or out of town.

Such was the perception of the people upon the surprise announcement in 1966 that the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry, then located in Jersey City, had been offered 150 acres of urban renewal land in the middle of the Central Ward by Mayor Hugh Addonizio. This college would have displaced an estimated 20,000 people, mostly black and Puerto Rican.

And so the people organized and the ensuing struggle consistently drew hundreds of people to stormy meetings in city hall, and into ugly confrontations with police. On this issue, Addonizio found it difficult to maintain the support of black organizations traditionally on his side, like the NAACP and large black churches.

Commentators say the Medical School Fight was one of the causes of the Newark rebellion of July 1967: people were tired of the police violence, greedy landlords, insensitive welfare bureaucrats, and uncaring teachers. And they were tired of being pushed out of their homes by the urban renewal bulldozer. They took matters into their own hands which resulted in the killing of 26 people by police, and millions of dollars in property damage.

Once the smoke cleared, an even stronger coalition emerged with a new strategy, including an alternate plan (17 acres instead of 150 acres); a major federal administrative law complaint filed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; even newer leadership comprising a negotiating team; and a negotiated settlement called the Medical School Agreements, endorsed by representatives of the President Johnson, New Jersey Gov. Richard Hughes and Newark mayor and his Urban Renewal agency.

The resultant agreements brought forth the most successful construction jobs plan in the country, which led to similar agreements for minority hiring throughout the state; as well as housing, and redirection of health care institutions in the City.

From the momentum of this movement, the people of Newark also stopped Route 75, which would have displaced thousands more as the "Midtown Connector" between Routes 78 and 280. And Leroi Jones ( later Amiri Baraka), the father of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, called the first meeting of the United Brothers whose aim it was to elect the first black mayor of Newark. Ken Gibson was elected in 1970, based on the work of grass roots organizations who converted confrontation politics into electoral politics.

For these reasons, it is important that we study how this confrontation over land resulted in the Medical School Agreements, now at age 50.

Event: The Ad Hoc Committee on Newark's History will celebrate the strategy, and the leaders -- some of whom will be brought back to Newark for a seat on stage -- at a conference on the Medical School Fight on Saturday, March 24, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Newark Public Library.

Junius Williams, Esq., is chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on the History of Newark. He is author of the book "Unfinished Agenda, Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power."

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