![Amir Ali-Bey was 15 years old during the 1968 Glenville shootout [Lawrence Caswell / ideastream]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f68a072/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1549x872+0+0/resize/840x472!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F7%2F27%2FAmir%20Ali-Bey%20screen%20shot%20cropped.jpg)
Amir Ali-Bey was 15 years old when the 1968 Glenville shootout erupted.
He'd been involved with the Afro culture shop that Fred Ahmed Evans ran.
“It was just something that - coming to the mind of a youth - that things just aren’t right with the bureaucracy and then being taught my history and black culture from a grassroots level is what I learned,” recalled Ali-Bey.
Evans would later be convicted of murder for the deaths of three Cleveland police officers and a civilian in a shootout on the night of July 23, 1968. Three members of Evans’ black nationalist group also died.
In the days after the shootout, Ali-Bey says he was harassed by police and National Guardsmen who were sent into the Glenville neighborhood to restore order following fires and looting of area businesses.
“As a matter of fact, a friend of mine was hit with a rifle butt across the forehead and he lives with that scar today,” said Ali-Bey.
Ali-Bey says his hope for Glenville is that the neighborhood turns around for sake of the young people growing up there now.
Produced by Hannah Edelman.