But on New Jersey roadways, black and Hispanic drivers were subjected to such frequent, unjustified traffic stops and searches that they complained of a new, unwritten violation in the state's traffic code: "driving while black".
They litter alleyways and doorsteps, line roadways stained black by scorch marks from burning tires and firebombs, sit loose and at the ready atop crumbling rock walls.
Hay bales and black vinyl fencing line the roadway to capture silt runoff and the driveway's large retaining wall resembles an armed fortification: Hundreds of metal studs designed to secure stone facing stick out of the embankment like gun barrels.
When the black smoke blew over the roadway, that semi drove over a nearby van, locking a family of four inside where they burned to death.
Evacuees were still being dragged about, with four police officers per person; rocks were strewn on the roadways; plumes of black smoke were rising from the olive groves; and hundreds of helmeted troops in riot gear were confronting a crowd of infuriated settlers.
So, residents on Sandison, Dolores Street and others who hoped to see the piles disappear instead sigh as new containers arrive, delivered by trucks that clog narrow roadways and belch black diesel fumes.
We also failed to find evidence of an association with long-term exposure to traffic pollution based on both residential proximity to major roadways and residential black carbon levels predicted by a spatiotemporal model (Gryparis et al. 2009).
The parade, however, was unrelated to the gunfire on Park Place, an unusually designed street where black iron fencing separates the sunken roadway from extra-wide sidewalks.
The roadway continues south as Black Walnut Point Road, a county highway that leads to the namesake point at the south end of the island.
Some charges, like "manner of walking in roadway," were brought against blacks almost exclusively.
