Newark grew in the nineteenth century as an industrial city in the shadow of New York City, and, like other cities, was heavily reliant on growing immigrant communities for its labor. Beginning in the 1920s, large industrial firms left the city creating slums like the “Hill District,” considered one of the worst ghettos in America. A brief boom during and after the Second World War encouraged southern black migrants to settle in Newark, but, by the end of the 1950s, with the white flight to the suburbs, the city began to decline rapidly By the mid-1960s the city had a disaffected black majority population, policed by a largely white police force. The black residents were victims of considerable police brutality, which resulted in the 1967 race riot, during which twenty-one African Americans died and 1,600 were injured. During this period, the city was also noted for the black nationalist cultural initiatives of Amiri Baraka. Since the mid-1980s, and the election of Mayor Sharpe James, the city claims to be undergoing a renaissance, with a new museum, performing arts center and bustling regional airport, though it still retains much of its negative reputation.