An extremist protest in Crown Heights on Tuesday sought to inflame racial tensions between Black and Jewish residents on the anniversary of the infamous 1991 riots, but the event drew only a small crowd and ended with minor scuffles.

The rally, organized by a fringe group calling itself Crown Heights Bites Back, was billed as a “vigil” for Gavin Cato, a Black child who was killed in 1991 when a car driven by a Jewish motorist jumped a curb. That accident ignited three days of violence in Crown Heights, leaving Yankel Rosenbaum hy”d murdered and dozens injured.

Ahead of Tuesday’s demonstration, organizers accused “Jewish supremacists” of “murdering” Cato — incendiary language that local officials blasted as antisemitic.

Around 20 masked protesters dressed in black assembled at the site of the crash, surrounding a small table with Cato’s image and handing out fliers. The leaflets accused Lubavitch Jews of killing Cato, warned of “white supremacist Zionists” seeking to “exploit” the community, and urged residents to “rise up to tear it all down.”

The demonstrators blocked local Jews from approaching the display, at one point shoving a Jewish man until police intervened. However, the confrontation stopped short of wider violence.

The protest drew sharp rebukes from city leaders. Mayor Eric Adams and three Black lawmakers representing the area denounced the event as a deliberate attempt to resurrect racial divisions in a neighborhood that today is home to both the Lubavitch kehilla and a large Caribbean diaspora.

Despite the group’s heated rhetoric, the rally remained small, subdued, and short-lived. There were no speeches, chants, or large-scale clashes — only a reminder of the deep scars left by the 1991 riots.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)