Normally, a complaint filed with the State Commission on Human Rights - especially one about a realtor - would be adjudicated rather quietly, but the summer of 1964 was far from normal. People aired their views more freely than they had in the past, and they took action. And so, once this complaint was filed, the realtor's office on Old Country Road was picketed. Counter-pickets also appeared, and over eight days they yelled racist chants, harassed the first pickets, tried to incite onlookers, and even threw rocks. A squad of helmeted riot police was needed to thwart their efforts to perpetrate assault. In the end, negotiations ended the conflict. Hicksville had refused to be drawn into violence.
Decades later, when Delores Quintyne (a veteran Long Island civil rights activist) looked back at her life, she wrote that the demonstrations in Hicksville were "the only time I was ever afraid on a picket line.
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