Procaccino won the Democratic primary with less than 33% of the vote against four opponents, including Wagner, Bronx Borough President Herman Badillo, Congressman James H. Scheuer, and author Norman Mailer, who ran on a platform proposing secession from the state of New York.

In response to the unrest throughout the country, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.

[2] Lindsay served on the Commission and used it as an opportunity to publicly campaign for urban renewal, visiting riot-damaged sites accompanied by national and local press, and he was influential in its final report.

[3] In April 1968, one month after the report was released, rioting broke out in more than 100 American cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

In New York, however, Lindsay was credited with averting a crisis when he traveled personally to the Black-majority neighborhood of Harlem to tell residents that he regretted King's death and was working to end urban poverty.

[7] The criticism prompted Lindsay to visit Queens but, after his limousine became trapped in Rego Park, he was forced to abandon it in favor of a four-wheel truck and was heckled by local residents.