Rochdale Village was originally between 10 and 20 percent African American and 80 to 90 percent white. This caused controversy before the start of construction, as black people could not participate in Rochdale Village's construction. The Rochdale Village complex was supposed to be the model for mixed-race housing in the U.S., but then became symbolic of the Civil Rights Movement, which was ongoing during the complex's construction; for instance, twenty-three protesters were detained for disrupting the construction in 1961, including William Booth, the future head of mayor John V. Lindsay's Human Rights Commission. About 10% of the units were given to blacks upon the complex's 1963 completion. As the years passed, more and more African Americans moved to Rochdale. It was between the late 1960s and mid-1970s that most white people moved from the community, owing to the white flight brought on by white perceptions of black people as dangerous, fears of lowered property value, and racist real estate practices such a block-busting. Soon, the complex became poorer and unable to provide for some basic utilities throughout the early 1980s, with many apartments remaining empty.