Fifth Estate 110, July 23-August 5, 1970 Add to the Bookbuilder

Staff

Debby Brentz

David Gaynes

Carol George

Mike John

Keep on Truckin’ Co-op

Resa Jannett

Jim Kennedy

Lee Ann Kennedy

David Levison

Julie Medvecky

Nick Medvecky

Harvey Ovshinsky

Dave Riddle

Bill Rowe

Len Schaefer

Chris Singer

Marilyn Werbe

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

POLITICAL PRISONER John Sinclair

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The United States Army has begun what looks like its final move to rid itself of Jerry Brown, the GI who exposed the illegal physicals being given at Fort Wayne in an interview with this newspaper last May.

Even though the office of the Inspector General of the Army has admitted in a letter that Army personnel have been “cutting corners” during physicals, the brass are still trying to make Brown accept a punitive transfer to Ft. Jackson, S.C.

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The cold-blooded murder of a young black man on July 11 touched off several days of street violence in Highland Park.

Jerry Lawlah, 24-year-old former athlete at Highland Park High, was shot to death by the white bartender and part owner of the Kozy Korner Bar.

Before he shot Lawlah, the bartender screamed, “I should kill all you niggers.”

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Although Cheryl McCall originally told the Fifth Estate of her job offer with the Model Cities newspaper for twelve grand a year, she has decided not to take it. She says she will continue to write for the Detroit News’ Other Section because she “has to eat”...

Detroit’s Amboy Dukes will record their next album live at the Eastown Ballroom during their July 31 concert...

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Bobby Seale is the 33-year-old Chairman of the Black Panther Party.

In 1962, Bobby met Huey P. Newton at Merritt College in Oakland, California, where both were members of an Afro-American Association.

In 1966, Bobby and Huey founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland.

The Party’s first program was police surveillance. The Panthers patrolled the Oakland ghetto in cars and carried guns in accordance with the law. When they saw the police stop a black person they informed the person of his or her rights. Incidents of police brutality against black people declined as the armed pig-watching crews went into action.

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The American Serviceman’s Union (ASU) at Selfridge Air Force Base has beat another attempt to stop the growing antiwar GI movement there.

On July 1 Air Force Office of Special Investigation agents burst into the room of Sgt. Bob Worosz armed with a search warrant signed by the base commander. Although the warrant was for drugs, the agents seized the mailing list of Broken Arrow, the base ASU paper, personal letters, anti-war leaflets and newspapers such as the Fifth Estate and the Guardian. The OSI-conducted search lasted for almost five hours and a thorough investigation of Worosz’s person, car and room produced nothing.

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Workers at the Detroit area Westinghouse heavy electrical repair shop have gone on strike. The shop, located near the Trumbull exit of John C. Lodge expressway, employs about 70 workers, most of them white males. The union there is the U.E. or the United Electrical Workers local 957.

U.E. national representative John Toth explains the background of the strike as follows: since September 1969, Westinghouse has been stalling the union in talks over the local supplementary agreement to the national contract between Westinghouse and the U.E. The company has been bullshitting around, saying that the union doesn’t represent the majority of the employees.

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We want the paper to make it a regular thing to cover more of what is happening in the parks, the schools, the factories and the communities. So if there is news happening that you know about, give us a ring and we can try and check it out and get it into the paper.

Two attacks have been made recently on our community in the Warren-Forest area.

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Dick Songer looked at us and said, “When I was a kid, we didn’t have anywhere to go, so I’ve always wanted to build a place where everyone could come. This is my 20-year dream come true.”

Songer is the 35-year-old owner-developer of this $1,000,000 dream, Goose Lake Park, which is to be the site of the only major rock festival of the summer to be held in Michigan—on August 7, 8 and 9.

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Women’s News Co-op — Wayne County, Wayne State University, Anthony Wayne Drive (Third Avenue), Fort Wayne, The City of Wayne. Just who is this character whose name we use alt the time? Does he deserve to be commemorated all over the place? Does a bronze memorial to him deserve to be standing in the middle of the campus named after him?

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The last issue of the Fifth Estate described the ruling class families and their corporate structure and how they exert control over the economy of Detroit [“Who Rules Detroit?” FE #109, July 9–22, 1970]. (A minor correction is that the Fisher family of the Fisher New Realty Co. is not related to the Fisher family of Fisher Body. But a pig is still a pig.)

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This section of the Fifth Estate has been prepared in recognition of Cuba, the first liberated territory in the Americas. July 26^th is Cuba’s national day—and because Cuba is what she is, the 26^th of July has become an international day to mark the struggle of all people against their oppressors.

The following articles were written by Detroiters, Jerry Lindquist, Barbara Strong, and Noel Conrad. They were members of the Venceremos Brigade and spent the months of March and April cutting sugar cane in Cuba.

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I was born in the Sierra Maestra in 1934. I am 36 years old. My mother is from Camaguey and my father is from Oriente and my grandfather is French. My grandfather lived and worked in the countryside but my mother is from the city, from Camaguey. She sent me to school, when I was eleven years old. I didn’t read or write when I was eleven years old. I went to the Catholic school in Santiago de Cuba, and then when I left the school I went to the Sierra Maestra because my family lived there. When I left the Sierra Maestra to go to school, I didn’t know anything about anything.

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As of 1970, all homes in Cuba are rent-free.

In Cuba, medical care is free.

Since 1967, there have been no cases of polio in Cuba; immunization of children is free and carried on each year. In 1970, some cities in Texas were having sharp increases in the number of cases of polio reported.

There is a much higher percentage of women in medical school in Cuba than in the United States.

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I wonder how Alfredo is taking it—not making the 10 million that is. We all worked hard to reach that goal: 10 million tons of sugar, the largest in Cuba’s history. In March and April, when we were cutting cane together, everyone was certain that the goal would be reached. Now it’s certain that the 10 million tons will not be reached. The harvest ended with less than 9 million tons completed. Why? What happened?

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In Cuba, the accent is on youth. Everything is done for youth; everything is expected of youth. The finest residential area of Havana is the Miramar section, where the rich whites formerly lived. This is where thousands on thousands of scholarship students now live in spacious seashore residences. There, students come from all over the island, especially from the homes of peasant and working class people.

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Over 100,000 of the Cuban people, including Fidel, have donated blood for their Peruvian sisters and brothers who just suffered a huge earthquake. When the call for blood donors went out, 10,000 pints a day were given. The people responded in even greater numbers, forming long lines outside each of Cuba’s blood banks, supplying many more volunteers than the facilities’ limit of capacity.

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The Federación de Mujeres Cabanas. (Federation of Cuban Women) is the large, popular women’s organization of Cuba. The FMC has an immense responsibility: to untie the “other hand”; to liberate the Cuban women from traditional roles. This means overcoming the traditional prejudices, which in Cuba as in all countries, most especially those of semi-feudal and colonial backgrounds, are deeply ingrained and extremely hard to dislodge. The old crippling “Machismo” mentality must be fought by all revolutionary forces.

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Street action broke out in Palo Alto, Cal. July 4 when local pigs attempted to close an impromptu rock concert sponsored by the Palo Alto White Panthers. Banks, the local newspaper, the telephone company and a department store were trashed. One pig injury was reported. Ten persons were busted, including the seven members of the band who didn’t dig the pigs banning amplified music.

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With the summer getting hotter and the conditions in the black community worse than ever, more and more riots and uprisings have come down across the country.

These days, however, the straight press and TV generally keep the news hidden in the back pages, so it is hard to keep the picture straight.

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The Serve The People Coalition is beginning to get some concrete results from its efforts.

Almost $300 was collected by the coalition at the killer WABX free concert July 19. The money will be split between the People’s Defense Committee of East Detroit (see “Youth News” in this issue) and JUSTICE/FAST.

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A Federal judge in San Jose ruled that two freaks had been unlawfully deprived of their unemployment benefits when the State of California refused to give them the money because they had been fired from their jobs for long hair and had refused to submit to a haircut. Quoth Judge R. Peckem: “Long hair is protected by the First Amendment.”

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

Hospital Tribune has recently published several reports showing black market drugs vary not only in potency but often contain drugs different from those represented by the dealer.

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Editor’s note: People: We have gotten only a few responses to our statement regarding the unclassified section and the possibility of dropping it. We would like to know how more of you feel about this. Please write if you have something to say on the matter.

I’m a GI stationed in the Nam. I’ve been here for 14 months and have 4 months left before finishing the green joke. I would appreciate receiving the Fifth Estate here in Nam for the propaganda received from the “government” is too much to stomach.

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Resa Jannett in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURS JULY 23

SUMMER HIGH SCHOOL BAND CONCERT. Free on the WSU Mall. 8–9 p.m.

THE CHUCK MILLER GROUP with J.P. Douglas at the Annex Coffeehouse. Coffee, pop, donuts and bagels sold. 8–11:30 p.m. Behind the Unitarian Church, on Maumee between Neff and St. Clair in Grosse Pointe. $1.00 admission.

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On July 28 a Fast will begin. A Fast for Justice. A JUSTICE/FAST for John Sinclair. July 28 marks the date a year ago that John was sentenced to 9-1/2-10 years in prison for possession of marijuana by Recorder’s Court Judge Robert Colombo.

John is a political prisoner. It took a two-month effort by the Detroit Narcotics Bureau using two full time undercover agents to trap John into giving them two joints back in December 1966. No charge. He gave them the marijuana and Judge Colombo himself ruled that the transaction was a case of “illegal entrapment,” that is, the police created the crime! Still, this evidence was allowed to convict John.

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