Fifth Estate 14, September 15, 1966 Add to the Bookbuilder

On August 9–12 a fantasy now known as the “East Side Riot” was staged by the Detroit Police with the assistance of the prosecutor’s office, city government and the press. The major villain of the drama was Alvin Harrison, Director of the Afro-American Unity Movement and spokesman for Black Power. Below is The Fifth Estate’s interview with Mr. Harrison.

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WHILE BRAVE MEN DIE had its Detroit premier on Saturday September 10. Sharing the bill at lower DeRoy Auditorium was OPERATION ABOLITION, a right-wing expose of communists in the peace movement. As expected, the entire evening of film phantasmagoria was an exercise in high cinema camp and low grade stupidity.

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After closing the office on Plum Street and selling my last “Sterilize LBJ” button, I walked downtown where the old Vanguard Theatre used to be. It provided a few minutes of indecision because two skin-flicks were playing and I had already seen one.

The last time I was in the Vanguard was two years ago. I remember seeing THE FIREBUGS there. THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH was good too, and e. e. Cummings’ HE did a pretty neat job of stoning (all twenty members of) the audience.

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News of a new independent artists’ group in Detroit: The Instage, a gathering of musicians, dancers, painters, and others to present their own work in their own context, has been drawn together by pianist Kirk Lightsey, bassists Ernie Farrow and Dedrick Gover, trombonist George Bohanon and others. Now in search of their own performing facilities, Instage will present a program of its members’ work at the Community Arts Auditorium, Wayne State University, on Sunday, October 2, at 8:00 p.m. Featured will be paintings by Gloria Bohanon and seven others; a dance event featuring Barbara Willis, Don Hellimus, and Jackie Hillman, backed by Lightsey’s band; and a concert of music by the groups of Ernie Farrow, George Bohanon, and Harold McKinney. Tickets are on sale for $1.50 per person, $2.50 for couples, from Instage members and at the WSU box office.

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There are some records around that are worth taking a look at...The Sunshine Superman album by Donovan is one of the best records of its kind ever done. On this record, we hear great writing, good tunes, excellent musicianship, and the main ingredient, imagination. Goodies are borrowed from almost every musical idiom imaginable and put together in totally new ways. The sitar is put to particularly good use. Donovan has overcome any labels that might have been attached in the beginning, and has become a singer-songwriter as good as or better than any we’ve heard.

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Conformist Logic & The Political Question

(An open letter to the Artists’ Workshop and the Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam.)

“But for art to transform as well as reflect, there must be a great distance between the artist and life, just as there is between the revolutionist and political reality.”

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The Fort Hood Three—the three GI’s who refused to serve in Vietnam—were tried last week by a court martial board and found guilty. Pvt. Dennis Moras received a three year sentence at hard labor and Pvt. David Samas and PFC James Johnson received five years of the same.

The Fifth Estate spoke with Marlene Sam as, wife of one of the convicted men. She said the trio would face at least two review boards, both of which have civilian members on them. Mrs. Samas asked that any donations or requests for information be sent to the Defense Committee at 5 Beekman St. NYC.

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EDITOR & PUBLISHER: Harvey Ovshinsky

NEWS EDITOR: Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Cathy West

STAFF: Marlene Tyre, Frank Dedenbach, etc.

MEMBER: U.P.S. [Underground Press Syndicate]

Film, the liveliest art, is, for all intents and purposes dead. At least in Detroit. Those wanting to attend services, needn’t bother, since there usually aren’t any for a stillborn that was just dumped in a garbage can for expediency.

Since the end of WWII there has been an increasing interest in film in this country. Foreign films developed an audience and in almost every city with a population over 200 underground movements sprung up, with independents making films from high art to low trash. In Detroit, however, nothing has happened. At different times different people have attempted to give life to some kind of movement, and each time all that ever developed was a few kicks that gave signs of life but ended in miscarriage.

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The May 16, 1966, murder of a former Wayne State University student, Leo Bernard, and the near-fatal shooting of two others, was reviewed last week by attorney Ernest Goodman who filed a petition with Detroit Common Council requesting funds for burial costs and for medical, hospital, transportation and rehabilitation expenses.

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On September 2, 3 and 4 the Lafayette Park Players presented their production of “A Thurber Carnival” at the Chrysler School Auditorium. The cast has worked together only once before last fall in “Monique”; and, although the program notes show that many members have extensive background in other plays, the amateur character of this attempt was painfully obvious.

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...was taken at Cam Che in South Vietnam by a U.S. news photographer. It shows a mother seeking to comfort her child burned by napalm dropped by a U.S. plane during “Operation Colorado.”

The child most likely has died since—and one is almost tempted to say, mercifully, because for most victims of napalm, survival is living death. You will note the care with which the numbed mother seeks to avoid touching her child’s skin. If she did, her fingers would sink into the destroyed flesh.

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Colonel Arthur Holmes, Director of the Selective Service System for the State of Michigan, announced that at his order, all male students from Michigan now entering their Freshman year of college will automatically be classified I-A by their local draft boards. After taking a pre-induction physical examination, all students over 19 will be served with induction notices. The students will then have to apply for the 1 year statutory deferment for registered students, I-S(C). At the end of the Freshman year, the students will be drafted unless they prove to the satisfaction of their local boards that they deserve a II-S student deferment.

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To the Editor:

Several things. It’s a long term blues and bound for longer but I find, in the FIFTH ESTATE, some hope. For that, thank you. Also for:

A. Printing news items of conceptually strangulated editorial policies, conventional newspapers either minimize and bury with the obits or omit entirely. This is especially valuable to me, vitally involved and interested and yet geographically removed from the essential dialogues.

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It was with interest that I read an article on Dr. Abram Hoffer in the last issue of The Fifth Estate [FE #13, August 30, 1966]. As a medical researcher on LSD I have had the occasion to refer to Dr. Hoffer’s work many times and hold the greatest respect for him as a competent scientific investigator.

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