Fifth Estate 59, August 1-14, 1968 Add to the Bookbuilder

“Shortly after the riot in Detroit last summer, I talked to a Negro in his late thirties, and I asked him what he thought about the 12-year old boy lying in the street after being shot by a white policeman in Newark. A newsmagazine had the picture on its cover in living color. The man said he thought it was a joke. ‘A joke?’ I inquired. He said, ‘Yeah, the whole goddam thing is a joke. Every year, they pass some new damn civil rights bill; and every year, Emmett Till gets younger.”

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Poet John Sinclair and MC5 guitarist Fred Smith were brutally assaulted, beaten, MACEd, and arrested by members of the National Security Police and the Oakland County (Michigan) Sheriffs Dept. while performing at a Michigan teen-club on July 23^rd.

The scene took place at the Loft, located on Army Road in Leonard, Michigan (between Pontiac and Lapeer), where the MC5 had been contracted to play a dance job.

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Fifth Estate

A Newspaper of Detroit

EDITORS

Harvey Ovshinsky

Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Cathy West

CIRCULATION

Tommye Wiese

NEWS EDITOR

Alan Gotkin

MUSIC EDITORS

Tony Reay

John Sinclair

OFFICE MANAGER

Debbie Quigg

PHOTO EDITOR

Mike Tyre

ADVERTISING

Gunnar Lewis

CALENDAR

Resa Jannett

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After finally freeing John Sinclair and Fred Smith from the iron grip of the Oakland County pigs July 25, the MC5 was awakened the next morning by representatives of the Ann Arbor Police Dept. and charged with “disturbing the peace” and being “disorderly persons” as a result of their free West Park concert the Sunday before.

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Who are the long list of names in the oceans

Who are the figures standing in the cabin doors

as the train highballs North

Who are the wailing children,

bodies ripped into bits of flesh?

I catch aspects of their profiles,

am wound around them like a serpent

grasping for life.

whose eyes are these, gouged out

mucus smeared in the red earth,

figure hanging tarred above the lynch fire?

what bodies are these crushed and maimed,

or brains kicked out on the piss pavements

of the cities?

How many aspects of truth do you need Negro leaders?

How many angles are there to any story?

Whose church was that now charred smoldering in time?

Whose mamma getting laid in the cotton patch:

Whose orishas call blood-warnings?

Whose shall die, and die, and die, and die?

Whose soul fucked on the assembly floor?

whose mind picked clean in air-conditioned offices?

whose children shot to pieces in Newark tenements?

whose blood is that efficient lackey-tom motherfuckers?

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discussed in this article:

The Algiers Motel Incident by John Hersey. 397 pages, Hardbound, $5.95. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; Paperback, $1.25, Bantam Books

Editors’ Note: Detroit News reporter Joseph Strickland was the first newsman to break concrete news about the Algiers Motel slayings during last July’s rebellion. The editors of the Fifth Estate quizzed Strickland about John Hersey’s new book, The Algiers Motel Incident.

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NEW YORK—The Yippies died for a few months this year, partly from under-exposure and partly because, as Abbie Hoffman believes, “the establishment became even more absurd than the idea of YIP.” Hoffman is one of the leaders of the Youth International Party (YIP or Yippies for short).

YIP has renewed its plans for the Chicago Festival of Life conceived last December and forgotten in the mayhem of this year’s politics. The dates of the Festival are August 25–30 and will coincide with Democratic Party Death Convention.

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Editor’s note: Brother Sinclair’s Coatpuller column is re-printed here exactly as it appeared in this paper one year ago. It was written at the height of the July Rebellion and contains one of the best impressionistic sketches of that week.

You know that it would be untrue

You know that I would be a liar

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“In a rebellion, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end” (Alexis de Tocqueville)...

In the north of England there’s been an outbreak of bow-and-arrow “sniping”...

If the war in Vietnam was suddenly ended, says a confidential banking letter called Intercom, most of the supposed savings in military expenditures would be grabbed for other “high priority military projects deferred because of the costs of the war”. So projected tax increases, budgetary cuts, etc. would still be needed. And, of course, the military could always start another little war somewhere (Haiti? Guatemala? Bolivia? Thailand?)...

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The Detroit American is a racist newspaper.

It is written by racists and for racists. Its pseudo-populist rhetoric about defending the little man from “crime in the streets” and fighting against “THE BIG PRESS ESTABLISHMENT” is nothing but subterfuge for its racism.

The American defends itself against attack by saying that the bleeding-hearts can’t bear to have accused criminals referred to as “curs”, “punks”, “whelps”, etc. This, of course, is not the central issue.

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Carrying signs demanding “No Target Practice on Kids,” twenty youths picketed Danny’s Market on Puritan at San Juan, July 13, protesting the wild shooting by a Negro guard at two little black girls aged eight and ten.

The white owner, Danny Knopper, was told to “keep his goons under control” to “protect black kids” and to “provide good will and not bad guards”.

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New York, July 23 (LNS)—Former Supreme Court Justice and UN lackey Arthur Goldberg will defend Rev. William Sloane Coffin in the upcoming appeal of his two-year draft conspiracy conviction. Radio Station WBAI said that Goldberg left them with the impression that he would soon issue a statement on why he left the UN and why he decided to take up Coffin’s defense.

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OAKLAND, CALIF., July 16 (LNS) A tense crowd of several thousand chanted outside the Alameda County Courthouse here as the trial of Huey Newton entered its second day.

Newton, Black Panther Party Minister for Defense, and Peace and Freedom Party candidate for the U.S. Congress, has been imprisoned since October 28 of last year, when he was arrested in a hospital and charged with the murder of an Oakland cop. Newton and a second Oakland cop were wounded in the confrontation, the first in a series of attempted assassinations of the Panther leadership by Oakland police.

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FORT HOOD, TEXAS July 12 (LNS)—The war in Vietnam is now the longest war in America’s violent history. In addition to the genocide being committed against the Vietnamese, thousands upon thousands of American G.I.‘s have been killed or wounded. But “G.I.” is merely a label we use; beneath the uniforms are real people. Sometimes we forget that.

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Reprinted from San Francisco Express Times

Surely it isn’t brazen self-confidence that drives Nelson Rockefeller, scion of the most powerful network of vested interests in the Free World, to appear as the Galahad of the forces of Change in the pre-convention scramble. After all, empires are not administered by headstrong individuals but by hereditary networks, families, tribes—Nelson does not go off on his own to contest control of the Republican Party. Then what could he have in mind?

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Eleanor and Frank Perry, who made “David and Lisa,” have come out with a new film called “The Swimmer.” Although it does not resemble, or live up to, their previous effort, it’s a better movie than most critics would have you believe.

I feel, despite what you might have heard to the contrary, that “The Swimmer” is a motion picture worth seeing. I should point out, however, that I’m probably the only reviewer in the country who feels this way.

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The English musical scene is really a bummer. English audiences are mostly composed of teenyboppers that still dig “The Midnight Hour.” Yet there is a growing group that is really beginning to get into the music thing and love to hear a band kick out the jams.

Probably the most interesting musical group on the English horizon is “The Family.” It is composed of some older college type cats who are not only saying something in their music about the conditions of the society that we live in, but also happen to be very expert musicians.

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This band formerly known as the Hawks has the distinction of being Bob Dylan’s backing group. They are polished musicians and this album boasts a lot in the way of imagination in regards to lyrics and clever rhythm changes. The standout cut on the L.P. is a composition entitled ‘Tears of Rage’, penned by Dylan and band pianist Richard Manual: Good.

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In this fortnight past of sparse record releases we were given new albums by the Doors, Ten Years After, Buffalo Springfield, Pink Floyd and Jeff Beck, along with Phil Ochs’ tape from California and Paul Butterfield’s latest massacre.

Each of these albums I heard several times with the exception of Buffalo Springfield and Phil Ochs, as these two albums arrived too late for me to hear to -any great extent.

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Local folk singers David and Roselyn are the focal point of a campaign to raise $6,000 by August 15. David and Roselyn, who provided the music for Tom and Kate’s wedding and played at their reception (see last issue, FE #58, July 18–31, 1968) were from Houston, Texas. The trial for the inter-racial couple will be in Houston on August 16, and they are without money for a lawyer.

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Every so often I wake up in the middle of the night with the insane desire to write another film column. Usually, I manage to put it out of my head and go back to sleep. Sometimes I find that impossible, so here we go again.

First some background: Detroit is probably the only place in the world where independent film theaters have come into existence with no filmmaking scene to back them up. Usually there’s filmmakers first and theaters second. Now that underground films have been around regularly for about six months, a filmmaking scene seems to be materializing.

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

QUESTION: I have used the pill for five years but have become concerned and frightened by what I’ve recently heard about the dangerous side effects. What are they? And if I should give them up, what is the comparative efficiency of (1) a diaphragm with contraceptive cream, (2) a ‘loop”, (3) vaginal foam?

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Reprinted from the San Francisco Express-Times

San Francisco—The American Medical Association’s report on the dangers of marijuana poses the issue in the lingo of narcotics police, not in scientific or humanitarian language, according to Dr. Joel Fort.

Moreover, the media made a bad report worse by paying so little attention to its constructive recommendations the lifting of criminal penalties against occasional users, and the loosening of federal controls restricting research on marijuana.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF., JULY 19 (Libeeration News Service)—The scene in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury was tense Friday evening. Street confrontations between cops and free men had occurred the two previous nights and more street activity was expected into the weekend. On Wednesday and Thursday night, according to one witness, “People were throwing molotov cocktails as freely as rocks and bottles.” Barricades were erected and set aflame in the streets of Hashbury and the pigs were greeted with flying objects.

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Summertime—Picnic Time

It’s silly to cook much when the weather is warm. Picnics don’t have to be big, planned things. If you keep a few basic picnic foods around the house, you can grab them and go to Palmer Park or Belle Isle anytime.

I think that food in warm weather should be kept whole and simple. Summer fruits and vegetables don’t need much preparation. It is easy to keep green onions, radishes, tomatoes and cucumbers cleaned and in a plastic bag. Throw a few ice cubes in the bag and everything will stay crisp and cold, even in a picnic basket.

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In the July 18 edition of the Detroit American, Anthony J. Wierzbicki, the paper’s president and publisher, wrote an editorial in response to the barrage of criticism directed at the paper’s use of uncomplimentary terminology when referring to law-breakers, precisely black law-breakers.

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Publisher Anthony Wierzbicki of the Detroit American is constantly explaining his extensive “crime” coverage. In a recent front-page editorial he stated: “We firmly believe that it is the duty of a newspaper to advise its readers of the truth—the entire truth. Then, and then only can the public make proper decisions and demand proper civic action.”

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Inhaling deeply on his political hookah, Detroit mayor Jerry Cavanagh, leading contender for the August “Uptight Honkie of the Month” award, attempted to justify his approval of the controversial “stop and frisk” ordinance which moments earlier he had signed into law.

Cavanagh stated that he didn’t think that his action would hurt him politically. “The situation is far different than it was in 1960...” Jerry honked, “ ‘police brutality’ is a thing of the past: The climate has changed completely.”

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Come watch the league leading Tigers sock it to the Washington Senators in a night game. It’s fun if you don’t get hasseled by some obnoxious popcorn vender. 8 p.m. Tiger Stadium.

ENJOY good FOLK MUSIC by Danny Cox. Now at the Raven Gallery until Aug. 11. Greenfield Rd. just north of 12 Mile Rd. Open every night but Mondays. For any information call 353–1778.

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UNCLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words. Abbreviations should be sensible. DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line.

Good looking bachelor likes to make love during the day. Works,4 to 12 shift. Call before 10 am 883–0068.

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The angel that lives so well is brother to the king of hell.

And like the shore of ravaged sea is beaten,

caressed, endlessly.

.

Poisoned feathers of stainless-steel

create the illusion if not the feel

of paradise that always seems

just one more stop

beyond your dreams.

—T.F. Rodinsky