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in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURSDAY APRIL 16

OPEN CITY FREE MEDICAL CLINIC offeres free medical help for those in need. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Come in at 5:30 for appointment. 4425 Second at Canfield.

Don Redlich: CONTEMPORARY DANCE will have a lecture and demonstration for all you dance freeks at the Marygrove College aud. Lecture/demonstration 1:40 p.m. Master Dance Class, 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.

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The word is out. May 1^st, 1970 is the day for the First Annual Marijuana Mail-In and Cross Country Toke-Down. Dealers and heads all over the U.S. are already madly rolling joints and stuffing envelopes in preparation for the big occasion...

MAY DAY IS CALLED LAW DAY HERE IN THE U.S.A. and every dope smoker will be doing his or her part on that day to change the marijuana laws that are being used by the government, police, and courts of Amerika in an attempt to destroy our rapidly growing culture. Over 200,000 of our brothers and sisters are already rotting in jail for so-called “marijuana crimes.” White Panther John Sinclair is doing 10 years for possession of 2 joints, brother Tim Leary has received sentences totaling 20 years for one joint. On May 1^st, we, the 20-million or more dope smokers in this country, will serve notice on the pig power structure that THIS CULTURAL GENOCIDE MUST BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY!!!

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As an ex-Detroiter, I know of your fine paper and your service to the people. Over here in Toronto we read your paper and pass it on to our brothers and sisters.

In Toronto some of the people are forming small revolutionary cells. For reasons of security the number of cells is not known and there is no formal leadership or set plan. Everyone does whatever needs to be done as they see fit.

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VIENTIANE, Laos—Dick Nixon is up to his old tricks again. On March 6 he issued a policy statement on Laos, supposedly to give the American people “full information” on the background and present situation in this country.

Like Nixon himself, the statement is devious and deceptive.

Nixon portrays the U.S. as a reluctant warrior, assisting hapless little Laos, at the request of the government, to resist “foreign aggression.” The record is different.

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Some friends and I had occasion to check out the Citizens’ Complaint Bureau recently. Located on the 4^th floor of the YMCA, in the heart of beautiful downtown Detroit, this office is presumably set up to offer aid to the unfortunate citizen who has been brutalized, harassed or done injustice by the Detroit Police Department.

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Five people from out of state have been charged with “conspiracy to illegally break and enter,” and “conspiracy to commit malicious destruction” at the Midland offices of Dow Chemical, and the Feds are charging them with vandalizing a draft board in Marion County, Indiana. They’ll probably come up for trial in June.

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Several people have asked recently about the effects of cocaine so I’ve sniffed out some information for you.

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

Cocaine is a stimulant to the central nervous system, reduces hunger and, when applied directly to mucus membranes, such as those lining the nose and mouth, produces anesthesia and constriction of blood vessels. The drug is derived from leaves of Erythroxylon coca and for centuries natives of Peru and Bolivia have chewed coca leaves for their stimulatory effect.

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Social Deviant

Timothy Leary

Dr. Leary is presently being held at Orange County Jail (550 N. Flower, Santa Ana, California) pending appeal of a ten-year sentence for bringing marijuana into the United States from Mexico. The trial judge labeled him a dangerous perverter of the nation’s youth and denied bail.

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Last week, some 50 American student radicals experienced the joy of work that was both socially productive and non-alienating.

The students were not part of the Venceremos Brigade. They were mostly individuals from Wayne State University but others were members of organizations such as the White Panthers and the Warren-Forest SMC.

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The Third World—Gato Barbieri (Flying Dutchman); Power To The People—Joe Henderson (Milestone); Liberation Music Orchestra—Charlie Haden (Impulse); The Prisoner—Herbie Hancock (Blue Note); The Giant Is Awakened—Horace Tapscott (Flying Dutchman); A Night At Santa Rita—Rosko (Flying Dutchman); Massacre At My Lai—Rosko (Flying Dutchman); Spirits Known And Unknown—Leon Thomas (Flying Dutchman).

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John Carpenter is the U.S. Coordinator for the Toronto Peace Festival and chief scout for a “peace” caravan that will stop in Detroit at the end of June. The caravan of buses and trucks will originate in Los Angeles and make its way across the country, making select stops for free concerts, films, and speakers.

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“So many deeds cry out to be done;

And always urgently.

The world rolls on,

Time presses.

Ten thousand years are too long,

Seize the day, seize the hour.”

—Chairman Mao

I really feel like I’ve got to answer Robin Morgan’s article in the first issue of the Woman’s Rat [“Goodbye to All That,” FE #101, March 19-April 1, 1970].

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You know what, J.L., you’re right. Now is a great time to be a woman, but make no mistake about it, we see right through your plastic sales pitch. The soft music and cellophane baubles, the WOMAN NOW placards and flower emblems, the buttons, bumper stickers and billboards don’t fool us. We see right past that phony Frenchman on the first floor, painting women’s faces in his own image. We see right through the come-ons and not-so-hidden persuaders in every ad and in every corner of your store.

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Recently a number of articles have appeared in various movement publications on women’s liberation. Many of the articles (the most recent, by Robin Morgan of The Rat, reprinted in the Fifth Estate [“Goodbye to All That,” FE #101, March 19-April 1, 1970]) have talked about the particular reality of male chauvinism in the movement. We can entirely sympathize with the sense of urgency, frustrations and gut feelings expressed in this article, but unfortunately we find their conclusions totally dead-end and irrelevant to the majority of women outside the movement with whom we must join to build a mass women’s revolutionary movement.

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Note: The American Serviceman’s Union (ASU) is the largest GI anti-war group with close to 10,000 members in dozens of chapters on military bases across the world. The ASU publishes the largest circulation anti-war GI paper, THE BOND, that reports on the struggles of GIs to end the war and their struggles against the brass. The following article originally appeared in THE BOND.

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DENVER, Colo. (LNS) — “We have created the nation of Aztlàn,” Corky Gonzalez said to the people who filled the Crusade for Justice auditorium on Sunday afternoon on the fifth and last day of the 2^nd Annual Chicano Youth Liberation Conference held March 25–29.

The main purpose of this year’s meeting was to create a political party and Congress of Aztlàn—the Aztec name for the lands of the Southwest stolen from the Indian and Mexican ancestors of today’s Chicanos, spiritually incorporating all brown people, all of North America’s Spanish-speaking people.

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NOTE: Last issue we carried a brief story on a stockade revolt in Mannheim, W. Germany. The following is a longer account from Liberation News Service.

Mannheim, West Germany (LNS) — Another Army stockade has broken out in rebellion.

About 100 GI inmates of the Mannheim, West Germany U.S. Army stockade broke out of their cell blocks on March 13, set fire to stockade buildings demolishing a number of cell blocks, the stockade chapel and -some administrative offices—and fought a two-hour battle with MPs and confinement officers.

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An exciting decision came down recently in the Southfield District Court. Judge Clarence A. Reid, Jr. declared Michigan’s abortion law unconstitutional during a pretrial examination of Dr. Jesse Ketchum and his wife Judith, March 30^th. The two had been charged with conspiracy to perform abortions, following Ketchum’s arrest January 5 at the Northland Inn in Southfield, as he prepared to perform an abortion on an undercover State policewoman, Mrs. Kay McEntee. Ketchum’s wife was later implicated following Mrs. McEntee’s testimony that Mrs. Ketchum had been the original contact in setting up the abortion.

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“But that the white eye-lid of the screen reflects its proper light, the Universe would go up in flames.”

—Luis Bunuel

Crazed, incendiary film-makers like Bunuel are few; most of the time, the movie-screen only gives back to us the asbestos of a dream industry. Money and convention rule. The truly disturbing insight must be packaged and sold in the psychic space of the market place.

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Politically speaking, Chicago is a very heavy city, and, as it begins to fall apart and crumble under the weight of its own contradictions, it seems to breed repression and conspiracy.

As you know by now, another event was recently added to that city’s ever-growing list of political confrontations when twelve national leaders of Weatherman SDS were indicted on federal conspiracy charges for “crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot.”

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I attend night school at Denby High School one evening a week. Last Monday my Social Problems class let out early to enable us to attend the meeting concerning de-centralizing Denby and other city high schools which would involve the bussing of kids to other schools.

I walked into the auditorium with an open mind. I could partially sympathize with parents who did not want their kids being bussed cross-city when there was a school available to them within their area. However, this was not really what the dissension was over. The issue was quite clearly racial and 2,500 parents there assembled very well knew it.

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Note: The following article was received from a long-time friend and frequent contributor to the Fifth Estate who is presently in Cuba with the Venceremos Cane Cutting Brigade. Future issues will carry further reports of the Brigade’s activities. The paragraphs in italics [and quotation marks in web archive version] are portions of a speech to the cane cutters by Fidel Castro.

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On Tuesday, April sixth, white kids from Denby High were involved in protests outside the School Board meeting which voted to send some of those kids’ younger brothers and sisters to Osborn High, where black kids go to school. White students boycotted the schools involved on the days that followed. On Wednesday three hundred white Denby students marched two miles to Osborn and nearly started a race riot. They beat up fifteen-year-old black girls. What’s happening here?

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In August of 1969, the Michigan State Legislature passed Public Act 244, designed to “decentralize” the Detroit school system. The act (a watered down version of the original bill submitted by Sen. Coleman Young) called for a new division of Detroit city schools into 7 to 11 school districts, each of which would be run by a locally elected regional board. On the surface, the act appeared to provide a way of giving people in each community a much greater say in the way in which their schools would be run.

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FIFTH ESTATE #104, April 30-May 13, 1970, Vol. 4, No. 26, page 2

[incorrectly marked FIFTH ESTATE #103, April 15–29, 1970, Vol. 4, No. 25 on cover]

Debbie Brentz

Steve Dunn

David Gaynes

Alan Gotkin

Mike John

Keep on Truckin’ Co-op

Jim Kennedy

Lee Ann Kennedy

David Levison

Rick London

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No one was surprised when White Panther Party Chairman, John Sinclair was denied an appeal bond April 2^nd in Federal District Court. The same mechanism that has worked for years to put John where he is today (in Marquette Prison on a 9-1/2 to 10 year dope rap) is not about to reverse its efforts in the interest of something as trivial as justice.

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Attorneys for several of those charged by the State of Michigan with conspiracy to place explosives in several instances in the Fall of 1968 are planning to plead their clients guilty to lesser charges. They are accused of plotting the bombings of police stations, draft boards and the Ann Arbor CIA office. No one has been charged with he actual bombings.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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