Most Recent Additions

The laws regarding the use of marijuana may become significantly less stringent if several bills before the Michigan State House of Representatives are enacted into law.

A series of bills introduced by Rep. Dale Warner, Eaton Rapids Republican, would reclassify pot from a narcotic to a “dangerous drug,” make possession of it a misdemeanor, and reduce the maximum penalty for sales to four years in prison. Currently the maximum for possession is 10 years (which is being served by John Sinclair) and the minimum for sales is twenty years.

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The following article is a reprint of an interview with Rafael Viera, Chief Medical Cadre of the Young Lords Organization (YLO), that first appeared in the Black Panther Newspaper. Viera is one of three men that were indicted following the New Bethel incident here in Detroit last March. At that time Viera was the only non-black member of the Black Legion, a paramilitary arm of the Republic of New Africa. He, along with Clarence Fuller, is to face trial on March 9 here in Detroit. Alfred Hibbitt, the third individual indicted, was acquitted on December 22 (see the Fifth Estate Jan. 22—Feb. 4, Vol. 4, No. 19). Viera is charged with assault with intent to kill and will be defended by Milton Henry, Ken Cockerel, and Chuck Ravitz. He is currently in New York City working in Spanish Harlem to maintain a recently established chapter of the YLO.

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Longtime French anarchist scholar and activist Ronald Creagh died on September 8 at age 94.

He was in touch with anarchists and anti-authoritarians on several continents. Those who knew him personally appreciated his broad-minded openness and supportive spirit.

Some Fifth Estate staffers were among those who found him engaging and attentive in conversations on many subjects. In recent years he was a regular reader of our online current and past articles and enjoyed discussing them.

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Writing serious, meaningful information that helps people is important, but after a while it bores me (and maybe you too) shitless. In response to this shitty boredom, it’s time for a collection of useless information, meaningless facts and general dung.

Telephone trips can be weird. For a starter try the usual tried and true recorded raps. The day we called Dial A Prayer 261–2440 the word God was mentioned 7 times during the 75 second religious message.

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Earlier this year, I created a fifteen-minute presentation on the ethical implications of the program Midjourney and other A.I. art generators for the Northeast Modern Language Conference, then released it online through the University of New Hampshire.

A week later, a computer science PhD student emailed me asking to meet up. As a literature PhD, I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted. Perhaps it was to gossip about the plethora of A.I. software spreading like a digital kudzu, or maybe he would pitch me a business idea.

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a review of

Pets DC: Rise of the Pets by Ramon Dines and Kit Brixton. A.B.O. Comix, 2022

A.B.O. Comix describes themselves as “a collective of creators and activists who work to amplify the voices of LGBTQ prisoners through art. By working closely with prison abolitionist and queer advocacy organizations, we aim to keep queer prisoners connected to outside community and help them fight towards liberation.”

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SANTA ANA, Cal., Feb. 20—Dr. Tim Leary, his wife and son were found guilty here on charges of possession of marijuana and LSD.

Superior Court Judge Byron Mcmillian set sentencing for March 13. Leary and his wife remained free on bail but the bail of their son was revoked and he was taken into custody.

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FLINT—The acquittal by an all-white jury here on Feb. 25 of three white Detroit cops and a black private guard in connection with the beating of eight black youths and two white girls in the Algiers Motel in 1967 was not unexpected.

Auburey Pollard, Carl Cooper, Fred Temple, three black youths, were gunned to death in the motel by Detroit cops and after 3 years no one has been convicted of the massacre. Ronald August, one of the cops, was acquitted of first degree murder charges last summer even after he had admitted killing Pollard, whom he said grabbed at his shotgun. Pollard was unarmed, while August had a pistol, blackjack and shotgun and the aid of several cops in and around the room.

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a review of

Abolish the Family! by Sophie Lewis. Verso, 2022

Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care by M.E. O’Brien. Pluto Press, 2023

As we all navigate the perilous shoals of capitalist austerity and precarity, many turn to the family as the last reserve of collectivity, care, and survival. For a lucky few, this is enough, but this notion of the “last reserve” is a deep structural problem that leaves too many people vulnerable to abandonment or abuse.

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Yes, it does often feel like we’re beating our heads against a brick wall. What do we do?

The now-cliched definition of insanity, although it originated with Albert Einstein, is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Do we meet that description? Anarchists fight against racism and there is an upsurge in violence against people of color. We fight the pipelines, and governments roll out more of them. We oppose the patriarchy, but in many ways it is as entrenched as ever. The climate crisis worsens each season and a dynamic fascist movement is on the rise.

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Fifth Estate

Radical Publishing since 1965

Vol. 58, No. 2, #414, Fall 2023

The Fifth Estate is an anti-profit, anarchist project published by a volunteer collective of friends and comrades. www.FifthEstate.org

No ads. No copyright. Kopimi — reprint freely

The danger facing freeks—even many so-called “cultural revolutionaries”—is that hip culture is close to a revolutionary cultural movement, but more of a lumpen middle-class culture, deformed by capitalist society, to the extent that it even preserved class-lines between the upper and lower middle-class (plastic hippie and freek).

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I. STUDENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXERCISE ALL RIGHTS ENUMERATED IN THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND ALL OTHER AMENDMENTS AND THOSE ESTABLISHED BY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT.

II. STUDENTS HAVE THE FULL FREEDOM OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS.

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Reprinted from The Bond: The Voice of the American Servicemen’s Union

SEATTLE—GIs from Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base held a trial of the Brass and its war in Vietnam before an audience of 1,500 at the University of Washington. A jury of twelve active-duty soldiers found the military “guilty” on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of soldiers’ rights.

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CHICAGO, Feb. 28—The seven defendants in the Chicago Conspiracy trial were released from jail after the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Hoffman’s no bond ruling.

Bond for the five defendants convicted of incitement to riot was set at $25,000 each. Dave Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin had been sentenced by Judge Hoffman to terms of five years in prison and $5,000 fines. They were acquitted on charges of conspiracy to cross state lines to incite riots at the Democratic Convention.

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High school students throughout the country have been historically forced to assume second and third class status in Amerikan citizenship. Special kinds of oppression are reserved for them because the state views them as being at the crucial brainwashing stage.

But, like all other institutions in our society, high schools are breaking out of the narrow constricted limitations that are provided for them. To be black in Amerika is bad enough, but to be black and a student is totally intolerable. Throughout Detroit white, and especially black, high schools have been rebelling and scoring important victories.

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The League of Revolutionary Black Workers, founded in Detroit, is a militant union movement. It is fighting against the giant automotive corporations and against the United Auto Workers. It is fighting for black liberation and self-determination. The League of Revolutionary Black Workers is an historic phenomenon that is not only a response to the failures of capitalist-worker relationships, but more importantly it is a response to the failures of American unionism.

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People Concerned About Urban Renewal, representing the community that Wayne State has exploited for over ten years, once again marched against the University Feb. 28, demanding free community access to the Matthaei Physical Education Complex.

The Wayne State Department of Public Safety once and for all shed their liberal front and turned on the community people in a fashion that would make the DPOA proud. At no time during the entire demonstration did these Wayne Toy Police wear or display their I.D. badges.

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The U.S. ended the trial of the Conspiracy Eight with all the subtlety of a bludgeoning. Despite the messy close and the muted cries of the professional observers in the press gallery, the defendants’ demise came by club rather than through rapier thrusts. But then there is something to be said for the club. It’s effective.

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American Civil Liberties Union 961–4662

Ad Hoc Citizens Committee (Police Brutality Complaints) 872–2828

Creem Magazine 831–0816

Detroit Anti-war Coalition 873–4322

Fifth Estate Office 831–6800

Fire Department 962–0400

Grape Boycott Office 825–4811

Metro 832–5126

Newsreel 833–7885

Open City 831–2770

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It’s marching time again in Detroit.

The Detroit Coalition to End the War in Vietnam Now has called for a mass march down Woodward on April 15^th to demand an immediate withdrawal of all troops from Vietnam. The march will be part of a nation-wide week of protests called for April 13–18 by the New Mobilization Committees.

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Fifth Estate

EDITORIAL GROUP

Alan Gotkin

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

DISTRIBUTION

Keep On Truckin’ Co-op

ADVERTISING

Steve Dunn

STAFF

David Gaynes

Jim Kennedy

Rick London

Nick Medvecky

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Bill Rowe

Marilyn Werbe

POLITICAL PRISONER

John Sinclair

The FIFTH ESTATE is published every other Thursday of each month by the Fifth Estate Newspaper, Inc., 1107 W. Warren, Detroit, Michigan 48201. Second class postage paid at Detroit, Michigan.

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Maybe the overground media will learn from the people.

Der Fuhrer unleashed his vituperative and narrow Goerbels to whip the media into presenting only what the government wants the people to know.

The networks and the newspapers tripped over their own feet in an effort to shuffle into line. Like their liberal counterparts of a previous generation, the managers of the media crumpled, cringed and quickly rearranged their objective reality to oblige the rightwing fanatics of the government.

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On Saturday, February 21, three members of the Detroit chapter of the National Committees to Combat Fascism were beaten and arrested while selling the Black Panther Newspaper in front of Kresge’s downtown. The NCCF is a group which is affiliated with the Black Panther Party.

This attack took place at the same time as 200 people were demonstrating against the convictions in the Chicago Conspiracy trial. The protesters massed in Grand Circus Park and then marched to the Federal Building.

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The League of Revolutionary Black Workers Demand:

1. Halt UAW racism. 50% representation for black workers on the international executive board and international staff. Open skilled trades and apprenticeships to black workers. Recognition of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and its affiliates as the official spokesman for black workers.

2. That the grievance procedure be completely revised so that grievances are settled immediately on the job by workers in the plant involved.

3. Elimination of all safety and health hazards in the auto industry. This means cleaning the air in the foundry and redesigning dangerous machinery and production cut backs on hazardous jobs.

4. The union must fight vigorously against speed ups and increases in production standards. The companies should double the size of their work force to meet the present workload.

5. The union must fight for a five-hour work-day and a four-day work-week. The profit level of industry is high enough to allow for more leisure time for workers.

6. The union must fight for an immediate doubling of the wages of all production workers. Since 1960 wages of black workers have risen less than 25%. Yet profits have risen more than 90%.

7. A cut in union dues. The union already collects $10 million a month from its members and can’t defend the rights of the workers.

8. The end of the checkoff of union dues. While the checkoff was progressive in the ‘30s, today it prevents workers from disciplining poor union leadership.

9. That all UAW investment funds be used to finance economic development in the black community under programs of self-determination.

10. That the union end its collusion with the United Foundation. Black workers should contribute only to black controlled charities working for the benefit of the black community.

11. That all monies expended for political campaigns by the UAW be turned over to the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the Black United Front for black controlled and directed political work.

12. That the UAW end its collusion with the CIA, the FBI and all other white racist spy institutions.

13. That the UAW end all interference in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the black community.

14. An end to the harassment of black revolutionaries and their leaders by the auto companies with UAW cooperation.

15. That the UAW use its political and strike powers to call a General Strike to demand:

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Since its inception, Open City has served young people. Open City is now asking that members of the community return the favor.

In the past three years they have supplied the Wayne State area street people with free medical and legal aid, free clothing, rent-free crash pads and free job-placement for long-haired freeks.

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No one really consciously planned the thorough integration of the middle-class worker with capitalism. Capitalists were forced to develop a more productive worker, a more extravagant consumer, simply because their own fixation on accumulation (profit) is continuously frustrated by the tendency of the rate of profit to decline as automation grows.

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“If your children ever find out how lame you really are, they’ll murder you in your sleep.”

—Frank Zappa, December 1965

Some very strange action has been coming down at Southfield-Lathrup High School. Rick Cricow, a student there, has been selling Fifth Estates in the area and distributing them at his school. Last month the Assistant Principal of the school, Richard Leland, confiscated the papers and instructed Cricow to discontinue selling them on school property.

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in Cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURS. FEB. 19

FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) and This Island Earth (1957) two popular Sci-Fi epics that include travel to other worlds, ray guns, and robots. DeRoy Aud. WSU. 7 p.m. Single feature 50 cents, double 75 cents.

METROPOLIS (1939) dir. Fritz Lang Industry fights labor in Lang’s expressionistic nightmare of future society. Architecture Aud. U of M in Ann Arbor. 7 and 9:05 p.m. 75 cents.

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GHETTO...the white suburban mind conjures up visions of....

GHETTO is now a game, a “simu-life” game made by Western Publishing Company. For the outrageous price of $23.00, those affluent liberals that wish to “understand” ghetto life can do so in the comfort, privacy, and safety of their own home or school.

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a review of

1) The Matrix, Poems: 1960–1970, by N.H. Pritchard, Doubleday paperback, 1970, $2.45.

2) Arts in Society, volume 6, number 3, edited by Edward L. Karmack, University of Wisconsin, 1969, single issue $2.00, 1 year subscription (3 issues) $5.50.

Contemporary poetry covers a pretty wide range, far wider than these two examples would have us believe. Good modern poetry is as hard to find as good modern jazz and though these two volumes are approaching it, neither come close enough.

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I’d like to reply to SP Marc Nadeau whose trash was published in the Feb. 4, F.E. [Letters, FE #98, February 4–18, 1970]

Baby, I’m not under 25, and am old enough to be your mother. Guys like you make me want to vomit. You made a big issue out of an article on the Northland “happening”. I don’t condone what the “kids” have done, but they were exercising a constitutional right—free assembly.

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WASHINGTON (LNS)—Marijuana may well be very good medicine for victims of tetanus, migraine, high blood pressure, and sunstroke, according to long-secret medical research just made public.

Encouraging studies, done ten years ago at the Army chemical warfare laboratory at the Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, were disclosed when proceedings of a 1969 National Institute of Mental Health conference were published, according to a February 2 Washington Post dispatch.

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The Motor City Nine—nine Weatherman SDS women who invaded a Macomb College classroom last July—were convicted of disorderly conduct by District Judge Robert Chrzanowski in Centerline.

The judge sentenced five of the women to jail terms ranging from six days to ninety days. He also issued bench warrants for three women who failed to appear and delayed sentencing on the remainder. He refused appeal bond requested by defense attorney Dennis James.

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Doctors have been screwing with people for a long time.

Those of us who have tried to have babies in the present structure of American medicine know how rigid, male dominated and money oriented that structure always is.

A friend of mine who had her child here in Detroit has had the following experiences. When she was six weeks pregnant she thought she was miscarrying and tried to get an appointment with a doctor, but every one that she called said he would not see her without a previous appointment (made three weeks in advance).

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Returning members of the Venceremos Cane Cutting Brigade encountered their comrades who will take up the work of the first contingent of the brigade in the sugar cane fields of Cuba. The Venceremos Brigade is a group of young Americans who have been and will continue to be participating in the Cuban sugar harvest of 1970, now known internationally as the Battle for the Ten Million Tons.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (LNS)—If Americans ever believed there was an Olympus within their borders, the location had to be the chambers of the United States Supreme Court.

“I’ll take it all the way to the Supreme Court” has long been the sputtered refrain of the miffed and abused. Changes in personnel at the Supreme Court amount to a changing of the gods for Middle America.

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Editors’ Note: The following is taken from the Ft. Bliss “Gigline,” the GI anti-war paper at that base. Its address is Box 31094, Summit Hts. Sta, El Paso, TX 79931.

Ft. Bliss, Tex.—General William Westmoreland expected to visit Ft. Bliss to perform a ritualistic inspection of the base, make a few speeches, and accept the plaudits of local citizens.

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CHICAGO (LNS)—Across America, the GI movement and draft resistance are growing. Stockade rebellions, GI coffee houses, draft board demonstrations and induction refusals have been the most visible forms of resistance to the U.S. Army.

The Chicago Area Draft Resisters (CADRE) report an important increase in another less known form of resistance—simply not reporting for induction. In Chicago alone, there were 1,090 cases of men not reporting for induction in 1968–69. This is up from 659 in 1966–67, and means that on the average, more than 10 men a week are not reporting for induction. These figures were compiled from information publicly posted at Chicago draft boards.

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The following interview with Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld (HIPpocrates) is reprinted from the Summer 1969 edition of Sexual Freedom, the quarterly publication of the Sexual Freedom League. Subscriptions cost $4.00 a year and are available by writing to: Sexual Freedom Quarterly, Box 14034, San Francisco, California 94114.

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CU CHI, South Vietnam—Some time ago, Capt. Frank Smith (Bravo Company, Second Battalion, 27^th Infantry) passed the word down to his First Platoon that he needed a patrol near the Cambodian border.

The platoon, however, declined to go.

Smith, faced in fact with mutiny, said immediately that he was not asking for volunteers. He was ordering the platoon into activity and he expected instant compliance.

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If you are a serviceman in Vietnam receiving a free Fifth Estate subscription the only notice you will get of its expiration is the sudden disappearance of the paper from your life.

We still want to get you guys the news about our culture, the GI movement, and anti-war activity, so if you qualify for a renewal (still in ‘Nam) send us a letter telling us to put you back on our subscription list. If you are short we will be glad to send you papers for your remaining time. If you are still in the service, but not in ‘Nam, a year’s sub is $2; if you’re completely free of the green machine it’s $3.75. Power to you.

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WASHINGTON (LNS/CPS) — There may be almost twice as many American deaths in Vietnam as the Defense Department claims.

Former Senator Wayne Morse has charged the Defense Department has two sets of death statistics: the real ones and those released to the public in its weekly “statistical summary.” Morse first made the charge last August, claiming 70,000 rather than 30,000 Americans had been killed in Vietnam combat at that time.

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a review of

Polymath: The Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort, Author of ‘The Joy Of Sex’ by Eric Laursen. AK Press 2023

“We are the enemies of society and we must learn disobedience. Then we shall probably inherit the earth by default when the maniacs have burnt each other to a cinder. We shall be alive; they won’t.”

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San Francisco (LNS) — The people of People’s Park received token retribution recently. Twelve sheriffs deputies involved in the struggle last May were indicted by a San Francisco Grand Jury on charges of conspiring to mistreat prisoners (many of the 423 arrested were brutally beaten), shooting persons with shotguns, and beating persons who were arrested.

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NEW YORK (LNS) — On January 26, two men identifying themselves as “being from the government” dropped a subpoena off at CBS.

The FBI and the Secret Service wanted to get their hands on all the tapes, memos, notes, letters and telephone calls that CBS has concerning the Black Panther Party from mid-1968 to the present, as well as the unedited tapes—outtakes—of interviews with Panther leaders David Hilliard and Eldridge Cleaver.

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Reprinted from Up Against The Wall Street Journal

“Watch out, he’s a bad one,” said one of the women in the picket line at Gate 2. The man to whom she referred was trying to drive his white Mustang through the moving pickets. Two pigs assisted him by clearing a path through the line. Three days before the man had run his car into the woman who shouted the warning.

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Reprinted from The Metro

ECOLOGY SUCKS! It sucks the life out of social reform. It sucks the energy out of campus movements. It sucks the irritants out of capitalism. It sucks change out of politics. It sucks reason out of thought.

Ecology has become the monster of our age. Unless revolutionaries, radicals, and liberal reformers soon recognize this, they, and humanism itself, will eventually be consumed.

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The Women’s Liberation Coalition of Michigan has opened a state office in the Ad Hoc building on Woodward, headquarters for several other movement organizations.

The Coalition’s goal is the abolition of male chauvinism—the domination, exploitation, and oppression of women by men.

The office will serve as a center for information exchange between the affiliated women’s groups and the general public. It will also be a coordinating center for the activities of the Coalition.

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from Community Reporter and Fifth Estate sources

For as long as most of them can remember, Larry Johns, Ernie Elswick, Van Johnson, Jimmy Brown, and their friends have been pushed around by Wayne State University.

They’ve seen their families forced to move because Wayne State “needed” the land their homes were on “for the good of the Community.”

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