#title SDS Girls Visit Macomb
#author Barbara Healy
#SORTauthors Barbara Healy;
#date 1969
#source [[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/85-august-7-20-1969/sds-girls-visit-macomb]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2019-05-17
#notes Fifth Estate #85, August 7–20, 1969

Ten women from the Detroit SDS summer project invaded Macomb Community College July 31. They filed into a social science class chanting, “Work, study, get ahead, kill.”

The students were in the middle of a final exam and were perplexed by the interruption.

The SDS women barricaded the door with a desk. They proceeded to talk about how America fucks people over, especially blacks, Third World people and women and how people had to get together and fight this.

Seems that people started to get uptight. One man, presumably the teacher, shouted, “I’ve worked in factories, and women get exactly the same wages as men.” This was countered by, “So have we, and your factory must have been an exception.”

Another man yelled, ‘I’m here to learn, and I’m gonna finish my test.” Another attempted to leave, and was told to “sit down, Motherfucker.” When this failed, he was physically restrained by the women.

At this point, things got really chaotic. One girl from the class joined the SDS women saying, “You should have come sooner, this is great.” One of the SDS women harangued the crowd for “sitting here while the Vietnamese are fighting and dying for their freedom, while our black and brown brothers are dying everyday, as they fight in the same revolution the one going on right here in America.”

At this point four outraged administrators entered. They made a few comments like, “Stop using such dirty language,” “Don’t you girls have any manners?” and the usual, “Why don’t you girls act like ladies?”

The SDS women had finished. During their exit, the administrators screamed, “If you don’t leave, you’re going to get arrested.”

The women heard sirens. As they pulled out of the parking lot, they were surrounded by six Warren pig cars. The pigs never mentioned any arrests; they simply demanded that the women come down to the police station so they could “just check out a vehicle identified as belonging to people involved in a disturbance.”

When the SDS women arrived at the pig station, four were booked on charges of assault and battery and all nine were booked on disorderly person (whatever the fuck that is.)

While waiting for the arraignment, the pigs gave various helpful suggestions like, “Why not go back to Russia, or how about the moon?”

At the arraignment, conscientiously covered by TV2 news, the nine women stood mute and requested trial by jury.

Right now everybody is out on a total of $6,500 bond with a trial date not yet set.