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.
WARREN-FOREST
Two attacks have been made recently on our community in the Warren-Forest area.
On July 13 one of our black brothers was busted for no apparent reason on the corner of Forest and Lincoln. Some 40 community people responded by surrounding the pig car and hanging on the doors and demanding his release. The pigs called in reinforcements armed with carbines and busted one other person there. People then dispersed, with a few small groups making retaliatory attacks on Pig Amerika—windows were broken on the nearby City National Bank and the Wayne State pig station.
A few days later a car with unknown persons inside drove through the community and shot and wounded one of our black brothers with a .22-caliber rifle. Let it be known that an attack upon any one of us, white or black, will be considered an attack on all and will be responded to as such.
A Free Lunch for Children program has been started by People Concerned About Urban Renewal (PCAUR) with the help of the Young Prides, Boone’s Farm Commune and the White Panthers.
Hundreds of hungry poor black and white children are fed every day, Monday thru Friday, at the PCAUR house, 4541 Lincoln.
Power to the children!
LIVERNOIS & MICHIGAN
In the Michigan & Livernois area, there is a small, scattered community of freaks who have just suffered a series of attacks by the Motor City Gestapo.
Dave McNeill, a member of the community, came into the Fifth Estate office and ran down the set: About July 1 the pigs showed up at an apartment on Jackson and complained about the noise. Even though they didn’t have a search warrant. the brothers and sisters there cooperated by letting the pigs come in and by quieting things down.
The blue-shirted pork are never satisfied, however, and came back on July 7.
This time they weren’t let in, so they busted down the door and came in anyway. They beat up 14-year-old Ron Leach, who wouldn’t wake up, and hit him in the mouth with a rifle butt. The animals then ransacked the apartment, taking some anti-biotic pills that belonged to a sister there. She ended up having to go to the hospital.
The next day, July 8, they broke in again at noon (strange since pigs are more generally nocturnal beasts). They grabbed Dave by the hair and five other people in the apartment and dragged them down to the 6th precinct on “suspicion of narcotics.” They were released when the “narcotics” turned out to be baking soda.
The pigs have now forced the landlord to kick our brothers and sisters out of the apartment, while at the same time other freak apartments have been subjected to illegal search and other harassment. This shit has got to stop; it doesn’t look like the pigs are going to do so willingly. NO MORE PIGS IN OUR COMMUNITY!
EAST DETROIT
What happened in East Detroit at the party that turned into a pig riot June 8 was no accident. Out of this area of Macomb County come Breakthrough and Statecraft, two heavy right-wing organizations. The entire community, especially the cops, lodges, and other public officials have mounted a strong repression campaign against freaks and other youth.
As an example, dig the White Castle drive-in on Eight Mile and Gratiot. Drive-ins used to be a place where kids could hang out and rap with friends, and get away from tight-assed parents vegetating in front of the tube.
East Detroit has made it into a caricature of Nazi Germany. You’re allowed 30 minutes in the lot. You must proceed DIRECTLY from your car to the White Castle, order and return DIRECTLY to your car and sit inside and eat. Anything else is loitering and you’ll be ticketed for it by the two rent-a-cops patrolling the lot.
Typical dialogue between a youth and Judge Calvin Rock in court:
Defendant: “But I only stopped on my way into the White Castle for 30 seconds to talk with my cousin.”
Judge Rock: “So you admit you paused for 30 seconds on your way in. Guilty. $50 or 25 days.”
Inside, Brother Dave from the Fifth Estate sits down on a stool with his back to the counter, digging on White Castle’s slogan (“a national institution”). A pig comes up and says, “Turn around and face the counter. If you wanna eat here you gotta sit down the way the rules say.”
Outside in the lot a couple of freaks pull up in a van with Colorado plates. The rent-a-pig radios in for a squad car and orders the kids to leave before they even get their door open. The East Detroit pigs arrive and search the van (dig the photo on the left) generally hassle the kids and let them go.
This is the kind of shit young people have coming down on them in the Detroit area this summer. Fascism is no joke, it is a coming reality.
The PEOPLE’S DEFENSE COMMITTEE, which grew out of the East Detroit party bust of June 8, has hit Judge Calvin Rock and the cops with a defense that has become an offense. The trials of 9 of the defendants began on July 14. They were granted jury trials, but motions for dismissal and severance were denied. When Rock denied these motions, the kids and parents who packed the courtroom in support of PDC were shocked shitless by his total (deliberate?) ignorance of the law.
In the hallway outside the courtroom the pigs busted a teacher, who they thought was helping the defendants, after he said bullshit to a Fifth Estate reporter. When they discovered he wasn’t associated with the PEOPLE’S DEFENSE COMMITTEE, they released him.
Oops, wrong guy, pigs.
McNAMARA
McNamara Skills Center is a trade school in Southwest Detroit attended by 500 young Blacks and a handful of greasers and freaks, all of lower-class background. Most of the people there dropped out of high school, spent a few years on the streets or in the factories and came to McNamara to pick up a basic trade, like tailoring, auto mechanics or clerical work.
The school is run on federal, state and local funds, like a poverty program, and is administered by the Detroit Board of Education. It is run a lot like a high school or a factory, with the white principal raking in $28,000 a year while sitting in an air-conditioned office.
The students there get the raw end of the deal. They are not encouraged to use their natural abilities and end up not learning very much at the Center. There are no adequate medical facilities at the Center, nor are there hospital services (one brother got glue in his eye and couldn’t get medical care because he went to the “wrong” hospital and the principal would not okay his admittance). People can also get kicked out just like in high school, often for real unfair reasons. The school is simply not run in the interests of the students there.
On Monday, July 13, about 50 brothers and sisters, led by the Student Government, sat in at Principal George McWatt’s office, demanding his resignation, and the resignation of the two assistant principals. The air-conditioning felt real nice and the sofas were soft and comfortable compared to the hard chairs and the 85 degree weather in the rest of the school. The people had a lot of student support and came back with more people and took the office again on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Bob Baker, black president of the student government, told the Fifth Estate that they are getting a hearing with the Board of Education and they think’ they can get the resignations.
CLARK PARK
A brother was shot in the stomach by an off-duty pig near Clark Park July 14. He now lies in critical condition in the hospital.
This outrageous act happened when the brother unknowingly asked this pig in civilian clothes if he would buy him a beer. The pig, angered by the brother’s wanting to enjoy his youthfulness, whipped out a concealed pistol, waved it around in the air, and then shot the brother in the stomach.
This occurrence shows once and for all where the pigs in this city are at. They are not content just to run us out of parks, beat us and take us in on bullshit charges, they will try to totally eliminate us, too. We must start getting prepared to deal with these attacks and the total justice of armed self-defense must be established now.
Remember: all power to the straight shooters!
Extra Note: the White Panthers and community people in the Clark Park area are trying to get a free concert together for the park on July 26. Keep your ears and eyes open.
WYANDOTTE
In the downriver area, Wyandotte Roosevelt High School is the one most like a prison. People have gotten kicked out of there for having a Fifth Estate in their locker or for guys having almost any hairstyle except a crewcut.
Last fall people started getting their shit together. The fascist assistant principal Creig was going into classes and picking out longhairs and expelling as many as 60. So the kids started picketing the school and the School Board (not that School Boards ever listen to young people). But things stayed the same——kids still got kicked out of school for their hair. At the end of the year, seniors were even threatened that they wouldn’t graduate if their hair wasn’t super-short.
Since the students didn’t have any luck in changing things much through picketing, they have taken it to the courts. A suit has been filed in court to stop the school from taking away a student’s rights, like having long hair. If this doesn’t work, other means will have to be used.
LEGAL NEWS
There Was a lot of action downtown on April 15 during the anti-war march. Hundreds of brothers and sisters split off from the rally, blocked traffic in the streets on Jefferson and broke windows in pig stores and companies like Hudson’s.
But like any heavy action there is a legal cost—some twenty people got busted on various charges ranging from assaulting a police officer to loitering. Of course, most of the people who were grabbed were not the people who really threw the brick or smacked the pig, but people who were randomly taken out of the crowd. The pigs just aren’t fast enough to get the real culprits.
These cases can still be won in court, however, because things have not gotten to be totally fascist, yet. Innocent people can still get off a lot, and “guilty” people can get reduced charges and little or no time in jail. They still think they can get young people to go “straight” and be a part of the system (fools)!
On the charges from April 15th, only one person has gotten a jail sentence (10 days) and that was due to a legal mix-up where his lawyer didn’t show up. The rest of the people have gotten off with no sentences and no fines. But they have one weapon to try to keep young people “straight”—probation. Those who did not win their cases got probation, ranging up to two years. It’s really a hassle, but those brothers and sisters are still out on the streets with us.
A lot of thanks must be given to Bob Slameka, Buck Davis and Bob Fordoon, peoples lawyers who have done a great deal of work on these and other cases.
All power to the people’s defense!
ST. CLAIR SHORES
A brother, who will remain unnamed for now, was busted in St. Clair Shores for saying “oink” to a pig. When he went before the judge, the judge kept asking whether it was “right” or not. The brother replied by just asking the judge whether it was legal or not.
The judges, the principals, the counselors, our parents and the bosses will always try to determine what we think and what our values should be. They want to change our heads, since they can’t put us all in jail. But this must stop. Young people have a different way of seeing things and doing things and there is no way that they’re going to change that.
BALDUCK PARK
Balduck Park is a big hang-out for young people on the East Side near Warren and Chandler Park Drive. Hundreds of brothers and sisters gather there to rap about what’s happening, drink a little wine and maybe smoke a ‘J.’
A few weeks ago the scene got heavier, though. The TMU pigs here in the Motor City think they’re big shit and try to keep everything clean, including the parks that people have liberated. So lately they’ve been lurking around Balduck Park hassling people. Some brothers and sisters have been busted for alcohol possession, while others have been ticketed for smoking under-age. And when the park closes at 10 p.m. the pigs make sure that everyone is out.
Finally, people started fighting back. One night people didn’t leave the park on time and when hassled by the pigs, they took to the streets, throwing rocks and bottles at the invaders. The next night the pigs closed the park, so people took a side street and had a street party.
People are generally agreed that they’ll split the park every night at ten if the pigs stay out, but it doesn’t seem likely that the blue meanies will go for that.
The struggle continues at Balduck.
DEARBORN
Brothers and sisters are finally getting it together in Dearborn. In early June a people’s coffeehouse opened. It was started by high school kids who realized that their community needed a place for people to come and rap, hang out and get their political shit together. So far there have been Newsreel flicks with speakers from the Young Prides and the Venceremos Brigade, and just good times. The coffeehouse is free: food and drinks, draft counseling, music, literature, everything.
The people are what’s keeping the place together. We need people who are interested in rapping and hanging out with the kids in Dearborn. The young people here are showing other people that the racist honkie image their parents have created isn’t true of their sons and daughters. We’re at 13726 Michigan Ave., 1-1/2 blocks west of Schaefer, right across the street from good old City Hall, Mon., Wed., Fri., 7:30 to 11:30 (hours open to change).