Panther Trial News, no. 1, June 29, 1970
Black Panther Party
This newsletter provides an update on the legal proceedings against Lonnie McLucus and Warren Kimbro for the kidnapping, torture and murder of Alex Rackley, who they believed was an FBI informer. Some claimed the killing was ordered by Bobby Seale. McLucas was convicted and received a 15 year prison sentence. The men were a part of a group that was referred to as the New Haven Nine.
Black Panther Party
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
June 29, 1970
mimeograph
newsletter
Panther Trial News, no. 3, July 19, 1970
Black Panther Party
This newsletter provides an update on the legal proceedings against Lonnie McLucus and Warren Kimbro for the kidnapping, torture and murder of Alex Rackley, who they believed was an FBI informer. Some claimed the killing was ordered by Bobby Seale. McLucas was convicted and received a 15 year prison sentence. The men were a part of a group that was referred to as the New Haven Nine.
Black Panther Party
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
July 19, 1970
mimeograph
newsletter
Panther Trial News, No. 4, July 27, 1970
Black Panther Party
This newsletter provides an update on the legal proceedings against Lonnie McLucus and Warren Kimbro for the kidnapping, torture and murder of Alex Rackley, who they believed was an FBI informer. Some claimed the killing was ordered by Bobby Seale. McLucas was convicted and received a 15 year prison sentence. The men were a part of a group that was referred to as the New Haven Nine.
Black Panther Party
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
July 27, 1970
mimeograph
newsletter
Black Panther Newspaper Insert on People's Revolutionary Constitutional Convention, June 11, 1970
Black Power
This sub-set of pages from the June 11, 1970, issue of The Black Panther newspaper includes two pages on the proposed constitution emanating from the People's Revolutionary Constitutional Convention, as well as a petition to the U.S. government regarding political prisoners.
Black Panther Party
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
June 11, 1970
underground press
Bring Abbie Home Rally
Counterculture/Yippies
These posters promote two events - one in New York City at Madison Square Garden and the other at Grant Park in Chicago - in August of 1978 to support Yippie leader, Abbie Hoffman, who had been underground for four and half years. The New York event featured celebrities and movement activists playing music, giving testimonials and performing a mock-trial. Participants included Rip Torn, William Kunstler, Rennie David, Bobby Seale, Terry Southern, Larry Rivers, Taylor Mead, Jon Voight, William Burroughs, Ossie Davis, Dave Dellinger, John Froines, Jerry Rubin and others. Many wondered if Hoffman was in attendance in disguise. A recorded message from Hoffman was played at the event.
Bring Abbie Home Committee
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
August 1978
posters
Bobby and Ericka Must Be Set Free
Black Panther Party
This document supports Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins, who were on trial in 1970 for criminal conspiracy to commit the 1969 murder of 19-year old Alex Rackley, a member of the Black Panthers suspected of being an FBI informant. The case became a cause celebré on the political left. In the end, the jury was unable to reach a verdict, deadlocked 11 to 1 for Seale's acquittal and 10 to 2 for Huggins' acquittal. On May 25, 1971 Judge Harold Mulvey stunned courtroom spectators by dismissing the charges against Huggins and Seale saying, "I find it impossible to believe that an unbiased jury could be selected without superhuman efforts -- efforts which this court, the state and these defendants should not be called upon either to make or to endure."
In this document, authors detail Black Panther Party Community Survival Programs, critique the death penalty case, and attempts to rally people to support the cause.
Committee to Defend the Panthers
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1970
leaflet
Free John Sinclair
New Left
Founder of the Black Panther counterpart, the White Panther Party, John Sinclair was arrested in 1969 for drug possession. Labelled a political prisoner by the New Left, Sinclair’s case inspired landmark litigation, specifically the 1972 Supreme Court ruling, U.S. vs. U.S. District Court, which stated that law enforcement officials were required to issue a warrant prior to conducting investigations on electronic media.
This particular button promotes the "Free John Sinclair Rally" at the Grand Ballroom in Detroit, Michigan, on January 24, 1970, a date proclaimed ‘International Free John Sinclair Day’ by The Fifth Estate and The Seed. The rally featured 24 acts, including MC5, The Stooges, Commander Cody, Amboy Dukes, Bob Seger. Speakers included Abbie Hoffman and attorney Ken Cockrell.
The following year, an even bigger "John Sinclair Freedom Rally" was held at the University of Michigan's Chrisler Arena on December 10, 1971, to honor of John Sinclair and to encourage an end the state ban on marijuana. John Lennon & Yoko Ono headlined this event, which also featured Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Rubin, Bob Seger, Phil Ochs, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, poet Ed Sanders, Black Panther Party chairman Bobby Seale, Chicago Seven defendant Rennie Davis, radical priest Father James Groppi, and jazz legend Archie Shepp. Sinclair was released from jail shortly after the 1971 event.
Free John Sinclair
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1970
Button
Physical Object
Off the Pig (Black Panther)
Black Panther Party
<iframe width="640" height="480" src="https://archive.org/embed/Black-Panther-Film-FBI-1968" frameborder="0"></iframe>
Newsreel Films
Internet Archive
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
May Day (Black Panthers)
Black Panther Party
"On May 1, 1969 the Black Panther Party held a massive rally in San Francisco. Speakers Kathleen Cleaver, Bobby Seale, and Charles Garry present the rally's demands for the release of Huey Newton and all political prisoners. The film includes footage of the police raid on Panther headquarters in San Francisco a few days prior to the rally and the Panther's Breakfast for Children Program." (Roz Payne Archive) <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rD8hKpFDIIo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Newsreel Films
YouTube
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
film
Berkeley Tribe, November 20, 1970
New Left
The Berkeley Tribe was a countercultural newspaper published from 1969 to 1972 that was created following a split in the staff of The Berkeley Barb. This issue, published on November 20, 1970, includes articles on the trial of Ericka Huggins and Bobby Seale; People’s Park; Playwright John Lion; the Soledad Brothers; Quebec nationalism; government repression in St. Louis; reduction of garbage; the “Battle of Algiers” and the Panther 21; Folsom Prison strike; police brutality; an interview with Tony Martinez, a member of the "Los Siete de la Raza”; a report on the occupation of Alcatraz; and multiple calls for individuals to attend workshops for the sexual determination of men and women, as well as gay workshops in the area.
Red Mountain Tribe
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
November 20, 1970
underground press
Huey Newton Trial in Oakland (29 images)
Black Power
Huey P. Newton was a revolutionary black leader and co-founder, with Bobby Seale, of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, California, in 1966. Newton was born in 1942 in Monroe, Louisiana, one of the most racially violent parishes in the entire South. Following WWII, the Newton family moved to Oakland as a part of the second wave of the Great Migration. Though his family moved around the Bay Area quite a bit, Newton always felt like he had food and shelter and love. He was arrested a few times as a teenager, including for gun possession and vandalism when he was 14. Newton later reflected that during his childhood in Oakland, he was often made to feel ashamed of being black. In his autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, he wrote, “During those long years in Oakland public schools, I did not have one teacher who taught me anything relevant to my own life or experience. Not one instructor ever awoke in me a desire to learn more or to question or to explore the worlds of literature, science, and history. All they did was try to rob me of the sense of my own uniqueness and worth, and in the process nearly killed my urge to inquire.” Newton graduated high school in 1959 without learning to read, though he went on to teach himself. In 1966, he earned an associates degree from Merritt College and took classes at the San Francisco School of Law. During this period, Newton began to ask questions about his family and the world around him, which led him to get involved with the civil rights movement. At Merrett, he joined the Afro-American Association and a fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma, and helped get the first Black Studies course organized on the campus. Newton began to read political and theoretical works by radical thinkers, like Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Mao Zedong, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Emile Durkheim and Che Guevara. It was also at this time that he met Bobby Seale and they formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in response to police brutality against local African Americans. The group was influenced by Malcolm X and Robert F. Williams, practiced a militant self-defense strategy and developed community survival programs related to employment, community health, education, nutrition, food security, prisoner’s rights, and other grassroots issues. The Panthers practiced “revolutionary socialism” and articulated their platform in a manifesto, “Ten-Point Program.” The Black Panther Party was willing to work in alliance with other revolutionary organizations, including white radicals. According to Newton, “We don't hate white people, we hate the oppressor: If the oppressor happens to be white, then we hate him.” FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover labelled the Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and subjected the group to a range of repressive tactics as a part of COINTELPRO.
Huey Newton was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for a 1964 stabbing and served six months in prison followed by a period of probation. After the end of his probation, on October 26 and 27, 1967, while out partying with friends, Newton and his compatriots were pulled over by an Oakland police officer, John Frey. When back-up forces arrived, a shoot-out ensued, leaving Frey dead and another cop, Herbert Heanes in serious condition. Huey Newton was shot in the abdomen. The circumstances surrounding the incident were and remain cloudy and contested. Convicted in 1968 of voluntary manslaughter in the killing of officer Frey, Newton was sentenced to 2 to 15 years in prison. In 1970, a California Appeals Court ordered a new trial, which twice ended with a hung jury. The prosecutor declined to retry the case for a fourth time.
Throughout these trials, the Black Panther Party organized a powerful “Free Huey” campaign, which caught on nationally and became a point of focus for the broader 1960s New Left. The campaign cast Newton as a revolutionary martyr of systematic state oppression and built him into a political icon similar to other figures at the time, like Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. As Gilbert Moore wrote in A Special Rage, “There was an inevitably about the Huey Newton trial which drove me fairly insane. The smell of manifest destiny was everywhere. A giant ferris wheel, spinning, controlled by a conspiracy of faceless robots. In its path lay Huey Newton." Poet Langston Hughes wrote a poem, titled, “Black Panther”:
Pushed into the corner
Of the hobnailed boot,
Pushed into the corner of the
"I don't-want-to-die" cry,
Pushed into the corner of
"I don't want to study no more,
"
Changed into "Eye for eye,"
The Panther in his desperate boldness
Wears no disguise,
Motivated by the truest
of the oldest lies.
Black Panther Party leaders recognized “that a potential black martyr could galvanize young blacks of all persuasions, in a way that they couldn’t otherwise.” Inflammatory Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver, said, "At this moment our leader, Brother Huey P. Newton, is being tried by old baldheaded racists who are predetermined to send him to the gas chamber. But they will carry out the sentence over our dead bodies. There seems to be little hope of avoiding armed war in the streets of California and of preventing it from sweeping across the nation. If there has to be a war, then let there be a war." Earl Anthony, author of Spitting in the Wind, wrote, "If you so much as touch a hair on Huey's pretty head, you better give your soul to the Lord because your ass belongs to the Black Panther Party." Newton himself stated, “There will be no prison which can hold our movement down…The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.” He embraced the idea that he was committing what he called, “revolutionary suicide”:
“The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man. Unless he understands this, he does not grasp the essential meaning of his life.
My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning. I wanted my death to be something the people could relate to, a basis for further mobilization of the community.
I expected to die. At no time before the trial did I expect to escape with my life. Yet being executed in the gas chamber did not necessarily mean defeat. It could be one more step to bring the community to a higher level of consciousness.”
After his release from prison, Newton credited the grassroots protest for his freedom, saying, “That was the true power of the people - they freed me. I was just sittin’ up in my 5x7 cell, in my 5x7 hell, up there on the 10th floor of the Alameda County Jail.
Newton’s iconic status was also double-edged. Former Panther Hugh Pearson recalled, “From the mouths of Free Huey activists, Huey began to sound like a messiah. Their enthusiasm to see Huey set free paralleled the Christian enthusiasm for the second coming…Young radicals and militants of all persuasions began preparing for the rebellion they were sure Huey would lead.” But, as actor Roger Guenveur Smith, who wrote and starred in the award-winning play, “A Huey P. Newton Story,” reflected, "Yeah they freed Huey. Then Huey came out and they wanted Huey to free them and I keep trying to tell the people, I say people, that's the true power of the people, you freed me, you freed Huey, now why don't you all go ahead and free yourself? But see, they can't do that can they? They can't do that cause the people always have to create what they call a leader and a leader is everything that the people want to be but the leader is everything that the people can never be so then when the leader fails, he's gonna fail, he's just flesh and blood, he's gonna fail, when the leader fails then the whole construction of the concept of leadership fails and then it just becomes a matter of contempt. And that's when they assassinate you and then put your image on a postage stamp so they can keep lickin' you in the grave."
The images taken here by Roz Payne were outside the Oakland Court House.
Roz Payne
Roz Payne
The Black Panther, January 9, 1971
Black Power
In this January 9, 1971 issue of The Black Panther, articles include: a statement of support for the National Liberation Front in Vietnam in the name of international solidarity; a map of the U.S. showing incidents of "Guerilla Acts of Sabotage and Terrorism”; an open letter to "revolutionary children" highlighting the activism and history of the Black Panther Party; coverage of the trial of Ericka Huggins and Bobby Seale, including articles of support from allies of the Black Panthers and a letter from Huggins herself on "How to Love During a Revolution”; black draft resistance; the New York 21 case; the Jonathan Jackson Commune; the case of Monk Teba; the Juan Farina Defense Committee; Chicago Free Busing Program; G.I. Rights; police brutality in Baltimore, Toledo and Las Vegas; a U.N. Report on racism in the U.S.; a Solidarity Activities Calendar; international news shorts; the Ten Point Program; a statement of party rules; advertisements for The Lumpen, sponsored by the Chicano Revolutionary Party; and, artwork by Emory Douglas.
The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
January 9, 1971
underground press
The Black Panther, December 14, 1970
Black Power
Published on December 14, 1970, this issue of the The Black Panther includes articles on: housing discrimination and poor sanitation conditions in New York City; a garbage dump in Rockford, Illinois; a message to black entertainers; the Cabrini Green housing project; a police attack in Berkeley; a letter to the Black Student Union at Laney College; resolutions and declarations from the People’s Revolutionary Constitutional Convention; a message to black G.I.’s; anti-colonialism in Korea; updates on the cases of Bobby Seale, Ericka Huggins and Lonnie McLucas; the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark just 10 days earlier in Chicago; anti-Imperialism and a war crimes tribunal that took place at the University of California; the case of Raymond Brooks and Katherine Robinson; Community Survival Programs; , the ten point program; Revolutionary Greeting Cards; and, artwork by Emory Douglas.
The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
December 14, 1970
underground press
The Black Panther, October 10, 1970
Black Power
Printed on October 10, 1970, this issue of The Black Panther is filled with various articles from other Black Panther Party chapters across the U.S., one particular article from the Philadelphia chapter compares police brutality in Philadelphia to the 1968 My Lai Massacre that took place during the Vietnam War. Another article from the Baltimore chapter highlights terrible conditions in the South Baltimore community due to episodes of police brutality and poor housing conditions. In Boston, the Panthers write about the right to free public school but are denied the right to walk freely to and from Curley School. The Bay Area National Lawyers Guild includes a "Guide to Know Your Rights" that outlines an individuals rights when stopped by law enforcement officials. Also included in this issue are articles about police repression in several cities; the case of Willie Turner, Jr; the Winston-Salem N.C.C.F.; General Motors; capitalism and dope; welfare system; Neo-colonialism and genocide; the trials of Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins; a youth conference; a Boston bank robbery; a letter from the "Soledad 7" thanking the Black Panther Party for their support; international news shorts; and, art by Emory Douglas.
The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
October 10, 1970
underground press
The Black Panther, August 15, 1970
Black Power
Inside this issue of The Black Panther are multiple articles that speak to the harassment by law enforcement against party members selling the Newspaper in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. This issue also highlights how the Federal Bureau of Investigation infiltrated the Black Panthers with trained informants and created a fake newspaper called the "Bay State Banner." Other items include an article on “revolutionary suicide”; short pieces on the Soledad Brother; Alabama Liberation Front; Chicago Liberation School; National Chicano Moratorium Committee; police brutality in Hartford; Joan Kelley; Bobby Seale’s appeal; a call for justice for the "Los Siete de la Raza”; a two page spread of letters written to Huey Newton from children at the Black Panther Party Liberation School in San Francisco thanking him and the Panthers for the school; a critique of the American Constitution explaining institutional racism, particularly in the prison system; a message from Huey Newton to the People’s Revolutionary Constitutional Convention; a critique off integration; the N.C.C.F.; and, artwork by Emory Douglas.
The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
August, 15, 1970
underground press
The Glass Onion
New Left
This April and May issue of The Glass Onion, an underground newsletter published by the New York High School Free Press, centers on events and organizational news impacting New Left activists such as the Black Power movement, the Young Lords Organization, the Free All Political Prisoners movement, Puerto Rican Nationalism, and the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. This issue includes a particular focus on Bobby Seale’s imprisonment, the 1967 grape boycott, and Latin American revolutions.
The High School Free Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1968
underground press
Movement, March 1969
New Left
The Movement was an underground press newspaper based in San Francisco, California. This issue, the "Huey P. Newton Birthday Edition,” was published in March of 1969. In a 3 page spread there is an interview with Bobby Seale about the status of Huey Newton's case, police brutality incidents in the Los Angeles area and questions regarding the Community Survival Programs of the Black Panthers. Also in this issue are multiple articles highlighting the student movement at various universities around the country, including Berkeley, Columbia, Yale, New York University, and San Francisco State University; a statement and manifesto from the American Deserters Committee for American Deserters living in Montreal, Canada; as well as various statements that cover other movements including the American Indian Movement (AIM). This issue ends with a poem from Ho Chi Minh's prison diary.
The Movement Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
March 1969
underground press
University Review, no. 28, April 1973
New Left
University Review was ;published was published by Entelechy Press in New York City. “Entelechy” is a term coined by Aristotle that has come to mean a force propelling one to self-fulfillment. According to the magazine front-matter, "UR. Universal Ragout. Ultimate Repast. Worldly in taste, stellar in ingredients, intergalactic in appeal... Food for thought. Month after month. Whet your appetite." This issue includes letters to the editor; an editorial on Allen Ginsburg, Pete Seeger and Groucho Marx; Weather Underground Communique #13; film review of Charlotte’s Web; an interview with Bernardo Bertolucci; Bobby Seale’s mayoral campaign; women in prison;
Food fads; a music review of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bob Marley and the Wailers, David Bromberg, the Moody Blues and a set of new blues records; book reviews about drugs, Our Bodies, Ourselves, Vietnam and several books about film.
University Review
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Ten Days to Change the World
Yippies/Counterculture
This poster promoted Yippie protests at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1972, the last time both major parties held their presidential conventions in the same city. Notably, these protests also included a break-away group from the original Yippies, led by Tom Forcade and called the "Zippies," for "Zeitgeist International Party." Contingents at the demonstrations also included the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and a large group of women’s liberation activists.
At the Republican Convention, about 3,000 anti-war activists, many wearing painted death masks and some splattered with red paint, confronted delegates, chanting, cursing, jostling and pounding on cars. Protesters aimed to force well-dressed delegates to walk through a "gauntlet of shame" as they approached the guarded gates of the convention. Protesters yelled, “Murderers, murderers” and "delegates kill!" Some protesters also broke windows along the main thoroughfare in Miami Beach during the protests, resulting in 212 arrests. Black Panther Party leader, Bobby Seale, who had recently been released from four years in jail as a result of his participation in the 1968 demonstrations outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago, participated in the protests and at one point led demonstrators in chanting, “One, two, three, four. We don't want your f---ing war.” Daniel Ellsberg, who was facing criminal prosecution for releasing the Pentagon Papers, spoke to a more subdued crowd of anti-war demonstrators outside the convention center as Nixon was being nominated inside. Vietnam war veteran turned anti-war activist, Ron Kovic, also participated in the protests at the Republican National Convention.
The Democratic Convention also saw a variety of protests, inside the conventional hall and outside of it. Inside, previously excluded political activists clashed with traditional party leaders and activists in sessions that often extended late into the night. Outside, anti-war, black freedom, feminist, gay rights and other activists rallied and demonstrated. Anti-poverty advocates constructed "Resurrection City II," named after "Resurrection City," which had been constructed in Washington, D.C. in 1968 as a part of the Poor People's Campaign. "Gonzo" journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, chronicled the 1972 Democratic Convention in his book, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1972
poster
Political Prisoners of U.S.A. Fascism
Prisoner's Rights Movement and Black Power
This button features Black Panther Party co-founders Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, who were viewed by many on the New Left and within the Black Power movement as political prisoners and symbols of racial injustice in the U.S. legal system.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
Button
Physical Object
Bobby Seale, Ericka Huggins Are On Trial in New Haven, Conn.
Black Panther Party
This leaflet details the plight of Black Panther Party leaders, Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins, who were on trial in 1970 for criminal conspiracy to commit the 1969 murder of 19-year old Alex Rackley, a member of the Black Panthers suspected of being an FBI informant. The case became a cause celebré on the political left. In the end, the jury was unable to reach a verdict, deadlocked 11 to 1 for Seale's acquittal and 10 to 2 for Huggins' acquittal. On May 25, 1971 Judge Harold Mulvey stunned courtroom spectators by dismissing the charges against Huggins and Seale saying, "I find it impossible to believe that an unbiased jury could be selected without superhuman efforts -- efforts which this court, the state and these defendants should not be called upon either to make or to endure."
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1970
mimeograph
leaflet
Stop the Trial
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
This button refers to the trial of the Chicago 8. Following the turbulent demonstrations and police repression outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, eight antiwar activists – David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Committee (NMC); Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, founders of the Youth International Party (“Yippies”); Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party; and two less well-known activists, Lee Weiner and John Froines – were indicted by a grand jury indicted on March 20, 1969, and put on trial for conspiracy to cross state lines to cause a riot, teach the making of an incendiary device and commit acts to impede law enforcement officers in their lawful duties. Sixteen alleged co-conspirators - Wolfe B. Lowenthal, Stewart E. Albert, Sidney M. Peck, Kathy Boudin, Corina F. Fales, Benjamin Radford, Thomas W. Neumann, Craig Shimabukuro, Bo Taylor, David A. Baker, Richard Bosciano, Terry Gross, Donna Gripe, Benjamin Ortiz, Joseph Toornabene, and Richard Palmer - avoided prosecution.
The high-profile trial, which began on September 24, 1969, and lasted five months, quickly turned into a circus. The defendants, known initially as the Chicago 8, were represented by radical attorneys, William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass of the Center for Constitutional Rights. The judge was Julius Hoffman, and the prosecutors were Richard Schultz and Tom Foran. Bobby Seale repeatedly disrupted the trial because he could not have the lawyer of his choice, calling Judge Hoffman “racist” and a “fascist pig.” In response, Hoffman, who displayed a disdain for the defendants and the anti-war movement, more generally, bound, gagged and chained Seale to his chair in front of the jury for several days. Kunstler lambasted Judge Hoffman’s actions, saying, "This is no longer a court of order, Your Honor, this is a medieval torture chamber." Hoffman ultimately severed Seale’s case from the other seven defendants for a later trial, which never took place. He also sentenced Seale to four years imprisonment for contempt of court, one of the harshest punishments for that offense in U.S. history to that time. A U.S. Court of Appeals quickly overturned the ruling.
The trial of the seven remaining defendants, now known as the Chicago 7, became a cause celebre among New Left activists. The prosecution relied primarily on the testimony of undercover police officers and informants, who told the jury that they had heard various defendants state that they were planning to confront police during the convention and fight back against police aggression. Some claimed to have heard Froines and Weiner speak openly about making stink bombs and other incendiary devices.
According to a history of the case written for the Federal Judicial Center by historian, Bruce Ragsdale, “The defendants and their attorneys went well beyond the rebuttal of the criminal charges and sought to portray the proceedings as a political trial rather than a criminal prosecution. In their legal arguments, in their courtroom behavior, and in their numerous public appearances, they challenged the legitimacy of the court and the judge as well as the substance of the indictment. The trial became for the defense an opportunity to portray the dissent movement that had converged on Chicago for the Democratic Convention.” Defense attorneys called more than 100 witnesses to the stand, including a number of anti-war and countercultural celebrities, like Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, Dick Gregory, William Styron, Arlo Guthrie, Country Joe McDonald, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary and Rev. Jesse Jackson. SDS leader, Tom Hayden, attempted to observe courtroom decorum and offer reasonable arguments to refute the prosecutions claims, but Yippie leaders, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, exploited the trial for political theater, consistently disrupting the proceedings, dressing in costumes, eating jelly beans, blowing kisses at jurors, cracking jokes and insulting the judge. As civil rights attorney, Ron Kuby, recalled at William Kunstler’s 1995 funeral, “While defending the Chicago Seven, [Kunstler] put the war in Vietnam on trial—asking Judy Collins to sing "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" from the witness stand, placing a Viet Cong flag on the defense table, and wearing a black armband to commemorate the war dead.”
Much of the trial turned on procedural arguments that usually went against the defense counsel. Again, Ragsdale explains, “Even before the trial started, Judge Hoffman granted only thirty days for pretrial motions rather than the six months requested by the defense. The judge denied the defense attorneys’ access to government evidence obtained without a warrant and barred the defense from submitting the Lake Villa document in which Hayden and Davis set out their non- violent strategy. Judge Hoffman prohibited former Attorney General Ramsey Clark from testifying about his opposition to prosecution of demonstrators, and Hoffman sharply limited the defense lawyers’ ability to question Mayor Daley. Frequently the trial was interrupted by arguments over seemingly petty questions: Could the defendants distribute birthday cake in the courtroom? Could the defendants use the public restrooms, or should they be limited to the facilities in the holding rooms? Could the musician witnesses sing the songs they performed at demonstrations, or was the judge correct in insisting that they recite lyrics?”
At the end of the chaotic trial, the jury, made up of eleven whites and two African Americans, acquitted all seven defendants of conspiracy, but found Hoffman, Rubin, Dellinger, Davis and Hayden guilty of crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot. Froines and Weiner were acquitted of all charges. Judge Hoffman sentenced the remaining five defendants to the maximum penalty, five years in prison and a $5000 fine All seven defendants were also sentenced to prison time for contempt of court, including their attorney, William Kunstler. In a separate trial, a jury acquitted seven of the eight indicted policemen. The case against the eighth was dropped.
The contempt convictions were ultimately overturned on an appeal in 1972 and in a separate appeal all of the criminal convictions except for Bobby Seale’s were overturned. The appellate court cited the judge’s “deprecatory and often antagonistic attitude toward the defense’ as cause for the reversal. They censured Judge Hoffman and the government attorneys for their open hostility toward the defendants and their failure to fulfill “the standards of our system of justice.”
The legacy of the Chicago 8 trials was less legal than cultural. No clear legal precedents emerged from the cases, particularly with regard to the Anti-Riot Act of 1968, which was the main legal foundation for the prosecutions. Instead, the case has lived on as a cultural touchstone of a turbulent period in American history, adapted numerous times on the stage, in documentary form and as feature films.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1969
button
Yippie, Miami 1972
Counterculture and Anti-Vietnam War Movement
This poster promoted Yippie protests at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1972, the last time both major parties held their presidential conventions in the same city. Notably, these protests also included a break-away group from the original Yippies, led by Tom Forcade and called the "Zippies," for "Zeitgeist International Party." Contingents at the demonstrations also included the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and a large group of women’s liberation activists.
At the Republican Convention, about 3,000 anti-war activists, many wearing painted death masks and some splattered with red paint, confronted delegates, chanting, cursing, jostling and pounding on cars. Protesters aimed to force well-dressed delegates to walk through a "gauntlet of shame" as they approached the guarded gates of the convention. Protesters yelled, “Murderers, murderers” and "delegates kill!" Some protesters also broke windows along the main thoroughfare in Miami Beach during the protests, resulting in 212 arrests. Black Panther Party leader, Bobby Seale, who had recently been released from four years in jail as a result of his participation in the 1968 demonstrations outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago, participated in the protests and at one point led demonstrators in chanting, “One, two, three, four. We don't want your f---ing war.” Daniel Ellsberg, who was facing criminal prosecution for releasing the Pentagon Papers, spoke to a more subdued crowd of anti-war demonstrators outside the convention center as Nixon was being nominated inside. Vietnam war veteran turned anti-war activist, Ron Kovic, also participated in the protests at the Republican National Convention.
The Democratic Convention also saw a variety of protests, inside the conventional hall and outside of it. Inside, previously excluded political activists clashed with traditional party leaders and activists in sessions that often extended late into the night. Outside, anti-war, black freedom, feminist, gay rights and other activists rallied and demonstrated. Anti-poverty advocates constructed "Resurrection City II," named after "Resurrection City," which had been constructed in Washington, D.C. in 1968 as a part of the Poor People's Campaign. "Gonzo" journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, chronicled the 1972 Democratic Convention in his book, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Youth International Party
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1972
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