Liberation, July 8, 1966, no. 83
New Left
Liberation was a left periodical published in Paris during the 1960s that served a wider European audience..
Liberation
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
July 8, 1966
newspaper
ROTC
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
"The issue of ROTC is uppermost on many college campuses and is a major focus of antiwar activity. In an interview with the head of Harvard ROTC, the University's ties to the military industrial complex and how ROTC serves this relationship is exposed. " (Roz Payne Archive) <iframe width="640" height="480" src="https://archive.org/embed/6360ROTC01265800" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Newsreel Film
Internet Archive
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
film
High School Rising
Student Protests
"High school corridors patrolled by narcotics agents and police, distortion of the history of black, brown, and poor white people, provoked student attacks on the tracking system. Stills, live footage and rock music. (Note: This film is not technically excellent, but it is very useful in understanding the problems occurring in most high schools across the nation today.)" (Roz Payne Archives) <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lDS-LcFPWIU" 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
Siege at Columbia (7 images)
New Left
The “Siege at Columbia,” as some called it, refers to the 1968 take-over of two buildings at Columbia University by white and black student radicals. It was a part of the broader global student revolt of that year.
In early March of 1967, Columbia SDS activist, Bob Feldman, uncovered documents that linked the university to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, sparking a year of anti-war protests on campus. Around the same time, opposition grew to a plan by Columbia to construct the Morningside Park gymnasium. Some were critical of the university’s appropriation of public park land in Harlem to build the new facility, while others labelled a proposal to create a separate “back-door” entrance for local community members, most of whom were African American and Puerto Rican, “Gym Crow,” claiming it was segregationist and discriminatory. Columbia, a major land-owner in the area, had a decades-long history of displacing local black and brown residents and applying stricter scrutiny to community members who used their facilities.
On March 27, 1968, student anti-war activists staged a peaceful demonstration inside Low Library. In response, university administration placed six activists on probation for violating a Columbia ban on indoor protests. Tensions grew between university administrators and student activists. On April 12, Columbia University president, Grayson Kirk, stated, “Our young people, in disturbing numbers, appear to reject all forms of authority, from whatever source derived, and they have taken refuge in a turbulent and inchoate nihilism whose sole objectives are destruction. I know of no time in our history when the gap between the generations has been wider or more potentially dangerous.” On April 22, Columbia SDS leader, Mark Rudd, replied, “Dear Grayson, . . . You call for order and respect for authority; we call for justice, freedom, and socialism. There is only one thing left to say. It may sound nihilistic to you, since it is the opening shot in a war of liberation. I’ll use the words of LeRoi Jones, whom I’m sure you don’t like a whole lot: 'Up against the wall, motherfucker, this is a stick-up.'"
On April 23, members of SDS and Columbia’s Student Afro Society (SAS) led a second attempt to protest inside Low Library, but were prevented by university police. Following the campus confrontation, activists marched to the gymnasium construction site and attempted to block work there, resulting in scuffles with local police and some arrests. SDS and SAS members then returned to campus, where they occupied Hamilton Hall, which housed classrooms, as well as administrative offices. Activists detained Dean Henry Coleman (and released him 24 hours later) and issued six demands:
1) Disciplinary actions against the six originally charged must be lifted and no reprisals taken against anyone in this demonstration.
2) Construction of the Columbia gym on Harlem land must stop NOW.
3) The University must use its good offices to see that all charges against persons arrested at the gym site be dropped.
4) All relations with IDA must be severed, including President Kirk’s and Trustee William Burden’s membership on the Executive Board.
5) President Kirk’s edict on indoor demonstrations must be dropped.
6) All judicial decisions should be made in an open hearing with due process judged by a bipartite committee of students and faculty.
Soon after the occupation began, though, racial friction among the activists emerged. Black student activists requested that white radicals separate themselves from African American demonstrators. Black militants wanted to maintain a single focus on the construction of the new gymnasium, whereas white student activists also wanted to protest the broader issue of the university’s links to the war effort. In addition, members of SAS opposed the destruction of property, whereas SDS members did not. African American militants were concerned that destruction of property would play into long-standing racial stereotypes about black people. Ultimately, the two groups came to an agreement with white activists retreating from Hamilton Hall and occupying, instead, the President’s office in Low Library, along with three other buildings on campus. The siege at Columbia attracted significant national and even international attention, as well as the participation of community members, students from other campuses, and other activists, like SDS founder, Tom Hayden. On Friday, April 26, Black Power leaders, Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown arrived on campus.
The stand-off between occupying student activists and the administration continued for a week, with wrangling over terms of a possible resolution. An Ad Hoc faculty committee desperately tried to broker a deal, but student activists, administrators and local politicians consistently rejected their efforts. Despite a majority of students and local community seeming to support the occupying students, a groups of student athletes and conservative students formed what they called the “Majority Coalition” and formed a cordon around the occupied buildings in an effort to block food and water from entering the buildings to “starve out” the activists. In response, supportive faculty created a buffer between the Majority Coalition and the buildings.
On Tuesday, April 30, an estimated 1,000 police entered campus to clear the occupied buildings. Fearful of a race riot in Harlem just a few weeks after civil disorder had hit the community in the wake of Dr. King’s murder, a contingent of African American law enforcement dealt gingerly with SAS activists. As SAS leader, Raymond Brown recalled, “They must have had half the black senior officers in New York on-site at Hamilton Hall, led by Assistant Chief Inspector Waithe. I think there was a great determination that they were not going to kick any black students in their butts.” Barnard SAS member, Karla Spurlock-Evans said, “The police came into Hamilton Hall and handled us very gently—not at all characteristic of police officers in general. They loaded us onto buses and took us downtown to the Tombs.” By contrast, police stormed the buildings controlled by white radicals with clubs swinging indiscriminately. According to Columbia faculty member, Michael Rosenthal, “They started beating the shit out of people. No one was resisting. I was standing next to the 64-year-old English professor Fred Dupee when he was punched in the face.” Future New York governor, Goerge Pataki, who was a Columbia law student at the time and member of the “Majority Coalition,” remembered, “From around the back of Low library comes this wave of T.P.F. guys just clubbing everybody in sight. I guess their orders were to clear the campus, which was incredibly stupid and counterproductive because many of the people outside the buildings were the anti-radicals—the pro-cop people. The radicals were all inside the buildings.” Nancy Biberman, a Barnard SDS member, stated, “I saw the university rabbi being beaten by police, and I saw random students who were beaten for just being outside on campus. These cops had been sitting on the perimeter of campus all week, pent up, waiting and waiting. As soon as they were allowed on campus, there was a mêlée. It was called a police riot, and I believe it. It was terrifying.” Police officer, Gary Beamer, agreed, saying, “The police were forced to stand outside the campus for several days and watch crimes being committed—assaults, destruction of property, and preventing students who wanted to get an education from going to class. It didn’t sit well with most of the police. So naturally, when the green light finally came for the police to go in and restore order, they were pretty eager to do it.” And Columbia student, Hilton Obenzinger, told reporters years later, “I remember vividly a cop with a frozen grin on his face going up to a girl, a Barnard student. He lifted up his very long utility flashlight and slammed it on her head. And it wasn’t just once—it was again, and again, and again. She fell down and he kept beating her.” Conflict between students and police continued into the next day. In the end, 132 students, 4 faculty members and 12 police officers were injured and roughly 700 arrested. An estimated 30 students were suspended. After another round of campus protests between May 17-22, police beat 51 and arrested 177 more students. Following the spring demonstrations, Columbia university did scrap the Morningside Park gymnasium and severed some of their ties to the military-industrial complex.
Roz Payne
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1968
Center for Participation Education Catalogue, Spring 1970
NewLeft/Student Movement
The Center for Participation in Education (CPE) was a university supported experimental college at the University of California-Berkeley aimed at empowering students to devise innovative classes that focused on pressing contemporary issues. The CPE was a response to growing activism and pressure for reform on campus. CPE pioneered courses in Black Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, Native American Studies, Women's Studies, Environmental Studies, etc. Founded in 1967 from a broader administrative mandate to the Board of Educational Development at UC-Berkeley to initiate and approve experimental courses “for which neither departmental or college support is appropriate or feasible,” by 1969, administrative support had been fatally curtailed.
This catalogue from the Spring of 1970 illustrates the dire straights the program found itself in and lists the classes available that term.
Center for Participant Education
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
catalogue
Center for Participation Education Catalogue, Winter 1969
Student Movement
The Center for Participation in Education (CPE) was a university supported experimental college at the University of California-Berkeley aimed at empowering students to devise innovative classes that focused on pressing contemporary issues. The CPE was a response to growing activism and pressure for reform on campus. CPE pioneered courses in Black Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, Native American Studies, Women's Studies, Environmental Studies, etc. Founded in 1967 from a broader administrative mandate to the Board of Educational Development at UC-Berkeley to initiate and approve experimental courses “for which neither departmental or college support is appropriate or feasible,” by 1969, administrative support had been fatally curtailed.
This catalogue lists the classes available in the winter of 1969.
Center for Participant Learning
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
catalogue
Center for Participation Education Catalogue, Fall 1969
Student Movement
The Center for Participation in Education (CPE) was a university supported experimental college at the University of California-Berkeley aimed at empowering students to devise innovative classes that focused on pressing contemporary issues. The CPE was a response to growing activism and pressure for reform on campus. CPE pioneered courses in Black Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, Native American Studies, Women's Studies, Environmental Studies, etc. Founded in 1967 from a broader administrative mandate to the Board of Educational Development at UC-Berkeley to initiate and approve experimental courses “for which neither departmental or college support is appropriate or feasible,” by 1969, administrative support had been fatally curtailed.
This catalogue lists the classes available in the fall of 1969.
Center for Participant Education
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
catalogue
Eldridge Cleaver Controversy at UC-Berkeley
(196 images)
Black Power
The University of California-Berkeley was one of the key sites of 1960s-era campus activism. During the early and mid-1960s, Cal students participated in the southern civil rights struggle and protested the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. In 1964, a conflict near Sather Gate sparked the Free Speech Movement. The Students for a Democratic Society were strong on campus and led student activists into the anti-Vietnam war era. During the late-1960s and early-1970s, UC-Berkeley played a pivotal role in the rise of the Black Studies and Third World Student movements.
In 1966, African Americans made up a mere 1% of the student population at the University of California-Berkeley. At the time, the Afro-American Student Union (AASU) was the lone black student political group on campus. On October 29, 1966, SDS sponsored a conference at the Greek Theater, titled, “Black Power and It’s Challenges,” which was attended by an estimated 12,000 overwhelmingly white students and featured keynote speakers, Ron Karenga (US Organization), James Bevel (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Stokely Carmichael (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), who called UC-Berkeley the “white intellectual ghetto of the West.” AASU opposed the conference, calling it “farcical,” “insidious” and “detestable.”
By 1968, the number of African American students on campus began to rise. Early that year, a coalition of black student activists and local community members demanded the creation of a Black Studies Department. In a March, 1968 issue of the Daily Californian, the group wrote, “We demand a program of ‘BLACK STUDIES,’ a program that will be of and for black people. We demand to be educated realistically and that no form of education which attempts to lie to us, or otherwise mis-educate us will be accepted.” In response Chancellor Roger Heyns promised the establishment of a new department by the Fall of 1969. In the meantime, African American students worked with the College of Letters and Sciences to offer a selection of courses on the “Black Experience” during the 1968 school year, including a course titled, “Social Analysis 139X: Dehumanization and Regeneration of the American Social Order,” which was co-organized by four university faculty, but was to be guest taught by controversial Black Panther Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver. The 10-lecture class was sponsored by the Center for Participation in Education (CPE), a university supported effort to empower students to help devise classes that focused on pressing contemporary issues. Yet, as students began to enroll in the course, conservative Governor, Ronald Reagan, and state legislators pressured the Board of Regents to pass a new rule stating that classes could only include one guest lecture per semester, an obvious ploy to severely limit Cleaver’s platform on campus. The move set off a new controversy over academic freedom on campus and helped spur the mobilization of the Third World Liberation Front, a coalition of black students, Latin American students, Asian American students and Mexican American students that organized the longest student strikes in U.S. history. Ultimately, Cleaver gave six lectures on campus in 1968.
These photos, taken by Roz Payne show Eldridge Cleaver lecturing, as well as Kathleen Cleaver on campus, Ronald Reagan at Regents meetings and some of the campus protests surrounding Cleaver's lectures and the broader Third World Liberation Front activism on campus.
Roz Payne
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1968-1969
SDS National Conference in Austin (17 images)
New Left
Like many campuses, the University of Texas at Austin saw an increase in student activism and protest during the mid- and late-1960s. The student Free Speech Movement, anti-war activism, African American and Latino student protest, women’s liberation organizing and the counterculture were all present. White New Left activism was particularly significant, with UT being an important site of what came to be known as “Prairie Power,” a faction within Students for a Democratic Society that was critical of the national office and advocated a more decentralized structure for the organization and a greater emphasis on campus organizing and the war in Vietnam. Jeff Shero, Thorne Dreyer, Carol Neiman, Gary Thiher, Alice Embree, Grace Cleaver, Robert Pardun, Larry Jackson and Greg Calvert were all notable Texas New Left activists. Austin was also home of The Rag, which author John McMillian called “a spirited, quirky, and humorous paper, whose founders pushed the New Left's political agenda even as they embraced the counterculture's zeal for rock music, psychedelics, and personal liberation.” Former Rag staffer, Alice Embree, remembered, "The Rag covered what was not covered by the 'straight' press. The writers participated in the political and cultural uprising and also wrote about it. And they told you where to get a chicken dinner for 35 cents." White student activists at UT were increasingly working with black and Latino activists, enlisted military soldiers at Fort Hood and the local labor movement. According to historian, Beverly Burr, student activists, “tied many issues together in a comprehensive critique of the American government, the economic system and socialization.”
Between 1967 and 1969, the relationship between student activists and the university administration became increasingly contentious. In May of 1967, six student activists were censured for their role in an anti-war protest that disrupted a visit by Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. The following year, the administration fired, Professor Larry Caroline, who served as the faculty adviser for SDS, after he told a group of anti-war protesters that only revolution would bring a solution to racism and militarism in the U.S. Caroline had also led a successful effort to integrate the faculty lounge, supported African American activist and graduate student, Larry Jackson, and pushed for other structural reforms at the university that rankled not only administrators, but also some of his fellow faculty members. These conflicts raised a variety of issues related to free speech and academic freedom. At the same time, African American and Latino students demanded a series of reforms, including the creation of Black Studies and Chicano Studies programs. Countering the rising tide of student militancy, the state legislature and university Board of Regents passed new “disruptive activities” bills in early 1969, hoping to head off upcoming protests by black, Chicano and anti-war campus activists. Beverly Burr explained, “The bill basically prohibits pickets, strikes, sit-ins, and anything the university deems ‘disruptive to administrative, educational or other authorized activity.’” The Regents also refused a request by SDS to hold their national convention at the Student Union, announcing "we are not about to let the university be used by subversives and revolutionaries." A March 1969 article in The Rag quoted President, Norman Hackerman, claiming SDS’s "intention of destroying the American educational system" and a lack of meaningful educational purpose for the decision by the Board of Regents. Following legal wrangling, the SDS National Convention ultimately took place at the Catholic Student Center and was attended by more than 800 activists. Beyond the conflict with university officials, the 1969 SDS gathering was notable for the growing factionalization within the group. Burr wrote, “A ten-point proposal for the liberation of schools was passed which called for among others: an end to the tracking system, an end to flunkouts and disciplinary expulsions, a new teaching of history in such a way as to truly expose the injustice of 'this racist, capitalist society' and support for the Black Panthers.”
Roz Payne
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
Radical Student Movement Leaflet
Women's Liberation and Student Movement
Two pages of an article includes subheadings, “Middle Class Also Affected” and “Radical Movement Not Immune.” Both sections discuss the gendered politics and economics which existed in the radical student movement. This leaflet critiques arguments presented by some radical student organizations on the issue of familial relationships and roles as distracting from the discussion of male chauvinism in the movement.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
mimeograph
article
Niagara Liberation Front: Program for Action
New Left
This booklet serves as a manifesto and platform for the Niagara Liberation Front, a radical organization based in Buffalo, New York. The twelve points articulated in their platform, include:
1. We Shall Create Our Revolutionary Culture Everywhere
2. We will fight American Imperialism
3. We Support the Struggle of Black and Other Third World People for Self-Determination
4. We Will Struggle for the Full Liberation of Women as a Necessary Part of the Revolutionary Struggle
5. We Shall Resist the Destruction of Our Physical Environment
6. We Will Turn the High Schools Into Training Grounds for Liberation
7. We Will Destroy the Universities Unless They Serve the People
8. We Will Expand and Protest Our Revolutionary Youth Culture
9. We Will Take Communal Responsibility for Basic Human Needs
10. We Will Support Working People's Struggles Against Oppression
11. We Will Defend Ourselves Against Law and Order
12. All Revolutionaries Are Guided By Feelings of Love
Niagara Liberation Front
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1970
en-US
Text
The Glass Onion
Student Movement
This newsletter advertises the organization of the Bridgeport High School Student Union based in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Protesting the organization and administrative authority in the local educational system, this newsletter underlines issues concerning high school students such as the draft board, the militarization of campus law enforcement, war spending, women’s education, and the authoritative structure of secondary education.
The High School Free Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. early-1970s
underground press
Initiation Rites for Students
Student Movement
This document analyzes higher education in the United States as a manufacturing process. It details "orientation," "the function of the capitalist university," "the means" and confrontation."
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s
mimeograph
Rainbow River
White Panther Party
Rainbow River was an underground press paper put out by the White Panther Party in Somerville, Massachusetts. In this issue, article topics include drugs, high schools and oppression, draft resistance, poetry about revolution and food coops, a Weather Underground statement and the White Panther Party 12-Point Program.
White Panther Party
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. early-1970s
underground press
newsletter
Season's Greetings!
Columbia Revolt
This object was photographer Maury Englander's holiday card from the late-1960s. The iconic image on the artifact is from the student revolt at Columbia University in 1968, which Englander took. The image was also featured prominently on a pamphlet that SDS put out on the protest.
Maury Englander
Roz Payne
ca. 1968
printed card
"Once Upon a Time the Universities Were Respected," by The Situationists at Strasbourg University
Student Movement and Counterculture
The Situationist International was an international organization of "social revolutionaries" that included avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. The group was prominent in Europe from its establishment in 1957 to its disbandment in 1972. Their 1968 pamphlet, "Ten Days That Shook the University," attacked the subservience of university students, as well as the strategies of student radicals. It was sharply critical of student radicals that took on particular issues, rather than the broad destruction of the system. The document caused significant stir and led to the dissemination of Situationist ideas across Europe and into the United States. The pamphlet is credited with precipitating the mass protests and campus take-overs in May of 1968 in France. This 1969 pamphlet is an update and evolution of those ideas.
“Once upon a time, universities were respected: the student persists in the belief that he is lucky to be there. But he arrived too late…. A modern education system demands mass production of students who are not educated and have been rendered incapable of thinking.”
Situationists at Strasbourg University
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
pamphlet
Free the Universities
Student Movement
This button underscores the campus-based student movement of the 1960s-era.
F.U.N.Y.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
unknown
Button
Physical Object
Free Vermont
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
A New Left poster from Burlington, Vermont, that offers a variation on German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller's poem, "First they came ..." The poem offers a critique of the cowardice of German intellectuals who failed to act as the Nazis rose to power, targeting group after group, until the tragedy of fascism and holocaust was upon them. In this case, activists were protesting a visit by President Richard Nixon to Burlington in 1970. In Nixon's arrival speech, he said:
October 17, 1970
Governor Davis, Senator Prouty, Congressman Stafford, all of the distinguished guests on the platform, and all of the distinguished members of this audience:
As you probably are aware, this is the first campaign stop that I have had the opportunity to make in 1970, and I am proud that it is in the State of Vermont. There are personal reasons for that statement that would be of interest, I am sure, to the young people here. My two daughters have very fond memories of their visit to this State to Camp Teela Wooket. I am glad to be back because of that.
The other reason is that as I look back on the record of the State of Vermont, in a personal sense, again, on all the occasions that I have been on the national ticket, I have lost some States but I have always carried Vermont. Thank you very much.
A third reason is that I am very proud to be here on a special day which is nonpolitical in one respect, certainly, the homecoming day of the University of Vermont. I also want to say that, speaking of the university, lets pay our respects to the Rice Memorial [High School] Band over here. How about that? And to the Canadian Geese 1 in the back. The Vermont Turkeys are going to go up to Canada on an exchange visit for the Canadian Geese next week.
1 The Canadian Geese Rock Band of Saint Michael's College, Winooski, Vt.
But there is a more fundamental reason in this year 1970 that I am very happy to be here to open this campaign in Vermont. It has to do with the fact that I have enormous respect for the men who are candidates on your ticket here this year. Let me mention them each briefly. Bob Stafford, who has been formerly your Governor, then a Congressman.
One thing that you know about the people from Vermont is this--and it is true of all of those representing Vermont in Washington and in the statehouse-whether it is George Aiken, who is a man whose wise counsel I have benefited from as President of the United States and prior to that time, or whether it is a case of Bob Stafford, a man who came to the Congress in the 87th Congress, and all of the Congressmen in the country who were elected that year elected him as their leader.2
2Representative Robert T. Stafford was president of the 87th Club which was made up of freshmen Republican Members of the 87th Congress.
That is an indication of what they think of Vermont and Bob Stafford in Washington, D.C.
I have had the opportunity to meet all the Governors of the 50 States at various Governors' Conferences, and I respect them all. But there are some who stand out and one who stands out is your Governor because he has courage, the courage to do what is right for his State, to take a mess fiscally and clean it up in the State of Vermont.
There is another reason that I admire your Governor and also your Congressman and your Senator, and that is their tenacity. When anything involves the State of Vermont, they are down there in my office pounding on that door until we do something about it.
For example, over these past 2 weeks they have expressed concern about a possible fuel oil shortage in the State of Vermont. Let me tell you I talked to General Lincoln, the head of the Office of Emergency preparedness before I left Washington.
There will be no fuel oil shortage--we will see to that, thanks to what your Governor has told us and your Senator and your Congressman--in the State of Vermont.
Now I come to your Senator, Win Prouty, the man who is running in this State for reelection. Can I speak to all of you now about the importance of this one man, this one vote, and your one vote in this State of Vermont?
Let us understand that in 1968 the country elected a new President, called for new leadership. We also recognized that at that time we had the Congress, both the House and the Senate, under the control of Members of the other party. Nevertheless, we worked with that Congress. Sometimes they voted against, sometimes for.
But in the United States Senate particularly-and all of you, particularly you who studied political science at the university and those who studied it also in high school will know, and all of you who read your papers and listen to television-the United States Senate on the great issues, the issues that involve whether we are going to have a program to bring lasting peace in the world, the issues that involve whether or not we are going to have a program that will stop the ruinous inflation that is robbing your pocketbooks and making it impossible to balance your family budget--when we look at all of these problems we find that in the United States Senate on vote after vote a majority of one determines the outcome.
A shift of one Senator, sometimes two, will determine whether the President's program goes through or whether it doesn't go through. I want to say to you, without Win Prouty's vote I couldn't stand here today and speak with pride of a record of accomplishment in this great field. He is providing that majority of one.
I would like to take the three issues, and I think I am going to take the hardest one first. I hear some of the young people here say stop the war, and I heard it said outside. I understand that.
Let me tell you what we found and then you judge the record and you judge Win Prouty on the basis of that record. When we came into office, we found 550,000 Americans in Vietnam. There was no plan to bring them home. There was no plan to end the war. There was no peace plan that had been submitted.
And what have we done? Let me tell you. We have implemented a plan to bring Americans home, and during the spring of next year half of the men that were in Vietnam when we got there will be coming home. That is what we are going to do.
Second, we wound down the fighting by the strong stand that we took to clean up the sanctuaries in Cambodia. We have cut American casualties to the lowest level in 4 ½ years.
I am not going to be satisfied until not one American is killed in Vietnam, but we are cutting them down and we are going to continue on that course.
And third, my friends, we have presented to the North Vietnamese, over national television--and I am sure many of you heard it--a far-reaching peace plan. We have offered a cease-fire without conditions. We have offered to negotiate all the political settlements with regard to South Vietnam, one that would allow all those in that country to participate in the making of that settlement. We have offered also a plan that would provide for the release of war prisoners on both sides. We have offered a conference on all of Indochina.
Now let me tell you exactly where it stands today. As I stand before you today, I can say confidently the war in Vietnam is coming to an end, and we are going to win a just peace in Vietnam. It will come to an end either--if the enemy accepts our proposal for a cease-fire, it can come to an end more quickly.
If it does not accept that proposal, then we will bring it to an end by continuing to withdraw Americans and replacing them with Vietnamese and allowing the Vietnamese to have the right to choose their own government without having it imposed by North Vietnam or by the United States. Now, isn't that the fair thing to do?
Now let us see what the other side of the argument is. I know the people in this State. My good friend Consuelo Bailey, 3 who has always advised me about Vermont, she has said to me from time to time, "The people up in this State, they want to hear both sides of the argument and want to make up their minds."
3 Consuelo Northrop Bailey, National Republican Committeewoman for Vermont and Secretary of the Republican National Committee.
Let me tell you the other side. I know there are people who say: Why this long road? Why don't we just end the war? I could have done it the day I came into office.
I could have brought all the Americans home. Let me tell you ending a war isn't very difficult. We ended World War I. We ended World War II. We ended Korea. And yet, in this century we have not had a generation of peace.
My friends, what we want to do is to end the war so that the young people that are shouting "Stop the War" will have a generation of peace, and that is the kind of plan that we are trying to implement. So that is what we are doing.
We are ending the war in a way that will discourage those who might start a war.
We are ending the war in a way that will bring permanent peace in the Pacific. It is that kind of program that Win Prouty has stood firmly by.
So I say let us work for what all of us want, not just peace for the next election but peace for the next generation so that the younger brothers and the sons of those who have fought in Vietnam won't have to be fighting in some other Vietnam sometime in the future.
So there is the choice. It is a clear one. Win Prouty, who stands for a just peace and a generation of peace, and those on the other side who say without regard to the future, let's simply end the problems that we are in today.
This is real statesmanship. That is one of the reasons I am here for him.
Let me turn to another subject of equal interest, equal interest in the sense that it affects the pocketbooks of everybody and every family budget. You all know what has happened to prices. You know that when we came into office we found prices going up and up.
You will find also that the reason they were going up and up was that in the years previous to our coming into office that the previous administrations had spent $50 billion more than the economy would have produced in terms of taxes at full employment.
And what did that do? Because Washington spent more than it was taking in or that it could have taken in in full employment, it raised the prices for everybody.
I said when we came into office we were going to stop that. That is why I had to veto some measures--that I felt people were poor in many instances.
Let me just say this: What we have to realize is that we need Senators and Congressmen who have the courage to vote against spending programs that may benefit some of the people but that raise prices and taxes for all people. That is the kind of a program that we stand for. That is the kind of fiscal responsibility that your Governor stands for. It is the kind of fiscal responsibility that Win Prouty stands for.
And we come to a third area, the area of progress. The great choice that the American people had in 1968 and that we now have a chance to reaffirm in 1970 is this: Do we continue to pour good money into bad programs so that eventually we end up with both bad money and bad programs or do we reform the programs of America? That is why this administration says let's reform the welfare system, let's reform our educational system, let's reform our health system, so that America can move forward on a new road. That is the kind of proposal that we offer.
And here the issue is clear. On the one side there are those who say keep pouring the same amount of money, billions, into the welfare program. Let me tell you what I think. I say that when a program makes it more profitable for a man not to work than to work, it is time to get rid of it and get another program. And that is why Win Prouty's strong support of the Family Assistance Program in which we provide help for all of those who need it, but in which we provide that those who are able to work will not only have an incentive to work but a requirement to work--let them work, I say, and if they cannot work then, of course, the welfare will be provided. It is that kind of reform that we stand for.
I could go on in other fields. Take the environment. I noticed that as the plane came down and I looked down on this magnificent countryside, and I know that pretty soon the tourists, the winter tourists, will be coming in, the summer influx having gone home. I can only say to you this, that as I look over America, and I fly over it many, many times, of course, on the way to California, to Florida, and to other States, this is a beautiful country. But, my friends, what we have to realize is that because of our wealth, what we are doing is that we are poisoning our water. We are also poisoning our air. We are having our cities choked with traffic and terrorized by crime. So what we have to do now is to clean up the environment of America.
That is why we have presented to the Congress an historic new program to clean up the air, to clean up the water, to provide open spaces for these young people to go to in the years ahead.
And, my friends, that is the kind of progressive legislation that Win Prouty supports, and that is another reason we need him in the United States Senate.
Then one other program I should mention-and Governor Davis, you will be interested in this and all of your fellow Governors--I think back to the history of this country, to the fact that Vermont has played a proud role from the time of the beginning of America. I think back to the fact, too, that when America was young the States felt that they had responsibilities and then power began to flow, particularly in this century, from the people and the counties and the cities and the States up to Washington, D.C. And Government in Washington got bigger and bigger and bigger, and government in the States found that they didn't have the funds to handle their problems, and taxes, particularly on your property, went up and up and up. So I said this has got to change.
That is why we have authorized and asked the Congress to approve, and they will not yet act on it, a program of revenue sharing, where the Federal Government will turn over to the States funds that the States can use to handle their own problems.
Let me tell you why this is important. For 190 years, my friends, power has been flowing from the people, from you, and from the States, to Washington. I say that it is time now for power to flow back from Washington to the States and to the people of America. That is the kind of a program, again, that Win Prouty supports.
Now one final point. I realize that in this year 1970 there are those who have very deep disagreements with our country's policy, whether it is abroad or at home. I know there are those who demonstrate and say that America is a sick society, that everything is wrong.
Just let me say this: I can tell you, my friends, I have seen this country, and I have also been abroad. I have just finished a trip to Europe. I was in a Communist country, Yugoslavia, and 350,000 people stood out in the rain cheering, not for me but for the United States of America. I was in Spain, in Italy, in Ireland, in England, and the same thing happened. The same thing happened in Asia last year, in India, and other countries.
Let me tell you something: Yes, there are those that criticize America, many abroad among leaden criticize our policies. But to millions of people ca this earth we can be proud of the fact that the United States of America--not because simply we are the strongest country and the richest country but because we are a country that provides the greatest freedom and the greatest opportunity for people in the history of the world--the United States is respected, and let's be worthy of that respect.
Now the question is: The voices are being heard in the year 1970. You hear them. You hear them night after night on your television, people shouting their obscenities about America and what we stand for. You hear those who shout against speakers and shout them down, who will not listen. And then you hear those who engage in violence. You hear those, and see them, who, without reason, kill policemen and injure them, and the rest. And you wonder: Is that the voice of America?
I say to you it is not. It is a loud voice, but, my friends, there is a way to answer: Don't answer with violence. Don't answer by shouting the same senseless words that they use. But answer in the powerful way that Americans have always answered. Let the majority of Americans speak up, speak up on November 3d, speak up with your votes. That is the way to answer.
My friends, the people in this great State may well determine whether or not on the great issues which will determine whether we can have a program that will bring lasting peace for a generation, progress in the field of the environment and welfare, and all these other areas that I have described, a program of strong and fair law enforcement whether or not we have that majority of one in the United States Senate, a majority that crosses party lines, may well determine on what you do in the State of Vermont. I say this to you because Win Prouty not only provides that vote but because this quiet, confident man has such enormous respect among his colleagues.
Let me tell you something. I have known the Senate and the House, served in both, and anybody who has known those bodies will agree with me that there are the doers and the talkers. Win Prouty isn't a talker; he is a doer. He gets things done. He works for the elderly. He works for progress. He works for education. He is a man who for 20 years has given his life. There isn't a man in that Senate that works harder than he does for Vermont and America.
And because he is a doer and not a talker, send him back and give us that majority of one.
Thank you.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1970
poster
Assata Shakur - Free All Black Liberation Fighters
Black Power
Assata Olugbala Shakur is a political activist, author, fugitive and aunt of hip-hop artist, Tupac Shakur. She was born in 1947 in New York City, JoAnne Deborah Byron. Following her parents’ divorce, Byron spent much of her childhood moving between her grandparents and other family in Wilmington, North Carolina, and New York City, where her mother moved after she remarried. As a student at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and then City College of New York, Byron was exposed to African American history and Black Nationalism, which made a significant impact on her political development. She met her husband, Louis Chesimard, and began participating in the student movement, anti-war activism and the struggle for black liberation. In 1970, while visiting Oakland, California, Byron met members of the Black Panther Party and joined the Harlem branch upon her return to New York, where she worked with the breakfast program. Frustrated with the Black Panther Party’s unwillingness to work with other black radical organizations, Byron left the party in 1971 and joined the Black Liberation Army, an underground Black Power group whose goal was to “take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States.” In her autobiography, she wrote, “the Black Liberation Army was not a centralized, organized group with a common leadership and chain of command. Instead there were various organizations and collectives working together and simultaneously independent of each other.” The group believed "the character of reformism is based on unprincipled class collaboration with our enemy" and asserted the following principles:
1. That we are anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and anti-sexist.
2. That we must of necessity strive for the abolishment of these systems and for the institution of Socialistic relationships in which Black people have total and absolute control over their own destiny as a people.
3. That in order to abolish our systems of oppression, we must utilize the science of class struggle, develop this science as it relates to our unique national condition.
It was also at this time that Byron changed her name to Assata (“she who struggles”) Olugbala (“love for the people”) Shakur (“the thankful”).
In 1972, the FBI issued a warrant for Shakur’s arrest for alleged crimes committed by the BLA and was the subject of a multi-state manhunt by law-enforcement. During a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973, Sundiata Acoli Zayd Malik Shakur and Assata Shakur got into an altercation with two police officers, Werner Foerster and James Harper. The incident resulted in the deaths of Zayd Shakur and Foerster. Harper and Assata Shakur were also wounded in the shoot-out. Over the next few years, beteen 1973 and 1977, Shakur was charged with a variety of crimes related to the 1973 incident and others, including murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery and kidnapping. Six of the charged were ultimately dismissed, though she was convicted of Foerster’s murder and seven other felonies related to that incident in 1977 and sentenced to life in prison plus thirty years. Many black liberation and New Left activists argued that Shakur did not receive a fair trial. In 1979, three members of the BLA helped Shakur escape from prison. For the next few years, Shakur lived underground, ultimately fleeing the U.S. for Cuba in 1984, where she was reunited with her daughter, who had been born in prison while she was on trial. Shakur continues to live in Cuba and remains on the FBI’s list of “most wanted terrorists.”
The quotation printed on this poster is from a letter Shakur wrote on July 4, 1973 from prison. The full letter is here:
Black brothers, Black sisters, i want you to know that i love you and i hope that somewhere in your hearts you have love for me. My name is Assata Shakur (slave name joanne chesimard), and i am a revolutionary. A Black revolutionary. By that i mean that i have declared war on all forces that have raped our women, castrated our men, and kept our babies empty-bellied.
I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heart-less robots who protect them and their property.
I am a Black revolutionary, and, as such, i am a victim of all the wrath, hatred, and slander that amerika is capable of. Like all other Black revolutionaries, amerika is trying to lynch me.
I am a Black revolutionary woman, and because of this i have been charged with and accused of every alleged crime in which a woman was believed to have participated. The alleged crimes in which only men were supposedly involved, i have been accused of planning. They have plastered pictures alleged to be me in post offices, airports, hotels, police cars, subways, banks, television, and newspapers. They have offered over fifty thousand dollars in rewards for my capture and they have issued orders to shoot on sight and shoot to kill.
I am a Black revolutionary, and, by definition, that makes me a part of the Black Liberation Army. The pigs have used their newspapers and TVs to paint the Black Liberation Army as vicious, brutal, mad-dog criminals. They have called us gangsters and gun molls and have compared us to such characters as john dillinger and ma barker. It should be clear, it must be clear to anyone who can think, see, or hear, that we are the victims. The victims and not the criminals.
It should also be clear to us by now who the real criminals are. Nixon and his crime partners have murdered hundreds of Third World brothers and sisters in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. As was proved by Watergate, the top law enforcement officials in this country are a lying bunch of criminals. The president, two attorney generals, the head of the fbi, the head of the cia, and half the white house staff have been implicated in the Watergate crimes.
They call us murderers, but we did not murder over two hundred fifty unarmed Black men, women, and children, or wound thousands of others in the riots they provoked during the sixties. The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives. They call us murderers, but we were not responsible for the twenty-eight brother inmates and nine hostages murdered at attica. They call us murderers, but we did not murder and wound over thirty unarmed Black students at Jackson State—or Southern State, either.
They call us murderers, but we did not murder Martin Luther King, Jr., Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Nat Turner, James Chaney, and countless others. We did not murder, by shooting in the back, sixteen-year-old Rita Lloyd, eleven-year-old Rickie Bodden, or ten-year-old Clifford Glover. They call us murderers, but we do not control or enforce a system of racism and oppression that systematically murders Black and Third World people.
Although Black people supposedly comprise about fifteen percent of the total amerikkkan population, at least sixty percent of murder victims are Black. For every pig that is killed in the so-called line of duty, there are at least fifty Black people murdered by the police.
Black life expectancy is much lower than white and they do their best to kill us before we are even born. We are burned alive in fire-trap tenements. Our brothers and sisters OD daily from heroin and methadone. Our babies die from lead poisoning. Millions of Black people have died as a result of indecent medical care. This is murder. But they have got the gall to call us murderers.
They call us kidnappers, yet Brother Clark Squires (who is accused, along with me, of murdering a new jersey state trooper) was kidnapped on April z, 1969, from our Black community and held on one million dollars' ransom in the New York Panther 21 conspiracy case. He was acquitted on May 13, 1971, along with all the others, of 156 counts of conspiracy by a jury that took less than two hours to deliberate. Brother Squires was innocent. Yet he was kidnapped from his community and family. Over two years of his life was stolen, but they call us kidnappers. We did not kidnap the thousands of Brothers and Sisters held captive in amerika's concentration camps. Ninety percent of the prison population in this country are Black and Third World people who can afford neither bail nor lawyers.
They call us thieves and bandits. They say we steal. But it was not we who stole millions of Black people from the continent of Africa. We were robbed of our language, of our Gods, of our culture, of our human dignity, of our labor, and of our lives. They call us thieves, yet it is not we who rip off billions of dollars every year through tax evasions, illegal price fixing, embezzlement, consumer fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and swindles. They call us bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychecks we are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our neighborhood we are being held up. And every time we pay our rent the landlord sticks a gun into our ribs.
They call us thieves, but we did not rob and murder millions of Indians by ripping off their homeland, then call ourselves pioneers. They call us bandits, but it is not we who are robbing Africa, Asia, and Latin America of their natural resources and freedom while the people who live there are sick and starving. The rulers of this country and their flunkies have committed some of the most brutal, vicious crimes in history. They are the bandits. They are the murderers. And they should be treated as such. These maniacs are not fit to judge me, Clark, or any other Black person on trial in amerika. Black people should and, inevitably, must determine our destinies.
Every revolution in history has been accomplished by actions, al-though words are necessary. We must create shields that protect us and spears that penetrate our enemies. Black people must learn how to struggle by struggling. We must learn by our mistakes.
I want to apologize to you, my Black brothers and sisters, for being on the new jersey turnpike. I should have known better. The turnpike is a checkpoint where Black people are stopped, searched, harassed, and assaulted. Revolutionaries must never be in too much of a hurry or make careless decisions. He who runs when the sun is sleeping will stumble many times.
Every time a Black Freedom Fighter is murdered or captured, the pigs try to create the impression that they have quashed the movement, destroyed our forces, and put down the Black Revolution. The pigs also try to give the impression that five or ten guerrillas are responsible for every revolutionary action carried out in amerika. That is nonsense. That is absurd. Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.
There is, and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black Liberation Army. The main function of the Black Liberation Army at this time is to create good examples, to struggle for Black freedom, and to prepare for the future. We must defend ourselves and let no one disrespect us. We must gain our liberation by any means necessary.
It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Right edge has "Jackrabbit Press 464 Willamette Eugene Oregon" printed in black and a black stamp for the Assatta Shakur Defense Committee.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1973
poster