Congress. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Subversive Influences in Riots,
Looting, and Burning. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1968. Pt. 4: Subversive Influences
in Riots, Looting, and Burning (Newark, New Jersey) (April 23, 24, 1968).
SuDoc No.: Y4.Un1/2:R47/pt.4
Date(s) of Hearings: April 23, 24, 1968
Congress and Session: 90th - 2nd
 EXCERPTS
SYNOPSIS
On April 23 and 24, 1968, a subcommittee of the Committee on Un-American Activities met
in Washington, D.C., to continue its hearings on subversive influences in riots, looting,
and burning. This hearing, part 4 of the series, concerns events related to the Newark,
N.J., riot of July 1967.
The subcommittee was composed of Representatives Edwin E. Willis (D-La.), chairman, William
M. Tuck (D-Va.), Richard H. Ichord (D-Mo.), John M. Ashbrook (R-O.), and Albert W. Watson
(R-S.C.); also Representative John C. Culver (D-Iowa) in absence of Mr. Willis.
Detective Captain Charles Kinney, the witness, has been employed in the Newark Police
Department since 1947, serving for 19 years in the detective division. FOr 8 months prior
to his appearance before the committee, Captain Kinney, under special assignment, has been
investigating the possibility of criminal conspiracy in the Newark riot.
Captain Kinney testified that there were 23 homicides and 3 related deaths during the
Newark riot which took place from July 12 to July 17, 1967. He said that 1,465 arrests
were made, including 91 which involved the use of deadly weapons and explosives. Also,
there were 507 cases of breaking and entering.
Property damage was estimated at $15.9 million, of which $4.9 million was uninsured. Of
the 1,108 persons injured during the riot, the witness testified, 1,001 were civilians,
72 were police officers, and 35 were firemen.
PRERIOT PHASE
Captain Kinney testified that in 1964 a group of activists of the Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS) came to Newark and organized the Newark Community Union Project
(NCUP). The leader of this group was Thomas Hayden, former national president of SDS.
The committee's counsel noted for the record that Hayden, who was born in Detroit in 1939
and who holds an A.B. degree from the University of Michigan, had been a field
representative for SDS in 1961-62, a member of the U.S. delegation to the
Communist-controlled Eighth World Youth Festival held in Helsinki, Finland; had traveled
to North Vietnam and Communist China with the U.S. Communist Party's theoretician,
Herbert Aptheker, where he met with Asian revolutionary leaders in Hanoi, Peking, and
Prague; had also visited Moscow; and had written the foreword to Aptheker's book,
Mission to Hanoi. He also collaborated with Staughton Lynd in writing
The Other Side, which depicted the Viet Cong as heroes and warmly praised the
North Vietnamese leaders.
Associated with Hayden in NCUP were the following SDS members: Jesse Allen, a founder
and one of the full-time organizers of the NCUP; Robert Kramer and Norman Fruchter,
also full-time organizers for the group; Carol Glassman; Terry Jefferson; Constance Brown;
Corinna Fales; and Derek Winans.
Jesse Allen, the witness said, was both an official of NCUP and an organizer for Area
Board 3 of the United Community Corporation (UCC), the Newark antipoverty agency
financed by the Office of Economic Opportunity. A delegate to the 1965 SDS convention,
Allen had been a speaker at a meeting of the Militant Labor Forum, a front organization
for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), a Trotskyist Communist organization on the Attorney
General's subversive list.
Carol Glassman, born in New York on August 10, 1942, was an NCUP organizer who resides
at its headquarters in Newark. A graduate of Smith College, she and Constance Brown,
a 1964 Swarthmore graduate, had attended public meetings held by the city of Newark
for the purpose of "harassing the power structure." She traveled to Bratislava,
Czechoslovakia, in September 1967 with Thomas Hayden and 39 others where they mt with
representatives from Communist countries.
Mrs. Dazzare (Terry) Jefferson, Captain Kinney testified, is the treasurer of both UCC's
Area Board 3, also known as the Peoples' Action Group, and SDS's Newark Community Union
Project; the office manager of NCUP; and a community organizer for Area Board 3. Her
technique as treasurer of these two groups has been to make out checks to "cash"
which are in turn endorsed to her, thus concealing the distribution of funds. She
attended the 1965 national convention of SDS. According to New Politics News,
Mrs. Jefferson is a member of the executive board of the National Conference for New
Politics (NCNP).
Robert Kramer, a former organizer for the NCUP, coauthored an article for
Studies on the Left entitled "An Approach to Community Organizing
Projects," which dealt with NCUP's operations in Newark.
Norman Fruchter, Kramer's collaborator on the above-mentioned article, has been New York
editor for the magazine, Studies on the Left, an SDS publication, and also a
faculty member of the Free University [School] of New York.
Fruchter is also coproducer, according to the National Guardian, of various films,
including the "Troublemakers," which depicts SDS activities in organizing the
ghettos of Newark. Captain Kinney said that Fruchter is an advisor to SDS's Radical
Education Project. He also testified that a letter had been sent to Fruchter, a leading
activist in NCUP, by William McAdoo on behalf of CERGE (Committee to Defend Resistance to
Ghetto Life), thanking Fruchter for his financial support and his sponsorship.
CERGE, committee counsel pointed out, was a front organization for the pro-Peking
Communist organization, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), and McAdoo was identified
during this committee's New York riot hearings as the PLP member who had given
instructions on the making of Molotov cocktails at the time of the Harlem riot.
Constance Brown, employed by the Welfare Board of Essex County, N.J., had the authority
to sign checks for the Newark Community Union Project of SDS.
Corinna Fales, an organizer for NCUP, had been previously associated with SDS in
Baltimore, Md., in 1963, Captain Kinney testified.
Derek Winans, born in Orange, N.J., on September 4, 1938, graduated from Harvard University
in 1962. A journalist, Winans has written articles for Ramparts and
The Nation magazines and has been active in numerous civil rights activities such
as voter registration drives in Mississippi. He helped to organize the Fair Housing
Council of South Orange, Maplewood, Milburn, and Short Hills, N.J., which donated funds
to the Bessie Smith Community Center in Newark, N.J. This center is a project of Area
Board 3.
His other activities included sponsorship of the Spring Mobilization Committee To End
the War in Vietnam (For information on this group, see HCUA report Communist Origin
and Manipulation of Vietnam Week, March 31, 1967, House Doc. 186, 90th Cong., 1st sess.).
Winans, a former leader of the Essex County chapter of the Americans for Democratic
Action, was expelled in 1964 by the national body of ADA at its convention in Washington.
The most important aspect of NCUP's activity, Captain Kinney testified, was its
infiltration and actual seizure of control of some portions of the antipoverty program
in Newark, particularly Area Board 3 of the United Community Corporation, which is also
known as the Peoples' Action Group.
That Hayden's success in Area Board 3 was to be used as the prototype for similar efforts
elsewhere was made clear by the article in the radical magazine, Studies on the Left
(vol. 6, No. 2, 1966), written by SDS members Norman Fruchter and Robert Kramer, entitled
"An Approach to Community Organizing Projects." The contents of the article,
the witness said, indicated that Hayden's operation was the model which radicals should
emulate in order to capture other antipoverty programs.
Another article written by Hayden himself entitled "Community Organizing and the
War on Poverty," was published in the November 1965 issue of Liberation
magazine. This was a valuable article, said Captain Kinney, because it revealed Hayden's
and NCUP's position. In it Hayden attacked the official antipoverty program in Newark,
the UCC. He wrote that the director's social theories soft-pedaled the idea of
attacking power structures and favored instead the objective of bringing ghetto residents
into the mainstream of competitive society – a goal to which Hayden apparently
objected.
After describing how NCUP took over the antipoverty program in Newark's UCC Area Board 3,
Hayden wrote that the quest for power should focus on the antipoverty council as much as
on the city council. Another section of the same issue of Liberation in which that
article was published noted that Hayden was becoming one of the magazine's associate editors
starting with that issue.
On the subject of alleged police brutality, Captain Kinney stated that during the past 5
years agitators in Newark have tried to exploit every possible grievance between colored
and white people and every police arrest.
The Newark Police Department obtained a copy of an NCUP document, dated Summer 1965,
concerning field interviews of student and community associates of NCUP on the subject of
NCUP accomplishments. Asked during one of these interviews what he meant when he used the
term "radical," Hayden replied:
On the basis of issues that you try to link campaigns for domestic-economic civil rights
and social change to foreign policy and that you have a very clear stand in favor of an
end to the war in Vietnam, as well as economic change within the country...
Concerning the community action part of the war on poverty, Hayden suggested that the NCUP
professional staff might be utilized to write muckraking articles for the newsletter on
a regular basis. Hayden added that the researcher's function should be housed in the same
building as the antipoverty program's staff but physically separated in other rooms "the
way the Minnis operation is set up with SNCC." Jack Minnis is the director of research
for SNCC.
Captain Kinney pointed out that Hayden's reference to Jack Minnis, a white radical,
appeared to be a recognition of Minnis role in manipulating SNCC, as well as the suggestion
that the Negro majority in the Peoples' Action Group (Area Board 3 of the UCC) could be
better manipulated by white persons in SDS working in separate quarters but close enough to
provide the impetus and ideology for the activity.
Captain Kinney testified that others engaged in racial agitation in Newark prior to the
riot included:
Phil Hutchings, 26, of Newark, SNCC's field director in New Jersey, a onetime college
classmate of Stokely Carmichael at Howard University in Washington, D.C., who, in August 1966,
arranged a speaking tour for Carmichael in New Jersey. He had previously worked for SNCC in
Georgia and Tennessee. While in Washington, he had worked for SDS.
In the spring of 1967 Hutchings and two other SNCC leaders in Newark, Robert E. Fullilove,
24, a college student, and Clinton Hopson Bey, 31, began an organizational drive in Newark.
They opened a storefront "Black Liberation Center" at 107 South Orange Avenue,
Newark, a location which was also used by Albert Roy Osborne, alias Colonel Hassan, when he
was in Newark. When the storefront was burned out, the center moved across the street to
a restaurant managed by Clinton Hopson Bey and Ozzie Bey.
Hutchings stated, said Captain Kinney, that Newark was chosen by SNCC because of its small
area and large Negro population. Moreover, Hutchings further said that Newark was one of
several northern cities where SNCC hopes "to translate its black power philosophy
into an outlet for frustration and an attack on conditions in the slums."
Hutchings was appointed to UCC's board of trustees by Willie Wright, Negro militant and a
vice president of the United Community Corporation, Wright had also helped Hutchings set
up the Black Liberation Center.
In the spring of 1967, Hutchings had attended several local meetings of the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) and some preliminary meetings on the Black Power Conference in
Newark. He had also become associated with the Black Panthers.
Junius Williams, the next militant activist about whom Captain Kinney testified, had written
a letter to Tom Hayden which stated, in part:
Seeing you people take over the War on Poverty was quite a treat; I've decided I want to
tamper with the power structure a bit...
At the present time Williams and Hutchings reside together in Newark. They formed a new
organization called the Newark Area Planning Association with the aim of involving
"the people of the Central Ward in the replanning and administration of Newark."
Other individuals and their organizations who were involved in the racial agitation in
Newark prior to the July 1967 riots included Colonel Hassan Jeru Ahmed, whose real name is
Albert Roy Osborne, alias Tony Williams. Osborne was born in Washington, D.C., in 1924.
He has a lengthy criminal record which includes robbery, housebreaking, false pretenses,
forgery, and bad checks. In 1950 he was held for mental observation. He has served time
in prisons in the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Osborne, whose headquarters are in Washington, D.C., came to Newark several months prior
to the 1967 riots and, said Captain Kinney, contributed to the climate that caused the riot.
Osborne's group is called the Blackman's Volunteer Army of Liberation. Its so-called
regiment – the Black Star Regiment – was located in rooms above a store in
Washington, D.C. While claiming to have battalions in major American cities, he has
actually fewer than 10 followers. Osborne's avowed intention is to create a mercenary army
of American Negroes to fight for the independence of central and southern Africa.
Willie Wright, also known as William T. Wright, was born in 1928 in Albany, Georgia. He
currently resides in Newark on the second floor of a building above the offices of the
United Afro-American Association, an organization which he formed in 1965.
By his association with nationally known militants and by his foreign travel, Wright has
placed himself in the forefront of those seeking violent answers to the Nation's social
problems, said Captain Kinney. He collaborated with Stokely Carmichael when the latter came
to Newark's Central Ward to urge Negroes to take over Newark "lock, stock, and
barrel." Wright also went to Bratislava in Communist Czechoslovakia with Hayden
following the Newark riots.
Another active militant in Newark is James Walker, who was born in New Haven, Conn., in
1918. Now employed by the United Community Corporation, OEO, as assistant director for
Total Employment and Manpower (TEAM) Center No. 1 in Newark, Walker has an arrest record
dating back to 1938. Prior to July 1967, Walker told two Newark Police Department
lieutenants that the city "needed an incident" to bring it to the attention of
the Federal Government. On the night the Newark riot started Walker was in the area fomenting
trouble. He helped to organize the taxicab caravan to city hall to protest the arrest of
cabdriver John Smith, which had triggered the riot. Many cabdrivers complied because
they were afraid to do otherwise, Captain Kinney said.
One of the outsiders who came into Newark, in addition to those brought in by Hayden, was
a Mrs. Audley Moore, who is also known as the Queen Mother. During the meeting of the
planning board mentioned above, she made inflammatory statements and hurled epithets at the
policemen present who were there to maintain order. At the end of the meeting she took
over the chairman's chair.
According to this committee's information, Mrs. Moore, from the late 1930's until the end
of the 1940's, was a publicly acknowledged member and official of the Communist Party,
U.S.A., and served on its national Women's Commission. At one time she had served also
as an alternate member of the national committee of the party.
Because of her militant and separatist approach in calling for the establishment of a
black republic in America, a position which the CPUSA had rejected in 1959, Mrs. Moore
broke with the party line on the Negro question. In the spring of 1968, she participated
in a conference of black militants in Detroit to formally adopt their position in calling
for the creation of a separate black republic in five southern States.
RIOT PHASE
The arrest of John Smith, a cabdriver, on the night of July 12, 1967, was the catalyst
that set off the Newark riot. Smith, who was born in Warthen, Ga., on January 27, 1927,
had had only two previous minor brushes with the law.
While the witness believed that the incident of Smith's arrest had not been planned by him,
it did provide the occasion which certain individuals and groups were hoping for –
groups which were prepared to act decisively when the right time came.
Smith, who had been driving his cab on a revoked license, was stopped on the night of
July 12 by police officers whose patrol car he was tailgating. He also had been flicking
his headlights on and off and alternately braking and accelerating his cab. When asked
to produce his license, he became loud, profane, and abusive. He refused to leave his
cab when so ordered and finally, when he did, attempted to assault both policemen. Scores
of residents in a housing development near the Fourth Precinct station observed Smith's
arrival, following his arrest, in the patrol car and his forcible removal from it to the
police station.
Soon the rumor that "White cops had killed a Negro cab driver," spread through
the area. Several hundred people gathered around the Fourth Precinct chanting for the
release of Smith. A fire bomb was thrown at the precinct station.
Robert Curvin, a former chairman of the Newark chapter of CORE and a participant in Newark
demonstrations for many years, borrowed a bull horn from a civil rights leader who had
been attempting to quiet the crowd and made inflammatory remarks to the crowd.
Phil Hutchings of SNCC and Betty Moss of NCUP were continually haranguing the crowd with
statements such as "The Blacks will kill all you Short Hill cops."
Shortly after midnight a police car was stoned and the looting of stores began. By 1 a.m.
the looting was increasing and spreading to other areas. Fires were set and the firemen
who responded to the alarms were stoned. By 2 a.m. a taxicab caravan, organized by James
Walker, had formed and was converging on the city hall.
James Kennedy, an official of Area Board No. 2, composed a leaflet blaming police
brutality for this incident and inflaming the crowd during the same time that Police
Director Spina was attempting to quiet it.
This leaflet, Captain Kinney said, was a call for a mass meeting the night following the
Smith arrest – the episode which set off the full-scale Newark riot. Leaflets
were circulated describing the preparation and the making of Molotov cocktail fire bombs
for use against such targets as department stores.
During the 5-day riot, over 200 cases of sniping were reported. Flyers were distributed,
said Kinney, by the Black Liberation Center which had a picture of a "very horrible
looking Uncle Sam" which stated, in part, "Uncle Sam wants YOU, nigger."
LeRoi Jones, playwright, and others were also arrested during the riot for possession
of firearms. He and two other men were reported to have been firing their guns from a
moving vehicle during the night of the riot.
Jones, according to committee counsel, was born in Newark in 1934 and was a graduate
of Howard University. His plays have revealed an obsessive hatred for white persons.
In the early 1960's this militant radical was a frequent speaker at meetings of the
Trotskyist Communist Socialist Workers' Party (SWP). In 1964 he told a rally of the
Harlem Progressive Labor Party, a pro-Peking group, that "we're the only people"
that can make America fall.
He established the Black Arts Repertory Theater in 1965 and received $40,000 in Federal
antipoverty funds, but these funds were later cut off when the police discovered that
his project was used as a vehicle to propagate hatred. Also, an arms cache was found
in the theater building which Jones owned, noted the counsel.
Captain Kinney informed the committee that Willie Wright had told the Governor's Select
Commission on Civil Disorder that a carefully conceived plan to burn much of Newark's
main business section was already in execution when John Smith's arrest had set off the
major conflagration.
POSTRIOT PHASE
Following the riot, a controversy developed over the plans of Newark's antipoverty agency,
the United Community Corporation, to do what it had done the past two summers –
use Government money to send children to Camp Abelard, located at Hunter, N.Y. A newspaper
had charged that the camp was being utilized as a training area for leftwing activities.
The controversy was settled by an OEO determination that the camp was
"unacceptable" – despite the fact that the UCC had selected Corinna Fales
to inspect the camp and she had given it a clean bill of health.
Committee counsel pointed out that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had testified that this
camp had been under the control of the Communist Party since its establishment in 1929.
One postriot rally in Newark featured as a speaker Charles Kenyatta, head of the black
militant Mau Mau organization, whose real name is Charles Morris and who was known as
Charles 37X when he was a Muslim.
Willie Wright's United Afro-American Association also produced leaflets, during the
postriot period, which made reference to a policeman who had been murdered during the
riot as a "racist detective" whose death was "well-earned." Also,
after the riot, vicious anti-Semitic and anti-Italian leaflets were circulated.
The Reverend Albert Cleage of Detroit, a militant racist with a long record of extremist
activities, said Captain Kinney, also spoke at a meeting sponsored by the UCC in Newark.
Committee counsel noted that Cleage, associated since the late 1940's with numerous CPUSA
fronts and enterprises, has been in recent years linked with the Trotskyist Socialist
Workers Party (SWP) by his support of their election candidates and by his speeches at
their functions. Cleage has written that he and others had shared with the rioters
their " will to violence."
In 1967 Cleage was quoted as having said that "Guerrilla warfare is the black
man's answer to the white man's final solution."
Hayden and his followers have admitted, said Captain Kinney, that they want an entirely
new society and a different form of government and would use any and every means to obtain
their ends.
Hayden and his group, said Captain Kinney, have exploited controversies in the city of
Newark "to turn race against race, class against class, creed against creed, thereby
contributing to the climate which caused the riots in Newark in July 1967, which he views
as a means to an end."
In his book, Rebellion in Newark, Hayden wrote a chapter entitled "From Riot
to Revolution," in which he said:
The role of organized violence is now being carefully considered. During a riot, for
instance, a conscious guerrilla can participate in pulling police away from the path of
people engaged in attacking stores. He can create disorder in new areas the police
think are secure. He can carry the torch, if not all the people, to white neighborhoods
and downtown business districts. If necessary, he can successfully shoot to kill.
Willie Wright's postriot activities, said Captain Kinney, as described by Louis Lomax
during August 1967 in the Newark Star-Ledger, including an admission by Wright
that he was proud to be an out-and-out revolutionary.
After the July riot, when addressing a group of 200 persons attending a meeting of the
board of trustees, Area 2, of UCC, Wright said that:
I say we should arm ourselves with cannons, machine guns, bazookas, anything we can get
our hands on; and if you don't know how to get some heavy weapons, call my office and I
will tell you where to go and how to get them.
Following this speech, which was cheered by the audience, the board voted unanimously
to keep Wright as a member.
Also on September 5, 1967, Wright applied for a passport to go to Paris ostensibly for
a visit. Instead, he went to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, to attend a conference of North
Vietnamese and Viet Cong representatives. This week-long session was arranged by David
Dellinger, editor of Liberation magazine. Wright, who had appeared "quite
broke" before his trip, began to spend money more freely upon his return to America.
Alvin Oliver, a coordinator for eight antipoverty programs at UCC headquarters, who
also active following the riot. He was in contact with Maxwell Curtis Stanford, Jr.,
alias Allah Mahammad, one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM).
RAM, a pro-Peking guerrilla warfare organization which has been linked to Castro's regime,
is "dedicated to the overthrow of the capitalist system in the United States,"
by force if necessary, according to J. Edgar Hoover.
Captain Kinney concluded his testimony by stating that the day after Dr. Martin Luther
King's assassination about 175 fires were set off in Newark, the worst day of fires that
the city had ever had.
Captain Kinney, in reference to the publicity that there had been no local conspiracies
involved in the riot, testified that:
In Newark, certain individuals conspired, and are conspiring, to replace the leadership
of the Newark Police Department. Other individuals conspired, and are conspiring, to
turn out of office the present city administration before its lawful term expires.
Still other individuals conspired, and are conspiring, as part of the movement to replace
the system of government under which we live in the United States of America, using any
means to do so, including the use of force and violence.
To these conspirators, the insurrection that occurred in Newark in 1967 was a means to an
end which they welcomed and exploited to serve their plot.
To these conspirators, the accomplishment of any or all of the aforementioned goals was
paramount...
Many Newark and New Jersey residents, said Captain Kinney, had asked the question, Why
weren't these conspirators prosecuted?
Mr. Tuck, the subcommittee chairman, thanked Captain Kinney for his detailed presentation
and added the following remarks:
We all know that police departments and policemen have come in for an awful lot of abuse
in the last few years. As these hearings have revealed, Communists have played a very
large role in provoking much of this criticism which has been overwhelmingly unjustified.
Numerous unfounded and inflammatory charges have been made against police everywhere,
and everywhere we hear the cry "police brutality" – which, incidentally,
I believe is a Communist expression – when the brutality and violence involved
have actually been used not by the police but against the police and by violators of the
law they were taking into custody.
During these hearings we have received the testimony of a number of police officers,
both Negro and white, from other cities. All of them have shown themselves to be a
credit to the profession to which they belong.
...
These riots must be stopped. They will destroy everything that is fine and good in
America unless they are stopped and stopped now.
TESTIMONY OF CHARLES KINNEY
********************************************
Mr. Kinney. ...SLID was a relatively small, little-known group after
World War II until 1959, when it changed its name to Students for a Democratic Society.
Six years later, in September 1965, the League for Industrial Democracy cut off all
financial support for SDS and also severed all ties with the organization. It apparently
took this step both because some of its own members, as well as persons outside the
organization, were highly critical of the League for Industrial Democracy because of the
activities of SDS, its youth organization, and also because SDS activities threatened the
parent organization's tax-exempt status.
SDS now claims about 10,000 members, organized in over 200 chapters. It is generally
recognized as the largest of the student "new left" organizations. The
organization originally barred Communists from membership. At the same time, it was
opposed to anticommunism. In 1964, however, it formally adopted a "nonexclusion"
policy, that is, a policy of welcoming anyone and everyone into its ranks.
J. Edgar Hoover has since testified that, "Communists are actively promoting and
participating in the activities" of SDS and that SDS works "constantly in
furtherance of the aims and objectives of the Communist Party throughout the Nation."
One Students for a Democratic Society project promotes the writings of Mao Tse-tung and
Lin Piao – probably as a result of the influx of Progressive Labor Party activists
– and is developing an intelligence network of sources here and abroad, including
the Viet Cong and leaders of guerrilla movements in other nations.
The openly radical and leftist Students for a Democratic Society from the beginning has
played a leading role in agitation and protest demonstrations against the draft and
against U.S. efforts to protect South Vietnam from a Communist takeover.
The Chairman. I might state that the statement just read and the
testimony of J. Edgar Hoover quoted by counsel confirm the information of this committee
with reference to the Students for a Democratic Society. That outfit is honeycombed
with subversive and Communist characters.
Now, Captain, let me ask you this question, and, frankly, I don't think I have asked
it before, but you have such an admirable background that you might throw light on it,
because what is true is that you see, thus far, we have looked into the Watts riots,
the New York riots, and the Newark riots now, and we will come to some more as time
goes on. In fact, we might reach Washington after a while. I don't know. I am not
prognosticating a thing.
But I request, and I want to ask you this: Inasmuch as this outfit was in the background
in some of these riots that have taken place, did you find, or did you try to find,
whether any of these characters who participated in these riots, particularly the unsavory
kind, were paid for their daily work or any part of their endeavors? Did you try to
find it out?
Frankly, I have not asked that question before, sir. Your testimony would be
brand new.
Have you got any information on that, that leads you to believe that might have
been the case?
Mr. Kinney. Mr. Chairman, do you mean were they paid by a
foreign power?
The Chairman. Anybody. Because frequently these local characters,
these local Commies are just as bad as the foreign-power Commies. They are just not
fitted to be in the mainstream of our society.
So I am just asking you if you have anything which led you to believe or know that
locally, by local people, or by anyone, some of these people who happen to be at these
riots might have been paid for their daily labor to carry torches and loot and pilfer
and burn. Do you have any information?
Mr. Kinney. Mr. Chairman, I have no information.
The Chairman. I warned you we hadn't gone into that, but I suppose
it is time for us to find that out.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, the committee files contain considerable
information on the Newark Community Union Project founder, Tom Hayden. Permission
is requested to read into the record at this time a summary of the highlights of
Hayden's career based on the information in the committee's files.
The Chairman. That suggestion is welcome.
Mr. Smith. Hayden, a founder of the Students for a Democratic Society,
served as one of the organization's field representatives in 1961 and 1962. During
this period he worked with SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in Alabama
and Mississippi.
The Chairman. That is the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee?
I think it is a misnomer. I think it should be "Nonstudent Violence Coordinating
Committee."
Mr. Smith. Based on this experience, he subsequently wrote a pamphlet
published by SDS entitled "Revolution in Mississippi."
Hayden has made a number of trips abroad in the past several years.
In 1962 he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Communist organized and controlled
Eighth World Youth Festival which was held in Helsinki, Finland.
In December 1965, in violation of State Department regulations, Hayden traveled to
North Vietnam and Communist China with Communist Party theoretician Herbert Aptheker
and former Yale professor Staughton Lynd. The three met with Asian revolutionary leaders
in Hanoi, Peking, and also in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Before returning to the United
States on January 7, 1966, they also visited Moscow.
Following this trip, Hayden wrote the foreword to the book Mission to Hanoi, which
was written by Herbert Aptheker. In addition, Hayden collaborated with Staughton Lynd in
writing another book on the trip entitled The Other Side. This book, published in
January 1967, depicts the Viet Cong as heroes and warmly praises the Communist leaders of
North Vietnam. It also tells about some of the brutality inflicted on the Vietnamese
people by the Communists, but excuses it as "a 'necessary' part of resistance against
the greater evil of foreign attack and rule," to use the words of the pro-Viet Cong
Viet Report.
In April 1967 Hayden visited Puerto Rico as a member of a fact-finding group whose trip
was arranged by the Tri-Continental Information Center.
The Tri-Continental Information Center is a relatively new Communist-supported organization,
set up in the spring of 1967, with its headquarters in New York City. Part of its program
is to "combat and debilitate U.S. foreign policy."
While in Puerto Rico as an agent of the Tri-Continental Information Center, Hayden took
part in an islandwide march which was held on April 16, 1967.
The purpose of this march was to protest the drafting of Puerto Ricans for service in
Vietnam and also to oppose a forthcoming plebiscite in which most Puerto Ricans were
expected to – and actually did – endorse continuation of the island's
commonwealth relationship with the United States.
This demonstration was sponsored by the Movimiento Pro Independencia [de Puerto Rico],
MPI, which FBI Director Hoover has described as the largest and most influential of
Puerto Rican proindependence groups and a consistent supporter of Castro's government
in Cuba.
The MPI maintains a "mission" in Havana. MPI delegations also attended two
recent Havana conferences aimed at encouraging Communist revolutions in Asia, Africa,
and Latin America.
They were the Tricontinental Conference held in January 1966 and the First Conference of
the Latin American Solidarity Organization, which convened in July 1967. At the latter
conference, the MPI spokesman favored more concrete expressions of solidarity with Communist
guerrillas actively engaged in efforts to overthrow four Latin American governments. He
also stated that the MPI would continue to show its solidarity with Communists fighting to
overthrow the South Vietnamese Government by continuation of an MPI campaign of resistance
to the draft of Puerto Ricans into the U.S. Armed Forces.
In September 1967 Hayden was one of a group of approximately 40 U.S. citizens who traveled
to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, to meet with representatives of the Viet Cong and the
Communist government of North Vietnam.
As a result of contacts made at that meeting, he traveled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in
November 1967, where three U.S. POW's were turned over to him. He brought the three
back to the United States, where they were taken into custody by military authorities.
Hayden's most recent trip abroad was undertaken in January of this year, when he went to
Havana, Cuba, to take part in the International Cultural Congress held there January 4
to 11 to discuss problems of the "third world," which Communist and other
revolutionaries expect will destroy non-Communist governments in the years ahead.
Captain Kinney, do you have any information to submit for the record on Hayden's activities
in Newark prior to the July 1967 riot?
Mr. Kinney. Yes, sir. Thomas Hayden, who is 28, white, male, has been
described by the New York Times as "the improbable radical" and the now
defunct New York World Journal Tribune as "the white Stokely," and he
has made the city of Newark his base of operations since 1964.
Thomas Emmett Hayden was born on December 11, 1939, in Detroit. He has no brothers or
sisters. In June 1957 he graduated from the Dondero High School in Royal Oak, Michigan.
While a student at high school, he was the editor of the high school publication, but
he refused to recognize authority and discipline. He was a constant source of trouble
to the school administration.
His parents were divorced, and Hayden lived with his mother while in high school.
He received his A.B. degree in June of 1961 at the University of Michigan, majoring in
English. In his senior year, Hayden was the editor in chief of the Michigan Daily,
the University of Michigan official campus publication.
Shortly after graduation, on October 1, 1961, he married on Sandra Cason, C-a-s-o-n,
in Texas. His wife, a Texan, was known as Casey, and they met while working together
in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, in the South. They are now
separated, as Hayden believes there is no place in "the Movement" for marriage.
He said, "I tried it, and it didn't work."
The question has been asked on occasion as to Thomas Hayden's source of income. The
[NCUP] group of the Students for a Democratic Society live communally. Hayden is the
hero of the young white radicals, and their publications are full of Hayden and Newark.
It is claimed that he also receives money for speaking engagements, usually on college
campuses. He is usually sponsored by the Students for a Democratic Society or by various
and sundry "end the war in Vietnam" committees.
Hayden took Dr. Abraham Yesselson's place. Dr. Yesselson is chairman of the University
College, Rutgers, political science department. He is also an author. Hayden took Dr.
Abraham Yesselson's place as an instructor in political science in Newark University
College of Rutgers, between January and May, 1967. Yesselson had been given a fellowship
by the United States Government, which necessitated him finding a substitute for the
second semester of his political science class.
On occasion, Hayden came to class to teach, dirty an disheveled, wearing worn clothing
and shoes, needing a haircut and a shave. On several occasions he brought along
Constance Brown (See p. 1873 for background information on Constance Brown), who was not
a student, but who sat in on the classes.
When Hayden missed a class, his place as an instructor was in turn taken by his attorney,
Leonard Weinglass.
Hayden was arrested in Newark on April 1, 1967, while picketing a food store at Clinton
Avenue in Newark, for failure to move on orders of the police.
He was one of a large group of Newark Community Union Project workers arrested on that
day.
********************************************
Mr. Kinney. Continuing, the National Guardian of September 18,
1965, page 4, lists Norman Fruchter as a speaker of the First Socialist Scholars Conference
held at Columbia University, September 11 and 12, 1965.
The Spring 1965 issue of Studies on the Left carries an article by Fruchter in reply
to an article by Victor Rabinowitz, entitled "An Exchange on SNCC."
Norman Fruchter wrote a book review of the book Going Away by Clancy Sigal in the
Monthly Review, Volume 14, No. 9 [January 1963].
The National Guardian in [November 26] 1966 carried an ad on page 6 indicating
that Fruchter's film, the "Troublemakers," was being shown at a benefit for
the Newark Community Union Project on November 30, 1966, in New York City.
The National Guardian of October 1, 1966, page 12, lists Norman Fruchter as
coproducer of two films, one entitled "We Got to Live Here," and the other,
"The Troublemakers." Both films concerned the Students for a Democratic Society
project of community organizing in the Negro areas of Newark. Both films were reviewed
in the issue of the Guardian.
The Winter 1965 issue of Studies on the Left carried an article by Fruchter,
"Mississippi: Notes on SNCC," and another, "Further Comment" on an
article entitled "On Arresting Movies in San Francisco" by Saul Landau.
The Fall 1965 issue of Studies on the Left listed Mr. Fruchter as the writer of a
"Reply" in "Notes and Communications" to "On Arendt's Eichmann
and Jewish Identity" by Louis Harap and Morris U. Schappes.
The 1965 pamphlet of Students for a Democratic Society entitled "A Movement of Many
Voices" carried a photograph contributed by Fruchter.
The official program of the First Annual Socialist Scholars Conference held in New York
City at Columbia University, September 11 and 12, 1965, listed Fruchter as a participant
in a panel discussion on "The Future of American Socialism."
A letterhead of the Students for a Democratic Society Radical Education Project, obtained
in April 1967, listed Norm Fruchter as one of the advisers of the group.
On June 17, 1965, a letter was sent to Mr. Norm Fruchter, one of the leading activists in
NCUP, by William McAdoo on behalf of an organization called CERGE, or Committee to Defend
Resistance to Ghetto Life.
This letter says in part, and I quote: "Thank you very much for your financial
support and for also letting us use your name as a sponsor of our organization."
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request this item be accepted as Kinney
Exhibit 6.
The Chairman. It will be accepted and marked accordingly.
(Document marked "Kinney Exhibit No. 6" follows:)
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 6
CERGE
COMMITTEE TO DEFEND RESISTANCE TO GHETTO LIFE
1 UNION SQUARE
ROOM 617
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10003 255-3174
CERGE Sponsors Include:
Carl and Anne Braden
Southern Conference Educational Fund
Maxwell Geismer
writer and critic
Vincent Hallinan
attorney
LeRoi Jones
poet and playwright
Leroy McLucas
photographer and film maker
J.P. Morray
author
Truman Nelson
historian and novelist
Marc Schieffer
writer and critic
A.B. Spellman
poet and writer
Paul Sweezy
author and co-editor of the Monthly Review
June 17, 1965
Mr. Norm Fruchter
188--6th Avenue
New York City, N.Y.
Dear Mr. Fruchter:
We are apologizing for our belated reply. At about the time that we received your
letter myself and four other persons were sent to jail for four weeks awaiting our sentence
by the "August 2nd Grand Jury inquisitions". We are now out on bail and our
cases are under appeal.
Thank you very much for your financial support and for also letting us use your name as
a sponsor of our organization. It will appear on our new stationary. Your support has
helped the work of our organization tremendously. But there is still much more to be done,
since so many militants are now under attack; a number of them have already served their
jail sentence and many are still under indictments; their cases being appealed. These
militants range from leaders of the Progressive Labor Party to Black Freedom Fighters to
students who are opposed to the war in Viet Nam.
The work of our organization has been and will continue to be a search for more and more
people whose constitutional freedom is threatened.
If you will call Mrs. E. Linder--HY 3-2307 any week-day between the hours of 5:30 and
7:30 P.M. we will be glad to arrange an appointment whereby we can discuss this matter
in person.
Hoping to hear from you shortly.
Respectfully yours,
William McAdoo
Chairman
[The first paragraph of this letter refers to the fact that McAdoo and others had been
convicted of criminal contempt of the grand jury investigating the Harlem, New York City,
riot of July 1964. Their appeal from this conviction was rejected. (See part 2 of
these hearings for further details concerning McAdoo.)]
Mr. Smith. As you probably recall, Mr. Chairman, in our hearing on the
riot in New York, the organization CERGE, or Committee to Defend Resistance to Ghetto
Life, was shown as a front for the Progressive Labor Party, and McAdoo, the signer of
this letter, was identified in our New York hearings as the Progressive Labor Party member
who gave instructions on the making of Molotov cocktails.
What about Connie Brown?
Mr. Kinney. Constance Brown was born on January 24, 1943, in Newton,
Massachusetts. She is white and graduated from Swarthmore College in 1964.
She is employed by the Essex County, New Jersey, Welfare Board, and is considered by her
NCUP colleagues as "the expert on welfare mothers."
When Constance Brown roomed at 307 Peshine Avenue with Carol Glassman and Corinna Fales,
the place was littered with posters stating, "Welfare Mothers! Prices are rising
– but our checks Stay the Same!" Another poster: "We're going to Trenton
to speak out to State Officials."
She also lived at 227 Jelliff Avenue in Newark, but now lives at 631 Hunterdon Street,
Newark. She has authority to sign checks for the Newark Community Project of the Students
for a Democratic Society. She is an owner of a Volkswagen with New Jersey license LYR 886.
She was arrested on April 1, 1967, at 479 Clinton Avenue in Newark for failure to comply
with orders to move by police officers while picketing illegally with a large group.
She was the author of an article entitled "Cleveland: Conference of the Poor," in
the Spring 1965 issue of Studies on the Left. She was listed in the magazine as
being associated with the Newark Community Union Project.
The Communist newspaper, The Worker, of July 10, 1966, listed Constance Brown as
the person to contact at the Newark center of the Poverty Rights Action Center. The
National Guardian of April 1, 1967, listed Miss Brown as active in the Newark
Community Union Project, and the New York World Journal Tribune of January 1, 1967,
listed her as being employed by that organization.
********************************************
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 11
NEWARK ORGANIZERS TRAINING INSTITUTE
June 7, 1967
temporary address: 106 Huntington Terrace
Dear Friend:
You are invited to a very important all-day meeting to discuss and [?].
SUMMER PROGRAMS FOR THE NEWARK MOVEMENT
at Echo Lak Park on Sunday June 18. There will be plenty of time for fun too!
This conference is called to encourage people to work hard at building strong grass-roots
organizations this summer. The "long hot summer" is the time when progress
is most possible.
So we propose to get away for the whole day to a quiet location to discuss what's
happening in areas such as:
increasing the active programs in the area boards
stopping the Medical School
rent strike organizing; ways to put more pressure on slumlords
strengthening the welfare rights movement in new parts of the city
building neighborhood groups in new areas
fighting for better schools
how to change business practices along Clinton Avenue, Springfield and S. Orange Avenues
programs about the Vietnam war and the draft
politics
our new Organizers School
play streets, summer fun
Transportation will be provided from Area Board 3 at 9 am on the 18th. Anyone who can
drive should notify the Area Board. Food will be provided.
This meeting is for ORGANIZERS who want to WORK to build a MOVEMENT.
Conference callers. Phil Hutchings, Bob Curvin, Tom Hayden, Junius Williams, Terry
Jefferson, Jesse Allen, Joe Whitley, Willie Wright
For further information call 824-3135 or WA 3-8183
Remember: if you can drive, let us know!
Mr. Kinney. Junius Williams. I have here a letter [undated] written
by Junius Williams while he was at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, to Tom Hayden.
The letter reads:
Dear Tom:
Just wanted to reserve a place for myself this summer. Seeing you people take over the
War on Poverty was quite a treat; I've decided I want to tamper with the power structure
a bit. By the way, even the liberals on campus were interested in what went on that night;
and in the happenings in Jersey City.
What are the chances of getting some extra bread. $10? $5? $%? Anything will do.
I'm a poor Southern boy with no visible means of support, who likes to do things like
smoking – etc. Let me know the possibilities.
By the way there are 3 or 4 guys coming down to Newark on the 15th. of March. They would
like to know what they will be doing. I'll only be in Mississippi for about one week so
I may come up on about the 22nd. or 23rd. of March. This church deal is by no means ideal,
in that respect especially, but I still would like to see the situation down there.
One other thing: Several kids have asked about the possibilities of working there (in
Newark) for the summer. What is your policy statement on such matters?
Thanks.
It is signed with the greeting, "Uhuru," U-h-u-r-u, which means "freedom"
in Swahili, and signed "Junius Williams."
"P.S. My thanks to Carl, et al for showing me a few of the ropes."
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request this item be accepted as Kinney
Exhibit No. 12.
Mr. Tuck. It is so ordered.
(Document marked "Kinney Exhibit No. 12" and retained in committee files.)
Mr. Smith. And further concerning Junius Williams, at the present time,
he and Phil Hutchings are residing together at 642 High Street in Newark. They formed a
new organization called the Newark Area Planning Association, with headquarters at 186
South Orange Avenue in Newark, and the prescribed aim of it is "to involve the people
of the Central Ward in the replanning and administration of Newark."
Joe Whitley, who is a member of NCUP, was a counselor for the Youth Block Program in
Newark in 1967. Our information is that Whitley was originally from Chester, Pennsylvania.
Captain Kinney, in addition to the SDS – NCUP operation and the individuals
associated with it, were there other organizations and individuals engaged in racial
agitation in Newark prior to the July 1967 riots?
Mr. Kinney. Yes, there were a number of them. The first I would like
to mention is Colonel Hassan Jeru Ahmed, whose real name is Albert Roy Osborne. He also
has an alias of Tony Williams.
Albert Roy Osborne will be spoken of as Colonel Hassan in my talks hereafter. He makes
his headquarters in Washington, D.C., but came to Newark several months prior to the
riots of 1967 and was a key figure in contributing to the climate that caused the riots.
Colonel Hassan was born in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 1924. He has a lengthy criminal
record, which includes robbery, larceny from auto, housebreaking, false pretenses,
forgery, and bad checks, and in 1950 was held for mental observation. He has served time
in prisons in the District of Columbia and Virginia and in Pennsylvania.
His organization is called the Blackman's Volunteer Army of Liberation, and the
headquarters of the Black Star Regiment, the army's one unit, was located in rooms over
a store at 910 Kennedy Street NW., Washington, D.C. He has a continual problem of lack
of funds.
The avowed intention of Hassan is to create a mercenary army of American Negroes to fight
for the independence of central and southern Africa. He claims to have battalions in
other major cities of the United States, but in truth he has less than 10 followers.
Hassan is extremely anti-Semitic and refers constantly to the international
Jewish-Communist conspiracy. He advocates separation of the races. The creed of the
Blackman's VOlunteer Army of Liberation is set forth in a 10-page typewritten so-called
Declaration of Purpose. This declaration was initialed with 40 nom de plumes. On this
declaration, the signees state that their goal is "complete liberation from white
domination."
However, they state they will respect the Constitution of the United States of America
and will oppose all groups who desire to violently overthrow the United States Government.
Hassan's professed goals, therefore, are different from other conspirators, who state
they will use any means to gain their end.
In the spring of 1967 Hassan, with some of his followers, came to Newark. They
immediately became involved in the move to block the location of the proposed New Jersey
College of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark. It was not known, or it is not known, who
sponsored Hassan's entry onto the Newark scene in the spring of 1967, but it is known he
was out of funds prior to his arrival.
Hassan moved into a storefront headquarters at 107 South Orange Avenue, Newark, New
Jersey, which was called the Black Liberation Center. This headquarters had been opened
a few weeks previously by Phil Hutchings and Clinton Hopson Bey, representing SNCC.
Hassan denied that he had moved his headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Newark, despite
the fact that his organization at the time owed a bill of approximately $1,000 to the
telephone company in D.C. and owed another $1,000 to the Xerox Corporation in Washington.
On May 22, 1967, Hassan received notoriety by his actions at a meeting of the Newark
Central Planning Board, which was concerned with the proposed Central Ward location of
the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry. This public meeting was held in the
council chambers at Newark City Hall.
Two minutes after the meeting started, a Mrs. Ozzie Bey, who was identified as the wife
of Clinton Hopson Bey, threw three eggs at the members of the planning board sitting on
the dais. A press reporter in the front row became involved, either in attempts to
restrain the woman, or to defend himself against becoming egg-splattered, and as a result
Clinton Hopson Bey punched the newsman.
Police moved in and ejected Clinton Hopson Bey and Ozzie Bey.
The reporter refused to make a complaint, and neither of the Beys was arrested. Hassan in
speaking about this incident commented, "Too soon."
Hassan demanded to speak first and followed Louis Danzig, Newark Housing Authority executive
director. Hassan made an emotional speech, stating among other things, "We are going
all the way to stop that school." Hassan and others throughout the meeting verbally
assaulted Alfred C. Booker, the central planning board chairman, called him a "Tom"
and a "House Nigger."
After Fire Director John Caufield had spoken, citing a large number of fires in the area
and recommending that the area in question be demolished, whether or not a medical school
would be built. Hassan lunged at the court stenotypist and tore the transcript from the
machine.
As Hassan overturned the speaker's lectern, police subdued him as he shouted, "Take
me away. Lock me up."
Later during the same meeting, a so-called Captain Rafik of the Black Liberation Army,
whose real name is Darrell Dawson, was also ejected, after throwing a heavy mapboard of
the area at the planners, which hit a tape recorder transcribing the hearing.
Neither Hassan nor his deputy was arrested.
Mr. Smith. Captain Kinney, you mentioned Clinton Hopson Bey as an
associate of Colonel Hassan. Do you have any additional information on Clinton Hopson
Bey?
Mr. Kinney. Yes. Clinton Raymond Hopson, alias Clinton Raymond Hopson
Bey, alias Clinton Raymond Hobson Bey. He was born March 5, 1935, in Lakewood, New Jersey,
and has adopted Bey as his Muslim name. His first wife was named Gwendolin, and her
whereabouts are unknown at the present time. He had a son by this marriage who is with his
first wife.
His second wife lives in Detroit. Though he resided in Detroit in the fall of 1967 with
this woman, he had denied that she is his wife. He has two children living in Detroit,
living with this woman.
While in Newark in the spring of 1967, Clinton Raymond Hopson Bey lived with, and operated
a restaurant at 106 South Orange Avenue with, another woman who claimed was his wife, Ozzie
Bey. Information has been received that Ozzie Bey is at present in McComb, Mississippi.
Clinton Raymond Hopson was first arrested in Denver, Colorado, on December 28, 1955, for,
quote, "Investigation of a stickup" and "Hold for Military Police."
He was serving at the time in the United States Air Force. He was sentenced to an
indeterminate term at the State Reformatory at Buena Vista, Colorado, on March 8, 1955,
for robbery.
On October 10, 1956, he registered as a convicted felon with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Police Department.
On February 19, 1966, he was arrested in Washington, D.C., for assault on a police officer,
and again on May 20, 1966, in Washington, D.C., received a sentence of $250 or 25 days for
a series of traffic violations.
His last arrest was on October 22, 1967, in Winona, Mississippi, where he was charged
with carrying a concealed weapon in his car, a 24-inch bolo knife, and driving with an
expired driver's license. In the car he was driving were seven boxes of shotgun shells
and two cartons of .22 cartridges. He served 5 days in jail in Winona, Mississippi, and
paid a $50 fine.
The car that Hopson was driving in Mississippi had New Jersey license plates thereon, KPN
803. KPN 803 is registered to one Charles Coleman of 681 South 11th Street in Newark, for
a 1959 Plymouth, white station wagon.
However, the car Hopson was driving was a 1959 Rambler, owned by one William Epton of New
York City.
Epton, vice chairman of the Progressive Labor Movement, a member of the Revolutionary
Action Movement, RAM, has been a follower of the militant Chinese Communist line. Epton
was convicted in New York State Supreme Court this December 1965, on charges of advocating
criminal anarchy, conspiring to advocate criminal anarchy, and conspiring to riot.
Hopson went to high school at Union Norman High School in Bainbridge, Georgia, and then
attended Albany State College in Albany, Georgia, in 1954. In '61 and '62, he went to
LaSalle College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in '62-'63, attended Temple University
School of Law, and in February 1968 Hopson made application to be a special agent in the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice.
According to the National Guardian of November 20, 1965, Hopson spoke at a joint
antiwar rally of the May 2nd Movement, Students for a Democratic Society, and the W.E.B.
DuBois Clubs.
Hopson attacked the "Uncle Toms" who failed to oppose the war in Vietnam. He
said, quote, "I don't see how Negroes can fight in Vietnam until they have freedom in
Mississippi."
He also attacked the antipoverty program, which he said was furnished with "blood
money" from the people of the Dominican Republic and Vietnam.
Hopson was a scheduled speaker at the anti-induction rally run by the May 2nd Movement,
scheduled for November 11, 1965, at Columbia University in New York City.
Hopson spoke at the convention of the National Coordinating Committee To End the War in
Vietnam, held in Washington, D.C., November 25 to 28, 1965, according to the
National Guardian of December 4, 1965.
On December 9, 1965, he was a scheduled speaker at a rally to free Bill Epton, sponsored
by the Committee to Defend Resistance to Ghetto Life, which is a front for the Progressive
Labor Party. Hopson represented the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. My source for
this is the National Guardian of December 4, 1965.
According to the Washington Post of August 3, 1965, Clinton Hopson was coauthor of
an appeal to Negroes to dodge the draft which was published by the Freedom Democratic Party
leaflet to Hopson. It stated that he was a law student from Neptune, New Jersey, who was
working with the civil rights movement during the summer of 1965.
As I stated before, Hopson was arrested and charged with assaulting a D.C. policeman. He
was released on personal bond, according to the Washington Post of February 20, 1965.
At the time, he was listed as 31 years old and a law student at Howard University.
Mr. Smith. Earlier in your testimony, Captain Kinney, you mentioned Willie
Wright. Would you tell us something of his activities in Newark prior to the time of the
riot?
Mr. Kinney Willie Wright, also known as William T. Wright, was born
May 27, 1928, in Albany, Georgia. He is married, but separated. He was formerly employed
by the Pennsylvania Railroad as a stationary engineer, but for the past year has devoted
himself completely to militant civil rights activities.
He has also formerly lived at 179 Newton Street, Newark, but has moved of ate to the
second floor of 402 South Sixth Street, Newark. The offices of the United Afro-American
Association occupy the first floor of 402 South Sixth Street, Newark.
C. Willard Heckel, past president of the United Community Corporation and dean of Rutgers,
the State University Law School, has stated that Wright is a Negro in Newark that has gone
through three stages.
He said that Wright's first stage in 1964 was the stage wherein Wright wanted to learn and
learn fast. He saw that parliamentary procedure was a key to power and took Robert's
Rules of Order home and studied it. He asked Dean Heckel questions about parliamentary
procedure when he was puzzled. Heckel said that Wright was eager to learn and that there
was great dialogue between the both of them.
Heckel further stated that Wright's second stage was the stage in which Wright, quote,
"ate white politicians." He said that Wright smoked big cigars, flicking ashes
here and there, and that there was no dialogue between them; further, saying that Wright
made fatuous speeches, speaking often, but not really saying anything, and that he wouldn't
listen to anyone.
Then, continued Heckel, Willie Wright reached his third stage, which Wright is in now.
Heckel stated that Willie Wright is now a militant, aggressive man who wants to shatter.
Heckel also said that many people have told him that if Wright is an example of what the
United Community Corporation under OEO can develop, then this is the great evil of the
antipoverty program.
Willie Wright has bulled his way to the forefront of the Newark scene by design. Truly a
minor figure until recently, by his forming of an organization, by his association with
nationally known militant figures, and by his travel to foreign countries, Wright has
placed himself in the forefront of those seeking violent answers to the cities' and the
Nation's social problems.
Wright has illusions of grandeur and a mimeograph machine, which can be a volatile
combination. One circular that he distributed under the auspices of the United
Afro-American Association has characterized a vicious-appearing Uncle Sam dreaming that
four Negroes have been killed in action. The four Negroes in the sketch are Stokely
Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Cassius Clay, alias Muhammad Ali, and Willie Wright.
Wright formed the United Afro-American Association in 1965 and incorporated it on
August 20, 1965. The location of the organization at the time was 3 Belmont Avenue in
Newark, and the five trustees on the certificate of incorporation were Joe Chaneyfield,
Sandy Rollack, Samuel Kelly, Raymond Boston, and Willie Wright.
On August 25, 1966, Stokely Carmichael came to Newark to give a series of speeches at
street rallies and meetings in Newark's Central Ward. At times, Stokely Carmichael
spoke from the top of a 1963 Ford station wagon, registration IYG 952, New Jersey. This
vehicle was equipped with a PA system and had two loudspeakers on the top. This vehicle
was owned by Willie Wright, then residing at 179 Newton Street in Newark.
Carmichael's speeches were extremely militant and antiwhite. He frequently urged the
Negroes to unite and take over Newark lock, stock, and barrel. Carmichael also stated
that the Negro population should control city hall, the school system, and the police
department.
Further, Carmichael said that a police civilian review board would not be a solution to
the Negroes' problems, but instead all they would have to do was to control the captains
of police at the local level.
Mr. Smith. Does CORE have a chapter in Newark? And if so, did it
engage in the type of activities you have been describing?
By the way, there is one question I would like to ask you about Willie Wright. Is it
true that he went to Czechoslovakia, the Bratislava trip?
Mr. Kinney. Yes, sir. This was after the riots in Newark. He, Carol
Glassman, Tom Hayden, and 38 others traveled to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.
Now, your question was concerning CORE?
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Mr. Kinney. Yes, we do have a chapter of CORE, the Congress of
Racial Equality, in Newark. The former chairman was one Robert Curvin. Robert Curvin was
born on February 23, 1934. He is colored, male, he resides at 106 Huntington Terrace,
Newark.
In September 1967 he was appointed director of Rutgers University Community Action Training
Program. More articulate than most civil rights leaders, Curvin has for years harped on
the theme of police brutality, the creation of a civilian review board, the removal from
office of Director Spina, and other matters, most of which focused on the Newark Police
Department.
Prior to the Newark insurrection, Curvin was one of the conference callers for the Summer
Programs for Newark Movement held at Echo Lake Park on Sunday, June 18, 1967, some 3 weeks
before the riot that I mentioned before.
Curvin and CORE have been in the forefront of practically every demonstration in our city
over the past 5 years. He has demonstrated time after time his desires to increase tensions,
exploit grievances, and to attack the police.
Mr. Smith. Were there some individuals in the community, in addition to
those you have mentioned, who have made inflammatory statements of threats?
Mr. Kinney. Yes. One is a man named James Walker. James Albert Walker,
also known as Albert Jesse Walker, born in New Haven, COnnecticut, on September 3, 1918.
He has also given his birthday as September 3, 1922.
Arrested in New York City, New York, in 1938 for theft of mails, violation of postal law,
he was sentenced on March 22, 1938, to the Federal penitentiary at Chillicothe, Ohio, to 1
year and 1 day. He was released from prison on January 4, 1939. Since that time, Walker
has been arrested in Orange, Montclair, Bloomfield, and Newark. His last arrest was on
April 1, 1967, for failure to move on command of an officer when he obstructed traffic while
picketing with a large NCUP group at 479 Clinton Avenue.
James Walker is now employed by the United Community Corporation, Office of Economic
Opportunity, as the assistant director for Total Employment and Manpower, TEAM, at Center
No. 1, 364 Springfield Avenue in Newark.
Prior to the riots in Newark, James Walker was observed by police in the forefront of
practically every demonstration against constituted authority. He attended meetings of
the board of education and the planning board, where he continually acted in a disruptive
fashion by shouting remarks from the floor, by stamping his feet in derision, and by
attempting to lead the audience in heckling and disorder.
At one of the planning board meetings prior to July 1967, Walker told Lieutenants Morris
and Garrigal of the Newark Police Department that Newark "needed an incident" to
bring the city to the attention of the Federal Government.
When Walker spoke at the planning board meeting prior to the riots, his talk was spiced
with inflammatory statements, such as, and I quote:
At one time we were afraid of the police department... in the final analysis before it
is over, if you kill one of us then some of you too must die... there will be no place to
hide... if you don't give us housing in this city of Newark prior to your medical college,
and your Essex County College... blood will run down the streets of Newark, your blood and
my blood and I state this.
On the night of the arrest of cabdriver John Smith, July 12, 1967, James Walker was in
the area of the Fourth Precinct, fomenting trouble. He was shouting about the brutal
beating that Smith had received , and was inside the Fourth Precinct arguing with Inspector
Kenneth Melchior vociferously about seeing Smith.
He was the chief organizer of a movement to march on city hall via taxicab to protest the
Smith arrest. He has been so identified by participants in the demonstration as the man
who went into the Hayes Homes project in the early morning hours of July 13, 1967, to recruit
demonstrators. He asked people to board waiting cabs and to go to city hall free of charge.
Many of the cabdrivers stated they complied with the request to line up and take these
passengers because they feared that if they refused, they would be harmed by the militants.
This march on city hall, organized by Walker, did not trigger a large-scale riot right at
that time, only because it took a comparatively long time to assemble a sufficient number
of cabs. In addition, there were comparatively few people on the streets, due to the
lateness of the hour. There is little doubt, however, that this taxicab demonstration,
under the direction of James Walker, was instrumental in generating the riot that followed
later in the day of July 13, 1967.
After speaking with many of the taxi drivers that participated in the demonstration, efforts
were made by Sergeant Critchley of the Newark Police Department to talk to Walker concerning
his role. Sergeant Critchley first contacted Walker by telephone, and he agreed to come to
police headquarters to speak to Sergeant Critchley, but he failed to appear.
Lieutenant Absalom Brent and Sergeant Critchley then went to his office, TEAM, 364
Springfield Avenue, Newark, where they saw Walker, who at the time told Sergeant Critchley
that he would like to speak to his lawyer, Oliver Lofton, before he spoke any further to
Sergeant Critchley.
This was agreed to, and Sergeant Critchley suggested that Walker speak to him with Lofton
present. On October 18, 1967, after failure to hear from either Lofton or Walker, a
registered letter was sent by Sergeant Critchley to Walker at his place of employment,
requesting him to contact the sergeant. Walker signed a receipt for said letter, but
has refused to talk with the police any further.
To sum up, James Walker had a great deal to do with helping provide the climate that
caused the riots and was a prime factor in getting the conflagration going. His antipathy,
bordering on hatred toward the police department and law and order in general is somewhat
understandable in view of his background.
Mr. Smith. Was there anyone else?
Mr. Kinney. Yes, another who deserves mention is James Kennedy, who is
the assistant community organizer of Area Board 2 of the United Community Corporation. He
stated during the medical school hearing on June 20, 1967, and I quote –
there's not one ounce of doubt in my mind that you will not build your medical school. The
Lord help you little white boys because I will whip the hell out of anyone I can get my hands
on. It's sure going to do my heart good to see you with that great big 150-acre medical
school and not a damn soul in it because they are going to be scared.
Mr. Smith. In addition to the outsiders brought into Newark by Hayden for
his NCUP operation, were there other outsiders who came to Newark to agitate and to arouse
and feed the tensions?
Mr. Kinney. Yes. One was Mrs. Audley Moore.
On the evening of June 12, 1967, just about a month before the riots started, she appeared
at a hearing of the planning board. I might mention the fact that the police department
had received information earlier in the day indicating that she would be present and also
indicating just who had invited her.
During the hearings she made inflammatory statements and hurled epithets at the policemen
who were present to maintain order. When the hearing ended she took over the chairman's
chair.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, a check of the committee's files reveals the
following information about Mrs. Audley Moore, who is also known as the Queen Mother. If
I may, I will read the statement.
For a period of about 10 years, from the late 1930's until the end of the 1940's, Mrs.
Audley Moore was a publicly acknowledged member and official of the Communist Party, United
States of America. In addition to running for a number of public offices on the Communist
Party ticket and serving in various local Communist Party positions, Mrs. Moore was chairman
of the Women's Commission of the upper Harlem Section of the Communist Party and also a
member of the party's national Women's Commission.
In the 1940's she served on the New York State Committee of the party. When the party
temporarily changed its name to Communist Political Association for a period during World
War II, she became an alternate member of the national committee of the party.
In more recent years, Mrs. Moore has broken with the Communist Party line on the Negro
question and taken a more militant and separatist approach. Addressing a public meeting
in 1962, she called for the establishment of a black republic in the United States, a
position the Communist Party had followed for many years but had formally rejected in 1959.
In December 1964 she served as coordinator of the Non-Partisan Committee in Defense of Bill
Epton. Epton, as was brought out in our hearings on the New York riot, in 1964, and as
mentioned a moment ago, was chairman of the Harlem section of the Progressive Labor Party,
the pro-Peking Communist organization. Because of a highly inflammatory speech he made
shortly before the riot broke out, in which he called for the killing of cops and judges, he
was charged with conspiracy to riot and advocacy of criminal anarchy. The committee which
Mrs. Moore headed was avowedly set up to prevent the "railroading" of Epton to jail
on these charges, "railroading" being in quotes. Despite the efforts of this
committee, Epton was convicted and sentenced to prison in January 1966.
A few weeks ago, at the end of March, Mrs. Moore took part at a conference of black militants
in Detroit. Participants in this conference formally adopted a position calling for the
establishment of a separate black republic in five southern States.
Captain Kinney, does your intelligence information indicate further contact and cooperation
between the Newark Community Union Project, the Students for a Democratic Society, and
other extremists and militant groups?
Mr. Kinney. Yes. We have copies here of a letter dated December 14, 1962,
addressed to Mrs. Hayden by Jack Minnis, research director, VEP [SNCC Voter Education Project]
who is still a white radical manipulator of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(The letter revealed that Minnis, at Mrs. Hayden's request, had prepared some material for
a forthcoming SDS publication.)
Mr. Smith. Is he white or colored?
Mr. Kinney. He is white.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request that this item be accepted as Kinney
Exhibit No. 13.
Mr. Tuck. It is so ordered.
(Document marked "Kinney Exhibit No. 13" and retained in committee files.)
Mr. Kinney. In addition, we have a letter addressed to Mrs. Sandra
Hayden from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee on January 10, 1963, showing
close association between SNCC and the SDS.
Mr. Smith. I request that this item be accepted as Kinney Exhibit No. 14.
Mr. Tuck. It is so ordered.
(Document marked "Kinney Exhibit No. 14" appears on page 1896.)
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 14
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
6 Raymond Street, N.W.
Atlanta 14, Georgia
January 10, 1963
Mrs. Sandra Hayden
715 Arch Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Dear Casey:
I talked with Sherrod concerning the article and found that he had already written it but
was only waiting to find out where it should be sent. You should receive it within the next
few days. If not, I would advise you to write him directly at 504 South Madison in Albany.
Thanks for the outline of the pamphlet. I think its great! Would like to be one of the first
to receive a copy, OK. Until then, I remain
Yours in the struggle,
Ruby Doris Smith
Mr. Kinney. Another letter, dated February 2, 1965, on the letterhead of
the Northern Student Movement, addressed to Tom Hayden, at the Newark Community Union Project,
contains the text of a telegram that the Northern Student Movement sent to Governor Hughes
and Mayor Addonizio of Newark, protesting alleged harassment of NCUP. Copies of the letter
were sent also to Clark "Kissenger" (Correct spelling "Kissinger") and
Rennie Davis of the Students for a Democratic Society.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request that this item be accepted as Kinney
Exhibit No. 15.
Mr. Tuck. It is so ordered.
(Document marked "Kinney Exhibit No. 15" appears on page 1897.)
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 15
NORTHERN STUDENT MOVEMENT
514 West 126th Street
New York 10027 MO3-0800
Executive Director: William Strickland
Mr/ Tom Hayden
Newark Community Union Project
247 Peshine
Newark, N.J.
February 2, 1965
Dear Tom,
The following is a text of the telegram NSM sent to both Gov. Hughes and Mayor Addonizio:
The Northern Student Movement protests the harassment of the Newark Community Union Project.
Such actions, which are more reminiscent of Mississippi than New Jersey, are a basic violation
of the people's right to political representation. We urge you to investigate these practices
and see that they are immediately halted.
(Signed)
William Strickland,
Executive Director
If we can give you any further help, please let us know.
Keep struggling,
Sam Leiken
CC: Clark Kissenger
Rennie Davis
Mr. Smith. Is there any evidence that some of these people you have
mentioned have succeeded in gaining a certain amount of influence in the community of Newark?
Mr. Kinney. It should be noted that some of these militants were able to
gain so much prestige through their association with the United Community Corporation that
in 1967 even the respectable leaders of the United Community Corporation – and there
are many of them – allowed such people as Thomas Hayden and Colonel Hassan to sponsor
the winning slate for the top leadership of this official poverty-program community
organization.
Mr. Smith. Captain Kinney, does this complete your preriot presentation
relevant to this hearing, or is there anything else you would wish to add?
Mr. Kinney. This completes the preriot phase.
Mr. Smith. Captain Kinney, please describe the incident that precipitated
the riot of July 12, 1967.
Mr. Kinney. John Smith, the catalyst that set off the Newark riots, on
July 12, 1967, is an enigma. His attorney, Oliver Lofton, who was also one of the nine
members selected by the Governor for the commission to investigate the disorders in the
State of New Jersey, has not allowed him to be questioned by police since his arrest on
July 12, 1967.
He was released in custody of Attorney John C. Love, at 7 p.m., July 13, 1967.
Smith is also represented by attorneys Morton Stavis and Irvin L. Solondz in a civil suit
against his two arresting officers on July 12, 1967, also against Police Director Dominick
A. Spina and then Chief Oliver Kelly.
In turn, Smith is being sued for slander by Police Director Dominick A. Spina, former Chief
Kelly, and the two arresting officers.
Smith was born in Warthen, Georgia, on January 27, 1927. He grew up in the Salisbury,
North Carolina, area and was graduated from high school there. He then attended the
Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina for one term. He had enlisted in
the Army on May 29, 1946, but was separated with an honorable discharge on February 18,
1947. Remarks on his discharge indicate a lack of adaptability. He reenlisted in the Army
on January 15, 1950, directly after his one term in college.
During this hitch he was court-martialed twice and on August 25, 1953, he received a discharge,
quote "Under Honorable Conditions."
The following year, 1954, he came to Newark, where he resided for the next 13 years, living
at at least six different addresses. He never married and was considered a loner.
In 1964 he applied for a taxi driver's license and was employed as a cabdriver until his
arrest, July 12, 1967. Until the July arrest he had had only a couple of minor brushes
with the law.
Smith's New Jersey driver's license was revoked on December 1, 1966. At the time of his
arrest, he was driving on the revoked license.
The feeling is now that the incident of Smith's arrest was not planned by him, but instead
was spontaneously brought about by the hot, humid weather, together with the climate that
had been created in the city by racists and subversives prior to July 12, 1967.
It is believed also that certain individuals and groups were looking for just such an
incident to trigger a disturbance, and were prepared to act decisively when it occurred.
********************************************
TESTIMONY OF CHARLES KINNEY – RESUMED
April 24, 1968
Mr. Smith. Captain Kinney, I understand you have some additional
information you would like to add to your testimony of yesterday relating to activities
which took place before the riot in Newark.
Mr. Kinney. Yes, sir. I have here a flyer that was distributed in Newark
prior to the riot by the Black Liberation Center which I spoke of yesterday, the Black
Liberation Center at 107 South Orange Avenue.
The flyer has a picture of a very horrible-looking Uncle Sam and it says, "Uncle Sam
wants YOU, nigger. Fight in Viet Nam, Die in Viet Nam, Support White
Power."
Now a second flyer that I have that was distributed prior to the riots of July 1967 is
one which was given out by members of the Newark Community Union Project and it says,
"The Black Panther Is Coming."
The interesting thing about this is that this meeting that they are advertising is to be
held at 415 Springfield Avenue, which is the headquarters of Area Board 2 of the UCC.
It concludes, "Watch out for the Black Panther!"
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request that these items be accepted as
Exhibits 19 and 20.
Mr. Tuck. It is so ordered.
(Documents marked "Kinney Exhibits Nos. 19 and 20," respectively, appear on pages
1911 and 1912.)
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 19
Uncle Sam wants YOU nigger.
Fight in Viet Nam
Die in Viet Nam
Support White Power
Blacks=10% of U.S. pop.
22% of men in Viet Nam
40% of casualties
What about you?
your brother?
your boyfriend?
Confused about the war in Viet Nam?
Can't understand why Black people do so much fighting and dying in Viet Nam so that the
Vietnamese can become the white man's SLAVES?
The Black man's battleground is America, not Viet Nam.
Will fighting in Viet Nam make Newark a better place for Black people to live?
YOU DON'T HAVE TO SERVE!
You can become a conscientious objector or fight the draft in other ways.
Fight for Freedom for Black people in America.
VIET NAM SUMMER
CALL 243-5366
Black Liberation Center 107
South Orange Ave. 622-9056
[This flyer is apparently a takeoff on the flyer prepared by the Harlem Progressive Labor
Club and distributed by the Progressive Labor Party in various cities (See Wheeler Exhibit
No. 50-A, part 3, page 1300, of these hearings.)]
Mr. Kinney. I would also respectfully like to bring to the attention of the
committee another event that occurred during the riots, the arrest of playwright LeRoi Jones.
On July 14, 1967, during the riots, at approximately 2:20 a.m. in the midst of the insurrection
in Newark, a police alarm was broadcast alerting all police to be on the lookout for a
1966 green Volkswagen containing three colored males.
The alarm stated the car was going west on Springfield Avenue and that the three men were
shooting guns from the moving vehicle.
At approximately 2:45 a.m. on July 14, 1967, Patrolmen Scarpone and McCormick stopped this
car at South Orange Avenue on South Seventh Street in Newark where they found 3 colored
males, 2 revolvers, and 58 bullets.
One of these males was LeRoi Jones, accompanied by Charles McCray, who was an accountant
employed by the United Community Corporation, and one Barry Wynn.
After a change in venue and a lengthy trial in Morris County, New Jersey, Jones and his two
companions were convicted of illegally possessing weapons.
In January 1968 Jones was sentenced to a 2 1/2- to 3-year term in the State prison.
At the present time LeRoi Jones is out on appeal with bail set at $25,000 pending his appeal.
A little background on LeRoi Jones. He was born Everett Leroy Jones in Newark on October
7, 1934. He attended McKinley Junior High School and graduated from Barringer High School
in Newark in 1952.
He started his college studies at Rutgers, but transferred to Howard University where he
first was a religion major, then a chemistry major, and finally was graduated as an English
major.
He served as an enlisted man in the United States Air Force, entering the service on October
6, 1954. No details of his service are available or his subsequent discharge except, in his
own words, he says he "hated the service but... had lots of time on my hands" in
which he used to read a great deal.
Jones gave his address at the time of his arrest on July 14, 1967, as 381 Broad Street,
Apartment 315, Newark, which is his father's apartment.
When in Newark, Jones is known to stay at 33 Stirling Street and 24 Eckert Avenue, his
mother's home. He has a mailing address of 22 Shipman Street in Newark.
********************************************
Mr. Kinney. ... The New Yorkers scheduled to speak included William Epton,
the Queen Mother, and Jesse Gray.
A copy of this leaflet that I have here, I understand, was introduced during the New York
phase of these hearings. (See Romerstein Exhibits No. 32, part 2, page 1074.)
On September 24, 1967, a rally took place in Newark at the Essex County Courthouse in defense
of those persons arrested during the Newark riot. Two New Yorkers participated in this rally:
Charles Kenyatta and Omar Ahmed.
The persons from Newark who spoke at this rally included Philip Hutchings, Robert Curvin,
Willie Wright, and LeRoi Jones.
I have here both a copy of the pamphlet advertising this rally on the Newark courthouse
steps, Essex County Courthouse steps, and a copy of a report made by one of our detectives
who attended that rally.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request that these items be received for
the record and marked as Exhibits 23 and 24.
Mr. Tuck. It is so ordered.
(Documents marked "Kinney Exhibits Nos. 23 and 24," respectively. Exhibit No.
23 and excerpt from Exhibit 24 follow:)
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 23
RALLY!! RALLY!! RALLY!!
Come Out and Hear It!!
Told like it is!!
SUNDAY RALLY SEPT. 24, 1967 2 p.m.
COURT HOUSE STEPS at Market & Springfield
SPEAKERS:
- Charles Kenyatta
- Mae Mallory
- Conrad Lynn
- Phil Hutchings
- Omar Ahmed
- Bob Curvin
- Willie Wright
- Oserjeman Adefumni
- Herman Ferguson
- Earl Harris
- LeRoi Jones
COME OUT AND RALLY SUPPORT BEHIND THE 1400 MEN AND WOMEN GOING ON TRIAL STARTING SEPTEMBER 25.
SUPPORT BLACK PATRIOTS – 9:30 a.m.
The photograph is of brother James Rutledge, 19, shot 39 TIMES by policemen in Joe-Raes
on Bergen Street during the rebellion. This is white justice. Our brothers and sisters going
before the so-called judges starting September 25, who were arrested during the rebellion
can expect little better. We must jam up the courtrooms so that these crackers will know
that we support our own.
James Rutledge was murdered because he was caught Defenseless. The brothers and
sisters going through these white jailtraps called courts will be just as defenseless if
black people do not come out and support them.
COME OUT TO COURT!!! SHOW THEM AND OURSELVES THAT WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN WHAT THESE DEVILS
DID TO US. REMEMBER JAMES RUTLEDGE AND MOST OF ALL DON'T BE CAUGHT DEFENSELESS!!!!!!!
EXCERPT FROM KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 24
The general theme [of the rally] was all-out unity of the Negro or Black people of Newark
in support of justice for the riot defendants in the Essex County Court starting Monday
Sept. 25, 1967. The speakers stated that the above trials would be a mockery of justice,
and no one involved would get a fair hearing. The speaker compared the above hearings with
that of the detectives involved in the auto stealing ring, that was arrested and the trial
not heard for almost a year; after the prosecutor promised a speedy trial. It was stated
that the police had a legal license to break the law and not be reckoned with, while the
black public are brought to trial for any thing and dealt with speedy. The speakers brought
to the attention of the people present that there would be general genocide of the black
people after the Viet Nam War, and all black people had better be ready. The above speakers
all spoke around preparedness for general disorder to come as the whites and blacks would
clash in the future.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, at this point I would like to read into the
record information from committee files concerning others listed on the flyer as scheduled
speakers. (Background information concerning persons scheduled to speak but who did not
appear at the rally was made a part of the record because it sheds light on the intent of
the persons who organized the rally.)
Mr. Tuck. You may proceed.
Mr. Smith. Charles Morris, also known as Charles 37X when he was a Muslim,
also known as Charles Kenyatta as head of the Mau Mau. Kenyatta's record was introduced
into the record of the hearing on November 1, 1967, in New York. (See pt. 2, p. 1081 of
these hearings.)
The next subject is Conrad J. Lynn. Conrad Lynn was scheduled to speak at this particular
rally but failed to show up. However, I will read into the record our committee information.
As a witness before this committee in 1963, Attorney Conrad J. Lynn acknowledged that he
had been a member of the Communist Party, U.S. of America, for 3 years prior to his expulsion
in 1937.
He described himself as of the date of his testimony as "definitely" on
"the left." During the year following his appearance before the committee, Lynn
received considerable publicity as a speaker at affairs sponsored by the pro-Chinese
Communist Progressive Labor Party and its front organizations.
More recently, however, he has been publicly linked with several newly created organizations
espousing extremely militant pro-Communist policies.
Lynn was listed as a sponsor of the Revolutionary Contingent which, after its formation in
the spring of 1967, openly proclaimed support of Communist forces warring in South Vietnam
and announced an intention to recruit Americans to serve in similar foreign guerrilla
movements fighting "against U.S. imperialism," particularly in Latin America.
The Revolutionary Contingent is admittedly inspired by the Latin American guerrilla leader,
the late Ernesto Che Guevara, and "undertakes to emulate, to the degree feasible, the
tactics of a guerrilla movement."
In the summer of 1967, Havana radio announced that Conrad Lynn had sent greetings to a
forthcoming conference in that Communist capital under the auspices of the Latin American
Solidarity Organization. This Cuban-dominated conference avowedly assembled Latin American
revolutionaries for the purpose of promoting guerrilla warfare in other nations of the
hemisphere.
Earlier in the same year, Lynn toured Communist North Vietnam as an investigator for
Bertrand Russell's International War Crimes Tribunal, which subsequently pronounced the
United States guilty of "genocide" in Vietnam.
Lynn also continued to sponsor various projects of the Communist Party, U.S.A., such as
a ceremonial tribute to party leader William L. Patterson in January 1967 and another
function the following month staged by the party front, Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade.
Lynn is the attorney for Robert Williams, the RAM chairman living in Peking, China.
(At this point Mr. Ichord left the hearing room.)
Mr. Smith. Another individual scheduled to appear but who did not show
up at this particular function is Mae Mallory.
Mrs. Mallory was one of five persons charged with kidnapping a white couple in Monroe, North
Carolina, in August 1961. One of the others was Robert Williams, chairman in exile of RAM,
who became a fugitive from justice, fleeing to Cuba and eventually moving to Peking, China,
after being indicted on the kidnapping charge.
Prior to the kidnapping, Mrs. Mallory had solicited financial contributions to buy weapons
for a "defense committee" Robert Williams had set up in Monroe, North Carolina.
Like Williams, Mrs. Mallory fled Monroe, North Carolina, to avoid prosecution on the
kidnapping charge. She was picked up in Cleveland, Ohio, in October 1961.
After lengthy extradition proceedings, she was finally sent back to Monroe where she was
tried, convicted, and sentenced to 12 to 20 years. This verdict was later reversed on grounds
that Negroes had been excluded from the grand jury which returned the original verdict.
Throughout her legal battles, Mrs. Mallory has had the all-out support of a number of
Communist organizations, including the Communist Party, U.S.A., and top party leaders such
as Gus Hall and the late Benjamin J. Davis.
Her sympathies, however, were apparently with the Workers World Party, a militant Communist
organizations made up of the persons expelled from the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party.
In addition to making a considerable number of appearances at meetings and rallies of the
Youth Against War and Fascism, the youth arm of the Workers World Party, Mrs. Mallory in
1964 urged support for the Monroe Defense Committee, which was controlled by the Workers
World Party, and repudiated the Committee to Aid the Monroe Defendants, another Communist
defense organization set up as a result of the Monroe incident, which was controlled by the
Socialist Workers Party.
During the last few years Mrs. Mallory has been a speaker at Communist-organized Vietnam
war protest rallies and demonstrations and has also aligned herself with militant black
nationalist organizations.
She is one of a number of militants who signed a petition to the United Nations seeking
special membership as a permanent group of observers made up of black people living in
America.
She has associated herself with the United Blacks Against Genocide, the African Students
Union, the Black United Front, and has spoken at Malcolm X memorial meetings, blaming his
assassination on the CIA.
Another individual listed as a speaker at this function who did not show was Herman J.
Ferguson. Herman J. Ferguson has been employed by the New York [City] Board of Education
in various capacities for about 20 years.
He was assistant principal of Public School No. 40, a grade school, Jamaica, Queens, when
arrested in 1967, and indicted on the charge of taking part in an alleged plot by 17 members
of RAM, the Revolutionary Action Movement, to assassinate civil rights leaders such as Roy
Wilkins of the NAACP and Whitney Young of the National Urban League.
On February 21, 1969, at a memorial program in honor of Malcolm X, Ferguson urged Negroes to
get guns for "self-defense" and to use against white people when the
"hunting season" starts. He also spoke of "our brothers the North
Vietnamese and the Vietcong." Ferguson was arrested and is now under $100,000 bail
as a result of these remarks.
Ferguson, who denies membership in RAM, was the author of an article in the March 9, 1968,
issue of the Communist weekly, Guardian, entitled "A black survival
curriculum." In this article he asserted that "the Anglo-Saxon based curriculum
is one of enslavement" of black children. In its place Ferguson advocated one which
would include such subjects as gun handling, gun safety, target practice, gunsmithing, and
the "Eastern martial arts of self-defense."
Heroes for emulation would be Rap Brown, Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael, among others.
While the school day would end "with a 15-second period of silent meditation in memory
of the millions of black heroes who have given their lives that we may survive for another
day."
Since his arrest in the alleged RAM assassination conspiracy, Ferguson has enjoyed the
expressed support of such Negro leaders as H. Rap Brown, Mae Mallory, and Stokely Carmichael.
Articles defending him against the alleged frameup have appeared in such Communist organs
as The Worker, the Guardian, and the Worker's World.
(At this point Mr. Ichord returned to the hearing room.)
Mr. Smith. Captain Kinney, Exhibit 23 contains a statement, quoting:
The photograph is of brother James Rutledge, 19 shot 39 TIMES by policemen in Joe Raes on
Bergen Street during the rebellion. This is white justice...
What picture is being referred to in this leaflet that you have?
Mr. Kinney. This appears to be reference to another flyer which we
traced back to LeRoi Jones and his associates. This flyer on its front page has a picture
of the body of James Rutledge. The body is completely torn open, and the breast wound can
be seen as well as the inside of the body cavity.
What had happened, in fact, was that the body had been ripped open after the autopsy surgeon
had sewed it back up. In the picture the autopsy stitches and pins can be seen. However,
the body itself has been ripped open.
The leaflet says:
GET READY!
For THE DEVIL!
DON'T BE CAUGHT DEFENSELESS!!!
The Boy shown brutally mutilated is James Rutledge, Age 19 who was shot 39 TIMES by the
police, during the Rebellion...
Of course, the mutilation was not by the police, but by the people who took the picture.
Detectives Junious Hedgespeth and William Millard of the Newark Police Department conducted
an investigation and determined copies of this leaflet were distributed by Willie Williams,
close associate of LeRoi Jones, who operates out of Jones' headquarters at 33 Stirling Street,
Newark.
An investigation into how the picture was taken was stymied by the refusal of the operators
of Perry's Funeral Home to provide information concerning who took the picture.
However, confidential police information indicates that the photographer was a young man who
is now outside the country and who is closely associated with LeRoi Jones.
In this morning's New York Times, April 24, 1968, there is an account of a presentment
made by the Essex County grand jury which sat for 8 weeks and heard more than 100 witnesses.
In this account it states:
The jury singled out for analysis the case of James Rutledge, a 19-year-old Negro killed
late in the afternoon of July 16. He was slain by policemen, who reported he was looting
a liquor store. The shooting became an issue, the jury said, because "many erroneous
and deliberately false accounts" of the incident were published in leaflets, newspapers
and a book entitled "Rebellion in Newark," by Tom Hayden.
Among other things, the jury asserted, a picture of Rutledge's [and again, in quotes]
"mutilated" body was published, although the mutilation had actually taken place
in the course of the embalming.
An autopsy showed evidence of "four of possibly five, separate shotgun wounds in the
back of the head, any of which could have been fatal, according to the jury...:
"After considering all the facts, the jury found that the police officers were
justified in their use of firearms, although too many shots were fired from too many
guns."
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request these items be received as Exhibits
Nos. 25-A (A "Black Survival Bulletin" submitted by Captain Kinney along with
Exhibit 25-A, marked "Kinney Exhibit 25-B," is also reproduced.) and 26-A (Relevant
excerpts from the report of the Essex County grand jury marked "Kinney Exhibit 26-B"
appear on pp. 1974-1985.).
Mr. Tuck. It is so ordered.
(Documents marked "Kinney Exhibits Nos. 25-A and 26-A," respectively. Exhibit
No. 26-A retained in committee files; Nos. 25-A and 25-B appear on pages 1923-1926.)
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 25-A
GET READY!
For THE DEVIL!
DON'T BE CAUGHT DEFENSELESS!!!
The Boy shown brutally mutilated is James Rutledge, Age 19 who was shot 39 TIMES by the
police, during the Rebellion. He was shot in Jo-Rae's on Bergen Street, as he stood with
his hands up!
He was standing, hands up, expecting mercy from The Devil!!!
WHEN YOU ARE DEFENSELESS IS WHEN THE DEVIL LIKES TO KILL YOU OFF!!!
REMEMBER THIS PHOTOGRAPH... DON'T LET IT HAPPEN TO YOU OR YOUR CHILDREN!!!
DON'T BE CAUGHT DEFENSELESS
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 25-B
BLACK SURVIVAL BULLETIN
For any of our brothers and sisters who still do not understand just what kind of devilish
beasts run our lives in Newark, we refer you to page one of NEWARK EVENING NEWS, under the
headline "POLICE RIOT COSTS MAY HIT $800,000"!
Now in case you want to know just what that money is to be spent for, we quote, "Some
of the items to be purchased with the newly authorized funds included TWO ARMORED VEHICLES
at $12,000 each; Five patrol wagons at $7,000 each; Three Jeeps at $2,800 each; two
heavy duty vans at $2,400 each and other items like buses to transport prisoners at
$35,000.
"At the same time, the council approve 89,000 more money," ALL OUT OF OUR TAX
MONEY... OUT OF BLACK PEOPLE'S TAX MONEY," for the purchase of 900 BULLET PROOF
VESTS; TEAR GAS GRENADES; RIOT SHIELDS RIOT STICKS GAS MASKS: 40 AR-15 Rifles (these are
the kind used in Viet+Nam) : SEVEN ARMORED SUITS and the last item on the list, and get
this: 50 ROLLS OF BARBED WIRE!!!!!!!! Yes, you better dig that last item, you
really better, black man, and dig it now, cause the next time the deal goes down these
italians are going to block off these streets and imprison us behind this same barbed
wire! BUT THE REAL DIRTY PART OF THIS DEAL, IS THAT WE BLACK FOLKS ARE PAYING FOR THIS
DAMND WIRE, AND THEM DAMN GUNS, AND ALL THAT STUFF THATS GOING TO BE USED AGAINST US!!!!
Think On That!
The white man is making war on us. He has in this town, shot us down like dogs, thrown
our children and women against buildings, and stuck bayonets in our faces. Now the
automatic weapons and armored vehicles and barbed wire. ALL OF WHICH COMES OUT OF YOUR
POCKET, TO BE USED ON YOUR BEHIND! Think on that! They also are about to spend $21,000
on the acquisition of "a K-9 Corps". You know what a K-9 Corps is??? DOGS!
That's right they are about to buy some dogs to put on us too. Again, with our tax money.
The Police Department's request for the dogs will be heard at City Hall SEPTEMBER 6. We
ought to let our two Nigger-O Councilmen hear that these fools better not bring their four
legged brothers in here.
(CONTACT WEST AND TURNER AT CITY HALL!!!)
++++
The rest of the 800,000 dollars is to be spent TO PAY THE POLICEMEN FOR THEIR OVERTIME...
Yeh, can you really dig that?? We have to pay them again, out of our pockets, the majority
of taxpayers in the city of Newark. We have to pay these animals to beat on our heads.
That's too much!
How much longer, can we go for these things, black people??? It's time we got together AND
TOOK OVER THIS CITY. As long as we do nothing, these mindless scum who run our lives will
continue to do so. WHAT CAN WE DO???
A. REGISTER TO VOTE
We can recall Addonizio
We can elect a Black Man
B. BEGIN NOW TO FORM A BLACK PARTY TO CONTROL NEWARK!!!!
C. WE SHOULD ALSO PREPARE OURSELVES AND OUR FAMILIES FOR THE NEXT PHASE OF OUR REBELLION.
THESE ITALIANS MEAN BUSINESS. THEY ARE BUYING MODERN WEAPONS. THEY WILL BE RUNNING IN
YOUR HOME, JUST LIKE THEY DID BEFORE!
YOU BETTER GET YOURSELF TOGETHER NOW!!!
YOU BETTER START TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS!!!
AN EYE FOR AN EYE..... A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH
Black Man, Wake up now or these crackers will put you to sleep forever!
BLACK SURVIVAL
Mr. Smith. Captain Kinney, have there been other inflammatory leaflets
traced back to LeRoi Jones?
Mr. Kinney. Yes. Here we have a leaflet entitled "LEROI JONES, A
POLITICAL PRISONER," which says:
America is holding LeRoi Jones as a political prisoner for the following reason:
1. He, as a Free Black Man, refuses to be judged by an all white jury and judge.
2. He Demands to be Judged by his PEERS – BLACK PEOPLE.
3. He has called for the awakening of black people to the evils of this white society.
BLACK PEOPLE, WE SAT BACK AND PERMITTED THESE DEVILS TO KILL/MURDER BROTHER MALCOLM X
WE CANNOT ALLOW the EXTERMINATION of ANOTHER BLACK LEADER!!
This leaflet [Kinney Exhibit No. 27] was actually mimeographed in the offices of the United
Community Corporation.
On November 7, 1967, confidential information was given to the police department that the
United Community Corporation mimeograph machine was being used to mimeograph these leaflets.
Detectives William Millard and Frederick Rothlein went to the offices of the United Community
Corporation at 124 Branford Place, Newark. A call had been made to the UCC.
By the time the detectives arrived, the leaflets had been confiscated by the UCC officials,
Mr. Timothy Still and Dr. Sylvester Odom.
Mr. Still indicated he did not believe that anything had been wrong with mimeographing the
leaflets. However, at a subsequent date the UCC admitted that the leaflets were mimeographed
by Charles McCray, a close associate of LeRoi Jones, who was arrested in the car with
Jones during the riot.
Later McCray, who had been the chief accountant for the UCC, was fired as a result of his
participation in mimeographing the leaflet.
Another leaflet traced back to LeRoi Jones was viciously anti-Semitic. The leaflet
[Kinney Exhibit No. 28], addressed to the "BLACK PEOPLE OF NEWARK," listed as
its address "Defense Fund, P.O. Box 663, Newark, New Jersey." This box was
traced back to the LeRoi headquarters. The leaflet says in part:
WE HAVE FAIL AGAIN YOU HAVE LET THREE, BLACK BROTHERS BE HUNG BY THE WHITE RACIST
COURTS OF THE BLACK CITY OF NEWARK.
IT'S TIME FOR ALL BLACK PEOPLE IN NEWARK, AND OTHER STATES TOO [sic] PROTEST THE RACIST
ACTIONS OF THE RACIST ZOINIST [sic] LEGAL SYSTEM OF THIS COUNTRY AND TO COME TO THE AID OF
THESE UNJUSTLY CONVICTED BROTHERS.
BLACK POET PLAYWRIGHT, AUTHOR AND BLACK EDUCATOR LeRoi Jones TWO AND A HALF YEARS ON
A PHONY CHARGE OF CARRYING DEADLY WEAPONS.
WHICH IS TOTALLY UNTRUE, AND A GROSS LIE.
BLACK ACTOR BARRY WYNN WAS ALSO UNJUSTLY CONVICTED AND GIVEN NINE MONTHS BY JEWS AND
WHITE CRACKERS THAT ARE UNRIGHTOUS [sic] BEASTS.
ACCOUNTANT CHARLES McCRAY WAS GIVEN 12 MONTHS (and not more than 18).
THESE ARE ALL CHARGES THAT ARE TOTALLY UNJUST AND LIES. THESE BLACK MEN HAVE NOT COMMITTED
ANY CRIMES AND ARE INNOCENT.
The leaflet calls for donations to be sent to the Defense Fund at that post office box.
LeRoi Jones, Barry Wynn, and Charles McCray were all convicted as a result of being arrested
during the riot carrying weapons in a car.
Two more LeRoi Jones leaflets are the ones distributed on March 22, 1968; one [Kinney
Exhibit No. 29] reads:
TAKE NOTICE
THIS BLACK MAN YOU CALL "nigger" is HAMITIC ARAB AND THE ARAB WORLD WILL
PROTECT ITS KIN!
NO MORE ABUSE!
IF BLACK MEN ARE FURTHER ABUSED IN THIS America THE ARAB AMERICAN WILL DECLARE AN
ALL-OUT WAR (JIHAD) AGAINST THE ZIONIST JEW IN THIS america.
CALL OUR BLUFF!
THE ARABS
On another leaflet [Kinney Exhibit No. 30]:
YOU'VE SEEN ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT THIS IS NEWARK'S VERSION OF JUSTICE!
GO TO THE COURTHOUSE!
WITNESS THE UNFAIR TRIALS!
THE CRACKERS WILL HANG JOHN SMITH IF YOU DON'T
SEE WHITE POWER IN ACTION!
Also these leaflets have been traced by our intelligence people back to LeRoi Jones.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request that these items be received in
the record and marked consecutively beginning with number 27.
Mr. Tuck. It is so ordered.
(Documents marked "Kinney Exhibits Nos. 27, 28, 29, and 30," respectively.
Exhibits 27 and 29 retained in committee files; Nos. 28 and 30 appear on pages 1928 and
1929.)
Mr. Smith. Captain Kinney, what other inflammatory literature has been
distributed in Newark?
Mr. Kinney. For example, here is a leaflet distributed by Willie Wright,
the president of the United Afro-American Association, a member of the board of directors
of the United Community Corporation, and a recent visitor to Communist Czechoslovakia to
meet with the Viet Cong [Kinney Exhibit No. 31].
Mr. Wright's leaflet says:
Sympathy meeting to free all the Black Brothers and Sisters falsely arrested in the
Rebellion.
Sunday – 3:00 PM until
Why?
To show our Black Brothers and Sisters who were arrested the Black Community cares about
their welfare.
Where: Essex County Court House
Springfield Ave. at W. Market St.
********************************************
Mr. Smith. Do you have any additional information on Willie Wright's
postriot activities?
Mr. Kinney. In August 1967, in a series of articles by Louis Lomax in
the Newark Star-Ledger, Wright was given considerable attention primarily because
of his willingness to talk and be quoted.
Lomax stated that Wright proudly admitted he is an out-and-out revolutionary and that he had
no faith in the justice of the white man.
Wright called for avengement of those Negroes killed during the Newark insurrection in July
and called for amnesty for those arrested.
Lomax then said that Wright addressed some 200 people attending a meeting of the board of
trustees, Area 2, of the United Community Corporation after the July riots.
At this meeting Wright stated:
Yes, I called for black men in Newark to arm themselves. Now I want to add to that: I say
we should arm ourselves with cannons, machine guns, bazookas, anything we can get our hands
on; and if you don't know how to get some heavy weapons, call my office and I will tell you
where to go and how to get them.
Lomax wrote that not only did the people cheer, save for the few white members of the board,
that is, but they voted unanimously to keep Wright on the board despite the fact that the
OEO had issued a veiled hint that all poverty funds to Newark would be cut off if Wright
was not removed.
On September 5, 1967, Willie Wright applied for a passport stating he wanted to go to
Paris, France, for 8 days to visit brothers. Shortly thereafter Wright, Thomas Hayden,
and Carol Glassman went to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, where they attended a conference
with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong representatives. A total of 41 Americans took part
in the week-long session arranged by David Dellinger, editor of Liberation magazine.
Returning to the United States in late September, Willie Wright, who had appeared to be
quite broke before he left for Czechoslovakia, began to spend money more freely. He
quickly became involved in a strike at radio station WNJR, where several colored announcers
were striking.
Wright took advertisements in newspapers and hired buses, offering free transportation to
WNJR's studios at 1700 Union Avenue, Union, New Jersey, from Springfield Avenue and Prince
Street, Newark, on October 15, 1967.
Wright arrived in Union, New Jersey, with two public service buses at 2:45 p.m., October
15, 1967. The first bus contained about 50 people, the second bus about 15. During the
course of the afternoon, other people arrived in private cars joining the demonstration.
Among those were LeRoi Jones and James Hooper, chairman of Newark CORE. H. Rap Brown, who
was supposed to attend, did not show up, but Cleve Sellers of SNCC, Brown's representative,
was in attendance.
In the New York TImes of February 9, 1968, Cleveland Sellers, after being wounded
in the demonstration at Orangeburg, South Carolina, was described as the "Smith
Carolina Field Director for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee."
It should be noted that several of WNJR's announcers deplored the fact that Willie Wright
was interested in WNJR's labor difficulties. They further said they could not stop him,
but they knew in the long run the "Willie Wrights" would hurt their cause.
Prior to his activities at WNJR and subsequent to his return from Czechoslovakia, Wright
participated as a speaker in a rally at Essex County Courthouse on September 24, 1967.
This rally again was in support of the riot defendants going on trial the following day.
In October 1967 Wright sent out postcards calling for an antiwar meeting at 402 South
Sixth Street in opposition to the "Support Our Men in Vietnam" parade in Newark
which was held on Sunday, October 22, 1967. However, there was no meeting held by Wright
due to lack of attendance.
Also in October, Wright, at a meeting of October 19, 1967, opposed the naming of the new
director of the United Community Corporation, Dr. L. Sylvester Odom. Wright supported the
acting director, Donald Wendell. Odom, however, was confirmed by a vote of 34 to 23.
Also in October, Wright spoke at a protest meeting at Area Board 6, UCC, discussing
"Law and Order and Police Brutality," on Wednesday, October 25, 1967.
Word had been received from hundreds of sources that Halloween night, October 31, 1967,
would see an outbreak of rioting in the city of Newark. The city administration and the
Newark Police Department, taking cognizance of the multiplicity of the rumors together with
other intelligence, made special preparations to prevent such a recurrence of rioting.
Willie Wright changed from his previous militant stand and walked into the director's office
to appeal for a peaceful Halloween.
At this time Wright interjected himself for the first time in calling for Captain Edward
Williams to be placed in command of one of the city's precincts.
In November 1967 Willie Wright placed himself into the Barringer High School controversy
between colored and white students. On November 14, 1967, he spoke at a rally concerning
this at the House of Prayer, 407 Broad Street, Newark.
On December 7, 1967, Willie Wright held a planning meeting in the conference room of the
headquarters of the UCC at 124 Branford Place, Newark, New Jersey. This meeting, called for
on United Afro-American Association stationery, was to discuss the planning of the means to
get a Negro police captain "in full command of one of our Police Precincts."
On January 23, 1968, Willie Wright was photographed for the New York Daily News
accompanying a feature story by reporter Orven Moritz.
Wright is quoted as saying, "It seems that Newark has all the ingredients for a new
uprising next summer. I defy anyone to say things are any better now. They are not."
Mr. Smith. Does that conclude your information on Wright?
Mr. Kinney. That is correct.
Mr. Smith. How about Hopson, his postriot activities?
Mr. Kinney. In October 1967 Clinton Hopson Bey left Newark and went to
Detroit, Michigan, where he lived at 2087 Ewald Circle in Detroit. His trip to Mississippi,
which was previously mentioned, was from Detroit.
In November and December 1967 Clinton Hopson was employed at the Neighborhood Legal Services
Center No. 2 at 762 Gladstone, Detroit, Michigan. He was classified as a law intern in
this federally funded program under the OEO. He left this job, however, around Christmas
in 1967, and information is that he is not expected to return. From Detroit he went to
Washington, D.C., but he is now living with his brother in East Orange, New Jersey.
Mr. Smith. Do you have any information on Glassman's postriot
activities?
Mr. Kinney. Yes. To repeat, in September 1967 Carol Glassman went,
with Thomas Hayden, Willie Wright, and others, to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, where they
attended a conference with representatives from Communist countries.
Returning to the U.S., Carol Glassman and five other females, on October 22, 1967, attempted
to walk in front of the Newark City Hall reviewing stand carrying placards protesting against
the war in Vietnam while the "Support Our Men in Vietnam" parade was in progress.
At that time she told the newspapers that her sign was torn from her hands and she was
struck on the side of the head with it. She was quoted in the press as telling the
police, "We were just expressing our opinion like everyone else. We have a right to
do that, don't we?"
Mr. Smith. Do you have any information on the postriot activities of
Alvin Oliver?
Mr. Kinney. Yes. We just briefly mentioned Oliver up to now. Oliver
was born on August 8, 1920, in Connecticut. He is employed as a coordinator for eight
antipoverty programs at the UCC headquarters.
At the present time, he lives at 101 Ludlow Street in Newark, New Jersey. He classifies
himself as single, although he has been married. Alvin Oliver is known to be in contact
with Maxwell Curtis Stanford, Jr., alias Allah Mahammad, one of the leaders of the
Revolutionary Action Movement, RAM, and who is the leader of RAM in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
RAM has been linked to the Castro regime in Cuba and also has a Red Chinese orientation.
J. Edgar Hoover has stated that the Revolutionary Action Movement is "dedicated to
the overthrow of the capitalist system in the United States, by violence if necessary."
Oliver was arrested in Newark in 1966 on three traffic warrants, was found guilty and
fined $44. In 1967 he was arrested in Newark on 12 traffic warrants and again was found
guilty and paid fines. At the time of his 1967 arrest, he told police that he intended to
pay the tickets, some of them dating back 2 years, but that he had been short of funds. At
the time of his arrest, he was receiving $9,200 a year as second in command of the UCC's
area board program. He has been quoted as stating that 10 percent of the UCC budget is
allotted for administration costs.
He asks, "Who do they expect to hire at those salaries?"
In a talk before the Northern Essex Lodge of B'nai B;rith at Temple B'nai Zion in Bloomfield,
New Jersey, on October 24, 1967, Oliver, to make a point in his talk, compared his own son
with H. Rap Brown, saying, "Brown is only five years older than my son who says to me,
'Why do you spend time at meetings?' If you want something you have to take it."
Oliver said further, "He's no more impatient in 1967 than I was in 1938."
I have also information here that Alvin Oliver was a writer of a letter in the Communist
paper, The Worker, on April 9, 1950. At that time, he was listed as being from
Jersey City, New Jersey.
In this letter was, and these are Oliver's words:
The limitations of the artists, as I see it, are no less a hindrance to him than those
facing the American working class in its struggle to aid the liberation of the Negro people,
its most militant ally. The more struggle, the less limitations.
According to the Washington Sunday Star of October 30, 1960, Alvin Oliver was invited
with two other Negroes to a reception at the Soviet Embassy in Washington on November 7,
1960, to celebrate the anniversary of the Communist revolution in Russia.
Mr. Smith. Do you have any postriot activity information concerning
Weinglass?
Mr. Kinney. Yes. As mentioned before, Thomas Hayden, when he went to
Europe in September 1967, did not come back with Willie Wright or Carol Glassman. He
stayed there. Then he flew from Europe to Cambodia where three U.S. Army sergeants were
released from Communist captivity to Hayden, who said he was representing an American peace
committee. It was stated at the time that this action was considered by antiwar advocates
as a propaganda coup that they hoped to exploit to the fullest.
Leonard Weinglass is reported to have received a cable from Hayden from Paris asking him
to meet Hayden at Kennedy Airport because Hayden anticipated trouble on his arrival. One
of the first to greet Hayden at Kennedy International Airport was Leonard Weinglass.
According to the Newark Evening News, Weinglass said, "We showed them what
Newark could do." Followed by Hayden exclaiming, "We did it, we did it,"
as he was embraced by Weinglass first and others later.
May I just paraphrase, it is not the typical attorney-client relationship.
In December 1967 Hayden, subpenaed to appear before the Essex County grand jury, was
served in Leonard Weinglass' office.
On May 13, 1967, Leonard Weinglass was arrested at Elm Street and McCarter Highway by
Patrolman Harry Romeo for interfering with a police officer. He was paroled in his own
custody by Judge Del Tufo.
The complaint was withdrawn by the officer in Municipal Court Part I before Chief Magistrate
James Del Mauro.
On January 22, 1968, at 5:10 p.m., Judith Rubenstein, Weinglass' close friend who was a staff
member of the Governor's Select Commission on Civil Disorder, called police headquarters
via phone and asked Captain Leonard Paradiso, who was in charge of the "command
post," several questions concerning our Newark Police Department communications setup.
The questions she posed appeared to have no relation to the inquiry into the causes and
remedies of the 1967 Newark riot, which investigation was almost then completed by the
Governor's Select Commission.
For the past several months Leonard Weinglass has been observed with Thomas Hayden on many,
many occasions.
Mr. Smith. How about Joseph Price? Do you have any information on his
postriot activities?
Mr. Kinney. We have not mentioned Joseph Price before. Joseph Price
is 42, colored male, resides at 42 Emmet Street, Newark. He is married and has six
children.
For the past 15 years he has been employed by the IT&T, International Telephone and
Telegraph Corporation.
He is a trustee of Area Board 2 of the United Community Corporation.
During the public hearings on the Medical Center Urban Renewal Project conducted by
the Newark Planning Board during June 1967, some 3 weeks prior to the riots, he said the
following –
you think there's a med school going up there. Oh, yes, maybe it will, but there is going
to be a lot of blood that is going to be shed and you are going to be sorry because maybe
it will be yours, it could be... I don't want bloodshed but baby that's what we're going
to have to do, we're going to have to put it red, that's what we're going to have to do.
In Thomas Hayden's book, Rebellion in Newark, on page 48, Hayden wrote:
On Thursday, [July 13, 1967] Joe Price, a veteran of the Korean war and an employee of
ITT for fifteen years, was beaten on the head, arms, stomach and legs by five Newark policemen
inside the Fourth Precinct. He had protested police harrassment of neighborhood teen-agers
earlier in the day...
There are no substantiating facts to that story. The Newark Police Department has no record
of this alleged incident and Price has refused to talk to police concerning it on the advice
of his attorney, Annamay Sheppard of the Newark Legal Services Project, OEO.
Mr. Smith. How about Willie Williams?
Mr. Kinney. Willie Asbury Williams, Jr., alias Saladine M. Mohaddan,
alias Willie 16X, William Williams, 32, colored male, born in Georgia on January 22, 1936,
but moved to Newark at an early age.
He is married and father of two children and lives at 49 Berwyn Street in Orange, New
Jersey.
He calls himself an insurance broker and had a storefront office at 266 Orange Street in
Newark, New Jersey, where he operated a so-called Black Star Agency.
Williams is one of those strange figures that are on the fringes of any movement. He knows
everyone and is trusted to an extent by some militants because he has been a Muslim known
as Willie 16X and he has a modicum of intelligence.
On the other hand, he admits to being an alcoholic and says he was suspended from the Newark
Mosque of the Muslims for drinking in 1967.
Williams is violently anti-Semitic and appears to be in need of psychiatric help. Little
is known about Williams' activity prior to the riot in July 1967, except for the fact he was
a Muslim and he knew most of the militant figures in Newark.
Also that he is a former employee of a Progressive [Life] Insurance Company, 369 Washington
Street in Newark. At his office, 266 Orange Street, Newark, on June 29, 1967, he formed
an organization called the Black Star Foundation, which called for "equal justice
under the laws of the land."
However, on August 17, 1967, Williams was passing out hate literature concocted by LeRoi
Jones as a "Black Survival Bulletin," which contained a staged photograph of
James Rutledge.
Williams was picked up on August 17, 1967, by police at 82 Stratford Place, Newark, and
questioned about the "Black Survival Bulletin" that he was distributing.
At first, Williams said he received the literature in his office about 2 p.m., August 16,
1967, from a Negro male he knew only as "Boboo." He said that "Boboo"
left about 200 copies at his office. About 1:45 a.m., August 17, 1967, Williams said he began
distributing the leaflets at five or six different locations.
At about 3 a.m., August 17, 1967, Williams arrived at the White Castle restaurant, 307 Elizabeth Avenue, Newark, where he distributed copies to the help and customers and left 20 more copies on the counter.
At 2:30 p.m., August 17, 1967, he began distributing the circulars again and shortly
thereafter Williams was picked up for questioning. Williams said he left his business card
with the copies at the White Castle and said he saw no harm in the literature.
At 4:30 p.m., Williams changed his story and said that his story concerning "Boboo"
was a fabrication. He said he received the "Black Survival Bulletin" from LeRoi
Jones. Williams said he believed the bulletins were put out "to shake the police
up."
On August 19, 1967, Williams stated that for $1,000 he could convince LeRoi Jones to ease
up and that there would be no more trouble in Newark.
The week prior to the riots in Newark, in July 1967, members of Williams' Black Star
Foundation had placed canisters illegally, that is, without a permit, in various stores in
the North Ward of the city. Most merchants took an apathetic attitude, feeling it was one
more solicitation of funds, but arguments developed in several stores.
At the Mascellino Bakery, 72 Nesbitt Street, Newark, which has been in business in our city
for over 50 years, on July 10, 1967, members of the Black Star Foundation came in with an
offer to purchase the bakery. When they were told it was not for sale, the members of the
Black Star Foundation became extremely insulting and said they were going to take over
anyway.
During the early part of August 1967, Willie Williams, a former employee of the Progressive
Life Insurance Company, came into the Newark office at 369 Washington Street. He spoke to
one Arthur Andrews, showing Andrews a copy of a newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, and also
showed him the "Black Survival Bulletin" containing the photograph of James
Rutledge.
Williams demanded a secured loan for $25,000 without any collateral, but was referred by
Andrews to the company's main office in Red Bank, New Jersey.
On the morning of August 23, 1967, Willie Williams, with two other colored men, came to
the office of the Progressive Life Insurance Company in Red Bank, New Jersey. Upon being
granted an interview with Lester Crubman, president, and George Fleming, vice president,
Williams demanded a secured loan of $25,000 to be ready on Friday, August 25, 1967. Williams
threatened to put the company out of business if the loan was not granted.
The purpose of the loan was to secure holdings in an unspecified area in order that members
of the black race might have their own homeland.
The sum was reduced to $5,000 by Williams before the interview ended. Williams said they
were attempting to raise $43 million to start their own nation. He described all white men
as "devils" and said that his people intended to start "a war on Jews."
The Progressive Life Insurance Company refused to make a formal complaint, but they notified
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Red Bank police, Newark police, and their attorney
concerning Williams, his proposition and threats.
On September 17, 1967, at about 6:15 p.m., Willie Williams, apparently drunk, went to the
Gemini Lounge at 97 Edison Place in Newark where he assaulted a bartender, James Longo.
Williams is then alleged to have gone to the cash register, took some money, then walked to
the front of the bar where he sat down and fell asleep. Patrolman William Damiano observed
Williams sleeping on the floor of the tavern covered with Longo's blood. He was arrested
for assault and robbery. He was indicted on February 26, 1968, and is awaiting trial.
In November of 1967, William Williams was arrested for assault and battery, trespassing,
and malicious damage. Disposition of these charges are pending.
William Williams will expound on his beliefs at any and every opportunity. He says he
believes no white man has a right to own a business in a colored neighborhood. He admits
to using threats, but says he does not believe in violence.
The hate that he has been exposed to by the mouthings and writings of the racists and the
Muslim philosophy has apparently pushed him over the brink of reason. William Williams has
been and will be exploited by others to make the seeds of discontent flourish and grow in
the city of Newark.
Mr. Smith. Lastly, Captain Kinney, do you have any information on
Robert Curvin's postriot activities?
Mr. Kinney. In a public speech to the Hillside, New Jersey, Kiwanis Club
on August 30, 1967, Robert Curvin admitted to being a leftist and a "militant."
He further stated on that occasion that he believed in black power, but that he did not
advocate violence.
Mr. Smith. Captain Kinney, would you care to make a closing statement
on your testimony?
Mr. Kinney. Before I make my closing statement, Counselor, with your
permission and the committee's permission, I would like to bring up to date three of the
very latest leaflets that are being and have been distributed in our city within the past
months.
The first one I refer to [Kinney Exhibit No. 41] says "Black Power destroy White
Power." It is signed, "Your dear friend, Mr. Molotov Cocktail."
Again it indicates some of our department stores and schools burning, and so forth and
so on.
I also would cite the fact that the day after Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination we
had about 175 fires in the city of Newark, probably the worst day for fires that the city
of Newark has ever had, and, of course, it is known that many of these were set.
We have arrested some 14 arsonists along those lines. In addition to this, on this past
Saturday evening we had a five-block area that was completely destroyed by fire, again
paraphrasing the city of Newark's fire department, the worst fire that the city of Newark
has ever had and, again, indications are that it was set by arsonists.
I have here also, bringing things right up to date [Kinney Exhibit No. 42], that on Friday,
April 26, this coming Friday, in the city of Newark, Stokely Carmichael will speak at the
Central High School, 345 High Street, Newark. Admission is $3.
Mr. Tuck. Who is the sponsor of that meeting?
Mr. Kinney. The sponsors are a group called the United Brothers of Newark.
The third item [Kinney Exhibit No. 43], the other item I have, is a circular being
distributed because we have a presidential candidate of the United States in Newark, also:
"Jesse Grey for President of the United States," whose campaign headquarters is
about a block from the Newark police headquarters and Newark City Hall, and whose campaign
manager is Clarence Coggins, who is well known to this committee. (Clarence C. Coggins was
born on March 20, 1925. He graduated from Dickinson High School in New Jersey in 1942 after
having completed an industrial course. Coggins was a member of the Communist Party, U.S.A.,
for approximately 10 years prior to his expulsion from the party in 1959 as a result of a
factional dispute. Coggins met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during the latter's
visit to the United States in October 1960 to complain about racial discrimination in this
country.
In 1961, he organized a group in New Jersey called the Labor Negro Vanguard Conference,
which included in its ranks other expelled members of the CPUSA. As chairman of the Labor
Negro Vanguard Conference, Coggins has been active in the New Jersey area as an independent
racial agitator. Coggins actively exploited the riot which occurred in Jersey City and
Elizabeth, New Jersey, in August 1964 and made concerted efforts to continue them. He was a
"peace" candidate for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey in 1966, but was
overwhelmingly defeated in the primary after receiving only 5 percent of the votes. In
April 1967, Coggins sponsored the Spring Mobilization Committee To End the War in Vietnam,
a Communist-dominated organization now known as the National Mobilization Committee To End
the War in Vietnam.)
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request permission to receive these items as
Exhibits 41, 42, and 43.
Mr. Tuck. It is so ordered.
(Documents marked "Kinney Exhibits Nos. 41, 42, and 43," respectively, follow:)
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 41
Black Power destroy White Power
We don't need whitey to piecemeal us with tokenism. That's is all we got is nothing.
Destroy them and take what we need. All we need is
Black Power
Black Power
Your dear friend,
Mr. Molotov Cocktail
Hahnes Schools
Bam's
City Hall
Housing
Courthouse
KINNEY EXHIBIT NO. 42
UNITED BROTHERS OF NEWARK
PRESENT
STOKELY CARMICHAEL
CHARLES KENYATTA – KENNETH GIBSON – JOHN HENRIK CLARKE
SOULMUSIC – AFRICAN DANCERS – OTHERS
FRI. APRIL 26, 1968 7PM
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL
345 HIGH ST. NEWARK
$3.00
KENNEY EXHIBIT NO. 43
JESSE GREY FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
GET OUT OF VIET-NAM NOW!
Our nation if facing its deadliest hour of peril. Our sons are dying in Vietnam and we are
facing a world Atomic catastrophe.
Stand up and be counted.
Protest the insane war program of the Johnson administration in the coming June 4th New
Jersey Democratic Party Primary.
HERE IS OUR ANSWER!
Jesse Grey, nationally known Negro leader of the Harlem Tenants movement has announced his
candidacy for the presidency of the United States. He is a peace candidate and will run in
New Jersey on the following platform:
1. Get out of Vietnam now. Save our American youths' lives for a happy future here at home
with their loved ones.
2. Full first class citizenship for the Black People of the U.S., and their proportionate
share of the total wealth and political power of America.
3. Defend and advocate the interests of organized Labor. Divert the funds now being
spent for war and death to use for improving the standard of living of the working people
both white and black.
4. We are against any new taxes being levied and ask the repeal of the New Jersey
Sales Tax.
We need you [?] financially. Write [?] to:
CLARENCE COGGINS, Campaign Manager
JESSE GREY FOR PRESIDENT COMMITTEE
Room 207, Douglas Hotel
15 Hill Street
Newark, New Jersey
Paid for by: Jesse Grey For President Campaign Committee. Tel: 642-5100 State
Headquarters, Hotel Douglas, Room 207, 15 Hill Street, Newark, N.J.
Mr. Kinney. Now, sir, briefly if I may, it has been emphasized by many
people that FBI Director Hoover did not say that there were no local conspiracies in
testimony before the President's Commission on Civil Disorders.
In Newark, certain individuals conspired, and are conspiring, to replace the leadership
of the Newark Police Department. Other individuals conspired, and are conspiring, to turn
out of office the present city administration before its lawful term expires.
Still other individuals conspired, and are conspiring, as part of the movement to replace
the system of government under which we live in the United States of America, using any
means to do so, including the use of force and violence.
To these conspirators, the insurrection that occurred in Newark in 1967 was a means to an
end which they welcomed and exploited to serve their plot.
To these conspirators, the accomplishment of any or all of the aforementioned goals was
paramount, and if insurrection and riot be the catalyst to accomplish their mission or
missions, so be it.
David Lawrence, in his nationally syndicated column which appeared in the Star-Ledger
of March 5, 1968, places the whole matter succinctly and clearly.
He wrote:
Although the report of the President's Commission on Civil Disorders contains 200,000 words,
not a single sentence in it recommends the arrest and imprisonment of the persons who have
incited violence and the riots of 1967.
Further, David Lawrence wrote:
While the Commission said it found no evidence that "all or any of the disorders, or
the incidents that led to them, were planned or directed by any organization or group,
international, national or local," the next paragraph was seemingly contradictory and
read as follows:
"Militant organizations, local and national, and individual agitators, who repeatedly
forecast and called for violence, were active in the spring and summer of 1967. We believe
that they sought to encourage violence, and that they helped to create an atmosphere that
contributed to the outbreak of disorder."
That definitely is my point, also. David Lawrence then questioned, "Then why weren't
they prosecuted?"
I have spoken to many thousands of Newark residents, New Jersey residents, and they are
joined by millions of people throughout the United States of America who are asking the
same question.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, that completes my interrogation of the witness.
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