Friday. November [4. “76‘?

Charges Dropped
Against Two Here
At Chicago Trial

Charges against two Grinnell
students arrested while in Chi»
cago during last month's 5135
action were dropped last Fri-
day during a Chicago trial.
Senior Charles Garman had
been Charged with possession
of a concealed deadly weapon,
and freshman Scott Davies had
been charged with disorderly
conduct.

Garman and Davies were
stopped by police while driving
in Chicago Oct. 10, because of
faulty orakelights on Garman's
car. They then went to the po-
lice station to post bond, and
one of the officers found a
tear gas pen while searching
the car.

In court last week, the de-
tendants’ lawyer alleged that
the search of the car was ille-
gal, since the arresting offi—
cers had no reason to enter the
car unless they had seen
something suspicious from the
outside. Because of that alle-
gation, and the fact that the
policemen to l d conflicting
stories under oath, the judge
granted a motion to suppress
the evidence found in the
s e a r ch. Consequently, there
was no case for the other
charges, and they were
dropped.

The judge also ordered the
brakelight violation to be
dropped. He said the normal
procedure for such an offense
was a warning to the driver to
fix the lights.

The case was the last of four
Grinneli students arrested and
charged in Chicago during the
demonstrations. Earlier, fresh-
man Deborah Feldman was
placed under court supervision
for six months for running
away from the scene of a
broken window, Freshman Kay
Sophar was fined $500 for re-
sisting arrest and disorderly
conduct.

 

Quote of the week: “I
feel that managing a col-
lege now is like managing
a college on the Virginia-
South Carolina border dur-
ing the Civil War with
troops from both sides pass-
ing through.” Glenn Leggett

 

 

 

SCARLET AN D BLACK

Page Three

John Froines: "Our Cultdre Is on Trial"

By Ida Gudema

“What‘s happening in Chi»
cago has nothing to do with the

anti iot act. Our culture is on
trial. What's really on trial is
our survival," John Froines, a
member of Chicago’s “Conspir-
acy 8,” told approximately 200
students last Saturday after
noon in Roberts Theater.
Froines, a chemist, is accused
of conspiracy in connection
with the demonstrations at the
1968 National Democratic Cone
vention.

Commenting on the trial,
Froines said, “What’s happen-
ing to us in the court in Chi—
cage is the same thing that
happened in the streets of Chi-
cago last summer." He ex-
plained that statement by say-
ing the defendants are being
brutalized legally in the court-
room rather than by the police
in the streets. He added,
“We're surviving, and we're
winning.”

Froines said he feels the
most important part of the
trial has been events involv-
ing Bobby Seale, one of the de-
fendants, Seale, N a t i o 11 a1
Chairman of the Black Panther
Party, was recently gagged
and shackled in the Courtroom.
He has since been sentenced
to four years for Contempt of
court, and a mistrial has been
declared for him.

Froines described S e ale ' s
gagging as a symbolic attempt
to gag the Black Liberation
Movement in America. He
said, “No matter how hard
they try, they can’t gag him,
and they can't gag the Pan-
thers.” Froines also accused
the news media of telling only
half the truth. He said they
emphasize Seale’s verbal at-
tacks on Judge Julius Hoffman,
rather than his attempt to de-
fend himself. since he has been
forced to accept a lawyer ap-
pointed by the court.

While encouraging anyone in.
terested to come to Chicago to
see the trial, Froines Warned
that anyone with long hair, a
beard. or “looking like a hip.
pie” will not be admitted.
Those who are admitted are
searched several times. Once
in the courtroom, Froines said,
any spectator who smiles,
talks, laughs, or makes any

JOHN FROINES

other suspicious movements is
immediately expelled.

Although painting a ludi-
crous picture of the trial,
Froines stressed that it is no
joke. He said people tend to
see it as a burlesque. but it
isn’t. since all the defendants
expect to be tound guilty and
be sent to jail. He said, “We
are trapped in the courtroom.
There is no way to escape it
for us."

in order to stop the trial,
Froines encouraged the audi-
ence to go to Washington this
week to participate in the
march to the “Department of
Injustice." He also urged stu-
dents to send letters to the
judge or other government of-
ficials to Stop the trial.

Speaking of this week’s ac-
tion in Washington, Froines ex-
pressed his belief that the per—
mit would be granted for the
massive march on Saturday.
(The permit has been granted.)
He also said any violence in
Washington would be caused
by the police, not the demon<
strators, since all of the protest
leaders, including the most
militant, have denounced the
use of violence. He said, “If
anyone has the gaul to use vio-
lence that will hurt us, he
doesn’t belong in the Move»
ment."

Other comments Froines
made in his speech and dur-
ing a question-and-answer pe-
riod:

0n the trial m “We are in
contempt of that court. We figr
lire We all have about two
years (in jail)."

On the judicial system —
“There's basically no justice in

this land." He called Judge
Hoffman a fascist, but explain-
ed that Hoffman is only an
agent of Attorney General
Mitchell and Nixon,

0n Vice - President Spiro
Agnew — “Agnew is the dead
center of the Nixon adminis-
tration, maybe even a little libs
eral.” He later added, “Age
news right on,” since he une
derstands what's happening in
America.

On the recent SDS Chicago
action — “The Conspiracy sup-
ports any demonstrations that
support us. . . . We must look
beyond the broken windows, to
the political State. We're not
going to create violence — at
least I'm not —- but We must
understand that there is vio-

lence because of Vietnam, not
because of the Weathermen."

0n society — “We want to
be free . . . to have a society
not hung up on property rights.
Society has to fit the needs of
the people in it, not an elite."

On his future — “I don’t
want to leave the country, I
want to work here. . . . After
I get out of jail, the govema
merit will persecute me, but i
have to keep on doing what I
do.”

During the morning, Froines
spoke to a Political Science
class and a group in the
Science Building. Letters or
contribuaons to the Conspir-
acy can be mailed to 28 E.
Jackson Blvd, Chicago, Illi-
nois, he said.

 

Black Historian Redding Calls for
Application of Humanistic Knowledge

By John Gardner

Professor Saunders Redding
of George Washington Univerr
sity drew an estimated 200 stu-
dents to a Tuesday lecture on
the “Black Reaction to Post»
Reconstruction America,“ in
the American Civilization 225
lecture series. Redding. the
author of several books on
black history and literature,
delivered a scholarly and quiet
speech, using many or the as-
sumptions of black identity in-
herent in what he called the
“new Negro" Consciousness,
but avoiding the anger and
Verbalized frustration equally
inherent in recent Movement
statements.

His rocus was “the applica-
tion of humanistic knowledge”
to racial problems. He saw a
post—1954 Zeitgeist (spirit-of»
the-times) as a determining
factor in black and white prob»
lems. This spirit was one of
the translation of the wishes of
black people into legal actions.
such as desegregation deci-
sions of the Supreme Court.

However, Redding said, “No
man m black or white — so-
cialized in America in the past
century can escape the effects
of racism." He said that a hu-
manistic revolution is impera-
tive because the law alone

 

THE DEFENDANT ALLEEE$
Tlilﬁ COURT HAS DEPENED

TlOAJAL %
J

RBHTS.

Tile mass is CRiTlCAL.

6A6 ‘RHE VEFEMDAMT

THE WMTRW (5

THE CD‘VEFEWAUTS SiDE
Mill THE DEFENDANT
\

$5

5 UESTER THE
COmBNTRV,

éHACKLE THE \CO—WEWAMTE.

Th5 MEASUR5§ TAKEN
HERE TODAY ONLY
T0 [USURE FAIR

TRlAL-

(c) last Jules Foiller

“will not free the black man
from the effects of his sell-re-
jection.“

Preferential treatment for
the black man in America
seems to Redding to be the
natural course, and he rejects
a once-common notion that the
solution to black problems
could come by the same
means as the solution to Irish,
Jewish, and Italian friction.
The very fact of color mili<
tated against the ease of this
optimistic idea; Redding put
Blacks, Mexicans, and Italians
in roughly the same place as
far as easy assimilation into
the “melting pot” (a term
Redding also questioned).

“We must determine to-
gether,” he added, “where the
primary areas of policy con-
cern are,” coming out strongly
in favor of “pluralism, individ-
ual assimilation, and desegre-
gation." The black man, he ex-
plained “wants no one out —
he wants in.”

The respect of the audience,
coupled with their apparent
lack of enthusiasm might pos-
sibly be reflected in the differ-
ence in titles between one of
Redding's books, On Being a
Negro in America, and the
contemporary Nigger by Dick
Gregory, Near the end of his
speech, Redding declared, “In
short, I advocate equality. Pe-
riod.” Gregory. however, in
his autobiography, regards the
advocacy of equality to be so
obvious that he spends little
time discussing it formally.

Questioned by a student on
what he thought about Afro
haircuts and dashikis, Redding
replied that he saw the value
of distinctive styles in reaf-
firming black identity, a value
which came out, often subtly,
in all of his remarks. The com-
pensatory or preferential
treatment he saw as necessary
for the black man in America,
and which has been supported
by Whitney Young of the Ur-
ban League focuses, “direct»
ly," Redding said, on “400
years of mistreatment”; this
statement was one of the few
that Redding made which re-
vealed a suppressed anger be-
neath his systematic, practical
and humanistic attitude toward
racial problems, 1969.

 

