?contents
The Old Regular Baptist Church, page 5 Ethlyn Maggard
Caudill to Nunn on stripping in Letcher County, page 6
snaps:  Ralph Eugene Meatyard, page 8
interview with Howard Levy, page 10
music:  Led Zepplin, page 14 Jack Lyne
flicks: Alice's Restaurant, page 15 J.S. Willoughby
verse: Wendell Berry, Jonathan Greene, Ellsworth Taylor, page 15
Cover:  photo by Ralph Eugene Meatyard
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blue-tail fly
November 11, 1969 Vol. 1, no. 2 W
staff:  Guy Mendes, David Holwerk, Jack Lyne, Rick Bell, Gretchen Marcum, Bucky Young, Nick DeMartino, John Filiatreau, Sue Ann Salmon, Howard Mason and Don Pratt.   Business gang: John Simon, Jeannie St. Charles, Terry McCarty, Carol Bryant, Maria Chalk, Buck Pennington, Becky Martin and Warren Ford.
tidings:
Muldraugh: hassle goes on
The Meade County power structure continues to grasp at staws in an efforts to repress the GT coffeehouse in Muldraugh.
Six people connected with the coffeehouse, including Rev. Terrence Davis of the Louisville Peace Council, were indicted by the county grand jury Oct. 30 on charges of creating a common nuisance and failure to comply with sanitary regulations.
Meade County Circuit Judge A. Murray Beard, promptly ordered them held on $ 15 0 0 bond, to be met only with cash or property in Meade County.
The common nuisance indictment charges that the six "did willfully, knowingly, and unlawfully suffer, prosure and permit divers idle and evil disposed persons to habitually frequent and assemble in or about a certain building..."
On the following day, the same jury cited four more persons associated with the coffeehouse with contempt of court, and Judge Beard ordered them held without bail. According to their lawyer Stuart Lyon of the Kentucky Civil Liberties Union, they were charged with refusing lo testify against themselves. He had advised his clients to take the Fifth Amendment.
One soldier was also cited for drinking a beer in the courthouse "sometime in September."
As if the legal hassles were not enough, the coffeehouse was firebombed the same day for the second time for the second lime in three weeks. It was not reported to police because, as one soldier put it, "We have no law enforcement here."
In reply to the repression, the coffeehouse people issued a statement which said, "We are all ready to go to jail. But the coffeehouse will stay open."
Two demonstrations were held in Brandenburg that weekend to protest the actions of the Meade County officials.
On Tuesday the 4 th, appeals were heard in two separate Louisville on the excessive bond issue. Even the stalwart conservative U.S. District Court Judge James "Five and Ten" Gordon (five years, $10,000"the maximum for draft resisters) was so dismayed by the $1500 bond that he ordered the prisoners let out on their own recognizance. He noted that "we had people restrained on bonds of $1500 for statute violations that carried $50 fines and thirty days in jail."
Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge Sam Steinfield refused the same day to grant temporary relief for the four jailed on contempt charges. He scheduled a hearing for Friday the 7 th, when he could have a full transcript of the grand jury proceedings. But he said that no evidence of error in Judge Beard's behavior had been presented.
Another hearing was scheduled for Monday the 10th in Judge Steinfield's court, at which attorneys for the coffeehouse will ask for an injunction to prevent Meade County officials from interfering with the coffeehouse.
Tom Jackson, a Vietnam veteran who lives at the coffeehouse with his wife and child, said the officials "are only fighting against themselves. The more they deprive us of our civil liberties, the more they bring in support for our side.
Jackson and the other coffeehouse people believe the only enemies in the case are the army brass and the county officials..'
"The people of Muldraugh are not our enemies," said Jackson. "Part of our overall plan from the very beginning has been to work with the townspeople"not just those friendly with us, but all the people here."
Legal 'hair' suspensions
Taking care to point out that improper expulsion or suspension of long-haired students and instructors can result in expensive and embarrassing damage suits, the president of the Kentucky School Board Association then proceeded to outline the "proper" method for such actions at an October 9 meeting in Louisville.
F. C. Bryan, an attorney, told 60 representatives of the association's Fifth Region that a student with a "Beatle haircut" can be suspended under state law if his presence constitutes a disruption of the educational process. Apparently, the trick lies in "documented evidence" of the disruptive factors in order to guarantee the student due process of law.
Here! Here!
As his landmark case, Bryan, of Mount Sterling, cited a 1967 incident in which a long-haired high school student was successfully suspended. The documented evidence he supplied to indicate the student was guilty of disruption is as follows:
"It seems as though the football team decided to give this fella a haircut themselves. And the student was injured with the scissors."
Among the other disruptive incidents this student was found guilty of was a sign someone placed on the door of the
girls' rest room that read, "For Girls and Long-Haired Boys."
The story of this "even-principals-can-learn-to-cut-hair-in-three-easy-steps" talk first appeared in the Courier-Journal. Among the letters received in response was one from Mrs. Suzanne Post, chairman of the Kentucky Civil Liberties Union (KCLU).
Part of her letter read as follows: "This was either a very poorly reported speech or a very poor speech.
"Did the speaker also give as a reason for according due process to students the right to it provided by our Constitution? Did he also mention that if we want to teach our young about our Bill of Rights the place and way to start is in our schools by example?
In an interview, Mrs. Post said KCLU "has been most active in trying to get the school boards to implement standards of academic freedom in secondary schools."
However, she concedes, there are a lot of difficulties ahead even where the standards are adopted because of "principals who are quite autonomous in their own little enclaves" and because of the reluctance of students to challenge school officials out of justifiable fears that their futures may be ruined as a result.
Despite some unsuccessful attempts to enable students to keep their hair"all of it"she is optimistic about future cases because of recent positive precedents set by the Supreme Court.
"The KCLU is concerned about young people and their legal problems," she said, "and we want to let them know they have community support when they decide to stand up and exercise their creativity and individuality."
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November 11,1969