cats, all creative, but in a street sort of thing" - but the film ain't going to show no Disneyland."
"There were people there just loaded up on drugs," said Cook, "and people were drinking shaving tonic and aftershave lotions. Drugs are used overtly at Lexington."
But the worse thing, said Cook, is that "they give them no program at all. And the lawmakers, the officials all know it, but no one does anything. Even a probation officer there said that Lexington has been a failure for 30 years, since when Alexander King was there."
The film is being produced by Larry Schiller for Corda Productions for either network or syndication distribution on television. The concerts were also taped and may show up as PG&E's next album.
And Charlie Allen will try and keep the influx of musicians into the Kentucky institution. "I'm going to speak to other cats to go down there," he said. "This was our first real statement. And it was good, 'cause you've gotta make a statement or get passed on by."
The second convention
By Kitty Caparella and Floyd Norris
PHILADELPHIA (CPS) -- The Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention, called by the Black Panther Party, has recessed until November 4, when it will meet in Washington to reach final agreement on what is intended to be a new constitution for the United States.
At the first round, held here over Labor Day weekend, over 10,000 delegates, more than half of them black, agreed on general principles for a socialistic America, but disagreed on some particular points. The convention avoided the drastic open splits which characterized last summer's United Front Against Fascism (UFAF) conference in Oakland, the last attempt by the Panthers to unify the radical left.
Proposals were made in the form of reports by discussion groups to a plenary session of all attending the convention. No votes were taken, although the favorable reaction to some proposals clearly indicated their popularity with the crowd.
Attending the conference were members of groups covering the entire radical spectrum, including Student Mobe, Youth Against War and Fascism, the Progressive Labor Party, the SDS, Gay Liberation Front, and Women's Liberation Front. The Panthers were the only Black group represented, as many Black groups were in Atlanta for the Congress of African People, where 2,500 delegates including Black Muslims, Whitney Young, Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson, and Imamu Baraka (Leroi Jones) discussed the creation of a world African party.
By concentrating on the kind of society radicals want after a revolution, the Panthers hoped to avoid the friction over means of bringing about a revolution,, which has characterized previous meetings of different radical groups. In
large measure, the tactic succeeded, although Michael Tabor, one of the New York Panther 21, issued a broadside calling the Progressive Labor Party "enemies of the people" for attempting to organize a march on City Hall which the Panthers feared would bring the Philadelphia police down on the Black community.
By tying in the new constitution with the old, and by emphasizing the Declaration of Independence's guarantee of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the Panthers attempted to make the basically socialist program seem more in keeping with American traditions.
The proposals presented to the plenary session by the discussion groups included:
'"Plans to end American imperialism.   Discussion groups called for the
immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from around the world and for the abolishment of the standing army, to be replaced by a system of people's militias, with all people in the militia holding other jobs and working only part-time in the militia.
'"The United States, with 6 percent of the world's people, currently consumes somewhere near 50 percent of the resources, and the delegates recognized the ending of imperialism would nesessi-tate a somewhat lower standard of living.
'"Community control of police. The police would be under the supervision of community-elected boards, which would be able to fire policemen. Non-uniformed police would be prohibited, and the combined budget for the police and the militia would be less than 10 percent of the national budget.
*Land reform. Control of land will be vested in the communities, with the entire nation determining a general policy for land use, and the communities handling local problems.
'"Basic rights for all people. The right to food, shelter, employment, medical care, education, birth control, and abortion, would be guaranteed.
*An end to oppression of women. Discussion groups called for free child care centers, free child delivery, free abortion, and for 50 percent of all leadership positions to be held by women.
'"The end of the nuclear family. This proposal provoked considerable disagreement, with one discussion group saying the nuclear family might work out under socialism and the groups on women's and gay liberation opposing it.
The proposals were worked out in discussion groups Sunday afternoon after Huey Newton, the Black Panther Party founder who was recently freed from a California jail, set the tone of the convention with a rousing call for a socialist America. The proposals were presented to a mass meeting Sunday night. Delegates met Monday in regional groups to select a continuing committee to work on possible drafts of the new constitution.
The general meetings were held in the new multi-million dollar Temple University gym, which sits arrogantly in the middle of the North Philadelphia ghetto. Security was tight, especially for the Newton speech, and commercial press reporters who identified themselves were barred.
Attendance at the convention was apparently swelled by the tactics of Philadelphia Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo - called "Bozo" by the Panthers -who raided the three Panther headquarters in Philadelphia less than a week before the convention.
The police ripped the headquarters apart in their dawn raids, and then ordered fifteen Panthers to strip outside while police held guns pointed at the heads of the Panthers. The pictures of the stripped Panthers brought more support from the Philadelphia Black community than anything the Panthers have done so far.
Bail was first set at $500 for the fifteen "Panthers, but Rizzo stepped in and got Judge Weinrott, who has criticized the Panthers many times, to hear the case. He decided to raise bail to $100,000 each. Appeals finally got the bail down to $5,000.
The raids followed the Sunday killing of a policeman in a Philadelphia park. Although there was no visible connection between the Panthers and the shooting, Rizzo used it as his excuse for the raids.
Rizzo, who was now calling the Panthers "yellow dogs, psychopaths, and cowards," and saying it was time for a "shootout," was blasted by numerous community groups, who were outraged by his treatment of the Panthers.
Community residents flocked to the Panther headquarters to help clean up the destruction caused by the police. During the cleaning, one youth threw a pocketbook out the window. The police immediately evacuated the area and brought in the bomb squad, which carefully opened the purse. Out crawled two roaches. "Wow," said one spectator, "We've got a new weapon against the police - roach bombs. We oughta manufacture them. Roaches don't cost anything, they're one thing we've got plenty of."
Rizzo's men stayed away from the convention, and there were no incidents.
As the convention moves to Washington, at a specific place still to be determined, the major questions are whether the Panther's leadership can continue to keep various other radical groups from attacking each other, and whether the constitution, once adopted, will prove to be the rallying point the Panthers want it to be.
A 'bomb'
for your thoughts
By HAROLD SHERMAN
"On July 14, 1970, I sent the cast aluminum casing of an anti-personnel bomb known as a Guava Bomb, to my Selective Service Board, number 127, in Lexington. This casing had been rejected from the production line of Honeywell Corporation plant in Toledo, Ohio, and was purchased from a scrap metal dealer in that city." This statement comes from a position paper by Jay Westbrook, a UK graduate now working for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Dayton, Ohio. The bomb casing was received by the board on Wednesday,
July 15, at 10 a.m. Although County Detective Beall was called (and in turn - called the FBI, postal authorities and Fort Knox) and a general scare prevailed, it apparently was not enough of a scare to induce one of the members of the staff at the board to even leave the building.
Detective Beall, who said he "used to make bombs," (according the The Lexington Herald) was assisted by a three-man explosive-disposal unit. They took the "bomb" to a pistol range and dismantled it by pulling a string on each side of the baseball-sized casing. There was no explosion.
Jay appeared on WLAP "Soundoff" to explain his action. In the meantime, federal authorities had decided not to prosecute him. However, E. Lawson King, Fayette County Attorney, thought differently. He is prosecuting. Judge Cecil Dunn decided that there was "probable cause" to hold the case to the Grand Jury, which handed down an indictment Sept. 22.
The charge is an obscure one -"common law assault." Robert Sedler, Jay's attorney, contends that the ability to do harm had to be present. The prosecution maintains that fear of injury is enough to warrant a conviction.
The "bomb" was, as Jay stated, an empty casing -- a factory reject. Enclosed with the casing were pictures depicting injuries caused by real anti-personnel bombs, a magazine article about such weapons and a letter of explanation. (The Guava Bomb is designed for a 20-foot "kill-radius" in a 360 degree area.)
In 1967. Jay applied for Conscientious Objector status at the board. He was eventually granted this status. However, he chose to work with the AFSC instead of doing "acceptable" alternative service as suggested by the board. The board told him that working for a pacifist organization was "not in the national interest." In November of last year, he tore up his draft card in a "ceremony" at the board. No action has been taken yet by federal authorities.
A letter from the board dated July 7,1970, informed Jay of three types of work deemed "appropriate" for alternative service. July 17 was the deadline he was given for choosing one or refusing to do any of them. Jay's reply to this was in the letter which he sent with the bomb casing. As far as alternative service goes, Jay is still working with the AFSC.
Local coverage of the whole affair was bad as usual. A Lexington Leader headline of July 15 read: "Bomb Mailed to Fayette Draft Board." The local papers repeatedly referred to the casing as a "bomb" after it was established that it was not. The most glaring contradiction was between the papers' citing of a statement by unnamed "authorities" who claimed that there were "hundreds of ball bearings and some plastic explosives," in the casing and Jay's statement that it was "completely empty."
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