Notes on the Black Struggle in the Usa

from Russ Stetler Stokely Carmichael, now in North Vietnam to express the solidarity of Afro- Americans with the struggle for the liberation of Southeast Asia from U.S. hegemony, noted in his recent OLAS speech that more than one hundred rebellions have already taken place in the urban ghettoes of the USA. These eruptions continue, a permanent reminder of the uniformly wretched conditions so long endured by the black populations of America's largest cities, The most recent outbreaks have been in Jackson, Michigan, and New Haven, Connecticut. The latter city, where conservative Yale University has been situated for over two centuries, was the scene of four hundred arrests last week. Newark, New Jersey, meanwhile witnessed a dramatic counter-offensive by a variety of political movements who are responding to the now usual attempt by city governments to indict militant figures as responsible for ‘criminal anarchy and insurrections', In Newark, the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union have brought a different indictment into the courts: their suit charges ‘acts of violence, intimidations and humiliation to keep the Negro community in a second-class status’ and alleges that 'state police and the National Guard, under pretext of civil disorder, visited massive retaliation on the Negro community, Supporting affidavits will be filed by a large number of groups and individuals, including the Newark Community Union Project, originated in early 1964 by members of the 'new left' organisation Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Its first organisers were white, and a large percentage of the staff remains so, It is highly significant that these organisers were able to move freely in the streets of the black ghetto during the thick of the 'riot', gathering scrupulous evidence on police brutality and reprisals. That they were able to do so is eloquent tribute to the non-racialist character of the consciousness of this particular black community. The Government offensive against black militants presses onward. Mr, Rap Brown, who recently replaced Mr. Stokely Carmichael as chairman of SNCC, was first arrested and charged with inciting to insurrection in connection with the rebellion in Cambridge, Maryland; he was later indicted for travelling across state borders while carrying firearms, Bail was set at an unprecedented $25,000, later reduced to $15,000. Mr. George Ware, who accompanied Mr. Carmichael to the OLAS Conference and who was denied entry into Britain immediately thereafter, was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, His bail is set at $10,000. His crime is a series of statements made at a public meeting; the charge, ‘sedition’, Stokely Carmichael's significant speech 'Black Power and the Third World', delivered at OLAS, will appear in the September number of the London Bulletin of the Russell Foundation, along with an introduction by Ken Coates analysing its relevance for British socialists,