ps ae een He | oll oil i) REBELLION USA The face of racism By WILLIAM ALLAN DETROIT The racist character of the police of this city is bare, open, for reporters to see. “Okay, you niggers, throw a brick at me now,” challenged one of 30 armed police to a crowd of Negroes along Detroit’s 12th Street, the heart line of the Negro ghetto. A Negro observer from the City Commission on Commun- ity Relations ‘saw this, told re- aes The Central Executive Committee of the Commun- ist Party today sent the fol- lowing wires: Mrs. Martin Luther King Atlanta, Georgia Our heartfelt sympathy to you and your family in this time of tragedy. Your hus- band was a martyr to the cause of peace and racial justice. The inspiration of: | your husband's: life and work will live on wherever people fight for freedom, equality and human dignity. * Lyndon B. Johnson, White House, Washington, D.C. Your appeal against viol- ence made after the foul murder of Martin Luther King will be meaningful on- ly when yqur country ends its violent aggression against the Vietnamese people, uses the full force of federal authority to bring the slayers of Dr. King to justice, and to crush white racist criminal violence, and acts to guarantee complete equality to the Negro peo- ple. This means you must stop spending billions for aggression against the Viet- namese people and live up to your promises to wipe out poverty in America. e Gus Hall Communist Party of U.S.A. New York 10, N.Y. In this tragic and danger- our hour for your country, please be assured of the solidarity of our party in your continuing fight to build the unity of the Negro people, the working class and all democratic forces against reactionary viol- ence, and for full equality for the Negro people. Sf fii cei! wey direct contact with Negro mili- ‘ tants it would be deceptive to ' assume the great seething un- rest, boiling now because of the ' murder of Rev. Martin Luther | King, will subside. “It will con- tinue after the funeral and the parades of protest. and mourn- ing.” The protests that took place - in Detroit Friday, April 5, which saw thousands of youths march- ing through the streets from the high schools, crying out slo- gans of “Black Power” and “End police brutality,” were kicked off by the murder of Dr. King, said the community relations worker. “They stemmed from the frus- tration, anger, bitterness that my people feel, also the belli- gerent, very provocative acts of the Detroit police,” he said. He noted bitterly that while he had been in contact with leaders of city and state govern- ments (Mayor Cavanagh, Gover- nor Romney) none, including National Association for the Ad- vancement of Colored People’s ‘Bob Tindall, has even been con- sulted by the mayor’s office. “The city has made no effort ' to contact black leaders,” he charged. “The city response has been to assure the white com- munity that nothing will happen and to assure this by mobilizing massive police muscle in Negro communities.” Negroes along 12th Street on Friday afternoon, April 5, con- ceded that “muscle” was out everywhere. “If we come out on the street tonight after curfew (8 p.m. to 5 a.m.) they’ll gun us , down and don’t take no pic- tures, buddy, I don’t need more trouble.” But he got “trouble.” As he walked swiftly away, a police cruiser screeched to.a stop be- side him, two cops grabbed his arms, while others stood by with bayonets and automatic rifles at the ready. “Dr. King’s murder is reason for some people to become vio- lent. They feel they must have some retribution, some way of revenge,” he said. Another labor observer said that along 12th Street, Dexter Boulevard, Kercheval, Linwood and 14th Street the police tacti- cal mobile units, filled with cops, stream past bristling with artil- lery. Negroes crossing any of these main streets in the ghetto are urged on by butts of rifles of National Guardsmen, 4,000 of whom are now policing the city’s streets. ° OSV-OVEL Virpiigetoec Te FUME 2 AINY This is July, 1967, all over again when the Great Rebellion of the black people took place against discrimination, police brutality and the horrible ghet- toes they are forced to live in. Once again the military trucks laden with trigger-happy Na- tional Guardsmen rumble through the auto capital streets. Once again you stand on the street corners and see the muzzles of carbines and auto- matic rifles pointed skyward from many street corners. Hel- meted police are everywhere. Detroit is an armed camp again, and again the black ghetto is encircled with artillery. Friday morning Negro youth almost everywhere in the city started to walk out of city schools in demonstrations. Hun- dreds poured down Woodward Avenue, the city’s main street, to City Hall, where they stood before the huge skyscraper, calling upon Mayor Cavanagh to come forth and hear their plea of police brutality used against them day and night He in the ghettoes where they ive. ‘Not one white politician came forth to listen or to speak to the angry black youth. In scores of schools—Cass, Wayne State, McMichaels, Southwestern High, and others—memorial services were held by the youth, black and white. Police cars filled with hardfaced cops stood outside, with car doors swinging open, shotguns in evidence, tear and Mace gas canisters at the ready. The youth came marching out, black and white together, like at Cass High, and marched toward City Hall. The orders came‘ from city officials, “Close all schools, until further notice.” “They’re busting out all over” a voice crackled over the police radio from 2 cruiser right along- side us. At 1.10 p.m. the “Condition A” went into effect. Alarm bells sounded at all police stations. Gun lockers were emptied and the cops raced for their cruisers carrying their rifles (brand new) and helmets with white bands so they can identify each other in the pitch black night when the curfew is on. Mayor Cavanagh, asked about the great military mobilization, said, “It’s better to over-react than under-react.” He didn’t move this swiftly when Presi- dent Johnson slashed Detroit’s share of the war on poverty pro- gram by over $5 million. “Stay in your houses,” in- tones the mayor over the radio about every 15 minutes. But the streets are quiet, the city isn’t tearing anything down; it’s the Establishment that is instituting its iron ring of. guns to intimi- date the half million Detroit Negroes, the white who believe in black-white unity—and, as the community relations man said, “The rolice seem to want trouble.” Vhey sure. do... Hi nay nts Ce Saas BNGGGG US 2S sUgts Carel THE ASSASSIN a Protest murder DETROIT Thousands of auto workers left their jobs Thursday night, April 4, and all during the day Friday, April 5, in protest against the racist murder of civil rights Negro leader, Rev. Martin Luther King. This news went almost totally unreported by the news media, whose re- porters spent their time riding police cars in the Negro ghet- toes, looking for “violence.” Fear that Friday, April 5, would see many more ~thou- sands walk off their jobs on the afternoon shifts in the auto shops and steel mills, made Re- publican Governor George Rom- ney declare an 8 p.m. curfew, call in 4,000 trigger-happy, al- most all white, National Guards- men and 400 state police, all white. They are armed with the latest equipment bought for them by big appropiations of cash passed through the legisla- ture on the false cry of ‘“‘curb- ing riots.” 3,000 cops are also mobilized. This city, Saturday, April 6, is calm. Some workers went to work and the big day will be Tuesday, April 9, when Rev. King will be buried. This repor- ter asked in a press conference at police headquarters of Gov- ernor Romney and Detroit May- or Jerome Cavanagh, “what do you think the people should do Tuesday at 10.30 a.m. as Rev. King is buried?” with others who gave Romney replied “I think re) respect due Rev. King should? | shown.” Another question ou, Si this reporter, “By that do yet | mean there should be silencé id Ie the auto shops, the lines SHOW thy In stop running?” Hel Answer by Romney, “ea othiny would urge the auto manult yi dow; bo) te OPecte joule ¢ cav-Ehm Ment vido turers to shut the lines for at least one minu silence so the workers § pay their resps«t.” Mayor anagh agreed. '* On Thursday and F April 4-5, the workers in Boh Rouge Engine plant a vedi Stamping plant, several hun 000*%ien in the Assembly plant, “ didn’t wait for the comp2 1ielAteo tell them anything, they W4 ly out. ? : nt! : Meanwhile the Internatio ding UAW officers here are £& y many requests for the plants ails shut down on the day of * Moy, King’s funeral. At the most afte plosive spot, Ford Rouge, Ww ih over 17,000 Negroes work iptite the hardest, dirtiest jobs, Ok three union leaders, way 7 Dorosh, president, who is white Buddy Battles, vice-presideh © Al Wilson, recording secre both the latter are Negro, f ed Henry Ford II to the assembly lines down oi minutes. Sit McKinnon, chi@? industrial labor relations . the union leaders, “there } cost factor involved.” Ford II’s heart has been “bl i, ing” lately about the plight f - 500,000 Negroes in Detroit, It great number who are jobles ny live in death-dealing, rat-rid re disease-breeding slums, kn? dite as the ghetto. Ch i yea ks Al Wilson, Negro Ford altri er from the Stamping Pla said, ‘the company knows the a workers are going to stop at "ip." time of the funeral, they m2; as well get with us and m@ ys unanimous, because work ting have their minds made up bi it they are not working. Th n want to honor Rev. King, only as a civil rights ma oft but as a peace fighter and 9 tp ;. also a labor martyr, who oy : lives that the laboring woman, black and white, MPAe , have a better life. We have : labor martyrs of our ow? Ford, four young men who killed by Ford gunmen in hunger march in 1932 out front of the pant: OMIT GGe. SOT. 3k efi W HE ¢ ie 8 Stig mA tgs) -bSs7i139 F