HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY
GIFT OF THE
GOVERNMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCES IN RIOTS, LOOTING,
AND BURNING
PART 4
(Newark, N.J.)
HEARING^
>>«.
BEFORE THE f^/)
COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN.|CTIYITIES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATltlS "
NINETIETH CONGKESS
SECOND SESSION •
APRIL 23 AND 24, 1968
(INCLUDING INDEX)
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Un-American Activities
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
88-083 WASHINGTON : 1968
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402 - Price $1
COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
United States House of Representatives
EDWIN E. WILLIS, Louisiana, Chairman
WILLIAM M. TUCK, Virginia JOHN M. ASHBROOK, Ohio
JOE R. POOL, Texas DEL CLAWSON, California
RICHARD H. ICHORD, Missouri RICHARD L. ROUDEBUSH, Indiana
JOHN C. CULVER, Iowa ALBERT W. WATSON, South Carolina
Francis J. McNamara, Director
Chester D. Smith, General Counsel
Alfred M. Nittle, Counsel
n
CONTENTS
Page
Synopsis 1851
April 23, 1968: Testimony of—
Charles Kinney 1862
Afternoon session:
Charles Kinney (resumed) 1883
April 24, 1968: Testimony of—
Charles Kinney (resumed) 1910
Afternoon session:
Charles Kinney (resumed) _' 1956
Index i
III
The House Committee on Un-American Activities is a standing
committee of the House of Hepresentatives, constituted as such by the
rules of the House, adopted pursuant to Article I, section 5, of the
Constitution of the United States wliich authorizes the House to de-
termine the rules of its proceedings.
RULES ADOPTED BY THE 90TH CONGRESS
House Resolution 7, January 10, 1967
RESOLUTION
Resolved, That the Rales of the House of Representatives of the Eighty-ninth
Congress, together with all applicable provisions of the Legislative Reorganiza-
tion Act of 1946, as amended, be, and they are hereby, adopted as the Rules of
the House of Representatives of the Ninetieth Congress * * *
*******
Rule X
STANDING COMMITTEES
1. There shall be elected by the House, at the commencement of each (Congress,
*******
(r) Committee on Un-American Activities, to consist of nine Members.
*******
Rule XI
POWERS AND DUTIES OF COMMITTEES
*******
18. Committee on Un-American Activities.
(a) Un-American activities.
(b) The Committee on Un-Amerioan Activities, as a whole or by subcommittee,
is authorized to make from time to time investigations of (1) the extent, charac-
ter, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States, (2)
the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propa-
ganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and at-
tacks the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution,
and (3) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any
necessary remedial legislation.
The Committee on Un-American Activities shall report to the House ( or to the
Clerk of the House if the House is not in session ) the results of any such investi-
gation, together with such recommendations at it deems advisable.
For the purpose of any svich investigation, the Committee on Un-American
Activities, or any subcommittee thereof, is authorized to sit and act at such times
and places within the United States, whether or not the House is sitting, has
recessed, or has adjourned, to hold such hearings, to require the attendance of
such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, and
to take such testimony, as it deems necessary. Subpenas may be issued under
the signature of the chairman of the committee or any subcommittee, or by any
member designated by any such chairman, and may be served by any person
designated by any such chairman or member. ,
*******
27. To assist the House in appraising the administration of the laws and in
developing such amendments or related legislation as it may deem necessary,
each standing committee of the House shall exorcise continuous watchfulness
of the execution by the administrative agencies concerned of any laws, the sub-
ject matter of which is within the jurisdiction of such committee ; and, for that
purpose, shall study all pertinent reports and data submitted to the House by the
agencies in the executive branch of the Government.
*******
SYNOPSIS
On April 23 and 24, 1968, a subcommittee of the Committee on Un-
American Activities met in Washington, D.C., to continue its hearings
on subversive influences in riots, looting, and burning. This hearing,
part 4 of the series, concerns events related to the Newark, N.J., riot of
July 1967.
The subcommittee was composed of Representatives Edwin E.
Willis (D-La.), chairman, William M. Tuck (D-Va.), Richard H.
Ichord (D-Mo.), John M. Ashbrook (R-O.), and Albert W. Watson
(R-S.C.) ; also Representative John C. Culver (D-Iowa) in absence
of Mr. Willis.
Detective Captain Charles Kimiey, the witness, has been employed
in the Newark Police Department since 1947, serving for 19 years in the
detective division. For 8 months prior to his appearance before the
committee, Captain Khmey, under special assignment, has been in-
vestigating the possibility of criminal conspiracy in the Newark riot.
Captain Kinney testified that there were 23 homicides and 3 related
deaths during the Newark riot which took place from July 12 to July
17, 1967. He said that 1,465 arrests were made, including 91 which in-
volved the use of deadly weapons and explosives. Also, there were
507 cases of breaking and entering.
Property damage was estimated at $15.9 million, of which $4.9 mil-
lion was uninsured. Of the 1,108 persons injured during the riot, the
witness testified, 1,001 were civilians, 72 were police officers, and 35
were firemen.
PRERIOT PHASE
Captain Kinney testified that in 1964 a group of activists of the
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) came to Newark and or-
ganized the Newark Community Union Project (NCUP). The leader
of this group was Thomas Hayden, former national president of SDS.
The committee's counsel noted for the record that Hayden, who was
born in Detroit in 1939 and who holds an A.B. degree from the Uni-
versity of Michigan, had been a field representative for SDS in 1961-
62, a member of the U.S. delegation to the Commmiist-controlled
Eighth World Youth Festival held in Helsinki, Finland ; had traveled
to North Vietnam and Communist China with the U.S. Communist
Party's theoretician, Herbert Aptheker, where he met with Asian revo-
lutionary leaders in Hanoi, Peking, and Prague; had also visited
Moscow ; and had written the foreword to Aptheker's book. Mission
to Hanoi. He also collaborated with Staughton Lynd in writing The
Other Side, which depicted the Viet Cong as heroes and warmly
praised the North Vietnamese leaders.
Associated with Hayden in NCDP were the following SDS mem-
bers : Jesse Allen, a founder and one of the full-time organizers of the
NCUP ; Robert Kramer and Norman Fruchter, also full-time organ-
1851
1852 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCES IX RIOTS, LOOTING, AND BURNING
izers for the group; Carol Glassman; Terry Jefferson; Constance
Brown ; Corinna Fales ; and Derek Winans.
Jesse Allen, the witness said, was both an official of NCUP and an
organizer for Area Board 3 of the United Community Corporation
(UCC), the Newark antipoverty agency financed by the" Office of Eco-
nomic Opportunity. A delegate to the 1965 SDS convention, Allen had
been a speaker at a meeting of the Militant Labor Forum, a front
organization for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), a Trotskyist
Communist organization on the Attorney General's subversive list.
Carol Glassman, bom in New York on August 10, 1942, was an
NCUP organizer who resides at its headquarters in Newark. A grad-
uate of Smith College, she and Constance Brown, a 1964 Swarthmore
graduate, had attended public meetings held by the city of Newark for
the purpose of "harassing the power structure." She traveled to Brat-
islava, Czechoslovakia, in September 1967 with Thomas Hayden a'nd
39 others where they met with representatives from Communist
countries.
Mrs. Dazzare (Terry) Jefferson, Captain Kimiey testified, is the
treasurer of both UCC's Area Board 3, also known as the Peoples'
Action Group, and SDS's Newark Community Union Project; the
office manager of NCUP ; and a community organizer for Area Board
3. Her technique as treasurer of these two groups has been to make out
checks to "cash" which are in turn endorsed by her, thus concealing the
distribution of funds. She attended the 1966 national convention of
SDS. According to Neio^ Polities News, Mrs. Jefferson is a member of
the executive board of the National Conference for New Politics
(NCNP).
Eobert Kramer, a former organizer for the NCUP, coauthored an-
article for Studies on the Left entitled "An Approach to Community
Organizing Projects," which dealt with NCUP's operations in Newark.
Norman Fruchter, Kramer's collaborator on the above-mentioned
article, has 'been New York editor for the magazine, Studies on the
Left, an SDS publication, and also a faculty member of the Free
University [School] of New York.
Fruchter is also coproducer, according to the National Guardian, of
various films, including the "Troublemakers," which depicts SDS
activities in organizing the ghettos of Newark. Captain Kinney said
that Fruchter is an adviser to SDS's Radical Education Project. He
also testified that a letter had been sent to Fruchter, a leading activist
in NCUP, by William McAdoo on behalf of CERGE (Committee to
Defend Resistance to Ghetto Life) , thanking Fruchter for his financial
support and his sponsorship. /
CERGE, committee counsel pointed out, was a front organization
for the pro-Peking Communist organization, the Progressive Labor
Party (PLP), and McAdoo was identified during this committee's
New York riot hearings as tlie PLP member who had given instruc-
tions on the making of Molotov cocktails at the time of the Harlem riot.
Constance Brown, employed by the Welfare Board of Essex County,
N.J., has the authority to sign checks for the Newark Commmiitv
Union Project of SDS."
Corinna Fales, an organizer for NCUP, had been ]:)reviously asso-
ciated with SDS in Baltimore, Md., in 1963, Captain Kinney testified.
Derek Winans, born in Orange, N.J., on September 4, 1938, grad-
uated from Harvard University in 1962. A journalist, Winans lias
written articles ior Ramparts and The Nation magazines and has been
active in numerous civil rights activities such as voter registration
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCES IN RIOTS, LOOTING, AND BURKING 1853
drives in Mississippi. He helped to organize the Fair Housing Council
of South Orange, Maplewood, Millbum, and Short Hills, N. J., which
donated funds to the Bessie Smith Community Center in Newark, N.J.
This center is a project of Area Board 3.
His other activities included sponsorship of the Spring Mobilization
Committee To End the War in Vietnam.^ Winans, a former leader of
the Essex County chapter of the Americans for Democratic Action,
was expelled in 1964 by the national body of ADA at its convention in
Washington.
The most important aspect of NCUP's activity, Captain Kinney tes-
tified, was its infiltration and actual seizure of control of some portions
of the antipoverty program in Newark, particularly Area Board 3 of
the United Community Corporation, which is also known as the Peo-
ples' Action Group.
That Hayden's success in Area Board 3 was to be used as the proto-
type for similar efforts elsewhere was made clear by the article in the
radical magazine. Studies on the Left (vol. 6, No. 2, 1966), written by
SDS members Norman Fruohter and Robert Kramer, entitled "An
Approach to Community Organizing Projects." The contents of the
article, the witness said, indicated that Hayden's operation was the
model which radicals should emulate in order to capture other anti-
poverty programs.
Another article written by Hayden himself entitled "Community
Organizing and the War on Poverty," was published in the November
1965 issue of Liberation magazine. This was a valuable article, said
Captain Kinney, because it i*evealed Hayden's and NCUP's position.
In it Hayden attacked the official antipoverty program in Newark, the
UCC. He wrote that the director's social theories soft-pedaled the idea
of attacking power structures and favored instead the objective of
bringing ghetto residents into the mainstream of competitive society —
a goal to which Hayden aj)parently objected.
After describing how NCUP took over the antipoverty program
in Newark's UCC Area Board 3, Hayden wrote that the quest for
power should focus on the antipoverty council as much as on the city
council. Another section of the same issue of Liberation in which that
article was published noted that Hayden was becoming one of the
magazine's associate editors starting with that issue.
On the subject of alleged police brutality, Captain Kinney stated
that during the past 5 years agitators in Newark have tried to exploit
every possible grievance between colored and white people and every
police arrest.
The Newark Police Department obtained a copy of an NCUP docu-
ment, dated Summer 1965, concerning field interviews of student
and community associates of NCUP on the subject of NCUP accom-
plishments. Asked during one of these interviews what he meant when
he used the term "radical," Hayden replied :
On the basis of issues that you try to link campaigns for domestic-economic,
civil rights and social change to foreign policy and that you have a very clear
stand in favor of an end to the war in Vietnam, as well as economic change
within the country. * * *
Concerning the community action part of the war on poverty,
Hayden suggested that the NCUP professional staff might be utilized
^ For Information on this group, see HCUA, report. Communist Origin and Manipulation
of Vietnam Week, March 31, 1967, House Doc. Ii86, 90th Cong., 1st sess.
1854 SUBVERSIVE INFI<UENCES IN RIOTS, LOOTING, AND BURNING
to write muckraking articles for the newsletter on a regular basis.
Hayden added that the researcher's function should be housed in the
same building as the antipoverty program's staff but physically sepa-
rated in other rooms "the way the Minnis operation is set up with
SNCC." Jack Minnis is the director of research for SNCC.
Captain Kinney pointed out tliat Hayden's reference to Jack Minnis,
a white radical, appeared to be a recognition of Minnis role in manipu-
lating SNCC, as well as the suggestion that the Negro majority in the
Peoples' Action Group (Area Board 3 of the UCC) could be better
manipulated by white persons in SDS working in separate quarters
but close enough to provide the impetus and ideology for the activity.
Captain Kinney testified that others engaged in racial agitation
in Newark prior to the riot included :
Phil Hutchings, 26, of Newark, SNCC's field director in New Jersey,
a onetime college classmate of Stokely Carmichael at Howard Uni-
versity in Washington, D.C., who, in August 1966, arranged a speaking
tour for Carmichael in New Jersey. He had previously worked for
SNCC in Georgia and Tennessee. While in Washington, he had worked
for SDS.
In the spring of 1967 Hutchings and two other SNCC leaders in
Newark, Robert E. Fullilove, 24, a college student, and Clinton Hopson
Bey, 31, began an organizational drive in Newark. They opened a
storefront "Black Liberation Center" at 107 South Orange Avenue,
Newark, a location which was also used by Albert Roy Osborne, alias
Colonel Hassan, when he was in Newark. When the storefront was
burned out, the center moved across the street to a restaurant managed
by Clinton Hopson Bey and Ozzie Bey.
Hutchings stated, said Captain Kinney, that Newark was chosen by
SNCC because of its small area and large Negro population. More-
over, Hutchings further said that Newark was one of several northern
cities where SNCC hopes "to translate its black power philosophy into
an outlet for frustration and an attack on conditions in the slums.''
Hutchings was appointed to UCC's board of trustees by Willie
Wright, Negro militant and a vice president of the United Community
Corporation. Wright had also helped Hutchings set up the Black
Liberation Center.
In the spring of 1967, Hutchings had attended several local meetings
of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and some preliminary
meetings on the Black Power Conference in Newark. He had also
become associated with the Black Panthers.
Jimius Williams, the next militant activist about whom Captain
Kinney testified, had written a letter to Tom Hayden which stated, in
part:
Seeing you people take over the War on Poverty was quite a treat ; I've decided
I want to tamper with the power structure a bit. * * *
At the present time Williams and Hutchings reside together in
Newark. They formed a new organization called the Newark Area
Planning Association with the aim of involving "the people of the
Central Ward in the replanning and administration of Newark."
Other individuals and their organizations who were involved in the
racial agitation in Newark prior to the July 1967 riots included Colonel
Hassan Jeru Ahmed, whose real name is Albert Roy Osborne, alias
Tony Williams. Osborne was born in Washington, D.C., in 1924.
He has a lengthy criminal recoi'd wliich includes robbery, liousebreak-
ing, false pretenses, forgery, and bad checks. In 1950 he was held for
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCES IN RIOTS, LOOTING, AND BURNING 1855
mental observation. He has served time in prisons in the District of
Columbia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Osborne, whose headquarters are in Washington, D.C., came to
Newark several months prior to the 1967 riots and, said Captain Kin-
ney, contributed to the climate that caused the riot.
Osborne's group is called the Blackman's Volunteer Army of Lib-
eration. Its so-called regiment — the Black Star Regiment — was located
in rooms above a store in Washington, D.C. While claiming to have
battalions in major American cities, he has actually fewer than 10 fol-
lowers, Osborne's avowed intention is to create a mercenary army of
American Negroes to fight for the independence of central and south-
ern Africa.
Willie Wright, also known as William T. Wright, was born in 1928
in Albany, Georgia. He currently resides in Newark on the second
floor of a building above the offices of the United Afro- American Asso-
ciation, an organization which lie formed in 1965.
By his association with nationally known militants and by his
foreign travel, Wright has placed himself in the forefront of those
seeking violent answers to the Nation's social problems, said Captain
Kinney. He collaborated with Stokely Carmichael when the latter
came to Newark's Central Ward to urge Negroes to take oyer Newark
"lock, stock, and barrel." Wright also went to Bratislava in Commu-
nist Czechoslovakia with Hayden following the Newark riots.
Another active militant in Newark is James Walker, who was born
in New Haven, Conn., in 1918. Now employed bj' the United Com-
munity Corporation, OEO, as assistant director for Total Employ-
ment and Manpower (TEAM) Center No. 1 in Newark, Walker
has an arrest record dating back to 1938. Prior to July 1967, Walker
told two Newark Police Department lieutenants that the city "needed
an incident" to bring it to the attention of the Federal Government.
On the night the Newark riot started Walker was in the area foment-
ing trouble. He helped to organize the taxicab caravan to city hall to
protest the arrest of cabdriver John Smith, which had triggered the
riot. Many cabdrivers complied because they were afraid to do other-
wise. Captain Kinney said.
One of the outsiders who came into Newark, in addition to those
brought in by Hayden, was a Mrs. Audley Moore, who is also known
as the Queen Mother. During the meeting of the planning board
mentioned above, she made inflammatory statements and hurled epi-
thets at the policemen present who were there to maintain order. At
the end of the meeting she took over the chairman's chair.
According to this committee's information, Mrs. Moore, from the
late 1930's until the end of the 1940's, was a publicly acknowledged
member and official of the Communist Party, U.S.A., and served on
its national Women's Commission. At one time she had served also as
an alternate member of the national committee of the party.
Because of her militant and separatist approach in calling for the
establishment of a black republic in America, a position which the
CPUSA had rejected in 1959, Mrs. Moore broke with the party line on
the Negro question. In the spring of 1968, she participated in a con-
ference of black militants in Detroit to formally adopt their position in
callmg for the creation of a separate black republic in five southern
States.
1856 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCES IN RIOTS, LOOTING, AND BURNING
RIOT PHASE
The arrest of John Smith, a cabdriver, on the night of July 12, 1967,
was the catalyst that set off the Newark riot. Smith, who was born in
Warthen, Ga., on January 27, 1927, had had only two previous minor
brushes with the law.
While the witness believed that the incident of Smith's arrest had not
been planned by him, it did provide the occasion which certain in-
dividuals and groups were hoping for — groups which were prepared
to act decisively when the right time came.
Smith, who had been driving his cab on a revoked license, was
stopped on the night of July 12 by police officers whose patrol car he
was tailgating. He also had been flicking his headlights on and off and
alternately braking and accelerating his cab. A^-lien asked to produce
his license, he became loud, profane, and abusive. He refused to leave
his cab when so ordered and finally, when he did, attempted to assault
both policemen. Scores of residents in a housing development near the
Fourth Precinct station observed Smith's arrival, following his arrest,
in the patrol car and his forcible removal from it to the police station.
Soon the rumor that "White cops had killed a Negro cab driver,"
spread througli the area. Several hundred people gathered around the
Fourth Precinct chanting for the release of Smith. A fire bomb was
thrown at the precinct station,
Robert. Curvin, a former chairman of the Newark chapter of CORE
and a participant in Newark demonstrations for many years, borrowed
a bull horn from a civil rights leader who had been attempting to
quiet the crowd and made inflammatory remarks to the crowd.
Phil Hutchings of SNCC and Betty Moss of NCUP were con-
tinually haranguing the crowd with statements such as "The Blacks
will kill all you Short Hills cops."
Shortly after midnight a police car was stoned and the looting of
stores began. By 1 a.m. the looting was increasing and spreading to
other areas. Fires were set and the firemen aa ho responded to the alarms
were stoned. By 2 a.m. a taxicab caravan, organized by James Walker,
had formed and was converging on the city hall.
James Kennedy, an official of Area Board No. 2, composed a leaflet
blaming police brutality for this incident and inflaming the crowd dur-
ing the same time that Police Director Spina was attempting to quiet
it.
This leaflet. Captain Kinney said, was a call for a mass meeting the
night following the Smith arrest — the episode which set off the full-
scale Newark riot. Leaflets were circulated describing the prep^,ration
and the making of Molotov cocktail fire bombs for use against such
targets as department stores.
During the 5-day riot, over 200 cases of sniping were reported. Flyers
were distributed, said Kinney, by the Black liberation Center which
had a picture of a "very horrible-looking Uncle Sam" Avhich stated, in
part, "Uncle Sam wants YOU^ nigger."
LeRoi Jones, playwright, and others were also arrested during the
riot for possession of firearms. He and two other men were reported to
have been firing their guns from a moving vehicle during the night of
the riot.
Jones, according to committee counsel, was born in Newark in 1981
and was a graduate of Howard University. His plays have revealed an
obsessive hatred for white persons.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCES IN RIOTS, LOOTING, AND BURNING 1857
In the early 1960's this militant radical was a frequent speaker at
meetings of the Trotskyist Communist Socialist Workers * Party
(SWP). In 1964 he told a rally of the Harlem Progressive Labor
Party, a pro-Peking group, that "we're the only people" that can
make America fall.
He established the Black Arts Repertory Theater in 1965 and re-
ceived $40,000 in Federal antipoverty funds, but these funds were later
cut o& when the police discovered that his project was used as a vehicle
to propagate hatred. Also, an arms cache was found in the theater
building which Jones owned, noted the counsel.
Captain Kimiey infonned the committee that Willie Wright had
told the Governor's Select Commission on Civil Disorder that a care-
fully conceived plan to burn much of Newark's main business section
was already in execution wlien John Smith's arrest had set off the
major conflagration.
POSTRIOT PHASE
Following the riot, a controversy developed over the plans of
Newark's antipoverty agency, the United Community Corporation, to
do what it had done the past two summers — use Government money to
send children to Camp Abelard, located at Hunter, N.Y. A newspaper
had charged that the camp was being utilized as a training area for
leftwing activities.
The controversy was settled by an GEO determination that the camp
was "unacceptable" — despite the fact that the UCC had selected
Corinna Fales to inspect the camp and she had given it a clean bill of
health.
Committee counsel pointed out that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
had testified that this camp had been under the control of the Com-
munist Party since its establishment in 1929.
One postriot rally in Newark featured as a speaker Charles Ken-
yatta, head of the black militant Mau Mau organization, whose real
name is Charles Morris and who was known as Charles 37X when he
was a Muslim.
Willie Wright's United Afro-American Association also produced
leaflets, during the postriot period, which made reference to a police-
man who had been murdered during the riot as a "racist detective"
whose death was "well-earned." Also, after the riot, vicious anti-
Semitic and anti-Italian leaflets were circulated.
The Reverend Albert Cleage of Detroit, a militant racist with a long
record of extremist activitie.s, said Captain Kinney, also spoke at a
meeting sponsored by the UCC in Newark. Committee counsel noted
that Cleage, associated since the late 1940's Avith numerous CPUS A
fronts and enterprises, has been in recent years linked with the Trotsky-
ist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) by his support of their election
candidates and by his speeches at their functions. Cleage has written
that he and others had shared with the rioters their "will to violence."
In 1967 Cleage was quoted as having said that "G;uerrilla warfare
is the black man's answer to the white man's final solution."
Hayden ■- i his followers have admitted, said Captain Kinney, that
they want an entirely new society and a different form of government
and would use any and every means to obtain their ends.
Hayden and his group, said Captain Kinney, have exploited contro-
versies in the city of Newark "to turn race against race, class against
1858 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCES IN RIOTS, LOOTING, AND BURNING
class, creed against creed, thereby contributing to the climate which
caused the riots in Newark in July 1967, which he views as a means to
an end."
In his book, Rebellion in Newark^ Hayden wrote a chapter entitled
"From Riot to Revolution," in which he said :
The role of organized violence is now being carefully considered. During a riot,
for instance, a conscious guerrilla can participate in pulling police away from the
path of people engaged in attacking stores. He can create disorder in new areas
the ix)lice think are secure. He can carry the torch, if not all the people, to white
neighborhoods and downtown business districts. If necessary, he can successfully
shoot to kill.
Willie Wright's postriot activities, said Captain Kinney, as de-
scribed by Louis Lomax during August 1967 in the Newark Star-
Ledger^ included an admission by Wright that he was proud to be an
out-and-out revolutionary.
After the July riot, when addressing a group of 200 persons attend-
ing a meeting of the board of trustees. Area 2, of UCC, Wright said
that:
I say we should arm ourselves with cannons, machine guns, bazookas, anything
we can get our hands on ; and if you don't know how to get some heavy weapons,
call my oflSce and I will tell you where to go and how to get them.
Following this speech, which was cheered by the audience, the
board voted unanimously to keep Wright as a member.
Also on September 5, 1967, Wright applied for a passport to go to
Paris ostensibly for a visit. Instead, he went to Bratislava, Czechoslo-
vakia, to attend a conference of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
representatives. This week-long session was arranged by David Del-
linger, editor of Liberation magazine, Wright, who had appeared
"quite broke" before his trip, began to spend money more freely upon
his return to America.
Alvin Oliver, a coordinator for eight antipoverty programs at UCC
headquarters, was also active following the riot. He was in contact
with Maxwell Curtis Stanford, Jr., alias Allah Mahammad, one of
the leaders of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), RAM,
a pro-Peking guerrilla warfare organization which has been linked
to Castro's regime, is "dedicated to the overthrow of the capitalist
system in the United States," by force if necessary, according to
J. Edgar Hoover.
Captain Kinney concluded his testimony by stating that the day
after Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination about 175 fires were set
off in Newark, the worst day of fires that the city had ever had.
Captain Kinney, in reference to the publicity that there had been no
local conspiracies involved in the riot, testified that:
In Newark, certain individuals conspired, and are conspiring, to replace the
leadership of the Newark Police Department. Other individual- '^onspired. and are
conspiring, to turn out of office the present city administration before its lawful
term expires.
Still other individuals conspired, and are conspiring, as part of the movement
to replace the system of government under which we live in the United States
of America, using any means to do so, including the use of force and violence.
To these conspirators, the insurrection that occurred in Newark in lOfiT was
a means to an end which they welcomed and exploit(Hl to serve their plot.
To these conspirators, the accomplishment of any or all of the aforementioned
goals was paramount * ♦ *.
Many Newark and New Jersey residents, said Captain Kinney, had
asked the question, Why weren't these consjurators prosecuted ?
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCES IN RIOTS, LOOTING, AND BURNING 1859
Mr. Tuck, the subcommittee cliairman, thanked Captain Kinney
for his detailed presentation and added the following remarks :
We all know that police departments and policemen have come in for an awful
lot of abuse in the last few years. As these hearings have revealed, Communists
have played a very large role in provoking much of this criticism which has been
overwhelmingly unjustified.
Numerous unfounded and inflammatory charges have been made against
police everywhere, and everywhere we hear the cry "police brutality" — which,
incidentally, I believe is a Communist expression — when the brutality and
violence involved have actually been used not by the police but against the
police and by violators of the law they were taking into custody.
During these hearings we have received the testimony of a number of police
officers, both Negro and white, from other cities. All of them have shown
themselves to be a credit to the profession to which they belong.
****** It
These riots must be stopped. They will destroy everything that is fine and
good in America unless they are stopped and stopped now.
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 9999 05706 3016
TVNews
OpenLibrary