Vol. 1 No. 2, Page 3, April 17,1978
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POLICE
LIES EXPOSED The May 4th Coalition won a major victory in court on Monday, April 10, when Mark Canfora was acquitted of criminal trespassing charges stemming from an |
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Press notes...
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| incident which occurred on July 7th. Mark was arrested along with his sister Chic Canfora, in the first arrests of Coalition members during the Tent City occupation of Blanket Hill. Their arrests were clearly a futile effort to intimidate the Coalition and its supporters into backing down in the struggle to move the gym and |
THE TRUTH DEMANDS JUSTICE is
produced by a collective, volunteer staff, composed of May 4 Coalition members and many
other interested people. The staff will be honored to consider unsolicited articles,
photographs, artwork, letters and of course criticism. Please include name, complete
address and phone number. Submissions are due by Wednesday at 5:00 in the afternoon of
each week, for the forthcoming issue. OUR FIRST RESPONSE...The first edition of THE JUSTICE was met with much praise, negative, unsigned leaflets and comments, plus our share of controversy. It is our hope to mature and improve each week. We feel our second attempt is testimony to this strong desire.We dubiously announce the inclusion of Brage Golding, ruler of Kent State, and his staff into our bevy of readership. With barely time to catch our breath after distributing THE JUSTICE, our editorial office received a phone call from Brag's secretary. Thanking us for the three copies we dropped off at the Presidents office, she informed us that Brage |
| the fight against the May 4th cover-up. The absurdity of the charges against the Canforas during this arrest has long been known and probably accounts |
asked her to call JUSTICE for some extra copies. She said the President was 'acting in response to the great demand and interest his staff had in desiring to read our first issue'. Needless to say, we promptly met this most unusual demand, excuse us, we meant request! | THE TRUTH DEMANDS JUSTICE post office box 463 kent, ohio 44240 Phone(216) 678-2751 the weekly paper of THE MAY 4TH COALITION |
| for the fact that it took nine months to come to trial! mark was charged with criminal trespass for being in a building that the Coalition had been given permission to use. Chic was charged with disorderly conduct for her attempts to aid |  kent state
{Second in a series} |
| her brother when the officers who falsely
arrested him engaged in severe acts of brutality which landed Mark in the hospital for
five hours. Fearful of the repercussions for their brutal conduct, the police agreed to drop the charges against Chic, but only after she agreed to sign a statement that she would not sue them for false arrest. But their fear only mounted when Mark faced them in the courtroom last Monday morning, and the only witness they could produce were one cop who claimed to speak for three others and the man who called the police against the Coalition in the first place. Since it was obvious that the jury had been presented no evidence whatsoever of any criminal act, the judge acquitted Mark of the charge before his defense was even presented. Since the charges of both Chic and Mark Canfora fell so easily. This clearly shows that there was something more involved in their case than a simple trespass--that in fact, their charges were fabricated in an attempt to attack the May 4th Coalition and destroy its growing movement. In other court actions, criminal trespass charges against two of five persons charged in connection with reading the first amendment in the student center plaza on October 24th were dropped. It is anticipated that the same charges will be dropped against the others when they appear in court next week. However, all five still face contempt of court charges |
LAST WEEK'S ARTICLE REVEALED THE
ORIGINS OF KENT'S POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN 1965, EARLY ANTI-WAR ACTIVITIES, THE RISE AND
FALL OF SDS IN 1968-69, AND THE POLITICAL EDUCATIONAL PROCESS WHICH LED TO THE HISTORIC
STUDENT MOVEMENT AT KENT STATE IN MAY OF 1970. THIS WEEK'S ARTICLE DESCRIBES THE ACTIONS
OF KSU STUDENTS ON MAY 1 and MAY 2, 1970, AFTER THE CAMBODIAN INVASION AND PRIOR TO THE
BLOODY DAYS OF BRUTALITY BY THE OHIO NATIONAL GUARD. * * * Richard Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia in a nationally televised speech on the evening of April 30, 1970. Instead of ending the Indochina War, he was expanding the war into another sovereign nation. In the days and weeks to follow, students across the nation took to the streets and righteous campus rebellions rapidly spread across America. (Students at Kent State had an advanced political understanding due to intensive political educational work by Kent SDS during the previous year. Quite spontaneously, KSU students took significant actions. On Friday afternoon May 1, 1970, KSU graduate students buried a copy of the U.S. Constitution at the victory bell on the commons. They stated that the Constitution had been murdered when Nixon decided to invade Cambodia without a declaration of war by Congress. This rally of 300 was followed by another rally sponsored by Black students on campus. Word quickly spread that another rally against the Cambodian invasion was to occur on Monday, May 4, at noon. On Friday evening, May 1, 1970, KSU students had flocked downtown to enjoy the first hot evening of the spring. Politically motivated students gathered on "the strip" on N. Water Street, and a spontaneous anti-war rally of 500 people was formed in the street. Students chanted ant-war slogans, a bon-fire was set in the street, people blocked traffic for an hour and then the crowd charged down Water Street. Windows of certain downtown establishments were destroyed by rocks |
thrown by the militant crowd. Primarily
political targets were attacked, including banks, loan companies and utility companies. The mass uprising ended for the evening after students marched east up Main Street and dispersed on campus. Fourteen people were arrested and damage to the businesses amounted to approximately $5000. The following day, students helped clean and repair the damage. On Saturday, May 2, 1970, the second day of student rebellion occurred at KSU in protest of the criminal U.S. invasion of Cambodia. 300 students avoided an 8:00 p.m. city-wide curfew and assembled on the KSU commons. The campus had no curfew. Students gathered to protest ROTC, a campus institution which was widely resented because it directly served the war machine which massacred men, women and children in Indochina. Unlike today, during the war students across the nation protested the presence of ROTC on college campuses and very often were successful in removing ROTC form their campuses. SDS had effectively exposed the true role of ROTC previously, and in 1970 KSU students took action against ROTC here in Kent. A gathering of 300 on the KSU commons quickly expanded to more than 2000 during a march around campus. When students returned to the Commons, they immediately attacked the rickety old wooden ROTC building. The building was ignited by several students. When the fire department arrived. hundreds of students seized the fire hoses, turned them on the fireman and cut the hoses. When the fireman returned a second time, it was to no avail. More than 3,000 KSU students gathered across the commons, in the trees on Taylor Hill, and cheered wildly as the ROTC building blazed brightly in the night and burned down to the ground as |
| COALITION VICTORIES stemming form the same incident. The fact that people are harassed with false arrests because they are part of a political movement, or are arrested for reading the first amendment to the constitution in public. clearly shows that the only rights guaranteed us the the U.S. Constitution is the right of the people to support the status quo. When the people use their supposed rights to oppose the status quo, these rights seem to disappear. golding's holdings (continued)
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LONG LIVE THE SPIRIT OF KENT AND JACKSON STATE |
Vol. 1 No. 2, Page 3, April 17,1978
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