Congress. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Subversive Influences in Riots,
Looting, and Burning. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1967, 1968.
Pt. 5: Buffalo, New York (June 20, 1968).
SuDoc No.: Y4.Un1/2:R47/pt.5
Date(s) of Hearings: June 20, 1968
Congress and Session: 90th - 2nd
View excerpts
Frank Felicetta, police commissioner of Buffalo, New York testifies before the House Un-American
Activities Committee in Part Five of this hearing print. Felicetta testifies that the riot
started as a result of Martin Sostre, owner of Buffalo's Afro-Asian Book Store. During the
riot, rioting youth "bought books like Negroes With Guns by Robert F. Williams and read
them." After the riot several defense committees were set up for Sostre and put out flyers.
Under the heading "Black Liberation Fighters Attacked," one such flyer states,
"The Afro-American people have long demanded social justice from the white power structure
of the U.S. Their appeals have been met with terror, lynch-mobs, police savagery, frame-ups,
and sadistic killings. Now their most outspoken leaders have either been killed (Malcolm X,
Medgar Evers) or exiled (Paul Robeson, Robert F. Williams) or framed (LeRoi Jones, Rap Brown,
Max Stanford, etc.) In Buffalo, Martin Sostre – owner of the Afro-Asian Bookstore and
outspoken anti-war critic and Black Liberation fighter -- was brutally beaten, framed and his
store smashed in the summer of 1967.....The anti-war movement must support these brave
liberation fighters for Black self-determination without reservation."
Another flyer produced by the Buffalo Youth Against War and Fascism was handed out during the
riots. The flyer told the reader that "The Black youth in particular – who are in
the vanguard of the struggle – face a completely hopeless situation. The future holds
no alternative for them but a life of poverty or being drafted to fight in a war against their
Asian brothers in Vietnam!"
Information on former SNCC leader, John Wilson as discovered by then assistant chief of
detectives Floyd Edwards, is read into the record. The following sequence is preserved from
the Senate record:
Mr. FELICETTA. I will read his report:
On 7-18-67, I spoke to a group of young Negroes at the JFK Community Center on Clinton St. The
main speaker at this meeting was a young Negro about 25 yrs. named John Wilson, the fund
raising chairman (National) for SNCC. He is from Chicago, Illinois. His whole approach was one
of hate and to appeal to the worst in the young audience.
He impressed upon the kids that the black men in America don't want integration, we want our
own, now...He insulted all white people in the audience and called Dean Rusk a
"Hunkey Fool"
Mr. ASHBROOK. A what?
Mr. FELICETTA. Hunkey fool.
-Robert McNamara, a hunkey warmonger. He appealed to the Negro boys to refuse to serve in the
armed services. He told all that the Negro doesn't need whitey conservatives, or liberals, outs
is a black man's problem and the black man should solve it alone, by taking what we want."
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