Congress. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration
of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws.
Extent of Subversion in Campus Disorders. Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1969.
Pt. 3: Testimony of John F. McCormick and William E. Grogan (June 26, 1969).
EXCERPTS
Testimony of: Detective John F. McCormick, New Rochelle, N.Y. Police Department; and
Detective William E. Grogan, Yonkers, N.Y. Police Department
Mr. Grogan. Mr. Nopel, I have here a tape which I would like to make available
to the committee, of a recording that we made at Iona College during the appearance of Mr. Abby
Hoffman and Mr. Eldridge Cleaver.
The recording is their voices. It was set up and taped by myself and Sergeant McCormick.
Mr. Nopel. Mr. Chairman, may the order read that the subcommittee staff review
the tape and make such excerpts as are necessary and/or pertinent to be included in the present
record?
Senator Thurmond. It will be so ordered.
A review of the tape recording of speeches given by Eldridge Cleaver and Abbie Hoffman at Iona
College on October 11, 1968, yielded several pertinent extracts from statements by these
individuals.
********************************************
The following remarks were made by Eldridge Cleaver:
(A) "We say to Brother Mao Tse-tung that we recognize what you've done, that you've
liberated your people from imperialism and from colonialism. And we recognize you. Brother Ho
Chi Minh, what you're doing. That you're trying to liberate your country from the imperialists
and we want to bring the boys home."
Mr. Norpel. Sergeant McCormick and Detective Grogan, are there training schools
or training sessions set up or an operation to your knowledge in New Rochelle or Yonkers or that
area to train militants or revolutionaries, as I believe the popular term is today, to your
knowledge?
Mr. McCormick. In New Rochelle with respect to Black Radicals Onward, I have
observed judo instructions being given to the members of this organization. In connection with
this I offer to the committee a schedule of classes of the Black Unity Party Liberation and
Freedom School, which includes photographic instructions, first aid, self defense, black history,
and so on.
The Liberation School is a nonprofit, educational institution set up by black people for black
people and their address is Steering Committee. Black Unity Party, 22 Nelson Avenue, Peekskill,
N.Y.
Mr. Norpel. If I may interrupt you for a moment, how do you relate it to BRO;
the title of the organization is different, as I understood you.
Mr. McCormick. I would only relate it as far as the curriculum, and the close
proximity of Peekskill to New Rochelle and certain unconfirmed information that our people are
traveling to Peekskill and availing themselves of these courses.
Mr. Norpel. Those people who do the traveling, would they be BRO members?
Mr. McCormick. I could not determine that and give you any definite answer at
this time.
Mr. Norpel. So it is not necessarily the organization BRO which is sponsoring
this type of training, although the training is being taken by unidentified Negroes from New
Rochelle?
Mr. McCormick. I would say yes at this time.
Mr. Norpel. These are the indications you have had?
Mr. McCormick. Right.
Peekskill, as you know, is the center of the Panther movement in the County of Westchester.
Mr. Norpel. And is that investigation continuing?
Mr. McCormick. Definitely.
Mr. Norpel. May this be received?
Senator Thurmond. It may be received.
(The documents follow:)
BLACK UNITY PARTY LIBERATION AND FREEDOM SCHOOL
Begins Monday, August 5, 1968
ACTIVITY AND CLASS SCHEDULE
Monday: 7 p.m., Black history (adult class), topic: Whiteman's control over Black Education.
Arabic language.
Tuesday: 7 p.m., First-aid (self-defense), youth class, African history.
Wednesday: 7 p.m., First-aid (self-defense), sisters, Swahili language.
Thursday: 7 p.m., Photography instructions, black history.
Friday: 7 p.m., Self-defense of the blackman and community (all welcome).
Saturday: 10 a.m., Young brothers and sisters, educational conditioning, between ages 4 and 7.
6 p.m., The Vietnam war -- the draft and black people.
Sunday: 6 p.m., Open meeting for black community, (all welcome). What is the liberation school?
The Liberation School is a non-profit educational institution set up by Black people, for Black
people. It is the sincere hope of the Liberation School that through efforts like whites, Black
people will develop self-respect, self-defense, and self-determination. Only then will we
be free.
Peace and yours in the Revolution
STEERING COMMITTEE BLACK UNITY PARTY
Peekskill, N.Y.
PEPPER SEASONS NEW LEFT
William F. Pepper, former Yonkers resident and former chairman of the Yonkers Citizens Union, is
a busy man in Chicago today as he supervises preparations for the first national convention of
the National Conference for New Politics.
Mr. Pepper is the executive director of the NCPC.
Pre-convention workshops and caucuses will be held today through Thursday when the convention
rally will be held at the Chicago Coliseum with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the keynote speaker.
Slogan for the convention rally is to be "1968 and Beyond."
Mr. Pepper told the Herald Statesman he expects between 2,000 and 3,000 delegates and observers
"from all sorts of organizations" to attend the convention.
The convention itself is to be held at the Palmer House in Chicago over the Labor Day weekend.
The NCPC claims to be an expression of the young New Left.
[From the New York Times, Mar. 24, 1968]
LEFTISTS PLAN DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION DISRUPTION
CONVENE WITH BLACK POWER LEADERS ON COORDINATION OF ANTIWAR CAMPAIGN
(By Donald Janson)
CHICAGO, March 23 -- New Left and Old Left and black power leaders from coast to coast met today
at a wooded rural camp outside Chicago to plan a coordinated antiwar effort for this election year.
High on the agenda was a discussion of strategies for discussion of strategies for disrupting the
Democratic National Convention here beginning Aug. 26. Sentiment among the delegates ranged
from ignoring the convention to "closing" it.
Ronnie Davis, 27-year-old director of the Center for Radical Research here, who is a leader in
the committee that called the conference, expressed his view in an interview for the latest issue
of The Movement:
"I think we can do better than attempting to prevent the convention from taking place, as
some have suggested, by closing down the city on the first day of prevention activity.
FOR RISING MILITANCY
"The delegates should be allowed to come to Chicago, so long as they give their support to a
policy of ending racism and the war. I favor letting the delegates meet in the International
amphitheatre and making our demands and the actions behind those demands escalate in militancy
as the convention proceeds."
Mr. Davis, a founder of Students for a Democratic Society, told a reporter that the conferees
would seek to determine and then act on "the most effective means of building opposition to
the racism and imperialism" of the Johnson Administration.
The meeting was planned by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, with
headquarters in New York. It organized mass antiwar demonstrations in New York City last April
15 and at the Pentagon Oct. 21.
Delegates at the lakeside camp near the Wisconsin border represent a wide range of antiwar
"black liberation" organizations.
NEGROES MEET SEPARATELY
In keeping with current black separatist philosophy, Negroes met separately today nearby
"with the goal of creating a parallel organizational structure in which white and black
people operate from a basis of separate and equal strength." Carlos Russell, black power
advocate from New York organized that meeting. Representatives of the "parallel"
conclaves conferred with each other from time to time.
The press was barred from the cluster of one-story brown buildings at the camp where
deliberations were held, but Mr. Dais put the combined number of delegates at about 200.
Elaborate precautions were taken to keep the site secret. Most of the delegates themselves were
not told where they would be going. In letters of invitation, they were given two gathering
places in Chicago, an airline information counter at O'Hare International Airport and the
downtown Loop office of the mobilization committee. They were shuttled by car to the camp as
they arrived.
Some drove from their home cities. Automobiles parked outside the camp gate bore license plates
of states from as far away as Oregon.
WIDE RANGE OF GROUPS
Delegates represented groups ranging from Women Strike for Peace to the Communist party.
Listed sponsors of the conference included David Dellinger, editor of Liberation magazine : the
Rev. Daniel Berrigan, Roman Catholic chaplain at Cornell University : William F. Pepper,
executive director of the National Conference for New Politics : Linda Morse, executive secretary
of the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, and Thomas Hayden, peace and
civil rights activist.
In their letter of invitation they said, "We are convinced that a national election year
program could be of tremendous importance in deepening the challenge to the corrupt, racist and
imperialistic politics of the established order."
One question discussed by the delegates was whether to support demonstrations that others will
organize for Senator Robert F. Kennedy or Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, who oppose the
Administration's war policies.
The campground meeting will end tomorrow night, but another may be held in early summer.
Other groups besides those represented here this weekend are making plans to disrupt the
Democratic convention.
Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Chicago police department publicly discount all such statements
as idle threats, but at the same time have made detailed plans for swift action to keep order.
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