Mayday 1971
An
excerpt from book Navigating the Zeitgeist by Helena Sheehan
The national anti-war
movement was undergoing major shifts and splits at this time. In January 1971
Joe Miller and I attended the meeting of the National Coalition Against War,
Racism and Repression (NCAWRR) in January 1971 in Chicago. This soon became the
People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice (PCPJ). There was another national anti-war
coalition called the National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC). Both of these were
descended from previous national anti-war coalitions, resulting from splits in
the National Mobilisation Committee to
End the War in Vietnam (the Mobe), which organised mass anti-war demonstrations
in 1967. The great divide was
single issue (end the war) and single tactic (mass march) versus multi-issue
(connecting the war to the system responsible for racism, poverty, repression)
and multi-tactic (mass marches plus a whole variety of other forms of protest).
NPAC was dominated by the trotskyist Socialist Workers Party and wanted to keep
bringing out the maximum number of people in national demonstrations against
the war. The NCAWRR was sometimes called the ‘coalition against everything’.
PCPJ wanted not only to broaden the focus, but to engage in more varied and
more militant tactics to build pressure against the war. It wanted to go beyond
repetition of the passive mega-march to more active tactics that would up the
ante against the government. It was a coalition of many anti-war, anti-poverty,
anti-racist groups, both old and new left. NPAC and PCPJ continued to negotiate
to form a united front at least on some activities.
The January 1971
meeting was a new experience for me. It was the first time I met a number of
national figures, such as Dave Dellinger and Rennie Davis, whom I had only
admired from a distance. There were many tensions between different forces and
references to past events that I didn’t quite understand. I was determined to
get up to speed, though, and more experienced figures, not least Joe Miller,
put me in the picture. We agreed on a spring offensive that would centre on the
people’s peace treaty, include a people’s lobby in DC in April and culminate in
a series of non-violent but militant protests in DC in May. The degree of
militancy was a point of tension. Dave Dellinger and Rennie Davis were arguing
for mass civil disobedience that would threaten to stop the government if the
government didn’t stop the war.
This line was
strengthened after a conference in Ann Arbor, which I also attended, after a
long drive in stormy weather. This was followed later in February by a meeting
of a May task force in DC in late-February. By this time I was speaking up, joining
in the fray and taking positions in debates. I was really flattered when Dave
Dellinger spoke and cited me as an example of the sort of leadership that
needed to be exercised. I spoke with him many times during these months,
including during several inter-city train journeys, and I respected him
enormously. In March I flew to Chicago again for a meeting of the PCPJ national
co-ordinating committee and took the train to New York for another task force
meeting. I also flew to Bloomington in early April for an NUC conference, where
I spoke to build support for actions in late April and early May in DC. I met
with Science for the People while there and we explored a proposal to set up an
international people’s university.
After each of these
national meetings, I reported back to Philadelphia, where we were planning our
own spring offensive co-ordinated with the national one. We opened up a PCPJ
office in Philadelphia. I spoke at a number of rallies, visited many groups and
campuses and organised various activities that would mobilise support for the
people’s peace treaty and organise our participation in various actions in DC
in April and May. We showed a film called Time
Is Running Out, an emotionally powerful film about the struggle of the
Vietnamese people and the necessity of our spring offensive, featuring Rennie
Davis and Judy Collins. At least we did so until Peter unwittingly handed our
copy over to someone, probably an FBI agent, and it disappeared.
Within PCPJ there
emerged a May Day collective, spearheaded by Rennie Davis and Mike Lerner,
which I identified with more and more. I was not comfortable with the banner of
being a student-youth coalition though. Although I was only 26, I preferred
organising as an adult. Rennie was 30 already. I became quite close to Rennie
during these months, first during our talks at national meetings, then during
his organising-speaking visits to Philadelphia, where I organised his programme
and accompanied him, and then when I came down to DC in mid-April for final preparations
for April-May events. I was really moved by his untiring commitment to the
movement, his warm interaction with me, his searching conversation, which often
went from immediate tactics to cosmic context.
From mid-April to
mid-May I was based in DC, while making occasional forays back to Philadelphia.
I stayed at a Mayday commune on Lanier Place, worked at the Mayday office on
Vermont Avenue, attended meetings there and at various venues. It was a
hothouse atmosphere. There were people coming and going all the time, some
sensible and hard working and others weird and questionable in their purposes.
Obviously some were informers and provocateurs
and others were ‘freaks’ (a term used affirmatively at the time). Some, such as
myself, represented the anti-war movement in other cities, whereas others just
showed up and represented no one but themselves, but had the same voice as
those who represented many others. There was much talking, partying, drug
taking, mating (however momentarily). I was able to relate to some there better
than others. I got on best with Rennie as well as John Froines, Mike Lerner,
Chip Marshall and others who were most serious about organising. John was a scientist and one of the Chicago
8, as was Rennie. Mike and Chip were two of the Seattle 7 and active in the
Seattle Liberation Front. Mike was a philosopher, so we had a lot to talk about
there.
I was co-ordinating
the regional participation from Philadelphia as well as working on national
aspects, particularly political education during the ten day encampment at West
Potomac Park. There was a reverential way of referring to ‘the land’ and what
we were doing there. There was a
romantic back-to-nature tinge to new left culture. Many people were more into
blissing out on the land than into teach-ins about political strategy or
critical pedagogy, so my efforts on this front met with constant frustration.
The Vietnam Veterans
Against the War (VVAW) were among the first to set up an encampment in DC as
part of the spring offensive. Operation Dewey Canyon 3 was ‘a limited incursion
into the country of congress’. During a week of VVAW actions, starting 19
April, they wore military fatigues, engaged in guerrilla theatre, including
mock search-and-destroy missions, and threw their combat medals on the steps of
the Capitol. One day they marched to the Pentagon and demanded to turn
themselves in as war criminals. I attended some of their events and visited
their encampment. I felt that they made a powerful and distinctive contribution
to the anti-war movement, because they came, not as anonymous bodies, but as
who they uniquely were, bearing witness to what they had uniquely seen and
done.
On 24 April there was
a mass march co-sponsored by NPAC and PCPJ bringing 500,000 to DC and 125,000
in San Francisco to demand an end to the war. We leafleted for May Day at it.
Many went home after the big march, but many stayed. There was an all night
concert that night. The numbers staying at the encampment rose and the level of
activity escalated. There was great atmosphere of planning, dreaming, singing,
bonding, especially around the campfires at night. During the following week we
participated in the people’s lobby by day and had town meetings at the
encampment by night. Various groups presented petitions or sat-in at various
government departments. On Monday morning I went with Mike Lerner, Chip
Marshall, Dave Burak, Susan Gregory, Leslie Bacon and some others to the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, where we made our points by speaking from the floor
and we were removed by the police for disrupting hearings. Some in the group
started a buddhist chant ‘Om’, as we were being taken away. We were roughed up
a bit, but not arrested. We were later invited to send representative to
testify before the committee.
The town meetings in
the park provided an open mic to allow anyone to say what was on their minds as
well as to make announcements and plans. Some were focused on the war and how
to give our actions against it maximum impact. I spoke about the people’s lobby
and the different tactics that different groups were employing. Some wanted to
talk about sexism in the movement itself, including there in the park. Some of
the interventions on this were very acrimonious. A group of lesbians stormed
the platform at one stage.
Meanwhile the
atmosphere of pressure and paranoia in the office and commune was intensifying.
One day there was a bomb threat in the office. One night the commune was raided
by FBI agents, who took Leslie Bacon away. This 19 year old was suspected of
being implicated in the Capitol bombing. This referred to a bomb exploded in a
lavatory on 1 March for which the Weather Underground later claimed
responsibility. She was taken to Seattle, a place where she had no connections,
and brought before a grand jury. The atmosphere at the house was full of
tension, distrust and fear. Chip and Mike split, as did some others, but I
stayed the night. I didn’t sleep much and felt quite sick. In the morning the
place was crawling with agents and reporters. When I went out, I saw Leslie on
the front page of all the newspapers.
The following nights
I stayed at the encampment. There was discussion, debate, music and more all
night long and not much sleep. I met with Science for the People in their tent
and we talked more about prospects for an international people’s university. We
had a great celebration of May Day, which fell on a Saturday. There was another
all night concert and the camp swelled to 50,000 or so. In the early hours of
Sunday morning, the authorities revoked the permit for the encampment and
police began to evacuate the park. We were in a state of groggy bewilderment as
we awoke and did our best to organise to regroup at various centres around DC.
There was a heavy military presence around the city, an atmosphere of martial
law really. About half of those evicted from the park headed home. I was
feeling edgy and angry, but still defiant and determined. I felt a sense of
catharsis when singing along with Pete Seeger This Land is Your Land that day. The only photo I have from the
week shows me on a platform clapping while Pete Seeger was singing. I spent the
day moving frenetically from one meeting to another – a PCPJ meeting at the
Ambassador Hotel, a May Day regional reps meeting in Georgetown, an organiser’s
meeting in the May Day office.
The main action was
to start early morning on Monday 3 May, when we were to engage in mass civil
disobedience, militant but non-violent, to obstruct traffic, to block buildings
and to stop the government from functioning. Our slogan was “ If the government
won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government”. There was a tactical manual
issued by the Mayday office outlining targets and tactics, but it was a
decentralised operation based on regional organising and affinity groups. The
25,000 unarmed demonstrators were met by 14,000 armed police, national guard
and federal troops. As protestors began to block bridges and intersections,
they were tear gassed, clubbed and arrested. There were over 7200 arrested that
day, including Jack. The dispersal had broken my contact with my Philadelphia
group, so I spent the day wandering the streets, assessing the situation and
having meetings. The atmosphere in the city was eerie and tense. At a meeting
of unarrested regional reps, we had a sense of being survivors of a disaster.
Nevertheless we decided to carry on the next day. After a press conference in
the afternoon, Rennie was arrested and charged with conspiracy. There was a
warrant out for John Froines.
On Tuesday we marched
to the Justice Department, where John Froines spoke and was arrested and
charged with conspiracy. The rest of us, about 3500, were arrested too. I had
connected with Philadelphia people again and was arrested with them. Upon
discovering that we were from Philadelphia, the police handled us with added
roughness, saying that we were used to it. The police under Rizzo had become
nationally notorious in their unsympathetic treatment of protestors. The jails
were grossly overcrowded. Many were rounded up in the car park of a stadium
with no food or sanitary facilities. I was in a cell meant for two with twenty
or more crowded into it. We kept our spirits up, singing Power to the People and such songs all night. On Wednesday we were
arraigned and released and attended further meetings and protests. We had a big demonstration at the Capitol,
where over 1200 were arrested. There were 13,500 or so arrests in those three
days, setting the record for mass arrests.
On Thursday I
returned to Philadelphia with my regional group, but on Friday I returned to DC
again. There was a meeting in the office to make last minute preparations for a
weekend retreat (with a lot of emphasis on security arrangements). We set out
to a big house in the country where we were to evaluate May Day and make plans
for further actions. It was one of the weirdest weekends of my life. There was
a punch served, which was laced with acid or mescaline or both, and this was
the occasion of my bad trip. I was overcome by paranoia. The whole atmosphere
of arrests, conspiracy charges, infiltration of the movement made for an
atmosphere of paranoia already, but the drugs intensified it to a terrible
degree. I cried for much of the night. There were also separate women’s and
men’s meetings and heavy criticism-self-criticism about sexism in the movement,
particularly in and around May Day. There was a lashing out against the male
movement heavies, who were in the limelight, especially Rennie and John, who
were there, out on bail. I had my doubts about this grouping conceiving of
themselves as the leadership of a national movement. John and Rennie might have
had their blind spots, but some of these people represented nobody, did not
really think politically, were too self-indulgent in too many ways. Some were
undoubtedly informers and provocateurs. A big conspiracy trial could be looming
and a number of us, as well as Rennie and John, could be indicted as
co-conspirators.
On Monday 10 May I
went back to Philadelphia for a meeting of the Philadelphia coalition as well
as meetings of smaller groups to evaluate the spring offensive. I spoke at all
of these meetings at national and regional levels. I thought that we had
succeeded in disrupting the government, set records for mass non-violent civil
disobedience and dramatised the high degree of disaffection with the war, both
at the mass demonstration organised by NPAC-PCPJ as well as the VVAW and Mayday
actions. It had rattled the government and shown them that they could only
carry on the war at the price of civil unrest involving high numbers as well as
militant actions. The militant actions even got support from some federal
workers and national guard as well as many in the local black community.
Evidence would later emerge that the government was shaken by having to show such
massive force to keep public order in the nation’s capital and that these
demonstrations had played a role in
pressurising for an end to the war.
However, some had
taken too literally our threat to stop the government and were too in thrall to
a romanticised military model and with physical confrontation. I argued for a
way going forward that would involve more than physically coming together
either in one big demonstration or in disruptive tactics, such as blocking
traffic. I thought that we should move forward by finding ways to mobilise
scientists as scientists, teachers as teachers, factory workers as factory
workers to oppose the war and even to link with their counterparts in Vietnam.
The whole thrust of the people’s peace treaty was to make peace with Vietnamese
rather than just petitioning the government to do it for us. It was effectively
entering into foreign relations on our own, which was considered treasonous, as
those who had travelled to North Vietnam had been told by the US government. It
was the same with the Veneremos brigades going to Cuba. Projects such as
Science for Vietnam and Medical Aid to Indochina carried the movement on in
this direction.
On Thursday of that
week I returned to DC again, where we had a demonstration where we read the
names of those who had signed the people’s peace treaty on the steps of the
Capitol. I went to more meetings and more long talks in DC and then at home. On
Monday 17 May I headed for New York and then New Haven. There was a high
profile BPP trial in which Bobby Seale and Erika Huggins were accused of
conspiracy to murder fellow black panther, Alex Rackley, who had been suspected
of being an informer. There had been big demonstrations when the trial had
begun a year ago. Many Yale students had joined the protests and the president
of Yale, Kingman Brewster, stated that he had doubts about whether black
panthers could get a fair trial. We kept vigil on New Haven Green, while the
jury was charged and deliberated. A week later the jury was deadlocked, a mistrial
was declared and the defendants were set free. During the week all through the
day we took turns going into the courtroom, but otherwise we were outside
having intense discussions on the movement and where it was going.
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