Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: You talked about how you were seen as this notorious person by the authorities. How did you feel as you sat there in your cell in Missouri?

SPEAKER 2: Well, actually, you didn't have-- we didn't have a cell. In the first year, I was in 120-man ward. In the second year, I was in a 12-man ward. This is the high tide of prison resistance, too. Like, just about every week, almost, there was a strike going on somewhere in the-- especially the federal system, that people were going against us, so it was a high degree of political consciousness.

Also, there was a high degree of Black consciousness because of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. And there are some people who had been involved with some of these organizations, the Republic of New Africa. And so there was a type of political consciousness that wasn't there at earlier times.

And probably, in a lot of subsequent times, there hasn't been the same level also. And so, there would be consciousness raising groups, like the Black Student Association. The hippies set up the New World humanist group and all that so we could have an excuse to get together and talk and read and do this or that.

And we also made sure that we'd have contact with various groupings so that if things came down, people would know each other enough that there wouldn't be these race riots that broke out elsewhere. And we had a-- there was some political action, but, boy, they would-- the administration would swoop down.

And they picked up all the Black Muslims one day, even though-- I mean, there's this-- there are some very sweet and gentle people there that were trying to learn a particular program, X-ray tech or med tech, whatever. And they would just ship them off to another place so they wouldn't get any benefits.

And there was a rumor just before I left about how there was going to be a big race riot during the July 4th special activities we had. And everybody was getting their shank ready. That's their knife that some people would have. And so there was a lot of rumors, I think, that the administration and their snitches were trying to get going and all that.

So we were-- so those of us who were in contact with, we're trying to find out what's going on, what's happening, what is this going to do? And luckily, it was averted, that people didn't fall into it, didn't get into it. You see how prisoners are kept divided.

SPEAKER 1: I'm sure you were held in some esteem, if not as a hero by some people within the resistance movement. And I suppose maybe that there might have been some jealousy of the fact that here you are able to not pay the ultimate price, but to be out there.

SPEAKER 2: It's like in the whole draft resistance movement, we realized that this was going to happen and that people would be going to prison. And that it's the sense of community which kept you going. You make the best of it, I think. I learned pottery in prison. My parole officer said I was the second person in 20 years to learn a useful skill in prison.

When I got out of prison, I realized what I'd missed. One thing that was strangely enough was going out at night. You'd think about never going out at night. And I could-- I try and go into some political meetings for a while, but I would just sit on my hands.

I just couldn't sit still long enough, so I didn't go to things, even though a lot of the movement stuff had wound down by then as the war was winding down, and people were exhausted after year, after year, after year of organizing and doing all these things against-- they're trying to stop the war. But I didn't have any resentments of the people out there.

Most people really thanked us a lot for what we were doing. Some people have said, I could never do that. Well, maybe I couldn't either at a certain point. These things are all evolutionary. Sometimes they're a factor of particular circumstances and where you are in life.

The co-op's declared a holiday because we were all released on the same day, July 23, 1973. And that was a heartwarming thing. I went down to Riverside Park as a-- very heartwarming that people had been thinking about us.