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Angela Davis debate, 183rd General Assembly, 1971, side A.
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- speakerThe moderator of the one hundred eighty third General Assembly, Mrs. Lois Stair:
- speakerOur disagreements over the ten thousand dollar grant to the Angela Davis Defense Fund
- speakerhave made us realize that reconciliation is indeed a difficult business.
- speakerOur divisions are deep.
- speakerSometimes our differences are causing anger and bitterness.
- speakerI have seen good results in our agonizing.
- speakerWe are all expressing our faith as clearly as we know how we are assuming
- speakerthe costs of discipleship.
- speakerEach in our own way, we are trying to say Christ comes first in our lives.
- speakerWe are attempting to articulate the truth.
- speakerWe hear in the Bible. And this is making us the evangel.
- speakerHe would not be arguing about the Angela Davis defense grant.
- speakerIf we did not care deeply about the mission of our church.
- speakerIn these hard times, we cannot be content with a careless or superficial
- speakerattachment to our church.
- speakerThis controversy has involved us all.
- speakerI think we are slowly gaining respect and love for each other beyond any we have known
- speakerbefore.
- speakerThis may well be a confrontation that commits us all new to the ministry.
- speakerWe share common cause for rejoicing in the possibilities of new birth.
- speakerTherefore, I hope the following material ricardi that the General Assembly will
- speakerbe helpful to you.
- speakerEvents of the 180 to a General Assembly you are about to hear have been edited for your
- speakerlistening convenience. All important elements of what is become known as the Angela Davis
- speakerdebate have been included. All extraneous activities, most applause,
- speakerpurely repetitious information and time consuming periods of inactivity while votes
- speakerwere being counted have been removed.
- speakerThis has reduced your listening task from nearly two hours to less than an hour.
- speakerPlease understand that the recording process at the General Assembly was not perfect.
- speakerYour division of mass media received signals from 14 separate microphones, only
- speakertwo of them in our direct control and all of them scattered throughout a huge arena.
- speakerTherefore, you will notice occasional popping noises, feedback and other room sounds,
- speakerjust as they were heard on the floor of the General Assembly.
- speakerThe floor debate is presented as an entirety, although it took place in sessions held on
- speakerMonday and Tuesday, May 24th and 25th, 1971, at the War Memorial
- speakerin Rochester, New York. The first voice heard is that of Dr. Adler Hawkins,
- speakera former moderator of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church.
- speakerHe spoke at Rochester as a cochairman of the Council on Church and Race, delivering
- speakera message that introduced church and race concerns, including the Emergency Fund for
- speakerLegal Aid for the most part.
- speakerAll other speakers introduce themselves by name and presbytery.
- speakerStill, other voices are those of the moderator of the one hundred eighty third General
- speakerAssembly, Mrs. Lois Stair, stated Clark, William P.
- speakerThompson and a few who failed to identify themselves while speaking from floor
- speakermicrophones.
- speakerWe have been very conscious of the mandate of the one hundred and seventy eight
- speakerGeneral Assembly that was given to our council
- speakerto be, in essence, the conscience of the church
- speakerin the arena of race.
- speakerIt becomes our responsibility to affirm again to
- speakerthis General Assembly that the struggle against racism is still
- speakerthe highest priority for those who are witness to the Gospel of Christ.
- speakerThat we express the hope that this General Assembly will reaffirm
- speakerthe mandate of an earlier assembly to give unflagging
- speakerand aggressive leadership to this necessity for justice
- speakerand liberation for all people.
- speakerWe have become aware in the Council of the Movement away
- speakerfrom the earlier civil rights period.
- speakerWe have moved now into a period where we must
- speakerdeal more with the not so visible systems
- speakerof repression.
- speakerThis is why we hope that this General Assembly will take very seriously
- speakerthe recommendation of your standing committee to study
- speakerthe signs and the implications of this new mood
- speakerout of which is emerging an even more bitter kind
- speakerof racism and repression.
- speakerSuch a study will enable the whole church to both understand
- speakerand to fulfill its witness in this area.
- speakerThe second major concern of the Council on Church and Race
- speakerwould be in the recommendation of your standing committee.
- speakerLet the legal aid fun being continued over a period
- speakerof the next three years as it enables the
- speakerchurch to be an advocate for God's liberation.
- speakerLast year's General Assembly, as it concurred in the recommendation of its
- speakerstanding committee, established this emergency legal aid
- speakerfund as it responded to the idea that equal justice
- speakeris an inalienable right of every American citizen, but also recognized
- speakerthat many times are black and minority
- speakerand poor. Brothers and sisters are not always
- speakertreated as innocent until proven guilty.
- speakerAnd the only way in these areas to balance up
- speakerthe scales of justice is to help provide adequate
- speakerlegal aid or to help in providing bail.
- speakerWe have freedom on bail is necessary to prepare an adequate
- speakerdefense.
- speakerCounsel on church and race felt that this was one
- speakerof the fine hours of that assembly.
- speakerAs it established that fun as a crucial
- speakerlegal aid resort.
- speakerAnd the council has tried to be faithful to that mandate,
- speakerto use that phone in relation to advancing the cause
- speakerof racial and cultural justice, even
- speakerin the instance of the grant to Miss Angela Davis,
- speakerabout which some have had some question.
- speakerSo consideration was the concern for adequate
- speakerlegal defense and justice for this black
- speakerwoman.
- speakerUnfortunately, in the history of American law and in the delineation
- speakerof justice, to be a black woman
- speakerhas often meant double trouble.
- speakerAnd for a trial that will be watch not only across
- speakerAmerica but around the world.
- speakerNothing is more important, not only for the cause of rape,
- speakerbut for the soul of America that a fair trial and
- speakeradequate defense should be granted for this woman
- speakerof color.
- speakerAnd our hope is that no world one will confuse the
- speakerissue in a discussion of Miss Davis's political
- speakeraffiliation.
- speakerThis case was before our Council for Hell because
- speakerof a legitimate appeal of a duty Katari of the church,
- speakera session of a local church situated in the area
- speakerin which Miss Davis is being held.
- speakerAnd because our mandate was in the area
- speakerof rape.
- speakerWe made the grant because we knew that this
- speakerblack lady needed help in securing an
- speakeradequate defense. Just because she was black
- speakerand just because she was a woman and because to
- speakershe must be treated as one who was innocent
- speakeruntil proven guilty, as you and I, in the life
- speakerof our country and in the fellowship of the church, approach this
- speakertrial that has real and serious implications
- speakerfor race.
- speakerAmerica must not reach back
- speakerto another tragic period in American history
- speakerin the early 50s, when the fear of communism
- speakerwas used as a vehicle of repression in what we sometimes
- speakercall the McCarthy period in American life.
- speakerIf we in the fellowship of the church recall anything at all
- speakerfrom that period, let it be the fact that
- speakerthis was really one of the finest hours
- speakerof our denomination as it issued one of the earliest
- speakerwarnings against where this would lead us
- speakerin that famous letter to the Presbyterians that sometimes
- speakerwe call them Macci letter, but which really was issued in the name
- speakerof the whole church through the general counsel of our Presbyterian
- speakerfellowship. In fact, just two of its
- speakerclosing sentences, loyalty to great principles
- speakerof truth and justice has made
- speakerour nation great.
- speakerSuch loyalty alone can keep it great
- speakerand ensure its destiny.
- speakerGod give us wisdom and courage to think and act
- speakerin accordance with his will.
- speakerThis church recognized then and this church recognizes
- speakertoday that our best answer to communism is not
- speakerin fear or not in a confusion of basic issues,
- speakerbut it is in a fulfillment of the demands and requirements
- speakerof justice and racial equality.
- speakerThe things that alone can represent the American dream
- speakerundergone. Blacks and other minorities
- speakerand the poor have not always been a part of
- speakerthat dream, either in the court or in the other common
- speakerexperiences of American life that.
- speakerGrant for Legal Aid.
- speakerBy which hundreds have been helped.
- speakerIs an investment in the American dream,
- speakerin the American system of justice.
- speakerAs an act of faith, that the rule of law
- speakerand the administration of justice in this land will be
- speakerlaid on fairly and without discrimination to
- speakerall Americans, be they black or white or yellow or red
- speakeror brown or poor.
- speakerThe Council on Church and Race not only concurs in the
- speakerfull report of the Standing Committee, but more than that
- speakerit commends it to you that you may
- speakerever keep a sensitive conscience alive on the concerns
- speakerof rape. That one day, somehow, one day under
- speakerGod, the earth shall be fair and all men
- speakershall be free.
- speakerWell, you recognize the Reverend William A.
- speakerWalmsley.
- speakerMr. Ransley, madam moderator, in what I would hope
- speakerto be maybe a motion that
- speakerwould cut away some of the clutter.
- speakerI move that the 180 third General Assembly
- speakercommunicate to the Council on Church and Race or CCR.
- speakerA serious question concerning the propriety
- speakerof allocating ten thousand dollars to the Marin County Black Defense
- speakerFund. And if that receives a second, Madam Moderator, I would like to speak
- speakerunto it.
- speakerThere is a second.
- speakerI'm sure we all realized by this time that
- speakerthe matter before us is that of the Angela Davis situation.
- speakerThose of the staff of Coaker graciously met
- speakerwith some of us during the last two or three days.
- speakerAnd they simply have not demonstrated to me that there is
- speakerany great need for Angela Davis
- speakerto have this amount of allocated funds, that
- speakerthere is no desperate financial crises for her.
- speakerAnd I think it's also obvious that a moderator and members of
- speakerthe General Assembly that there are still the poor
- speakerblacks who do not have the press publicity.
- speakerThey do not have public interest.
- speakerAnd they are still without funds.
- speakerAll that which is enjoyed by Angela Davis at this point in time,
- speakerand thus these poor blacks continue without legal defense.
- speakerAnd surely the Council on Church and Race must
- speakerbe able to find some kind of need in these brevis
- speakerand crisis times.
- speakerThat we could all support needs on the part
- speakerof those about us.
- speakerThat will not sever and divide
- speakerand rend the body of Christ.
- speakerThe church of which we are all apart, in which we confess to love
- speakerand to serve.
- speakerWe have heard all kinds of other needs concerning
- speakerhospitals.
- speakerAnd Denby Dolo, our dear ladies are
- speakerwithin a program on hunger, hunger here and hunger abroad.
- speakerThese are not needs within that legal defense.
- speakerI realize, but certainly they are needs and supporting
- speakerthese needs. And in that crisis would have no
- speakereffect on rending and sundering the body of Christ.
- speakerTherefore, Madam Moderator, I would urge that this General Assembly
- speakerwould simply communicate without rancor or bitterness,
- speakerbut communicate our question of the propriety
- speakerof this thing that has been done. Thank you for your attention.
- speakerNow I need someone against this amendment at 11:00.
- speakerMoulthrop A point of personal privilege malware from
- speakerPembina Presbyterian last night or 24 hours ago.
- speakerI felt quite bitter about this.
- speakerIn these last 24 hours. I have visited with some of the folks from Kelkar on
- speakerthis and they have some information that they would
- speakerlike to bring. Would it be possible to give Kelkar some time to
- speakergive us a little history and a little background on this matter?
- speakerI believe they have some folks that are ready to do this.
- speakerDo I understand you want someone to speak against this motion?
- speakerNo, I don't.
- speakerTo clarify, the whole I would like to have cool car give
- speakerthe kind of information.
- speakerThe motion is speaking to information such as, for instance,
- speakerthat the communists are supporting Angela Davis as far as
- speakerpublicity is concerned. But they want to beat because
- speakerthis is what they would like to see happen to our information as to
- speakerwhat's going on around the world. Why Angela Davis, this kind of thing, non
- speakervisiting with some of the men, they have some of this information.
- speakerAll right. Mr. Cox is going to speak at your request.
- speakerMr. Cox, the associate chairman, is one of the division of
- speakerchurch and race charge of operations.
- speakerMadam Moderator, in order to provide
- speakerfor you the most up to date information I have in the last
- speaker24 hours arranged for communications both
- speakerwith the attorneys in California and with the
- speakerlegal trust staff and resources that have been established
- speakerin New York City and which are the financial coordinators for the legal
- speakerdefense effort.
- speakerI can give you the facts that they have given to us, which are consistent
- speakerwith the information which we have received over the last 90 days,
- speakernamely that the state of California will spend a million dollars
- speakerplus in prosecuting this case.
- speakerPoint number two, that it is estimated that a minimal
- speakercost of the trial for the defense will cost
- speakerbetween two hundred and fifty thousand and four hundred thousand dollars.
- speakerPoint number three, it is estimated that over five hundred
- speakerjurors will have to be questioned.
- speakerBoth the prosecution and the defense will have to prepare
- speakerdossiers on each one of those five hundred jurors.
- speakerThere are in the legal defense staff now brought
- speakertogether in California three lawyers who are working full
- speakertime.
- speakerThere are three lawyers that are working part time in addition
- speakerto the full time staff.
- speakerThere are four research assistants who are primarily
- speakerat this point in time dealing with information regarding the jurors.
- speakerIt is estimated that the case will go finally
- speakerbefore evidence late this summer or early
- speakerthis fall.
- speakerThe cost of the trial or the legal defense effort to this date
- speakeris running at eight thousand dollars a month.
- speakerThe legal defense funds that the Council on Church and Race has transmitted, therefore,
- speakerhave afforded approximately 30 plus days of legal defense effort.
- speakerThe funds that are being received are on some months slightly
- speakerahead of that financial cash flow need and some months behind
- speakerit. But the dollars are being spent at the rate of about eight thousand
- speakerdollars a month. Dollars are being spent as fast as they are received.
- speakerIt is to our understanding and to our best ability
- speakerto provide you with accurate information.
- speakerIt is our knowledge and understanding that there is not a large
- speakerpool of financial reserves that are waiting in order to guarantee
- speakerAngela Daviss defense.
- speakerThere are on the coast and in the east, several
- speakerother groups that have raised dollars that are attempting
- speakerto propagandize around this trial, those
- speakerfunds and those groups are not related to the legal defense effort, but
- speakerare related to an effort to capitalize on the trial.
- speakerThey are separate from the legal defense effort.
- speakerNext to three, madam moderator Mike Sam Presbyterian
- speakerthe Palisades. I would yield to the Reverend Jesse Trevillian from New York City.
- speakerPresbyterian microphone 11:00.
- speakerAt 11:00, Mr. Develin.
- speakerSister, moderate.
- speakerDr. Martin Luther King Junior wrote from a Birmingham
- speakerjail.
- speakerI am here, they cause injustice
- speakeris here.
- speakerWhen you ask us why
- speakerthe propriety of going in to ask for
- speakerjustice for an American citizen, the answer
- speakeris very simple.
- speakerThe church is there because injustice is there.
- speakerWhen you use as criticism
- speakerthe excuse that there are many poor black people who need defense.
- speakerLet those of us who are black say to you,
- speakerwhen Angela Davis takes the stand.
- speakerAll of us are there.
- speakerMore than what Mr. Cox has said needs to be understood.
- speakerAngela Davis is from Birmingham.
- speakerShe was in church, too, on a Sunday morning when three little girls
- speakerwere bombed into nonexistence.
- speakerShe lived in a house that the FBI used
- speakerto keep surveillance on blacks seeking freedom
- speakerand marching nonviolently to their own self-awareness.
- speakerWhen you talk about Angela Davis, you're talking about
- speakerthe exception to a miracle.
- speakerThe miracle is that there anybody in this country who is black,
- speakerwho has not law school competence in the system.
- speakerLet us be fair in our own prejudices.
- speakerWe are not trying heresy here tonight.
- speakerWe are trying our own faith.
- speakerDo we believe ourselves in the American system?
- speakerDo we have some code of ethics as a church that says
- speakerwe believe in justice for Christians only?
- speakerAre we all afraid of the fact that here is a young, beautiful black woman
- speakerwho says that the American system is treated are wrong and she believes in communism?
- speakerThat's an interesting kind of a cover up when we talk about justice
- speakerfor American citizens.
- speakerLet it be clearly understood that we who are black see
- speakerourselves in Angela Davis.
- speakerShe may not agree with those of us who are Christians and who are commissioners
- speakerhere tonight, but those of us who are Christians and who
- speakerare black here tonight believe that Angela Davis should have a fair
- speakertrial.
- speakerLet it be understood. Also, says the moderator, that Angela Davis
- speakermay very well be guilty.
- speakerWe are not guaranteeing anybody innocence.
- speakerWe simply want American citizens guaranteed justice
- speakerunder the laws of this land.
- speakerAnd that's too much for the United Presbyterian Church.
- speakerThen you're saying something else to us here tonight.
- speakerThank you. Thank you.
- speakerI need someone to speak in favor of the motion
- speakerat 8:00, Madam Moderator.
- speakerMy name is Alfred W. Dodge and I'm from Philadelphia.
- speakerAnd I want to speak in support of the motion because I do not believe this
- speakeris a matter of race. I believe this is a matter of church funds being
- speakerused to support a communist.
- speakerNow, I do not want to add to the rhetoric, but the
- speakerfact is that those of us that are responsible for raising funds
- speakerfor the church are going to have a hard time raising funds if this motion
- speakerfails.
- speakerSomeone who is opposed to the motion at 6:00,
- speakerMadam Moderator, I want to make an amendment to the motion.
- speakerAll right. I move that the motion of the gentleman be amended
- speakerso that the amount requested by the general counsel
- speakerthat is allocating one hundred thousand dollars annually to the Fund for the
- speakerLegal Aid, Ma'aden say legal aid fund be denied.
- speakerAnd that no funds be allocated to any agency for such
- speakerpurpose. And that subsection three of section
- speakerF be deleted from the report of the Committee
- speakeron Church and Race.
- speakerAnd if I get a second to my amendment, I wish to speak to you.
- speakerDo I feel right? There is one and you want to speak to it.
- speakerMadam Moderator. My name is Jack Peters from Miami, Florida.
- speakerI am a practicing attorney.
- speakerI am a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States United States Court
- speakerof Appeals and of the State of Florida.
- speakerI am a practicing trial lawyer.
- speakerIt seems obvious to me that the amount requested
- speakerfor the defense of Angela Davis strongly suggests that this trial
- speakerwill be turned into a sort of political spectacle where
- speakerthere is an attack made on the integrity of the judicial
- speakerprocess.
- speakerWe have witnessed such a trial recently in Chicago where the entire
- speakerjudicial process was put on trial, where
- speakerlawyers, supposedly ethical lawyers, stood before
- speakerthe bar of the court and called a Jewish judge, a fascist
- speakerpig and that sort of thing.
- speakerNow, we had occasion to ask these gentlemen about this,
- speakerand they told us that there had been no questions asked.
- speakerThere had been no inquiry made as to the type of defense
- speakerthat could be expected.
- speakerAnd I submit to you that it would be a monstrous thing if the prestige
- speakerand greatness of this church would be given in support
- speakerof that kind of a spectacle.
- speakerIt is un-American and it is against the interests of this church and it's against
- speakerthe interests of every law abiding citizen.
- speakerI object to what has gone on for other reasons as well.
- speakerThere has been no showing that this is an indigent person.
- speakerSurely there are hundreds of thousands of little people in this country
- speakerwho need this kind of money.
- speakerA black man in jail in Georgia, a small person who is
- speakerin need. Instead, we're spending one tenth of the amount allocated for
- speakerwhat purports to be and will be a political spectacle.
- speakerMoreover, this assembly should avoid the appearance
- speakerof evil. There is implicit in this kind of a grant
- speakerand approval and approbation of
- speakerwhat this woman has done and what she stands for.
- speakerAnd certainly we have no business supporting communist causes.
- speakerNow, the point was made that this lady, among other things, is a communist.
- speakerBut I would like to submit to you that she is not on trial for being a
- speakercommunist. The press reports that she is either a communist or a Marxist.
- speakerAnd that is not an issue in the trial.
- speakerI wonder why that kind of person is singled out for a defense.
- speakerIt would be a monstrous thing. And I think we should express our indignation
- speakerto this committee by denying them any further funds
- speakerfor this sort of expenditure.
- speakerAnyone else would like to speak to Mr. Peters motion
- speakerat 10.
