\MN ':
POP P EN . y i%
N*'f
Little
EDITOR'S NOTE: The fol-
lowing is an exclusive inter-
view with Joan Little, the
first she has granted since she
was acquitted in North Caro-
lina of the murder of jailer
Clarence Alligood. The inter-
view was conducted for PNS
in Oakland, Calif., by David
DuBois, editor of the Black
Panther Party paper and
Intercommunal News Service.
PNS: Your trial and acquit-
tal have made headlines all ov-
er the country. How have they
changed your life?.
LITTLE: The trial has chang-
ed me in a lot of ways.. Since I
am a black woman and I have
been through this kind of or-
afterm
Jersey and New York. When I
went back home, I felt that the
people in Washington were very
afraid - they don't say what
they feel because police are so
much in control. That's one rea-
son I didn't, gain as much sup-
port there as I should have.
It's very hard coming up there
and trying to make a living for
yourself because of the way the
white people try to keep you
down ,try to keep you from get-
ting anywhere in life.
PNS: How have black peo-
ple in Washington reacted to
your acquittal?
LITTLE: I've gone to some
of my friends' houses and they
say to me "I'm sure glad you
ath:
"There are so many ways just one
person can make a change, and
thrown together they can bring
L
about a drastic change."
your legal defense that led to
your acquittal?
LITTLE: The most important
factor in my case that guaran-
teed my freedom was that so
many people supported me. But
so many black people don't have
a chance to tell their story,
they don't have money to get
the kind of attorneys that they
need and they end up getting
attorneys that are appointed by
the state. That's why so many
black people are railroaded, be-
cause the system has helped
give them the kind of attorneys
that have helped railroad black
people into prison. There are
more blacks on death row in
my home state North Carolina
than any other state in the
country.
The only way we're going to
stop this is if people rally sup-
port as they did in my case.
They should come together and
raise funds and talk about it in
the community. This way there
would be fewer black people go-
ing to jail and sentenced to the
gas chamber.
PNS: Given the white major-
ity in this country, and the
mostly white leadership, do you
feel there's hope for change-
and what kind of change would
you want to see?
LITTLE: The kind of change
really important now is that
we do something about prisons.
I know the kind of treatment
given these human beings that
the system has labeled crimi-
nals - they have no right after'
they go to prison. The prison
system takes them and pushes
them into holes and puts them
into. solitary confinement for
five or ten years and just for-
gets about them. Somebody
needs to think about these peo-
nie instead of pushing them
back and forgetting about
them.
Change can come about if
more blacks get into politics. If
they want to see a change, they
have to start supporting pro-
grams that help them survive.
There are so many ways that
just one person can make a
change, and thrown together
they can bring about a drastic
change.
I was like another person
when I first heard about the
Panther Party. The average
person on the street always
thought of it as a violent organ-
ization. Then I saw their free
ambuulance service and free
oking
breakfast program in Winston-
Salem, N.C., and I gained a
lot of respect because they were
trying to save lives instead of
taking them.
PNS: This week you went
to a conference of black legisla-
tors in California. What were
your impressions?
LITTLE: There was an at-
mosphere where blacks had
picked up the culture of the
white man. It made me feel
really bad. These people here
had gained authority, position,
and they are so wrapped up in
ahead
I think people need to go into
it more deeply. If they could
only go into prisons and see it
for themselves, I don't think
they'd be sending people to
prisons.
PNS: What are your thoughts
about capital, punishment in
certain crimes,; especially rape?
LITTLE: Rapists are crimi-
nals but they're sick and need
help.
I'm not in favor of capital
punishment because I don't
feel that taking another per-
son's life is going to help any-
thing. But when you're talking
about giving 30 years or life to
a person, you're talking about
putting them in the gas chamb-
er. And that is what they're
doing to our people ,they're
putting them in for SO.years and
turning them down for parole
constantly. They're never going
to let them out, especially if
they go in and speak their
minds.
PNS: You've said you plan
to study journalism. Why have
you chosen this field and how
do you plan to use it?
LITTLE: What made me
want to go into journalism are
the articles I've read on pri-
sons. None of them are true.
It's only what they want the
people to think. If I go into
journalism, I can write exact-
ly what I feel, what I see, ex-
actly the way it is and if they
fire me, it's OK with me. The
point will have gotten across
to the people.
PNS: Most black women
would like to hear a personal
message from you.
LITTLE: I hope that black
women will be able to take my
case and use it an as example,
not only for themselves but for
their children. For once they
can say it has been proven that
a black woman has a right to
defend herself and that she
doesn't have to submit to a
man because he's white, and
she has a right to stand up for
herself. If it ever happens
again, she will be able to say
that four or five years ago, a
woman by the name of Joan
Little stood up for her rights
and proved that she was right
and they, could be wrong. And
she can say, why can't I do
the same thing?
Copyright Pacific News Ser-
vice, September 2, 1975.
v ::"Lv;f:v m#i{h' .}.{ in. w.Y" :M{}.yrmma Y".::l :e :}"S.
'Ain't that sweet!Jery sent us a flag to rally around!'
e4 M ti 440 ax an t
Eighty-Five Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Friday, September 5, 1975
News Phone: 764-0552
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104
Senate lax in Chile probe
'TN RECENT YEARS, a series of Congres-
sional and media probes have exposed
a patchwork of sinister U.S. initiatives de-
signed to subvert the domestic democratic
processes of Chile and ensure that Ameri-
can corporate interests are protected with
Editorial Staff
GORDON ATCHESON CHERYL PILATE
Co-Editors-in-Chief
LAURA BERMAN .......Sunday Magazine Editor
DAVID BLOMQUIST .......... ...... Arts Editor
BARBARA CORNELL .... Special Projects Editor
PAUL HASKINS ....... ......Editorial Director
JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY.......Features Editor
SARA RIMER ...................Executive Editor
STEPHEN SELBST..................City Editor
JEFF SORENSEN ..............Managing Editor
STAFF WRITERS: Glen Alerhand, Peter Blais-
dell, Dan Biugerman, Clifford Brown, David
Burhenn, Mary Harris, Stephen Hersh,
Debra Hurwitz, Ann Marie Lipinski, Andrea
Lily. Mary Long. Rob Meachum, Alan Resnick,
Jeff Ristine, Steve Ross, Tim Schick, Kate
Spelman, Jim Tobin, David whiting, Susan
Wilhelm, Margaret Yao.
Sports Staff
BRIAN DEMING
Sports Editor
MARCIA MERKER
Executive Sports Editor
LEBA HERTZ
Managing Sports Editor
BILL CRANE ............ Associate Sports Editor
JEFF SCHILLER ........ Associate Sports Editor
FRED UPTON ...... Contributing Sports Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Jon Chavez, Andy Glazer, Al
Hrapsky, Rich Lerner, Jeff Liebster, Ray
O'Hara, Bill Stieg, Michael Wilson
ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Rick Bonino,
Tom Cameron, Tom Ruranceau, Kathy Hen-
neghan, Ed Lange, Scott Lewis, Dave Wihak
DESK ASSISTANTS: Marybeth Dillon, Marcia
Katz, John Neimeyer
or without the consent of the Chilean people.
It was less than a year ago that a Sen-
ate intelligence committee learned that
Secretary of State Kissinger played a cen-
tral role in the coordination of the Chilean
policy as head of the notorious "Forty"
Committee. So predictably, however, Kis-
singer was able to mobilize the great power
and prestige of his office to stare down the
finger-pointers and actually strengthen his
grip on matters of state.
It hasn't yet been officially verified, but
there is every reason to believe that the
demise of Salvador Allende and his social-
ist regime was the direct result of high-
level decisions, handed down from Wash-
ington. It is at once a staggering and dis-
comfitting notion, and one whose veracity
must be established if American integrity
and principles, or what remains of them,
are to be preserved.
SADLY ENOUGH, the events of the last
few days indicate that the keepers of
American justice have no intention of tak-
ing the architects of the Chilean policy to
task.
Yesterday it was leArned that former
President Richard Nixon's ' lawyers had
somehow secured incredibly lenient terms
from the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Nixon agreed to turn over his Chile-related
tapes to the committee, but only on the
condition that Nixon determine which of
the tapes are relevant. Chalk one up for
the "history repeats itself" theorists.
By agreeing to such terms, the commit-
tee displayed either extraordinary incompe-
tence or reckless disregard for the perilous
road down which American foreign policy
is heading.
deal, I am able to look at my- b
self and say my life is more v
important in terms of trying to s
help black people in any way I s
can. It's made me look at the I
prisons and the way people b
have been railroaded, been s
trapped in inhuman conditions li
and treated less than human c
beings. It has made me feel h
that this is where I'm needed a
and where I can help my peo- s
ple the most. t
PNS: What was it like grow- d
ing up in your home town?
LITTLE: I grew up in Wash-r
ington, North Carolina and f
stayed there 15 years. Until
1968, there were only, two s
schools: one sitting across townI
for the whites and one sitting b
in the middle of the black com-c
munity for the blacks. t
I've been subjected to racism r
all my life - it's something b
that comes like an everyday r
thing to me. But I never knew e
the kind of racism that was f
there until I left, and started
traveling to places like New t
French
By PAUL O'DONNELL V
"PITY OF Art, City of Ther-a
mal Waters," read the c
tourist brochures, but some re-n
sidents of this Southern French t
town see things differently. Asn
the president of the Pedestrian I
Rights Association told me, "in c
your article, you can call Aix r
'the most beautiful parking lot i
in Europe.'" This city, like t
so many others, has lost too u
much of its charm and person- c
ality in the process of becom-
ing a modern urban center of
about 100,000 inhabitants. The c
automobile invasion and the re- t
sulting noise, danger, and pol-r
lution, is not the least import-c
ant factor in the declining qual-
ity of life in Aix and other cit- t
ies. h
Citizens in many parts of the h
got out of it." But I can go
walking down a street in a
shopping area and people just
stare at me like I'm a stranger.
They won't come up to me and
be as warm as they really
should be because they have to
ook at me and say, "Well, we
could have done something for
her, but we didn't and now it's
all over with, what can we
say?" I don't go to Washing-
on that much, but when I do I
don't feel like I belong there.
PNS: Why do you think so,
many people rallied to your de-
fense?
LITTLE: Poor blacks under-
stood what I was going through.
It's not so much whether they
believed I was guilty or inno-
cent. It was that they saw what
he system was trying to do to
me. They saw that if no one
helped me that they would send
me to the gas chamber without
even trying to find out the true
facts.
PNS: What do you think was
the most important factor in
tread:
world are rejecting this degrad-
ation of living conditions in mo-
dern cities; ths rejection takes
many forms. Many flee the city
o the nearby country, and com-
mute back and forth to work.
This solution, far from ideal,
creates other problems: if too
many people have the same
dea, as is the case in America;
he "country" becomes the sub-
urbs and the problems of the
city are recreated.
MEANWHILE, the city itself
often loses tax base and proper-
ty value, or becomes nothing
more than a daytime business
center. And the cars roll on ...
While Aix hasn't escaped
these kinds of problems, and
has its own iner city and su-
burbs. Concerned citizens, rang-
Little
proving to themselves that they
have the power to do this and do
that that they have literally for-
gotten where they came from.
PNS: What do you think the
current white mood of this coun-
try is, specifically white atti-
tudes about minorities and
crime?
LITTLE: I think racism is on
the increase in this country.
I've heard some white offic-
ials say that poor people -
like from the community that
I came from - are the ones
that are criminals, the ones
that need to be subjected to all
the inhuman conditions in
prisons, that need to be put
away and not turned loose.
They think all the criminals
are going to be let loose and
will take over the world.
But they never talk about
Nixon, or Rockefeller when he
sent in all those men to shoot
up the Attica prisoners, or the
people who killed George Jack-
son. They never come out and
say who is a criminal and what
criminal means.
walking controversy
ing from the school tepcher to
the University student are look-
ing for solutions other than flee-
ing to the outskirts. The Aix
Pedestrian Defense Association
is one of the organizations
working to make the city more
humane, less noisy and cleaner.
At a meeting of the Associa-
tion, subjects such as closing
off all of the Old Aix (streets
dating back to the 18th and 17th
century, and even further . .)
to cars, and making it a pedes-
trian zone, keeping cars from
parking on the sidewalks and
the poor quality of bus service,
were discussed. Letters were
sent to the major, press releas-
es were mailed to local news-
papers, journalists took n o t e s
while photographers took p i c-
tures of congested corners and
of old ladies forced to walk in
the street because cars blocked
the sidewalks. All present
agreed that the street, once be-
longing to the people, had since
been invaded by cars, and even
taken over.
"SIDEWALKS ARE no solu-
tion," declared one militant pe-
destrian. "Asking for sidewalks
is like admitting defeat ... we
want the whole street, not just
a band of concrete that c a r s
will park on anyway." While
Aix's pedestrians demand pe-
destrian zones, bicycle 1 a n e s
and hiking trails, other Euro-
pean cities are quite advanced
ly true in towns where streets
have long been one-way, and
are changed to two-way, or
temporarily blocked off, f o r
seasonal reasons. The pedes-
trian and the driven are used to
looking one way or turning
from a given lane, and an un-
seen car coming from a tnew-
1v two-way or one-way street is
the cause of the acciden -
more serious in the case f a
pedestrian of course ..
In this way, cities like Ann
Arbor favor the automobile over
the pedestrian and the cyclist
- which is another way of
saying they favor the richer
and bigger consumers over the
SYL:* Un'iversity as tyrant
Y ChCr r 115i ~ T AM
IIL h
Having just raised tuition 24
per cent two years ago, the Uni-
versity Board of Regents voted
an additional six per cent tuition
hike at their July meeting. The
tuition hike, along with a re-
duction in wage increases for
student-workers and the threat-
ened program cutbacks and lay-
offs of campus workers, clearly
shows the Administration's in-
tention of placing the burden of
the current economic crisis on
the students and workers at the
University. These same attacks
are occurring at universities
across the country. We cannot
allow this to happen - the tui-
tion hikes, budget cuts and lay-
offs must be stopped!
Despite Gerald Ford's endless
pronouncements that the econ-
omy is on the "road to recov-
ery," the U.S. continues to suf-
fer from the effects of the worst
economic crisis since the Great
Depression. In its efforts to bol-
ster a sagging profit rate, the
capitalist class continues to "ra-
tionalize" production - which
for the working class means
wage cuts, deteriorating work-
ing conditions and millions of
unemployed. Social services,
welfare and education are in-
creasingly seen as unaffordable
luxuries by a class whose only
measure of social value is the
return on their investments. The
state and federal governments,
in their usual "impartial" man-
ner, have slashed budget appro-
priations and scholarship grants
antee against layoffs and bene-
fits vastly inferior to the rest of
the labor movement. The Vice-
President of Academic Affairs
has stated that over 1,000 GEO
members are actually students
in training and thus ineligible
for unionization (even though
they provide the University with
a large section of its teaching
and research staff!) The at-
tempt to disqualify half the GEO
membership on this basis is but
the latest plan in the Adminis-
tration's union-busting cam-
paign.
The situation cries out for a
united struggle of students and
campus workers against these
attacks. This unity is crucial
not only to defeat the Admin-
istration's age-old tactic of di-
vide-and-conquer, but also to
provide a concrete link to the
tremendous social power of the
organized working class. For
example, when the GEO and
then the students went on strike
last spring, the greatest blow to
the University came when the
Teamsters refused to cross the
picket lines in solidarity with
the campus union. Our most
successful struggles will be
waged when we can extend the
fight beyond the campus and fo-
cus our attack on the root cause
-capitalism. Our task is clear:
the mobilization of students
along with the only force that
can bring this system to a halt
- the working class.
T-UR vY i. ii- it im-
taining their right to distribute
their own literature, should
form a united front around the
demands "No Tuition Hike, No
Cutbacks, No Layoffs." How-
ever, the lessons of past strug-
gles and the fact that the cut-
backs affect all sections of the
University have been conscious-
ly ignored by many of those in-
volved in. the CFTH. The RSB
and members of SOC refused to
include a demand for "No Lay-
offs," opposing even this mini-
mal solidarity with campus
workers at a time when the ad-
ministration is consciously at-
tempting to pit one section of
the University against another.
Accepting the Administra-
tion's logic that cuts must be
made somewhere, the RSB pro-
poses that instead of raising
tuition, the University should
curtail its construction program
(and, we have to assume, the fa-
cilities and jobs it provides!).
The SYL committed itself to
work in the Committee while
continuing to struggle for a
working-class orientation. How-
ever, the RSB's insistence that
the Committee's literature re-
flect its student power politics
made clear that the Commit-
tee's perspective precluded any
attempt to link the fight to the
labor movement and thus con-
demned the struggle to defeat.
BECAUSE the basis of this
committee is essentially, dead-
end student powerism, the SYL
conid not narticintei in it and
9 . A. - 9
,M -I ' o
in such efforts. Amsterdam Yas
a bicycle riding population that
would put any American cam-
pus to shame. Cities like Mun-
ich, Barcelona and Madrid have
closed down large portions of
their historical downtowns, and
public transportation is rapidly
spreading to suburbs of Paris.
Back in the States, however,
poorer, low-polluting -travelers
(who are certainly more num-
erous on a collefe campus. This
preferenital treatment goes a
step further: by making t h e
downtown areas one-way speed-
ways, and thereby making them
noisier, less pleasant and more
dangerous for children, the city
encourages people to leave the
downtown areas for the sub-
I