Singing in a Strange Land
Page 36
So then in a few minutes they found out that we were down in the basement and they told us, say, all right, you all come out of the basement. And one police said, “Well, we’re gonna kill all of you down there.” And I just know then, you know, I wouldn’t come out alive. So when we come around them back steps and looked up, we, they told us all to put our hands high up over our heads and when we looked, when we looked up like that, I guess there must been about fifteen shotgun barrels sticking down in there. Now, suppose somebody had pulled the trigger? And I think the only reason that they didn’t kill us down there, it was two black police that come on the scene.
Led back into the church, Williams’s group joined the others prostrate on the floor, under armed guard, until handcuffed, when they were allowed to stand. White male police officers intimately searched cuffed black women in front of family and friends, denied arrested people access to toilets, and refused them permission to call a lawyer. Frequent police use of the crudest racial epithets exacerbated the fear prisoners already felt.25
At 5:00 A.M. on March 30, Franklin and James Del Rio arrived at the home of George Crockett, the lawyer once jailed for contempt of court who was now a judge himself. Elected in 1966 to the city’s Recorder’s Court, he was the jurist on duty that Sunday. Reports had already reached Franklin and Del Rio, then a state representative, that the 142 people arrested were detained incommunicado at the main police garage, subjected to continued verbal threats and physical abuse. When Crockett arrived at police headquarters, no one would provide him with even a partial list of the detainees. Quickly, he established a temporary courtroom on the first floor of the police building, opened it to the press, and when Jay Nolan, the assistant prosecutor, arrived, began processing those in custody in small groups of ten. After four groups had come before the court, William Cahalan, the Wayne County prosecutor, arrived. In open court, Cahalan ignored the judge and ordered the police not to bring any additional prisoners before Crockett. When the court resumed at noon that Sunday, the prosecutor himself had to agree that 130 of the detainees were free of suspicion of murder and moved to release them. Of the twelve who remained in custody, Crockett demanded that prosecutors provide probable cause to keep them jailed. Based on the evidence offered, Crockett ordered two held without bail and released another, on a $1,000 bond, in the custody of his attorney. He ruled that the evidence offered concerning the other nine was neither compelling nor obtained in a constitutional manner. No one would ever be convicted for the killing of Officer Czapski.26
Later that Sunday, when C. L. returned to New Bethel for the morning service, his parishioners arrived to discover their church had become a war zone. Many immediately criticized their pastor for renting it to the Republic, a group most thought was deeply wrongheaded. Franklin found his long-time friend and minister of music, Thomas Shelby, in the pastor’s office, bemoaning whoever “let those people have the church. Oh my God.” C. L. mimicked Shelby some years later, “They torn up our church.” Franklin remembered chastising him: “I said, ‘Shelby, we are in the throes of a revolution, a social revolution. Some people have lost their lives in this revolution. And we have lost a little glass. So I think we got out cheap.’” In a newspaper interview that same day, Franklin defended the rental of the church as “routine,” criticized the Republic for its use of guns, and affirmed his long relationship with the Henry brothers. “I do not denounce these people,” he asserted. “Their goals are the same as ours, only they approach them from different directions.” Beneath the “cry of daily hurts and persistent pain” that followed “the failure of white power,” deeper than the very serious disagreements over strategy and tactics with groups such as the Republic, there was at root a common pursuit of freedom.27
Over the following week, the battle begun that Saturday night continued in the political arena. On Monday, March 31, a demonstration of three hundred police and policemen’s wives, entirely white, protested Crockett’s actions in front of Recorder’s Court on St. Antoine, just south of Clinton, in the heart of the old Black Bottom neighborhood. Fueled by misleading, lurid headlines, particularly in the Detroit News, they denounced Crockett’s presumed release of possible murderers and began circulating a petition to impeach the judge.28 That same day, Franklin called a press conference. He regretted the death of a police officer in this incident, but he reminded all of the social geography of what was already being called the “New Bethel Shootout”—it occurred in the heart of the neighborhood “where the 1967 riot began.” C. L. criticized the police for their overreaction, the indiscriminate shooting into the church, and for their “abusive handling” of those arrested. The organ, the pulpit, and the second-floor pastor’s study all bore bullet holes, and church records and funds were arbitrarily confiscated. These actions, along with the “biased and slanted” press coverage of the event, could only widen the gap between white and black in Detroit “and add to the many bruttle [sic: brutal] experiences that the black community has suffered in the past.” On Wednesday, Ralph Abernathy held a press conference at New Bethel, reiterating many of the charges Franklin had made, and C. L. led a meeting of white and black religious, political, and community leaders in support of the statement. On Thursday, perhaps as many as two thousand African Americans, led by Detroit’s black police officers and sheriff’s deputies, demonstrated in support of Judge Crockett in front of the court building.29
The Detroit Police Officers Association, much of the press, and the majority of whites in the city and its surrounding counties attacked Crockett severely, accusing him of releasing murderers because they were black. In contrast, the legal profession applauded his defense of constitutional liberties in a period of crisis, and the presidents of the American, Michigan, and Detroit bar associations, as well as his friend William Patrick, president of New Detroit, Inc., all endorsed Crockett’s conduct strongly. It was the judge, however, who most eloquently explained the central issue. In a statement issued on Thursday, April 3, Crockett reviewed the issues in the case in some detail before approaching the “racial overtones” at the heart of the matter: “Can any of you imagine the Detroit Police invading an all-white church and rounding up everyone in sight to be bussed to a wholesale lockup in a police garage? Can any of you imagine a [white] church group . . . being held incommunicado for seven hours, without being allowed to telephone relatives and without their constitutional rights to counsel? . . . Can anyone explain in other than racist terms the shooting by police into a closed and surrounded church?” For Crockett and for many in black Detroit, whatever they thought of the Republic of New Africa, the answer was a consistent “no.”30
George Crockett stated later that the New Bethel incident represented the “coming of age” of black Detroit. The 1967 riot was “the wrong way” to achieve that objective, he thought. So destructive was the riot, so violent its effect on both body and spirit, that it could not provide a broad common goal for future political action. Nor did groups such as the Republic or the League of Revolutionary Workers receive any notice, their marginal influence all too obvious. Instead, Crockett pointed to the events of March 29 and their aftermath as central. “I think blacks really got a sense of solidarity as a result of the protest following the New Bethel case,” he suggested in 1984. At the middle of all this was C. L. Franklin. His forceful public statements and his willingness to confront his more conservative parishioners and colleagues again distinguished him from many city leaders. Skeptical of revolutionary projections and deeply committed to creating a society of democratic equality despite the barriers yet in place, Franklin nonetheless understood the need for solidarity that would allow discussion of differences and keep vital progress toward that social revolution.31
The New Bethel incident marked C. L.’s last major political role in Detroit. He remained active in encouraging a black presence in local politics and used his pulpit to call out those he especially desired to recognize. As militants increasingly ran for office and channeled their thinking within the el
ectoral system, the solidarity Crockett identified built bridges across factions previously at odds. C. L. supported these efforts, but a younger generation increasingly assumed leadership roles. C. L.’s relative quiescence had other causes as well. By the early summer of 1969, two different charges against him turned his attention to the legal system in a far more personal manner than his defense of George Crockett had required.
In May, on a return trip from Dallas, the new venue of the cultural extravaganza planned by the International Afro Musical and Cultural Festival, American Airlines lost Franklin’s bags for more than twenty-four hours. Before they finally turned up in the company’s lost and found department in Detroit, police searched the bags and discovered a “small quantity of marijuana.” Franklin may have been on a suspects’ list, for this was not the first time officials had investigated him for alleged drug use. A year earlier, Franklin had suddenly left the winter meetings of the National Baptist Convention, canceling a highly anticipated sermon, when rumors “spread across the nation” that his luggage had been confiscated on suspicion of drugs when he had deplaned in Little Rock. He denied any wrongdoing then, and no charges were filed.32 In 1969, Franklin angrily suggested that marijuana had been planted in his bags and claimed that the press in Detroit and elsewhere immediately “tried and condemned” him: “From one end of the country to the other stories implied that I was a dope addict, irresponsible as a pastor and administrator, and that myself and my children were loose morally.” C. L. defended himself as best he could, denied he was an “irresponsible parent,” and applauded when, in June, the judge dropped the charges, noting that the bags had been outside his possession for a significant period. But his troubles persisted. C. L. claimed that as a consequence of his arrest, negotiations for the Dallas auditorium had collapsed, and a number of the prominent stars had withdrawn. He had no choice but to cancel the newly named “Soul Bowl.” Facing serious financial loss, especially as C. L. vowed to reimburse funds invested by friends such as Jasper Williams, he announced a $10 million suit against the airline to compensate him for his actual loss and the “irreparable damage to his prestige as a Christian leader” the ensuing publicity caused. The suit never reached court, partly because a week following that announcement, yet more troubles surfaced. Franklin’s creative financial accounting again caught the attention of the authorities, this time Michigan’s tax officials. In time, that case would—like his earlier tax run-in—be settled by Franklin’s payment.33
All this was part of C. L.’s life unraveling in the years following the New Bethel shootout. The powerful vision that marked his 1950s sermons still framed his public image and preceded him into every pulpit he ascended. Increasingly, however, fatigue and illness occupied him. High blood pressure kept him from New Bethel’s pulpit for some weeks that fall, and even when in the pulpit, his power continued its inevitable decline. The drug charges particularly rankled. The stories told in public were but echoes of what had been rumored in private. Fellow ministers and New Bethel members later claimed to know of the preacher’s occasional marijuana use. Given the customs of the entertainment world he so enjoyed, this might not be surprising. Yet the press coverage of his various difficulties did not alone mark his slippage. Despite the posturing he performed for the media when announcing the legal suit, C. L. never worried seriously about what others thought of him—perhaps with the exception of his mother. Rather, his travels, partying, and preaching all contributed to an aging process that grew progressively more obvious. At times, his sermons must have been painful to hear, as the manuscript text of a mid-1970s version of his incomparable “Without a Song” indicated. On other occasions, friends had to rescue him from the pulpit, because whatever drink he had used to gird himself against his declining powers controlled rather than calmed him at that moment. Still, occasional brilliant bursts of light, once a near-daily experience, illuminated a world much grayer. Such a moment occurred in January 1972, when C. L. basked in the power of his daughter’s gift and the embrace of a packed church that made no demands on him. In Los Angeles, at James Cleveland’s church, this proud father beamed as Aretha recorded Amazing Grace, her powerful gospel album. And New Bethel still loved him, although, perhaps especially there, in the pulpit that embodied the power of his voice, he often could not help but imagine himself as he once was, and that could not but pain him.34
Franklin was not the only activist involved in the New Bethel incident and its aftermath for whom that event marked a turning point. Change was perhaps most noticeable within the Republic of New Africa. By November 1969, Imari Obadele had resigned from the cabinet after losing a struggle with his brother. For Imari, the lesson from the New Bethel shootout revealed the need for one hundred thousand armed black troops to protect the new nation. Milton Henry thought this foolhardy. The following month, Robert F. Williams, back from exile, resigned as president of the Republic. After eight years abroad, it had taken Williams just a few months to grasp the dismal reality lurking beneath the exaggerated rhetoric. He rejected separatism and armed conflict except as a last resort, and he considered integration a “more desirable” tactic to achieve “self-determination for black people.” The more fervent supporters, few as they may have been, were stunned, but the Republic’s limited moment was in fact over. Robert Williams resolved his legal difficulties and lived a private life, working at the University of Michigan library in the 1970s. Imari Obadele led his remnant to Hinds County, Mississippi, where they purchased the natal site of the Kush District, the name given the five states Obadele and his followers yet expected the U.S. government to cede to them. In 1975, the Republic held national elections to select the “Provisional Government for the subjugated Black Nation.” Some seven thousand African Americans voted, primarily in Mississippi.35
Milton Henry traveled a different path. His horror over the “very traumatic experience” that March evening at New Bethel led him to reject armed struggle and to reconsider the consequences even a self-professed “devil” need consider when stirring the pot. Following the split, Milton turned his attention to his law practice and searched for more viable ways to remain active politically. While his brother settled in Mississippi, Milton became counsel to a group of African American businessmen exploring investment opportunities in Africa. Intrigued by their announced goal of developing Africa for the Africans, Henry soon found himself in Ghana advising the group in their negotiations. Disillusionment was immediate. The businessmen, many of whom he had known for years, wanted him to “help them steal, in essence, these people’s [diamond and gold] leases and mahogany, and this and that, you know.” In this troubled mood, a despondent Henry hired a car one morning to take him into the country where he might walk and think: “And I was walking and I came upon this old English church and they had a weather beaten sign out in front of it with the words of Paul on it, said, ‘Know ye not but you are not your own, you have been born with a price, even the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ And, boy, it was an existential moment for me.”
He was in his early fifties at the time, and his conversion experience as he told it paralleled the biblical Saul’s on the road to Damascus but with an ironic twist. Saul, after three days of blindness, saw again when he discarded his Judaic faith to embrace the religion of Jesus. Milton Henry, blinded as well in his mind for a far longer period, regained his vision only when he returned to the core religious tradition he thought he had left long before. That same day, he called his wife in Pontiac and made plans to return home immediately. Shortly thereafter, he entered a seminary to prepare for ordination. He remained a lawyer and served as pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church, in Southfield, a Detroit suburb, for decades, where he preached a message of faith and social engagement.36
Albert Cleage had already distanced himself from the Republic. He remained committed to his version of black Christian nationalism, preaching of a black revolutionary Jesus whom whites had expropriated for their own ends. In the early 1970s, he traveled widely, wrote numerous
articles and books, and remained active politically, supporting militant black candidates through networks of citizens he had spurred into action over the past decades. By the mid-1970s, Cleage, then known as Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, limited broader political involvements to focus on his church. James and Grace Lee Boggs, Albert Cleage’s close comrades over many decades, continued to stress the complex interplay of class and race within industrial capitalism as their major political issue. As they struggled with the relevance of Marxism for an American movement, they also created grass-roots coalitions around specific issues. The various revolutionary goals they promoted never came to fruition, but their actions did bring many people from their porches into the broader community to press for change.37
Paradoxically, it was two former radicals among this older generation of activists who, as Democratic Party candidates, most immediately benefited from the militants’ turn toward electoral politics. Coleman Young, whose 1952 congressional testimony aired over Detroit radio altered the perspectives of many, had been reelected to the state senate numerous times. Claud Young, first cousin to Coleman and C. L.’s physician, recalled that, at the time of Coleman’s testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, “Frank knew Coleman. I mean knew Coleman!” But that was a public awareness of the other’s reputation, and it is likely that a more personal connection evolved only after the events at New Bethel in 1969. The preacher and the politician spent considerable time together at the meetings and protest rallies that followed the shootout, and they discovered in each other kindred spirits. Both were quick-witted men who dressed well, enjoyed the full range of life’s pleasures, and in their different ways professed a deep commitment to their people’s future. With Claud Young, they spent many evenings at one another’s houses, sipping Scotch, telling stories, and discussing politics. When Young announced his candidacy for mayor in 1973, C. L. was an early supporter. In that year’s Democratic primary, Franklin ignored Mel Ravitz, the liberal white UAW-endorsed candidate whom he had supported in earlier elections, seeing in Ravitz’ candidacy yet another attempt by a white-led labor movement to salvage its former dominance of black political life. Instead, standing behind the pulpit on a Sunday evening, the radio microphones broadcasting every syllable to a large Detroit audience, C. L declared his personal support for his friend. Young’s subsequent election brought ecstatic joy to black Detroit but evoked fear and loathing from the majority of the city’s dwindling white population. On election night, a small group of Young’s friends celebrated giddily into the early morning. As the mayor-elect pronounced that phrase, “my police department,” referring to the same department that had “been hitting you upside your damn head” for years, Claud Young remembered, “we fell out laughing.”38