ht 4009 vi-51-( 1413-rottj YOUNG PATRIOTS

The story on the arrest of the Patriot Party which New York City's two daily newspapers, the Times appeared in the March 2 Bird contained several inaccura- and the Post, giving the story front-page coverage, talked cies because we had only partial information as we went about a "cache" of arms that included "a 12-gauge shot- to press. The short article below is the most accurate gun, three pistols, a carbine, four gas masks, a sword, news story we have received. It is followed by a history three daggers and hundreds of rounds of ammunition." and background of the Patriots. When 21 members of the Black Panther Party were ar- NEW YORK—Twenty cops with guns drawn kicked rested in their homes last April, the press used the same in the door of Arthur Turco's apartment on Feb. 21 and scare tactics, convicting the Panthers before they ever arrested the five members of the Patriot Party who were reached the courtroom. inside. A few minutes earlier, seven other members of the The Patriots denied possession of the pistols, and party had been arrested downstairs in front of the build- said that the rifles were legally registered. Turco charged ing. Turco is Chief-of-Staff of the Patriots. the power structure, from the local VA right up to Nixon, The 12 were officially charged with illegal posses- with conspiracy to wipe Out the Patriots with the same sion of weapons, illegal possession of drugs, and interfer- tactics used against the Panthers. The Patriots are a mem- ing with arrest. They were held on bail totalling $34,500. ber of the Rainbow Coalition with the Young Lords and The following day police leaked reports to the press the Black Panthers. that the 12 were being questioned in connection with the The police ransacked the apartment and took gun firebombing of the home of Judge John Murtah, who is registrations, clothes, jewelry, stereo, tapes and the only running the Panther 21 trial now in progress in New York. available copy of the film 'American Re.tglitn- But Turco, who was arrested in the raid, said at a press ber 2."• They also found a number of hypodermTerree--- conference on Feb. 23, "They never questioned us. The dies, which the press mentioned in connection with the first we heard about these charges was when the assistant dope charges. The press did not mention that Turco is VA made them at the arraignment yesterday." a diabetic. —liberation news service 302302 Yorkville, New York, Dec. 30, 1969: Patriots Other members wanted to wait until they had organ- show me pictures of a rally held in Chicago jointly wit ized more of their home community. The national with the Panthers. A Confederate flag hangs behind faction changed its name to the Patriot Party and the podium next to the Panther flag. Another, left Chicago. "By the time we got Uptown 'together' slightly tattered Confederate flag on the wall behind the Panthers could be completely wiped out," they us belonged to the Patriot Party Chairman's family. "It explained. They also claim that those left behind was actually flown in battle," boasts Roger, who looks were too indulgent of their old friends and neighbors about 17 but has worked with the Patriots "from the and didn't push the Patriot principles consistently. beginning" when they were a newly politicized gang of The Party now has chapters across the country— street kids in Uptown, Chicago. If you've seen Medium Eugene, Oregon: Cleveland. Ohio; New Haven. Conn.; Cool, you've seen shots of Uptown—that's the slum for and Richmond. Va., as well as Yorkville. If Wallace the poor whites who came north from Appalachia could do it, why not a revolutionary party? The Pa- hunting jobs. triot's Yorkville newsletters answer the charge of At the time of their arrest the Patriots were mak- "outsider" by affirming: -We are no strangers to the ing last-minute plans for an organizing tour of the conditions that exist here in Yorkville. Housing South. which they hope to make the main focus of a problems. tax problems, unemployment, bad schools, national revolutionary white community. Although and on and on, We are from the thousands of York- their internationalist, anti-racist emphasis and much of vines all over the country." And Uptowns. And Cab- their rhetoric derive from the Panthers. they take pride hagetowns. in their Southern origins and still hope to visit the At the same time, the Patriots hope to remind South (including Atlanta) in the near future. "their people" of America's radical tradition, especial- Roger's black cowboy hat bears two Patriot ly in the South: the mountain counties that opposed buttons. beside the stars and bars. One button shows slavery and sent troops to the Union army, for exam- two upraised red fists breaking handcuffs: the other ple. (Fannin Co., Ga., flew the Union flag.) They avid- reads: "Resurrect John Brown." Around us on the ly read such works as Millhands and Pre:xhers, Tom walls, among posters of Che and Panther martyrs. Watson, Agrarian Rebel, and Black Reconstruction hang leaflets offering free medical care to the people in America, all of which show black and white South- of Yorkville, and urging tenants to band together erners struggling against oppression. "against all pig landlords." Young kids from the All this sounds mach like the now-dissolved neighborhood drift in and out. children of German Southern Student Organizing Committee in its and Irish immigrants. saluting each other with "pow- "Southern nationalism" period. The difference lies er to the people." The storefront office's taped-up mainly in SSOC's middle class mostly Southern stu- window bears scars of a confrontation with the local dent orientation, contrasted with the Patriot's em- Nazi party. phasis on solidarity between poor people across lines The Patriots differ from most white supporters of color and region. ha spite of these differences, the of the Panthers, and from most white revolutionaries, similarities show how auractive the "rebel" tradition not only in their Southern origins but also in their can be. since the Patriots seem to have had very little working-class roots. In 1964 some of them had joined contact with SSOC. On the other hand the Patriots a project set up by SOS, "Jobs or Income Now" - may not use the stars and bars to organize in the (JOIN). but by 1968 they had politely kicked out South, where they are identified with a racist ruling SOS and taken over the project, renamed National class rather than an oppressed minority. Organizing Committee. In 1968 NOC ran Peggy The Patriots hope to organize people around Terry, a poor white woman, for vice president as a lot more than history lessons. They adapted the running mate to Eldridge Cleaver on the Peace and 10-point program of the Black Panthers, which out- Freedom Party ticket. lines the basic needs of poor communities: jobs. The street gang which formed part of NOC housing. control of police, etc. The Eugene chapter, emerged the next year as the Young Patriots, joined for example, feeds breakfast to about 50 children. by the Lincoln Park Patriots, a gang of bikers. They runs a liberation school, and has organized a fire- saw strong similarities between conditions in the black, wood co-up for mountain families using wood stoves. brown and white slums of Chicago and concluded that This winter Patriots opened a free clinic and a the same system oppresses all poor people. Patriots free breakfast program in Yorkville. An earlier Pa- began to form strong friendships with Panthers. triot drive to combat the destruction of Yorkville's They feel that poor people of all races can, and low-cost housing continues, with slowly increasing must, support each other. And they are interested in community participation. Although most of these organizing the poorest and most disadvantaged groups services inirroi ones designed by the Panthers, the in our society. "We're concerned with our people, the Patriots assert that they spring from the real needs oppressed whites, those who haven't even made it of Yorkville's poor. "Even if the parents have food into the working class yet, people that are so far for their kids, they have to get up at six or seven in down, so stomped on, that they can't even get a job the morning to go to work and can't prepare it." and have no place to go but up. We're into organizing The Patriots, like the Panthers, emphasize com- the lumpen-proletariat, the black and white ni rs, munity COM rol. "We don't want to run this clinic that's us." says Defense Captain Art Turco. for the people, we want them to learn how to run it Some of the Young Patriots in Chicago grew and take it over." Another difference is the source restless, sensing a mood of urgency among white of the breakfast food. Their leaflet explains: youth around the country. They felt that the Pa- We ate askiiig inerciligna tit rile temanstinini triots should move swiftly to form a national party. 303303 to contribute food w the program. Since they make a profit on what we need to sur- vive we believe they have a responsibility to the community, especially the big stores, ask them if they are contributing to the free breakfast program. If not, we should all he gin shopping somewhere else. Poor whites who support black militants-and try to organize other poor whites to do the same- have to have a lot of guts. The Patriots already have one martyr: John Howard, a white welfare recipient from Georgia who came to Chicago seeking work. In 1964 he began working with JOIN). in Uptown. The film "American Revolution 142 shows a meet- ing attended by Uptown whites and Panthers in BURY THE DEADEMBERERRINE=M11111111•••• 1966. In that scene John Howard says: "I'll stick The war continues the mother continues she knits with the Panthers if t hey'll stick with me, and The father continues he does business The son is killed he continues no more know they will." When Howard returned to Georgia The father and the mother go to the graveyard in 1969 to visit his family, he was identified at a They find this quite natural the father and mother meeting as "the guy who works with niggers in Chi- Life continues life with knitting war business cago." The next day he was found dead, his throat Business war knitting war slit. Business business business The Patriots' expansion South has possibilities. Life with the graveyard. "If you teed 15 poor white kids till you get to the —Jacques Pre point where you can talk to them about Bobby Seale On Dec. 5, Rod, Ricky and Dwyane Stevens, Jr. got an o bailed Panther chairman), you're doing more to free from a court in Redding, California, barring a military fun Bobby than if a whole university came out on a 'Free for their brother, Dennis, 21, killed in action around Chu Bobby' demonstration," they feel. But can the Pa- Dennis's legal guardians, an aunt and uncle named James Joyce Stevens, insisted that he be buried "with dignity and v triots get their anti-racist Message across while em- high military honors." A hearing to settle the matter to phasizing white solidarity, "Whites have to start place three days later. getting together. If we're the ones to get them to- Redding is a city of some 15,000 near the top of Californ gether, we'll be able to deal with this racism thing." great Central Valley. Sprawling farms to the south produce r At the moment, a few charismatic male leaders olives, prunes and almonds. Lumber and sheep-raising are rof hold the party together. A certain arrogance has sources of income. The mountains and streams bring in touri characterized the Party's relations with other Move- Redding is the seat of Shasta County, and it was outside courthouse that the two feuding sides of the Stevens fan ment people whom they tend to label "petty-bour- gathered Dec. 8. geois." As the Party grows,it will have to deal with They looked like the silent majority embodied: powei male chauvinism, as well as racism, in a structural men with leathery cheeks and broad hands, mortar under and programmatic way. nails, dressed in windbreakers and gabardine and BaraLon; vet since 196 when SNC told 1 e women in bouffant hair-dos; teenagers with crew cuts. r • -als to or nize leir own eommttnitie the teenager wearing round-rimmed granny glasses turned out to Movement, wit a e exceptions,Ttas-hesitated Dwyane Stevens, Jr. He told me that,this whole crowd sided w at the edges of the campus. We talk a lot about or- him and his brothers against the Army. Uncle Jim—"I don't ea think of him as my uncle now"—was standing some 40 feet ape ganizing workers, unemployed youth, and over- taxed Southerners who vote for Maddox because he with his wife and stepson and some military personnel. Dwyane laid out the complicated family history. The oh seems to stand for "the little man." The Patriots generation of Stevenses—Dwyane, Sr., Bud and Jim—had co seem ready to do more than talk. Right now, especial- to Redding from Iowa some 30 years ago. Dwyane, Sr. mart ly in the South, they're just feeling their way. We owe and had four children. Then, in 1952, his wife disappear them our support and enouragement. never to return. When he died a few years later his three old -barbara joye boys, Rod, Dennis, and Ricky, went to live with his brot: Bud, his wife foie and their five children. Dwyane, Jr., baby, was adopted by a union brother of Bud's. All four ta grew up in Redding—healthy, athletic, good in school. When Dennis was 15 he spent a summer down in Vail with Dwyane, Sr.'s other brother, Jim. Jim's wife, Joyce, had ft kids by a previoui marriage and she found Dennis a good comp ion for them_ She invited him to spend the school year and pron ed him a motorcycle. She also requested, and got, the $20 a wt from Dwyane, Sr.'s pension which Bud conscientiously had bt putting into a bank account for Dennis. Lest there be any squab about this, Joyce and Jim had a court make them the boy's le guardians. Dennis played varsity football at Hogan High Sch in Vallejo for two years. Then he moved back to Reddi He later complained that during his stay in Vallejo, Joyce Stew, had dipped into his small legacy to buy a washer and d6 113tRa Dennis was drafted in the summer of 1968, spent six mar • 0.! 3/9/70 .o ;4s AtiaOlo, Atm. 40104. 304304