January 4 1975

## Background Info

1975 was a year of progress, and was declared the *International Women's Year* by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Gerald R. Ford became the 38th President of the United States when he succeeded to that office following the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974. Some key events during this year include: Margaret Thatcher defeated Edward Heath for leadership of the British Conservative Party, Microsoft is founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen and US involvement in the Vietnam War after the US began to evacuate its citizens from Saigon in Operation Frequent Wind in response to advancing North Vietnamese forces

On this date in 1975, the Black Panther party started to fight back against the C.I.A and demanded them to be investigated. There was many issues with segregation and racism within the community. One story mentioned in the Newspaper talked about how a witness of a case was paid huge sums of money by two assistant attorneys for the state of North Carolina to secure false testimony in the trial of the Charlotte 3, Black civil rights activists in 1971-72.

## Black Panthers Demand to investigate the C.I.A.

The party demanded that a special Congressional committee be formed to investigate domestic spying activities of the C.I.A should be taken up and pushed by every American citizen and organization. The group was upset that the Senate or House committee never do their job to keep an eye and monitor intelligence operations.

   One excuse for no public investigation of illegal domestic spying by the CIA would endanger the national security of America. The newspaper mentions the Watergate investigation established the real danger to the country's national security came from President Nixon and not from McGovernites, against whom their conspiracy was allegedly aimed. The newspaper also mentioned that the Watergate investigated would only be completed if there was a special investigation of the CIA's domestic spying activity.

The Party was prepared to provide a Congressional investigation committee and firsthand knowledge of CIA "intelligence" activity that contributed to the assassination of around two dozen members of the Black Panther Party and other assaults to the American People.

"The Black Panther Party is the only organization specifically names as a target of the illegal CIA intelligence activity in *The New York Times* report that broke the story," said David G. Du Bois, Official Spokesman of the Party, during the past week of this article being written.

In the 1947 law that created the CIA, it is clearly stipulated that its intelligence gathering and dissemination activities should proceed, "provided, that the Agency shall have no police, subpoena, law-enforcement powers, or internal security functions..." *The Times* wrote that despite intensive interviews, little could be learned about the procedures involved in the domestic spying operations except that the operation was kept carefully shielded from other units inside the CIA.

## Issues behind the Great Quebec Student Strike

   There was a recent walkout of College of General Education (CEGEP) students across the province of Quebec in Canada in 1975 in support of student loans and grants reflects in miniature the growing instability of capital economies in the west and a rebellion of its enemies.

The FNEQ (Fédération Nationale des Enseignants Québécois) teachers unions, and others realized that something serious was going on and generally supported the student strikers. Many other professors were outraged by the de facto cutback on student loans, and the student strike that resulted.

The newspaper stated that the CEGEPs strike represented another of the growing cracks in the business-as-usual facade. The strike was important because it showed that English and Fench students could act together during an economic breakdown, and that they are supported by teachers in the FNEQ unions.

## New York Klan Dragon Fired From Prison Job

In Napanock, N.Y, the New York State Department of Correctional Services the previous week fired the grand dragon of the New York Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. His name was Earl Schoonmaker, who was a teacher at Eastern Correctional Facility. The prison is predominantly Black-populated with 403 of 716 inmates are black.

He was charged with violating the Department's rules that prohibited contraband material within the prison and "personal transactions with inmates." The contraband material includes Klan literature into the prison and had asked an inmate to paint a picture of a Klansmen on horseback, which was from Klan pamphlets. Prison employees and administrators explained that the Klan issue in the prison developed back in September of 1974.

    The first instance occurred when Nacy Looire, director of volunteer services at the time, and former official of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), received a Klan pamphlet in her mailbox. After that incident, she said that her office had been burglarized and received hateful and threatening phones calls from "people warning me sincerely that their relatives -Klan members- were out to damage my car so I would have an accident" (Loorie). Her car had ended up being damaged three times in the parking lot of the prison. Meanwhile, Charles Krom, a member at the time of Council 82, which represented the 248 correctional officers at the prison. He called on the Department of Corrections to investigate what he stated were "irresponsible" statements by Mrs. Loorie. Krom charged that her accusations of the harassment by the Klan had smeared the reputation of the correctional officers.

## References

The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service

The history of the Quebec student movement

College of General Education (CEGEP)

illegal domestic spying by the CIA

David G. Du Bois

More information of the KKK pamphlets