Perdew Tells of Albany Movement; Describes Manhandlings by Police

Ed. note: The following letter was written to the SUMMER NEWS last Friday by John W. Perdew '64, currently working for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in Albany, Ga. The trial he refers to was postponed yesterday and rescheduled for Aug. 2.

I have learned from Charles Sherrod, leader of the SNCC Southwest Georgia Project (Albany and surrounding counties), that I would probably be held on a bond of $3400 after being convicted Friday in municipal court. Since I am now out on $1900 bond (cash), an additional $1500 would be needed to get me out. Before trial, prisoners can be "farmed out" to jails in other towns, as was done with me for the three weeks I was in. After trial, however prisoners must be kept in the Albany jail, and male prisoners have several times been stuck in with toughs who are instructed to beat them up, in return for money or a speedy release. This might happen to me-of course I can't say for sure what they have cooked up for me.

By way of general news from southwest Georgia, demonstrations broke out in Americus, 37 miles north of Albany, on the 11th and 13th of July for the first time. Peter de Lossovoy, Harvard junior, was picked up downtown in Albany, with another SNCC worker as he walked with two Negroes. Enclosed is a copy of our "weekly" paper, the Student Voice, distributed by various methods under threat of being charged with "distributing handbills," which carries a penalty of 15 days and/or $54. Three convictions on this ordinance have already been carried in recorders court in Albany. We regard them as unjust, since handbills are defined as advertisements.

No Stories

The Northern press rarely carries stories of police brutality, primarily because when they check with the police departments involved all they hear is denials. Perhaps the most infamous in recent months here is the case of Reverend Samuel Wells. Wells, who is on the board of the Albany Movement, a homegrown association of adults working with SNCC, was dragged by his genitals by police who had arrested him with several others July 8. The Albany Herald, the city's sole daily, published a story in which Chief of Police Laurie Pritchett denied that Wells had been mistreated in any way, without recounting what Wells had alleged. There were witnesses, and Wells and those who had seen the incident filed affidavits with the FBI, but it appears that nothing will be done, judging from past experience. You will notice that the article of Albany in this week's New Republic had nothing to say about police brutality. This is an example of the news blackout which must be broken. I could fill 20 pages with accounts of incidents or beatings, manhandlings and incredible indignities which have been forced on whites and blacks whom the police have picked out. Northern liberals don't seem to realize, for how could they ever know, that police in Southern cities, particularly those with smart police chiefs like Pritchett, can do whatever they damn well please and get away with it!

'Incredulity'

Before I came down here I would not have believed, naive as I was, that the agents of law enforcement had the power or even the determination to commit the atrocities, if you'll pardon a favorite word of radicals, which have happened since I got here. My reaction to the news that I was charged with assault with intent to murder was a mixture of fear and incredulity, and later laughter. I threw a brick? I will be indicted and probably convicted on a felony, with a term of two to ten years? What a joke? I then had the choice of sacrificing the principles which brought me down here: non-cooperation with the whites, except on our own terms; non-violence (I would have had to plead guilty to throwing a brick); complete reliance on SNCC and its resources. And, since our attorney, C.B. King, a Negro, had not been informed of the violence charges by the police, I had to make the decision without advice as to the legal possibilities of the alternatives. It was a struggle, but I am glad for my sake and the Movement's sake that I stuck with it. I apologize for all melodramatics.

More Incidents

Just for good measure, I'll mention some more incidents. A couple of weeks ago, someone (we don't know who) shot at our office at 504 South Madison. The bullet went through the window on the front door and lodged in the back wall. One of our workers was in the office, but he wasn't hit. Joe Ann Christian, a 15-year old girl who has been arrested 13 times in demonstrations, was recently put through the following ordeals: she was dragged and picked up and dropped several times on the way to the police station, placed behind a door and mashed as people passed through it, thrown bodily into the cell block area of the station, dragged by the hair by Pritchett himself, and thrown into her cell. After being transferred to a juvenile detention center in another county, she was placed in solitary confinement and the light was removed from her cell. Later a police dog was brought to her cell and allowed to threaten her. When she finally responded to this treatment, she declared that she didn't need an electric light because Jesus was her light. She refused to talk with the FBI men who came to ask how she had been treated. The last is understandable from her experience.