Lima

This is the first step in gaining the town's people's confidence so that we can establish a new revolutionary spirit in these people. We have established within the Ministry of Culture what we call the American Revolutionary Army (ARA). This is only one unit dealing with only cultural and artistic aspects until we can establish ARA cadres within all arms of both this branch and the Mt. Clemens Chapter. Simply, ARA units or cadres are small, tightly-disciplined groups of righteous brothers and sisters who work diligently for bettering the community in which they live as well as defending policy and exploding myths and outright lies circulated about the White Panther Party.

Revolution is the way to Life!

Ministry of Communication,
Mt. Clemens, Mich., chapter
White Panther Party

LIMA

Brothers and Sisters:

We are going to get a letter to you every week informing you on the different things happening around here. We will let you in on some of our ideas, work projects, etc., and hope you will do the same.

On August 6 the pigs vamped on a black sister and killed her. The incident occurred when the pigs tried to arrest a 17-year-old boy for disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct. The sister protested the manner in which the pigs were making the arrest. Mrs. Christine Ricks, the black sister, was a 40-year-old widow with eight children. While one pig had the boy in the car beating him she managed to get his gun and tried to get the pig to stop beating the boy. The pig whose gun was stolen got out of the car and ran to the other side of the car and shot Mrs. Ricks with a gun he had hidden in the car. After this, the Lima National Committee to Combat Fascism led a march from the black community toward the downtown area, but we only made it a few blocks before we were scattered by tear gas and pigs with .30-caliber automatics. A 10 pm curfew was placed on the city and that night after a rally at the NCCF headquarters trouble broke out. Several police cars were trashed and some pigs were wounded and many brothers and sisters were jailed for curfew violation. On August 7th the National Guard was brought in and the NCCF headquarters was taken over by the pigs. A search was conducted on the Building resulting in them finding a bomb which the pigs planted themselves. There was no trouble to speak of the next day so the curfew was lifted. As a result of this incident a Christine Ricks Fund was set up to help support the needs of her eight children. Also the NCCF and the White Panthers are going to pass a petition to get community control of the pigs.

We have started STUDY CLASSES every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for two hours each day to better educate our people. We also hold POLITICAL EDUCATION MEETINGS every Thursday night to inform the people exactly what we are doing and what has been going on. In two or three weeks we hope to be starting a SELF-DEFENCE CLASS for anyone who wants to participate. This should really be far out.

Within the coming month we will be opening up a HEAD SHOP. We have already started painting and getting the place cleaned up. Lima has never had anything like this before so the people are sure to enjoy it.

Also around the same time we will be opening up the BALLROOM. This will be a dance hall type thing with live groups playing. Our people will be working here and it will be located right across the street from the Head Shop. This will be a great help to the people since at the present time there is no place for them to go to get together.

Starting September 25 we will be putting out a four page free weekly paper for the people.. .THE LIMA SUN! This will also give people a chance to find out exactly what we are doing and what is going on in our community. On the 16th of August we had a FREE CONCERT planned for the people but it did not come off. We needed six pigs to work for us and it seemed like none of them had time. We changed the date to the 23rd but the same thing happened again. We are going to try one more time and if they refuse to work for us again we are going to hold the concert without the pigs and without a permit from the city.

We are working out getting the Red Star Sisters together. We need more sisters in the Party. We are going to start working together with the black sisters and show the people that we are working together and not against each other.

On August 28 we had a meeting with the Lima and Toledo NCCF and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). The purpose of this meeting is to lay the foundation for a coalition between these revolutionary groups.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Lima, Chapter
White Panther Party

Photo by Feigenson

"THE PEOPLE, AND THE PEOPLE ALONE, ARE THE MOTIVE FORCE IN THE MAKING OF WORLD HISTORY." -MAO