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Rainbow Nation News

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Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
June
Year
1971
OCR Text

RAINBOW NATION NEWS

James Johnson Put Away

A victory for the people was won on Friday, May 21, when James Johnson Jr., a 36 year old black worker, was found "not guilty by reason of insanity" in the fatal shooting of three men at the Eldon Avenue Chrysler Plant last July 15.

After deliberating for less than four hours, the jury of eight women and four men--eight blacks and four whites--reached a unanimous verdict.

Johnson had been charged with the first degree murder of two foremen (one black, one white) and a white jobsetter.

On July 15. 1970, after being told that he was suspended, Johnson left the Eldon Plant and returned a short time later with an M-l carbine. Having been pushed beyond his stress limit, he responded the only way he had left; he shot Hugh Jones, Gary Hinz, and Joe Kowalski.

From the trial's beginning, Johnson's defense attorneys, Kenneth Cockrel of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and Justin Ravitz of the Motor City Labor League, said that Johnson's mental disease was the product of a society that had stripped him of his stress capacity and then heaped bigger amounts of strain on him until he snapped.

James Johson, the oldest cf five children, was born in Starkville, Missippi in 1934. His family lived on a cotton plantation. The family "house" was a two room (1 kitchen and 1 bedroom) hut. There was no running water. One outhouse was shared by all the families on the plantation.

Life on the plantation was hard. During harvest time everyone, including the children, spent long hours in the fields. The children were forced to miss large parts of the school year. but even with all this work. there was never enough food or clothing. In the winter, James' mother would sew rags together to make quilts for the children.

But it wasn't the plantation alone that planted the seed of Johnson's mental illness. . . When he was 9 years old, James saw the body of his first cousin who had been killed by a mob of whites. His cousin's body was riddled with bullets. An arm and a leg had been dismembered. His face was smashed beyond recognition.

At about the age of 12 James began to have what his mother called "spells". He hallucinated. He started hearing strange voices, especially at night. He developed an intense fear of death. In 1953. in order to "escape the plantation and get an education", James moved to Mount Clemens to live with his aunt.

When he was 22. James joined the Army. In the service he became more withdrawn than ever before. His hallucinations increased. The voices he heard became more frequent.

James began to see an Army doctor. After less than two years of service he was given a discharge.

Upon returning to Mount Clemens he got a job as a porter at Selfridge AFB. His pay was $35 a week.

James began working as a cook's helper at the Scotch 'n Sirloin restaurant in 1961. According to the testimony of Bud Cherbow, the manager, and Horace Hunter, a waiter at the restaurant, James would become extremely pressured and frightened when the place got crowded.

When it became "too heavy", they would move James – to the front toilet – to "cool off".

In 1964. under pressure to move the food orders faster, James stabbed Hunter with a 10 inch butcher knife. He told police later that James "looked like he was going crazy."

A year later, when asked by the police if he wanted to prosecute, Hunter said that James "needed help, not prosecuting."

Three years ago James Johnson began working working at the Eldon Avenue plant.

James had left Mississippi in 1953 "to escape the plantation", but without knowing it, he was just returning to another plantation.

A person who had an intense fear of death was placed in a plant that had recently taken the lives of two women, Mamie Williams and Rose Logan, and the life of a young black Vietnam veteran, Gary Thompson. James was in a den of death - and he knew it.

A lonely human being who had a constant fear of being picked on and harassed was faced with racist foremen, speeded-up production unsafe working conditions, improper equipment for the job, "missing" time cards and all the other inhumane conditions that are an integral part of life in the plants.

On July 15, 1970, James Johnson was pushed far beyond his capacity to endure stress. Being told that he was "suspended" was the last straw. His very survival – his life – was threatened and he responded the only way he had left. --He killed. The society that had made James Johnson what he is, felt the result of what it had created. A society that had planted the seeds of mental disorder in James' head was reaping the bloody harvest.

In his closing argument, Avery Weiswasser, the stumblebum prosecutor of Algiers Motel fame, referred to Johnson several times as "a nut". Weiswasser, who earlier in the trial had called black workers at Eldon "the black boys", finished his argument with these sage words: "James Johnson isn't insane, he never was insane, he's just a BIG BABY!"

Kenneth Cockrel, in his closing argument, proved that he and Ravitz were indeed "the people's lawyers". Rather than begin with his prepared statement, Cockrel started by expressing his distaste of Weiswasser for referring to someone who was mentally sick as a "nut" or a "BIG BABY". He also expressed the thought that perhaps Weiswasser was not representing "the people of the State of Michigan" but rather a part of the people – the power structure.

Cockrel then gave what some have begun calling "the Cockrel closing argument" - He finished by asking the jury to temper their decision with mercy and reason". Judge Robert Colombo reportedly called Cockrel's words "the best closing argument I've ever heard."

To say that the James Johnson trial was a "people's victory" is not an idle statement. Through Johnson's history and the testimony of Dr. Clemens Fitzgerald, a black psychiatrist it was shown the deep emotional and mental scars that are the result of being a black man and a black worker in America 1971. The trial also brought to full light the brutal working conditions that working people must submit to in order to survive. It also vividly brought out the oppression of black workers, faced with insitutional racism as well as horrible working conditions.

It was also a "people's victory" in that it give new strength to those who are fighting a society that victimizes the people. Because, while it is true that the Eldon Avenue Chrysler plant is a "planta-tion", it is also true that it is a plantation in rebellion.

Through the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the Eldon plant, along with many other plants in the city, has become a battleground The sides are easy to understand--it's the people versus the owners who try to rule like ancient fuedal lords. The League is pointing out the contradictions of this capitalist system as well as organizing black workers to obtain what is necessary - control over their own lives and over what they produce.

Although the trial was a "people's victory", all the people did not win. As a result of the verdict, James Johnson will be committed to the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. But his story will not end here because, as the trial ended, Cockrel raised a prophetic voice when he said that the conditions in mental institutions were not as they should be either and that "we will be looking into that very soon".

Although James was found "not guilty by reason of insanity", justice was not done, Justice passed James Johnson 36 years ago. . . in Starkville, Mississippi.

--Brian Flanigan