John Sinclair Freedom Rally

Chrisler Arena. Friday night. December 10. Walking into the arena that night and coming face to face with the 15.000 brothers and sisters sitting in their seats and roaming the floor was a sight that none of us will EVER forget. We were together and strong, and what's even more incredible, our gathering there that night had the desired effect. The people freed John; the "Justices" of the Michigan Supreme Court were thrown up against the wall by this massive exposure of their treachery, and come the very next Monday wrote and passed their own motion for bond for John. The Court had denied the same motion when we entered it last September, but this time they took the unusual step of making up and passing their own thing. Justice Eugene Black, the only one to vote against the motion for bond, was so incensed that he charged in the Detroit News that his colleagues freed John from prison because they were influenced by "a rally of 15,000 Sinclair supporters." The main thing about December 10 is that it WORKED! All those people! Dancing, smoking, getting down. There were THOUSANDS of joints passed from hand to hand; some people were breaking out pounds on newspaper and rolling joints all night. People smoked dope and danced in the press section while standing next to the NBC camera crew and the Ann Arbor News reporters; some of the press were even seen sneaking a few tokes. People cruised around the 15 literature tables set up in the hallway, met each other, listened to short speeches and dug on a killer selection of our people's music. And for those who were seated too far away to see, there was a huge video projection screen set up over the stage, flashing giant color images of everything that was going down on stage. About 75 Psychedelic Rangers took care of security and general needs; a Day Care Center was in operation, staffed by members of the Women's Crisis Center; Drug Help and the Free People's Clinic took care of the medical and drug needs ,but people were pretty healthy that night, there were very few hard drug problems, and the medical team could enjoy the show, too. We passed out 12,000 free copies of an official 24 page program, a giant full-color Grimshaw memorial poster, and a 45 disc with "Free John Now!" by the UP on one side and a "Prayer for John Sinclair" by Allen Ginsberg on the other. And What was really beautiful is that everyone within pickup range of WABX-FM in Detroit could share in the proceedings (tickets sold out in 16 hours); ABX broadcast the entire 9 hours live. Everything went smoothly, there were no major problems; the major disappointment of the whole thing was City Clerk Harold Saunder's refusal to allow the Radical Independent Party and other groups to conduct voter registration at Chrisler. The whole thing was put together in about 2'4 weeks. The party had already decided that we needed a major national event to focus attention on John's situation and put pressure on the Supreme Court while the considered John's appeal. We had already been talking to Rennie Davis and other people around the country, putting together bands and speakers and planning the whole thing. Pete Andrews, who puts on the big University Daystar concerts and Hill and Chrisler, and formerly managed the SRC and Morgan Sound Theatre, offered to manage the stage and generally organize everything that affected the actual show. People's Attorney Denny Hayes started putting together the legal papers, and things started. We put a deposit down on Chrisler. Then we were contacted by Jerry Rubin who said that he was in touch with John and Yoko, and that they might possibly agree to play at the rally, having just written a tune about John. So Leni and Dave Sinclair and Pete Andrews flew to New York and met with John and Yoko and Jerry; out of that meeting came the opening in what they plan as a national tour of concerts for political prisoners. Leni and Dave and Pete flew back and everything kicked into high gear, because John and Yoko's presence changed the nature of the event into something more powerful, more amazing, and a lot more complex. It was our agreement with John and Yoko that their presence at the rally not be announced until December 8-so we worked and waited, and on the 8th held a news conference and played a tape we made over the phone-that had John and Yoko announcing they were coming. They both stressed in their statements that they were coming out here as Yoko put is, "because our brothers and sisters are in pain, and we really feel the pain with them." After the announcement things at our house got really crazy. We had to install two new phone lines to deal with all the amazed questions: "Is this really happening" and the approximately 200 requests we got for press tickets. Hundreds of people started coming by every day, dropping in from around the country. Things took off. Allen Ginsberg started out the show, howling and coming and vibrating his message for John's freedom. Next came Bobby Seale, the Chairman of the Black Panther Party. Bobby pointed out the relationship between John's imprisonment and all other political prisoners, and why they must he freed so we can all work together on bringing power to the people. "When we speak of pollution, we cannot only speak of pollution in terms of only this land, only the lakes, and nature: we can speak of pollution in terms of the historical pollution of facism of war of hunger in the world the historical pollution of murder . the historical pollution that we oppressed people in this world have been subjected to for too many years that pollution is the basis of the pollution of nature, of the world, of the universe the only solution to pollution is a people's humane revolution." Bobby talked about the BPP's survival programs in the black community, which parallel the work of the Ann Arbor community and the Tribal Council programs. "We've got a tree clothing program, a tree shoe factory, free medical clinics, the breakfast for children program, free busing for families to visit relatives. an intercommunal youth institute to stop the brainwashing of our children. We've got 300 acres in Selma. Alabama