Tear Gas And Boots On Negro Marchers

Press, Issue 31095, 25 June 1966, Page 15

Tear Gas And Boots On Negro Marchers

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

CANTON (Mississipi), June 24.

Helmeted highway patrolmen last night drove Dr. Martin Luther King and nearly 2000 frenzied “freedom” marchers off a Negro schoolyard with clouds of tear gas and flailing boots, United Press International reported.

About 100 patrolmen wearing gas masks and some carrying riot guns, threw tear gas canisters into the Negroes as they tried to raise tents in a schoolyard, the city had forbidden them to use.

The marchers screamed and scattered into the streets. About a dozen fell to the ground and the troopers waded into them.

The Negroes, clutching their eyes and crying, “Oh God, help us,” writhed on the ground and the troopers kicked them in the back and side, then hauled them to their feet, shouting, “Get up, get up.” One Negro was kicked simultaneously by four patrolmen.

“God p : ty you. because I can’t,” a white marcher yelled at the troopers.

Dr. King was standing on the hack of a truck in the middle of the schoolground when the troopers hurled the gas.

The marchers were frantically trying to erect one of their three tents.

“Nobody leave, nobody fight back." Dr. King screamed, i “We're gonna stand our ground. “We shall overcome,” he! shrieked, and then began singing the “Freedom” song “We shall overcome.”

No Arrests Some of the marchers' joined with him for a few| seconds but then the gas; welled up eerily in the twilight and they fled.

Dr. King. Stokely Car-i nnchael of the student nonviolent co-ordinating committee, and Floyd McKissick of C O R E., the racial equality organisation, piled out of the truck and fled with their followers. There were apparently no arrests, although 11 Negroes, including Dr. King's aide, Hosea Williams, were arrested earlier in the day for trying to pitch the camp on the: schoolyard. None of the marchers appeared seriously hurt, although some were rushed away in cars to get treatment for their burning eyes. ‘Police State’ Dr. King, his eyes tearstreaked. stood in the street and watched the troopers pile the tents and tent poles back on the truck and move it off the school grounds. “It was one of the best expressions of a police State 1 have ever seen,” said Dr. King, who on the Memphis-to-Jackson march is taking part in his first Mississippi demonstration. “It was a marvellous display of non-violence in the

midst of the most brutal inhumanity.” The gas seeped off the schoolyard, shrouding the burning headlights of the troopers’ patrol cars, and invaded homes that surround the school, sending their occupants streaming into the streets to join the marchers. Troopers Remain About 50 troopers remained on the school ground. The first can of gas thrown fell near the truck where Dr. King and the other leaders were standing. “Its tear gas,” Dr. King shouted. “Everybody put a

Handkerchief over your face. Troopers kicked the smoking can of gas into the faces of marchers who lay on the ground, U.P.I. said. Many of the marchers were hysterical. “This is worse than Selma,” said a woman. Before the police action, Carmichael had asked the crowd to make a circle around the tent site, the Associated Press reported. Dr. King, who heads the Southern Leadership Conference, anxiously urged the crowd to remain calm. The Mississippi march reached this seething city in the late afternoon. A rally at the courthouse was quiet. Few whites were on the streets. Afterwards, McKissick said: “Those bastards never gave any warning. There were women and children in there. It was barbarianism that has

’ never been equalled,” the • A.P. said. ; On a street corner near the i school a crowd of Negroes gathered. Several shouted at

passing police cruisers, “You potgutted sons of bitches.” Other Negroes screamed curses. Many yelled, “Fascists, Fascists.” James Phipps, aged 21. who has been with the Mississppi march for 10 days, was overcome by gas. As workers with the medical committee for human rights put him into a carry-all truck, Phipps, one of the march's “black power” advocates, screamed: “I swear to God I’ll get every son of a bitch.”

Rally Held

In an excited rally in a Negro church, hours after the tear gas attack, Dr. King called for a march through the dark streets to protest against the police action. “Weve got to do something tonight,” the Negro leader cried.

“We cannot wait until the morning. Tonight we are going to march around this city.” Police regard night marches by civil rights workers as most dangerous, since the darkness makes it very difficult to guard againt violence.