BY PAUL MAILHOT
NEW YORK - Some 3,000 people participated in a memorial
meeting to honor the life of William Kunstler here November
19. The diverse crowd, which included veterans of civil
rights battles and fights for democratic rights as well as
many young people, filled to capacity the seats and aisles
of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.
Kunstler, an attorney who was well-known for defending victims of political and police frame-ups, died September 4 at the age of 76. His memorial meeting took on the character of a protest meeting, particularly against racist injustice, as the program centered on many cases Kunstler had fought defending Black rights and Native American fighters.
Among the political causes Kunstler supported over the years was the fight for parole for Mark Curtis, a socialist and union fighter who was framed up by police in Des Moines, Iowa. In a message sent to the Kunstler memorial meeting, John Studer, national coordinator of the Mark Curtis Defense Committee, wrote, "I join with you in celebrating the life of William Kunstler. I had the opportunity to meet with Bill a number of times to discuss the fight to win freedom for imprisoned Iowa unionist and member of the Socialist Workers Party Mark Curtis, and on other political questions.
"Bill, like hundreds of others, had written to the Iowa State Board of Parole urging Curtis's release. We serve Bill's memory best by continuing our own efforts to defend democratic rights," the letter concluded.
The large crowd and the character of the meeting as a celebration of democratic and antiracist fights apparently rankled the editors of the New York Times. In an article published the day after the memorial meeting writer Richard Pérez-Peña attempted to trash the gathering.
Calling Kunstler a "defender of the despised and a world- class contrarian" Pérez-Peña estimated the crowd at only 1,000 people and described those in attendance as "mostly gray-haired and stoop-shouldered."
For those of us in attendance the Times piece was far from the reality and proved to be controversial. "Pérez- Peña must have walked into the cathedral with the story already written," wrote Alexander Cockburn in the Nation magazine.
"Young, Old, White, and Black Came to Celebrate Kunstler's Life," headlined a retort to the Times in the paper's letters page November 24. "It was as if your reporter and I attended different events," said the writer, a freshman at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.