It took just one day to violate its March 10 agreement to withdraw its guns, agents, and roadblocks from around Wounded Knee. On March 11, the FBI opened fire on an Indian security van. In the ensuing gunfire one of the agents was wounded. Earlier the same day, four men armed with 38-caliber pistols and fingerprinting equipment were captured in Wounded Knee, and were disarmed and released. Although they claimed to be "postal inspectors," AIM (American Indian Movement) leader Dennis Banks said, "They sure as hell weren't here defending mail boxes."

The district chairmen representing six of the reservation's eight districts met in a teepee in Wounded Knee March 11. After a four-hour meeting they announced: 1) their withdrawal from a government-controlled body - the tribal government system; 2) the withdrawal of the Oglala Sioux from the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, which established the current tribal government system; and 3) declaration of national sovereignty for the Oglala Sioux Nation.

March 22, 1948
AKRON, March 14 -Freedom of speech took a beating in Akron last week when red-baiting and Jim Crow elements prevented Langston Hughes, noted Negro poet, from lecturing here. Hughes was scheduled to read from his poetry at the YWCA under auspices of the Akron Council on Race Relations, a local anti- discrimination, body made up of labor, Negro, and ministerial figures.

On March 7, three days before Hughes' arrival, the most vicious anti-labor preachers were denouncing Hughes from the pulpit, working up a frenzy of race hate and red hysteria among their followers.

When it became known late Wednesday, the day scheduled for Hughes appearance, that no public auditorium or church was available for the poet's lecture due to the organized campaign of intimidation, President George R. Bass of Goodrich Local 5, of the CIO rubber workers, stepped into the fight. He offered the use of the Local 5 hall for the following night.

However, hysteria in Akron had been whipped up to such a high pitch during the week that a reactionary preacher like Dallas Billington of the Akron Baptist Temple could reach deep into the vitals of the Akron labor movement and overthrow the courageous position taken by George Bass and other militant leaders. The Executive Board of Local 5 was polled Wednesday night and reversed Bass offer by a close vote.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home