CONCERNED CITIZENS OF THE NOVEMBER 3rd INCIDENT
MINUTES
June 16th, 1982 Trevi Fountain Restaurant
Present: Mr. Charles Davis, Mr. John Erwin, Mr. Gordon Chamberlin, Mr. Sol Jacobs,
Ms. Katie Greene, Mr. Robert Schultz, Dr. Marty Nathan, Ms. Gayle Korotkin
The meeting was convened by Mr. Charles Davis, Chairperson. Mr. Davis
reported that we received a reply from Channel 12, turning down our request for
an appearance on the Dave Plyler show because Channel 12 feels it provides enough
coverage of the November 3rd incident.
There was further discussion of the proposal for having a delegation of
Greensboro citizens visit Michael Johnson, which was raised by Joyce Johnson at
the last meeting. There have been 3 delegations of fact-finders from state and
national groups, and two of them met with Michael Johnson. They were not able to
get any information from Michael Johnson about the grand jury, but they felt
they were able to impress on him that people around the country are very concerned
about the grand jury and concerned that the questions about government involvement
be resolved. There has not yet been a delegation of Greensboro citizens, although
it was the Greensboro community that was directly affected. The effect of the
incident and of the unresolved questions needs to be made known to Michael
Johnson.
It was decided to organize a meeting of a fairly large number of people
representing different groups and sectors of the community, and then an actual
delegation of maybe 5 people could be selected to form the delegation. The larger
group might need to meet more than once to decide on strategy. The meeting date
needs to be fairly soon as it may take awhile to organize the delegation and set
a date with Michael Johnson, and the meeting with Johnson needs to be soon enough
to make our concerns clear to him before the grand jury is over.
It was decided that a subcommittee composed of Joyce Johnson, Gayle, and
whoever else they call on should draft a statement about the purpose of the delegation,
to be used to approach people, and also should work out a date and begin organizing
a meeting. June 28th was suggested as a possible date for a meeting.
Gordon Chamberlin read a draft of the proposed statement of ethical concerns.
The group felt the statement was excellent. Gordon wants to get feedback from
some other people and perhaps modify it before distribution. His conception of
its use is that a team of people take it to the heads of the major church bodies
and present it and discuss it with them. Although all the institutions in the
community must be confronted with their social responsibility, the churches may
be key to activating other institutions, Gordon feels. The religious community
should take leadership in moral and ethical concerns.
Mr. Davis suggested the group send a representative to the Congressional
Black Caucus Braintrust on Criminal Justice in Washington, D.C., on Saturday,
June 19th, to attend a work on police abuse and government violence. The group
felt it was important to raise that the violation of rights on November 3rd
was not the only instance of violation of rights, that there is a whole pattern
of events. Sol Jacobs agreed to try to rearrange his schedule to try to go.