New Haven - May Day Aids
- Title:
- New Haven - May Day Aids
- Alternate Title:
- New Haven - May Day Aids
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown
- Other Creators:
- View from the Bottom, Yale Strike News & Committee to Defend the Panthers, publishers
- Date:
- 1970
- Date 2:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2362.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2362_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1960 - Present
- Subject:
- Other Moral & Social
Politics & Government
Poverty/Prostitution/Crime
Slavery/Race - Measurement:
- 40 x 55 on page 43 x 57 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This map and the text verso served as a rallying call, warning, and practical information for one of the most notorious protest actions of its time, New Haven May Day, 1970. The key participants in these events were an unlikely combination of members and supporters of the radical Black Panther Party and students and faculty of Yale University - represented by the large black panther and Yale bulldog side-by-side at the left of the map. (The alligator next to the Bulldog and Panther apparently represented "the lesser-known New Haven Underground organization." Chauncey 2016, 32.)
The map was the centerfold of a free,12-page, tabloid-style publication, probably circulated on April 30. It shows the area where the demonstrations were to be focused, the New Haven Green, immediately adjacent to Yale's "Old Campus" on one side and the New Haven Courthouse - where Bobby Seale and eight other Panthers were to be tried for conspiracy and murder - on the other. Because all sides anticipated the likelihood of violent confrontation, the most prominent features of the map are the first aid stations, marked with red crosses, and the locations of telephones. The verso (ID #2362.02) sets out the schedule of events for the May Day weekend, but is mostly devoted to emergency planning. "Medical First Aid" information fills an entire page, a "pocket lawyer" provides legal guidance "if you are stopped or arrested by the police," and there is a list of useful medical, legal and other phone numbers.
Superimposed on the map of the Green is the outline of a pig, an image that needed no explanation. But how to explain the apparently chummy Bulldog and Panther?
The BPP was formed in Oakland in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, initially to provide armed citizens to monitor and challenge police brutality in the black community. The group quickly spread to large cities across the country and developed a reputation for violent confrontation. Following allegations in 1967 and 1968 that Newton and Panther Eldridge Cleaver were responsible for the murder of one police officer and the ambush of others, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover began an all-out assault against the BPP. The now-infamous COINTELLPRO “included informer infiltration, physical surveillance, wiretapping, provocation, and, most important, dirty tricks.” Donner 1990, 324.
New Haven was an important center of BPP activity. In May 1969, a young Black Panther suspected of being an informant, Alex Rackley, was tortured and interrogated in the Party’s New Haven headquarters for several days, then driven to a rural area and murdered by three Party members. Nine people were eventually arrested and indicted in connection with the crime, including Seale, who had spoken at Yale and stopped by the headquarters during that period. (He was ordered extradited to Connecticut by California Governor Ronald Reagan.) Ibid. 324-25; see generally Bass 2006; Chauncey 2016.
The Panthers were adamant that they could not receive fair treatment in the judicial process. As pretrial proceedings began in the Spring of 1970, they called for "radicals from all over the country to descend on New Haven for a rally on the Green,” immediately across from the Courthouse, on May 1. The result was “weeks of meetings, protests, and threats” as a “wave of urgency transformed Yale’s campus.” The National Chief of Staff of the Panthers, David Hilliard, had promised “Not only will we burn buildings, we will take lives,” and encouraged those who wanted “to kill a pig” or “to burn down the courthouse.” Abbie Hoffman promised that the protestors would burn down Yale on May 1. Speaking to some 5,000 Yale students on April 21, Hilliard said that “there ain’t nothing wrong with taking the life of a motherfucking pig.” Bass 2006, 116-119, 136.
On the other hand, the young Panther leader Doug Miranda offered a non-violent alternative.” On April 19, in Battle Chapel, he called for a student strike: “You can close Yale down and make Yale demand [Seale’s] release. You have the power to prevent a bloodbath in New Haven.” With the crowd behind him, Miranda concluded “There’s no reason why the Panther and the Bulldog can’t get together! . . . That Panther and that Bulldog gonna move together!” Ibid. 132.
Miranda’s call was in fact consistent with an ongoing effort by the Yale community to prevent violence. Led by University President Kingman Brewster and several black student leaders (including the future mayor of Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke), Yale decided to open the campus bordering the Green. They welcomed visiting protestors with free sleeping accommodations and meals. The University suspended academic “expectations” for the balance of the semester, thus effectively acceding to the strike demand. Yale artists “got to work running off T-shirts with the Panther-Bulldog logo.” Law students formed a committee to help avoid violence, provide legal advice to any protestors who were arrested, and monitor the forthcoming trial (with first-year student Hillary Rodham as chair). Ibid. 137-38, 133.
Most dramatically, Brewster announced that although officially neutral as the University President, he was “personally . . . appalled and ashamed that things should have come to such a pass in this country that I am skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States.” That statement was widely condemned by leaders across the nation, including Vice President Spiro Agnew, who called upon Yale to replace Brewster with “a more mature and responsible person.” Ibid. 140, 142.
Agnew's statement was consistent with the Nixon Administration's concern about the growing wave of national unrest over the Vietnamese War, which had begun and grown on college campuses, and with the alignment of violent, revolutionary groups such as the Weathermen with black power groups such as the Panthers. As May Day approached, there was widespread fear that violence could be provoked either from the left or the right - or both. Ibid. 123-24.
As if it were necessary to pour gasoline on the fire, President Nixon spoke on national television the evening of April 30 to announce the expansion of the Vietnamese War by sending combat troops to Cambodia. "Within hours," the announcement "would plunge universities across America into convulsions." Brewster received a report "that Nixon and Agnew wanted one university to explode in violence in order to fan hostility toward academia among the majority of Americans." Ibid. 150. Indeed, the President's Cambodia speech to the nation included the statement that "we live in an age of anarchy . . . . Even here in the United States, great universities are being systematically destroyed." New York Times, May 1, 1970, p.2. Finally, at the last moment, the federal government announced it was flying in 4,000 combat troops from the 82nd Airborne Division and the Second Marine Division, "in the event of violence." Ibid., p.1. In light of the extensive security already on the ground from the local and state police and Connecticut National Guard, university officials were "astonished" and "upset" at the surprise. Ibid. p.40.
As it turned out, May Day weekend passed with almost no violence. The protestors were busy day and night with perfervid speeches, rock music, lectures, poetry, jazz, teach-ins, and more rock music. There were occasional skirmishes and acts of vandalism, and two bombs exploded in the basement of Ingalls Rink just as the last band was packing up - all by (still) unidentified parties, without serious injury, and with only a handful of arrests. The New York Times praised the Panthers for having "shown themselves adept at keeping the peace" (May 4, p.43), and noted that the concept of "Bulldog and Panther" together had played an important role in the planning. Ibid. May 1, 1970, p.40. "Call it luck. Call it brilliant planning. Call it a conspiracy between the Man and the Panther. Whatever the reason, death and destruction passed by New Haven." Bass 2006, 162. Not so others - the Monday after May Day weekend, four students were killed and nine others wounded in a shooting by National Guard troops at Kent State University, setting in motion a national strike of some four million students.
As to the principals, on May 10, the Fellows of the Yale Corporation voted unanimously to endorse the actions of Brewster and the student body. New York Times, May 11, 1970, p.27. And twelve months later, after a jury was unable to reach a verdict in his trial, all charges against Bobby Seale were dismissed. Ibid. May 26, 1971, p.1.
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- May Day New Haven, "an information newspaper." View from the Bottom, Yale Strike News, & Committee to Defend the Panthers, publishers. N.d., but immediately before May 1, 1970.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.