Negro Protesters Raided

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31463, 1 September 1967, Page 13

Negro Protesters Raided

(N.Z. Prett Aisociotion—Copyright; MILWAUKEE (Wisconsin), August 31.

Police armed with rifles and riot clubs stormed an open housing demonstration in the ruins of a burned-out “Freedom House” last night and hauled off kicking, screaming Negro youths by the score, United Press International reported.

An hour after the mass arrests, police said between 40 and 50 persons had been processed through the first district station and more were coming. Rocks and bottles flew through the chill summer night and fires flared. Police said a grocery store was destroyed by incendiarists. The demonstration was held in defiance of a state of emergency order issued by Mr Henry W. Maier, the Mayor. Mr Maier forbade demonstrations and parades after two

nights of open occupancy marches into white neighbourhoods had caused violence culminating on Tuesday night in the tear-gassing of white hecklers and the burning of “Freedom House,” the demonstrators’ headquarters. Father James E. Groppi, the White Roman Catholio priest who has led the marches, watched his followers being hauled away and later declared, "Milwaukee is a police State with Mayor Maier as dictator.” Meanwhile a soldier on leave from Vietnam was fined $5O for beating a man he thought was Father Groppi. Judge Christ T. Seraphim told the soldier, Michael L. Michalski, aged 21: “You played right into the hands of this evil man.” ■ Michalski admitted that he went to Kosciuszko Park on Tuesday night "to get Father Groppi.” When arrested, police said, Michalski was beating a white man who later disappeared into a crowd. Michalski said he could not understand the reason for Milwaukee's racial troubles when he heard of them in Vietnam.

“When I got home, I found out it was Father Groppi,” he said. “I was so mad I went out to look for him.”