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Long Island CORE
Black power part 3
Black Geezuz
By the end of 1968, LI CORE, then operating out of the
homes of Jackson and Cox, attempted to buy a building in Roosevelt for
its office. It was opposed by a group of both Black and White locals.
A leader of the group accused LI CORE of having someone call his home
and making a bomb threat. Jackson denied the threat but stated in Newsday,
“If we were going to bomb you, we sure as hell wouldn’t tell
you about it. And if violence would help us get what we wanted, we wouldn’t
hesitate.” Cox also denied it, stating the Blacks who opposed were
from the middle class and objected to the population LI CORE served which
consisted of mostly poor Blacks. The opposition group described the type
of people that would be brought into the area as ‘dope addicts and
drop outs’. Herman Washington of Roosevelt CORE, however, said he
believed someone from CORE did make the threats and soon resigned from
his position.
Within a few months, LI CORE moved to Roosevelt. Because it could not open up the headquarters community center as it had originally planned, LI CORE started its own church. It bought a building on 21 Raymond street, formerly a Christian Science church, and established a Baptist church it dubbed the Shrine of The Black Madonna. Its pastor dressed in a dashiki. The services featured traditional African chants accompanied by congas and steel drums as opposed to an organ.
The church was not just an experiment in its fusion of
Christianity and traditional African culture, it was also an experiment
in fusing religion with socio-economic activism. The Shrine, said to be
the first of its kind in Long Island, was repeatedly vandalized and the
pastor threatened over the phone. Nevertheless, it seems to have influenced
Suffolk County CORE’s decision the next year to break into another
unused former church it wanted to turn into a drug rehab center. The chairman
Quintyne and local residents occupied the building for several days but
were eventually thrown out.
LI CORE had also launched a program to send CORE members into local areas
to do drug education in response to the growing heroin problem in Long
Island. Billy Geller, a White college student and former member, was one
of the many to die from an overdose.
B-Side Wins Again
At the beginning of 1969, Harold Russell and James Sobers quit their positions
in Long Beach NAACP and moved to CORE just as Graydon had a year ago.
They reportedly left because of its emphasis on integration. Russell stated,
“The organization is just not Black enough. They are still serving
‘colored people’.” According to Sobers, “Anyone
who takes it (the branch) over now is a Tom… its those toms that
are holding us back.” They got permission from Cox to set up a Westbury
CORE.
In Suffolk County, a Brookhaven CORE was started in July by Clayton Chesson, a former head of a local NAACP branch before he became chairman of eastern Suffolk CORE. By 1970 there was a Glen Cove chapter of CORE (chaired by John Howard Davis) and an Islip chapter of CORE (chaired by Ellis Bell) by 1972.
A two day student boycott took place at Lawrence H.S. the first week in January. Another one started almost simultaneously at Roosevelt Junior-Senior H.S. Among the demands made in general were more Black teachers, the inclusion of Black cultural and history classes and making Dr. King’s birthday into a school holiday. Most of the demands were agreed to. Eight school districts were forced to close as a result for one day as a memorial to Dr. King that month.
In March, similar demands were made at during a demonstration at Malverne H. S. where Lincoln Lynch’s son was a student. Lincoln was arrested during the protest and charged with 2nd degree assault, inciting to riot, resisting arrest and criminal trespass. Again, he was accused of kicking a cop in the groin as with his former duck farm arrest. Under cross examination at his trial, the charges fell away. Lynch pled guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct.
Suffolk County CORE was not involved in such actions then, but its chairman Irwin Quintyne stated it was a good idea and was himself barred from demonstrating at Amityville H.S. after participating in a boycott.
Newsday revealed that even though the strikes were led by student groups, LI CORE had ‘guided and directed those movements’ in order to push for greater Black influence. Jackson said that LI CORE was also behind protests at Freeport HS, and were organizing students at Wyandanch H.S. and Glen Cove H.S. Robert Garrett, the chairman of LI CORE’s education committee, admitted to also working on schools in Hempsted, Westbury and Long Beach. The leader of the Black Student Body at Long Beach H.S. was Robert Gray, the co-chair of Long Beach CORE.
Newsday also revealed LI CORE’s effort ‘had been conducted in part by graduates of CORE’s Black Leadership Training School’. In line with CORE’s philosophy of training local people to organize and lead themselves, the BLTS graduates advised the high school students to the demands they were making and how to make them. Jackson stated the program did not train its BLTS graduates to specifically organize students ‘but to be leaders in the Black community’.