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Abbott Hoffman, Aka — Part 22
Page 51
51 / 127
= , CONFIDENTIAL
CG 176-31
, no ed, not advocate or
participate in any violent demonstrations, and, in fact,
was discouraged with the demonstrations very early and soon
wanted to go home.
: Concerning his own observations during this time,
. if Said that he arrived in Grant Park in downtown Chicago
ne at the bandshel] sometime on Wednesday aiternoon, August 28,
1968. He recalls seeing someone taking the American Flag
down from the flagpole cauSing the police, about 10 or so,
to go into the crowd of demonstrators apparently to arrest
the individual who took down the Flag. At that time, some
people in the crowd threw missiles at the police but
ok: not close enough to observe whether anyone was
n
jured or to see who was throwing the missiles.
aid that possibly as many as 10,000 people
were assembled in the area of the bandshel]l] and he thought
there were perhaps 25 policemen on hand there that he could
see. At this time, a number of speakers were addressing the
crowd. He remembers these speakers as follows:
aa NORMAN MAILER Spoke to the crowd and said he did
4 not intend to go on any march with the crowd since he did
a not want to get arrested, DICK GREGORY also spoke on this
occaSion. He recalls that GREGORY said that the young people
in America represent what is good about this country. GREGORY
said that long hair is not bad and spoke against police actions
against demonstrators. GREGORY went on, however, to caution
the crowd not to hate the police. He said the policemen were
only following their orders and the problem was with the
superiors of the ordinary policemen.
GREGORY said that white people are now finding
out what Negroes have always known about the police and about
how it feels to be mistreated by the police. GREGORY made
some jokes but at no time did he make any inflammatory
remarks or any remarks advocating violence. In fact, GREGORY
was always just the opposite in his speeches; that is, he was
always conciliatory and always asking the crowd to obey the
police orders and to avoid violence.
a 5 gee CONFIDERTIAL
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