Central Presbyterian Church v. Black Liberation Front

• Decision Date: 25 August 1969
• Docket Number: No. 69 C 196(2).,69 C 196(2).
• Citation: 303 F. Supp. 894
• Parties: The CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, a Corporation, and J. Layton Mauze, Jr., Robert P. McDonald, Charles W. McAlpin, II, G. Gordon Hertslet, Robert E. Siemens, Edmund J. Barker, and Charles J. Moore, Jr., as Individuals and as Representatives of the Members of the Central Presbyterian Church, Plaintiffs, v. BLACK LIBERATION FRONT, a Voluntary Unincorporated Association, James H. Rollins, and Ocie Pastard, as Individuals and as Representatives of the Members of Black Liberation Front, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

303 F. Supp. 894

The CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, a Corporation, and J. Layton Mauze, Jr., Robert P. McDonald, Charles W. McAlpin, II, G. Gordon Hertslet, Robert E. Siemens, Edmund J. Barker, and Charles J. Moore, Jr., as Individuals and as Representatives of the Members of the Central Presbyterian Church, Plaintiffs, v. BLACK LIBERATION FRONT, a Voluntary Unincorporated Association, James H. Rollins, and Ocie Pastard, as Individuals and as Representatives of the Members of Black Liberation Front, Defendants.

No. 69 C 196(2).

United States District Court E. D. Missouri, E. D.

August 25, 1969.

Albert E. Schoenbeck, Thomas L. Croft, Brainerd W. LaTourette, Jr., and James F. Mauze, St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiffs.

Murry A. Marks, Elliott & Marks, St. Louis, Mo., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM

MEREDITH, District Judge.

Plaintiff, The Central Presbyterian Church, is a Missouri corporation, organized and existing under the laws of the State of Missouri for religious purposes. It has a membership of approximately two thousand, the majority of whom are white. It is affiliated with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States, and owns a church building located at 801 Hanley Road, Clayton, Missouri.

Plaintiff J. Layton Mauze, Jr., is one of the ministers of the church. Plaintiffs Robert P. McDonald, Charles W. McAlpin, II, G. Gordon Hertslet, Robert E. Siemens, Edmund J. Barker, and Charles J. Moore, Jr., are officers and members, and bring this action as individuals and representatives of the members of said church, and these said plaintiffs fairly and adequately represent the members of said church.

Defendant Black Liberation Front is a voluntary unincorporated association. Its membership includes individuals and organizations. The defendants James H. Rollins and Ocie Pastard are members of the Black Liberation Front; Rollins is the chairman and Pastard is a leader in the organization. They fairly and adequately represent the membership of the Black Liberation Front. Other organizations known as The Zulus, Black Defenders, and Black Nationals are organizations that are also members of the Front.

Ocie Pastard is also the executive director of the Mid-City Community Congress, located at 4007 Delmar, St. Louis, Missouri. This is a Missouri corporation, which has been supported by a grant from the Department of Education of the United States in the amount of $100,000, from the Danforth Foundation in the amount of $25,000, and from I.F.C.O. in the amount of $3,000. The Black Liberation Front uses the Mid-City Community Congress headquarters as its offices and a place to meet. On Sundays this was the place from which the Front started and went out to make demands on the white churches in the St. Louis and St. Louis County area. Ocie Pastard is a member of the Second Presbyterian Church in the City of St. Louis. The Black Liberation Front does not have a written list of members and neither defendant Pastard nor defendant Rollins knows the identity of the members of their group, according to their sworn testimony.

On June 1, 1969, the Black Liberation Front, led by Ocie Pastard and James Rollins, with approximately twenty people, entered the Memorial Presbyterian Church in the City of St. Louis, during pastoral prayer. James Rollins stated, "I came to read the Black Manifesto that we have". Dr. Scotchmer suggested that they wait until the close of the service and the session of the church would be delighted to take up the matter with them. Rollins insisted that the Black Manifesto be read to the congregation as it would only take ten minutes. Permission to read the Black Manifesto was refused by Dr. Scotchmer. Pastard stated that the Black Liberation Front supports the Black Manifesto nationwide and in addition thereto has its own specific demands. Mr. Pastard was permitted to read the five specific demands of the local Black Liberation Front, which are generally as follows:

1. All moneys coming into the St. Louis community for urban mission shall be turned over to the black community immediately.

2. Black men have some of the jobs in the Presbyterian Churches.

3. Fifty million dollars be placed in the Gateway Bank within thirty days to begin a program in the black community.

4. The moneys will be used in the black community for the purpose of taking over institutions such as the School Board, the Poverty Program, Housing Authority, Model Cities, and slum properties.

5. "* * * we know you would accept this with brotherly love since you are all good Christians, we do not come here to make you think we are blackmailers or extortionists, we come here in the spirit of commitment and we know that you all have commitments. I don't know exactly where your commitments are but we all have commitments, this is our urban mission just like your church has an urban mission."

At the Memorial Presbyterian Church of St. Louis, Pastard stated that he had been at the Second Presbyterian Church, of which he is a member, and had made the same demands there on the Sunday before.

James Rollins attended a meeting in Detroit, Michigan, on April 26, 1969, at which meeting James Forman presented a document to the assembled people addressed to the white Christian churches and the Jewish synagogues in the United States of America and all other racist institutions. This Manifesto contains the following statements:

"We live inside the U. S. which is the most barbaric country in the world and we have a chance to help bring this government down."

"Time is short and we do not have much time and it is time we stop mincing words. Caution is fine, but no oppressed people ever gained their liberation until they were ready to fight, to use whatever means necessary, including the use of force and power of the gun to bring down the colonizer."

"But while we talk of revolution which will be an armed confrontation and long years of sustained guerilla warfare inside this country, we must also talk of the type of world we want to live in. We must commit ourselves to a society where the total means of production are taken from the rich and placed into the hands of the state for the welfare of all the people."

"* * * Our fight is against racism, capitalism and imperialism and we are dedicated to building a socialist society inside the United States where the total means of production and distribution are in the hands of the State and that must be led by black people, by revolutionary blacks who are concerned about the total humanity of this world."

"Racism in the U. S. is so pervasive in the mentality of whites that only an armed, well-disciplined, black-controlled government can insure stamping out of racism in this country."

The Black Manifesto went on to demand five hundred million dollars to be spent in the establishment of a southern land bank to permit the blacks to buy land in the south, to set up four major publishing and printing industries, to set up four advanced television networks to provide an alternative to "the racist propaganda that fills the current television networks," to establish an International Black Appeal to help black Africa, to establish a black university. The Black Manifesto also stated:

"We call for the total disruption of selected church sponsored agencies operating anywhere in the U. S. and the world. Black workers, black women, black students and the black unemployed are encouraged to seize the offices, telephones, and printing apparatus of all church sponsored agencies and to hold these in trusteeship until our demands are met."

"We call upon all delegates and members of the National Black Economic Development Conference to stage sit-in demonstrations at selected black and white churches. This is not to be interpreted as a continuation of the sit-in movement of the early sixties but we know that active confrontation inside white churches is possible and will strengthen the possibility of meeting our demands. Such confrontation can take the form of reading the Black Manifesto instead of a sermon of passing it out to church members. The principle of self-defense should be applied if attacked."

"On May 4, 1969 or a date thereafter, depending upon local conditions, we call upon black people to commence the disruption of the racist churches and synogogues throughout the United States."

In effect, Mr. Forman's Black Manifesto calls for an immediate disruption of the white churches of this country, for armed revolution in this country, and guerrilla warfare with the ultimate aim of taking over the complete authority of government and business to be run by blacks only.

On Sunday, June 15, 1969, Ocie Pastard, James Rollins, and other members of the Black Liberation Front came to The Central Presbyterian Church on 801 Hanley Road, Clayton, Missouri. During the singing of a hymn, Pastard, Rollins, and approximately twenty others came into the Church and were told by the ushers not to interrupt the service. But they pushed open the doors, entered the sanctuary, and went down the center aisle. Dr. Mauze stopped the singing of the hymn during the second verse, and asked them why they were there. Pastard stated that he had come to worship. He had two nickels and three pennies in his hand. He stated he wanted to place them in the cup and he did not come to spit in the cup. When requested to be seated if he desired to worship, he refused, he stated he wanted to speak to the congregation. Dr. Mauze dismissed the service and the Black Liberators left with the congregation.

On June 15, 1969, within an hour after the disruption of the church service, a church officer at the church received an anonymous telephone call threatening to burn down the church building. On June 22nd a member of the Sunday School received an anonymous telephone call stating that there were six sticks of dynamite attached to an alarm clock in the sanctuary and the church would blow up. The church, as a result of the anonymous telephone calls and the threats...