Gannon v. Action

• Decision Date: 05 September 1969
• Docket Number: No. 69 C 225(2).,69 C 225(2).
• Citation: 303 F. Supp. 1240
• Parties: Rowland E. GANNON, Pastor of the St. Louis Cathedral Parish, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ACTION, a Voluntary and Unincorporated Association, Percy Green, Cecelia Goldman, William L. Matheus, Ivory Perry, Luther Mitchell and William Mitchell as Leaders and Agents of Action and Representatives of the Class of Members of Action, and Black Liberation Front, a Voluntary and Unincorporated Association, James H. Rollins, and Ocie Pastard, as individuals and as representatives of the Class of Members of Black Liberation Front, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

303 F. Supp. 1240

Rowland E. GANNON, Pastor of the St. Louis Cathedral Parish, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ACTION, a Voluntary and Unincorporated Association, Percy Green, Cecelia Goldman, William L. Matheus, Ivory Perry, Luther Mitchell and William Mitchell as Leaders and Agents of Action and Representatives of the Class of Members of Action, and Black Liberation Front, a Voluntary and Unincorporated Association, James H. Rollins, and Ocie Pastard, as individuals and as representatives of the Class of Members of Black Liberation Front, Defendants.

No. 69 C 225(2).

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

September 5, 1969.

R. H. McRoberts, Veryl L. Riddle, Marion S. Francis, and Robert F. Scoular, Bryan, Cave, McPheeters & McRoberts, and Bernard J. Huger, St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiffs.

Robert B. Curtis, St. Louis, Mo., for Percy Green.

Murry A. Marks, Elliott & Marks, St. Louis, Mo., for Black Liberation Front, Ocie Pastard and James H. Rollins.

MEMORANDUM

MEREDITH, District Judge.

St. Louis Cathedral Parish is one of the parishes of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, which is one of the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church. The church building of the St. Louis Cathedral Parish, known as the St. Louis Cathedral, is located in the City of St. Louis, Missouri, with legal title thereto vested in plaintiff John J. Carberry, Archbishop of St. Louis, as an official of the church and for and on behalf of members of the Roman Catholic Church and of said parish for their use and benefit. Plaintiff Rowland E. Gannon is the pastor of the St. Louis Cathedral Parish and plaintiffs Thomas R. Bolen, Peter P. Heinbecker, Arthur S. Littlefield, Mary Beth McKay, John K. Roedel, Jr., Betsy Thomas Birmingham, Helen Kane, Margaret B. O'Reilly, Joseph P. Houlihan, Charles Tintera, Charles Thatcher, John S. Johnson, Michael Grady, Joseph B. McDonald, Charles L. Boll, Thomas J. Mitchell, Jerome Bollato, John T. Byrne, and John W. Daake are parishioners of said parish and members of the Roman Catholic Church. Plaintiffs bring this action as individuals and as representatives of the members of said parish of said church. They fairly and adequately represent the members of the parish.

Defendant Action is a voluntary unincorporated association, which maintains headquarters at 4154 North Newstead in the City of St. Louis, Missouri. Members of Action constitute a class, many of whom use fictitious names and addresses and whose real identities and actual places of residence are unknown to plaintiffs. Defendants Percy Green, Cecelia Goldman, William L. Matheus, Ivory Perry, Luther Mitchell, and William Mitchell are leaders and agents of Action and fairly and adequately represent the class of the members of Action.

Defendant Black Liberation Front (hereinafter "Front") is a voluntary unincorporated association, which maintains headquarters at 4005-4007 Delmar Boulevard in the City of St. Louis, Missouri. Members of the Front constitute a class, many of whom use fictitious names and addresses and whose real identities and actual places of residence are unknown to plaintiffs. Defendants James H. Rollins and Ocie Pastard are leaders and agents of the Front and fairly and adequately represent the class of the members of the Front.

On Sunday, June 8, 1969, twenty-nine members of Action entered the Cathedral during the services. They marched down the center aisle and formed a line in front of the communion rail. Some were dressed in black Action sweatshirts, wearing black trousers and black berets, others were naked to the waist. One of the members of the group began to read from a paper. When it became obvious that he was not being heard, he was given an amplifier by one of the other members of his group. He then read the paper a second time while members of his group passed out copies to the congregation. The paper was a "notice", reading as follows:

"ACTION'S TO NOTICE

THE PUBLIC ...................

THE LUTHERN CHURCHES, VIA PRESIDENT REV. DR. OLIVER HARMS

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCHES, VIA BISHOP GEORGE CADIGAN, and

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHES, VIA CARDINAL JOHN CARBERRY.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the church, ACTION's `BLACK SUNDAYS', phase two, are series of protest demonstrations against the above church denominations. The demonstrations will last for a period of six months.

If you wish not to become involved, it would be best that you take a six month leave-of-absence from the church. ACTION's `BLACK SUNDAYS' at this church will take place without further warning. If you're present, of course, you'll become involved ____ a very shocking experience!

`BLACK SUNDAYS', phase two, will take on various forms of uniqueness, such as `spitting in the communion cup during communion service, a symbollic gesture of changing wine back to water and/or taking the holy bread from the Reverend and distributing it to the Black poor.

ACTION, an interracial human rights organization, which means our white members will be participating in all demonstrations, in all parts of the city and county.

ACTION DEMANDS:

1. ACTION demands that all properties, including slum property be made public.

2. ACTION demands that the property owner (the church superior staff) make itself available to act as a non-profit bonding agency for all Black residents of St. Louis.

3. ACTION demands that Harms, Cadigan and Carberry place all police officers of their respective religious jurisdiction, guilty of firing at Black fleeing suspects, wounding or killing a Black fleeing suspect, under disciplinary action of the church and make it public.

4. ACTION demands the removal of all investments from Laclede Gas, Union Electric, Southwestern Bell & McDonnell-Douglas Corp. These firms have consistently refised to hire and up-grade the Black man into the better paying jobs.

5. ACTION demands 75% of the `monies take', annually, to be relinquished to ACTION for the purpose of financing energetic community base programs that are actively combating white racism in other areas, regardless of creed.

6. ACTION demands that in support of public housing rent strikers, the Rev. John Shocklee be asked to resign his position from the St. Louis Housing Authority Board of Commissioners and that Harms, Cadigan & Carberry request a Black male rent strike tenant to be selected by the rent strike leaders to replace Father Shocklee.

ACTION'S `BLACK SUNDAYS' DEMONSTRATIONS WILL CEASE WHEN ALL DEMANDS ARE MET !!!!!"

At the conclusion of the list of demands, the demonstrators walked out of the church. At all times during the demonstration the members of Action inside the Church were in contact with defendant Percy Green and Major Gladney of the Action guerilla force by use of a walkie-talkie.

On Sunday, June 15, 1969, Action held another demonstration at the Cathedral. Defendant Green and several members of the Action guerilla force gathered across the street from the Cathedral. Several other members of Action went into the building. One of them, Mrs. Ernestine Lloyd, got up during the service, approached the lectern during the reading of a letter, and asked permission to speak for five minutes. Permission was denied, but she turned and began reading the paper to the congregation. She continued to read until the ushers removed the paper from her hands. The paper from which she read was a list of the six demands of Action which were passed out in the congregation. At the close of the service Mrs. Lloyd sat down in the vestibule of the church and refused to move, thereby necessitating her forceable removal by members of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Force.

The next demonstration by Action took place on June 29, 1969, at the Cathedral. Some thirteen or fourteen young men accompanied the defendant Green to the Cathedral and approximately eight or nine went into the building. Defendant Green remained outside, but communicated with those on the inside by means of a walkie-talkie. Those who went inside went directly to the communion rail and sat down. They blocked the area where the service was to be held to such an extent that the service was cancelled.

On Sunday, July 6, 1969, defendant Green and about eighteen members of Action returned to the Cathedral. This group included Ivory Perry, Dr. Luther Mitchell, Major Cleric Gladney, and William Mitchell. They remained just outside the Cathedral while five of their number went inside. Green remained in contact with those on the inside by means of a walkie-talkie. Once inside, William Mitchell, dressed in a long black robe, wearing a triangular hat which resembled the bishop's mitre, walked to the front of the church carrying a sign with the wording: "Carberry makes a mockery of the real church." When he reached the communion rail, he turned and started walking toward the rear of the church, chanting "Racists, racists — white Christian racists." An altercation followed, and members of the St. Louis Police Force removed the demonstrators.

The plaintiffs have alleged jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1985(3); 28 U.S.C. § 1343, and 18 U.S.C. § 241. Sections 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981-1985 are sometimes called the Reconstruction Civil Rights Acts. They were passed, along with companion criminal sections, in 1866, 1870, and 1871, to implement the newly ratified Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. For a discussion of the history of these sections, see: Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409, 88 S.Ct. 2186, 20 L.Ed.2d 1189 (1968). These sections were designed to prevent racial discrimination performed under color of state law or by groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, operating entirely outside of the law. While it is obvious that these statutes were passed primarily to insure the rights of non-whites, nothing in the statutes limits their application to situations where the civil rights of non-whites are being violated. The statutes are phrased in terms such as "all persons" and "all citizens", and the courts are bound to give...