Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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BY MICHAEL BALL Special Contributor Swilling a beer while leaning against a professor's antique clothes chest, William Kunstler relaxed for the first time Monday. After court in Manhattan in the morning, he left for Columbia. Arriving here he was interviewed on the way from the airport. He spoke to a small group over dinner, gave two overflow lectures, was a debate target at the professor's house for hours, and left his hotel at 6 a.m. so he could file a brief at a hearing in the afternoon. The legal Kunstler answered questions on his famous clients the Chicago Seven, the Berrigan brother-oriests, Rap Brown, etc. The political Kunstler spoke about opportunities and necessities for change, the nature of American oppression, the possibilities of many Atticas, etc. The racial Kunstler spoke of ethnic separatism, black power bases, ghetto suffocation, etc. The visiting attorney with the Blind Faith Cream "Live" Oliver "Good Mornin Steppenwolf "Birthda Iron Butterfly "Ball" Tim Buckley "Happy Hello Dolly s'track Johnny Winter "First Heliodor Classli special buy limited quantitile Kunst silver sideburns and flowing black mane was pressed most for an swers about the critically wounded black man the police identify as Rap Brown and the hospital as "unknown male". Looking through a six by six inch window, "I could not recognize the man I saw in bed as Rap Brown," Kunstler said. The patient was wearing an oxygen mask and a. colostomy bag (covering the area where his lower intestine and part of a pelvic bone used to. be). Brown's family has refused to identify the man as their relative. Kunstler said that the mah "was going to have a lot of physical problems, apart from the legal problems." Bond for'the man, who called himself Roy Williams at the hospital, is set at $150,000 on charges of attempted murder and attempted robbery. Kunstler commented that he would not concur with the police statements until he saw "Williams" up close. He said that after the lies he was told at Attica The Big Re4 THE RECC -presents i Really B choose from this ONLY g Starshine" y" Sad" Winter" sCommand C special bu 198 5--sorry, no recori The R, Open 14 th,4 .stores.froim rerpretive repo ier lnt( Prison by officials, he would "never again" believe police statements until he had researched them. "...I call (Nelson Rockefeller) a murderer by any stretch of the imagination..." for ordering the assault of the prison, Kunstler said. He cited the New York governor's reasons for ordering the police action and for not coming personally as untrue. Kunstler said Rockefeller's actions needlessly and callously cost human life-"That's a crime in my state (N.Y.) and he should be indicted for it." Kunstler is presently working with three other lawyers in terviewing inmates involved with the riot. He was requested by the inmates as one of the arbitrators at the prison and worked for several days relaying messages between inmates and officials. At the time of the attack which resulted in 42 inmate and hostage deaths, the prisoners had given up one of the two contested demands :ord Store RD BAR 3nother IG Sale special group of '1.98Do Door Door Doorn Bonnie A Delt MC 5"* Mit Tempta John lassics "Ima4 y reg. 5"Ilp ___tape i dealers--.hurry I ecord Bai )-9:30, Mon.-Sat. Pe.nnsilvanio. to C 5~rt ,rview and had softened the other, ac cording to Kunstler. "They could have negotiated a few more days and it would have been settled," he said. "The Attica experience was a rude awakening for me," Kunstler said. He cited several prisons that have had disturbances since Attica and called this "part of a trend" where the movement was changing emphasis toward the prisons. Kunstler said many U.S. prisons were "really medieval tort%re chambers." "The inmates have learned from the movement that if they unitd inside and do things, they have a certain power," he added. The prison conditions can change "if the outside world really wants it." Kunstler said that all the prisoners at Attica want is humane treatment. The prisoners are not rebelling against society; they are 'resigned to the confinement; they just want to be treated like human beings while in prison, according LPs 9 "Soft Parade" 9 "Waiting For Sun" 9 "Live" 2 record set 3ney "From Bonnie" Kick Out Jams" :h Ryder "Hits" tions "Puzzle People" Lennon now 299 For best selection oeorgia" to the attorney. He mentioned.that the prison officials accepted the inmates' first 28 deinands as "legitimate" prison reforms. "It's certainly not unreasonable to ask for a Spanish speaking doctor for the large minority of Puerto. Rican inmates," he said by way of example. He also supported the inmates demand for minimum wage for doing private corporations' work in prison. Kunstler stated that some federal prisoners are assembling missle components for the Dept. of Defense for 25 cents an hour. "The inmates should have enough to support their families while in prison," he said. "When a man goes to prison, often his wife, mother or' sister has to go on welfare and the whole family is destroyed," he said. "Our prisons have become a dumping ground; the spirit of the inmates is destroyed; a crowd of zombies comes out and many of them will return," he added. Kunster said that many of the inmates in state prisons come from big city ghettos. "There only way a man can get out of the clearly defined line around the ghetto is to play house-nigger to those out side," he stated. His racial attitudes have changed in the last few years. "I've reached a stage that's dif ficult for me-years ago I roamed the South as an integrationist." The desegregation struggle "while necessary, was an easy fight; this is so much more difficult because it is so tangible," Kunstler said. "I'm a separatist," he said. Black and white people have the 'same psychological problems with different emphasis."- The inner feeling of every part of society including radicals and liberals is that the whites are superior to the blacks and' the blacks are inferior to them, Kunstler explained. "The black people have been taught they are inferior and they react accordingly," he said. "It will be impossible for the two to have the two worlds merge perhaps for centuries. Se paratism will not effect whites much, if at all," but it is important that the blacks "create areas of power" which will bring a feeling of equality, maybe even superiority, according to Kunstler. He saw this need for a sense of power as the reason for the young black affinity to the Black Panther Party. 'There is power from a gun, "it may be fleeting, but It Is power," the lawyer said. AUl tuis is part of the "gut problem"--union "will be im possible for generations to come," Kunstler said. 'The William Kunstler who spoke here had a mind that moved quickly but didn't escape him. He carried orange index cards written