Bill Epton
William Leo Epton Jr. (January 17, 1932 – January 23, 2002) was a
Epton was "the first person convicted of criminal anarchy since the Red Scare of 1919."[1]
Origins
According to his
Background to the Epton court case
On July 16, 1964,
PL, with Epton among its leadership, hung posters reading Wanted For Murder – Gilligan the Cop throughout the city, causing the city administration to declare a
The trial was postponed to August 2, 1965. There was talk in the papers that the riot's circumstances had been that of "a social revolution – a demand by a minority for equal rights" (N.Y. Times, July 7, 1965).
We Accuse
Epton wrote a
You didn't have to have a trial to "prove" these things. All you had to do was ask me and I would have told you – Yes! There's no problem – There's no secret – whatever we write and publish we sign with our name, address and phone number. We are willing and not afraid to put out ideas in the public view. ... Did you, at any time, think that we would deny what we do and have done? Did you think that we would deny what we hold to be true and what we believe in? Do you think that all people in this country have been so "brain dirtied" and have been so thoroughly corrupted that they are afraid to express an independent thought – to stand up for what they believe and fight for it? Well, there are people in this country who are governed by ideas that do not come out of the pages of the Times and the Daily News, and their numbers grow every day. And I am sure that this so-called "trial" has opened up many more eyes. Whatever we do and whatever we believe in – we do and believe that it is in the interest of the people of this country; And yes – we are proud to have done it and to be doing it and we stand behind our actions four-square!
The New York Times article notes: "A grand jury indicted Mr. Epton on charges that his speeches kept the 1964 riot going. In one, which was secretly recorded by an undercover officer assigned to monitor the Progressive Labor Party, he said, "We're going to have to kill a lot of cops, a lot of the judges, and we'll have to go against their army."[1]
Epton breaks with PL
Epton was eventually released on bail while he appealed his conviction. Meanwhile, Progressive Labor began to change its line on the
After Epton left PL, he was involved in new attempts to unite revolutionary Marxists in the U.S. in the early 1970s. The appeal of his conviction was eventually rejected and he was forced to serve the remainder of that year in prison.
Epton played a founding role in the A. Philip Randolph Labor Council. He was also an information officer and printer at the
References
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
- ^ a b "We Accuse: Bill Epton's Speech to the Court". Mltranslations.org. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
- ^ [1] Archived May 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- Manning, Lona. "[Rubin "Hurricane"] Carter's phony radical credentials." Source for Bill Epton picture, obtained here: [2]
- We Accuse: Bill Epton Speaks to the Court. Progressive Labor Party, February 2, 1966. Excerpted from MLTranslations.org.