ustxtxb_obs_2006_11_17_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

a a olio 9 -0.04 Tiora tio 0 -as 0 010 39″ too tifit tergID ea 111 laSCC10100 c\(155W15 0103011 SVONL VOIDOM ASSOCIATED WITH Sit DENTs FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY JOHN ANDERSON 3O9 Woodrow pa 14011I’D…..eu et *VI Y14.8tiki 7.t v .v. “”Se b 0″1 SUSAN ANDERSON 2012 Oldham, Apartment C SUE ARMSMOrl. Ottlefltild 313 , CHARL,ES HANSON 4ANSON”Tr 1’4-1,04rfbrz.. Ciaparre I Ap.a * tents, Room 202A JOHN SA00:”-..TT tO06 Weivr 22nd Students for a Democratic Society was of a particular interest to campus police, who compiled lengthy lists of supposed members along with detailed biographical information. Spencer Persian and Kenny Parker of the classic Austin rock group Shiva’s Head Band; folklorist Tary Owens; musicians Mance Lipscomb and Jerry Jeff Walker; civil rights leader B. T. Bonner Jr.; numerous lawyers and professors; two rabbis; and Yale University Chaplain William Sloan Coffin. As for the Ghetto group in general, the files read that they “float from place to place. Start and end at times at Gilbert “Peyote and drugs used in wild parties on Fri and Sat night. Most of the wild crowd members of the Ranger staff.” The files contain a photocopy of an April 18, 1963, article from the Austin American-Statesman that perfectly relates how clueless the authorities really were. The story describes a “shakedown of local beatniks” \(this one by the Austin police bagged zero.” It reports that “several girls, spotted leaving one of the apartments tagged as a beatnik hangout, scattered in all directions?’ The article adds that parties were thought to be getting out of hand and informs that, according to the dean of student life, “local beats are currently getting their kicks from peyote cactus;’ which, as one officer observed, “makes you dream in Technicolor?’ One document in the collection describes a female student thought to “use peyote … and other drugs, very sexually promiscuous and believed to have nymphomaniac tendencies;’ and another woman is also labeled as “sexually promiscuous:’ The authorities’ apparent titillation with sex appeared to heighten when drugs were added to the mix. Yet the fascination of the police stood in stark contrast to the attitudes of these precursors of the counterculture to come. For them, sex was seen as open and natural and no big deal. But that wasn’t the only aspect of the scene that the cops got wrong. The Ghetto is characterized on a scrap of notepaper in Hamilton’s files as “a haven for Jews.” There are several typed pages of historical analysis of the ghettos in World War II \(the Austin Ghetto was in fact a nondenominational operation and a psychoanalytical take on the Ghetto’s denizens, calling them “individuals lost in the world” with “egocentric impulsiveness,” “deviant sexual patterns,” and a “rejection of authority and discipline:’ It also grumbles that they were, well, just “irritating and distressing.” Iwas in Austin during this time of ferment, active with SDS and a founding editor of The Rag. My name and picture appear more than once in these files. I had friends who lived in the Ghetto, and also had friends shot by Charles Whitman. Sandra Wilson survived, as did Claire So when friend and former colleague Alice Embree forwarded an e-mail from Steve Leach in the Half Price Books corporate office in Dallas offering first access to Chief Hamilton’s surveillance files, you can bet I was interested. After discovering the files, Hamilton’s son arranged to sell 10 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006