Open Jail Yard Holds Demonstrators: Mayday 1971
Another view of the open-air recreation yard at the D.C. jail that was used to hold about 1,000 of those arrested Monday, May 3, 1971 during civil disobedience designed to shut down the federal government. Over 7,000 were arrested.
“The arrival of the first food—bologna sandwiches—gave me the first hint. There I was—in the midst of 100 mostly young antiwar protesters—some 40 feet back from the bars and the electric gates (they don’t clang shut). My stomach was growling and it looked like it would continue. I was too far back to grab a sandwich.
“But somebody yelled to the ‘screw’—as the sympathetic jail personnel were affectionately called, “Don’t throw the sandwiches in; we’ll pass them back.”
“And back they came; hand by dirty hand, all the way back to the people sitting along the rear wall who got theirs first.
“When everybody had one sandwich—‘My compliments to the chef,’ said one inmate upon biting into fluffy bread containing a single slice of meat dabbed with rancid mayonnaise—the second sandwich ration was distributed in the same way.”—John Matthews, The Washington Star, 5/6/1971.
The Mayday Tribe, a loose knit group of individuals, collectives and affinity groups, organized an attempt to shut down the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. in protest of the continued war in Indochina May 3-5, 1971 through the use of non violence civil disobedience.
For more information and additional images, see
May 1: flic.kr/s/aHsk5GV1JM
May 2: flic.kr/s/aHsk5CKtKq
May 3: flic.kr/s/aHsk5bjYqk
May 4: flic.kr/s/aHsk64GugT
May 5: coming soon
Photo by Francis Routt. Courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Open Jail Yard Holds Demonstrators: Mayday 1971
Another view of the open-air recreation yard at the D.C. jail that was used to hold about 1,000 of those arrested Monday, May 3, 1971 during civil disobedience designed to shut down the federal government. Over 7,000 were arrested.
“The arrival of the first food—bologna sandwiches—gave me the first hint. There I was—in the midst of 100 mostly young antiwar protesters—some 40 feet back from the bars and the electric gates (they don’t clang shut). My stomach was growling and it looked like it would continue. I was too far back to grab a sandwich.
“But somebody yelled to the ‘screw’—as the sympathetic jail personnel were affectionately called, “Don’t throw the sandwiches in; we’ll pass them back.”
“And back they came; hand by dirty hand, all the way back to the people sitting along the rear wall who got theirs first.
“When everybody had one sandwich—‘My compliments to the chef,’ said one inmate upon biting into fluffy bread containing a single slice of meat dabbed with rancid mayonnaise—the second sandwich ration was distributed in the same way.”—John Matthews, The Washington Star, 5/6/1971.
The Mayday Tribe, a loose knit group of individuals, collectives and affinity groups, organized an attempt to shut down the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. in protest of the continued war in Indochina May 3-5, 1971 through the use of non violence civil disobedience.
For more information and additional images, see
May 1: flic.kr/s/aHsk5GV1JM
May 2: flic.kr/s/aHsk5CKtKq
May 3: flic.kr/s/aHsk5bjYqk
May 4: flic.kr/s/aHsk64GugT
May 5: coming soon
Photo by Francis Routt. Courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.