'Hunter Gray' hunterbadbear@hunterbear.org [marxist]
2014-07-20 15:36:44 UTC
PEOPLE WHO MANY OF US WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER VERY FONDLY AND VERY WELL
CLINTON JENCKS [1918-2005]: REMEMBRANCE [HUNTER BEAR 12/16/05] AND THEN, J.V. HENRY [HUNTER BEAR 1/05/06]
[From Linda Jencks O'Connell to Hunter Bear] 12/15/05
I just got a call from his wife. I am Clint's
daughter. He died last night. They found him dead on
the floor next to the bed this morning, "he hit his
head on the bed." He should never have been left
alone, he was terribly frail. He might not have made
it many weeks more, but I hoped to see him in January
(I live in Michigan).
His body will be cremated tomorrow, Friday, and
the service will be held Saturday in San Diego. . .
I'm sorry to say good-bye to our brave Colorado
boy.
I thought you would want to know. I'm glad I found
your website.
Linda Jencks O'Connell
[From Hunter Bear to Linda Jencks O'Connell] 12/15/05
Dear Linda Jencks O'Connell:
This is very sad. I much appreciate your great thoughtfulness in letting us
know this. Your father was a great man and a vast multitude of us will
always remember him -- and very much your mother with her great courage and
insight as well. With slight editing and prefaced by my brief intro
[attached], I have sent your message to several discussion lists with a
special focus on labor, radicalism, and civil rights and civil liberties. I
have also sent it to several friends of Clinton's in the Tucson area.
His passing leaves a great gap for a vast number of us. He was a mighty big
tree, a major mountain.
My wife, Eldri, threaded and set in place the 16 mm film strips of Salt
[loaned to us by Juan Chacon] in our very basic but functional sound
projector when we played it in Jackson and Tougaloo, Mississippi in the grim
and sanguinary days of 1961-63 in the Closed Society. [I taught at
Tougaloo, a private Black college, and was privileged to play a significant
organizing role in the Movement in that state and others in the South for
six years.] I have used Salt in many organizing campaigns, to this very
moment here in Idaho.
Eldri and our four children -- ranging in age from 42 down to 25 and who
have all seen Salt many times -- join me in sending our heartfelt
condolences. [Several of our grandchildren have certainly seen Salt as
well.]
Please stay in touch, if you so wish. We will always be glad to hear from
you. And we wish you very well indeed.
In Solidarity - Hunter [Hunter Bear] [formerly John R Salter, Jr]
NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR [POSTED AND SENT OUT WIDELY]: 12/15/05
I have just heard from the daughter of Clinton Jencks. The leaves fall, but
this is hard to hear.
Clinton Jencks, a major figure in Western radical labor for a generation,
and then an always much appreciated professor in California, has just died
at San Diego. A decorated World War II hero, and long-time International
Rep. for the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers [formerly
the Western Federation of Miners] for more than a decade following World
War II, he did much of his gifted organizing work in Southwestern New
Mexico. Many have seen him and his late spouse [Virginia] as Frank and Ruth
Barnes in the great labor/civil rights/women's rights film, SALT OF THE
EARTH [1953-54.] This film, designated several years ago by the Library of
Congress as one of the most significant ever made in this country, is based
on the famous Empire Zinc strike which lasted from October 1950 to February
1952, a struggle in which Clint played a major role as The Organizer. Named
as a "Communist" by the infamous Fink, Harvey Matusow, Clint was charged by
the Federal government with "perjury" vis-a-vis the infamous "Non-Communist
affidavits" mandated by the venomously anti-labor Taft Hartley Act.
Convicted in a hysterical Federal trial at El Paso, he was sentenced to a
long prison term. Free on appeal, he and his multitude of supporters fought
resolutely through the Federal courts, Matusow eventually recanted and, in
that context, wrote his fascinating confessional, FALSE WITNESS; and in
1957, in Jencks v U.S., the USSC exonerated Clint and ruled that the FBI
henceforth must provide the defendant with written and oral informers'
reports. Clinton Jencks went on to secure the appropriate graduate degrees
in economics and taught for many rich and productive years at San Diego
State University.
His monument is a great many of us over decades -- for whom he was a major
inspiration as we came of age as radical labor activists. It is higher than
the Rockies above his native Colorado Springs.
See this for information on the life and times of Clinton and the much
embattled Maurice Travis, also of Mine-Mill.
http://www.hunterbear.org/travis.htm On the witch-hunting attacks against
both men and Mine-Mill as a whole, see
http://www.hunterbear.org/repression.htm
Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]
[FROM HEATHER WOOD TO HUNTER BEAR] 12/15/05
Hunterbear,
I am the grand daughter of Clinton Jencks. My mother, Linda (Jencks)
Rageh O'Connell may have already emailed you to let you know that my
grandfather passed away this morning (or perhaps last night). He was
found this morning by his current wife. There are, at present, no
public memorials planned.
Thanks to you for the informative links and writings. Keep up the good
work.
Peace,
Heather Wood
Berkeley, CA
[FROM HUNTER BEAR TO HEATHER WOOD] 12/15/05
Dear Heather Wood:
Thanks so very much for writing. I heard from your mother just about two
hours ago. This is extremely sad news and my response to her follows this
note of mine. I can only strongly underscore for you that which I told
her -- and my family and I send our deepest condolences to you all. You may
have gathered from my website that I am fighting a very serious version of
systemic Lupus -- a rare, genetic disease for which Indians, Chicanos,
Blacks and women are especially vulnerable. Each day can be somewhat
unpredictable for me, but of course I fight on -- as did your grandfather and all
others forged in the crucibles of meaningful struggle. In that context,
your good words to me are much appreciated. Eldri and I have four children,
many grandchildren. Again, it is extremely good to hear from you. In
Solidarity, Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear] [formerly John R Salter, Jr]
[FROM CLYDE APPLETON TO HUNTER AND ELDRI] 12/15/05
Dear Hunter and Eldri:
Thanks for sending this post to me. Clint Jencks' story will surely be told one day when our histories and history textbooks give due coverage to labor heroes.
Clint and Virginia were living in Tucson when I moved here in 1955. Sometime in the next year they moved to the Bay Area. Night before they left Tucson I was with them at Sid and Daisy Goodman's house. Pleasant evening including singing lustily from the IWW's Little Red Songbook. It's painful to reflect on the fact that only I, of the five of us, am still alive. Later I visited them in San Francisco or one of the other Bay Area cities.
Best wishes to both of you.
love, clyde
[FROM BILL MANDEL TO HUNTER BEAR] 12/15/05
Hunter: PLease pass on to Heather, who I knew when she was a
baby, and to her mother, Linda, my deepest condolences. He
was one of the most sincere and genuine people I have ever
known. "Salt of the Earth" will live for a long time, and,
as long as it does, new people will learn at least a little
of who the Jenckses were. Civil liberties lawyers will know
from the case he won in the U.S. Supreme Court. Labor
activists will, even if privately, rise for a minute of
silence. Those who are religious will offer a prayer. Labor
educators will teach about him. The time will come when he
will have his deserved place in history books, not only of
labor.
Bill Mandel
[FROM LINDA JENCKS O'CONNELL TO HUNTER BEAR] 12/16/05
I very much appreciate your response and your real
understanding of who this man was. It is a significant
comfort as I live far from my children, who will also
be deeply grateful for your words.
Linda
__________________________________________________________
THOUGHTS:
Note by Hunter: 12/17/05
I have sent these to Linda and Heather, daughter and grand daughter of
Clinton. Best, H
____________________________________________________
We share in the appreciation of Clinton Jencks life.
At the Midwest Academy, a training center for organizers that started in
1973, in almost every session, that has included now thousands of students,
we would show the film. It is inspiring about people's struggle. It
teaches so much about power relations. And Clinton shows us how organizers
can function to really build a better world.
We learn from his life and try to carry on the struggle. He will be missed,
but not forgotten.
[Heather Booth, activist and educator, 12/16/05]
illuminating & instructive, as ever. Thanks.
[Sheila Michaels, SNCC list, oral historian, 12/16/05]
This is truly sad news. Clinton Jencks was a good and principled union
leader. Doing the kinds of things he did in the depths of the Fifties took a
lot of guts. No matter how hard we have it now, it's important to remember
the people like Jencks who stuck it out in the hardest of times.
John Lacny, activist, SEIU staffer, 12/16/05]
A good man done gone.
--bruce [Bruce Hartford, Civil Rights Movement Veterans Webmaster, 12/16/05]
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Sent to Hunter Bear by Caroline Jencks Chidester Weatherford 1/18/06
I am the niece of Clint Jencks (recently died). I saw my cousin,
Linda's, e-mail to you regarding her dad.
Linda, I am so sorry for your loss (your dad, my uncle). We had been
exchanging holiday cards for years. My brother (Larry) and my
husband and I went to Uncle Clinton's graveside service and the
memorial at his temple. It was a very nice ceremony and gathering.
Caroline Jencks Chidester Weatherford
_________________________
JAMES VANCE HENRY [JASON SPAULDING] [d. 12/23/05] HUNTER BEAR [1/05/06]
FROM HUNTER BEAR: 1/04/06
This is a very sad night for many of us. A very good and loyal friend and
fighter, J.V. Henry, has died in Northern California. He was a hard and
effective campaigner for social justice. Clyde Appleton and Joan Trumpauer
Mulholland will remember him well. Along with another fine SNCC worker,
Doug Harris, J.V. was -- among all of his other fights for those of the
fewest alternatives -- very active with us in his native state of North
Carolina. More recently, he was well known to Martha Elizabeth Ture, also on
two of our Lists. J.V.'s passage into the Fog and Beyond leaves a great
gap. Here are three messages from the past few hours [and I should add that
I have just heard from our good friend Reber Boult that he has forwarded my
message to the SSOC list -- that of the old Southern Student Organizing
Committee from the really tough days of the Movement.]
The first is from Deborah Moran, forwarding Martha's message. The second is
mine to the SNCC list and to several key individuals. The third is mine to
Deborah in response to her request [attached] for detail info on his civil
rights and related work. [Deborah is compiling information about J.V.'s
life for several lists that he and she are on.]
1] From Deborah Moran to Hunter: 1/04/06
I received this from Martha Ture. JV spoke of you often and I wanted to let
you know:
Dear friends,
I am sorry to tell you that James Vance Henry aka Jason Spaulding has passed
away.
I have just gotten off the phone with Bob Wood of the Nevada County [CA]
Sheriff's Department. JV was found on December 23 in the Nevada County
library. Cause of death is not yet known, pending autopsy. Mr. Wood had
not known how to notify relatives until today. He has notified estate
attorney Jack W. Westall of Ashville, North Carolina, who will notify JV's
sister Beth.
No arrangements have yet been made for burial, pending the family's
notification and decisions. I have left a message with Mr. Westall's
secretary asking that I be notified if there is anything we can do to
assist. I have also told Mr. Wood that he may consider me available to
assist in any way possible.
Please be so kind as to pass this along to others I have not named on this
distribution. I am at a bit of a loss. I'm torn down. [Martha Elizabeth Ture]
2] Hunter to the SNCC list and various individuals: 1/04/06
Deborah Moran sent this just now. J.V., originally from Asheville, N.C.,
broke with his family's traditions and became active in SNCC in the very
early '60s and stood with the Movement for years. He was in several
Southern hot spots where he did fine civil rights work -- and eventually
secured a law degree from Howard where he served as editor of the Howard law
journal. As a lawyer, he worked for migrant workers and unions in
California, then became active on behalf of Native rights and environmental
causes. He was a fine legal scholar. We were in jail together at several
points in the Old Days. He was a special friend of many of us, including my
oldest daughter, Maria, who he first knew when she was little more than two
years old. J.V. will be very much missed. Would appreciate it if this
could be forwarded to the SSOC list asap.
-- Hunter Bear
3] Hunter Bear to Deborah Moran [again, her request for info is attached]: 1/04/06
Dear Deborah:
This is very, very sad news. Maria, who with her daughter lives here in
Idaho with us, has been hit hard by this. As you note, I have sent our
messages to the large SNCC list where J.V. will be remembered by many -- and
I've also sent it on a blind copy basis to several individuals. I have
asked that this be put on the SSOC list [the old Southern Student Organizing
Committee] which is made up mostly of white Southerners who were genuinely
active on behalf of civil rights when it was rough. I am sure it will get
to that list immediately.
J.V. and I were active in the Chapel Hill Freedom Movement [N.C.] -- where
we were in jail together on at least two occasions. Later, when he wound up
briefly on a North Carolina chain gang at Greensboro, I enlisted the
immediate aid of Bill Kunstler and Arthur Kinoy who were not only good
friends but also on retainer with the civil rights organization [SCEF] for
which I was the Field Organizer -- and they got J.V. and some others out
fast on habeas corpus. He was active with me in the critical formative
period of a major, hard-fought SCEF-initiated and -backed campaign,
involving Blacks and Indians, in the Northeastern North Carolina
Blackbelt -- a poverty-stricken, rigidly segregated and Klan-infested
multi-county setting. He spent several weeks in Mississippi in the summer of
'64, mostly at McComb in Pike County. He came down regularly from Howard to
North Carolina to help me in the long Black Belt struggle -- and he
conducted a key workshop for youth at our large scale Civil Rights
Organizing Conference which drew 1,050 people from 14 Black Belt counties in
March 1965. We held the affair in rural Bertie [Burr-tee] County, one of
seven or eight or so of the very poorest counties in the United States.
He was super sharp, extremely courageous, a very hard and committed worker,
with a sly sense of humor. When younger, in front of certain kinds of
difficult people, such as arrogant Yankees and supercilious Easterners, he
liked to play the role of a sleepy Southern hound dog -- slow speech, slow
drawl, eyes sometimes downward. When the adversaries' defenses were down,
he would suddenly cordially attack.
We saw him at different points, including California. He visited us in
Chicago in the fall of '69 where I was starting a several years stint
directing large scale community organizing on the bloody South/ Southwest
Side. J.V. was there to spend a few days at the trial of the Chicago Seven
[anti-war protest leaders] and, as always, stayed at our home. We kept in
touch fairly regularly over the years into present times. He had been
giving some thought to coming over here -- Idaho -- to visit us.
Hope this is helpful. Please don't hesitate to get back to me if you have
any further questions.
Again, many thanks, Deborah. Our very best to you --
Hunter Bear
________________________________________________________________________
Deborah Moran to Hunter Bear [her above mentioned request for more info] 1/04/06
Could you give me more of his civil rights history? He told me some, and I
want to be sure I got it right. For instance, he told me he was in prison
for taking some black children to the movies. I want to right up something
for some of the lists he was on. I knew something was not right when I did
not here from him around christmas. We were generally in daily email
contact. This has not hit me fully yet. Just numb. Wish I still had his
cousin Becky's email address.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Martha Ture writes: 1/04/06
[Hunter, I did not know that you knew JV also. I might have known.]
James Vance Henry was descended from Zebulon Vance, the Civil War governor
of North Carolina and thereafter Senator. There is a statue of Senator
Vance in the Senate's statuary hall.
http://clerk.house.gov/histrecs/halls/House_vir/statues/nczv.htm<http://cler
k.house.gov/histrecs/halls/House_vir/statues/nczv.htm>
JV fought for Makah treaty rights as a board member of Certain - Coalition
to End Racial Targeting of American Indian Nations. He became an expert
on that demagogic alcoholic liar, Paul Watson. When Watson tried to take
over the Sierra Club, JV became a Club member and conveyed all his considerable
dossier on Watson to the Club leadership. My schoolmate Carl Pope remains
executive director of the Club to this day due to JV's efforts.
JV was also a brilliant and indefatigable scholar of Federal Indian law,
of solar energy, alternative energy, peak oil, oil markets, California Indian
history, and much, much more. We worked together most recently this past
summer on some oil market matters, and he was sure that some half a
million barrels of oil were coming onto the market from the `stans via Iran,
however unlawful that might be. He concluded this by accounting for all the
barrels of oil on the market and their sources.
Deputy Wood asked me on the phone "Who was he? He was very quiet
according to all the people I talked to around here, courteous, but when the
conversation turned to personal topics, he'd change the subject." JV had
puzzled him because he had a substantial bank account and a Mercedes, but
he slept in that car, and did only odd jobs. Nobody in Grass Valley had ever
seen a homeless man in a Mercedes before.
I told Deputy Wood "James Vance Henry IV was a brilliant attorney,
descended from a North Carolina governor, a civil rights worker, a polymath, and
much more. I can not tell you how many times I have relied on his sagacity and
his wit in matters as diverse as religious history, federal Indian law,
solar energy, peak oil, death penalty law, and more."
I could almost hear that deputy's jaw drop on the phone line. I did not
tell Deputy Wood about some of the shady side of the law adventures civil
rights activists have done.
Hunter, I am glad to know he worked with you and others in that journey, that place and time. It makes me think even better of you all.
JV was about 64.
I very much miss my friend. I hope to learn what happened to him. I have
heard he had a girl friend in Sacramento; I don't know her name or
anything about her but I hope she gets the word. Somehow.
Martha E. Ture
Research Director
www.buyblue.org
____________________________________________________________________________
John Salter [Beba] writes: 1/04/06
It is truly amazing to me how many of you wind up being part of the same glittering constellation.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Martha writes: 1/04/06
It fairly well amazes me too, actually.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Hunter Bear writes with much more on J.V. Henry: 1/05/06
Thanks very much for your fine comments on J.V., Martha -- and thanks much
to Deborah Moran as well. In addition to being Maria's great friend, J.V.
knew John [Beba] almost as soon as Beba was born at Raleigh in early June,
'65 -- as did, for example, Joycelyn McKissick of Durham [daughter of well
known civil rights attorney and national CORE leader, Floyd McKissick.]
Joycelyn died a year or so ago and her father, "Mack", who was himself from
J.V.'s home town of Asheville, had passed away a long time before. We were
all very good friends together. The South has always been its own strange
place and J.V. was fully in those fascinating traditions -- as are, frankly,
Maria [born at Jackson] and Beba [at Raleigh] [Don't shoot me, kids!]. Our
youngest son, Peter [also Mack] had just been born when J.V. and another
younger activist, Gregory Finger, Jr., stayed at our Chicago home. To round
it out, Josie, our youngest, was born at Gallup in late '79 and J.V., then
in California, planned to visit us on the Navajo res where he would have met
her as well -- but, at the last minute, he couldn't make it.
J.V.'s father was an affluent industrialist at Asheville [plastics] and
once, when J.V.'s mother read the virulent public comments about us in
various state newspapers by an ultra reactionary judge, Raymond Mallard of
Tabor City, N.C., who was brought into one of our large scale nonviolent
civil rights struggles by then Governor, Terry Sanford, to try to put us all
in jail for a long stretch [among our attorneys were, as I have mentioned,
Bill Kunstler and Arthur Kinoy], his very troubled mother called me. We
talked for a very long time. Although not all that old myself, I put on my
best pastoral professorial hat and voice and calmed her in my canny but
ethical fashion. [A few years earlier in the late '50s, Mallard had been
used by the textile interests in the infamous frame-up and subsequent
imprisonment of Boyd Payton and other TWUA leaders -- all of whom were
eventually exonerated and freed from prison.] Initially, J.V. had been a
business major at University of North Carolina but became embroiled on the
activist side in the erupting mass demonstrations in the state's larger
Piedmont [geographically middle sector] towns. Then it was out of UNC and
into SNCC and closely related endeavors and his True Calling Forever. We
met first in jail.
judgments. But J.V. often told me things, occasionally into the present.
Anyway, once again the prof., I give him the highest marks.
Glad indeed, Martha, that he had good friends like you and Deborah.
All Best, H
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM CLYDE APPLETON [1/05/06]
Dear Hunter,
I haven't been in personal contact with J.V. Henry for a VERY long time -- since the 1960s times in Chapel Hill and in eastern North Carolina. I did hear about him now and then from you, Hunter, and was always pleased to hear that he was still fighting for justice. But I remember him very well indeed and with much admiration and respect. I wonder what it was that made a few young white southerners break ranks with their heritage to join the freedom movement. I remember hearing that when J.V. enrolled at Howard University to study law some folks, knowing he was from North Carolina, assumed that he must be from Ahoskie, N.C. where most of the local African-American residents "looked white." He truly walked the walk, leaving a legacy of struggle and commitment. J.V. Henry: Presente!
Warm regards to Eldri and Maria.
paz, clyde
James Vance Henry 1941-2005
By Deborah Moran
James Vance Henry, Esq. passed away on December 23, 2005 in
Grass Valley, California. He led an eventful life.
JV was born in Asheville, North Carolina on October 12, 1941. He
once said that his mother told him she believed his involvement in the Civil
Rights Movement stemmed from an incident that happened when he was three.
They were standing in line to use a drinking fountain, and JV wanted to know
why he couldn't use the drinking fountain that no one was using. His mother
tried to explain that the unused drinking fountain was for "Colored" people,
and he could not understand that. His sister, Elizabeth Henry Laisy, said
that to JV, equal meant equal.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where JV
earned a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry, he became involved in the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as a Field Organizer. He
became active in the Chapel Hill Freedom Movement. He went to jail more than
once for his beliefs, on one occasion landing on the chain gang in
Greensboro, NC.
His friend Hunter Gray, than known as John Salter, enlisted two of
his friends, attorneys William Kunstler and Arthur Kinoy, to get JV out.
JV continued in his civil rights field work, repeatedly facing
life-threatening situations, fairly common for those times. But he kept on
because he knew he was doing the right things for the right
reasons. JV later said that Hunter Gray was a major reason he received a
scholarship to Howard University Law School, in Washington,DC.
Because Howard is a known as a Black college, his father opposed JV
going there. His father went so far as to say that if JV accepted the
scholarship, he would be disowned. JV went to Howard. He became the editor
of the Howard Law Journal.
After graduation, JV went to Fresno, California, where he set up a
law practice in 1968. He worked with migrant workers, unions and peace
activists, once winning a landmark ruling involving the right of anti-war
activists to put up a placard on a public bus. He defended two Chukchansi
men who had gotten into trouble for fighting with some members of the KKK.
"We were guilty of the charge of fighting," recalled Harold Hammond, one of
the two defendants, "but because of the entire situation and the way JV
presented it as it should be presented, we went free. I've never forgotten
JV Henry."
He was active in the National Lawyers Guild, forming a chapter in
Fresno, with Howard Watkins. He set up seminars for low income people on
landlord-tenant issues. He taught courses at San Joaquin College, where he
was once voted Best Teacher of the Year for his class on Conflict of Laws.
One of his friends said that he was by far the most intellectually
invigorating teacher there.
In 1976, he told me, he was on top of the world. He had a home, a
wife, a law practice. He was a judge pro-tem and there was talk of him
running for judge. In 1977 it was all gone. He walked away from his law
practice, as he could no longer work in a system he viewed as corrupt and
full of liars. He was unwilling to play the political games any longer.
After leaving his law practice, he became involved with Earth First.
He did "monkeywrenching". There are many people who believe that he was a
major force in stopping a hydroelectric project near Fresno. He did
community organizing, working with migrant workers in the Yakima Valley. He
worked on Indian rights issues in California, and fought with the
Sandinistas in Mexico. He also became a heavy user of drugs and alcohol.
April 23, 1995, JV walked into his first meeting of Alcoholics
Anonymous. He was so shaky that they would not let him have a full cup of
coffee, nor let him pour coffee. He stayed. At his death, he was still
drug and alcohol free. Becoming sober, he discovered a new kind of activism.
He became an internet activist.
When the Makah Nation decided to exercise their treaty rights to
hunt whales, many people went after the Makah people, using racism and other
ugly tactics. JV went all out, exposing their lies, their racism and their
hypocrisy. He gained enemies as well as friends. But again, he was doing
what he perceived as right.
In 2004, one of the enemies of the Makah campaigned to become
Executive Director of the national Sierra Club. Running with
neoconservative republicans, rightwing Christians, anti-immigration plebes,
and other elements of the right, "Captain" Paul Watson set out to take over
the Sierra Club in order to kill the most powerful voice for environmental
protection in America. JV went to war. He became a Sierra Club member, and
conveyed his entire dossier of Watson's lies, racism, demagoguery, civil and
criminal acts, and naked self-aggrandizement to national Sierra Club
leaders. Armed with JV's information, Club leaders let the voting
membership know what Watson really was. Watson was defeated; so was the
anti-immigration ballot measure with which he ran. In April 2004, after
the Board meeting, a Sierra Club Board member wrote "Thank you, JV, for all
your solid assistance. Early signs are that the Captain is apoplectic."
In 2005, JV researched peak oil and the intriguing question of
where half a million barrels of oil in the global oil market were coming
from. He concluded they must be coming from inner Asia - the `stans, as
they are called - by way of Iran. He figured that Halliburton was somehow
circumventing law and regulation, and getting oil out of Iran. He was
frustrated by his inability to prove it or investigate the case past a
fascinating captivity with statistical anomalies.
JV is survived by his sister, Beth, her two daughters, and his
cousin, Becky, of North Carolina, his adopted Chukchansi family, the
Hammonds, and many, many friends.
Besides his activism, JV enjoyed hunting, camping, hiking, and
making his own moccasins He played chess. He enjoyed the company of friends.
He loved South Park. But most of all, he loved to read. So it seems
particularly fitting that he walked away from this life at the public
library in Grass Valley, California.
-- Deborah Moran
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ
and Ohkwari'
Check out our massive social justice website:
www.hunterbear.org
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Photos)
My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000
word introduction by me. Covers much of my
confrontational social justice organizing life to
date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing
methodology: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
Forest Fires in the West (including the life of an old-time
fire lookout: http://hunterbear.org/forest_fires_in_the_west.htm
CLINTON JENCKS [1918-2005]: REMEMBRANCE [HUNTER BEAR 12/16/05] AND THEN, J.V. HENRY [HUNTER BEAR 1/05/06]
[From Linda Jencks O'Connell to Hunter Bear] 12/15/05
I just got a call from his wife. I am Clint's
daughter. He died last night. They found him dead on
the floor next to the bed this morning, "he hit his
head on the bed." He should never have been left
alone, he was terribly frail. He might not have made
it many weeks more, but I hoped to see him in January
(I live in Michigan).
His body will be cremated tomorrow, Friday, and
the service will be held Saturday in San Diego. . .
I'm sorry to say good-bye to our brave Colorado
boy.
I thought you would want to know. I'm glad I found
your website.
Linda Jencks O'Connell
[From Hunter Bear to Linda Jencks O'Connell] 12/15/05
Dear Linda Jencks O'Connell:
This is very sad. I much appreciate your great thoughtfulness in letting us
know this. Your father was a great man and a vast multitude of us will
always remember him -- and very much your mother with her great courage and
insight as well. With slight editing and prefaced by my brief intro
[attached], I have sent your message to several discussion lists with a
special focus on labor, radicalism, and civil rights and civil liberties. I
have also sent it to several friends of Clinton's in the Tucson area.
His passing leaves a great gap for a vast number of us. He was a mighty big
tree, a major mountain.
My wife, Eldri, threaded and set in place the 16 mm film strips of Salt
[loaned to us by Juan Chacon] in our very basic but functional sound
projector when we played it in Jackson and Tougaloo, Mississippi in the grim
and sanguinary days of 1961-63 in the Closed Society. [I taught at
Tougaloo, a private Black college, and was privileged to play a significant
organizing role in the Movement in that state and others in the South for
six years.] I have used Salt in many organizing campaigns, to this very
moment here in Idaho.
Eldri and our four children -- ranging in age from 42 down to 25 and who
have all seen Salt many times -- join me in sending our heartfelt
condolences. [Several of our grandchildren have certainly seen Salt as
well.]
Please stay in touch, if you so wish. We will always be glad to hear from
you. And we wish you very well indeed.
In Solidarity - Hunter [Hunter Bear] [formerly John R Salter, Jr]
NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR [POSTED AND SENT OUT WIDELY]: 12/15/05
I have just heard from the daughter of Clinton Jencks. The leaves fall, but
this is hard to hear.
Clinton Jencks, a major figure in Western radical labor for a generation,
and then an always much appreciated professor in California, has just died
at San Diego. A decorated World War II hero, and long-time International
Rep. for the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers [formerly
the Western Federation of Miners] for more than a decade following World
War II, he did much of his gifted organizing work in Southwestern New
Mexico. Many have seen him and his late spouse [Virginia] as Frank and Ruth
Barnes in the great labor/civil rights/women's rights film, SALT OF THE
EARTH [1953-54.] This film, designated several years ago by the Library of
Congress as one of the most significant ever made in this country, is based
on the famous Empire Zinc strike which lasted from October 1950 to February
1952, a struggle in which Clint played a major role as The Organizer. Named
as a "Communist" by the infamous Fink, Harvey Matusow, Clint was charged by
the Federal government with "perjury" vis-a-vis the infamous "Non-Communist
affidavits" mandated by the venomously anti-labor Taft Hartley Act.
Convicted in a hysterical Federal trial at El Paso, he was sentenced to a
long prison term. Free on appeal, he and his multitude of supporters fought
resolutely through the Federal courts, Matusow eventually recanted and, in
that context, wrote his fascinating confessional, FALSE WITNESS; and in
1957, in Jencks v U.S., the USSC exonerated Clint and ruled that the FBI
henceforth must provide the defendant with written and oral informers'
reports. Clinton Jencks went on to secure the appropriate graduate degrees
in economics and taught for many rich and productive years at San Diego
State University.
His monument is a great many of us over decades -- for whom he was a major
inspiration as we came of age as radical labor activists. It is higher than
the Rockies above his native Colorado Springs.
See this for information on the life and times of Clinton and the much
embattled Maurice Travis, also of Mine-Mill.
http://www.hunterbear.org/travis.htm On the witch-hunting attacks against
both men and Mine-Mill as a whole, see
http://www.hunterbear.org/repression.htm
Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]
[FROM HEATHER WOOD TO HUNTER BEAR] 12/15/05
Hunterbear,
I am the grand daughter of Clinton Jencks. My mother, Linda (Jencks)
Rageh O'Connell may have already emailed you to let you know that my
grandfather passed away this morning (or perhaps last night). He was
found this morning by his current wife. There are, at present, no
public memorials planned.
Thanks to you for the informative links and writings. Keep up the good
work.
Peace,
Heather Wood
Berkeley, CA
[FROM HUNTER BEAR TO HEATHER WOOD] 12/15/05
Dear Heather Wood:
Thanks so very much for writing. I heard from your mother just about two
hours ago. This is extremely sad news and my response to her follows this
note of mine. I can only strongly underscore for you that which I told
her -- and my family and I send our deepest condolences to you all. You may
have gathered from my website that I am fighting a very serious version of
systemic Lupus -- a rare, genetic disease for which Indians, Chicanos,
Blacks and women are especially vulnerable. Each day can be somewhat
unpredictable for me, but of course I fight on -- as did your grandfather and all
others forged in the crucibles of meaningful struggle. In that context,
your good words to me are much appreciated. Eldri and I have four children,
many grandchildren. Again, it is extremely good to hear from you. In
Solidarity, Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear] [formerly John R Salter, Jr]
[FROM CLYDE APPLETON TO HUNTER AND ELDRI] 12/15/05
Dear Hunter and Eldri:
Thanks for sending this post to me. Clint Jencks' story will surely be told one day when our histories and history textbooks give due coverage to labor heroes.
Clint and Virginia were living in Tucson when I moved here in 1955. Sometime in the next year they moved to the Bay Area. Night before they left Tucson I was with them at Sid and Daisy Goodman's house. Pleasant evening including singing lustily from the IWW's Little Red Songbook. It's painful to reflect on the fact that only I, of the five of us, am still alive. Later I visited them in San Francisco or one of the other Bay Area cities.
Best wishes to both of you.
love, clyde
[FROM BILL MANDEL TO HUNTER BEAR] 12/15/05
Hunter: PLease pass on to Heather, who I knew when she was a
baby, and to her mother, Linda, my deepest condolences. He
was one of the most sincere and genuine people I have ever
known. "Salt of the Earth" will live for a long time, and,
as long as it does, new people will learn at least a little
of who the Jenckses were. Civil liberties lawyers will know
from the case he won in the U.S. Supreme Court. Labor
activists will, even if privately, rise for a minute of
silence. Those who are religious will offer a prayer. Labor
educators will teach about him. The time will come when he
will have his deserved place in history books, not only of
labor.
Bill Mandel
[FROM LINDA JENCKS O'CONNELL TO HUNTER BEAR] 12/16/05
I very much appreciate your response and your real
understanding of who this man was. It is a significant
comfort as I live far from my children, who will also
be deeply grateful for your words.
Linda
__________________________________________________________
THOUGHTS:
Note by Hunter: 12/17/05
I have sent these to Linda and Heather, daughter and grand daughter of
Clinton. Best, H
____________________________________________________
We share in the appreciation of Clinton Jencks life.
At the Midwest Academy, a training center for organizers that started in
1973, in almost every session, that has included now thousands of students,
we would show the film. It is inspiring about people's struggle. It
teaches so much about power relations. And Clinton shows us how organizers
can function to really build a better world.
We learn from his life and try to carry on the struggle. He will be missed,
but not forgotten.
[Heather Booth, activist and educator, 12/16/05]
illuminating & instructive, as ever. Thanks.
[Sheila Michaels, SNCC list, oral historian, 12/16/05]
This is truly sad news. Clinton Jencks was a good and principled union
leader. Doing the kinds of things he did in the depths of the Fifties took a
lot of guts. No matter how hard we have it now, it's important to remember
the people like Jencks who stuck it out in the hardest of times.
John Lacny, activist, SEIU staffer, 12/16/05]
A good man done gone.
--bruce [Bruce Hartford, Civil Rights Movement Veterans Webmaster, 12/16/05]
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Sent to Hunter Bear by Caroline Jencks Chidester Weatherford 1/18/06
I am the niece of Clint Jencks (recently died). I saw my cousin,
Linda's, e-mail to you regarding her dad.
Linda, I am so sorry for your loss (your dad, my uncle). We had been
exchanging holiday cards for years. My brother (Larry) and my
husband and I went to Uncle Clinton's graveside service and the
memorial at his temple. It was a very nice ceremony and gathering.
Caroline Jencks Chidester Weatherford
_________________________
JAMES VANCE HENRY [JASON SPAULDING] [d. 12/23/05] HUNTER BEAR [1/05/06]
FROM HUNTER BEAR: 1/04/06
This is a very sad night for many of us. A very good and loyal friend and
fighter, J.V. Henry, has died in Northern California. He was a hard and
effective campaigner for social justice. Clyde Appleton and Joan Trumpauer
Mulholland will remember him well. Along with another fine SNCC worker,
Doug Harris, J.V. was -- among all of his other fights for those of the
fewest alternatives -- very active with us in his native state of North
Carolina. More recently, he was well known to Martha Elizabeth Ture, also on
two of our Lists. J.V.'s passage into the Fog and Beyond leaves a great
gap. Here are three messages from the past few hours [and I should add that
I have just heard from our good friend Reber Boult that he has forwarded my
message to the SSOC list -- that of the old Southern Student Organizing
Committee from the really tough days of the Movement.]
The first is from Deborah Moran, forwarding Martha's message. The second is
mine to the SNCC list and to several key individuals. The third is mine to
Deborah in response to her request [attached] for detail info on his civil
rights and related work. [Deborah is compiling information about J.V.'s
life for several lists that he and she are on.]
1] From Deborah Moran to Hunter: 1/04/06
I received this from Martha Ture. JV spoke of you often and I wanted to let
you know:
Dear friends,
I am sorry to tell you that James Vance Henry aka Jason Spaulding has passed
away.
I have just gotten off the phone with Bob Wood of the Nevada County [CA]
Sheriff's Department. JV was found on December 23 in the Nevada County
library. Cause of death is not yet known, pending autopsy. Mr. Wood had
not known how to notify relatives until today. He has notified estate
attorney Jack W. Westall of Ashville, North Carolina, who will notify JV's
sister Beth.
No arrangements have yet been made for burial, pending the family's
notification and decisions. I have left a message with Mr. Westall's
secretary asking that I be notified if there is anything we can do to
assist. I have also told Mr. Wood that he may consider me available to
assist in any way possible.
Please be so kind as to pass this along to others I have not named on this
distribution. I am at a bit of a loss. I'm torn down. [Martha Elizabeth Ture]
2] Hunter to the SNCC list and various individuals: 1/04/06
Deborah Moran sent this just now. J.V., originally from Asheville, N.C.,
broke with his family's traditions and became active in SNCC in the very
early '60s and stood with the Movement for years. He was in several
Southern hot spots where he did fine civil rights work -- and eventually
secured a law degree from Howard where he served as editor of the Howard law
journal. As a lawyer, he worked for migrant workers and unions in
California, then became active on behalf of Native rights and environmental
causes. He was a fine legal scholar. We were in jail together at several
points in the Old Days. He was a special friend of many of us, including my
oldest daughter, Maria, who he first knew when she was little more than two
years old. J.V. will be very much missed. Would appreciate it if this
could be forwarded to the SSOC list asap.
-- Hunter Bear
3] Hunter Bear to Deborah Moran [again, her request for info is attached]: 1/04/06
Dear Deborah:
This is very, very sad news. Maria, who with her daughter lives here in
Idaho with us, has been hit hard by this. As you note, I have sent our
messages to the large SNCC list where J.V. will be remembered by many -- and
I've also sent it on a blind copy basis to several individuals. I have
asked that this be put on the SSOC list [the old Southern Student Organizing
Committee] which is made up mostly of white Southerners who were genuinely
active on behalf of civil rights when it was rough. I am sure it will get
to that list immediately.
J.V. and I were active in the Chapel Hill Freedom Movement [N.C.] -- where
we were in jail together on at least two occasions. Later, when he wound up
briefly on a North Carolina chain gang at Greensboro, I enlisted the
immediate aid of Bill Kunstler and Arthur Kinoy who were not only good
friends but also on retainer with the civil rights organization [SCEF] for
which I was the Field Organizer -- and they got J.V. and some others out
fast on habeas corpus. He was active with me in the critical formative
period of a major, hard-fought SCEF-initiated and -backed campaign,
involving Blacks and Indians, in the Northeastern North Carolina
Blackbelt -- a poverty-stricken, rigidly segregated and Klan-infested
multi-county setting. He spent several weeks in Mississippi in the summer of
'64, mostly at McComb in Pike County. He came down regularly from Howard to
North Carolina to help me in the long Black Belt struggle -- and he
conducted a key workshop for youth at our large scale Civil Rights
Organizing Conference which drew 1,050 people from 14 Black Belt counties in
March 1965. We held the affair in rural Bertie [Burr-tee] County, one of
seven or eight or so of the very poorest counties in the United States.
He was super sharp, extremely courageous, a very hard and committed worker,
with a sly sense of humor. When younger, in front of certain kinds of
difficult people, such as arrogant Yankees and supercilious Easterners, he
liked to play the role of a sleepy Southern hound dog -- slow speech, slow
drawl, eyes sometimes downward. When the adversaries' defenses were down,
he would suddenly cordially attack.
We saw him at different points, including California. He visited us in
Chicago in the fall of '69 where I was starting a several years stint
directing large scale community organizing on the bloody South/ Southwest
Side. J.V. was there to spend a few days at the trial of the Chicago Seven
[anti-war protest leaders] and, as always, stayed at our home. We kept in
touch fairly regularly over the years into present times. He had been
giving some thought to coming over here -- Idaho -- to visit us.
Hope this is helpful. Please don't hesitate to get back to me if you have
any further questions.
Again, many thanks, Deborah. Our very best to you --
Hunter Bear
________________________________________________________________________
Deborah Moran to Hunter Bear [her above mentioned request for more info] 1/04/06
Could you give me more of his civil rights history? He told me some, and I
want to be sure I got it right. For instance, he told me he was in prison
for taking some black children to the movies. I want to right up something
for some of the lists he was on. I knew something was not right when I did
not here from him around christmas. We were generally in daily email
contact. This has not hit me fully yet. Just numb. Wish I still had his
cousin Becky's email address.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Martha Ture writes: 1/04/06
[Hunter, I did not know that you knew JV also. I might have known.]
James Vance Henry was descended from Zebulon Vance, the Civil War governor
of North Carolina and thereafter Senator. There is a statue of Senator
Vance in the Senate's statuary hall.
http://clerk.house.gov/histrecs/halls/House_vir/statues/nczv.htm<http://cler
k.house.gov/histrecs/halls/House_vir/statues/nczv.htm>
JV fought for Makah treaty rights as a board member of Certain - Coalition
to End Racial Targeting of American Indian Nations. He became an expert
on that demagogic alcoholic liar, Paul Watson. When Watson tried to take
over the Sierra Club, JV became a Club member and conveyed all his considerable
dossier on Watson to the Club leadership. My schoolmate Carl Pope remains
executive director of the Club to this day due to JV's efforts.
JV was also a brilliant and indefatigable scholar of Federal Indian law,
of solar energy, alternative energy, peak oil, oil markets, California Indian
history, and much, much more. We worked together most recently this past
summer on some oil market matters, and he was sure that some half a
million barrels of oil were coming onto the market from the `stans via Iran,
however unlawful that might be. He concluded this by accounting for all the
barrels of oil on the market and their sources.
Deputy Wood asked me on the phone "Who was he? He was very quiet
according to all the people I talked to around here, courteous, but when the
conversation turned to personal topics, he'd change the subject." JV had
puzzled him because he had a substantial bank account and a Mercedes, but
he slept in that car, and did only odd jobs. Nobody in Grass Valley had ever
seen a homeless man in a Mercedes before.
I told Deputy Wood "James Vance Henry IV was a brilliant attorney,
descended from a North Carolina governor, a civil rights worker, a polymath, and
much more. I can not tell you how many times I have relied on his sagacity and
his wit in matters as diverse as religious history, federal Indian law,
solar energy, peak oil, death penalty law, and more."
I could almost hear that deputy's jaw drop on the phone line. I did not
tell Deputy Wood about some of the shady side of the law adventures civil
rights activists have done.
Hunter, I am glad to know he worked with you and others in that journey, that place and time. It makes me think even better of you all.
JV was about 64.
I very much miss my friend. I hope to learn what happened to him. I have
heard he had a girl friend in Sacramento; I don't know her name or
anything about her but I hope she gets the word. Somehow.
Martha E. Ture
Research Director
www.buyblue.org
____________________________________________________________________________
John Salter [Beba] writes: 1/04/06
It is truly amazing to me how many of you wind up being part of the same glittering constellation.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Martha writes: 1/04/06
It fairly well amazes me too, actually.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Hunter Bear writes with much more on J.V. Henry: 1/05/06
Thanks very much for your fine comments on J.V., Martha -- and thanks much
to Deborah Moran as well. In addition to being Maria's great friend, J.V.
knew John [Beba] almost as soon as Beba was born at Raleigh in early June,
'65 -- as did, for example, Joycelyn McKissick of Durham [daughter of well
known civil rights attorney and national CORE leader, Floyd McKissick.]
Joycelyn died a year or so ago and her father, "Mack", who was himself from
J.V.'s home town of Asheville, had passed away a long time before. We were
all very good friends together. The South has always been its own strange
place and J.V. was fully in those fascinating traditions -- as are, frankly,
Maria [born at Jackson] and Beba [at Raleigh] [Don't shoot me, kids!]. Our
youngest son, Peter [also Mack] had just been born when J.V. and another
younger activist, Gregory Finger, Jr., stayed at our Chicago home. To round
it out, Josie, our youngest, was born at Gallup in late '79 and J.V., then
in California, planned to visit us on the Navajo res where he would have met
her as well -- but, at the last minute, he couldn't make it.
J.V.'s father was an affluent industrialist at Asheville [plastics] and
once, when J.V.'s mother read the virulent public comments about us in
various state newspapers by an ultra reactionary judge, Raymond Mallard of
Tabor City, N.C., who was brought into one of our large scale nonviolent
civil rights struggles by then Governor, Terry Sanford, to try to put us all
in jail for a long stretch [among our attorneys were, as I have mentioned,
Bill Kunstler and Arthur Kinoy], his very troubled mother called me. We
talked for a very long time. Although not all that old myself, I put on my
best pastoral professorial hat and voice and calmed her in my canny but
ethical fashion. [A few years earlier in the late '50s, Mallard had been
used by the textile interests in the infamous frame-up and subsequent
imprisonment of Boyd Payton and other TWUA leaders -- all of whom were
eventually exonerated and freed from prison.] Initially, J.V. had been a
business major at University of North Carolina but became embroiled on the
activist side in the erupting mass demonstrations in the state's larger
Piedmont [geographically middle sector] towns. Then it was out of UNC and
into SNCC and closely related endeavors and his True Calling Forever. We
met first in jail.
From the perspectives of Native traditionalism and those of rural Arizona, I
never ask people questions about their past. Like most of us, I make my ownjudgments. But J.V. often told me things, occasionally into the present.
Anyway, once again the prof., I give him the highest marks.
Glad indeed, Martha, that he had good friends like you and Deborah.
All Best, H
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM CLYDE APPLETON [1/05/06]
Dear Hunter,
I haven't been in personal contact with J.V. Henry for a VERY long time -- since the 1960s times in Chapel Hill and in eastern North Carolina. I did hear about him now and then from you, Hunter, and was always pleased to hear that he was still fighting for justice. But I remember him very well indeed and with much admiration and respect. I wonder what it was that made a few young white southerners break ranks with their heritage to join the freedom movement. I remember hearing that when J.V. enrolled at Howard University to study law some folks, knowing he was from North Carolina, assumed that he must be from Ahoskie, N.C. where most of the local African-American residents "looked white." He truly walked the walk, leaving a legacy of struggle and commitment. J.V. Henry: Presente!
Warm regards to Eldri and Maria.
paz, clyde
James Vance Henry 1941-2005
By Deborah Moran
James Vance Henry, Esq. passed away on December 23, 2005 in
Grass Valley, California. He led an eventful life.
JV was born in Asheville, North Carolina on October 12, 1941. He
once said that his mother told him she believed his involvement in the Civil
Rights Movement stemmed from an incident that happened when he was three.
They were standing in line to use a drinking fountain, and JV wanted to know
why he couldn't use the drinking fountain that no one was using. His mother
tried to explain that the unused drinking fountain was for "Colored" people,
and he could not understand that. His sister, Elizabeth Henry Laisy, said
that to JV, equal meant equal.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where JV
earned a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry, he became involved in the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as a Field Organizer. He
became active in the Chapel Hill Freedom Movement. He went to jail more than
once for his beliefs, on one occasion landing on the chain gang in
Greensboro, NC.
His friend Hunter Gray, than known as John Salter, enlisted two of
his friends, attorneys William Kunstler and Arthur Kinoy, to get JV out.
JV continued in his civil rights field work, repeatedly facing
life-threatening situations, fairly common for those times. But he kept on
because he knew he was doing the right things for the right
reasons. JV later said that Hunter Gray was a major reason he received a
scholarship to Howard University Law School, in Washington,DC.
Because Howard is a known as a Black college, his father opposed JV
going there. His father went so far as to say that if JV accepted the
scholarship, he would be disowned. JV went to Howard. He became the editor
of the Howard Law Journal.
After graduation, JV went to Fresno, California, where he set up a
law practice in 1968. He worked with migrant workers, unions and peace
activists, once winning a landmark ruling involving the right of anti-war
activists to put up a placard on a public bus. He defended two Chukchansi
men who had gotten into trouble for fighting with some members of the KKK.
"We were guilty of the charge of fighting," recalled Harold Hammond, one of
the two defendants, "but because of the entire situation and the way JV
presented it as it should be presented, we went free. I've never forgotten
JV Henry."
He was active in the National Lawyers Guild, forming a chapter in
Fresno, with Howard Watkins. He set up seminars for low income people on
landlord-tenant issues. He taught courses at San Joaquin College, where he
was once voted Best Teacher of the Year for his class on Conflict of Laws.
One of his friends said that he was by far the most intellectually
invigorating teacher there.
In 1976, he told me, he was on top of the world. He had a home, a
wife, a law practice. He was a judge pro-tem and there was talk of him
running for judge. In 1977 it was all gone. He walked away from his law
practice, as he could no longer work in a system he viewed as corrupt and
full of liars. He was unwilling to play the political games any longer.
After leaving his law practice, he became involved with Earth First.
He did "monkeywrenching". There are many people who believe that he was a
major force in stopping a hydroelectric project near Fresno. He did
community organizing, working with migrant workers in the Yakima Valley. He
worked on Indian rights issues in California, and fought with the
Sandinistas in Mexico. He also became a heavy user of drugs and alcohol.
April 23, 1995, JV walked into his first meeting of Alcoholics
Anonymous. He was so shaky that they would not let him have a full cup of
coffee, nor let him pour coffee. He stayed. At his death, he was still
drug and alcohol free. Becoming sober, he discovered a new kind of activism.
He became an internet activist.
When the Makah Nation decided to exercise their treaty rights to
hunt whales, many people went after the Makah people, using racism and other
ugly tactics. JV went all out, exposing their lies, their racism and their
hypocrisy. He gained enemies as well as friends. But again, he was doing
what he perceived as right.
In 2004, one of the enemies of the Makah campaigned to become
Executive Director of the national Sierra Club. Running with
neoconservative republicans, rightwing Christians, anti-immigration plebes,
and other elements of the right, "Captain" Paul Watson set out to take over
the Sierra Club in order to kill the most powerful voice for environmental
protection in America. JV went to war. He became a Sierra Club member, and
conveyed his entire dossier of Watson's lies, racism, demagoguery, civil and
criminal acts, and naked self-aggrandizement to national Sierra Club
leaders. Armed with JV's information, Club leaders let the voting
membership know what Watson really was. Watson was defeated; so was the
anti-immigration ballot measure with which he ran. In April 2004, after
the Board meeting, a Sierra Club Board member wrote "Thank you, JV, for all
your solid assistance. Early signs are that the Captain is apoplectic."
In 2005, JV researched peak oil and the intriguing question of
where half a million barrels of oil in the global oil market were coming
from. He concluded they must be coming from inner Asia - the `stans, as
they are called - by way of Iran. He figured that Halliburton was somehow
circumventing law and regulation, and getting oil out of Iran. He was
frustrated by his inability to prove it or investigate the case past a
fascinating captivity with statistical anomalies.
JV is survived by his sister, Beth, her two daughters, and his
cousin, Becky, of North Carolina, his adopted Chukchansi family, the
Hammonds, and many, many friends.
Besides his activism, JV enjoyed hunting, camping, hiking, and
making his own moccasins He played chess. He enjoyed the company of friends.
He loved South Park. But most of all, he loved to read. So it seems
particularly fitting that he walked away from this life at the public
library in Grass Valley, California.
-- Deborah Moran
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ
and Ohkwari'
Check out our massive social justice website:
www.hunterbear.org
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Photos)
My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000
word introduction by me. Covers much of my
confrontational social justice organizing life to
date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing
methodology: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
Forest Fires in the West (including the life of an old-time
fire lookout: http://hunterbear.org/forest_fires_in_the_west.htm