NEWS RELEASE
STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE
6 Raymond Street, N. W.
Atlanta 14, Georgia
Tel: 688-0331
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DANVILLE LEADERS INDICTED;
DEMONSTRATIONS TO CONTINUE
DANVILLE, VIRGINIA, JUNE 8—A Grand Jury here has indicted three leaders of the Danville Christian Progressive Association on charges of “inciting to riot” and “encouraging a minor to commit a misdemeanor” and an Atlanta-based anti-segregation organization has asked Virginia Governor Albert Harrison and the U.S. Justice Department to investigate charges of police brutality against teen-age demonstrators.
Avon Rollins, a field secretary from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), said that one policeman pushed a 16-year-old girl down a flight of stairs in the courthouse on June 5. Rollins said another policeman clubbed a 13-year-old crippled boy, and a third pushed Rev. A.I. Dunlap, pastor of St. Paul A.M.E. Church over a bannister.
Dunlap, Julian E. Adams, Sr., and Rev. Lawrence Campbell, pastor of the Bible Week church here were the three indicted by the Grand Jury and held on $5000 bail each. Campbell said today that demonstrations, which began June 1, would resume, and that Danville Negroes “intend to be all over downtown.”
Campbell, jailed three times since June 5, was released from jail to quite a crowd of some 700 Negroes who gathered outside the jail where he was being held. Demonstrators took seats in the middle of the town square that evening, sat down in the street, and refused to move.
Campbell said that both high school students and collegians had participated in the demonstrations with local adults.
Hollins, who has been active in anti-segregation demonstrations in Knoxville, Tenn., said he would remain in Danville “until some breakthrough is realized.”
