Panthers disrupt
Portland prison meet
By DEAN WHEELER
Of the Emerald
PORTLAND—A luncheon of the Oregon Correctional Association
convention was disrupted briefly Wednesday by a group of nine Blacks
one White who were protesting the luncheon speaker, Louis Nelson,
San Quentin Prison warden.
The 10, who identified themselves as Black Panthers, carried
signs and chanted throughout the room as conventioneers were being
served.
The protestors left the room briefly, and, when they tried to regain
entrance, Bob Snider, Thunderbird Inn General Manager, locked the
doors on them.
A customer of the motor inn was spat upon by the protestors when
he tried to clear them from the hallway outside the luncheon room.
State police and Multnomah County officers responded to the
complaint, but no one was arrested or charged.
The demonstrators left the Thunderbird Inn quietly after parading
outside the building for a brief period of time.
Meanwhile, Warden Nelson began his speech, entitled, “Prison
Riots.”
Nelson opened by saying “In California we haven’t seen an Attica.
But we have been blessed—or plagued, depending on your point of
view—by many minor disturbances.”
He said he had predicted “disturbances” in America’s prisons
several years ago, but “nowhere were we led to believe there would be
butchery, savage butchery.” He was commenting on the recent At
tica, N Y. prison riot in which 42 persons died, and the Aug. 1, 1970
disturbance in San Quentin.
Nelson used a report by one of his assistants to document his own
contention that prison disturbances and riots are caused by outside
agitation rather than interior problems.
“It has become increasingly obvious that trouble can be started
from the outside—and not the inside. The events of 1968 (San Quentin
prisoner strike) showed that public pressure from the outside and the
use of rock bands could forment trouble.”
He continued, “The people who were demonstrating on the outside
were not there out of concern for conditions of the prisoners, but were
a continuation of the campus demonstrators.
“Our prison disturbances—not revolution, not rebellion—but
disturbances, were caused by the same persons who brought our great
universities into the disrepute they are now in.”
Nelson said San Quentin had made more changes “in prison
reform in the last four years than it had in its history. I can’t un
derstand how we were so good in the eyes of the public two years ago,
and now we are being constantly criticized.”
The San Quentin warden, who described himself as a “non
circulation manager,” said, “We must stop trying to isolate penal
reform.
“I can remember the time when penal reform was giving the
inmates an extra bath a week."
Louis Nelson. San Quentin
Prison warden, gives
speech before the Oregon
Correctional Association
convention at Portland
Wednesday. Nelson’s talk
was delayed by a
demonstration by 10 Black
Panthers (below).
Photos by Phil Waldstein
U.N. China Debate
Weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Monday, October 18
through
Tuesday, November 2
Live on KWAX
91.1 f.m.
New Releases
of
Major Importance
Tiger & FOX imperial Animal 6.05
Bergamini **22X2?" 14.95
Reuben Any Woman Can 7.95
Van Lawick - Goodall 10.00
In The Shadow Of Man
Fast
Incompatibility of Men & Women
Lash
Heyerdahl
Wouk
Ben - Gurion
Ashe
Eleanor & Franklin
Ra Expeditions
Winds of War
Israel
Quest for America
l*fj||m/ Introduction to American
VVMlCy Archaeology: South America
5.95
12.50
10.00
10.00
17.50
15.00
18.00
O.
13th at Kincaid
Political Soicaec Films Presents
D.W. Griffith's 1915 masterpiece
in
Birth of a Nation
"My most favorite of
plus- Movies."
. —G. Swanson
Buster Crabb9 TheTymes
in
Buck Rogers
^ episode no. 4
Next week: Fistful of Dollars
Friday, 150 Science 4:30, 7, & 9:15 p.m.
Still $1.00