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FREEDOMWAYS           SECOND QUARTER 1972 

We had among our luggage a small box of literature about the civil rights movement in the United States. The box was broken open by a soldier. The soldier told us that civil rights literature was illegal in Northern Ireland and that we would not be allowed to take any written material from the United States into the country. Our response was to insist upon keeping our literature. We had a number of copies of FREEDOMWAYS magazine, Letter from a Birmingham Jail by the late Martin Luther King, Jr., and brochures on SCLC. The soldier requested the presence of one of his officers who examined our brochures. The officer said that he could not allow the literature into the country. We then advised the officer that the literature we were carrying had been admitted both in the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. The officer held a brief conference with one of the custom officials and shortly thereafter we were cleared through customs with our literature.
Once through customs, we held a press conference in the front of the airport in Belfast. Mrs. Abernathy issued a statement stating our purpose for being in Northern Ireland and expressing our solidarity with the Irish people's struggle for basic human rights. The conference lasted for about five minutes, because the Irish press seemed most reluctant to ask us questions.
Our first press conference in Belfast was in sharp contrast to the one we had in Kennedy Airport the day before. The only media present had been a camera crew from ABC. The reporter, in his questioning of Mrs. Abernathy and this writer, seemed to be wondering rather than questioning us on why we were making the trip to Ireland. We explained that we saw the struggle of the Irish people for Civil Rights and a life without poverty similar to our efforts here in the United States. We also pointed out that the most recent effort on the part of the Irish people for freedom drew much inspiration from our movement and that we felt a common solidarity with all people struggling any place in the world against repression and poverty. The reporter then asked us whether or not we supported the Irish Republican Army and whether or not we viewed the movement in Ireland as a religious struggle. We answered in the negative to both questions and the conference was ended on that note.
The ABC reporter typified the attitude of the U.S. press in general. The U.S. press as everyone knows has portrayed the struggle in Ireland as a religious sectarian rift between Catholics and Protestants- a dispute in which the British are attempting to bring "peace."
Along the route from the airport in Belfast to the NICRA's head- 

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CIVIL RIGHTS IN IRELAND          FARRIS

quarters in downtown Belfast, Esso service stations and the obvious poverty of the country dominated the scenery that was otherwise attractive and pleasantly structured. Rolling hills and high banks along the roadside serve as wind breakers for the small farm houses that are sparely spaced along the road with their roofs not more than three feet above the banks.
The next morning we took a tour of the bogside with Mrs. Abernathy, Miss Mullin and a number of members from NICRA. I was impressed by the seriousness with which we were received. Small children, not more than five or six years of age, knew who we were, knew about the civil rights movement in the United States and most of the civil rights songs that were so popular in the 60's. The people were eager to tell us about their experiences with the British.
Many told us about the August 9, 1971 internment of their fathers, brothers and sons under the "Special Powers Act," a law that does not require a trial, a law that permits the execution of the person interned and a law that permits indefinite confinement. The people with whom we talked spoke of the senseless brutality on the part of British soldiers. They told of midnight searches of homes repeatedly -searches that did not produce weapons. Many people related that teen-age boys had been shot by British soldiers using rubber bullets made in Akron, Ohio at the Goodyear Rubber plant.
I thought to myself that the only difference in Hitler's SS troops, and the arrogant British soldiers running about the narrow streets in Belfast as though they were in a combat zone was that I only read about the SS but I was actually witnessing the behavior of the soldiers from that "glorious Empire" upon which the sun was never to set.
The deep feeling, understanding and the determination of the Irish people seemed to overshadow the military presence of the British government. The people seemed to assert themselves with the kind of confidence that comes from understanding that one's position in the scheme of things is historically and morally correct.
I saw in the faces of the British soldiers, some faces appearing to be not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age, a nervous frustration. Some expressions seemed quite cocky and arrogant. With every act, the British government through her soldiers, seemed to have been striking for the maximum dehumanization of the Irish population, especially those who happened to have been anti-Unionist.
The soldiers stood in doorways at will. We were told by individuals and civil rights activists that all street lights in the bogside were turned out at night by soldiers and that black paint which could be

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