Charleston 5

The Charleston 5 is a group of 5 men who were brought up on felony charges of conspiracy to incite a riot on January 19th, 2000 in Charleston, South Carolina.

ynopsis

The five men – Kenneth Jefferson, Rick Simmons, Peter Washington, Elijah Ford and Jason Edgerton – were union workers from two local longshore Unions who came to peacefully protest a Norwegian freight company from using non-union workers on the Charleston docks when fighting between picketing workers and a police force ensued. The Charleston 5 were arrested along with 4 others and were held on felony charges which could have carried a prison sentence of up to 10 years.The arrests set off a firestorm of political implications and finger pointing and allegedly some South Carolina officials were using the arrests as political fulcrums to further their careers. With mounting worldwide protest and international solidarity for the Charleston 5, they were finally freed of all charges on November 2001, after one year of trial, throughout which they were kept under house arrest. The much publicised trial saw severe comments being made on behalf of the State. The South Carolina District Attorney Charlie Condon went as far as saying "jail,jail and more jail for the longshoremen". He had to be removed from post after he went out of his way to compare the longshoremen with "terrorists who brought down WTO" [www.cpusa.org/article/view/301/ CPUSA Online] .Fact|date=June 2008

The Events:

Anti-Flag Protests

South Carolina was in the middle of a heated debate when the statehouse flew the ‘confederate flag’ which is considered a symbol of racism, slavery since pre civil war days in America. The racist killings, Christian fundamentalism, bombing of abortion clinics, the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City and the rise of neo-Nazism have been a matter of concern for the people. A rally in favor of the Confederate flag was organised on 8th May 2000, witnessed fundamentalist and racist slogans like “No [Martin Luther] King, only Jesus.”The people of Carolina, majorly black, decided to march against this and on January 17, 2000 on Martin Luther King Day, some 50,000 people marched against it, demanding complete removal of the flag. The march also saw massive participation by the longshoremen of the port region where 9 out of 10 workers are black. This issue supposedly flared up the state against the longshoremen.

Trouble with Danish Shipping Line

On 19th January a ship from Danish Nordana’s shipping Lines docked in the Charleston port and employed 19 non-unionized workers to unload the cargo. This company that had used the services of the Charleston Union Labors for 23 years had decided to end this association on 1999.It was the region of the union International Longshoremen Association (ILA) local 1422 and they decided to picket against it. The 50 odd members who had initially gathered found that some 600 well geared policemen have been mobilized complimented by armored vehicles, horse units speed boats patrolling the waters and helicopters above [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010806/wypijewski Audacity on Trial] . With this kind of preparation and continuous provocation by the police, including racist taunts, the picketing longshoremen got in touch with ILA 1422A mechanics union and Locals 1771. By nightfall there were almost 130 longshoremen picketing, though some media speculated the number between 100 and 300. Then as the leadership went ahead to figure out what the intention was, the trouble started and the police started batton charge, gas shell firing and even charged an armoured vehicle at the longshoremen.

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