[Tuskegee student and TIAL activist Simuel Schutz was working with SNCC in rural Lowndes County. He did not receive his induction notice until the day he was to report for his physical. He reported in the following day, but was classified as "delinquent" and sentenced to a three-year prison term.]
One black boy from Tuskegee, Alabama came one day late to one white draft board's induction and one white clerk ordered him classified delinquent!
Today — right now — this very minute, this same black boy is serving 1,095 days in jail because he was one day late! Yes, that's right — one black boy came one day late and one white judge sentenced the boy to 1,095 days (26,280 hours) in a Federal penitentiary. He was sentenced to 26,280 HOURS away from his friends, family and loved ones.
Maybe you also have been late for an appointment.
Maybe you also have been late for an induction.
But, you should not expect a 1,095 day prison sentence for being one day late,
Unless you, like Simuel B. Schutz have tried to move black students to help black people in your own home town.
Unless you, like Schutz, have risked death in Mississippi in 1964 as you worked for your black people's right to free elections.
Unless you, like Schutz, have worked in 1965, 1966 in Lowndes and Macon County Alabama to help black people there get free elections.
Unless you, like Schutz, have been strangled, threatened and jailed for 60 days because you were opposed to the needless murder and abuse of Black GI's in President Johnson's war on the Vietnamese people.
People have always been getting strangled, threatened, and jailed. You know that black men have always been catching hell from white judges, white juries and white draft boards.
Today, Schutz has to serve 1,095 days in prison unless he can raise $2,000 dollars to appeal this white judge's racist decision.
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