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Surveillance Photos of Radical Groups in 1960s & 70s NYC Released

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A trove of newly released photos reveals that the NYPD had secret surveillance on the extremists and protesters in the Big Apple a half-century ago. NYC’s Department of Records and Information Services has given roughly 60 photos to the NY Post, from the NYPD showing that cops were spying on radical groups, looking out for criminal activity.

Pauline Toole, Commissioner of the NYC Department of Records and Information Services, decided to make these photos public now, because of the similarities and parallels to today’s protesters.

“At this point in history, we thought it was a really interesting time to bring out some of the materials from the ’60s and ’70s and try to make connections between events that were happening then, and events happening today,” Toole  said. “There has been a lot more activism in the past several years in an organized way. Because of the Black Lives Matter movement, because of the Women’s March, people organizing against the current president — his policies, at least — there’s a lot more interest.”

As per the Post, the collection includes pictures cops took in September 1973 in the Bronx, of a suspected member of the Black Liberation Army. The BLA was a militant group, from 1970 to 1981, set up for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the U.S. Composed largely of former Black Panthers, the group was anti-government, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, and anti-racism. The group targeted and killed NYPD officers. A photo released is a street shot of one of the six members who was later charged with attempted murder and weapons possession after a police raid.

Another released picture shows a group demonstrating in solidarity with the Panther 21. Members of that group were later charged with conspiring to blow up city sites, including the New York Botanical Gardens, the Queens Board of Education office and police stations in the Bronx and Manhattan. Members were acquitted after an eight month trial. 

There is a shot of a gay power rally following the 1969 raids and arrests of gays at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. The episodes prompted the formation of the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activist Alliance, demanding equal rights on behalf of the LGBT community.

There is a photo of anti-pollution protesters marching in 1967. Pollution in the city was at a high, with Con Ed still burning coal. Those peaceful protests helped bring on reforms, including restrictions on coal and emissions given off by trash incinerators and buses.

Another interesting picture is that of a National Renaissance Party meeting in a Yorkville Junior High School on the Upper East Side. James Madole, founder of the neo-fascist group, made an SS-inspired speech to 200 people in the auditorium spewing white-supremacist hate. The group luckily disappeared by 1981.

By: Ellen Cans

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