Apartheid. USA 1988

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December 21, 1987:

In the second Howard Beach trial three white teenagers were convicted of second-degree manslaughter in the death of Michael Griffith (23), who was black. The three white teenagers were further convicted in first-degree assault for attacking Mr Cedric Sandiford (37) who also is black. After 12 days of deliberations the jury returned the verdict in an emotionally charged court-room in Queens. The three white teenagers convicted are Jon Lester (18), Scott Kern (18) and Jason Ladone (17). Mr Lester and Mr Kern were acquitted of second-degree murder in Mr Griffith's death. The fourth defendant in the Howard Beach trial, Michael Pirone (18) was acquitted from all charges against him, including manslaughter.

The convicted teenagers face maximum prison sentences of 5 to 15 years for manslaughter and 5 to 15 years for assault, and Mr Lester and Mr Kern face up to one year for their convictions of fifth-degree conspiracy. Dominic Blum (25), a white court officer from Brooklyn and the son of a New York Police officer, who actually did kill Mr Griffith when he ran onto the Parkway was never arrested. The way in which the authorities treated him was among the grievances cited by the lawyers of the Griffith family, Alton H Maddox Jr and C Vernon Mason, both black. Except for Mr Lester, none of the defendants - all students or former students at John Adams High School in Ozone Park, Queens - had a criminal record at the time of the tragic incident with Mr Michael Griffith.^186.

With passion and anger the dead black boy was mourned on the first anniversary of his death at a crowded memorial service in Our Lady of Charity Roman Catholic Church on Dean Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. At least 500 people filled the seats and aisles of the Church in which a powerful figure of a black Christ crucified against a map of Africa loomed behind the pulpit. The

186. Compiled from various reports in the New York Times

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service became a stirring occasion of anger against a system that many speakers compared to that of South Africa. Among those attending the service were Michael Griffith's Mother, Jean, and Cedric Sandiford, one of the black men that survived the Howard Beach incident.

‘The death of Michael Griffith reminds us that we are an African people,’ the Reverend Benjamin J Chavis Jr, executive director of the United Church of Christ's Commission on Racial Justice, told the congregation. ‘In South Africa our people are massacred by white racism, and it is the same here in New York City too,’ Mr Chavis said. Shouts of ‘Teach’ and ‘Right on’ moved through the congregation. ‘You can't just cry freedom - you must fight for it,’ Mr Chavis said in a theme that was echoed by many speakers. The well-known lawyer William Kunstler also said that the injunction obtained by the city's Corporation Counsel asking that a city-wide protest demonstration against racism should be barred ‘an outrage in the spirit of South Africa.’^187.

187. The New York Times, from a report by Steven Erlanger