Thanksgiving Day Events and Arraignments at Plymouth MA
Maureen Webster Notes

As Plowshares supporters waited outside the courtroom in West Bath, Maine, on Wednesday for the arraignment of Audrey and Jessica Stewart and Steve Cohen, Wells Staley-Mays (of Peace Action Maine) talked about another arraignment occurring that day in Plymouth, MA as a result of incidents during the annual native American march on Thanksgiving day.

Wells Staley-Mays: On Thanksgiving Day my wife Kitzi and I went, for the third year, to stand in solidarity with native people who have been witnessing in Plymouth since l970. There was an hour of speeches and information at the Massasoit statue up the hill from Plymouth rock, followed by a march.

The group planned to walk two blocks to the Unitarian Universalist Church. They were obstructed after the first block by 60 Massachussets state troopers, some on horseback, who had paddy wagons and were ready for a melee. They negotiated at first. There was no traffic, but the native people had no permit to march on the streets. The troopers found them too slow in responding to the order to get off the street. Some had started to move onto the sidewalk when the police moved in. They carried people off to paddy wagons. I saw them spraying into the crowd with mace or tear gas. A young Asian woman came by and knocked on a door to ask the person in the house for water because people had been pepper sprayed. The woman of the house brought a bowl of water and a cloth. People wiped their eyes out.

They started walking up the sidewalk for another block. I saw police arrest them off the sidewalk. People went to the police station. There was a lawyer who knew the ropes. Bond was posted for all of them. Arraignments were held Friday, November 28 and Wednesday, December 3.

Thus, on the same day Plowshares supporters witnessed the arraignment of three teenagers in Bath, Maine for boarding a naval vessel to protest nuclear violence, a large crowd of native Americans were arraigned in Plymouth, Massachusetts for their annual Thanksgiving Day march near Plymouth Rock. Tis the land of the free and the home of the brave.