***Not a full article
BALTIMORE—Among the more disgusting sights on the contemporary social scene is a Decency Rally run wild. That is exactly what happened in Baltimore late in April after a Sunday afternoon crowd of 40,000 jammed into Memorial Stadium on behalf of decency and righteousness.
It was the worst violence in Baltimore since last year’s riots.
What caused it was that the high school age promoters of the rally had promised an appearance by soul shouter James Brown. This assured a large turnout. It also assured an angry reaction when Brown did non appear.
According to a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, “A lot of negro kids came who otherwise wouldn’t have because of James Brown. When it was over they felt cheated and got rough with the white kids.”
He likened it to the traditional fights between Baltimore high schools after the traditional Thanksgiving football championships. “Except this time it was straight black versus white.”
Mounted police fired shotguns into the air and swung nightsticks in an effort to stem the resultant brawling and knifing and near race riot in which over 100 were injured. Thirty-eight were hospitalized, seven of them for stabbings.
Maryland Attorney General Charles Moylan described the scene as “utter chaos…a frightful scene,” and said that the young promoters of the event had acted “completely ill-advised.”
The four-hour rally itself was a stone bore. As is usual at these (anti-longhair, anti –rock and roll, anti-Jim Morrison’s weenie) affairs, a procession of young speakers stood up to the microphone and told how godliness and purity of spirit would triumph over people who say shit and fuck and smoke dope and don’t have no respect.
Expect that the sound system was so bad hardly anybody at the stadium could hear anything, the five local rock and roll bands on the bill include. This may have been just as well. “They were really second-rate bands,” said one observer, “even for Baltimore.”
“Two days earlier, 16,000 attended a “Youths for Decency” rally at Enterprise, Alabama, and heard their former governor, George Wallace, say that their new movement “exemplifies the American dream which I subscribe to, an idea that’s always been the philosophy of our people, regardless of race or color.”
Decency moves on: Columbus, Ohio, plans a Decency Rally for May 18th for which they’re trying to get Tricia Nixon to appear. They claim 1000 “young adults” have joined the movement. The local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police is enthusiastic, has contributed $100 and offered the service of off-duty cops. Coordinator of the rally publicity committee, incidentally, is Dick Polk, who is President Nixon’s second cousin.
Florida has half-way passed an anti-obscenity bill to prevent “another Jim Morrison fiasco.” Its proponents admit it will be difficult to enforce, “but it’s an effective deterrent”: make of that what you will. Bill provides definitions of what is obscene to 17-year-olds and under.
Ever since Jim Morrison (who’s out on $5,000 bail) did whatever it was he did on Miami the Doors have found it difficult to get work. At least a dozen cities have banned the group officially and probably double that many more have turned thumbs down on the band unofficially. This leaves the quartet just one place to play—the club where once upon a time the Doors were the house band, second-billed to nearly everyone, the Whiskey a Go Go. Confidentially, it is this club that Morrison has so often said is best for him; he says he’d rather be back there than anywhere. Morrison’s dream comes true May 19-22, when, for four days the Doors will appear at this Sunset Strip club. Top-billed to Albert Collins.
Morrison has finally broken his silence on the matter of the Miami concert, incidentally, via this interview with