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1.
AMERIKA IS A TIME BOMB - FREE SAM MELVILLE.
NY: nd. (c. early 1970). Original double-sided flyer issued by the Alpert-Hughey-Melville Defense Fund following the arrests of Sam Melville and his accomplices Jane Alpert and John David Hughey III on charges of “conspiracy to destroy government property”. Printed recto and verso in black on white stock. Illustrated with an image of Sam Melville with raised fist. 28x21.7cm.
Motivated by his opposition to the Vietnam war and American imperialism, and inspired by George Metesky (the so-called ‘Mad Bomber’ of the 1940s and ‘50s), Melville operated with a small group of accomplices, including his girlfriend, Jane Alpert, and David Hughey, both members of the Weather Underground, as well as two members of the Downtown Manhattan anarchist group “the Crazies”, David Demmerle and Robin Palmer (the former, appointed Defense Captain of the White Patriots by the Black Panthers, was a also a paid FBI informant; see item #71).
He began setting bombs in July 1969, mainly targeted against corporate buildings and largely at night when the offices were empty, a campaign that continued until his capture by the FBI at gunpoint in November 1969. The flyer’s verso, headlined “what’s blowing up in amerika?”, identifies each of his targets - United Fruit (“the best known name in Amerikan imperialism”), Marine Midland Trust (“an essential part of the Amerikan empire”), Standard Oil (“assets are controlled by the Rockefeller company”), Chase Manhattan Bank (“pours billions into South Africa’s racist economy”), and General Motors (“conspires with oil interests to keep us tied to air-polluting gas engines”).
Melville was sentenced in May 1970 to 31 years for “conspiring to and destroying federal property”. Hughey ended up serving two years, while Alpert absconded, harbored by members of the Weather Underground, before surrendering in 1974.
Later, Melville helped organise inmates’ demands during the Attica Prison Riot in September 1971, and was one of the 43 men who were shot and killed by state police when the uprising was put down by order of Governor Nelson Rockefeller. A few days afterwards the Weather Underground bombed the offices of the Commissioner of Corrections to protest Melville’s murder.
Slight edge-wear, with a few small nicks and light creasing, o/w Very Good.
A rare document from the revolutionary underground, predating the better-known revolutionary terrorists of the 1970s, such as the Weathermen, the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Black Liberation Army.
