Tribulation on Trial
The Camden 28
Directed by Anthony Giacchino
2007, First Running Features, 83 minutes
On the night of August 21, 1971, a group of antiwar activists broke into the federal draft board office in Camden, N.J., armed with ladders, drills, and 12 canvas bags. Their intent was to remove and destroy Selective Service records of young Americans who would soon be shipped off to Southeast Asia. On the morning of August 22, FBI agents — tipped off by one of the activists — arrested the. When tried two years later, they faced up to 47-year sentences for their civil disobedience, The Camden 28 recounts and commemorates their story.
Among the 28 were four Catholic Ministers and one Lutheran; most of the rest were Catholic laypeople. They made up part of a nonviolent, antiwar tendency known as the “Catholic Left,” a movement that was responsible for more than 30 draft board raids between 1967 and 1971. The film is a carefully constructed mosaic featuring interviews with C28 members, FBI agents, and trial witnesses; archival footage from Vietnam and New Jersey; and an emotional courthouse reunion and reenactment in 2002.
As a member of the new Students for a Democratic Society. I took something away from this film. We are an emerging group that is always trying to learn from our predecessors, in the older SDS as well as other groups that struggled to end their generation’s brutally unjust war. The documentary aptly chronicles both the intense planning and participation that went into pulling off a risky act of civil disobedience and the benefits and disadvantages of organizing with such a tight intimate group. Although on the surface the new SDS and the old Catholic Left seem very different, we share a similar intimacy, strong personalities, and a sense of purpose to create a better world.
The C28 were all white and mostly men; only one woman was interviewed in the film. This fact was not commented on: There was a sense that the make-up of the group could not have been any other way. There were natural leaders in the collective, men who came forward with enthusiasm and experience. This informal leadership helped catalyze the creativity and militancy of the group, but also led to its ultimate failure at the hands of FBI infiltration. The Catholic Leftists hoped to harness the energy of the August 1971 uprising in Camden’s Puerto Rican community to propel them forward, and they claim in retrospect that their action was mainly in response to the large number of “poor Blacks and Spanish-speaking Americans who were being drafted.” The new SDS is dealing with race and gender at the forefront, as well as debating concerns around informal leadership and solidarity struggles. We won’t sweep these issues under the carpet anymore or have them be an echoing afterthought to our direct actions.
The trial, which Supreme Court Justice William Brennan called “one of the great trials of the 10th century,” seems to have been made for a movie. Howard Zinn speaks for the defense (“although his legal contribution was probably trivial”), Father Mick Doyle shows a silent slideshow of scenes from the Vietnam war and the Camden riots, and Betty Good, the mother of defendant Bob Good, testifies to the pain of losing her older son in Vietnam. Considered by some a sort of referendum on the war, the trial of the first 17 ended in acquittal, and the government dropped the charges against the remaining defendants. Through personal interviews and the moving courtroom reenactment, this film paints a picture not so much of a turbulent time in American history as of the inner struggle and journey of a uniquely intimate group.
