A Double Life

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August 21st, 1971 — On this day prisoners’ rights leader George Jackson allegedly attempts to break out of California's notorious San Quentin Prison. Three guards and two inmates are brutally murdered, and Jackson is shot dead. The violence shocks the nation and sets in motion a wave of unrest at other prisons. Caught in this storm is a young lawyer named Stephen Bingham. On August 21st, Bingham is the last outside visitor to see George Jackson before the violence erupts. A few days later, he is indicted on five counts of first-degree murder for allegedly passing a gun to Jackson during the visit. No other suspects are even considered, nor is any investigation conducted once they have identified Steve Bingham as the likely source. The FBI is determined to crack down on radical lawyers, who according to J. Edgar Hoover are “more dangerous than the people who throw bombs,” and it launches a major manhunt. A nationwide all-points bulletin (APB) is issued for Bingham’s arrest, but he is nowhere to be found.

For thirteen years, Bingham lives a shadowy existence under an assumed name, navigating a world of danger in a distant country even as he dreams of a return home to face his accusers and clear his name. As we follow his astonishing odyssey, A DOUBLE LIFE uncovers the dramatic twists and turns of his life trajectory, from his blue-blood Connecticut background to participation in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of ’64, from the hallowed halls of Yale to the dark corners of the California prison system, from activist attorney to fugitive from justice, and from shadowy exile to celebrity defendant. Through the lens of Bingham’s experience, and the revealing and often contradictory accounts of those around him, A DOUBLE LIFE unfolds the complex canvas of a turbulent era in American history. When he ultimately emerges from the depths of anonymity to face the very system he challenged, the documentary becomes a profound exploration of sacrifice, redemption, and the unyielding pursuit of justice.

A MARC record for this title is not available yet.

Keywords

Criminal Justice,Prisoners' Rights,State Surveillance,San Quentin,FBI,prison system,prison,Freedom Summer,American History,George Jackson,Steve Bingham,Law & Society; "A Double Life"; GOOD DOCS

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(water rushes)

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(traditional piano music plays)

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♪ Tread thou in them boldly ♪

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Steve was my favorite uncle.

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In holiday gatherings at the family home in Connecticut,

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he stood out from the rest.

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He wore a leather jacket and drove a motorcycle.

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And my brother and I thought he was very cool.

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And then one day when I was eight years old.

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(ominous music plays)

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he disappeared.

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(indistinct chatter and shouts)

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Authorities say they want to question the lawyer

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named Stephen Mitchell Bingham

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in connection with a gun.

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Bingham apparently was the only person

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to visit George Jackson.

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A militant Black who was shot dead yesterday

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while trying to break out of San Quentin.

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Three white guards

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and two white inmates were killed,

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their throats slit.

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The warden's investigators suspect

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Stephen Bingham.

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Stephen Bingham.
Stephen Bingham.

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His grandfather was Governor of Connecticut once,

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and a US Senator.

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There is no way that

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George Jackson could have obtained the death gun

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except during his visit,

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the visit with attorney Stephen Bingham.

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Police and San Quentin guards

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held him responsible for the death of prison guards

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during the George Jackson incident.

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If he went to prison, his life was in true danger.

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(ominous music continues)

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It was a Saturday and I spent the day cooking.

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I think I was making cabbage borscht.

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We were listening to music, listening to the radio,

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and an APB came out that there was this terrible event

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at San Quentin.

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Whether it was Bingham who deliberately smuggled

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a gun to Jackson through these gates is

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something that only Stephen Bingham can answer.

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And the next thing I know, I'm in the kitchen

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and in walks Steve with his motorcycle helmet,

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takes off his helmet and says by kind of,

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as lighthearted as you can be,

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"Hi, what's for dinner?"

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And I said, "What are you doing here?"

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In the next day or two,

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it became clear to us that he was

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potentially in great danger.

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We developed these ideas that as lawyers,

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our jobs were one, to keep the movement on the streets

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by representing people who were arrested

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and charged with criminal offenses.

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We would use the law to expose

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some of the problems in our society.

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We saw the need for the lawyers

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to be part of the movement,

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not just the counselors to the movement.

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And the young people coming out of law school

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saw their role as activist professionals.

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(gentle music plays)

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Steve was one of the people who said that

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I'm not going to simply run for office.

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I'm not going to be the white man who is

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going to tell folks what to do.

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I'm gonna commit myself to working with other people.

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One of the projects was to send white lawyers

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to sleep inside the office of the Black Panther Party

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in San Francisco.

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I think it may have been the only Black Panther office,

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major Black Panther office,

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that did not get attacked in that December of '69

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because the police knew

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that these white lawyers were sleeping in the office

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and if they attacked the office,

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they were gonna hurt some white lawyers

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and that was gonna give them more headache

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than it was worth to them.

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There's this quote attributed to J. Edgar Hoover

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and he said, "The National Lawyers Guild is more dangerous

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than the people who throw bombs."

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We give breathing space to the movement.

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We protect the movement,

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and that's why we're more dangerous.

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So you have to get rid of us

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so you can get rid of the movement.

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(crowd chants indistinctly)

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(energetic rock music plays)

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(crowd shouts indistinctly)

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(energetic rock music continues)

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You have to recall, I mean,

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we were living during a period

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where people were being killed all the time.

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All of us expected that at any time

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we might be charged with this or that

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and be dragged into jail or have to stand trial.

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(indistinct chatter)

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Among our circles, and a lot of people on the left,

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there was a lot of interest

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in the rights of prisoners and who prisoners were.

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Steve was at the center in the '70s of the movement

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when he went out to visit George Jackson.

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And that exploded

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and that was an impact on the world.

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What happened at Attica was a part of the result of that.

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From Soledad to San Quentin,

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a prison reform movement was growing,

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led by a young convict who had served 11 years

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for robbing a gas station, George Jackson.

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Here in prison, we see the repression,

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the exploitation, the victimization of lower class people.

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Steve was not actually representing George Jackson

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when he went to visit him in August of 1971.

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He had been visiting him that summer to collect information,

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to file a lawsuit

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against the Department of Corrections

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for its cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners

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in the Adjustment Center.

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In the Adjustment Center, prisoners lived

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23 and a half hours a day in lockdown.

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They had a half an hour for exercise.

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They were treated like animals.

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They were brutalized.

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Stephen Bingham was

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like so many of today's young lawyers,

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angry at the injustices in the system,

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but committed to working within it for change.

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He organized Mexican American farm workers

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in Central California,

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then went to work for a local anti-poverty office.

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The authorities believe he took

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that one, last over-committed act

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and tried to circumvent the system

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and smuggle a gun to George Jackson.

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If I was incarcerated,

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I would probably get killed.

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I would be guarded by guards

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who believed that I was responsible

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for the death of these guards at San Quentin.

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And then I get a phone call from Steve saying

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he needed help.

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He was so scared

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because there was no safe place.

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They were gonna come at him from all sides,

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and he just needed to get away.

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The threat was immediate, it was imminent.

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And I contacted this woman who was able to get

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fake IDs for people because she had helped GIs

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who had been to Vietnam and didn't wanna go back.

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So we arranged to meet him in Las Vegas.

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(car engine hums)

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They never investigated properly.

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They cleaned up the entire crime scene,

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so there was no independent opportunity

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to view the crime scene by the media and other people.

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So I was driven to the bus station

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in San Jose

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to go to Las Vegas to meet with some friends

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who were gonna help me get papers under a different name.

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I was having a coffee,

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waiting for the bus in an hour or two,

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and there's a gentleman sitting at the next table

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and I'm looking at the newspaper that he's looking at

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and there's this huge picture of me on the front page

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of the newspaper.

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(camera shutter clicks)

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I was trying to think carefully everything I did,

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'cause I was at risk at this point.

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I had very long hair,

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so I went into a barber shop to get my hair cut.

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And I thought if I go in and try to get a crew cut,

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he's gonna think, wow, that's peculiar.

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And then he's gonna see the picture in the paper

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and whatever.

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So, I just asked him to do a good trim.

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And once that was finished,

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I went around the corner to another barber shop

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and promptly asked him if he could cut my hair

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because I wanted it to be much shorter.

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So I did it in two phases.

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(crowd chatters)

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I met Steve in a seedy hotel and we just said,

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"What are we gonna do to protect him?"

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We gave him the ID.

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We dyed his hair,

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we trimmed his eyebrows,

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and then he left.

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George and I were the same age,

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both 29.

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What different lives we were born into.

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For a young, headstrong,

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kind of tough kid growing up in Los Angeles

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with a unbelievable racist police force back in the '60s,

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it was almost inevitable that he was gonna end up in jail.

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And of course, I'm growing up

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in my very privileged household in Connecticut

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and going to private schools.

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You would be hard pressed to find

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in inequality of America two situations more different.

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(crowd chatters)

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(alarm bell rings)

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(cell doors slam)

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George Jackson wasn't simply an extraordinary individual,

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which he was.

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He encouraged community and collective efforts

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and political education.

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It was really an eye-opening experience

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because I had been doing work around political prisoners

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for quite some time.

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(indistinct chatter)

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(door slams)

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But this was the first time I began to get a sense

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of the oppressiveness of prison life.

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(indistinct chatter)

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I was contacted about

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going in to meet with George and talk with him

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about filing a civil suit

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dealing with the conditions of detention

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in what San Quentin euphemistically calls

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the Adjustment Center.

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There was excessive shackling.

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There were five or six quiet cells

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where people would be thrown,

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where the toilet was just a hole in the floor

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and there wasn't any running water

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and they were just given a bucket.

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I mean, this is America.

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This is not South Africa.

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The prisons were completely segregated institutions.

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They were really California's apartheid.

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Well, I was incarcerated under a term

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that called for one to life

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where I could have done one year and been released.

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I've done 10.

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That's more time than anybody in the state has ever done

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on a one to life.

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George Jackson had incredible influence through his book,

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"Soledad Brother".

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I mean, the introduction was written

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by the famous French author, Jean Genet.

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The book was an internationally famous book,

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and it's this book of letters,

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these powerful letters saying to the world

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racism is being used to split prisoners

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and oppress them in the prisons.

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You have to open your eyes.

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♪ Lord, lord they cut George Jackson down ♪

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♪ Lord, lord, they laid him in the ground ♪

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Jackson became an international symbol

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for the oppression and the racism in American prisons.

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And really importantly,

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he was bringing Black and white prisoners together.

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One of his lasting legacies,

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it has to do with the purpose of knowledge,

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the role of knowledge.

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And he, I think, exemplified

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how knowledge can be used

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in a radical and transformative way,

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how it can be used to change the world.

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(funky music plays)

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And we'll raise our children to be like George Jackson,

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to live like George Jackson,

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and to fight for freedom

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as George Jackson fought for freedom.

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His action was a political statement

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because he set the standard for all political prisoners.

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He took the only available avenue of redress

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against state murder.

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The state created the violent situation

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that exists in San Quentin today.

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(funky music continues)

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No way was this an escape attempt on this day.

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George Jackson runs from the Adjustment Center

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into the grounds.

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The walls are huge.

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There's no way he could get over a wall.

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Plus, there's snipers on the wall.

00:14:52.600 --> 00:14:54.685
A sniper shoots and kills him.

00:14:54.685 --> 00:14:56.061
(gunshot bangs)

00:14:56.061 --> 00:14:59.398
(funky music continues)

00:15:02.568 --> 00:15:04.194
The district attorney told me

00:15:04.194 --> 00:15:06.488
there is hardly any doubt in his mind

00:15:06.488 --> 00:15:08.324
that Stephen was the instrument

00:15:08.324 --> 00:15:10.784
by which the gun was delivered to George Jackson.

00:15:11.660 --> 00:15:13.704
I don't know if that is true,

00:15:13.704 --> 00:15:16.290
but I had it in my mind that Steve could have been

00:15:16.290 --> 00:15:19.335
victimized or used as an instrument inadvertently.

00:15:20.210 --> 00:15:23.380
(emotive music plays)

00:15:31.472 --> 00:15:33.140
[Person Off-Camera] Mr. Bingham, (indistinct).

00:15:33.140 --> 00:15:35.684
My purpose in coming to California

00:15:35.684 --> 00:15:38.228
will primarily to do what I could for Steve,

00:15:38.228 --> 00:15:42.358
perhaps increasingly with the sense of wanting him to

00:15:43.734 --> 00:15:45.194
feel that

00:15:45.194 --> 00:15:47.237
if he came out of hiding,

00:15:47.237 --> 00:15:51.575
that there was plenty of chance for his clearing himself.

00:15:52.743 --> 00:15:57.748
Alf was a very, you know, impressive, imposing fellow.

00:15:58.123 --> 00:15:59.500
An interview was arranged.

00:15:59.500 --> 00:16:02.628
Patrician could not be a more appropriate word.

00:16:02.628 --> 00:16:04.254
He was used to being in control

00:16:04.254 --> 00:16:06.590
and to having his way, having his say.

00:16:06.590 --> 00:16:09.635
And I think that it was very difficult for him,

00:16:09.635 --> 00:16:13.055
initially unpleasant for him,

00:16:13.055 --> 00:16:15.683
to have these young, lefty punks

00:16:15.683 --> 00:16:17.393
who were in their middle 20s,

00:16:17.393 --> 00:16:22.106
obviously in charge and not letting him be in charge.

00:16:22.106 --> 00:16:25.317
(tape player clatters)

00:16:28.028 --> 00:16:31.824
I was concerned at the public image

00:16:31.824 --> 00:16:34.159
that was projected in the papers that day,

00:16:34.159 --> 00:16:36.120
after the prison break.

00:16:36.120 --> 00:16:38.455
Though Steve's name was not yet mentioned,

00:16:38.455 --> 00:16:41.000
it was clear the authorities believed

00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:43.877
the pistol had been smuggled to Jackson by a lawyer

00:16:43.877 --> 00:16:47.172
who had seen him just before he produced the gun.

00:16:47.172 --> 00:16:48.048
(smooth music plays)

00:16:48.048 --> 00:16:48.882
[Newsreader Off-Camera] An investigation

00:16:48.882 --> 00:16:51.885
centering around radical attorney Stephen Bingham,

00:16:51.885 --> 00:16:53.846
grandson of a former US Senator.

00:16:56.015 --> 00:16:58.934
As soon as Steve's name began to surface

00:16:58.934 --> 00:17:00.644
as the lawyer involved,

00:17:00.644 --> 00:17:02.771
I, you know, I just simply couldn't believe it.

00:17:02.771 --> 00:17:06.734
And I felt at that time that it was some kind of conspiracy,

00:17:06.734 --> 00:17:09.445
but it was a conspiracy of the authorities

00:17:09.445 --> 00:17:12.906
to get at the lawyers that they found distasteful.

00:17:14.700 --> 00:17:17.369
I actually started collecting news articles,

00:17:17.369 --> 00:17:19.329
about 500, 600 pages.

00:17:20.414 --> 00:17:23.208
I came across articles in which before the event,

00:17:23.208 --> 00:17:25.544
authorities were claiming that there were lawyers

00:17:25.544 --> 00:17:28.964
from the Lawyers Guild who were sneaking in articles

00:17:28.964 --> 00:17:30.507
and who were plotting with the prisoners.

00:17:30.507 --> 00:17:33.052
You know, things that were just unsubstantiated.

00:17:34.219 --> 00:17:35.679
And as a result of that,

00:17:35.679 --> 00:17:39.308
I started an article which appeared in "The Nation" magazine

00:17:39.308 --> 00:17:41.477
about the inconsistencies in the stories

00:17:41.477 --> 00:17:43.937
presented by the authorities.

00:17:43.937 --> 00:17:47.357
(smooth music continues)

00:17:53.280 --> 00:17:55.866
(traffic hums)

00:17:58.660 --> 00:18:00.329
A couple days after Steve left

00:18:00.329 --> 00:18:04.249
I was driving my car and came to a stoplight

00:18:04.249 --> 00:18:06.293
and I saw a man look at me,

00:18:06.293 --> 00:18:07.669
take out a piece of paper

00:18:07.669 --> 00:18:09.922
and starting to write my license down.

00:18:09.922 --> 00:18:13.550
I jumped out of the car and I said, "What are you writing?"

00:18:13.550 --> 00:18:15.260
And he said, "Nothing, nothing."

00:18:15.260 --> 00:18:17.679
I said, "You're writing my license plate down.

00:18:17.679 --> 00:18:19.306
What are you doing?"

00:18:19.306 --> 00:18:22.518
And he said, "I thought you were Stephen Bingham."

00:18:22.518 --> 00:18:25.187
And I said, "I'm not Stephen Bingham."

00:18:25.187 --> 00:18:27.815
He said, "I'm just trying to do my duty

00:18:27.815 --> 00:18:30.943
as an American, good American citizen."

00:18:30.943 --> 00:18:32.361
And I said, "Tear it up."

00:18:32.361 --> 00:18:33.570
And he tore it up.

00:18:34.571 --> 00:18:38.951
I was so sad for Steve,

00:18:38.951 --> 00:18:41.328
knowing that all over the country,

00:18:41.328 --> 00:18:42.955
people were looking for him.

00:18:43.831 --> 00:18:46.834
(tense music plays)

00:19:01.348 --> 00:19:03.767
The FBI started calling me

00:19:03.767 --> 00:19:05.227
and coming to my door

00:19:05.227 --> 00:19:10.232
and asking if I'd had any knowledge of Steve's whereabouts.

00:19:11.525 --> 00:19:14.278
And of course I didn't have any knowledge.

00:19:16.822 --> 00:19:21.076
I couldn't imagine my brother carrying a gun into a prison.

00:19:22.494 --> 00:19:25.372
I assumed that he was innocent,

00:19:25.372 --> 00:19:27.082
as my parents did,

00:19:28.709 --> 00:19:33.714
and that somehow he'd been set up by the authorities.

00:19:39.887 --> 00:19:42.472
Everybody was sort of horrified,

00:19:42.472 --> 00:19:45.434
but there was also a lot of kind of skepticism too

00:19:45.434 --> 00:19:47.561
on some parts of the family wondering, well,

00:19:47.561 --> 00:19:48.645
why did he do this?

00:19:48.645 --> 00:19:50.731
Why did he leave?

00:19:50.731 --> 00:19:53.650
You know, why did he drop out?

00:19:53.650 --> 00:19:56.445
I entertained the possibility that, in fact,

00:19:56.445 --> 00:19:58.697
he had done what he was accused of doing.

00:19:59.573 --> 00:20:01.158
It didn't seem like him,

00:20:01.158 --> 00:20:05.412
but he was a bit of a revolutionary.

00:20:08.040 --> 00:20:11.210
There were people in the family that at least say

00:20:11.210 --> 00:20:13.837
that they never entertained for an instant

00:20:13.837 --> 00:20:15.214
that he could be guilty.

00:20:15.214 --> 00:20:16.965
I was not one of them.

00:20:16.965 --> 00:20:19.426
The story that was attached to it

00:20:19.426 --> 00:20:22.095
made it seem entirely improbable.

00:20:22.095 --> 00:20:25.015
That for one thing, they never seemed to ever arrive

00:20:25.015 --> 00:20:27.059
at the right size of the gun.

00:20:27.059 --> 00:20:28.977
You know, at one time it was a little, bitty gun

00:20:28.977 --> 00:20:30.687
and another time it was a great big gun.

00:20:30.687 --> 00:20:32.689
I thought, what gun are they talking about?

00:20:32.689 --> 00:20:33.690
Well come on.

00:20:33.690 --> 00:20:36.735
We are satisfied now that it was brought in

00:20:36.735 --> 00:20:38.070
underneath a wig.

00:20:38.070 --> 00:20:40.113
And since we found the wig this morning,

00:20:40.113 --> 00:20:43.617
we can now tie in that there was help from the outside.

00:20:43.617 --> 00:20:47.120
(suspenseful music plays)

00:20:48.205 --> 00:20:50.249
My whole life had changed.

00:20:52.084 --> 00:20:54.920
Out of survival instinct, I didn't reflect on that.

00:20:56.380 --> 00:20:59.883
I just had to think forward, think future.

00:21:01.760 --> 00:21:03.553
Here I was, Robert Boarts.

00:21:03.553 --> 00:21:06.556
I had to invent an entire identity.

00:21:06.556 --> 00:21:10.852
An identity is not just a name and a picture and a passport.

00:21:10.852 --> 00:21:13.063
It's like, who am I?

00:21:17.693 --> 00:21:19.820
If you had no photo ID,

00:21:19.820 --> 00:21:23.365
you couldn't get a passport quickly.

00:21:23.365 --> 00:21:24.741
There was one exception

00:21:24.741 --> 00:21:29.579
and that was that if there was a family emergency abroad

00:21:31.164 --> 00:21:33.709
and somebody vouched for you,

00:21:34.918 --> 00:21:36.795
you could get a passport.

00:21:42.050 --> 00:21:44.177
A woman who I'd never seen

00:21:44.177 --> 00:21:46.513
but was part of the movement

00:21:46.513 --> 00:21:49.516
was willing to risk prosecution.

00:21:49.516 --> 00:21:51.518
She could have gone to prison for five years,

00:21:51.518 --> 00:21:53.687
and she was willing to step forward,

00:21:54.855 --> 00:21:58.608
wear a wig, and look very different than who she was.

00:21:59.693 --> 00:22:02.779
And she flew across the country with me

00:22:02.779 --> 00:22:06.783
from Las Vegas to Philadelphia.

00:22:06.783 --> 00:22:08.869
(suspenseful music continues)

00:22:08.869 --> 00:22:12.080
She went all by herself to pick up the passport

00:22:12.080 --> 00:22:12.956
the next day.

00:22:14.624 --> 00:22:17.210
And she proposed if it didn't work,

00:22:17.210 --> 00:22:20.130
that it was better for her to be arrested

00:22:20.130 --> 00:22:23.091
and deal with the consequences than for me to be arrested.

00:22:24.259 --> 00:22:27.846
If she didn't come back within a certain amount of time,

00:22:27.846 --> 00:22:30.140
it meant something horrible had happened

00:22:30.140 --> 00:22:34.186
and I needed to just leave and invent plan B,

00:22:34.186 --> 00:22:36.563
which I didn't have at that point.

00:22:36.563 --> 00:22:39.649
(somber music plays)

00:22:45.739 --> 00:22:48.575
My mother used to always sit at that end of the table

00:22:48.575 --> 00:22:51.953
with a coffee there or with her drink there,

00:22:51.953 --> 00:22:53.955
sitting by the phone and always thinking

00:22:53.955 --> 00:22:57.000
every time it rang and just running to get it,

00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:58.502
oh, that might be Steve.

00:23:04.424 --> 00:23:06.134
Within this yellow frame house

00:23:06.134 --> 00:23:08.053
of American Revolution vintage,

00:23:08.053 --> 00:23:11.181
65-year-old Sylvia Bingham raised Stephen,

00:23:11.181 --> 00:23:12.557
one of four children.

00:23:12.557 --> 00:23:15.018
Mrs. Bingham, you said earlier that Steve was

00:23:15.018 --> 00:23:16.728
an advocate of non-violence

00:23:16.728 --> 00:23:18.897
and yet he is almost alleged to have

00:23:18.897 --> 00:23:21.983
brought in a gun into this prison scene.

00:23:21.983 --> 00:23:25.153
Is that conceivable under any circumstances?

00:23:25.153 --> 00:23:26.988
It's not conceivable to me.

00:23:26.988 --> 00:23:30.283
If Steve has been guilty of this, this is one thing,

00:23:30.283 --> 00:23:33.662
and I'm sure that he's able to take the consequences.

00:23:34.496 --> 00:23:38.333
But we are very anxious not to see him framed.

00:23:41.378 --> 00:23:43.296
I must say, it reminds me of the summer

00:23:43.296 --> 00:23:44.714
Steve spent in Mississippi

00:23:44.714 --> 00:23:49.261
when I didn't know whether he'd have emerged alive or dead.

00:23:49.261 --> 00:23:53.723
And I hung on the phone and worried about him all the time.

00:23:54.599 --> 00:23:57.018
♪ Didn't it rain, children ♪

00:23:57.018 --> 00:23:58.687
(crowd shouts indistinctly)

00:23:58.687 --> 00:24:00.605
♪ Oh Lord, yes ♪

00:24:00.605 --> 00:24:02.023
♪ Didn't it, Lord ♪

00:24:02.023 --> 00:24:03.483
♪ Didn't it, you know it did ♪

00:24:03.483 --> 00:24:07.279
♪ Didn't it, oh, oh, yes ♪

00:24:07.279 --> 00:24:10.574
We hope to send into Mississippi this summer

00:24:10.574 --> 00:24:14.661
upwards of 1,000 teachers,

00:24:14.661 --> 00:24:15.954
ministers,

00:24:15.954 --> 00:24:18.290
lawyers and students

00:24:18.290 --> 00:24:20.459
from all around the country.

00:24:20.459 --> 00:24:22.544
The goal was to do

00:24:22.544 --> 00:24:24.713
voter registration work

00:24:24.713 --> 00:24:26.673
and freedom education schools.

00:24:27.632 --> 00:24:30.427
♪ Rain, rain, rain, rain ♪

00:24:30.427 --> 00:24:32.512
♪ Rain, rain, rain ♪

00:24:32.512 --> 00:24:34.514
Seeing two sides,

00:24:34.514 --> 00:24:36.808
all these white people going about their business

00:24:36.808 --> 00:24:40.061
as if they were living in the rest of the United States

00:24:40.061 --> 00:24:42.063
and living a perfectly normal life,

00:24:42.063 --> 00:24:44.483
when three miles away there were sharecroppers

00:24:44.483 --> 00:24:49.488
or people living on less than six or $700 a year.

00:24:49.613 --> 00:24:52.199
And they had absolutely no consciousness of it.

00:24:54.910 --> 00:24:59.331
The reality is that the power structure was not responding

00:24:59.331 --> 00:25:04.336
to reasonable demands that were being put forth

00:25:04.377 --> 00:25:06.296
in a reasonable way.

00:25:08.840 --> 00:25:12.969
Mayors are saying we call on law enforcement to stop it.

00:25:12.969 --> 00:25:13.803
By definition,

00:25:13.803 --> 00:25:16.223
if you're in Mississippi working for civil rights,

00:25:16.223 --> 00:25:17.557
it's dangerous.

00:25:17.557 --> 00:25:19.976
♪ Rain, rain, rain, rain ♪

00:25:19.976 --> 00:25:22.395
♪ Rain, rain, rain, rain ♪

00:25:22.395 --> 00:25:25.315
If they're dead, I feel like they asked for it.

00:25:25.315 --> 00:25:27.067
They came here looking for trouble.

00:25:27.943 --> 00:25:29.194
♪ Didn't it, yes ♪

00:25:29.194 --> 00:25:30.820
♪ Didn't it, you know it did ♪

00:25:30.820 --> 00:25:32.989
His father and mother were deeply worried.

00:25:32.989 --> 00:25:34.783
They have connections.

00:25:34.783 --> 00:25:35.659
Go down the street.

00:25:35.659 --> 00:25:38.245
Everyone go down the street.

00:25:38.245 --> 00:25:40.372
His father used those connections to talk

00:25:40.372 --> 00:25:42.082
to Senator Eastland from Mississippi

00:25:42.082 --> 00:25:45.293
about making sure his son did not get abused

00:25:45.293 --> 00:25:47.212
in some fashion.

00:25:47.212 --> 00:25:49.214
The senator called the governor

00:25:49.214 --> 00:25:51.591
to see that nothing happened to a volunteer

00:25:51.591 --> 00:25:54.386
with important political connections.

00:25:54.386 --> 00:25:56.638
I had a frantic call from Steve,

00:25:56.638 --> 00:25:59.057
"Daddy, what have you done?"

00:25:59.057 --> 00:26:01.393
In fact, he was concerned

00:26:01.393 --> 00:26:04.729
that law enforcement was not protecting any of us.

00:26:04.729 --> 00:26:06.648
Rather than providing protection,

00:26:06.648 --> 00:26:09.526
they could essentially make my life so miserable

00:26:09.526 --> 00:26:12.654
by having police around me 24 hours a day

00:26:12.654 --> 00:26:14.072
that I would leave the state.

00:26:15.282 --> 00:26:18.868
I did have some resentment towards my father.

00:26:18.868 --> 00:26:20.745
It was meddling in my life,

00:26:20.745 --> 00:26:22.872
even though it was well-meaning.

00:26:22.872 --> 00:26:26.042
(pensive music plays)

00:26:35.093 --> 00:26:36.636
One of the dynamics that seemed to me

00:26:36.636 --> 00:26:39.097
about the Bingham family is that you're being told

00:26:39.097 --> 00:26:43.643
as a seven-year-old that you come from a family with a past.

00:26:45.979 --> 00:26:47.230
They had a role to play.

00:26:47.230 --> 00:26:49.357
And it's not just about their personal desires.

00:26:49.357 --> 00:26:50.984
They were gonna change the world.

00:26:54.070 --> 00:26:57.741
He could not have missed the significance of him

00:26:57.741 --> 00:27:00.869
also stepping away from political missionaries

00:27:00.869 --> 00:27:03.872
with his grandfather who rediscovered Machu Picchu,

00:27:03.872 --> 00:27:05.206
and then religious missionaries,

00:27:05.206 --> 00:27:07.250
with his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather,

00:27:07.250 --> 00:27:09.252
the first three Hiram Binghams.

00:27:12.213 --> 00:27:14.883
Each one of these generations up until Stephen

00:27:14.883 --> 00:27:16.593
had been wrestling with what it meant

00:27:16.593 --> 00:27:17.927
to be a Bingham in the world.

00:27:17.927 --> 00:27:19.554
And I think Stephen's vision was,

00:27:19.554 --> 00:27:21.473
that also morphed over time,

00:27:21.473 --> 00:27:23.391
to not be the missionary,

00:27:23.391 --> 00:27:28.271
to pull back from that hyper-charged vision of yourself

00:27:28.271 --> 00:27:32.067
relative to others as being subordinate and inferior.

00:27:32.067 --> 00:27:35.570
(pensive music continues)

00:27:43.370 --> 00:27:46.039
At the end of the Mississippi summer,

00:27:46.039 --> 00:27:48.333
I went to Berkeley Law School.

00:27:50.710 --> 00:27:54.506
I dropped out of law school after the first year

00:27:55.715 --> 00:28:00.387
and went into the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone.

00:28:03.723 --> 00:28:06.726
Fairly quickly, I became disillusioned

00:28:06.726 --> 00:28:08.353
with the whole project.

00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:14.526
The questions that Stephen was raising

00:28:14.526 --> 00:28:16.528
about his time in the Peace Corps

00:28:16.528 --> 00:28:18.988
helped him see that the liberalism

00:28:18.988 --> 00:28:21.074
that the Peace Corps embodied,

00:28:21.074 --> 00:28:23.743
that his father was a reflection of,

00:28:23.743 --> 00:28:25.912
was no longer working in the world.

00:28:27.080 --> 00:28:30.166
(mellow music plays)

00:28:33.378 --> 00:28:36.464
(indistinct chatter)

00:28:38.466 --> 00:28:41.469
I got the call from the Black Panthers.

00:28:41.469 --> 00:28:43.680
This investigator, Vanita Anderson,

00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:47.308
was planning to take out drafts of a book

00:28:47.308 --> 00:28:50.645
George was in the process of finishing.

00:28:50.645 --> 00:28:53.690
My only purpose when I arrived there with her was

00:28:53.690 --> 00:28:56.693
to make sure she could get her visit with George.

00:28:57.819 --> 00:28:59.446
(scanner beeps)

00:28:59.446 --> 00:29:01.573
Vanita was carrying a briefcase

00:29:01.573 --> 00:29:03.908
that had a tape recorder inside it.

00:29:04.909 --> 00:29:07.245
The warden denied the visit.

00:29:07.245 --> 00:29:12.250
Vanita asked me to take the drafts of the book in

00:29:12.500 --> 00:29:14.210
to visit with him myself.

00:29:15.086 --> 00:29:18.506
(syncopated music plays)

00:29:20.759 --> 00:29:22.844
We don't think there was any gun

00:29:22.844 --> 00:29:26.389
that any inmate or anyone brought in from the outside.

00:29:26.389 --> 00:29:28.516
We think it was an inside job.

00:29:33.229 --> 00:29:37.025
To understand how reasonable that was,

00:29:37.025 --> 00:29:38.485
there's context.

00:29:38.485 --> 00:29:41.196
The National Lawyers Guild itself was

00:29:41.196 --> 00:29:43.114
a targeted organization

00:29:43.114 --> 00:29:47.577
of the counterintelligence program of the FBI.

00:29:52.499 --> 00:29:54.667
The FBI program, COINTELPRO,

00:29:54.667 --> 00:29:57.796
their counterinsurgency program to destroy the Panthers

00:29:57.796 --> 00:30:00.173
and other groups was horrible.

00:30:02.592 --> 00:30:06.095
In Chicago, they killed Fred Hampton

00:30:06.095 --> 00:30:09.474
and Guild lawyers were at the site of the shooting

00:30:09.474 --> 00:30:11.100
that night

00:30:11.100 --> 00:30:13.394
and they preserved the evidence.

00:30:13.394 --> 00:30:16.731
In Los Angeles, the Panthers called the home

00:30:16.731 --> 00:30:18.107
of some Guild lawyers,

00:30:18.107 --> 00:30:20.568
young Guild lawyers from inside and said,

00:30:20.568 --> 00:30:22.070
"The police are surrounding us."

00:30:22.070 --> 00:30:24.739
And Guild lawyers went and stood outside

00:30:24.739 --> 00:30:28.618
as witnesses, white Guild lawyers.

00:30:28.618 --> 00:30:32.038
(melancholy music plays)

00:31:03.903 --> 00:31:07.657
(melancholy music continues)

00:31:15.290 --> 00:31:17.542
I am scared.

00:31:17.542 --> 00:31:18.835
I'm really scared.

00:31:20.420 --> 00:31:23.590
I cannot face the irreversibility of my situation,

00:31:24.757 --> 00:31:27.302
can't face the hopelessness of going back.

00:31:28.636 --> 00:31:31.347
Can't face the prospect of always being alone.

00:31:32.432 --> 00:31:34.934
Can't face the fact of never having a family,

00:31:35.810 --> 00:31:38.062
never having children,

00:31:38.062 --> 00:31:40.106
never seeing family and friends again

00:31:40.106 --> 00:31:42.233
who are so important to me,

00:31:43.276 --> 00:31:45.278
never being involved in the struggle

00:31:45.278 --> 00:31:47.280
in the way I was before.

00:31:48.239 --> 00:31:51.367
(melancholy music continues)

00:32:02.170 --> 00:32:05.089
I spent about a year and a half

00:32:05.089 --> 00:32:06.591
in Eastern Europe,

00:32:06.591 --> 00:32:11.095
mainly Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

00:32:11.095 --> 00:32:15.266
Eastern Europe didn't participate in Interpol

00:32:15.266 --> 00:32:20.188
and you could live in Eastern Europe very, very cheaply.

00:32:22.231 --> 00:32:24.233
I would move every week or two,

00:32:24.233 --> 00:32:28.112
just pretending I was a tourist arriving for the first time

00:32:28.112 --> 00:32:31.616
'cause I felt uncomfortable staying in any place

00:32:31.616 --> 00:32:34.494
more than about 10 days.

00:32:34.494 --> 00:32:37.205
I went to visit him in Hungary.

00:32:37.205 --> 00:32:39.290
His first reaction was discomfort

00:32:39.290 --> 00:32:40.959
because as soon as I saw him,

00:32:40.959 --> 00:32:43.211
I leapt on him and hugged him

00:32:43.211 --> 00:32:47.674
and he was into a security mode, which was understandable.

00:32:51.219 --> 00:32:54.055
Steve was unsettled.

00:32:55.640 --> 00:32:58.184
We talked about him stopping the running

00:32:58.184 --> 00:33:01.104
and finding a place to live and making a life for himself.

00:33:01.104 --> 00:33:05.233
So by the time we left, he had decided to move to Paris.

00:33:06.401 --> 00:33:09.654
(cheerful music plays)

00:33:15.326 --> 00:33:18.705
I have a little apartment, very cheap.

00:33:18.705 --> 00:33:20.999
I have a good chance to soon have a part-time job

00:33:20.999 --> 00:33:23.126
to sustain me.

00:33:23.126 --> 00:33:27.296
I'm in Paris, where there are things to do, people to meet.

00:33:27.296 --> 00:33:30.550
(sound of typewriter keys)

00:33:31.676 --> 00:33:33.970
One is given life only once

00:33:33.970 --> 00:33:36.472
and I don't want to die stupidly,

00:33:36.472 --> 00:33:40.059
but even less I don't want to live stupidly.

00:33:41.269 --> 00:33:43.646
Thus, the origin of my gut-level feeling

00:33:43.646 --> 00:33:47.025
that I'd rather die living than live dying.

00:33:47.859 --> 00:33:50.862
(footsteps shuffle)

00:33:57.910 --> 00:34:01.330
(Stephen knocks on door)

00:34:04.834 --> 00:34:06.753
Hello.
Hi Steve.

00:34:10.465 --> 00:34:12.592
Patrick taught me how to paint.

00:34:12.592 --> 00:34:16.179
And you know, I did earn a living, become a house painter.

00:34:16.179 --> 00:34:19.474
And, which politically fit

00:34:19.474 --> 00:34:22.727
because we were trying to work with the working class

00:34:22.727 --> 00:34:25.646
and I was learning to use my hands.

00:35:05.728 --> 00:35:07.605
If I'm in some public place,

00:35:07.605 --> 00:35:09.732
I kinda like to face the entrance

00:35:09.732 --> 00:35:11.025
'cause I always had the feeling

00:35:11.025 --> 00:35:12.735
I wanted to see people coming

00:35:12.735 --> 00:35:14.112
if they were coming to get me

00:35:14.112 --> 00:35:16.197
and not have a tap on the shoulder.

00:35:39.929 --> 00:35:42.765
your family history.

00:35:49.814 --> 00:35:52.441
I did learn to close off my emotions

00:35:52.441 --> 00:35:55.903
to other people 'cause the horror of what I was living in

00:35:55.903 --> 00:35:58.865
could have very easily allowed

00:35:58.865 --> 00:36:01.909
all kinds of uncontrollable emotions

00:36:01.909 --> 00:36:04.495
to bubble to the surface.

00:36:09.500 --> 00:36:12.420
The danger is that I end up

00:36:12.420 --> 00:36:16.299
closing off emotions to myself

00:36:16.299 --> 00:36:18.676
and not danger in the terms of security,

00:36:18.676 --> 00:36:22.597
but just the negative aspect of that

00:36:22.597 --> 00:36:25.683
in terms of who I am as a person.

00:37:00.885 --> 00:37:03.888
I am tired, just really tired,

00:37:06.349 --> 00:37:09.936
playing games, saying things I don't believe,

00:37:09.936 --> 00:37:11.395
pretending I'm not what I am.

00:37:17.401 --> 00:37:18.736
I want to be me.

00:37:21.364 --> 00:37:23.658
(telephone rings)

00:37:23.658 --> 00:37:26.661
Goodness, was Steve Bingham,

00:37:26.661 --> 00:37:29.747
a voice I had not heard for several years.

00:37:29.747 --> 00:37:32.333
And at when I got the call, prior to it,

00:37:32.333 --> 00:37:34.460
I didn't know whether he was alive or dead.

00:37:35.753 --> 00:37:38.631
I remember Henry Weinstein calling me,

00:37:38.631 --> 00:37:42.218
somewhat agitated, saying, "I need to see you, Paul,

00:37:42.218 --> 00:37:43.970
as soon as possible."

00:37:43.970 --> 00:37:46.097
We met the next day at my office.

00:37:46.097 --> 00:37:49.100
He said, "Paul, no one's heard from Steve Bingham

00:37:49.100 --> 00:37:50.184
for a couple years.

00:37:50.184 --> 00:37:53.688
He contacted me, he wants to meet with me

00:37:53.688 --> 00:37:57.733
and meet to write an article showing people

00:37:57.733 --> 00:37:59.026
that one, I'm alive

00:37:59.026 --> 00:38:02.154
and two, I'm doing good political work

00:38:02.154 --> 00:38:04.949
and I don't want to go to jail."

00:38:04.949 --> 00:38:08.744
And this was like August or late July of 1974.

00:38:09.912 --> 00:38:12.498
Nixon was convening grand juries around the country

00:38:12.498 --> 00:38:15.626
to go after basically anything left of center.

00:38:15.626 --> 00:38:19.463
I said, "Henry, if a grand jury is convened

00:38:19.463 --> 00:38:23.592
to get you, to force you to give up

00:38:23.592 --> 00:38:25.636
where you met with Steve

00:38:25.636 --> 00:38:28.723
and where Steve was living and you refuse,

00:38:28.723 --> 00:38:30.474
then you go to jail."

00:38:30.474 --> 00:38:31.976
It was potentially a great story,

00:38:31.976 --> 00:38:36.230
but was also potentially a number of months in jail.

00:38:36.230 --> 00:38:37.982
Could be as long as 18 months.

00:38:37.982 --> 00:38:42.987
It was a conscious tactic of the Nixon administration.

00:38:43.446 --> 00:38:46.824
Once I made the decision that I was going to go,

00:38:46.824 --> 00:38:48.784
I let Paul know.

00:38:48.784 --> 00:38:50.953
Of course I let Steve know,

00:38:50.953 --> 00:38:52.246
but I didn't tell anybody else.

00:38:52.246 --> 00:38:53.456
You know, I didn't tell my parents,

00:38:53.456 --> 00:38:55.291
I didn't tell my closest friend.

00:38:55.291 --> 00:38:56.709
(apprehensive music plays)

00:38:56.709 --> 00:38:59.503
(train engine rattles)

00:38:59.503 --> 00:39:01.005
So I got into Toronto

00:39:01.005 --> 00:39:04.550
and I started looking around for a cheap hotel

00:39:04.550 --> 00:39:06.886
where no one would care who I was

00:39:06.886 --> 00:39:08.846
as long as I was able to pay the bill.

00:39:10.181 --> 00:39:12.641
And I found such a place, I dunno,

00:39:12.641 --> 00:39:14.268
maybe it's $10 a night.

00:39:15.561 --> 00:39:20.107
(apprehensive music continues)

00:39:20.107 --> 00:39:21.525
And we met for

00:39:21.525 --> 00:39:23.903
a couple of days of interviews.

00:39:27.323 --> 00:39:30.326
We were both very concerned about being followed,

00:39:30.326 --> 00:39:32.328
about possible surveillance.

00:39:33.412 --> 00:39:37.458
Just very concerned, understandably, about being tailed.

00:39:39.752 --> 00:39:43.547
(crowd shouts indistinctly)

00:39:44.673 --> 00:39:47.385
So we met in an empty stadium

00:39:47.385 --> 00:39:49.929
where there was a football team practicing.

00:39:52.640 --> 00:39:54.141
Henry was writing,

00:39:54.141 --> 00:39:56.685
and then I was talking and periodically

00:39:56.685 --> 00:39:58.854
the people on the football field would look up at us

00:39:58.854 --> 00:40:01.065
and sort of wonder what we were doing there.

00:40:05.111 --> 00:40:08.197
All of the meetings were outside,

00:40:09.156 --> 00:40:11.826
ball parks, in a restaurant.

00:40:11.826 --> 00:40:14.870
And it became clear that Steve was very concerned

00:40:14.870 --> 00:40:17.873
that if, God forbid, we were, you know,

00:40:17.873 --> 00:40:19.458
some cop spotted us or something,

00:40:19.458 --> 00:40:21.836
or some FBI agent and he was arrested,

00:40:21.836 --> 00:40:24.839
that I couldn't be charged with harboring a fugitive

00:40:24.839 --> 00:40:27.800
because we were in a public place.

00:40:27.800 --> 00:40:30.469
(crowds shriek)

00:40:31.554 --> 00:40:34.306
There were things he wanted me to know.

00:40:34.306 --> 00:40:35.808
I mean, the fact that he was alive,

00:40:35.808 --> 00:40:37.893
the fact that he was involved in political work

00:40:37.893 --> 00:40:39.395
wherever he was living.

00:40:39.395 --> 00:40:42.440
But there were things that he didn't want me to know,

00:40:42.440 --> 00:40:45.651
that potentially could have created problems for me.

00:40:45.651 --> 00:40:46.944
I mean, if somebody had ever asked me,

00:40:46.944 --> 00:40:48.654
"Well, where's he living?"

00:40:48.654 --> 00:40:49.613
I could say, "I don't know.

00:40:49.613 --> 00:40:51.574
He wouldn't tell me where I was living."

00:40:57.288 --> 00:40:58.497
And I think I sort of felt like

00:40:58.497 --> 00:41:00.791
I couldn't look at myself in the mirror

00:41:00.791 --> 00:41:02.626
if I didn't do this.

00:41:02.626 --> 00:41:06.380
I would've sort of been second-guessing myself forever.

00:41:07.840 --> 00:41:10.426
It became liberating emotionally

00:41:10.426 --> 00:41:15.347
to know that everybody on the planet who cared about me was

00:41:15.347 --> 00:41:19.018
somehow or other gonna read this article

00:41:19.018 --> 00:41:22.188
that was on the front page of "The New York Times".

00:41:22.188 --> 00:41:23.939
Did he have any regrets about his decision

00:41:23.939 --> 00:41:25.065
to go underground?

00:41:25.065 --> 00:41:27.902
Without a trace of hesitation, smiling broadly, he said,

00:41:27.902 --> 00:41:29.069
"No."

00:41:29.069 --> 00:41:31.780
People may think I've gotten into mysticism

00:41:31.780 --> 00:41:34.450
like Rennie Davis, or I'm quietly living out my life.

00:41:34.450 --> 00:41:36.410
In fact, the opposite's happened.

00:41:36.410 --> 00:41:38.329
It's been a very good and strong period for me,

00:41:38.329 --> 00:41:40.998
growing my involvement, the struggle is stronger.

00:41:40.998 --> 00:41:42.625
There's a real joy from being alive,

00:41:42.625 --> 00:41:45.920
engaged at one level or another in revolutionary struggle

00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:47.963
and the fellow friendship around that.

00:41:47.963 --> 00:41:51.175
(airplane engine roars)

00:41:51.175 --> 00:41:53.844
When I got to San Francisco, I did not kiss the ground,

00:41:53.844 --> 00:41:55.930
but I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

00:41:55.930 --> 00:41:59.391
I entered the country, nobody stopped me.

00:41:59.391 --> 00:42:01.977
The first thing I did was I went to see Paul

00:42:01.977 --> 00:42:05.439
before I went home to let him know that I was back

00:42:05.439 --> 00:42:09.235
and that things had, you know, basically gone fine.

00:42:10.402 --> 00:42:13.656
When the article appeared, I was greatly relieved.

00:42:14.615 --> 00:42:16.951
It meant that he hadn't been killed

00:42:16.951 --> 00:42:18.953
in Berkeley or Oakland back,

00:42:18.953 --> 00:42:22.498
shortly after the incident at San Quentin.

00:42:22.498 --> 00:42:25.334
Henry had done a really brave thing.

00:42:25.334 --> 00:42:29.588
It was like a blow against the Nixon administration.

00:42:29.588 --> 00:42:32.550
It was a blow against the prison officials

00:42:32.550 --> 00:42:35.094
who were trying to suppress the prison movement.

00:42:36.470 --> 00:42:41.475
Steve could have been any of us liberal and radical lawyers.

00:42:42.893 --> 00:42:45.354
If you intimidated the lawyers,

00:42:45.354 --> 00:42:49.692
and going after Steve was a huge intimidation,

00:42:49.692 --> 00:42:52.653
the prisoners would be isolated once again.

00:42:52.653 --> 00:42:55.990
So when we saw Henry's article, it was like,

00:42:55.990 --> 00:42:57.741
all right, we're fighting back.

00:42:58.867 --> 00:43:02.121
♪ Yeah, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪

00:43:02.121 --> 00:43:05.958
♪ Yeah, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪

00:43:54.381 --> 00:43:57.051
A student could get a visa for a year,

00:43:57.051 --> 00:44:01.639
and Vincennes really didn't care what I was doing there.

00:44:01.639 --> 00:44:04.558
So I was a student for 10 years.

00:44:04.558 --> 00:44:07.603
(indistinct chatter)

00:44:09.647 --> 00:44:13.192
After moving like a vagabond from place to place,

00:44:13.192 --> 00:44:16.028
finding Vincennes was a little like

00:44:16.028 --> 00:44:18.405
finding heaven on Earth.

00:45:03.575 --> 00:45:06.453
(indistinct chatter)

00:45:06.453 --> 00:45:08.205
Every day of those 13 years,

00:45:08.205 --> 00:45:11.458
at some point you open the door out of your little cocoon

00:45:12.418 --> 00:45:15.337
and you venture into a world where there's police,

00:45:15.337 --> 00:45:16.338
there's strangers,

00:45:16.338 --> 00:45:19.007
there's friends of the family that suddenly appear

00:45:19.007 --> 00:45:20.217
on the street corner.

00:45:20.217 --> 00:45:23.470
(tranquil music plays)

00:45:24.513 --> 00:45:27.391
There's all these unexpected things

00:45:27.391 --> 00:45:29.685
that could potentially happen.

00:45:32.688 --> 00:45:35.858
I didn't trust anybody on the personal, emotional level,

00:45:35.858 --> 00:45:38.318
and I didn't share my story.

00:45:48.203 --> 00:45:50.539
My earliest memories of Francoise are

00:45:50.539 --> 00:45:52.249
being in classes

00:45:52.249 --> 00:45:57.254
and her working on this film on University Vincennes.

00:46:13.645 --> 00:46:17.274
I asked her if she could come to

00:46:17.274 --> 00:46:18.275
do sound.

00:46:31.705 --> 00:46:34.333
The thing that triggered my interest was

00:46:34.333 --> 00:46:37.419
this extraordinary union struggle in Longwy,

00:46:37.419 --> 00:46:40.923
which is a small, steel-producing town.

00:47:46.405 --> 00:47:49.283
And that was a amazing experience

00:47:49.283 --> 00:47:52.369
and also very scary because somehow,

00:47:52.369 --> 00:47:55.706
the guards learned that there was

00:47:56.623 --> 00:47:59.209
a foreigner inside the plant filming,

00:47:59.209 --> 00:48:02.421
which was completely illegal.

00:48:02.421 --> 00:48:06.174
And the workers hid me in the broom closet.

00:48:08.802 --> 00:48:10.637
Here I am, underground,

00:48:10.637 --> 00:48:14.308
and I'm inside a factory and there's a guard looking for me.

00:48:14.308 --> 00:48:16.393
And, but I didn't panic

00:48:16.393 --> 00:48:18.896
'cause that was one of the things my living underground

00:48:18.896 --> 00:48:19.730
had taught me.

00:48:19.730 --> 00:48:23.275
I just sort of focused on the task of being

00:48:23.275 --> 00:48:24.443
quiet in the closet.

00:48:27.070 --> 00:48:29.406
The film was gonna be a tool

00:48:29.406 --> 00:48:32.784
to get the government to invest

00:48:32.784 --> 00:48:36.246
in the steel industry in France, to save it.

00:48:36.246 --> 00:48:39.833
(pensive folk music plays)

00:48:40.709 --> 00:48:42.586
I was attracted to Françoise

00:48:42.586 --> 00:48:45.130
but because I thought she was linked

00:48:45.130 --> 00:48:47.341
with either Phillippe or Patrick

00:48:47.341 --> 00:48:51.178
it never occurred to me that I might date her.

00:49:27.047 --> 00:49:31.134
(traditional French music plays)

00:49:41.561 --> 00:49:44.314
Steve was so poor in France.

00:49:44.314 --> 00:49:47.317
He was a working class guy, you know, house painter.

00:49:47.317 --> 00:49:49.569
And I remember having picnic with him in the park.

00:49:49.569 --> 00:49:51.530
He would eat his sardine, you know,

00:49:51.530 --> 00:49:53.115
it was very cheap,

00:49:53.115 --> 00:49:55.325
and he was covered with plaster

00:49:55.325 --> 00:49:57.536
and we would've a picnic there.

00:49:57.536 --> 00:50:00.038
(birds chirp)

00:50:01.665 --> 00:50:05.502
Françoise and I were together for a full year

00:50:05.502 --> 00:50:08.046
before I finally said to myself

00:50:08.046 --> 00:50:11.258
this is different and I wanna share who I am.

00:50:13.552 --> 00:50:15.887
I was sort of scared 'cause it could have gone

00:50:15.887 --> 00:50:16.888
in two directions.

00:50:16.888 --> 00:50:19.641
I'd been lying to her for a year.

00:50:53.300 --> 00:50:56.803
I contemplated some deep recess in my mind

00:50:56.803 --> 00:50:59.598
the consequences of what might happen,

00:50:59.598 --> 00:51:03.727
if sometime I had a trial and I was found guilty.

00:51:03.727 --> 00:51:05.896
I mean, that was always

00:51:05.896 --> 00:51:06.813
in my mind.

00:51:10.942 --> 00:51:12.235
Back home,

00:51:12.235 --> 00:51:14.029
our family was closely following

00:51:14.029 --> 00:51:17.866
the 1975 trial of six prisoners accused of murder

00:51:17.866 --> 00:51:21.244
for the violent events of August, 1971.

00:51:22.662 --> 00:51:25.248
We called it the San Quentin Six trial,

00:51:25.248 --> 00:51:28.126
but the official name was more haunting,

00:51:28.126 --> 00:51:30.796
the people versus Stephen Bingham.

00:51:30.796 --> 00:51:34.049
The trial was named after

00:51:35.175 --> 00:51:37.636
the key defendant, who was absent.

00:51:40.889 --> 00:51:44.726
We had no idea who this guy Bingham was,

00:51:45.685 --> 00:51:49.064
but that we believed that whatever it was that happened,

00:51:51.066 --> 00:51:52.275
it was nobody's fault.

00:51:52.275 --> 00:51:55.612
It wasn't George Jackson, it wasn't Steve.

00:51:55.612 --> 00:51:57.739
It was the system.

00:51:59.783 --> 00:52:03.453
We weren't the notorious people in the Adjustment Center.

00:52:03.453 --> 00:52:06.665
We were the extras to a drama,

00:52:06.665 --> 00:52:09.376
to a scenario, to a story

00:52:09.376 --> 00:52:12.045
that climaxed that particular day.

00:52:12.045 --> 00:52:15.549
The San Quentin Six trial was a living example

00:52:15.549 --> 00:52:17.509
of racism in action.

00:52:18.468 --> 00:52:21.263
In the courtroom, Johnny Spain was chained

00:52:21.263 --> 00:52:23.014
and he was unable to move.

00:52:23.932 --> 00:52:27.018
The defendants were treated as dangerous animals.

00:52:27.018 --> 00:52:29.187
They were not treated as human beings.

00:52:31.398 --> 00:52:34.067
This was exactly what we feared,

00:52:34.067 --> 00:52:37.237
trials that were heavy on theater and convictions,

00:52:37.237 --> 00:52:38.905
but fell short on protecting

00:52:38.905 --> 00:52:41.575
the legal rights of the accused.

00:53:15.984 --> 00:53:18.862
(traffic roars)

00:53:18.862 --> 00:53:23.575
I'd continually assess the situation in the States

00:53:24.618 --> 00:53:27.621
in terms of when would be a time when

00:53:27.621 --> 00:53:32.083
I would be able to go home and feel safe.

00:53:32.083 --> 00:53:35.295
(poignant music plays)

00:53:36.796 --> 00:53:38.089
We were often reminded

00:53:38.089 --> 00:53:40.634
of Steve's absence by the clicking phone lines

00:53:40.634 --> 00:53:43.720
and the dark cars parked across the street,

00:53:43.720 --> 00:53:45.847
a constant warning that our family was

00:53:45.847 --> 00:53:47.933
under FBI surveillance.

00:53:52.187 --> 00:53:53.939
Word was brought to us in person

00:53:53.939 --> 00:53:56.024
by one of Steve's former housemates

00:53:56.024 --> 00:53:58.318
that he would be able to make a rendezvous

00:53:58.318 --> 00:54:01.279
with Sylvia and me within the next month or so.

00:54:02.197 --> 00:54:05.784
(poignant music continues)

00:54:05.784 --> 00:54:09.955
The idea of meeting with my parents was scary

00:54:09.955 --> 00:54:12.916
and freaked my friends out, freaked me out.

00:54:12.916 --> 00:54:16.002
So what we eventually did is I, you know,

00:54:16.002 --> 00:54:18.630
I pushed on the question and we set it up

00:54:18.630 --> 00:54:20.340
through Gary Bellow,

00:54:20.340 --> 00:54:23.468
one of the few people that my parents really trusted.

00:54:24.886 --> 00:54:27.472
And Gary somehow got my parents out on the lawn

00:54:27.472 --> 00:54:29.599
because we didn't know if the house was bugged

00:54:29.599 --> 00:54:30.558
and basically said,

00:54:30.558 --> 00:54:33.561
"You have a chance to see Steve.

00:54:33.561 --> 00:54:34.562
(melodramatic music plays)

00:54:34.562 --> 00:54:36.022
but you have to come right now.

00:54:36.022 --> 00:54:39.859
You're not allowed to make any phone calls or do anything.

00:54:39.859 --> 00:54:41.194
Get in my car

00:54:41.194 --> 00:54:43.947
and we're gonna go to the ferry and go to Long Island."

00:54:44.906 --> 00:54:48.827
(melodramatic music continues)

00:54:50.996 --> 00:54:52.956
He followed a very circuitous

00:54:52.956 --> 00:54:56.334
and roundabout route in downtown New London,

00:54:56.334 --> 00:54:59.170
as he explained to throw off any possibility

00:54:59.170 --> 00:55:00.547
of our being trailed.

00:55:03.758 --> 00:55:06.303
Eventually, we arrived at the terminus

00:55:06.303 --> 00:55:08.096
of the Long Island ferry.

00:55:08.096 --> 00:55:11.266
He warned me to stay as much out of sight as possible

00:55:11.266 --> 00:55:12.726
while he went to get tickets.

00:55:16.104 --> 00:55:20.191
We enjoyed the two-hour ferry ride across Long Island Sound,

00:55:20.191 --> 00:55:23.361
hardly daring to believe we might soon see Steve.

00:55:27.532 --> 00:55:31.369
After an hour's drive, we pulled into a motel

00:55:31.369 --> 00:55:33.371
where a cabin had been reserved for us.

00:55:34.331 --> 00:55:36.791
In the cabin, we sat expectantly.

00:55:38.752 --> 00:55:41.379
Finally, there was a knock at the door

00:55:41.379 --> 00:55:43.506
and Steve stepped out of the darkness.

00:55:45.383 --> 00:55:49.763
So we met for about four hours

00:55:49.763 --> 00:55:51.890
and it was, as you can imagine,

00:55:51.890 --> 00:55:55.018
it was pretty emotional.

00:55:57.896 --> 00:56:00.648
One of the things I wanted was to tell my mother

00:56:00.648 --> 00:56:04.110
that I would've connected with her earlier

00:56:04.110 --> 00:56:09.032
but because of Daddy, everybody just felt it wasn't safe.

00:56:16.456 --> 00:56:19.292
I'd been afraid that being a fugitive

00:56:19.292 --> 00:56:22.754
would've hardened him, but he was his old gentle self,

00:56:22.754 --> 00:56:25.215
although it seemed he showed a new firmness

00:56:25.215 --> 00:56:26.800
and self-confidence.

00:56:30.595 --> 00:56:32.555
I had two little stones

00:56:32.555 --> 00:56:34.474
that I'd picked up on a beach somewhere,

00:56:34.474 --> 00:56:36.351
I think in France,

00:56:36.351 --> 00:56:38.770
and I gave one to each of them

00:56:38.770 --> 00:56:43.233
just as something concrete that they could kinda hold onto,

00:56:43.233 --> 00:56:45.276
so when they woke up in the morning,

00:56:45.276 --> 00:56:49.406
they would know it had not all just been a dream.

00:56:52.283 --> 00:56:56.121
I reassured him that there was a finite point in time

00:56:56.121 --> 00:56:58.039
that was coming to an end.

00:56:59.791 --> 00:57:02.001
He rose and said he had to go.

00:57:02.001 --> 00:57:04.421
And after a tearful goodbye,

00:57:04.421 --> 00:57:08.133
we saw him go out the door and disappear in the darkness.

00:57:15.473 --> 00:57:17.934
(sad piano music plays)

00:57:17.934 --> 00:57:20.103
Those few short hours in Long Island

00:57:20.103 --> 00:57:23.106
were the last moments my uncle had with his mother.

00:57:24.691 --> 00:57:26.693
Three years later, she was dead.

00:57:30.113 --> 00:57:32.699
I think it was after my mother had died

00:57:32.699 --> 00:57:36.161
that I really began talking with Françoise

00:57:36.161 --> 00:57:38.246
about finally going home.

00:57:53.720 --> 00:57:56.806
(uneasy music plays)

00:57:59.309 --> 00:58:01.769
I never heard my name spoken,

00:58:01.769 --> 00:58:04.022
I never said my name.

00:58:04.022 --> 00:58:09.027
I remember when I finally decided to come back,

00:58:09.110 --> 00:58:12.405
walking to Vincennes and I'm out in the middle of the forest

00:58:12.405 --> 00:58:17.202
and I decided I really needed to just say my name,

00:58:17.202 --> 00:58:19.871
psychologically, just to hear my name.

00:58:19.871 --> 00:58:23.166
And I modulated my voice and I said,

00:58:23.166 --> 00:58:25.084
Stephen Bingham,

00:58:25.084 --> 00:58:26.711
Stephen Bingham,

00:58:26.711 --> 00:58:28.254
Stephen Bingham,

00:58:28.254 --> 00:58:30.215
Stephen Bingham,

00:58:30.215 --> 00:58:32.050
Stephen Bingham.

00:58:33.551 --> 00:58:35.386
Stephen Bingham reappeared today

00:58:35.386 --> 00:58:38.264
after 13 years on the run from the law.

00:58:38.264 --> 00:58:39.724
On the advice of his attorney,

00:58:39.724 --> 00:58:41.935
Bingham declined to say where he's been living

00:58:41.935 --> 00:58:44.354
or what he's been doing the past 13 years.

00:58:44.354 --> 00:58:47.315
We couldn't have him arrested as a fugitive.

00:58:47.315 --> 00:58:49.192
That would really hurt the case.

00:58:49.192 --> 00:58:50.818
The whole idea was surrender,

00:58:50.818 --> 00:58:53.821
showing your faith in your innocence.

00:58:53.821 --> 00:58:56.199
(indistinct chatter)

00:58:56.199 --> 00:58:58.576
Let's walk over to Glide Church.

00:58:58.576 --> 00:59:03.039
Glide Church is this nationally famous, progressive church.

00:59:03.039 --> 00:59:07.418
And one of the lawyers knew the minister at Glide Church

00:59:07.418 --> 00:59:10.672
and he arranged for Steve and Françoise to sleep

00:59:10.672 --> 00:59:14.092
in Glide Church the night before we surrendered.

00:59:15.009 --> 00:59:18.346
(camera shutters click)

00:59:19.514 --> 00:59:21.349
I'm real happy to be back.

00:59:24.227 --> 00:59:25.937
My politically active life

00:59:27.188 --> 00:59:29.440
has always been dedicated to the idea

00:59:29.440 --> 00:59:32.527
that change can come about without violence,

00:59:33.444 --> 00:59:37.240
that violence tends to poison otherwise good motives.

00:59:39.284 --> 00:59:41.744
The sympathy I want to express

00:59:41.744 --> 00:59:45.915
to the families of those killed that day is not gratuitous.

00:59:45.915 --> 00:59:47.917
It is very real.

00:59:47.917 --> 00:59:49.794
So is my innocence.

00:59:51.045 --> 00:59:54.090
You must understand, I was very afraid.

00:59:55.341 --> 00:59:58.011
I decided finally to leave,

00:59:58.011 --> 01:00:00.597
when one week later I heard

01:00:00.597 --> 01:00:03.057
that there was "conclusive evidence",

01:00:04.892 --> 01:00:08.730
pointing to my knowing participation.

01:00:08.730 --> 01:00:11.441
I knew that such evidence did not exist

01:00:11.441 --> 01:00:13.651
and could only have been invented.

01:00:15.486 --> 01:00:19.574
They booked me into the jail in a single cell

01:00:19.574 --> 01:00:21.618
'cause they were so afraid

01:00:21.618 --> 01:00:23.453
that something might happen to me,

01:00:23.453 --> 01:00:26.497
'cause shit happens in jails.

01:00:26.497 --> 01:00:28.458
(indistinct chatter)

01:00:28.458 --> 01:00:30.627
I was greeted by the inmates,

01:00:30.627 --> 01:00:33.004
"Hey, did you bring my gun in for me?"

01:00:35.089 --> 01:00:37.634
Bail was set at a half a million dollars,

01:00:37.634 --> 01:00:41.888
which is the equivalent today of two or $3 million.

01:03:07.408 --> 01:03:10.161
Bingham will likely face all the original charges,

01:03:10.161 --> 01:03:14.165
one count of conspiracy, five counts of murder.

01:03:14.165 --> 01:03:18.002
(tense, rhythmic music plays)

01:03:23.007 --> 01:03:26.511
We were concerned that for many juries,

01:03:26.511 --> 01:03:29.847
just the question of how else could it have happened

01:03:29.847 --> 01:03:33.100
if not with Steve Bingham's participation

01:03:33.100 --> 01:03:35.686
would be sufficient to get a conviction.

01:03:35.686 --> 01:03:37.730
And I, you know, I carried that fear

01:03:37.730 --> 01:03:38.898
throughout the whole trial.

01:03:38.898 --> 01:03:43.820
(tense, rhythmic music continues)

01:03:43.820 --> 01:03:45.530
By charging me,

01:03:45.530 --> 01:03:48.282
they never investigated the incident.

01:03:48.282 --> 01:03:51.285
We came across dozens and dozens of names

01:03:51.285 --> 01:03:53.788
of people who'd had contact with Jackson that day

01:03:53.788 --> 01:03:55.081
who had never interviewed.

01:03:58.793 --> 01:04:00.711
So we had a preliminary hearing,

01:04:00.711 --> 01:04:04.131
and at the time it was the longest preliminary hearing

01:04:04.131 --> 01:04:05.675
in California history.

01:04:05.675 --> 01:04:08.094
There was 50 witnesses,

01:04:08.094 --> 01:04:12.557
there was 250 exhibits that went on and on.

01:04:12.557 --> 01:04:14.725
From my perspective, sitting in on the prelims,

01:04:14.725 --> 01:04:16.018
it didn't go that well.

01:04:16.018 --> 01:04:18.646
The prosecution seemed to be really organized

01:04:18.646 --> 01:04:22.191
and the kind of feeling in the courtroom

01:04:22.191 --> 01:04:24.151
from those of us who were watching was,

01:04:24.151 --> 01:04:26.779
gee, this isn't going as well as we would like.

01:04:27.989 --> 01:04:31.242
Given all those facts and Mr. Bingham's flight,

01:04:31.242 --> 01:04:33.494
I think that there is proof of his guilt.

01:04:33.494 --> 01:04:35.663
And so we will have to wait for Bingham's trial

01:04:35.663 --> 01:04:37.081
to see if there are new facts

01:04:37.081 --> 01:04:39.667
on that bloodiest day in San Quentin history.

01:04:39.667 --> 01:04:41.502
And if those facts are not compelling,

01:04:41.502 --> 01:04:44.505
or if Bingham is wrong about the new mood in America,

01:04:44.505 --> 01:04:46.674
he could find himself behind the same walls

01:04:46.674 --> 01:04:50.094
where George Jackson died 13 years ago.

01:04:50.094 --> 01:04:52.889
The prosecution had, on its face,

01:04:52.889 --> 01:04:56.183
a very strong circumstantial evidence case.

01:04:56.183 --> 01:04:59.353
Steve goes to a visit with George Jackson.

01:04:59.353 --> 01:05:00.855
Right after the visit,

01:05:00.855 --> 01:05:03.649
George takes control of the Adjustment Center

01:05:03.649 --> 01:05:05.943
and then people are killed and wounded.

01:05:05.943 --> 01:05:07.737
So the prosecution's theory was

01:05:07.737 --> 01:05:10.698
Steve smuggled a gun in through a tape recorder.

01:05:10.698 --> 01:05:12.825
The problem with that theory is

01:05:12.825 --> 01:05:17.163
that the tape recorder went through a metal detector

01:05:17.163 --> 01:05:19.498
and was searched by the guard.

01:05:19.498 --> 01:05:21.000
The other problem with that theory is

01:05:21.000 --> 01:05:23.878
Steve never intended to take a tape recorder.

01:05:23.878 --> 01:05:26.505
He was there with a private investigator.

01:05:26.505 --> 01:05:28.591
She had the tape recorder.

01:05:28.591 --> 01:05:30.676
He wasn't even gonna take it in.

01:05:30.676 --> 01:05:32.678
The guard said to him,

01:05:32.678 --> 01:05:35.306
"Aren't you gonna take the tape recorder in?"

01:05:35.306 --> 01:05:37.224
And at the preliminary hearing,

01:05:37.224 --> 01:05:40.227
Lenny Weinglass did a really nice job

01:05:40.227 --> 01:05:42.563
in cross-examination of the guard,

01:05:42.563 --> 01:05:44.941
establishing those facts.

01:05:44.941 --> 01:05:48.027
(indistinct chatter)

01:05:54.825 --> 01:05:57.745
The defendant, Mr. Bingham, George Jackson and others

01:05:57.745 --> 01:06:02.375
conspired to commit one or two crimes.

01:06:02.375 --> 01:06:06.212
That conspiracy resulted in the deaths,

01:06:06.212 --> 01:06:09.048
the murders of Frank P. DeLeon

01:06:09.048 --> 01:06:11.676
and Jere Graham.

01:06:11.676 --> 01:06:16.681
People had come together and formed a support committee.

01:06:16.806 --> 01:06:18.140
I had two buttons made

01:06:18.140 --> 01:06:19.850
that everybody was handed out to everybody.

01:06:19.850 --> 01:06:21.936
One of 'em was "Welcome home, Steve"

01:06:21.936 --> 01:06:23.688
and the other was "Not guilty".

01:06:23.688 --> 01:06:25.690
There were supporters in the courtroom for him

01:06:25.690 --> 01:06:26.565
every day.

01:06:26.565 --> 01:06:28.275
Having people in the courtroom changes

01:06:28.275 --> 01:06:30.444
the dynamic amazingly.

01:06:30.444 --> 01:06:31.821
So you may be wondering

01:06:31.821 --> 01:06:34.365
how come Stephen Bingham ended up being charged

01:06:34.365 --> 01:06:36.409
with conspiracy and murder.

01:06:36.409 --> 01:06:37.702
The opening statement was

01:06:37.702 --> 01:06:41.330
an incredibly nerve-wracking experience.

01:06:43.249 --> 01:06:45.459
I was of course very nervous

01:06:45.459 --> 01:06:48.045
and my hands were sweating

01:06:48.045 --> 01:06:52.049
and I was holding the gun to try to explain

01:06:52.049 --> 01:06:54.719
that the size of this gun, the shape of it,

01:06:54.719 --> 01:06:57.013
the weight of it would've been impossible

01:06:57.013 --> 01:07:00.141
for George Jackson to have walked

01:07:00.141 --> 01:07:01.559
the length of a football field

01:07:01.559 --> 01:07:04.729
between the visitor room and the Adjustment Center

01:07:04.729 --> 01:07:08.649
while balancing this object on his head

01:07:08.649 --> 01:07:10.568
even if he had had a wig.

01:07:12.653 --> 01:07:14.030
The diagram that I'm now putting up.

01:07:14.030 --> 01:07:16.198
Depending upon which side was speaking,

01:07:16.198 --> 01:07:18.284
the prosecution or the defense,

01:07:18.284 --> 01:07:19.702
you'd go home that night thinking

01:07:19.702 --> 01:07:22.163
well, of course it had to have happened this way,

01:07:22.163 --> 01:07:24.790
and then the next day you'd be swayed the other way.

01:07:24.790 --> 01:07:27.918
Their theory of the case was essentially

01:07:27.918 --> 01:07:29.462
it couldn't have happened any other way

01:07:29.462 --> 01:07:32.339
than Steve smuggling the gun into him.

01:07:32.339 --> 01:07:35.801
Because the guard who had examined the tape recorder,

01:07:35.801 --> 01:07:38.929
his recollection of the size of these objects

01:07:38.929 --> 01:07:40.222
changed over time.

01:07:40.222 --> 01:07:42.183
Things got bigger and bigger.

01:07:42.183 --> 01:07:45.269
The gun didn't fit in the tape recorder.

01:07:45.269 --> 01:07:47.438
Gerry put it up on a chalkboard.

01:07:47.438 --> 01:07:50.733
They drew one box and then there was a box bigger,

01:07:50.733 --> 01:07:51.859
then a box bigger than that.

01:07:51.859 --> 01:07:53.903
And there were four boxes.

01:07:53.903 --> 01:07:56.822
And a graphic thing like that put up on the blackboard

01:07:57.740 --> 01:08:00.076
pretty much demolished his testimony.

01:08:00.076 --> 01:08:02.203
We were able to get across the theory

01:08:02.203 --> 01:08:05.915
that the government was looking for a scapegoat

01:08:05.915 --> 01:08:08.918
because George Jackson's death was a national,

01:08:08.918 --> 01:08:11.128
if not an international event.

01:08:11.128 --> 01:08:14.715
And the government had to find some sort of theory

01:08:14.715 --> 01:08:17.093
that would turn the spotlight away

01:08:17.093 --> 01:08:19.220
from what was going on in the prison

01:08:19.220 --> 01:08:20.638
and what was going on

01:08:20.638 --> 01:08:23.390
in the solitary confinement of the Adjustment Center.

01:08:23.390 --> 01:08:24.266
(cell door bangs)

01:08:24.266 --> 01:08:26.519
And Steve was a scapegoat.

01:08:26.519 --> 01:08:29.146
The only real argument

01:08:29.146 --> 01:08:32.066
that the DA had in his corner was that I fled.

01:08:32.066 --> 01:08:35.694
And there wasn't a whole lot that could be done around that

01:08:35.694 --> 01:08:38.447
'cause we agreed, I fled,

01:08:38.447 --> 01:08:41.242
and I came back to be acquitted.

01:08:43.410 --> 01:08:45.412
(indistinct).

01:08:45.412 --> 01:08:48.124
After the multitude of witnesses

01:08:48.124 --> 01:08:50.501
and exhibits were presented,

01:08:50.501 --> 01:08:53.003
Terry Boren got me to admit that I lied

01:08:53.003 --> 01:08:54.797
when I was getting my passport.

01:08:54.797 --> 01:08:57.842
And I lied when I was telling people

01:08:57.842 --> 01:08:59.510
my name was Robert Boarts.

01:08:59.510 --> 01:09:01.804
And everything that was personal was a lie,

01:09:01.804 --> 01:09:04.974
and so you are a liar.

01:09:04.974 --> 01:09:06.308
(unsettling music plays)

01:09:06.308 --> 01:09:08.686
No one else left.

01:09:08.686 --> 01:09:11.397
No one else obliterated their identity.

01:09:11.397 --> 01:09:13.065
Why run if you're innocent?

01:09:15.609 --> 01:09:19.321
(unsettling music continues)

01:09:19.321 --> 01:09:22.158
The darkest day of the trial was when guards

01:09:22.158 --> 01:09:25.035
who had been taken hostage and had their throat slit

01:09:25.035 --> 01:09:27.246
but survived, testified.

01:09:27.246 --> 01:09:30.207
It was horrific, horrific testimony.

01:09:32.918 --> 01:09:34.336
After court that day,

01:09:34.336 --> 01:09:37.339
Steve's dad wanted to have dinner with me.

01:09:39.300 --> 01:09:41.719
He wanted me to talk to the prosecutor

01:09:41.719 --> 01:09:45.222
about trying to negotiate some kind of plea bargain.

01:09:46.098 --> 01:09:48.267
You know, as a father and a grandfather,

01:09:48.267 --> 01:09:52.146
I, you know, I can't imagine what it was like for him

01:09:52.146 --> 01:09:54.773
to be there every day

01:09:54.773 --> 01:09:58.194
and listen to all of that testimony

01:09:58.194 --> 01:10:01.447
knowing that his son could get convicted

01:10:01.447 --> 01:10:04.491
and go to prison for the rest of his life.

01:10:04.491 --> 01:10:06.952
But I told Mr. Bingham, "We're gonna win.

01:10:08.829 --> 01:10:09.955
We're going to win."

01:10:12.208 --> 01:10:15.961
(unsettling music continues)

01:10:34.188 --> 01:10:37.775
I told the jurors this trial's not about 1986,

01:10:37.775 --> 01:10:40.194
it's about 1971.

01:10:40.194 --> 01:10:42.738
And you had to understand what life was like

01:10:42.738 --> 01:10:47.368
and what the political environment was like in 1971

01:10:47.368 --> 01:10:50.120
to understand why Steve and his friends

01:10:50.120 --> 01:10:52.164
thought he had to leave.

01:10:52.164 --> 01:10:54.208
But that jury was out for a week.

01:10:54.208 --> 01:10:56.877
Which was nerve-wracking for all of us

01:10:59.004 --> 01:11:00.589
because we thought if they're gonna acquit him,

01:11:00.589 --> 01:11:02.466
they're just gonna go in there and vote for acquittal

01:11:02.466 --> 01:11:04.009
and come out.

01:11:04.009 --> 01:11:06.845
And every day that they deliberated

01:11:06.845 --> 01:11:09.890
and they didn't rush out with a not guilty verdict

01:11:09.890 --> 01:11:11.183
made us more and more nervous.

01:11:11.183 --> 01:11:13.102
So, I wasn't eating or sleeping.

01:11:13.102 --> 01:11:15.229
I was so scared, I didn't go to court.

01:11:17.564 --> 01:11:22.152
I just thought how horrible it would be

01:11:22.152 --> 01:11:25.155
to visit Steve in prison for the rest of my life

01:11:25.155 --> 01:11:26.824
and his life.

01:11:26.824 --> 01:11:29.994
(anxious music plays)

01:11:33.122 --> 01:11:35.291
Ever since the day I left,

01:11:35.291 --> 01:11:39.920
I contemplated in some deep recess in my mind

01:11:39.920 --> 01:11:43.132
the consequences if I was found guilty.

01:11:45.676 --> 01:11:48.012
We did not really want to think about the worst,

01:11:48.012 --> 01:11:50.931
of course, because you are paralyzed by the idea.

01:11:50.931 --> 01:11:52.933
You know, which door of that courtroom was

01:11:52.933 --> 01:11:53.976
he gonna walk out of?

01:11:56.812 --> 01:11:59.148
(anxious music continues)

01:11:59.148 --> 01:12:01.275
Stephen and I had gone up to the roof,

01:12:01.275 --> 01:12:02.151
it was lunchtime,

01:12:02.151 --> 01:12:03.777
and a guard came up and said,

01:12:03.777 --> 01:12:05.738
"Ah, you know, Mr. Bingham,

01:12:05.738 --> 01:12:06.989
there's a verdict and you need to come back

01:12:06.989 --> 01:12:07.990
to the courtroom."

01:12:07.990 --> 01:12:10.868
I remember seeing one of the press people

01:12:10.868 --> 01:12:13.996
running down the hall and

01:12:13.996 --> 01:12:15.497
the jury's back, the jury's back.

01:12:15.497 --> 01:12:18.375
And he actually said, "And we think the verdict's guilty."

01:12:18.375 --> 01:12:20.961
And all of us turned white.

01:12:20.961 --> 01:12:22.838
I mean, Françoise totally turned white.

01:12:22.838 --> 01:12:25.466
Everybody just froze.

01:12:25.466 --> 01:12:28.927
I was sitting next to Alf and Kitty, you know,

01:12:28.927 --> 01:12:33.474
on the second row when the jurors came up.

01:12:34.433 --> 01:12:37.853
We all, you know, took each other's hand

01:12:37.853 --> 01:12:39.980
and press, you know, like crazy

01:12:39.980 --> 01:12:44.026
because it was so tense and we didn't know what to expect.

01:12:51.075 --> 01:12:53.619
We, the jury in the above entitled case

01:12:53.619 --> 01:12:56.872
find the defendant Stephen Mitchell Bingham

01:12:56.872 --> 01:12:58.165
not guilty.

01:13:00.709 --> 01:13:03.879
(hopeful music plays)

01:13:21.563 --> 01:13:23.148
I don't have any words.

01:13:26.944 --> 01:13:30.906
I've waited 15 years for this day.

01:13:32.199 --> 01:13:35.119
For all of us, just thrilled with the verdict.

01:13:35.119 --> 01:13:37.830
But also the significance of the case is that

01:13:38.914 --> 01:13:41.375
it's okay to care about what goes on

01:13:41.375 --> 01:13:43.585
inside California's prisons.

01:13:43.585 --> 01:13:47.297
I think the prosecution persisted after all these years

01:13:47.297 --> 01:13:52.010
because they wanted to paint everybody with the same brush,

01:13:52.010 --> 01:13:56.974
violent and you know, not valuing human life.

01:13:57.474 --> 01:14:02.438
And what we felt was our movement was quite the opposite.

01:14:03.021 --> 01:14:06.024
The support for Steve was not just a support for him

01:14:06.024 --> 01:14:07.401
as an individual,

01:14:07.401 --> 01:14:10.946
but a support for our movement.

01:14:10.946 --> 01:14:13.740
It wasn't about killing people.

01:14:13.740 --> 01:14:15.534
That was what the police did.

01:14:15.534 --> 01:14:18.620
It wasn't about tearing things up.

01:14:18.620 --> 01:14:21.290
It was about building a better world.

01:14:21.290 --> 01:14:23.542
So when Steve was acquitted,

01:14:23.542 --> 01:14:27.671
it was an affirmation of our world, not their world.

01:14:27.671 --> 01:14:29.089
(joyful music plays)

01:14:29.089 --> 01:14:31.133
Just to be open and you know,

01:14:31.133 --> 01:14:32.801
go on with a normal life,

01:14:32.801 --> 01:14:35.846
not to have this big, big worry in our life,

01:14:35.846 --> 01:14:37.764
it's going to make such a difference.

01:14:41.310 --> 01:14:44.021
I certainly feel that 13 years underground

01:14:44.021 --> 01:14:49.026
and a two-year trial has defined me to other people

01:14:52.446 --> 01:14:53.947
but it's not who I am.

01:14:55.949 --> 01:14:59.369
(joyful music continues)

01:15:08.629 --> 01:15:10.422
You know, everything changed after the verdict

01:15:10.422 --> 01:15:12.758
because first of all, Steve,

01:15:12.758 --> 01:15:15.469
he was himself again and we were able to

01:15:15.469 --> 01:15:16.637
start a family.

01:15:16.637 --> 01:15:19.681
I mean, we didn't really expect to have a baby so soon

01:15:19.681 --> 01:15:22.643
but we turned out, we had a baby nine months exactly

01:15:22.643 --> 01:15:24.978
after the, when the verdict came out.

01:15:27.022 --> 01:15:31.610
We named our child Sylvia because of his mother.

01:15:31.610 --> 01:15:36.615
So Sylvia was the acquittal baby, born on Earth Day 1987.

01:15:37.032 --> 01:15:40.410
(joyful music continues)

01:15:51.338 --> 01:15:54.007
I had a firm which specialized in pension law

01:15:54.007 --> 01:15:55.133
and I offered him a job.

01:15:55.133 --> 01:15:57.594
So he started working with us

01:15:57.594 --> 01:15:58.637
and he worked very well.

01:15:58.637 --> 01:15:59.596
He was a good lawyer.

01:15:59.596 --> 01:16:03.392
I really appreciate that they did that

01:16:03.392 --> 01:16:07.521
'cause that's what allowed me to become a lawyer again.

01:16:07.521 --> 01:16:10.357
But my life has been working with low-income people

01:16:10.357 --> 01:16:12.526
who really get screwed by the system.

01:16:12.526 --> 01:16:16.238
So in 1990, I went to work for Bay Area Legal Aid.

01:16:17.322 --> 01:16:20.951
The Social Security which has representative payees

01:16:20.951 --> 01:16:23.537
that help people and it's required under law

01:16:23.537 --> 01:16:26.081
when they have a drug addiction problem,

01:16:26.081 --> 01:16:27.833
those people receive their money

01:16:27.833 --> 01:16:30.460
and they help the client manage their funds.

01:16:30.460 --> 01:16:32.838
We could talk about --

01:16:32.838 --> 01:16:34.006
No we're not.
Yes we are.

01:16:34.006 --> 01:16:35.424
We're talking about giving all of the rent money

01:16:35.424 --> 01:16:36.592
to a landlord.

01:16:36.592 --> 01:16:38.760
We are not talking about a program

01:16:38.760 --> 01:16:41.430
that would permit with dignity

01:16:41.430 --> 01:16:44.516
someone to work out with a representative payee

01:16:44.516 --> 01:16:46.935
what's the best way to spend the money?

01:16:46.935 --> 01:16:50.689
We were doing this work in very hostile environments.

01:16:50.689 --> 01:16:55.402
We were dealing with the backlash of the 1960s and '70s.

01:16:55.402 --> 01:16:59.114
We were dealing with the rise of Ronald Reagan

01:16:59.114 --> 01:17:03.994
and his coalition that was fundamentally pushing back

01:17:03.994 --> 01:17:06.705
against the advances that people had made.

01:17:06.705 --> 01:17:09.625
We had to develop credibility both in the community

01:17:09.625 --> 01:17:12.377
and with the institutions here in San Francisco.

01:17:12.377 --> 01:17:15.255
And Steve was very instrumental in all of that

01:17:15.255 --> 01:17:19.801
and inspired me to believe in possibilities

01:17:19.801 --> 01:17:23.055
and to, you know, start with the seed of an idea

01:17:23.930 --> 01:17:27.225
and dedicate yourself to seeing that idea

01:17:27.225 --> 01:17:29.603
you know, bear fruit, you know,

01:17:29.603 --> 01:17:31.438
deepen your roots in the community

01:17:31.438 --> 01:17:35.692
and always maintain a sense of fairness and rightness.

01:17:35.692 --> 01:17:37.069
Not necessarily righteousness,

01:17:37.069 --> 01:17:39.738
but rightness in the work that you were doing.

01:17:39.738 --> 01:17:41.365
And as long as Steve was in the room,

01:17:41.365 --> 01:17:44.242
we felt that the law was indeed on our side.

01:17:44.242 --> 01:17:46.453
One of the things we talked about,

01:17:46.453 --> 01:17:50.082
and it'd be really helpful to somehow systematically

01:17:50.082 --> 01:17:53.085
keep track of people's...

01:17:53.085 --> 01:17:56.338
He could have used his celebrity status

01:17:56.338 --> 01:17:59.800
and risen to some kind of position of prominence

01:17:59.800 --> 01:18:02.594
among folks who find that to be important.

01:18:02.594 --> 01:18:04.471
But he is not looking for that.

01:18:04.471 --> 01:18:07.557
He makes a contribution by being part of a movement,

01:18:07.557 --> 01:18:08.684
by being part of discussion

01:18:08.684 --> 01:18:11.895
and accepting collective responsibility,

01:18:11.895 --> 01:18:14.815
accepting the ability to work with other people.

01:18:14.815 --> 01:18:18.318
We also have to educate the community

01:18:18.318 --> 01:18:20.237
that if you get cited and released,

01:18:20.237 --> 01:18:22.280
you better show up in court.

01:18:22.280 --> 01:18:25.617
Which, if you're undocumented, is kind of scary

01:18:25.617 --> 01:18:27.619
'cause then if you don't show up,

01:18:27.619 --> 01:18:29.287
then a warrant for your arrest.

01:18:30.706 --> 01:18:35.502
Steve taught me what it means to be a movement lawyer,

01:18:35.502 --> 01:18:39.005
how to listen to the people on the ground

01:18:39.005 --> 01:18:43.009
and how a lawyer can fit into that kind of organizing.

01:18:43.009 --> 01:18:46.930
(upbeat classical music plays)

01:18:53.979 --> 01:18:56.064
Sylvia, show me your style.

01:18:59.693 --> 01:19:01.403
Don't go over there too much, sweetie.

01:19:01.403 --> 01:19:03.071
It makes me a little nervous.

01:19:07.576 --> 01:19:08.994
Ooh, that was nice

01:19:10.537 --> 01:19:13.707
Steve I think had projected all his dream

01:19:13.707 --> 01:19:14.791
you know, in Sylvia

01:19:16.126 --> 01:19:19.212
and she turned out to be a wonderful young woman.

01:19:21.631 --> 01:19:22.966
[Newsreader Off-Camera] It is called a ghost bike,

01:19:22.966 --> 01:19:25.635
an all-white bicycle often placed near the spot

01:19:25.635 --> 01:19:27.429
where a rider is killed.

01:19:27.429 --> 01:19:30.557
This bike on Prospect Avenue is for Sylvia Bingham,

01:19:30.557 --> 01:19:33.518
the 22-year-old California native struck and killed Tuesday

01:19:33.518 --> 01:19:35.520
while riding her bike to work.

01:19:35.520 --> 01:19:36.855
Sylvia Bingham started working

01:19:36.855 --> 01:19:40.817
at Hard Hatted Women in Cleveland just August 24th.

01:19:40.817 --> 01:19:44.446
She's the best of what we see in young people.

01:19:44.446 --> 01:19:45.280
For her parents,

01:19:45.280 --> 01:19:47.073
the loss of this child who wanted so much

01:19:47.073 --> 01:19:50.035
to give back to the world is beyond words.

01:19:50.035 --> 01:19:51.953
The world is not made for parents

01:19:53.163 --> 01:19:54.623
to die after their children.

01:19:54.623 --> 01:19:59.628
So there is nothing, just nothing to compare this to.

01:20:00.837 --> 01:20:04.090
(mournful music plays)

01:20:09.471 --> 01:20:12.849
Losing Sylvia was an amazing trauma for us.

01:20:14.684 --> 01:20:16.728
I think there's nothing worse in this world

01:20:16.728 --> 01:20:19.648
than having a child and losing her so young.

01:20:27.948 --> 01:20:31.493
I think that she survives in young people's spirit.

01:20:31.493 --> 01:20:33.495
You know, very political,

01:20:34.996 --> 01:20:37.666
very interested in changing the world.

01:20:39.709 --> 01:20:41.086
Because of this tragedy,

01:20:41.086 --> 01:20:42.712
we tend to pay more attention

01:20:42.712 --> 01:20:45.799
to what young people are doing around us.

01:20:47.634 --> 01:20:50.303
The fact that Sylvia passed away the way she did

01:20:50.303 --> 01:20:53.306
really changed Steve's perspective politically.

01:20:53.306 --> 01:20:56.351
He became interested in making a greener world,

01:20:56.351 --> 01:20:58.019
and in the cause of people choosing

01:20:58.019 --> 01:21:00.480
a mode of transportation that is greener.

01:21:01.565 --> 01:21:05.151
(mournful music continues)

01:21:13.994 --> 01:21:17.372
The skills that I had developed

01:21:17.372 --> 01:21:20.542
living underground in a peculiar kind of way

01:21:20.542 --> 01:21:23.545
helped me deal with losing Sylvia.

01:21:28.758 --> 01:21:29.634
Life

01:21:31.219 --> 01:21:35.056
throws incredible shit at you

01:21:35.056 --> 01:21:36.975
and you better learn to deal with it

01:21:36.975 --> 01:21:40.270
because otherwise, your life falls apart.

01:21:45.567 --> 01:21:47.193
His way of surviving is

01:21:47.193 --> 01:21:48.361
always to try to fight.

01:21:52.490 --> 01:21:54.159
We call him Father Time, right?

01:21:54.159 --> 01:21:56.494
Because he is, 'cause he is ageless.

01:21:56.494 --> 01:21:59.581
(indistinct chatter)

01:22:11.551 --> 01:22:14.512
(funky music plays)

Main content

A Double Life

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