Glossary

appeal bond (civil case): The money required to be posted to allow the losing party to pursue the appeal.

appeal bond (criminal case): The money required to be posted to allow a convicted person to remain out of jail during his or her appeal.

“Black Nationalist Hate Groups”: The FBI’s all-inclusive term for U.S.-based black civil rights and human rights organizations (included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Black Muslims).

Black P. Stone Nation: A black Chicago street gang previously known as the Black Stone Rangers. Jeff Fort led the gang from 1968 to 1969.

Black Panther Party, Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP): A national black liberation organization formed in Oakland, California, in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.

COINTELPRO: The FBI acronym for a series of covert action programs directed against dissident groups. With regard to large sectors of the black movement COINTELPRO’s stated objectives were to “expose disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters.”

Conspiracy Seven Trial (originally the Conspiracy Eight Trial): The federal criminal trial of people the government claimed led the demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. The contentious trial lasted from September 1969 to February 20, 1970. Bobby Seale was severed as a defendant to be tried separately on November 5, 1969, after Judge Hoffman sentenced him to four years in prison for contempt.

FBI field offices: Local offices of the FBI in major U.S. cities.

Gang Intelligence Unit (GIU): A special unit of the Chicago Police Department charged with monitoring and arresting Chicago street gang members engaged in criminal activities.

mandamus: A legal procedure in which one party asks the higher court to order the lower court to take or refrain from some action.

Pentagon Papers: The Department of Defense’s secret history of the Vietnam War. The document was leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, a former defense department analyst, to the New York Times and the Washington Post and first published in the New York Times on June 13, 1971. The papers contradicted the optimistic picture of the war put forth by officials; their publication outraged President Nixon and national security advisor Henry Kissinger.

Racial Matters Squad (RMS): FBI squads mandated to target black organizations and achieve COINTELPRO objectives. Robert Piper was head of Chicago’s Racial Matters Squad in 1969.

recusal: The act of removing a judge from hearing a case.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC): The civil rights organization founded and headed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Special Agent in Charge (SAC): The designation for an FBI agent heading a local field office. Marlin Johnson was the SAC of Chicago in 1969.

Special Prosecutions Unit (SPU) of the Cook County State’s Attorneys Office: A police unit created by State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan to enforce his “War on Gangs.” The unit executed the December 4 raid.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): A civil rights organization founded in the South that confronted segregation and advocated black power. Stokely Carmichael was one of its leaders.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS): A leftist student organization founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the early 1960s.

Watergate: The White House scandal that began with the arrest of five men for breaking into and entering the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1972. FBI and Senate Watergate Committee investigations revealed that this burglary was one of many illegal activities authorized and carried out by Nixon’s staff. The discovery of Nixon’s attempts to destroy the White House tapes, which proved his early knowledge of the break-in, led to his resignation on August 8, 1974.

Weathermen: The radical faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Weathermen took control of SDS and its national office in Chicago in the summer of 1969 and called for violent confrontations with the police. In 1970 they became the Weather Underground Organization and took credit for several bombings of U.S. buildings in retaliation for the Vietnam War and police violence toward blacks.

Young Lords Organization (YLO): A former Puerto Rican Chicago street gang that opposed the expulsion of Puerto Ricans from and gentrification of Lincoln Park, a Chicago neighborhood. They formed an alliance with the Chicago Black Panthers and Young Patriots.

Young Patriots: A group of primarily Southern, white youth relocated to the North Side of Chicago that opposed urban renewal and set up a health clinic. The Young Patriots (now disbanded) formed an alliance with Chicago’s Black Panthers.