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Fade to Black Lion
‘The People’s Advocate: the Life
and Times of Charles R. Garry’ Remembers the 60s Revolution
By Andy Turpin
WATERTOWN, Mass. (A.W.)—The life of Charles R. Garry, the
Armenian Clarence Darrow for the Age of Aquarius in 1960s
America, is not so much a Cinderella story as it is a
legalese retelling of Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte D’Arthur.
Documentarian Hrag Yedalian superbly chronicles through edgy
and engaging interviews the rise and eventual stagnation of
legendary social justice criminal attorney Charles R. Garry.
Using a veritable Justice League of post-war leftist and
politically radical figures such as Howard Zinn, Bobby
Seale, Ericka Huggins, Kathleen Cleaver and others, Garry’s
life story—from a poor Armenian kid in Fresno to lead
criminal defense lawyer in San Francisco—is expertly told by
Yedalian, primarily through Garry’s prominent network news
coverage of the day.
Garry came into the public eye after serving as the lead
attorney in the 1967 Huey P. Newton murder trial, in which
the co-founder of the Black Panther civil rights party was
accused of killing a white police officer.
At the pinnacle of the American anti-establishment movement,
Garry fought to represent the oppressed and downtrodden,
telling news cameras, “We feel people in the field of
dissent cannot get a fair trial today.”
Stirring Freedom Rider protest songs provide ample
soundtrack and emotional context to the film when coupled
with moments of traditional Armenian musical pieces.
Garry’s value system went on trial in 1948 when he was
brought before the McCarthyist House Un-American Activities
Committee to defend his beliefs. He roared his testament of
Armenian Christian honor and American valor when he said, “I
am proud to tell you Mr. Chairman that I am a Christian. My
people have been Christians for thousands of years and I
resent any insinuation from you or anybody else like you!”
Asked whether it was true that Communists deny the existence
of God and the validity of the Bible, Garry responded with
just fury, “Mr. Chairman, what the Communists do for their
God is their own business. What I do for my God is my own,
and none of yours!”
Following his successful win in the “Oakland 7” trial in
1969, Garry defended the “Chicago 8,” later renamed the
“Chicago 7,” against anti-government conspiracy charges
brought against them during the Democratic National
Convention and Chicago Riots.
For all Garry’s ardor to defend and protect the weak and
misunderstood of American society, becoming the lawyer for
the People’s Temple-Jonestown group in 1978 was his undoing,
according to the film.
Despite helping to lead the preventative harm investigation
effort to travel to Guyana with Congressman Leo Ryan (D-Calif.),
who was later killed in the mass murder-suicide of the
commune, the public never forgave Garry for failing to see
the warning signs of doom. Nor did Garry forgive himself. In
such a way, like Arthur, Garry’s one-time blind eye cost him
dearly.
As his personal investigator recounted, Garry “thought the
People’s Temple was the answer to an integrative society.
Like socialized medicine … socialized society.”
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