Andor D. Skotnes, The Black Freedom Movement and the Worker's Movement in Baltimore, 1930-1939, Rutger's PhD, 1991,
Image No: 232
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Andor D. Skotnes, The Black Freedom Movement and the Worker's Movement in Baltimore, 1930-1939, Rutger's PhD, 1991,
Image No: 232
   Enlarge and print image (62K)            << PREVIOUS   NEXT >>
232 been misled into believing that any cause... could justify their action", stating that the police should have arrested them all for disorderly conduct, and asserting that they were guilty of "criminal conspiracy." In response, the movement reignited. To build public support and raise money for an appeal, a mass meetings was called and drew 5,000 people and an extensive fundraising and educational drive was carried out on the streets, in the churches, and through community organizations. The evolution of the boycott movement from its origins as a youth- based coalition of a couple of organizations to a broad, multi-generational movement of many organizations was complete. Moderate pastors spoke out like raging militants. The regenerating Urban League and the near-moribund NAACP joined the City-Wide Young People's Forum in making organizational donations, and the NAACP voted to become a co-litigant with the Citizens Committee. Nearly two thousand dollars, a very large sum for the depression-bound Black community, was raised in less than a month. ^ The campaign following the permanent injunction saw another significant change in the character of the movement. Prophet Costonie was distanced from the leadership, now concentrated in the Community Committee presided over by Ullie Jackson and in the Forum. Shortly after, he disappeared from Baltimore. Tensions between Costonie and the forces grouped around Lillie Jackson, as she became more and more central to the movement, had grown for some time. Earlier concerns about "fake faith-healing" had joined concerns about how Costonie supponed himself, and some in leadership wanted to keep him away from the fundraising, fearing he would use the money for his own purposes. Some got tired of what they considered the Prophet's political theatrics. Clarence Mitchell wrote in his Afro column on July 7,1934 that he long thought Costonie had something up his sleeve, and most of it was cheap melodrama which involved bodyguards and harrowing tales of threats the prophets had received from various merchants.... He could tell his audiences how squad cars were following him, and that people were plotting against his life. He