Manhattanville class hears of threats to Constitution

Tuesday, April 11, 2006
By Len Maniace

PURCHASE — None of the students in the Manhattanville College class yesterday had heard of Frank Wilkinson, but Kit Gage said the civil liberties activist's story remains relevant in an age of warrantless wiretaps.

Over 38 years, the FBI compiled a 132,000-page file on Wilkinson, documenting his travels, speaking engagements and even a vague assassination plan against him in 1964.

Despite that effort, Gage said, the FBI assessed Wilkinson's threat this way: "It does not appear that Wilkinson has shown the willingness or ability of engaging in any act that would significantly interfere with, or be a threat to the survival and effective operation of our government."

Gage heads up three Washington civil liberties groups: The First Amendment Foundation, the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, and the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation, an organization formed by Wilkinson, who died in January. Gage, a 55-year-old Chicago suburbs native, is a critic of an array of federal laws and practices employed, since Sept. 11, 2001, to fight terrorism and says more people should question them.

"You hear this question all the time. 'Why should I care? I'm a law-abiding citizen.' Well, the government doesn't always get it right," said Gage, citing recent press reports that the FBI spied on the Thomas Merton Center, a Pittsburgh peace group named after a Roman Catholic monk.

"It goes after 'driving while black.' It goes after people they wrongly suspect," Gage said, adding it most often goes after dissenters, like Wilkinson, who is the subject of a recent book: "First Amendment Felon," by journalist Robert Sherrill.

The trouble began in 1952 when Wilkinson was a Los Angeles official leading efforts to build integrated public housing in the city's Chavez Ravine. That won him the animosity of developers who called him a socialist. When he later refused to answer questions under oath about his political affiliation, Wilkinson was fired. Dodger Stadium was built on the site.

Wilkinson refused to answer the same question when brought before the House of Representative's Un-American Activities Committee in 1955 and was jailed. Wilkinson went on to battle the committee, Gage said, gaining him further interest from the FBI.

Wilkinson told author Sherrill that, in fact, he had joined the Communist Party in 1942 and left in 1975.

Kyle DiSanto, a Manhattanville junior from Port Chester, said the issues raised by Gage are too often overlooked.

"It's not something that we think about," DiSanto said. "People my age are more involved with video games, hanging out, partying. You don't think about these things that really do affect you."