[Twelve items from the Plainfield Joint Defense Committee]

Plainfield, NJ: Plainfield Joint Defense Committee, 1973. Pamphlet. Twelve items, mostly 8.5x11 inches, two larger. Includes a six-panel brochure, "Speak out! for the release of Plainfield's Black hostages," four variants of a petition to investigate Plainfield officials, one with a cover letter; five newsletters and press releases updating the case through 1973; a handbill listing ways to help, and a handbill reprinting coverage of the case from the Courier-News. Some fold creases and toning, most have year added by hand in the corner, a couple have "Negro" penciled in the corner by the original recipient. Materials related to the case of two Black residents of Plainfield, New Jersey, who had been convicted of participating in the 1967 beating death of a policeman who had just shot a young Black man. Their convictions were overturned by the NJ supreme court with an order for new trials, but a prosecutor kept them in prison for another nine months.