1975 SLA Fair Trial for Wendy Yoshimura ARRESTED WITH PATTY HEARST Cause Pin

Description

THIS LISTING BEGAN ON SEPTEMBER 6, 2021 AND
WILL END WITHIN  30 DAYS
,
ON OR BEFORE OCTOBER 6, 2021,
IF THE ITEM IS NOT SOLD
OFFERED FOR SALE IS THIS
1 3/4 INCH CELLULOID PINBACK BUTTON
IN WHAT I BELIEVE TO BE REALLY GREAT SHAPE.
HOWEVER, THAT IS JUST MY OPINION.  SEE PHOTO FOR CONDITION, AND YOU BE THE JUDGE.     NOTE: BACK OF THE PIN IS IN REAL NICE SHAPE TOO, WITH MINOR OXIDATION ON THE METAL BACK.
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT ME BEFORE BIDDING OR BUYING.
RETURNS ARE NOT ACCEPTED UNLESS THE ITEM IS NOT AS DESCRIBED OR SHOWN IN THE PHOTOS OR HAS SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE OR DEFECTS  NOT VISIBLE IN THE PHOTOS OR OTHERWISE DESCRIBED.
GUARANTEED AUTHENTIC AND ORIGINAL AS DESCRIBED
.
Check out my other Political and Social Protest and Cause items!
This Pin issued and sold
circa
1975 - 1976 by the
Wendy Yoshimura Fair Trial Committee
to raise funds and support for her legal defense, stemming from her
arrest
on
September 18, 1975
, along with
kidnapping victim-turned
fugitive Patty Hearst,
as members of the
Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA).
During her trial, which began on June 14, 1976, Japanese Americans who empathized with her family's experience during World War II gave
0,000 to aid her legal defense
conducted by the
Asian Law Caucus
, and led by
Garrick Lew
, through the
Wendy Yoshimura Fair Trial Committee
. Ultimately, Wendy Yoshimura was
convicted on explosives and weapons charges
and sent to state prison for six months; she was paroled in 1980
Prior to her involvement with the SLA, Wendy was a member of the
Revolutionary Army
in Berkeley, California.
Wendy Masako Yoshimura
(born January 17, 1943) is an American
still life watercolor painter
, better known for her
involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army
. She was
born in Manzanar,
a World War II-era internment camp, and raised both in Japan and California's Central Valley.
She encountered and became involved in radical politics during her last year of art college as a result of meeting
Willie Brandt
, founder of the
Revolutionary Army
in Berkeley, California.
Revolutionary Army
Yoshimura became associated with the Revolutionary Army, a group founded by her then boyfriend, Willie Brandt, who appended the title to public statements claiming responsibility for violent actions intended to express opposition to the Vietnam War.
In
1972
, police discovered a weapons and explosives cache in a Berkeley garage she had rented and described it as a "
massive bomb factory
." They also found letters taking credit for
planned future bombings
targeting the University of California, Berkeley campus including the Naval Architecture building, and notes describing a specific plan to kidnap or assassinate World Bank President and former defense secretary Robert McNamara at his winter residence in Aspen, Colorado.
Brandt and two others were arrested in Berkeley on March 31, 1972 and subsequently convicted, but
Yoshimura evaded a police dragnet and fled California
. She lived under an alias in New Jersey until 1974.
In 1977 she was convicted of unlawful possession of explosives, of a machine gun, and of substances and materials with the intent to make destructive devices and explosives and sentenced to a one-to-fifteen year prison sentence. She was released on parole in September 1980.[5]
Symbionese Liberation Army
In 1974
, the two surviving original members of the Berkeley terrorist group
Symbionese Liberation Army
(Bill Harris, Emily Harris), with
kidnapping victim-turned fugitive Patty Hearst
, relocated to rural Pennsylvania after six of their "comrades" died in a shootout with Los Angeles police.
Sports writer and political activist
Jack Scott
, who had
helped the high-profile fugitives make their way east
,
arranged for Wendy Yoshimura to join Bill and Emely Harris and Patty Hearst and handle shopping and other public transactions
.
After two months with the group,
Yoshimura left and returned alone to California
, taking up residence in
San Francisco
.
Hearst and the Harrises
found their own way back into the state and
regrouped in Sacramento
, California.
When
the FBI found Yoshimura's thumbprint in the SLA's rural hideout
, newspaper headlines tied her to the group and she fled San Francisco and
reunited with them in Sacramento
.
While in Sacramento
, with associates from the San Francisco Bay Area, some of the
fugitives planned and carried out a robbery of Crocker National Bank
in Carmichael, California in which bank customer Myrna Opsahl was shot and killed.
Hearst's account
in
Every Secret Thing
states
that she and Yoshimura opposed the action
and were therefore assigned to "switch cars" far from the scene. After the robbery the group abandoned Sacramento and fled separately to San Francisco.
ARREST AND CONVICTION
On September 18, 1975
, Wendy Yoshimura was arrested with Patty Hearst in a second-floor apartment at 625 Morse Street by FBI Special Agent Tom Padden and San Francisco Police Department Inspector Tim Casey.
Padden and Casey, failing to read Hearst and Yoshimura their Miranda rights, did not obtain a warrant until twenty-six hours later; thus weapons evidence including a handgun in Yoshimura's purse and a shotgun in the bedroom was suppressed.[3]
During her trial, Japanese Americans who empathized with her family's experience during World War II gave
0,000 to aid her legal defense
conducted by the Asian Law Caucus, and led by Garrick Lew, through the
Wendy Yoshimura Fair Trial Committee
. Ultimately, Yoshimura was convicted on explosives and weapons charges and sent to state prison for six months; she was paroled in 1980.
This underground pinback button pin or badge relates to the Hippie (or Hippy ) Counterculture Movement of the psychedelic Sixties (1960s and Seventies (1970s).  That movement included such themes and topics as peace, protest, civil rights, radical, socialist, communist, anarchist, union labor strikes, drugs, marijuana, pot, weed, lsd, acid, sds, iww, anti draft, anti war, anti rotc, welfare rights, poverty, equal rights, integration, gay, women's rights, black panthers, black power, left wing, liberal, etc.  progressive political movement and is guaranteed to be genuine as described.
THIS IS
MY HOBBY AND IS NOT A BUSINESS
.  THIS AND OTHER ITEMS I LIST ON EBAY ARE FROM MY PERSONAL COLLECTIONS AND WERE NOT INITIALLY ACQUIRED BY ME FOR RESALE.  PROCEEDS GO TO BUY OTHER STUFF I AM INTERESTED IN COLLECTING AT THIS MOMENT, AND THEREBY AMOUNTING TO A TRADE OF ITEMS.
I HAVE BEEN A LONG TIME MEMBER OF
A. P. I .C. (AMERICAN POLITICAL ITEMS COLLECTORS)
.  IF YOU ARE NOT A MEMBER, YOU SHOULD CONSIDER JOINING.
IT IS A GREAT ORGANIZATION!
SHIPPING:
ITEMS WILL BE SAFELY PACKED TO AVOID DAMAGE DURING SHIPPING.  ITEMS ARE SHIPPED BY FIRST CLASS MAIL.
SHIPPING TO DESTINATIONS
WITHIN THE UNITED STATES
IS
.50
OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES
, SHIPPING IS
.00
I WILL COMBINE SHIPPING CHARGES ON MULTIPLE ITEMS
.  However, to get a reduced shipping rate on multiple purchases,
you must wait to pay until I send an invoice with reduced shipping charges
.  You can also request one.
I cannot refund shipping costs in whole or in part once paid
. So
please wait to pay!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST