Religious Group Wins Day in Court

This article, "Religious Group Wins Day in Court" was published in Detroit Free Press, January 28, 1970, in Detroit, Michigan.

BY SUSAN HOLMES 
Free Press Staff Writer 

Five young men, heads completely shaved except for a tuft at the back, stood passively in front of the Traffic Court bench Tuesday morning. 

Members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, they were in court to answer charges of beating a drum, playing a pair of hand cymbals and chanting the different names of God too close to the City-County Building. 

A Detroit policeman, Charles Whitfield, ticketed them Nov. 25 as they walked on Woodward between State and Grand River wearing long golden robes, playing their musical instruments and praying for the salvation of mankind. 

SPECIFICALLY, Whitfield cited them for holding a street concert without permission within a mile radius (of the City-County Building). 

The five maintained through their lawyer that they were exercising their religious freedom. 

Tuesday, the prosecutor and the Traffic Court Referee agreed with the five young men, and the charges were dismissed. 

"You can go now," said Referee Wynne C. Garvin. 

They marched out, quietly chanting "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Rama...," all the way down the dark corridors of the Old County Building. 

The society members, 18 of them, live in a commune at 74 W. Forest. They can be seen almost any day outside the J. L. Hudson Co., on the University of Detroit campus or up in Ann Arbor. 

They beat a little drum, play a little cymbal, sell a magazine entitled "Godhead" and utter the different names of God as their means of praying for all mankind. 

They smile a lot, too.