Mrs. MARTIN. Yes. I go there to meet Eugene Hairston and I go to see Jeff Fort. I went there to see Jeff at 2 and 3 o'clock at night.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you one of the so-called mothers of the Rangers they have?

Mr. MARTIN. Well, I am the one they had a lot of confidence in.
The CHAIRMAN. A lot of confidence?

Mrs. MARTIN. The biggest of them called me Mama. They really trust me.

The CHAIRMAN. Tell us some of the things that went on in the church, and how you happened to know it and see it.

Mrs. MARTIN. Well, I went there once-I went to get $50 from Eugene Hairston because I had about $90 worth of bullets.

Mr. CHAIRMAN. About what?

Mrs. MARTIN. $90 worth of bullets.
The CHAIRMAN. Ammunition?
Mrs. MARTIN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Why did you buy that?
Mrs. MARTIN. Eugene told me to buy it.

The CHAIRMAN. Did he send you to buy it?
Mrs. MARTIN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And you did go and buy it?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes. I bought them at 1370 East 63d Street, at Dorchester Loan.

The CHAIRMAN. How much did he give you to buy it?

Mrs. MARTIN. I didn't have but $40 at first, but I had to go back to get the $50, because I didn't have enough money. So I had to leave the bullets there until I go to the church.

The CHAIRMAN. What had he done, given you a list of the bullets he wanted to buy?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes, I had a list of them.

The CHAIRMAN. How many?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And when you got it arranged to buy them, it came to $90 instead of $40?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes. It was too many. After I got there and found out how many I could get, I told the guy-Wallace asked me, he said "Annabelle, what are you going to do with all these bullets?"

I said, "You know, my father came here from the South and he is going back and they don't sell bullets in Mississippi. He is going back and he got to sell them."

He said, "Don't sell bullets in Mississippi."

He said, "Where in Mississippi is he from?"

I said, "A little placed called S-i-d-e."

He said, "I never heard of that."

And I thought, "I didn't neither."

The CHAIRMAN. What did you do with them?

Mrs. MARTIN. I taken them over to the First Presbyterian Church. The CHAIRMAN. What size bullets were they?

Mrs. MARTIN. .45, .38 long, .38 short, .22, .25, and longs and shorts. But I couldn't get the .30-30. Eugene got awfully mad about that. They really didn't have .30-.30. I asked for them, but they didn't have them.

The CHAIRMAN. They didn't have the .30-30?

Mrs. MARTIN. Wallace said he looked for them. He said they didn't have them. They wouldn't give them to me. Eugene said he needed them, but he would settle for what I got, since I had them.

The CHAIRMAN. When you carried the bullets there, what happened? Mr. MARTIN. I taken the bullets into the church. I was on the first floor. I guess that is where they have gym or something, because up aside the walls on this side of the church was a table, and I put the bullets on the table because they was heavy.

We laid the bullets on the table. Jeff ran in and looked at the bullets and said, “Man, we got some bullets now. We can sure burn somebody now."

So I was waiting on my money.

The CHAIRMAN. What money?

Mrs. MARTIN. My money that he was going to pay me for buying the bullets, $20.

The CHAIRMAN. You had already gotten the $50?

Mrs. MARTIN. No; $50 was to put on the bullets. I had $90 worth of bullets and Eugene didn't give me but $40 at first. I had to come back and get $50.

The CHAIRMAN. You came back and got $50?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Why did you need $20 more?

Mrs. MARTIN. For him to pay me for buying the bullets. I wasn't going to do it for nothing.

The CHAIRMAN. They paid you $20 to buy the bullets?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And you were waiting to get your money?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes. And at that time, dear, loving Reverend Fry and Chuck LaPaglia, they came in at the same time the bullets was on the table. I don't see why.

He spoke to Eugene Hairston and them a few minutes and they left back out.

The CHAIRMAN. You say, you are looking him in the face now and telling him that he saw those bullets there, the $90 worth of bullets you had brought in there?

Mrs. MARTIN. Reverend Fry can sit on my lap and I will tell him the same thing.

The CHAIRMAN. Let us have order.

Do you mean you are telling him to his face that he saw it, he knew they were there, and he spoke to Eugene Hairston right in your presence?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes, sir; I will.

The CHAIRMAN. That was on that occasion?

Mrs. MARTIN. Of course. Do you want me to tell him in his face or can he hear me?

The CHAIRMAN. He can hear you.

Mrs. MARTIN. I hope so.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you been there at other times?

Mrs. MARTIN. I went there one night, one occasion one night before. I was trying to do a show. We had had a place they call the home of the Rangers up over the Chicken Coop.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chicken Coop is a restaurant?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes.

Some police officers own it. Howard and Ted own it.

I was trying to teach the girls, the Rangerettes, singing and dancing, and some place to go, because they was always saying if they be on the streets the police pick them up for something they don't did.

I said, "I will tell you what"-after we got this club, I figured if the club was inside and I turned them out about 10 o'clock, that when they get home it would be curfew and the police can't get them. They got no business back out on the street.

The CHAIRMAN. You were trying to keep them occupied?

Mrs. MARTIN. Keep them occupied. We had different bands. The name of it was the Annabelle Martin. We had Jeff's name up there with some wings on it, Jeff Fort and Annabelle Martin. It was fine. When they get wrong, all I had to do was show them Jeff Fort's picture and they would all be nicer.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, go ahead.

Mrs. MARTIN. So one night they didn't come to rehearsal, the Rangerettes. So I was looking for them, and I went by the First Presbyterian Church. I don't want to call these girls names because I don't want them to get handled when they get back to Chicago, so I wouldn't say anything about the names. I don't want to involve. The CHAIRMAN. You are prepared to give the names if you have to? Mrs. MARTIN. Yes, I can give the names.

The CHAIRMAN. We wouldn't ask you to give them right now.
Go right ahead.

Mrs. MARTIN. I don't think it would be wise.

Anyway, the girls told me, "Wait a minute, Miss Annabelle, we will go with you in a few minutes."

I said, "What are you going in there for?"

They said, "We are going in to see our old men."

The CHAIRMAN. See what?

Mrs. MARTIN. Their old men. The boy friends.

So they goes in and they stay in there. I sit out there in the car and they stay in there pretty near about an hour or hour and a half, maybe 2 hours.

They came back out. They was drunk. They was cussing. They was fighting, and the Rangers pushed them out and they had reefers square in their hand, reefers that they was smelling.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you mean by reefers?

Marihuana?

Mrs. MARTIN. Marihuana to you, but reefers to me. They was a cigarette. That is the only name I know for them.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mrs. MARTIN. I said, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself." They said, "Oh, Miss Annabelle, you ain't nothing but a square. Have a smoke."

I said, "No; I don't want anything."

The CHAIRMAN. They came out of the church with them in their hands, smoking?

Mrs. MARTIN. They came out of the church with them in their hands. I was standing right at the church door waiting on them. They was not like that when they went in.

85-779-68-pt. 10-11

The CHAIRMAN. How do you know they were reefers?

Mrs. MARTIN. She showed them to me. I know a reefer. I smoked one. I know what it was.

The CHAIRMAN. You know what it was?

Mrs. MARTIN. Sure, I do.

The CHAIRMAN. Had you ever seen marihuana there in the church before?

Mrs. MARTIN. I have seen a $5 bag and a $10 bag. I have saw them smoking reefers in the Presbyterian Church.

The CHAIRMAN. Which floor of the church?

Mrs. MARTIN. Anywhere they want to smoke them at.

The CHAIRMAN. What?

Mrs. MARTIN. No certain floor that you can smoke them on. You can smoke them anywhere in there you wants to smoke them. The CHAIRMAN. Anywhere in the church?

Mrs. MARTIN. Anywhere. You can smoke them in Reverend Fry's office.

The CHAIRMAN. Do what?

Mrs. MARTIN. You can smoke them in his office.
Anywhere.

The CHAIRMAN. In Fry's office?

Mrs. MARTIN. Of course his office. He knows they is there. They don't hide them from him.

The CHAIRMAN. They don't hide them from him?

Mrs. MARTIN. No.

The CHAIRMAN. How about weapons?

Mrs. MARTIN. Why should they hide weapons from him? He knows they are there. He knows they got them. Reverend Fry would be walking down the streets like one of these little punks hollering "Blackstone."

The first time I ever saw Reverend Fry in my life they was walking down 63d Street in front of 1359 East 63d Street. Reverend Fry was with some ladies and a few of the Rangers from the First Presbyterian Church. They was chasing a man, and I was with a friend of mine named Bobby Vaughn. She works for Senator Koshare in Chicago.

We was standing against the wall. Reverend Fry and them was walking down hollering "Blackstone, Blackstone." That was to get the congregation. That was the first time I ever saw Reverend Fry. The CHAIRMAN. Is that a call?

Mrs. MARTIN. If you gets out in the streets one of the Rangers who hollers, "Blackstone," they will come from anywhere. You would have a whole community of them in a few minutes.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the signal for them to come?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes, for them to come together.

So I asked her, I said, "Who is that little bitty man."

She said, "That is Reverend Fry."

I said, "Reverend Fry?"

I said, "What is he, a jitterbug or something?"

She said, "No, honey, that is Reverend Fry over there at the First Presbyterian Church."

I said, "You could have fooled me. That little, big eared man ought to be ashamed of himself."

The CHAIRMAN. Let us go back to the church.

Were there any occasions when you have seen guns in the church? Mrs. MARTIN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Where?

Mrs. MARTIN. On the first floor. Anywhere in the church, Senator, that you want to go you can find some guns.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you ever see the Rangers there with their guns?

Mrs. MARTIN. Sure I seen them there with them. There with them, there putting them up, and they're on them, too.

The CHAIRMAN. Did Reverend Fry see what you saw?

Mrs. MARTIN. Reverend Fry knew the Rangers had guns there. He knowed guns was in his own safe there.

The CHAIRMAN. He admits there was guns in his safe for a while? Mrs. MARTIN. Pardon me?

The CHAIRMAN. He says there was guns in his safe for a while? Mrs. MARTIN. Not for a while. They was there any while. For a while he knew they was there. And they wasn't put there by the police, because them boys would open up that safe and put in guns and take out guns whenever they got ready.

So the police couldn't have put those guns in there.

The CHAIRMAN. These were guns that were kept there?

Mrs. MARTIN. Guns were kept there, upstairs, anywhere. They didn't care. These boys would walk around like Western cowboys with guns in the church, because the police don't break in there too much.

The police would have to go through some chains to get into that church.

The CHAIRMAN. The Reverend has testified that there were no guns there that he knew of, that there weren't any reefers there or any marihuana in the church at any time that he knew of, and that there wasn't any drinking there or anything that he knew of.

What else can you tell us about it that is within your knowledge? Mrs. MARTIN. Listen, Senator, don't think I am not afraids because I am talking.

The CHAIRMAN. What?

Mrs. MARTIN. Don't think I am talking, because I really am not afraid.

The CHAIRMAN. You are afraid?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes. Because they done changed us. The State's attorney and gang intelligence done moved me four times with 10 children. They done run me clean out of Chicago.

The CHAIRMAN. Trying to protect you?

Mrs. MARTIN. I mean the Rangers run me out and then we gets the gang intelligence and they will come. I can tell just as goods when they are really after me. You can see some of the gang intelligence and the State's attorney. They will put a police watch. I have looked at so many badges since February-I mean since September-until I can hardly see.

When you gets ready to go to the washroom, there is a police there to ask you where you are going, because they stays at my house. The CHAIRMAN. They are trying to protect you?

Mrs. MARTIN. They do protect me.