Lawrence Plamondon
Lawrence "Pun" Plamondon is a former 1960s left-wing activist who was one of the founders of the White Panther Party. He was the first hippie to be listed on the FBI's Most Wanted List.
Plamondon's father was half-Ottawa Indian and his mother was part-Ojibwa Indian, but he was unaware of this early in life. These facts were revealed to him only by investigative papers turned over to his lawyers during his prosecution. He learned that while both his birth parents were institutionalized, he was conceived out of wedlock and given up for adoption. A Traverse City, MI couple adopted him and gave him his name, Lawrence Robert Plamondon. Plamondon, feeling he just didn't fit in, led a troubled youth and left home as a teenager.
At the age of 21, Plamondon wound up in Detroit in 1967 during its turbulent year of war protests and riots. He lived on the streets and made friends with radicals including Allen Ginsberg. Making sandals during the day and smoking pot in the evening, he was soon meeting with people like journalist Peter Werbe, John Sinclair and artist Gary Grimshaw who were running the two underground newspapers, the Warren-Forest Sun and the Fifth Estate.
In 1968, Plamondon with a few of his friends moved to Ann Arbor where they established a commune at 1510 Hill Street. With John Sinclair, they founded the White Panther Party, a group supporting the Black Panther Party in its goals. While there, he learned of his indictment on charges of being a conspirator in the bombing of the CIA office in Ann Arbor on September 29, 1968. Changing his appearance, he went underground and fled to San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Germany, Italy, and finally to Algeria. In May 1969, he was listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
After a few months he covertly returned to the United States. In July 1970, Plamondon was discovered and arrested after an earlier stop for littering. While waiting trial and after being convicted his appeals, he spent 32 months in federal prison. During the trial, it was discovered that the government officials admitted to wiretapping without a warrant which led to the dismissal of the charges. The case went to the United States Supreme Court and was decided in United States vs. United States District Court, which held that even the president of the United States' invocation of "national security" couldn't insulate illegal activity from Constitutional rights to privacy. 407 U.S. 297 (1972).
Later, Plamondon found work driving equipment trucks for rock bands including KISS and Foreigner.
His life was characterized by alcohol and drug abuse, but in 1981 an American Indian, Lewis Sawaquat, introduced him to his Indian heritage and he cleaned himself up.
Plamondon lives in Barry County, Michigan with his wife Patricia Lynn. He is a self-employed carpenter. He tells American Indian stories to young children at schools, libraries and museums. Situated on a 40-acre (16 ha) lot, his home is a gathering place for American Indian celebrations.
[edit] Writings
Plamondon's autobiography:
- Lost from the Ottawa: The Story of the Journey Back; catalogue #04-0093; ISBN 1-4120-2265-7;
[edit] References
- Marsha Low, "'60s radical takes long trip back to his roots," Detroit Free Press, Oct. 27, 2004, Sec. B.
- Adapted from the Wikinfo article, Lawrence (Pun) Plamondon http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.php?title=Lawrence_(Pun)_Plamondon, used under the
GNU Free Documentation License
