The People's Advocate: The Life & Times of Charles R. Garry

During the late 1960s, when Charles R. Garry gained prominence as one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the United States, his clientele read like a who's who of the leadership of the Black liberation and anti-Vietnam war movements. His groundbreaking legal approach and unwavering commitment to justice made him the choice "movement attorney." Figures like Black Panther Party leaders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale relied on him is innovative use of the law to relieve them of charges that would have otherwise led them to the gas chamber. Garry used America's courtrooms as a platform through which issues like racism and economic inequity were constantly addressed. And, although he faced numerous challenges with his many high-profile cases, he always came up on top. "The People's Advocate" seeks to fill the gap that Bobby Seale wrote about nearly thirty years ago in his autobiography Seize the Time: "We don't know every detail of Charles' life, but we can see that he is a man who is dedicated to the survival and the existence of the right to self-determination of human beings. We need a lot more history on Charles R. Garry so we can understand what motivates a man to be such a defender of the people's human rights." This film traces Garry's life from his early days growing up as the son of Armenian immigrants in Fresno, California to his subsequent dealings with the most outspoken political radicals of the twentieth century. Rare archival footage is interwoven with rich interviews to tell the story of one the most influential legal figures of our times. Amongst the film's interviewees are Black Panther Party leaders Bobby Seale, Kathleen Cleaver, David Hilliard and Ericka Huggins; attorneys Leonard Weinglass, Malcolm Burnstein and Ann Fagan Ginger; and famed historian Howard Zinn. The film concludes with the most controversial chapter of Garry's life-his involvement with the notorious Reverend Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple. As the civil rights and anti-war movements started to wind down during the first half of the 1970s, many well meaning activists began to drift to newly developing groups, including Jones' Peoples Temple. When the group asked Garry to defend them against various allegations, he agreed. Several months later, Garry found himself in the middle of one of the most tragic events of the last century-the mass suicide and killings of over 900 people at Jonestown, Guyana. Garry was there when it occurred and was one of the handful who survived. Although he continued to practice law after Jonestown, he was never the same again. In 1991, Garry died of a stroke. Jim Jones's son, Stephan, helps describe the events surrounding this tragic chapter in Garry's life.