Biography
The Reverend Charles Koen was national chairman of the Black United Front of Cairo, Illinois, a hub of the long Black freedom struggle in that southern-Illinois town. His imprisonment stemmed from a September 1968 incident in which he and Brother Leon Dent were stopped over a defective brake light, arrested, and beaten by eight officers at the police station (Koen suffered head lacerations and broken bones in his hands); Koen was then charged with assault on a police officer and convicted. After his appeal was denied in 1971 he was sent to the St. Louis Workhouse to serve a six-month sentence, where he conducted a water fast in protest that left his weight down from 170 to 110 pounds before Judge David McMullan granted him parole. Documented in The Black Panther (September 25, 1971).
The Cairo chronology reports that Fire Chief Arlie Seawright brought aggravated-battery charges against Rev. Charles Koen on June 22, 1970. It does not explicitly establish a new custodial admission on that day. Source: Right On!, April 3, 1971, PDF page 17. https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC513_scans/BPP_Intercommunal/513.Black%20Panther%20%28New%29%20Intercommunal%20News%20Service.The_Black_Panther_1971.pdf#page=17
Judge David McMullan imposed Koen’s six-month sentence. A September 17, 1971 Militant report confirmed that his transfer from the St. Louis workhouse to Homer G. Phillips Hospital preceded, and did not constitute, his September 3 parole release.
