Biography
David Holden was a filmmaker associated with the Southern Conference Educational Fund and its Grass Roots Organizing Work project in Laurel, Mississippi. The contemporary report says he and Mark Berger were arrested June 24, 1969 while observing friend Don Ishee’s trial in a justice-of-the-peace court. They were accused of contributing to the delinquency of a minor by serving beer to a fifteen-year-old at their house; bail was set at $2,000 each. Holden said the arrests were politically inspired attempts to stop filming local elections, labor and Black-community organizing. The Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee agreed to defend them. Berger’s property bond was later transferred to Holden, but that financial action alone does not establish Holden’s physical release. The report’s June 10 dateline precedes its June 24 arrest date, an internal chronology limitation retained without inventing a correction. Source: The Black Panther, August 2, 1969, physical/printed page10, https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/PR/BP_1969_08_02.pdf#page=10
