Biography
Sergeant William Spencer, 23, of High Point, North Carolina, was one of the Camp Pendleton 14, Black Marines arrested after confronting what they believed was a Ku Klux Klan meeting on November 13, 1976. A contemporary defense flyer identifies him as H. Spencer; an Associated Press report supplies his full name and records that he was one of the last defendants released after three months in the brig while awaiting court-martial.
Photo: Pendleton 14 Defense Committee, reproduced by John Brown Anti-Klan Committee (1977), Freedom Archives, page 19. Original-image crop; identified by the source (William Spencer, seventh from left). Source: https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC37_scans/37.SmashKlanPressPkt1977.pdf.pdf . Non-free image used at low resolution under this site's educational/memorial fair-use rationale; not an open-license or permission claim.
The February 25 Associated Press report identifies Sergeant William Spencer, twenty-three, of High Point, North Carolina, as one of the last two Camp Pendleton defendants released from the brig. It explicitly says he was freed Thursday, February 24, after an appeal to military magistrate Major Walter F. Flato. The release was pending general court-martial, not an acquittal or completion of an imposed sentence. The report confirms the existing release day; its approximate three months is not converted to a new exact custody total.
Daily Pilot, February 25, 1977 (local editions), PDF page 5.
