A Prisoner of Our Time

In the chaos of the Attica uprising last September, one of the most extraordinary characters to emerge as a convict leader was a scarred but eloquent West Indian named Herbert X. Blyden. Last week his lawyers appeared in a Manhattan federal court for a new round in Blyden's long battle to overturn his 1965 robbery conviction. TIME'S James Willwerth visited him in prison and reported Blyden's tale of his continuing war with the law:

"May I see your identification, please?"

He stands alone before the visitors' table, looking down with defiant, dark eyes. He is a big man, with broad shoulders, hard features, shaved Muslim head hidden by a blue stocking cap. A dark scar runs from his left cheek to his ear, from a "cutting" two years ago. His rust-colored cardigan is open and reveals a ring on a brass chain. Satisfied with the press card, he says, "They look for excuses to play with me. I try not to give them any."

Herbert X. Blyden, 35, describes his life as "the story of a lion who is not really a rebel--study the history of the lion and you will get the message." He was born, he notes, under the sign of Leo. That was in St. Thomas in 1936. His family was "lower middle class," he says, and it came apart when he was three. An aunt raised him, along with 13 of his cousins, and he turned into a troublemaker. "I was sent to a house--you know, for incorrigible boys. Evidently they saw Attica in advance. But they didn't cure me."

Some Society. At 16, after forging postal money orders, he was sent to a series of mainland U.S. prisons, where he alternated between fighting and arguing. "I've always been militant. I was brought up on the teachings of Marcus Garvey." Shipped to a federal prison in Tallahassee, Fla. ("Wow, did I.run into some racism down there!"), he began to organize the inmates. The result was a "miniriot" and a transfer to Lewisburg, Pa. "I've got to praise the system there," he says. "I was able to get a lot of reading done." Blyden's discoveries included Schopenhauer, Santayana and Hermann Hesse.

Free once more in 1956, Blyden went to New York, where his father was a partner in a gas station. He and his brother Leroy helped out, but after an argument with their father they took $150 out of the cash register. "We worked there," Blyden argues now. "This was stupidity, but it wasn't robbery." He was 20 at the time, and he received five years as an adult offender.

Blyden got out again in 1962. He had been trained in prison as a bookkeeper, but his record was against him.

"I had to take a job as a shipping clerk," he remembers sarcastically. "Isn't that great? Some society . . ." He pauses, folding powerful arms in front of his chest. "Bookkeeping is my thing. I'd like to be a C.P.A. some day."

He got married and had a son (named after him, now seven years old). Then he took a mistress, Greta lude, a beautician. On Aug. 19, 1965, Blyden parked a rented car, a blue 1965 Mustang, in front of his girl friend's house in The Bronx. That same afternoon, a black man walked into Alexander's Rent-A-Car agency, six blocks away, and stole $600. He rode off in a 1965 blue Mustang, which had been waiting with a driver at the wheel.

The police soon found Blyden's car and a witness who said he had glanced for a few seconds at the man sitting in the parked Mustang. At the precinct house, they made Blyden try on a hat and sunglasses while their witness observed him through a one-way glass. The witness testified at Blyden's trial that he had "no doubt" Blyden was the man he had spotted. Greta Jude testified that Blyden had been with her since midmorning, but the jury apparently did not believe her. Blyden was sentenced to 15-20 years. The actual robber was never found. Blyden's lawyer, Richard M. Cherry, argues in his petition that Blyden was denied due process by the "unnecessarily suggestive" one-man "show-up." He also claims that Blyden's right to a fair trial was violated because he lacked effective counsel and the jury was all white.

Sent to Attica, Blyden began to study law furiously. He wrote his own petition for a rehearing, and after it was granted, he was transferred to New York's hideously overcrowded Tombs. When the Tombs erupted in the fall of 1970, Blyden performed a mediating role and spoke directly to Mayor John Lindsay on the telephone ("Promises, promises," he remembers scornfully). Blyden and six others were later indicted, however, on 72 counts of kidnaping, rioting and other charges.

Back to Attica, and then another rebellion. "We were at war. We were in a mental battle with these people, man!" Of the final attack by troopers, Blyden says: "Eerie was the word for it. You see the mist and gas. You say, 'Hey --what's that?' and then they are shooting all over the place. You put your hands on your head and go to the wall if you don't get shot. Guys are retching in front of you and going into convulsions. If they go into convulsions, they get shot for moving. I had guys shot out from either side of me. But they didn't shoot me, Some trooper said, 'Don't worry, Blyden. We're saving you for the electric chair.' "

Confession. In the post-mortems on Attica, one strange episode has been the appearance of Kenneth Moore, 28, a tall, bearded black recently sentenced to five to 15 years for killing a policeman. At Christmastime, Moore confessed that he drove the Mustang in the 1965 robbery. He says he stole the car and gave a ride to an acquaintance named Ronnie, who told him: "Man, you picked me up just in time. I just pulled off a sting!" Moore adds that he took Ronnie to New Jersey and never saw him again. He claims he is confessing because "Blyden is a beautiful brother and I want to help him. I have nothing to gain except more time." Blyden's lawyer is skeptical of Moore's reconstruction of the crime, however.

Blyden today remains essentially alone. He writes letters to Angela Davis, and to the Chinese delegation at the United Nations (asking to be traded for American prisoners in North Viet Nam). And he broods. He once told one of his lawyers not to bring him books. "Can't you understand?" he shouted. "I have nothing, and if you give me books I'll treasure them, and then they'll take them away from me, and I couldn't stand it!"

He is morose about his future, and feels that he has no place left to go in America. "Watts, Harlem, Newark, Washington, D.C.--they are all Atti-cas," he says, shrugging his shoulders, "except it's minimum security there." He has little faith in American justice. "Justice?" he protests. "Look at it. Look at Hoffa. Look at Lieutenant Calley. And look at the Harlem Four --eight years without bail.

"I came out of Africa with two things: my manhood and my life," he says fiercely. "I don't even belong in prison--and they ask me why I riot.

"I am no longer here in a mental sense," he goes on, slowly, carefully.

"I've already left this place. I'm on another plateau. I am waiting for my death, yet I am not born yet." Then Bly-den holds up a clenched fist and walks to the door. A guard opens the steel gate and takes him back into prison.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.