“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” Governor Nelson Rocke fel ler announced,“this is an unusual press conference.” On January 23, 1973, five Harlem civic leaders joined New York’s governor in the state capital’s ornate Red Room to voice their support for Rockefel ler’s proposal for new, punitive antidrug mea sures. During his annual message to the legislature a few weeks earlier, the governor had proposed mandatory life sentences for individuals convicted of selling any amount of “hard” drugs, including heroin, cocaine, and hashish. He had also advocated life sentences for individuals convicted of violent crimes while under the influence of such drugs. Now five leaders from the nation’s most prominent black neighborhood—Rev. Oberia D. Dempsey, pastor of the Upper Park Ave nue Baptist Church; Glester Hinds, founder of the People’s Civic Welfare Association; Dr. George W. McMurray, pastor of the Mo ther African Zion Church; Rev. Earl B. Moore, pastor of St. Paul Baptist Church; and Dr. Robert W. Baird, a white physician and the founder of the Haven Clinic for drug addicts—were standing alongside the Republican governor and endorsing his plan. 1