When eight members of the Camden 28 broke into the Camden Federal Building, they emptied filing cabinets of draft files. They loaded mail bags with the files of those men most likely to be drafted. Photo courtesy of Anthony Giacchino.
Click on the movie poster to watch The Camden 28, a PBS Point of View documentary. Directed by Anthony Giacchino and released in 2007, the film explores the story and significance of the 1971 Camden draft board raid.
Click on the movie poster to watch 1971, a documentary about the raid that occurred at an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. Within the raided documents, they discovered that the FBI had been unlawfully targeting political activists.
Click on the movie poster to watch Hit and Stay, a 2013 documentary film that explores various Vietnam War-era actions of the Catholic Left, including those committed by the Catonsville Nine, The Baltimore Four, and the Camden 28.
Click on the image above to hear an audio recording of a 1972 Ash Wednesday service in which Father Michael Doyle, a participant in the 1971 Camden draft board raid, made ashes from burned copies of the Pentagon Papers. To mourn the destruction and loss of life caused by warfare, Fr. Doyle burned the papers in a soldier’s helmet. In the image above, he applies ashes to the forehead of a service participant. Photo courtesy of Anthony Giacchino.
Fr. Doyle was an immigrant from County Longford, Ireland. He was a champion against the poverty and racism that plagued Camden, New Jersey, and he helped to bring a religious worldview to the local anti-war movement.
In this video, Fr. Doyle reads his closing statement from the 1973 trial of the Camden 28.
Click on the image above to listen to a performance reenactment of the testimony of Elizabeth “Betty” Good, mother of Camden 28 defendant Robert Good. She delivered a powerful testimony during the 1973 Camden trial which brought the courtroom to tears. Photo courtesy of Robert Good.
See below for a transcription of Betty Good’s testimony.
The FBI closely surveilled the Camden 28 in the weeks leading up to the raid. The document below shows some of the agency’s internal surveillance communications. Document courtesy of the Kennedy Assassination Collection, National Archives and Records Administration.
Kathleen (“Cookie”) Ridolfi and Rosemary (“Ro Ro”) Reilly were among the eight burglars who raided the Camden Federal Building. In this image, an FBI surveillance photo, the women carry mail bags filled with draft files. Photo courtesy of Anthony Giacchino.
Jayma Abdoo was one of several volunteers who aided the defense team of the Camden 28 by assessing potential jurors. Pictured above are her handwritten jury research notes. Image reproduced from the Jayma Abdoo Papers, courtesy of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.
Michelle Nickerson 