The imminence of a new crisis about to break over Ulster was clear in Bogside before the Apprentice Boys demonstration. On Monday and Tuesday morning Bogside was busily building its defences. Barricades were going up and the community organisation was swinging into action. A system of radio communications between different areas of the Bogside was in operation;
police radios were being monitored; first aid posts, manned by nurses and doctors were established; and ambulances stood by to take the seriously injured to hospital; stocks of petrol bombs were hastily being made -Bogside was preparing for a siege. On Tuesday afternoon the first volley of stone clattered onto Wellington Place where the Orange march route touched on the Bogside. The march, a provocative display of masonic regalia, with the deafening noise of bands playing "The Sash', was in full swing as the RUC reached for their shields and riot helmets.
By evening it had become clear that the people of Bogside were not simply digging-in to defend their home. That was of course their primary task, but the mood was one of attack; an offensive against the squalor and deprivation to which Unionist corruption had consigned them in this pit of Derry. It is not a question of organised conspiracies, as Chichester-Clark claims -though the conditions in Bogside would be more than enough to inspire several conspiracies to overthrow Clark and his government. The people live in a state of permanent siege from the forces of Unionist reaction. They are denied control of the public authority by the gerrymandering of wards, despite the numerical superiority of Catholics in Derry's population. Unemployment is high. Housing is appallingly bad, and new homes are built at a density several times higher than that for the country as a whole - a necessity for the Unionist to maintain their political control. The mass of the working . people are oppressed in every conceivable way by the Unionist rulers. Now the people have realised a new sense of dignity an understanding that tyranny is not only to be feared but also to be fought. Every man, woman and child contributed to the rising of Bogside, not only by their physical effort, but through the fearless spirit that pervaded their ranks. Their strength is expressed in their courage on the barricades against the bullets, batons, and tear-gas of the police, and the Paisleyite gangs, and in the discipline and fraternity within the working class community. The impact of the Civil Rights movement has helped raise the most oppressed section of the masses from their knees - that was the meaning of what happened in Derry on August 12th. The offensive against the police that followed at Newry, Strabane, Belfast one ethern 000000n1020t for war. A war between the Irish people and British Imperialism in Ulster. However much Wilson attempts to avoid it, Dublin struggle across the waters by militant solidarity action.
Major Bunting. loudspeaker in hand, hailed the fighting protestants of Belfast. Like William of Orange before him, at the Battle of the Boyne, he cried "Let us go into the church and pray". A stone hurtled through the air The Black Dwarf August 30th 1969 Page 9