July 4, 1963 - Police today arrested the Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake (pictured stepping into a police van), top official of the Presbyterian Church, and scores of other Freedom Riders and clergymen of all faiths who marched on a suburban Baltimore amusement park for an Independence Day protest against racial segregation. When the 4-hour demonstration at the private, whites-only Gwynne Oak amusement park ended, police counted 283 demonstrators taken to jails, mostly on charges of trespassing. Nearly all of them, including Dr. Blake, were released on bond with trials scheduled for tomorrow and Monday. A New Yorker, Dr. Blake is former president of the National Council of Churches. Others arrested and later released included Bishop Daniel Corrigan of New York and the Yale University chaplain, Rev. William Sloane Coffin, and his wife. Two Catholic priests and a rabbi were also arrested. The singing and chanting of the demonstrators, most of whom were white, was met by the jeers and taunts of onlookers who jammed the gates of the park. Baltimore County police, reinforced by Baltimore City police and state troopers, led the demonstrators firmly but gently off to police vans and school buses after reading each group the state trespass law. About 80 who sat down and refused to move were carried into the vehicles.
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