Thousands in U.S. Chip In to Keep Chinese Protest Movement Alive

By ASHLEY DUNN

June 27, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Charlotte Lowery, an 80-year-old resident of Los Angeles, sat down one day after watching the news and scraped together $50 from her retiree’s income to send to Chinese students at UCLA.

In Boston, a group of Chinese students asked Executone Telephone Systems for help in setting up a telephone and computer system. The company responded by donating $30,000 in labor and equipment.

Just last week, Meg Gresh, a mother and homemaker in Hotchkiss, Colo., population 800, started a network of donation sites throughout surrounding farming towns to help the students in China.

“This isn’t a rich area, but I just felt we had to do something,” Gresh said. “It’s just something that hit me strongly.”

‘Captured Imagination’

Although more than three weeks have passed since the violent crackdown on the student movement in China began, the memory of the brutalities, sharpened by the executions of the last few days, has remained at the forefront of the American public’s mind. Thousands of people from the United States and around the world have continued to respond with an outpouring of money, equipment and encouraging words to keep the Chinese pro-democracy movement alive outside China.

“This has captured (the) imagination of people on many levels,” said Gordon Schultz, director of a Boston-area center that Chinese students have used as headquarters for the last few weeks. “People are deeply moved, and they’ve been just waiting for the opportunity to help.”

Crumpled dollars bills, coins and checks for modest amounts as well as hundreds and even thousands of dollars have continued to flow to student groups in cities from Los Angeles to Hong Kong.

About two dozen of these groups in the United States, most of them on college campuses, have emerged as major centers of activity and fund-raising, although no formal national organization has been formed.

In Southern California, students at UCLA, USC and Caltech have a total of about $52,000 in bank accounts. Groups at each school maintain their own funds, fed by donations collected at rallies and mailed in unsolicited by donors.

Students at Stanford University have taken a more sophisticated approach and have raised more than $80,000 with the help of advertisements in Chinese-language newspapers and three benefit concerts featuring traditional Chinese music, dance and instrumental performances. At one concert alone, the audience donated $22,000.

In New York, students standing on street corners have raised about $6,000 from people on the street, including many non-Chinese moved by the turmoil on the other side of the world.

Large companies, particularly computer firms, have donated a variety of services, something that would have been unheard of in the heady days of American student demonstrations of the 1960s.

CompuServe Inc., a computer networking company based in Columbus, Ohio, donated free computer access to students in Boston so that they could set up a news service for exchanging information about the democracy movement.

Ashton-Tate Corp., the Torrance-based computer software company, donated two copies of its $795 database program, dBase IV, to students in Boston and also contacted a computer consultant, who donated his services to customize the program for the students.

Chinese student groups in New York have been peppered with offers of free help from law firms, said Xie Wen, a student leader at Columbia University. The group received about a dozen offers before settling on the Wall Street firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, one of the largest firms in the country, to help with the relatively simple task of incorporating the student group.

“Right now, we don’t need more lawyers,” Xie said.

There is no accurate count of how much has been donated in the United States, but it certainly runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, an informal survey of the organizations showed.

Before the military crackdown, several student groups managed to send cash, camping equipment and medical supplies to the students in Tian An Men Square.

Since then, it has been virtually impossible to get anything to China, or for that matter, to find anyone willing to accept a donation, although contributions have continued to flow.

After the violence erupted in China, Alhambra High School teacher Jill Ball’s English-as-a-second-language students each composed a poem and sent the poetry along with $215 they raised for a group at USC.

Meanwhile, as the aid continues, student groups have turned their attention to organizing in this country and preparing for the day when they can again help the students in China.

The money being raised now is intended to pay for establishing communication networks, documenting the history of the student movement and providing humanitarian aid in the future for people wounded in the Beijing massacre.

Most student groups have been careful in separating funds that donors specify they want used to help people in China and those that go to pay phone bills and general activities in the United States.

Fund-raising efforts, however, have been hampered by a lack of coordination among groups collecting money. John Shen, an engineer in San Diego, said he knows of at least five groups collecting donations in his area, and he is uncertain about which one should receive his donation.

“It’s very frustrating,” he said. “It must give the Communists a good laugh.”

Student groups have been scurrying to incorporate as nonprofit organizations to increase their credibility and allow tax-deductible donations. But the process takes time, and many groups still depend on the public’s good will and trust. For example, one group in Colorado has yet to incorporate, and checks are being made out to a graduate student in the physics department of the University of Colorado who is heading that effort.

Some of the most critical contributions have come from small groups, such as the Walker Center for Ecumenical Exchange in Newton, Mass.

In the early weeks of the demonstrations in China, the center offered the use of its phones to students trying to reach their homeland. It became a major communications center and its number was broadcast on the Voice of America in China for people there to call collect.

Schultz, the center’s director, said he thought earlier that the telephone bill would come to a few thousand dollars at most. He now figures it will total about $30,000. So far, the center has raised only $10,000.

“We’re not sure what we’re going to do,” Schultz said. “Well, we’ve been late with our phone bill before.”

The vast majority of donations have come from individuals, such as Rosemary Freitag of Pasadena, who were touched by what they saw on television or read in newspapers.

“It was the horror of the whole thing,” Freitag said. “I just felt so badly.”

Freitag wrote out a check for $10 clipped to a short note to students at Caltech: “I’m so happy to find your address and send a small contribution in your efforts to support the wonderful Chinese students in Beijing. I’m sorry I cannot send more.”

Laura Isenberg of Newton, Mass., was also moved by the plight of the Chinese pro-democracy activists and sent a letter to students in Boston.

“I would like to make this donation in recognition of Gail Sommer’s bat mitzvah,” it said. “Would you please send her a note that this donation has been made in her name.”

Enclosed was a check for $25.

CALIFORNIA GROUPS AIDING CHINESE MOVEMENT

About two dozen organizations in the United States provide humanitarian aid to victims of violence in China and supporting activities, such as maintaining communications with people in China, publishing newsletters and documenting the history of the student movement there. Some of the groups in California are listed below: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Caltech Democratic Reform Promoting Society Fund

P.O. Box 61252

Pasadena, Calif. 91116

Approximate balance: $18,000

Chinese Students and Scholars Assn. Democracy Fund (founded by UCLA students)

300 Kerckhoff Hall

308 Westwood Plaza

Los Angeles, Calif. 90024

Approximate balance: $16,000

USC Committee Supporting Chinese Democratic Movement (founded by USC faculty)

Prof. Ta-liang Teng

Dept. of Geological Sciences