Lawrence (Pun) Plamondon

From Wikinfo

Lawrence (Pun) Plamondon was a 60s revolutionary activist who was one of the founders of the White Panther Party. He was the first revolutionary to be listed on the FBI's Most Wanted List. His radicalism made him a household name throughout America.

His father was a half-Ottawa Indian. His mother was part-Ojibwa Indian. When both were institutionalized, (the father for being an alcholic and his mother being treated for syphilis) he was conceived out of wedlock and given up for adoption. A Traverse City couple adopted him and gave him his name, Lawrence Robert Plamondon. Pun lead a troubled youth and soon left home as a teenager.

At the age of 21, Pun Plamondon wound up in Detroit in 1967 during its turbulent year of war protests and riots. He lived on the streets and made friends with the era's most famous radicals including Allen Ginsberg. Making sandals during the day and smoking pot in the evening, he was soon meeting with people like journalist Peter Werbe, hippie guru John Sinclair and artist Gary Grimshaw who were running the two underground newspapers, the Detroit Sun and the Fifth Estate. He involved himself in the revolutionary activism and became an active volunteer becoming more political and militant.

In 1968, Plamondon with a few of his friends moved to Ann Arbor where they established a commune in two big houses on Hill Street. With John Sinclair, they founded the White Panther Party to help the Black Panther Party in its goals. While there, he learned of his indictmenton charges of being a conspirator in the bombing of the CIA office in Ann Arbor in October of 1969. Changing his appearance, he went underground and fled to San Francisco, to Seattle, to New York then to Germany, Italy and finally to Algeria.

In May 1969, at the age of 24, he was listed on the FBI's Most Wanted List. The first 60s revolutionary to do so.

On getting homesick in the foreign countries, he covertly returned to the United States. In July 1970, Pun Plamondon was discovered and arrested by an earlier traffic stop. While waiting trial and after being convicted his appeals, he spent 32 months in federal prison. During the trial, it was discovered that the government officials admitted to wiretapping without a warrant which finally lead to the dismissal of the charges against him.

A couple years later the White Panther Party fell apart and Pun Plamondon found work driving equipement trucks for rock bands including Kiss and Foreigner.

He hit low points in his life with his alcohol and drug abuse and in 1981 an American Indian, Lewis Dawaquat, introduced him to his Indian heritage and he cleaned himself up.

Pun Plamondon now lives in Barry County, Michigan with his wife Patricia Lynn. He is now a carpenter with his own business. In his spare time, he tells American Indian stories to young children at schools, libraries and museums. Situated on a 40 acre lot, his home is a gathering place for American Indian celebrations.

Writings of Plamondon

• Lost from the Ottawa: The Story of the Journey Back

Reference

• "'60s radical takes long trip back to his roots", Marsha Low, Free Press Staff writer, Detroit Free Press, Oct. 27. 2004, Sec. B.