The charges stem from an incident just after midnight on Jan. 20, 2000 when 600 heavily armed police attacked about 150 members of the International Longshoreman’s Association locals 1422 and 1771 who were peacefully protesting the use of non-union workers to unload a Danish freighter in the Charleston, SC harbor. Officers beat several dockworkers, including Local 1422 president Ken Riley who was clubbed on the head, and used tear gas and other anti-riot equipment to break up the protest.

Eight dockworkers were arrested and charged with misdemeanors, mainly trespassing, by Charleston municipal police and prosecutors. But then Charlie Condon, an announced candidate for governor, intervened and raised the charges to rioting and conspiracy to riot, which are felonies, and took over the prosecution of the Charleston 5. Although a Charleston judge dismissed these charges for lack of evidence in preliminary hearing, Condon secured felony indictments against the men from a secret grand jury.

The men were then placed under house arrest for more than a year and a half. While they were under house arrest, the five union dockworkers were prohibited from leaving their homes between 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. unless they were working or at a union meeting. Travel restrictions prohibited them from leaving the state.

The day after the protest, Condon promised "jail, jail and more jail" for anyone who took part but even city and business leaders weren’t happy about the prosecution, saying that the charges were too severe and they feared that a trial would only lead to more ill will, reported the Charleston Post and Courier. Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. wrote Condon that the case "should be resolved far short of these defendants proceeding to trial on the current charges against them."

Condon, however, continued using a harsh tenor in his remarks regarding the Charleston 5. In a May 31, 2001 press release responding to charges against him by the South Carolina Progressive Network, Condon said "the attack launched today against me ... is ridiculous and absurd. This is nothing but a propaganda ploy by labor union sympathizers. ..."

"By using code words like ‘sympathizers’ and ‘comrades,’ Condon is engaging in the lowest form of race-mongering and union-bashing," said AFL-CIO President Sweeney and Julian Bond, Chairman of the NAACP, in a June 5 joint statement. "It’s called ‘redbaiting’ and it draws to mind the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twinheaded creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.’"

The groundwork for the pleas and freedom was laid when Condon, a candidate for governor, withdrew from the case after the union filed suit charging him with conflict of interest. (As this JOURNAL went to print, the Condon for Governor Campaign has not updated its website since May 18, 2001.) The AFL-CIO and affiliated unions, along with civil rights and community allies rallied, marched and supported the workers’ cause for almost two years. U.S. unions also joined with members of the International Transport Workers’ Federation to provide financial and legal support for the Charleston 5.