My People Are Rising (31 page)

Securing the donations of food and funds for the Survival Programs was a full-time job. Elmer and I were able to solicit donations from a wide variety of sources. One of our favorite fundraising activities was attending the concerts of big-name entertainers like Archie Bell
and the Drell,
Hugh Masekela,
and James Brown, afterward meeting with the performers, who were often very generous and supportive. James Brown invited us out to his hotel suite on several occasions, each time writing us a $500 check. Our last encounter with him, however, was a lot different from the previous three visits. He had us meet him upstairs of the concert hall. He was flanked by several bodyguards as he spoke. This time, James Brown didn't give us a contribution and was anything but cordial. I later heard that he'd had some problems with Panthers in another city. Lou Rawls was one of the few entertainers who refused to meet with us, let alone make a contribution. As he was escorted to his waiting limo he told us, “Man, I know how it is. I've been there. I'm from the Southside of Chicago,” and disappeared out of sight.

One morning, Chief of Staff David Hilliard called and ordered me to raise $2,000 within two days. This was an unusual demand from National Headquarters. Funds were hard to come by in most chapters and we were no exception, pretty much living day to day. Nevertheless, we immediately sprang into action, calling our white supporters, meeting with wealthy people who lived by Lake Washington and in affluent Bellevue. We had heard of Mr. Smith, a wealthy, eccentric old Communist living in isolation on one of the islands up north. We had no way of contacting him because he had no phone. All we had was a detailed set of directions to his house. Elmer, Anthony, and I set out early in the morning and drove three hours, catching several ferries and then driving on remote dirt roads until finally coming across a run-down shack.

An old, bearded, white-haired gruff of a man came out to meet us. He invited us into the very sparsely furnished shack. For two hours we listened to Mr. Smith talk about the old days of his participation in the Communist Party and his disdain for his two sisters, who he swore would never get any of his money. During the conversation he asked one of us to go to the cabinet and get him a Lipton teabag. Other than the tea, there must have been twenty bottles of Tabasco sauce in the cabinet. At last, he was through talking and handed us a check for $500, the remainder of the money we needed to fulfill the chief of staff's request.

The next day, I was on a flight to National Headquarters with the $2,000—and in 1970, $2,000 was a lot of money, especially for those small chapters, like ours, that lived off of newspaper sales, donations, and outright hustling. At headquarters, there seemed to be a lot of tension. Granted, David Hilliard was practically the only leader of the party not in prison or in exile, and the constant pressure exerted by the government on all aspects of the party was immense. I sensed an atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust. In
The Black Panther
, members were being identified as agents provocateurs
and summarily expelled.

I sat in the hallway for hours, waiting to be summoned to meet with David. Finally, late that evening, David appeared with Geronimo Pratt. I gave David the $2,000.

He said, “Right on, Comrade.”

The three of us left in a car along with Brenda Presley, who was on the newspaper staff, and headed to Frisco to drop her off. As “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” a favorite of David's, played on the radio, I sat in the back, quietly unsure of what might happen on this sudden, short trip.

David was under a tremendous amount of stress, which had caused him to develop ulcers, as did a number of comrades. Only a few days earlier, Randy Williams and Melvin Holloway had been transporting weapons late at night in the party's van and ended up in a shootout with the pigs, which would send Randy and Melvin to prison for at least a decade. Losing Randy Williams was a serious blow in terms of the party's military capacities. In that tense atmosphere, I was relieved to be on a plane home the following morning. I never found out what the emergency $2,000 was for; it had been an order from the chief, so that was that.

In Seattle, we had taken up the practice of throwing our unwanted LP records at a wall in the upstairs barracks with as much force as we could summon. Shards of vinyl were embedded in the wall, which we called the Wall of Frustration. It was a way for us to release some of our pent-up anger and frustration, especially after a death or arrest or attempted raid. I had developed a nervous condition in my stomach area, prompting my physician to prescribe me Valium, which I took on only a few occasions. Enemies were constantly at our door; at times it seemed there were enemies inside the door. Mistrust ran high, and for those of us still standing and willing to fight, we had only two options: to leave or stay. At times I fell into pockets of deep depression, sometimes staying upstairs in the barracks after making sure everyone had his or her assignment for the day. Sometimes I just wanted to be left alone. Fortunately, these bouts did not last long. There was simply no time for such moments of despair.

There was a ray of light during these dark days. It was the birth of my daughter Nisaa, despite the circumstances of her conception. Her mother was a young community worker who had run away from home and was living at the center. Tanya was not happy about this new development. Soon after her birth, Nisaa's mother joined the Nation of Islam and moved to Chicago. I did not lay eyes on Nisaa again for many years.

23

Huey Is Set Free

Find the cost of freedom Buried in the ground Mother Earth will swallow you Lay your body down

—Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, “Find the Cost of Freedom,” 1970

Through all the turmoil
and chaos, it was difficult to focus on the quiet victories. However, in May 1970, we had great occasion to celebrate. Huey P. Newton's appeal was successful. The California Court of Appeals reversed the conviction, and the minister of defense was released from prison.

We had expanded the party throughout the country, organized hundreds of “Free Huey” rallies worldwide, and attempted to petition the United Nations. We had formed numerous coalitions with some unlikely allies. Our leaders had traveled the globe to raise support, and we had even threatened violence. All this so our leader would be set free.

Oddly, it was almost anticlimactic. So much time had passed. So much had occurred since his arrest in 1967. The party had gone from a small group of revolutionaries in Oakland and Los Angeles to an international organization. By 1971, the number of martyred comrades would total more than twenty-five. Black Panther offices throughout the country had been raided, bombed, destroyed. The paper had gone from a circulation of 500 to 350,000. Many of the party's leaders had been imprisoned, exiled, or killed. The Black Panther Party was a far different organization than it had been at its inception, and Huey's release gave us new hope that the party would become stronger and more focused for the next phase of our struggle. However, we could not pause to celebrate.

On August 7, 1970, seventeen-year-old Panther Jonathan Jackson, the younger brother of field marshal and prison organizer George Jackson, entered a Marin County courtroom with a satchel of weapons and disarmed the county sheriff. Jonathan then armed three Black San Quentin inmates—defendant James McClain and witnesses William Christmas and Ruchell Magee; he took the judge and prosecutor as hostages, and demanded the release of his big brother, George, along with
the
other two
Soledad Brothers
, and a plane to take them all to Cuba. The group made their way through the courthouse, disarming bewildered sheriffs along the way. In the parking lot, Jonathan let off a burst of gunfire to put the pigs on notice.

The San Quentin prison guards and California Highway Patrol, having learned about the plan from a source, were waiting. They flooded the area, aiming their weapons on the group, who were loading themselves into a van. As the van began to pull forward, a shot was fired by a Marin County sheriff, instantly killing young Jonathan Jackson. The pigs were determined that no Black revolutionaries were going to escape with any hostages. The enemy showed its true nature: without any regard for the innocent hostages, the pigs opened fire, killing the judge and two of the inmates. Only Ruchell Magee and the prosecutor remained alive; the latter was wounded and became paralyzed for life.

Watching this on the news was painful and heart-wrenching. It was a drastic, desperate move by a brave young man longing to see his brother free. It was the boldest revolutionary mission in the war between the government and the party. Young Jonathan marked his place in history and would not be forgotten. Implicated in providing one of the weapons to Jonathan Jackson was Angela Davis, the Communist Party organizer and Black Panther Party associate. A national manhunt was put out for her. She was eventually arrested in New York and put on trial in California, but she was acquitted of the charges. The Marin County incident was henceforth known as “Black August.”

In September 1970, the party, along with a coalition of leftist and radical organizations and the United Front Against Fascism, conceived of the People's Revolutionary Constitutional Convention, to be held in Washington, DC, in November. The first stage was a three-day plenary session at Temple University in Philadelphia, birthplace of the Constitution. The plenary session was slated to be a huge event, a profound statement to the American people concerning the need to reconceive and rewrite the US Constitution in a manner that would speak directly and truly to creating a more humane and just society. We expected people from all over the world to descend on Philadelphia, where Huey was to give the keynote address.

During the weeks leading up to the September plenary session, the Philadelphia chapter had several run-ins with the Philadelphia Police Department and its Chief Rizzo, the epitome of everything we detested about the pigs. He was a racist dog, fat and repugnant, bent on not only destroying and humiliating the Philadelphia chapter but also keeping the plenary session from happening. His threats culminated in a raid on several of the party's community centers, eventually forcing the comrades to surrender, stripped to their underwear. All this went down just days before the plenary session.

Big Malcolm, Valentine, James Redman, and I arrived in Philly the first night of the plenary session. A huge demonstration was in progress, with thousands of people protesting the repressive police tactics. When we arrived at Temple University, the scene looked explosive. On one side of the street was a battalion of Philadelphia pigs with riot gear and large batons, waiting to unleash their fury and hatred. On the other side was a mass of radical demonstrators of all colors, yelling, chanting, fists pumping, egging on the pigs. The four of us were thrust into the middle, along with a squad of other Panthers, forming a long line between the amped-up demonstrators and the robotic riot squads of police. It seemed the lid was going to blow any minute. We tried to push back the demonstrators, all the while keeping our eyes on the crazed-looking cops. One demonstrator threw a Coke bottle at the cops, only to have it plucked out of the air by Comrade Valentine.

The line of Panthers was able to keep the two sides apart, bringing calm to the streets so the conference could begin. As the event got under way, the four of us were pulled away by June Hilliard, and we next found ourselves with several other Panthers forming a semicircle at the front of the stage as Huey began to speak. I kept wanting to turn around to marvel at our leader, who had spent two and a half years in solitary confinement, who had issued important declarations and strategic positions from his cell, enabling the party to withstand the most violent attacks by the US government. But I kept my eyes straight ahead, looking out into the sea of people, only occasionally glancing at Big Malcolm to my right and Valentine to my left.

Several hours later, we were given our housing assignment. We eventually found the place, a small, reddish church on Susquehanna Road in a run-down neighborhood. Inside, we discovered there was no running water and no blankets or other bedding. Some of us ended up knocking on neighbors' doors. They provided a few blankets and let us use their bathrooms to wash up in the morning. Big Malcolm, always the one with creative initiative, met a young sister from the North Carolina chapter to sleep with for the night. They ended up in one of the church pews, wrapped in an American flag that Malcolm had borrowed from the front of the church.

The next day, dozens of planning workshops began, and we were all put on several work details. The remainder of our time was spent working, unable to witness or participate in any of the sessions or workshops. For one assignment I taught a Red Book class to more than a hundred East Coast rank-and-file comrades, all dressed in the Panther black uniform, which was reserved for special events. These were the young warriors we hoped would be the impetus for the revolution. I wondered how long these young brothers would last in the party, and how many would withstand the various assaults against us. How many would become disillusioned and drop by the wayside?

On our way back to Seattle, the flight stopped in Chicago. Four FBI agents boarded the plane and detained James Redman. James had worked in intelligence during his tour in Vietnam. They let him go after a few hours of questioning.

The plenary session proved a major success, laying the foundation for the larger event. The People's Revolutionary Constitutional Convention was held November 27–29, 1970, in Washington, DC. The Seattle chapter put in a lot of time organizing and fundraising to send twelve party members and a handful of community members to the convention. Those of us who had attended the plenary session in September stayed behind. The People's Revolutionary Constitutional Convention had been conceived by Eldridge, initially. It wasn't something Huey fully embraced; as a result, nothing specific or substantive came of it.