We had only been in Oakland three weeks, and each day had seen one event or another. You never knew what the next day would bring. One day in particular would impact not only the entire organization but also the movement as a whole.
With Huey in prison and Eldridge in exile, Chairman Bobby had become the heart and soul of the party. He was the force behind the “Free Huey” movement. Tireless and relentless, he was a fiery, persuasive speaker, and the party's spokesman. Within days he would be silenced.
It was a breezy Saturday morning. Most of the party officials were attending the wedding of the minister of culture, Emory Douglas. It wasn't often that a comrade got married. We went to far more funerals than weddings. With few celebrations, this was a moment to be joyous and happy for Emory, the youngest member of the Central Committee, and his bride. But after the short celebration, it was time to get back to business.
As Chairman Bobby, John Seale, and June Hilliard began to pull out of the church parking lot, five FBI vehicles cornered the car, drew their guns, pulled Chairman Bobby out of the car, placed him under arrest, and took off with him in one of their cars. I was at the house in Berkeley during the wedding. June called and informed me of the chairman's arrest.
“Aaron. The pigs just arrested the chairman. They might be coming to the house. I want you to secure the house and don't let the pigs in. Understand?”
“Right on,” I answered.
I immediately grabbed Randy's CETME semiautomatic weapon, put a bandolier over my chest, and went to check the front and back windows of the house. Pig cars were circling the block, slowly driving by, casing the house. Suddenly, one stopped. I nervously ran downstairs and looked through the peephole. A sergeant had gotten out of his car and was walking up to the door. He knocked on the door and stood there for several minutes, looking around, knocking again. I remained silent, with my weapon ready. He eventually left.
Attorney Charles Garry, the party's legal counsel, learned that the pigs had executed a warrant for the chairman's arrest for a speech he had made at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where two hundred thousand people had gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The chairman was charged with conspiracy and intent to riot, along with seven others. They would be known as the Chicago Eightâlater the Chicago Seven, when Chairman Bobby was bound and gagged and separated from the others during the trial.
The FBI took him immediately by car all the way to Chicago, subjecting him to horrendous conditions. On this maddening cross-country journey, the chairman was denied food, sometimes water, and access to the restroom. He was treated worse than a dog on this harrowing trip. He did not even have an opportunity to speak with his attorney or contact his family. Within days, the party released a large poster of the chairman with the caption, in large capital letters, “KIDNAPPED.” It would be more than two years before the chairman would set foot back in Oakland.
With the chairman gone, David Hilliard assumed the main leadership role during a very difficult period for the party. Internal strife was on the rise. And David Hilliard's response would shape the future of the Black Panther Party.
Charles Bursey also went away to serve time for the April 6 shootout that had led to the death of Little Bobby Hutton. Besides David Hilliard, Bursey was the last of the seventeen brothers involved in that incident who remained in the party or on the streets, and even his days were numbered. Bursey was the epitome of a well-defined Panther: dedicated, intelligent, down-to-earth, tough. He had a rough-and-tumble look to him that was often softened with a gentle kind of smile. It had been a year and a half since the shootout, but I think Bursey suspected all along he would be going away to prison. He and a comrade sister named Shelly had just gotten married. Unfortunately, he never returned to the fold.
With the chairman gone, my function in Oakland was over. It was the chairman who had ordered me to Oakland, and it would have been his decision as to when I would return to Seattle. That decision now fell to David and June Hilliard. I was needed back in Seattle to begin the push to free the chairman and to prepare for what we knew would be a new wave of attacks.
20
The Resurrection of the Seattle Chapterâ September 1969
But that's what makes the world go 'round
The up and down, the carousel
Changing people, they'll go around
Go underground, young man
âThe Stylistics, “People Make the World Go 'Round,” 1972
When I returned
to the Seattle chapter in September 1969, only Elmer, Anthony Ware, Garry Owens, Nafasi Halley, Malcolm “Big Malcolm” Williams, and a few other comrades remained of the original members. Previously on the sidelines, Big Malcolm, whose wife, Jeri, worked with Tanya, was now a full-time member. Elmer had expelled those who had not shown much interest in doing the day-to-day, nitty-gritty work. Among that group were many who had become disillusioned and decided to move on. I can't say I blamed them. That first year and a half was wild at times, full of contradictions, and without real direction. I had not asserted my rank as captain as much as I should have. I was now determined to exert more control over the chapter. We put the past behind us, and, applying some of what I had learned during my weeks in Oakland, we began to rebuild the Seattle chapter.
Following the National Conference for a United Front Against Fascism, in the face of increasing repression, the party declared that storefront offices were too vulnerable to police attacks, as well as not effective for serious organizing of the people. Houses or duplex buildings in residential neighborhoods were safer and better suited for working with the community. At the same time, the party recognized that many people in communities of color were not prepared for the type of revolution we had envisioned. Many families were struggling just to make ends meet, as the Vietnam War had siphoned off funds for social programs. Thus, the party set its sights on winning over the people by providing them with services that their own government had failed to provide. We now devoted most of our attention to creating the innovative and groundbreaking Survival Programs. From Panther community centers, in the span of only a few years, the party launched twenty new Survival Programs nationwide.
The party also ordered all members to take off the leather jackets and berets in the interest of our dressing more like the people. By wearing a uniform, we had isolated ourselves from the very people we had pledged to uplift, and also made it easier for the police to identify, arrest, and kill us. We came to understand quite well that our very lives depended on our relationship with the people in the community.
In Seattle, we closed our storefront office in Madrona and moved into a two-story duplex on 20th and Spruce in the Central District, using the downstairs as our office and the upstairs as living quarters. The center was named the Welton Armstead Community Center, after the first Seattle Panther to be killed by the police. It was common practice in the party to name community centers and programs after fallen comrades. It was our way of keeping their memory alive.
Within a few months we had recruited twenty new members and opened up a branch in Tacoma. Elmer continued coordinating the Breakfast Program, expanding it to five locations, mostly in housing projects. Many mornings we would get up at 6 a.m. to head out to the Breakfast Program sites. Afterward, we would go down First Avenue to the Pike Street Cafe to eat our own breakfast of hash browns and sausage as we planned for the day. Eventually, we were able to get mothers in the community to take over the duties of cooking breakfast and feeding the kids, leaving us to make sure the food supplies were there.
Elmer handed distribution of
The Black Panther
over to a new recruit, Jake Fidler, who increased the circulation of the newspaper to more than three thousand copies a week in the Seattle-Tacoma area. On Friday nights, five to eight of us would go down to 14th and Yesler or up to 23rd and stand in the middle of the street, selling papers like hotcakes. The youngest Dixon brother, Michael, began working on the Busing to Prisons Program with new recruit Melvin Dickson. This program helped maintain the bond between the incarcerated and their families by providing free transportation to prisons. Someone had donated a thirty-passenger bus, helping us to expand our Busing Program to four prisons within the state. We also organized local bands to perform at the prisons. Eventually, we started a Panther chapter in Walla Walla Penitentiary, run by Clemen Blanchy, an inmate who had been down for a number of years.
One of our most important new recruits was a brother from New York named
Valentine Hobbs. Valentine loved to fight. As a matter of fact, we first encountered him at one of our political functions when he tried to start an argument with a guest speaker, Preacherman, from the Young Patriots, a white, working-class militant organization based in Chicago. At the time, Valentine did not have the political understanding as to why the Black Panther Party worked with white people, but in time he came around. Valentine, who'd always had aspirations of becoming a doctor, was assigned the task of working with Dr. John Green on the project of opening up a free medical clinic. By December 1969, we had opened the Sidney Miller People's Free Medical Clinic out of our community center, eventually moving it to a separate location. It was the first free medical clinic in the Pacific Northwest.
Asali Dickson, Melvin Dickson's wife, took on the party's administrative work and also facilitated art projects, such as assisting Deon Henderson, an art student at the UW and a volunteer from the community, with painting a mural on the concrete retaining wall in front of our office. Another new hometown recruit, Vanetta Molson, started preparing for our summer Liberation School, procuring food donations in advance and planning classes. A program for many of the kids who attended the Breakfast Program, the Liberation School was scheduled to open that summer at two housing projects. Anthony Ware led a more consistent political education class for the chapter, something that had fallen by the wayside the previous year. Anthony made sure we met at least an hour a week for PE, sticking to required reading by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, and others. We also required everyone to participate in weekly target practice and weapons classes. Using plastic caps, we were able to hold target practice in the basement of one of our three living quarters.
New recruit Tyrone Birdsong, originally from Pittsburgh, had found himself deposited in Seattle after being discharged from the military. He became the coordinator of our new Tacoma branch. Along with his Chicana wife, Rose, he recruited Larry Ulmer, a comrade named Marcus, and Teresa Britt. Another new Seattle recruit, Vietnam vet James Redman, brother of Joyce Redman, was a former Golden Gloves boxing champ and one of the baddest brothers in Seattle to join the ranks. We also had a cadre of Garfield High School student PanthersâCarolyn and Marilyn, who were twins, and young Tony. From Franklin High School we had Loretta Williams. Also recruited were Bob from Baltimore, Robert from the South, Bo Lang and Aaron Pierre from New Orleans, and Willy Ship from Arkansas. These rank-and-file comrades played a valuable role in reestablishing the Seattle chapter.
It wasn't long before the Seattle chapter was running smoothly. We launched seven Survival Programs in less than a year. With our guns put away, we became the champions and the voice of the people, working tirelessly day and night to respond to the most critical issues facing Black people, as well as the Asian, Latino, and Native American communities. The adage that a small, dedicated cadre was much more potent than a large army of undisciplined soldiers would prove the truest of words.
Sometime in October 1969, a man from the local justice department called and asked to speak with Elmer and me. Of course we refused. He called several more times, each time stating it was a matter of life and death. Finally, we decided to meet him on the corner of 5th and Madison, downtown, several blocks from the federal courthouse.
He was a distinguished-looking older Black gentleman. In fact, he reminded me of my maternal grandfather, Bop Bop, in the way he was so neatly dressed. He was very polite. He acted as if he knew us, and I'm sure he knew more about us than we realized at the time. What he told us was simply that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and the FBI had plans to raid our office, with the purpose of killing us. We thanked him and departed, never to see or speak with him again.
Elmer and I had already been through so much in a short time. For us, this was just something else to prepare for. One thing was certain: if they wanted to come get us, we were going to make it as difficult as possible. Over the next two months, we shifted into high gear in preparation for the attack.
The first task was the fortification of our office. Thanks to Michael's organizing efforts at the UW, we got BSU members to volunteer time on our sandbag crew. Out at Alki Beach, they teamed up with the comrades on disciplinary dutyâanyone who violated party rules was required to put in extra workâand filled sandbags all day for almost ten days. After a couple weeks, we had completely sandbagged our office upstairs and downstairs, with double the bags in the front part of the office. The inside of our office soon resembled a military bunker.
We put steel plates on the front and rear doors. We also sandwiched steel plates in between sheets of plywood, attached hinges to the plywood, and hung these over the upstairs windows. The hinges enabled us to raise and lower the protective steel over the windows. We also placed an intercom outside the front door. When it was left on, we could hear any sound outside within a twenty- to thirty-foot radius.