My People Are Rising (34 page)

The night of the fundraiser, several Panthers, including Valentine and me, went down to the Oakland Auditorium to provide security. I was stationed in the rear. Valentine was up front with Big Man, one of the few Panthers left of the original group from 1966. There was security at all the entrances. Just as expected, a group of Eldridge defectors showed up in an attempt to disrupt the event. Fights broke out at several entrance points but were quickly contained.

Shortly after the event, Jacobi's marching orders came in: Jacobi, James Young, Tim Thomson, “BillyO” Overton from New Haven, and a bunch of other comrades, including Chief of Staff David Hilliard, left for the East Coast for the Connecticut chapter, which had become the new East Coast headquarters. I never saw Jacobi again. I heard later that he died of appendicitis while in the underground. He was out on bail, waiting to go to trial with Charles Bronson for transporting weapons across state lines. Rather than go to trial, he went underground. In the party's underground, you could not go to a hospital. A trusted physician had to come to you. Being underground required a lot of resources.

A couple of days after the comrades left for Connecticut, Valentine was allowed to return to Seattle, but I was ordered to stay in the Bay Area. I had OD duties to perform at Central Headquarters, along with security detail. On many occasions I pulled security with the four brothers of the party's singing group, the Lumpen. On our watch, late into the night they would harmonize along with the Carpenters, singing “Close to You.” True revolutionary artists, they had traveled the country, performing revolutionary songs at fundraisers and concerts. The Lumpen even came out with an album. I enjoyed being with the four of them—James Mott, Michael Torrance
,
Clark Bailey (aka Santa Rita), and Bill Calhoun. They helped make things light rather than heavy.

In this tense atmosphere, the only comfort came at night, sometimes, if there were no duties to perform or security to pull. If you got lucky, you could go home with one of the comrade sisters and be comforted and held and make love, putting away the pain, the fears, and the sadness. One night I was asked by a beautiful sister, Gwen Fontaine, if I wanted to go home with her. We ended up in the Berkeley Hills in a quiet little white stucco apartment. She treated me like a king, soothing my fears and mental pains. When I finally got my orders to return to Seattle, Gwen Fontaine drove me to the airport. I said goodbye and kissed her for the last time.

The split had a major impact on the Black Panther Party and the movement as a whole. The party was the vanguard of the whole left revolutionary movement, and Eldridge was its most powerful and prolific voice. The movement now was at an impasse: it had become an ideological question of guerrilla warfare or organizing the people. A collision had been inevitable. Yet the split was more than ideological; it also had much to do with the way that valuable, longstanding members were being dismissed, pushed aside, and degraded. It was also a war of egos. For some comrades, the split meant death. For others, it was a fate perhaps even worse—exile from the party into oblivion.

One result of the split was the creation of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), made up of former Panthers, mostly on the East Coast. In its effort to push guerrilla warfare, the BLA, united with the Weather Underground, would suffer heavy casualties by the police. With the party split in two, we were like a dog with three legs and missing a few teeth. How we would survive, how we would adapt was very unclear.

It was ironic that all this unfolded just as we had begun to focus on philosophy, particularly the concept of change and how it is the only constant in the universe. A gradual change was taking place in the United States itself. In the late '60s, alongside Black Power, there was the “Black Is Beautiful” movement—the Afros, the dashikis, the clenched fist at every greeting between brothers and sisters, the undeniable feeling that we were in this together, the closeness, the unity, the strong identification with rebellion. I remember the last concert by Jimi Hendrix. He had asked us to provide security for him at the old Seattle Sicks' Stadium. Before the show, Elmer had been backstage blowing some weed with Jimi. I stood in the rain, watching Jimi in his final performance, burning up guitars, playing like a man possessed.

The '60s era seemed to be coming to an end, the closing of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. Only about six months later, Jimi would be dead. A new genre of Black films had began to appear, the first being the most revolutionary—Melvin van Peebles's
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song,
portraying the Black man in a more defiant way, an outlaw to be championed, which was a new development in American film. After that came a cavalcade of Black movies with Blacks dressed in long coats and floppy hats, with processed hair, touting new images of drug kingpins, Black gangsters, and “Superfly” pimps—missing the revolutionary message of van Peebles's film. It was as if people, Black people in particular, were assuming the fight for justice was over and there was no need to fight anymore. Ever so slowly, helped along by integration, this shift in attitude continued. And just as Huey had taught us that everything in the universe is subject to change, the party was affected in many ways by the changes around us. Yet most of us were still dedicated to the mission of the party, and to changing America into a place where all its people could have the opportunity to grow into healthy, loving human beings.

In August 1971, George Jackson was assassinated by prison guards in San Quentin during a foiled escape attempt, a year after the death of his brother Jonathan. I believe that George wanted to be free, even if it meant freedom through death. The field marshal of the prisons, the dragon, the Black guerrilla, the prison genius—George, who was bigger than life itself, was gone from our midst, depriving us of the opportunity to see him bloom into a true leader of the people.

George Jackson's death was very much a part of the era that was rapidly drawing to a close, that period in the United States when the revolution seemed inevitable. At George's funeral, Huey gave the eulogy as Panthers stood at attention, holding shotguns. The legion of mourners spilled out of St. Augustine's Church into the streets of West Oakland. I stood there, watching a grieving Mrs. Jackson. I wondered if the people would ever get revenge.

And they did. Police stations were attacked and police were ambushed throughout the country. But the biggest response came three thousand miles away at Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York. The day after George Jackson was murdered, an estimated seven hundred Attica inmates responded with a powerful silent protest, wearing black armbands or other makeshift signs of solidarity. Tensions had been brewing at the prison for a long time, and Jackson's death brought them to a boiling point. About two weeks later, more than a thousand inmates rose up and took over the prison, taking hostages along the way. They elected officers and presented a list of demands, including improved living conditions and an end to the attacks by racist prison guards. They came up with a list of outside observers and negotiators. On that list was Bobby Seale, who had been recently released from prison along with Ericka Huggins. When the negotiations at Attica broke down, New York governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered an all-out assault, employing helicopters and snipers. The highway patrol and prison officers turned the Attica prison yard into a bloodbath and torture chamber. In the chaos, the ten hostages and twenty inmates were murdered, and more than eighty inmates were seriously wounded. It was the bloodiest day in American prison history. The government, in a little less than two weeks, had eliminated the most important figure in the fight against the unjust American prison system and had overwhelmingly wiped out the largest and most organized prison rebellion to date.

By March 1972, Huey, Bobby, and the Central Committee had decided to centralize the party in Oakland. The stated purpose was to build a strong, solid base in Oakland, with the eventual goal of taking control of all aspects of the city, from the politics to the streets. But I'm sure there was an additional underlying reason that Huey made such a drastic decision. Chapters and branches throughout the country began sending most of their members to Oakland, leaving only skeleton crews in their place. In many instances, chapters closed down altogether.

It was difficult leaving Seattle. We had established ourselves so firmly in the community and in the hearts and minds of the people of Seattle. In four short years, we had challenged the power structure, putting them on notice that they would have constant opposition when it came to making racist policies or committing brutal acts against Black people. We had established one of the city's first free medical clinics, opened up five Free Breakfast Programs, and developed the first Free Food Program in Seattle, which became the forerunner of the city's food bank operation.

Our summer Liberation School was a major success, as was our Busing to Prisons Program and our community organizing. Before the orders came down regarding the centralization, we had just begun a campaign to defeat the Seattle school district's proposal for forced busing integration. We had organized the community to turn out to the school district. We held meetings to oppose this ill-conceived plan that would take Black kids out of their community, leaving them without a support network. Unfortunately, our departure gave the green light to this failed policy, which would eventually wreak havoc on Black schoolchildren and their families. We had also begun looking for a larger facility for the Sidney Miller People's Free Medical Clinic. Valentine had found a building, a former nursing home, that was perfect. It had everything we needed. It was equipped with a leaded x-ray room, a nursing station, a room for minor surgeries, a small in-house pharmacy, a dental room, a small cafeteria with a picturesque view of Lake Washington, and a number of rooms that could be used for overnight stays. With great regret, we would be forced to abandon this project.

Big Malcolm decided to head down to Santa Barbara to take a break from the movement and spend time with his parents, traveling with a group of former comrades who had called it quits or been expelled. I would miss that gentle giant, but I would see him again.

Rosita Holland, Valentine's assistant and lover, reluctantly stayed in Seattle to keep the chapter going until Elmer got out of prison. She would rather have not parted from Valentine. A handful of community workers also stayed in Seattle. We left and headed to Oakland for the new centralization campaign, leaving behind many memories, many friends and loved ones, as well as unfinished business.

26

Centralization—March 1972

Now is the time to come together

And show our force

Now is the time for all the people

To speak in one voice

I'm talking about unity

—O'Jays, “Unity,” 1975

The key component
of the takeover of Oakland was gaining control of the political seats of power. Our main targets were the mayor's office and city council. We were coming to understand that political power was no longer just in the bullet, but also in the ballot.

When Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to Congress, announced her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, the Black Panther Party was the only entity on the political left that rushed to support her, even though we knew it was far-fetched that a Black woman who fought so tirelessly for the downtrodden could be elected US president. But we saw her candidacy as a step in the right direction. We understood that those seeking seats of power in the name of the people needed to have a true desire to create change for the better. In Oakland, we aimed to set the example. The main focus of the party's centralization became running the campaigns of Bobby Seale for mayor and Elaine Brown for city council.

Change is never easy. There is almost always a sense of apprehension, and the notion that maybe the decision made was not the best one. The idea of something new, something unfamiliar, often evokes mixed feelings: excitement combined with fear of the unknown. In the party there was very little time to think things over. Either you did or you didn't; either you stayed or you went. If this new move would further our cause, bring us to the brink of victory, there was no reason for debate. And despite the controversy around the split and the loss of many very good people, including entire chapters, I still had faith in the party and in the belief that victory would eventually be ours.

Central Headquarters had moved, once again, from the Victorian house on Peralta to a large, two-story storefront on the corner of 85th Avenue and East 14th Street. Connected to the main section was another large, one-level storefront that became the newspaper's distribution headquarters. The main office was a large reception area with two desks, one on either side of the room where the OD operated, and in the back were two smaller offices, one for finance and the other for special projects. The large office to the right was used for the prison and legal programs. In the far back was the printing department. Upstairs on the right side was a large area that became the layout and editing department, and across the hall was the photo department. In the back was a sleeping room and a large kitchen area.

At least twenty other party facilities and houses were scattered through the East Bay, including the LampPost, a restaurant and bar that became a hip Bay Area destination. The LampPost often served as Huey's meeting place. The party was also looking to purchase a large building downtown for a clothing factory, as well as a smaller building for a shoe factory. The idea was to manufacture affordable items while providing jobs for the community, but these projects never got off the ground.