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LIBRARY
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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

"The Single Greatest Threat: A Study of the
Black Panther Party 1966-1971"

presented by

Rose Carine Thevenin

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for

Ph.D degree in Whistory

fajor proféssor

Date 3 3° 03

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6/01 cJCIRClDaleDuo.p65-p.15

“THE GREATEST SINGLE THREAT:” A STUDY OF THE BLACK PANTHER

PARTY 1966-1971

ROSE CARINE THEVENIN

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of History
2003

on oral interviews, letters, police records, newspapers, leaﬂets, posters, photographs,
biographical and autobiographical accounts and FBI ﬁles.

The primary questions are: what made the BPP so “threatening?” and to whom did the
organization pose the “greatest single threat?” The main argument of this dissertation is that
the BPP engaged in a “revolution” whose overall signiﬁcance and impact have been
overlooked. This dissertation explores recurrent themes of “revolution and revolutionary”
throughout the BPP’s literature. It argues that the interchangeability of both terms by both
the BPP and scholars of the BPP has enshrouded the BPP in a series of political “isms”
that have dominated the historiography of the BPP.

Little attention has been focused on how individual BPP leaders and members deﬁned and
applied “revolution” and “revolutionary” based on location, class and gender. Examining
such themes exposes geographical differences in overall interpretations of the terms which
account for some of the internal dissension in the BPP at both the national, local and
international level. This dissertation will show that by engaging in particular activities
throughout its history, the BPP posed a “threat” to the United States government because
it challenged and demanded that ﬁmdarnental tenets of American democracy be enforced
throughout local black communities.

This study ﬁlls an important gap in the historiography of radical movements throughout
American history by exposing strengths and weaknesses of perhaps the most radical
organization during the civil rights era. This dissertation departs from traditional studies of
the BPP Which have primarily focused on COINTELPRO efforts in explaining the demise of
the BPP and exposes the BPP’s principal role in its own demise through pertinent internal

dissension between individual leaders and rank and ﬁle members.

Copyright By
ROSE CARINE THEVENIN

2003

 

ABSTRACT

“THE GREATEST SINGLE THREAT:” A STUDY OF THE BLACK PANTHER
PARTY 1966-1971

By

Rose Carine Thevenin

This dissertation, “The greatest single threat,” takes its title ﬁom a 1970 declaration by
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover who concluded that the Black
Panther Party represented the “greatest threat to the internal security” of the United States.
Founded in October 1966, by two college students Huey Percy Newton and Bobby G. Scale,
the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) advocated defensive action against
aggressive hostile forces throughout local black communities namely, the police. Newton
and Scale also drafted a political platform addressing ﬁmdamental needs ofblack cormnunities
nationwide including freedom, education, employment, economic and social justice which
they termed the Ten Point Platform and Program

Although the BPP dropped self defense from its name in 1968, it drew the attention of the
federal government which instituted counterintelligence eﬁ'orts (COINTELPRO) to neutralize
and discredit the organization. This dissertation investigates the activities of the BPP at the
local and national level to expose some its strengths and weaknesses. It is primarily an
examination of the Oakland Chapter which served as the national headquarters of the BPP.
It also examines and appraises other chapters to determine direct and indirect eﬂ‘ects of

internal and external factors on the BPP’s leadership and membership. The research is based

In loving memory of Marie Jacqueline Thevenin
Francine Barthelemy

Annanie Charlo

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank God for all his blessings. I thank, my dearly departed, Annanie Charlo, Victor
Barthelemy, Francine Barthelemy and Marie Jacqueline Thevenin your nurturing, love and
support will always remain unmatched. To my family, Jean, Pierre, Regine, Mitchell, Nancy,
Stanley, Stella and Jeff, thanks for all the love and support. Mere words carmot adequately
reﬂect how much you all mean to me.

I would like to thank my graduate committee for your help, support and encouragement,
Harry Reed, Wilma King, Darlene Clark Hine, Elizabeth A. Eldredge and Richard Thomas,
this work has been enriched by your ermertise. Thank you Leslie Moch, Lewis Seigelbaum
Maxi Jackson and Patrick McConeghy for your never-ending support since my very ﬁrst day
at Michigan State. A very special thanks to my undergraduate advisor Monroe Fordham of
Buffalo State College, David Carson, Whittington B. Johnson, I have learned so much ﬁom
yom' classes. Thank you Karl Wright and my colleagues of Florida Memorial College.

Thanks to my friends and fellow graduate students for sharing my enthusiasm about the
Black Panther Party, for your ﬁ’iendship and encouragements, Marshanda Smith, Jesse
Edwards, Kenneth Marshall, Pero G. Dagbovie, Earnestine Jenkins, Pamela Smoot,
Jacqueline McCleod, Latrese Adkins, Chantalle Verna, Hilary Jones, Edward Paulino, Julia
Robinson, and Foster Bradley. Many many thanks to all the former BPP members who

shared their time and memories with me.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES viii
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER I 16

“THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS:” THE EVOLUTION OF THE SAN
FRANCISCO EAST BAY AREA, 1900-1966.
CHAPTER H 60

UNSHROUDING THE VANGUARD: “REVOLUTION” AND INTERNAL
DISSENSION IN THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY 1966-1970

CHAPTER [H 107
REVOLUTIONARY LIFE
CHAPTER IV 147

“THERE’S A PIG IN OUR COMMUNITY:” “AVARICIOUS BUSINESSMEN VS.
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY 1966-1971

CHAPTER V 186

“A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF:” INTERNAL DISSENSION IN THE
BLACK PANTHER PARTY 1966-1971

CONCLUSION 223
APPENDIX 239
BIBLIOGRAPHY 247

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE I 240

OCTOBER 1966 BLACK PANTHER PARTY PLATFORM AND PROGRAM,
WHAT WE WANT WHAT WE BELIEVE

FIGURE 11 243
8 POINTS OF ATTENTION
FIGURE III 244

RULES OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

INTRODUCTION

“These are my credentials,” David Hilliard proclaimed to the crowd of Oakland
residents gathered in the small basement in June 1999. As he extracted a faded photograph
of a group of young men with guns, Hilliard reminded the crowd that as the former Chief
of Staff of perhaps one of the most “radical” and controversial organizations during the late
19608, he was and still remains a ‘revolutionary,’ experienced in conﬁ'onting police ofﬁcers.
In his 2000 bid for a seat on the Oakland City Council for District 3, a post long held by city
Councilwoman Nancy Nadel, the photograph was resurrected as concrete tangible proof
and reassurance to the Oakland cormnunity that he could be entrusted to defend, protect,
and serve them as their future representative.‘

Hilliard invoked the “revolutionary” image of the Black Panther Party For Self- Defense
(BPP) to assert and reclaim its political legacy in Oakland, namely its grassroots efforts
throughwhat Hilliard termed relevant “cormnunity-based leadership” and coalitions. Despite
the nostalgia, Hilliard acknowledged, “just as the Panthers symbolize an era of protest and
promise, so does the Party remain a profound point of fascination for critics and advocates
alike.”2 Although Hilliard did not defeat incumbent Nancy Nadel, he succeeded in conjuring
the deﬁant imagery of the Black Panther Party For Self Defense organized in Oakland in

October 1966 by college students Huey P. Newton and Bobby G. Scale.

 

‘ “Political Legacy to Oakland,” Oakland Tribune 26 June 1999.

 

2 Ibid.

 

At the onset, Newton and Scale sigrmled through their political organization that blacks
would no longer turn the other check but would retaliate when attacked. They embraced
Malcom X’s call for the black community to defend itselfagainst police brutality.3 The BPP
urged local black communities to pick up the gun to defend themselves against racism and
police brutality. They drafted a Ten-Point Platform and Program demanding self-
determination, employment and an end to the robbery by the capitalist of the black
commrmity, housing and education. The Program also demanded exemption ﬁ'om military
service, an end to police brutality, ﬁ'eedom for all black men held in federal, state, county
andcityjails, and trialbyajuryofone’s peers. Finally,thePrograminsisted onland, bread,
clothing, justice and peace.‘

The BPP prioritized self-defense and armed patrols of the police in the black community.
The political platform attracted black men and women determined to effect change in their
local commrmities. The BPP dropped Self-Defense ﬁ-om its name in 1968 to emphasize its
transition from a para-military stance to one of servicing the community through social
programs. These programs were termd “survival programs” by the BPP. Among these

varied programs were its free Breakfast Program, free sickle cell anemia testing, ﬁ'ee food,

 

3 Malcom X, “Message To The Grassroots, Detroit 1963,” In George Breitman ed.
Malcom X 8m Selected Smhes and Statements (New York: Grove Press Inc., 1966),
1 7.

‘ “October 1966 Black Panther Party Platform and Program, What We Want, What
We Believe” In Huey P. Newton, With the assistance of J. Herman Blake, Revolutiggm
Suﬁ idc (New York: Writers and Readers Publishing Inc. 1995), 116-118.

2

hheration schools, ﬁ'ee busing to prisons, free mdical services, ﬁee shoes and ﬁ'ee pesticides.’
By 1969, the BPP had thirty chapters throughout local black communities in the US. and
they also had international clmpters.

The BPP immediately drew media attention when its leaders and members engaged in
violent confrontations with police throughout the US. The BPP also drew the attention of
the federal government which instituted 233 of its 295 counterintelligence efforts known as
COINTELPRO to neutralize and discredit the BPP.6 The year 1970 epitomized the zenith
of Panther trials throughout the 0.8. as chapter members faced indictments for criminal
conspiracy, murder, attempted murder and assault charges. In 1970, Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) Chief Edgar J. Hoover declared the organization, “the greatest threat
to the internal security of the United States.”7 Hence, the title of my dissertation, “The
Greatest Single Threat”: A Study of The Black Panther Party, 1966-1972 seeks to answer
two main questions: to whom was the BPP considered the “greatest single threat? and why?

This dissertation seeks to understand the strategies employed by the Party in realization
of their speciﬁed objectives. It is primarily an examination of the Oakland Chapter which

served as the national headquarters of the Party. It also examines other chapters to

 

5 Bobby Scale, Seize The Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party m Huey P.
Newton (Baltimore: The Black Classic Press, 1991), 412-418; Huey P. Newton , 10 Die Fgr

The People, Selected Writmg' s and Smhes Edited by Toni Morrison (New York: Writers
and Readers Publishing Inc., 1995), 57.

‘ Winston A. Grady-Willis, “ The Black Panther Party: State Repression and Political

Prisoners,” In Charles E. Jones ed., The Black Panther PE Reconsidered (Baltimore: The
Black Classic Press, 1998), 366.

7 Kenneth O’Reilly, Racial Matters The FBI’s Scc_1:et File On Black Amerig, 1960-
1972 (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 290.

 

3

determine direct and indirect effects on the leadership and membership of the BPP. This
dissertation departs from traditional studies of the BPP which primarily focused on
COINTELPRO efforts in explaining the demise of the BPP, the Party’s overall signiﬁcance,
its legacy and political repression by local, state and federal authorities.8

This dissertation is divided into ﬁve chapters which demonstrate that the demise of the
BPP cannot be mainly ascribed to COINTELPRO efforts. It argues that the BPP was a
multi-faceted and complex organization replete with internal contradictions and ambiguities.
The research is based on court documents and transcripts, oral interviews, letters, police
records, newspapers, leaﬂets, posters, photographs, biographical and autobiographical
accounts and declassiﬁed FBI ﬁles. This dissertation makes judicious use of secondary
sources to investigate and establish inconsistencies and ambiguities. It is a work in progress
largely based on the primary and secondary sources available to the researcher at the present
time.

The FBI ﬁles of particular BPP leaders and members remain conﬁdential and will not be
released until individual BPP members demand access to them. Such ﬁles rennin inaccessible
to the researcher until and unless BPP individuals also consent to or authorize access to the

researcher. Individual FBI ﬁles will not be released by the FBI unless and until the individual

 

8 JoNina M. Abron, “The Legacy of The Black Panther Party,” The Black Scholar
17 (November/ December 1986): 33-37; Charles E. Jones, “The Political Repression of The
Black Panther Party, 1966-1971, The Oakland Bay Area,” long}; Of Black Studies 18
(June 1988): 415-434; Sundiata Acoli, “A Brief History Of The Black Panther Party And Its
Phice In The Black Liberation Movement, “ Written April 2, 1985, Originated on January 25,
1995 @ Crsn@aol.com; Scot Ngozi-Brown, “The US Organization, Maulana Karenga, And
Conﬂict With The Black Panther Party, A Critique of Sectarian Inﬂuences on Historical
Discourse,” Journal Of Black Studies 28 (November 1997) :157-170.

4

has passed away and surviving relatives pose no objection to the release. It is unknown
how many FBI documents exist on the Black Panther Party and access to the FBI ﬁles of
most BPP leaders and individual BPP members is limited. Although the FBI declassiﬁed
and released thousands of pages on the BPP, there are more documents which have not yet
been released to the public such as the FBI ﬁles of the BPP’s rank and ﬁle membership
including local and national leadership documents. Thus, conclusions in this work may or
may not alter especially as local, state and federal agencies declassify more “conﬁdential”
documents and the BPP’s national and local leadership and rank and ﬁle membership secure
FBI documents, permit greater access to researchers, and as more BPP members publish
autobiographies and other works on the BPP.

In 1998, Charles E. Jones published a collection of essays on the BPP focusing on
contextual landscape along with organizational and gender dynamics, reﬂections from the
rank and ﬁle and the decline and legacy of the BPP.9 Despite the contributions of Jones’
volume, none of the essays exclusively focused on the strategies employed by the BPP in
the realization of its various objectives. The debate centered on causes for the demise of the
BPP with contributors alternately prioritizing external and internal factors. The BPP
historiography is saturated with the autobiographies of former Panther leaders which
accentuated the central role of Counterintelligencc measures including, Minister Of
Defense Huey P. Newton, Party Chairman Bobby Scale, other BPP members, Assata

Shakur, William Lee Brent, Chief of Staff David Hilliard and Elaine Brown, the only

 

9 Charles E. Jones, The Black Panther Pm Reconsidered (Baltimore: Black Classic
Press, 1998).

Chairwoman of the BPP and FBI informant Earl Anthony.lo The autobiographies
highlight police harassment, ideological clashes between the leadership and membership and
details regarding the day-to-day operations of the BPP.

Scholars variously descrrhe the political ideology of founder Huey P. Newton as black
nationalism, revolutionary internationalism, revolutionary black nationalism derived from
“Marxism-Leninism and revolutionary intercommunalism.”” Too often, scholars tracing
the BPP’s major ideological developments have emphasized the triumverate of Huey P.

Newton, Bobby Scale and Eldridge Cleaver. ‘2 As a result, voices of the BPP’s rank and ﬁle,

 

10

Huey P. Newton, Revolutiom Suicide (New York: Writers And Readers
Publishing Inc., 1995); Huey P. Newton, To Die For The People. The Writm' gs Of Huey P.
Newton (New York: Writers And Readers Publishing Inc., 1995); Bobby Scale, Seize The
Time : The Stgg Of The Black Panther Pm and Huey P. Newton (Baltimore: Black Classic
Press, 1991); Bobby Scale, A Lonely Rage. Th_e Autobiography of Bobby Seﬂe (New
York: Times Books, 1978); Eldridge Cleaver, Soul On Ice (New York: Dell Publishing Inc.,
1970); Eldridge Cleaver, Soul On Fire (Texas: Word Books, 1978); Assata Shakur, Assata,
AnAutobionghy (Connecticut: Lawrence Hill & Company, 1987); William Lee Brent, Long
Time Gone, A Black Pant_he_1;’s True Life Stog of His Hiigkirg' and Twenty-Five Yeagln
% (New York: Times Books, 1996); Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power A Black
Woman’s Stog (New York: Pantheon Books,l992); David Hilliard and Lewis Cole, m
Side of G193: The Autobio h Of David Hilliard The Story Of The Black ng
(Boston: Little Brown And Company, 1993); Earl Anthony, Pic ' U The G A Re rt
On The Black Panthers (New York: The Dial Press,l970); Earl Anthony Spitting In The

Wind: The True Story Behind The Violent Legacy Of The Black Panther PM (Santa
Monica, Roundtable Publishing, 1990).

 

 

" Charles E. Jones and Judson Jeﬂ‘ries, “Don’t Believe The Hype”: Debunking The
Panther Mythology,” In Charles Jones ed. The Black Panther ng Reconsiderg, 25-56;
Jimmy Mori, “The Ideological Development of the thk Panther Party,” Cornell Journal of
Social Relations 12 ( Fall 1977): 137-155.

'2 See, Gene Marine, IE Black Panthers (New York:Signet Books, 1969);
Kathleen Rout, Eldridge Cleaver (Boston: Twayne Publishers,l991); Lee Lockwood,
Conversations With Eldridge Cleaver, Algiers (New York. Delta Books, 1970); G. Louis
Heath,________ The Black Panther Leaders Speg Huey P. Newton_, Bobby Scale, Eldridge Cleaver
and Company SpeairOut jljmggh The Black Panther ng’ s Newm (Metuchen, New

6

especially those who did not establish national prominence were obscured. Although
scholars of the BPP concurred that the BPP experienced various forms of political
repression, too often their writings portrayed a victimized BPP without focusing on the
organization’s “day-to day resistance ”at both the national and local level.‘3

As a consequence, the BPP’s activism and vitality at the local level has been suffocated
and silenced amid COINTELPRO efforts which more than any other factor has been
ascribed throughout the historiography as the root cause of the BPP’s demise.” Scholars
have also argued that internal and external factors contributed to internal dissension within
the BPP. However, it has not been conclusively shown how ambiguities also affected the
BPP’s membership and leadership.'5

This study incorporates COINTELPRO activities, documents and memos to expose local,

 

Jersey: The Scarecrow Press Inc., 1976).

'3 W'mston A. Grady Willis, “The Black Panther Party: State Repression and Political
Prisoners,” In Charles Jones ed. The Black Panther Party Recon_s_i_d_ered, 363-3 89; Charles E.
Jones, “The Political Repression of the Black Panther Party 1966-1971, The Case of the
Oakland Bay Area,” Journal of Black Studies 18 (June 1988), 415-434; Nikhil Pat Singh,
“The Black Panthers And The Undeveloped Country Of The Left,” In Charles Jones ed. __Th_§
Black Panther Pgty Reconsidered, 56-105; Chris Booker, “Lumpenization: A Critical Error

of The Black Panther Party,” In Charles Jones ed. :1 he Blggk Panther Pagy Ramsiderﬂ,
337-362.

" Kenneth O’Reilly, Racial Matters, The FBI’s Secret File On Black America, 1960-
M; (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 293-324; Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall,
Agents of Rmssion: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther ng and the
grim Indian Movement (Boston: South End Press, 1988);Ward Churchill and Jim
Vander Wall, The QOINTELPRO Pm: Documents From The FBI’s Secret Wars Against
Domestic Dissent (Boston: South End Press, 1990); Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO
The FBI’s Secret War On Poltical Freedom (New York: Anchor Foundations, 1988).

 

'5 Ollie A. Johnson 11, “Explaining The Demise of the Black Panther Party: The Role
of External Factors,” In Jones ed. The Bmk Panﬂﬂ Pm Regonside_re_d, 391-414.

7

state and federal complicity in fomenting divisions within the BPP. It illuminates the
culpability of BPP leaders as well as rank and ﬁle members in the BPP’s demise. This
research argues that the BPP engaged in a “revolution” whose overall signiﬁcance and
impact demand closer examination and analysis. This dissertation explores recurrent
themes of “revolution and revolutionary” throughout the BPP’s literature. The various
chapters demonstrate that ideological ambiguities and internal contradictions plagued the .
BPP. Although the BPP’s most ardent leaders espoused political ideologies of the BPP,
such ideologies were not always internalized by the BPP’s rank and ﬁle. Thus, individual
and collective ﬂaws of BPP leaders and members fomented ambiguities which constituted
contested terrains in the BPP.

Members and leaders of the BPP did not adhere to all the guidelines set forth in the
BPP’s Ten Point Platform and Program outlining the BPP’s overall political objectives.
Many of the self-proclamd “revolutionaries” in the BPP engaged in “revolutionary”
activities that were diametrically opposed to the BPP’s leadership and membership. This
research demonstrates that the historiography of the BPP has been enshrouded in a series
of political “im” combined with political repression and internal dissension.

Ambiguities in the construction of these political “isms” effectively stiﬂed and obscured
the autonomy and agency of the BPP’s leadership and rank and ﬁle. Too often, the BPP
historiography has focused on the writings of Huey P. Newton as representative of the

BPP as a national and internatioml organization." Thus, voices of other members have

 

'6 Jimmy Mori, “The Ideological Development of the Black Panther Party,” Cornell
Journal of _S_(_)cial Relations 12 ( Fall 1977): 137-155; Floyd Hayes III and Francis A. Kienc
III, “ All Power To The People”: The Political Thought Of Huey P. Newton And The Black

8

been effectively silenced and ignored as no attention was paid to how individual members
themselves interpreted these ideological “isms” and how they were shaped and molded at
the local and national level.

For example, in 1994, journalist Hugh Pearson published The Shadow of the Panther,
Huey P. Newton and the Price of Black Power In America. Pearson afﬁrmed that he ‘had
no interest’ in traversing or navigating the “political mineﬁelds” of the BPP and his text was
devoid of any analysis of the BPP’s political ideologies.l7 Pearson’s work was not a
comprehensive history of the BPP because he asserted, “such a project would take many
years to complete and would require the navigation of political mineﬁelds I have no interest
intraversing.”"’ Pearson’s “illuminating interviewees” consisted of disaﬁected, disgruntled
and disillusioned former BPP members such as Sheba Haven, Landon William and Mary
Kennedy “who would never forgive Huey for what he did to the party” He maintained that
their “shocking revelations” were “indispensable” in his overall assessment ochwton and the
BPP.l9

Pearson blamed Newton for “ghastly deeds” particularly murders and other criminal

activities including alcohol and cocaine addiction resulting in the demise of the BPP.20 He

 

Panther Party,” In Jones ed. The Black Panther Party Recons_idered, 157-176; Helen L.
Stewart, “Buffering: The Leadership Style Of Huey P. Newton” (PhD diss., Brandeis
University, 1980).

'7 Hugh Pearson, The Shadow Of The Panther: Huey P. Newton And The ﬂicc Of
Black Power In America (New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994), 346.

'3 Ibid.
'9 Ibid, 345.
2° Ibid, 290.

drew a parallel between himself and Newton and surmised that Newton’s “enigmatic
behavior” was mainly rooted in his namesake Huey. He concluded, “one of the things that
struck me as I wrote was how disappointed, even angry, I often became at our society and
myself, for paying so much attention to an organization, that arguably in so many ways
amounted to little more than a temporary media phenomenon?“ Therefore Pearson’s book,
although heralded as “a keenly observed, often brilliant, Panther-busting book” by the Los
Angeles Times, hardly represented a balanced examination of the BPP as Pearson
concluded that the BPP was a criminal ‘black maﬁa’ organization.22

Several works have attempted to ﬁll the gap in the BPP historiography concerning
women’s roles by examining gender, race, class and sexuality within the nation-wide
proliferation of female leadership throughout local BPP chapters.23 Historians Angela Le
Blanc- Ernest and Tracye Matthews argued that BPP women negotiated contestations of
power and gender within the gendered sexualized internal politics of the BPP. This study
reinforces the critical role of black women in the “revolutionary” enviromnent of the BPP.

It also explores the internal politics of the BPP in ﬁve chapters.

 

2' Ibid, 346-347.

22 Leon Forrest, “The Brain and the Heart: The Shadow of the Panther: Huey P.
Newton and the Price of Black Power in America,” Los Angeles Times, 3 July 1994.

23 Angela Le-Blanc-Emest, “The Most Qualiﬁed Person To Handle The Job:”Black
Panther Party Women 1966-1982, In Jones ed. The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, 305-
336; See also, Tracy Ann Matthews, “‘No One Ever Asks What A Man’s Place In The
Revolution Isz’” Gender And Sexual Politics In The Black Panther Party 1966-1971" (PhD
diss., The University Of Michigan, 1998); Monica Marie White, “Panther Stories: A
Gendered Analysis of the Autobiographies of Former Black Panther Party Members” (PhD
diss., Western Michigan University, 1998).

 

10

Chapter I “There’s Gold In Them Tlmr Hills:” The Evolution of The San Francisco East
Bay Area 1900-1966" argues that the realignment of racial boundaries in the San Francisco
East Bay area stemmed ﬁ'om the postwar crisis of black unemployment, segregation and
urban housing. It mainly examines four cities, Richmond, Oakland, Berkeley and San
Francisco, to analyze the overall impact of southern migration to the San Francisco East Bay
area. It elaborates further on the argument that the BPP transformed the character of
protest in Califomia.“

Chapter II, “Unshrouding The Vanguard: The Meaning of Revolution in The Black
Panther Party,” traverses and navigates the “political mineﬁelds” of individual BPP men and
women exploring recurrent themes of “revolution” and “revolutiomry.” It traces the impact
of local ﬁgures and individuals who dominated the San Francisco East Bay’s economic,
political and social arenas to better understand the intervening circumstances and
conditions which contributed to the rise of the BPP. Given that Panthers viewed
themselves as “revolutionaries” my questions are: How were BPP members and leaders
contextualizing “revolution” and “revolutionary?” What kind or type of “revolution” did
individual Panthers themselves envision? Clmpter II argues that ideological ambiguities,

inconsistencies and contradictions fomented rifts within the BPP.

 

2‘ See, Jon F. Rice, “Black Radicalism On Chicago’s West Side: A History Of The
Illinois Black Panther Party?’ (PhD diss., Northern Illinois University,l998); Yohuru R.
Williams, “No Haven: Civil Rights, Black Power And Black Panthers In New Haven,
Connecticut l956-197l”(Ph.D diss., Howard University,l998); Jemiifer Bradford Smith,
“An International History of the Black Panther Party,” (PhD diss., State University of New
York At Buﬂ‘alo,l 997); Jeffrey Ogbanna Green, “From The Bottom Up: Popular Reactions
To The Nation of Islam and The Black Panther Party, “(PhD diss., Indiana University,
1997).

ll

Chapter III, “Revolutionary Life” exposes multi-layered and multi-faceted
interpretations of “revolution” and “revolutionary” throughout speciﬁc moments in the
BPP’s history which generated contradictions and inconsistencies between BPP leaders and
members. It examines gender-based interpretations of “revolution” and “revolutionary.” It
also exposes ﬁmdamental unresolved conﬂicts between BPP men and women in
performing “revolutionary” duties and assignments.

Chapter IV, “There’s A Pig In Our Community:” “Avaricious Businessmen” Vs. The
Black Panther Party, examines how the BPP deﬁned and organized a “revolution” by
demanding the complete elimination of what it deemed “avaricious businessmen”
throughout local black communities.” Chapter IV analyzes the BPP’s “revolution” in the
Oakland community from 1969 to 1972 illuminating the BPP’s socioeconomic activities.
It surveys expressions of the BPP’s economic activism at the local level.

Chapter IV elaborates on the BPP’s relationship to local businesses. Although it is well
known that the BPP administered cormnunity service programs such as its Free Breakfast
For Children, Liberation Schools and various others, how such programs were
administered and implemented continues to be a mystery that has for too long remained

unexplored. Chapter IV does not examine all of the BPP’s programs but mainly focuses on

 

25 Philip S. Foner ed., The Black Panmers 8%, The Manifesto of the Pm: The
Fn_'§t' Complete Documentary Record of the Panthers’ Program (New York: J .B Lippincott
Company, 1970); G. Louis Heath ed. The Black Panther Leaders 8%, Huey P. Newton_,

Bobby Scale, Eldridge Cleaver and Company Speak Out Through The Black Panther Pa__rty’s
Ofﬁcial Newspam (Metuchcn, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1976); Christian

Davenport, “Reading The Voice OfThe Vanguard”: A Content Analysis of the Black Panther
Intercormnunal News Service, 1969-1973,” In Jones ed. The Black Panther Pa_.r_ty
Reconsidggd” 193-210; Regina Jennings, “Poetry Of The Black Panther Party, Metaphors
Of Militancy,” Journal Of Black Studies (September 1998): 106-129.

12

administration of the Free Breakfast Program throughout some local BPP chapters.

Questions posed in Chapter IV are, how did the BPP acquire funding to facilitate the
Program? Who supported and who opposed the Program and what strategies did the BPP
adopt to conﬁ'ont opposition? Exploring BPP ideological underpinnings which inﬂuenced
its “relationship” to local businesses reveals positive and negative variables which enhanced
and debilitated the BPP’s overall effectiveness throughout many local communities. It
accentuates activities of individual leaders and members to analyze the “greatest single
threat” ﬁ'om the BPP’s resistance to “avaricious businessmen.”

Chapter V, “A House Divided Against Itself. Internal Dissension Within the Black Panther
Party 1966-1972,” examines factional rifts and internal dissension within the BPP at the
local, national and international level to expose interpretations of “revolution” and
“revolutionary.” It traces the “split” in the BPP in 1971 which resulted in the Newton and
Cleaver faction of the BPP. This study reiterates that scholars need more complex and
sophisticated methods of examining the BPP. It departs ﬁ'om the traditional COINTELPRO
explanations which have dominated the BPP historiography. This study argues that although
COINTELPRO played a major role in the demise of the BPP, it did not eradicate the
commitment of BPP members to strengthen local communities. It did not neutralize the
BPP in Oakland by the end of 1971. It demonstrates that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s
assessment of the BPP as the “greatest single threat”was inaccurate and grossly exaggerated.

In his memo dated March 4, 1968 Hoover outlined the goals of COINTELPRO in
relation to the civil rights movement. The goals were to prevent the coalition of militant

black nationalists groups, avert the rise of a black “messiah” and most important, “to

13

prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability by
discrediting them thereby deterring their long range growth.”26 In November 1968,
Hoover issued another memo directing ﬁeld agents “to exploit all avenues of
creating...dissension within the ranks of the Black Panther Party ...recipients ofﬁces are
instructed to submit imaginative and hard-hitting counter intelligence measures aimed at
crippling the Black Panther Party?”

This dissertation highlights counterintelligence measures implemented by Hoover and
federal agents in neutralizing and undermining activities of the BPP to nullify the
perceived “threat” Hoover argued the BPP posed to the US. This dissertation examines
the activities of BPP leaders and members within the ﬂame of the “greatest single threat”
to show how speciﬁc activities undertaken by the BPP fueled such a grossly exaggerated
perception.

This study also illuminates strategies employed by the BPP amidst state repression and
internal dissension to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of such strategies. Such a study
adds to the historiography of radicalism in general and explores some of the contours of
black radicalism in particular by evaluating the individual roles of the principal leaders of
this “radical” organization as well as the roles of the rank and ﬁle. The BPP was a very
complex organization whose multi-dimensions demand greater analysis. My dissertation
sheds light on some of these dimensions by tracing the origins and strategies employed by

this organization to formally register their grievances against inherently ﬂawed and unequal

 

2‘ Blackstock, COINTELPRO, The FBI’s Secret Wa_r, 22.
27 Churchill and VanderWall, Agents of Rgpression, 63.
14

power relationships.

15

CHAPTER I
“THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS”: THE EVOLUTION
OF THE SAN FRANCISCO EAST BAY AREA 1900-1966
“the Negro is making his big mistake, he is butting into the white
civilization instead of keeping in the perfectly orderly and
convenient Negro civilization of Oakland, and he is getting himself

thoroughly disliked. ”'

The relocation of over ﬁve million Americans from the southern rural centers to
industrialized urban settings shaped the course of twentieth century American history. Black
men and women abandoned the Jim Crow South to escape from white violence, intimidation,
hostility and terrorism. All were an intrinsic part of everyday life in the South which
combined with legal proscriptions through the courts to subjugate black men and women in
the political, social and economic arenas. This chapter explores the overall impact of southern
migrants on four San Francisco East Bay cities, Richmond, Oakland, Berkeley and San
Francisco. It traces the principal roles of black men and women to illuminate economic,

political and social conditions which culminated in the “radicalism” of the Black Panther Party

 

' Editorial from The Obsmer 11 March 1944, Quoted in Beth Bagwell, (_)ald__an<_l,
The Stog Of A QM (NovatozPrcsidio Press, 1982), 242; “There’s Gold In Them Thar Hills”
was an expression from Hollywood western movies referring to the California Gold Rush.
It was also David Hilliard’s ﬁrst impression of California. See David Hilliard and Lewis

Cole, IE2 Autobiomhy of David Hilliard and the Story of The Black Panther Pm
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993), 61.

16

organized in Oakland in 1966. The thesis of this chapter is that southern African-Americans
migrants experienced a variety of difﬁculties whose repercussions were not strictly
economic but interwoven with race, national and local politics.2

Sanctioned by the Supreme Court’s 1896 ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson, the “separate but
equal doctrine” legitimized Jim Crow practices of segregation which combined with other
measures such as the grandfather clause and the poll tax to disﬁanchise blacks in the South.
Burdensome land tenure and credit systems in the South including exorbitant rents, crop
liens and sharecropping systems exploited black labor and kept black families in abject
poverty.3 Migration was not only a relocation process but was also a political expression
which conveyed not only economic, political frustration and dissatisfaction with life in the
southern centers, but also a deliberate attempt to improve political, economic and social
status.‘

Migration was the most effective “unhidden transcript” employed by black men and

women as an expression of individual and collective empowerment and an attempt to

achieve personal autonomy.5 Black men and women ﬁ'om Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas

 

2ThomasJ.Sugrue,The ' insof theUr Crisis RaceandI ' inPostwar
Detroit ( Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, 1996), 9.

3 Leon F. Litwack, Trouble In Mind Black Southerners gin the Ag of Jim Crow
(New York: Allied A. Knopf, 1998), 128-135.

 

‘ Shirley Ann Moore, “Getting There, Being There, African-American Migration to
Richmond, California, 1910-1945,” in Joe W. Trotter, The Great Miggtion in Historical
Peggecjive (Urbana: Indiana University Press, 1991), 123.

5 Kenneth W. Goings, “Unhidden Transcripts, Memphis And Aﬁ'ican-American
Agency 1862-1920,” in Kenneth W. Goings and Raymond A. Mob], The New Aﬁigan
m. Urban History (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1996), 142-166.

17

and Tennessee migrated to Kansas during the ﬁrst millenarian movement in the US. They
also settled in northern industrial centers such as Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh,
Chicago, Memphis and Harlem.‘5
Migration to northern cities did not end discrimination and racism, nor did it immediately
yield greater opportunities because migrants were initially kept out of industrial positions.
Black women were recruited as the “last hired, ﬁrst ﬁred” to ﬁliﬁll industrial demands
from World War 1.7 Although African-Americans participated in World War I to defend
democracy and secure fundamental rights, their activities did not convince America to
reverse the course of segregation. Black men and women continued to endure residential
segregation, housing shortages, and job discrimination that fueled tensions culminating in
violent clashes throughout American cities such as St. Louis, Chicago and Houston.”
Black migrants fueled aggressions in northern cities by constantly pushing residential
boundaries which resulted in urban racial violence, intimidation and riots due to racism,
housing conﬂicts and job competition in cities such as Chicago, Houston, Detroit and
Harlem Unlike northern cities, the black population in the San Francisco East Bay area
remained very small prior to 1940 because of limited economic opportunities, greater

competition with ethnic groups for unskilled positions and the San Francisco East Bay

 

‘ See Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Blaik Miggtion to Kansas After

Recomﬁon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976).

 

7 Karen Tucker Anderson, “‘Last Hired, First Fired’, Black Women Workers During
World War II,” Journal of American Histog 69 (1982): 82-97.

’ See, Robert V. Haynes, A Nggl_1' t of Violence : The Houston Riot of 1917 (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977); William M. Tuttle, Race Riot: Chicgo in
the Red Summer of 1919 (New York: Atheneum, 1972).

18

area’s greater distance ﬁom the South. In addition, the San Francisco ﬁre of 1906
devastated the city and destroyed businesses and homes which ﬁ'ustrated housing and
ﬁirther aggravated economic opportunities. Although a small number of blacks migrated to
Oakland between 1900 and 1910, northern cities remained the magnet drawing southern
migrants.9

The racism, discrimination and injustice which plagued northern urban centers spurred
the activism of black leaders. Included among the pivotal roles of black leaders were
Booker T. Washington’s powerful Tuskegee machine among black intellectuals,
professional and business people throughout northern cities; W.E.B DuBois’ marshaling of
civil rights coalitions which yielded the Niagara Movement culminating in the National
Association For The Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); and Marcus Garvey’s
Universal Improvement Association (UNIA) which sought to link all peoples of African
descent in commercial and industrial intercourse through a steamship enterprise. In
addition, black women such as Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells Barnett and Lugenia
Burns Hope formed clubs, founded institutions and created informal educational
programs throughout local communities. Despite their efforts, black men and women were

unsuccessful in curtailing racism and discrimination.‘0

 

9 Albert Broussard, Black San Francisco: The Strgggle For Egugjﬁy’ In The West
12%1954 (Lawrence: The University Press ofKansas, 1993), 21.

'0 See, Louis Harlan, Booker T. Washmgt’ on, 115 MM’ of A Black Leader 1856-
1901 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972); David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. DuBQis:

A Bio of Race 1868-1919 (New York: Hem'y Holt, 1993); E. David Cronon, B_lgc_k
Moses: The Story of Marcus Ggarvey and the Universal Imminent Association
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969); Cynthia Neverdon-Morton, ﬂ;
American Wow of the South and The Advmt of the Race 1895-1925 (Knoxville:

l9

The economic status of black Americans further deteriorated with the onset of the
Great Depression as the most disadvantaged group in American society and because of the
federal government’s failure to enact policies ensuring protection from exchision from New
Deal relief programs. The outbreak of World War 11 caused tumultuous changes
throughout local black communities. Black families supported World War II and viewed
it as an opportunity to assert and reclaim American citizenship by launching the Double V
campaign of victory at home and abroad. They also sought equal opportunities in the
workforce and demanded desegregation of all public facilities, equal salaries for black
teachers, greater access to education, anti-lynching legislation, desegregation of the US.
armed forces and integration of black women nurses into the military nurses corps.”

A. Phillip Randolph’s March On Washington Movement culminated in Executive Order
8802, which forbade discrimination by companies with defense contracts, and also created
the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to grant greater access to blacks
receiving training and skilled workers. Executive order 9346 expanded FEPC jurisdiction
by granting the agency adjudication powers over complaints against all unions and

employers with federal government contracts. '2 Federal intervention encouraged black

 

University Of Tennessee Press, 1989).

" Darlene Clark Hine “Mabel K Staupers and The Integration Of Black Nurses Into
The Armed Forces” in John Hope Franklin and August Meier, Black Leaders Of The

Twentieth Century, Black Women In White: Racial Conﬂict And Coomration In The Nursgg'
Profession 1829-1950 (Urbana: The University Of Illinois Press, 1982).

'2 William H. Harris, Keepmg’ The Faith: A. Pm'lhp' Randolph, Mi1_ton P. Webster m
t_he Brotherhood of Sleepmg' Car Porters 1925-1937 (Urbana: The University of Illinois
Press, 1977), 225.

20

 

families from southern and midwestem states to move to California as war mobilization
transformed the West with new capital from the federal government to establish aircraﬁ,
shipbuilding, manufacturing, steel and catering industries.l3

As the center of the shipbuilding industry which employed eighty percent of black
workers in the San Francisco East Bay area, California offered greater racial tolerance."
There was no ﬁrst ghetto in the San Francisco East Bay cities of Oakland, Berkeley and
Richmond prior to World War II.15 Migration to the San Francisco East Bay area involved
married couples and differed from other migrant populations within the US. It
encompassed mainly young, single women who outnumbered men by “almost two to one
among ﬁfteen to twenty-four-year olds.”16 Partly due to the drafting of young single black
men in the war effort, the San Francisco East Bay attracted black women mainly because
of increased availability of jobs in a variety of industries such as shipyards, naval laundries

and supply centers, food processing and military postal oﬂices.17

 

'3 Gary B. Nash, The American West Transformed, The Imact Of The Second
World War ( Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 35; Broussard, Black San

mm.

" Gayle B. Montgomery and James W. Johnson in collaboration with Paul G.

Manolis, One Stgp From The White House, The Rise And Fall Of Sengtor William F.
meM (Berkeley: The University Of California Press, 1998), 39

’5 Douglas Flamming, “Becoming Democrats: Liberal Politics and the Aﬁican
American Community in Los Angeles 1930-1965,” In Lawrence B. De Graaf, Kevin Mulroy

and Quintard Taylor eds. Seek_mg° El Dorado, Aﬁican-Americans In California (Los Angeles:
Autry Musetun Of Western Heritage, 2001), 279-308.

'6 Marilynn S. Johnson, The Second Gold Rush, Oakland and the East Bay in World
War; 11 (Berkeley: University Of California Press, 1993), 52, 59.

‘7 Moore, “Getting There, Being There,”106-126.
21

 

Black migrants relied on personal networks and utilized their own ﬁ'iendship, kinship
and social channels including church membership, co-workers and relatives to inform and
assist them throughout the migration process.” Extensive support networks of family
members, relatives and friends helped single women make the transition to the East Bay by
providing assistance in housing and jobs. Darlene Clark Hine argued that black men and
women migrated to the midwest in distinctive, incomplete, ﬁ'agrnented processes and
patterns.‘9

Hine concluded that migration was inspired by a variety of personal factors including
the love of one’s children, the desire to preserve the family unit, ﬂight from suffering and
loss.20 In accounting for black women’s suffering and loss, Darlene Clark Hine introduced
the notion of a “culture of dissemblance” deﬁned as “a politics of silence” which
encompassed a “culture of secrecy” to preserve dignity, control and protect their inner
lives. For many black women, migration offered escape from sexual exploitation both
within and outside their families and ﬁ'om sexual abuse at the hands of southern white and
black men. Hine maintained that black men and women engaged in “secondary

migration” wherein single men worked their way north and lingered a few years at a given

 

'3 Ibid, 114.

'9 Darlene Clark Hine, “Black Migration to The Urban Midwest, The Gender
Dimension, 1915-1945,” In Trotter, The Great Miggtion In Historiial Perspective. 131.

2° Darlene Clark Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Southern Black Women:
Thoughts on the Culture Of Dissemblance” In Darlene Clark Hine, Hine Sight, African-

Am‘ Women And The Re-Construction Of American Histog (New York: Carlson
Publishing, 1994), 37-48.

22

 

 

 

residence before moving to the next location.2|

Single black women often traveled the entire distance in one trip and left children in the
South only to later send for them and other family members. The Hilliard family
demonstrated some migratory patterns in California. David Hilliard, whose family moved
to Oakland ﬁom Rockville Alabama, relied on his brother Bud to spearhead the Hilliard
family’s migration to Oakland. Hilliard’s mother migrated to Oakland to settle with her
son Bud and later sent for her husband and ten other children.22

Upon arrival to the East Bay, black men and women relied on kinship networks largely
administered by black women to provide housing arrangements. Black churches
throughout the East Bay were fundamental institutions which extended missionary work,
education and social services to migrants. The migration of southern blacks ﬁ'om Texas,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Oklahoma throughout the 19403 increased the
populations of Alameda, Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond, the main sites of the defense
boom in the East Bay area. Oakland’s total population increased from 14.3 percent or
302,163 in 1940 to 27.3 percent or 384,575 in 1950. Oakland’s black population grew
from 8,462 in 1940 to 21,770 or 157.3 percent in 1944 and further increased to 47,562 in
1950 for a total of118 .5 percent from 1944 to 1950.23

Richmond demonstrated the greatest black population growth from 270 in 1940 to

 

2‘ Hine, “Black Migration to the Urban Midwest,”131.
22 Hilliard, This Side OfGlorx, 61-73.

23 Johnson, The Second Gold Rush 53.
23

10,000 in 1945 as its overall population increased from 23,642 in 1940 to 99,545 by 1950.24
More than sixty-ﬁve percent of migrants to the East Bay area came from Louisiana, Texas,
Oklahoma and Arkansas. Large scale migration in northern centers exacerbated housing
shortages and in cities such as Chicago, Miami and Detroit and resulted in the emergence
of a “second ghetto” by World War II. The second ghetto was periodically renewed,
strengthened and reinforced by government sanction and support through urban
redevelopment, planning and renewal policies throughout urban centers.25
There was no “second ghetto” in the San Francisco East Bay cities such as San Francisco,
Richmond, Oakland and Berkeley. Although blacks were conﬁned to the Western Addition
in San Francisco, historian Albert Broussard argued that unlike northern cities, housing
discrimination did not permeate the city of San Francisco before 1940 because blacks,
especially the black middle class, resided in virtually all neighborhoods. Broussard
maintained that blockbusting and restrictive covenants did not dominate housing markets
by either white and black residents nor did white San Franciscans respond with racial
violence as blacks attempted to integrate neighborhoods before 1940.26
The absence of violent protest to integration in the San Francisco East Bay does not

necessarily mean that blacks and other minorities were readily embraced by neighborhood

2‘ Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, Abiding CouLage: African-American Mlggn' t Women

mg the East Bay Comm (Chapel Hill: The University OfNorth Carolina Press, 1996),
2. 158-162.

25 Arnold Hirsch, M' the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chigago, 1940-
M (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1983), 253-258.

2‘ Broussard, Black San Francisco 30-33.

 

24

residents. It did not translate into non-existent cultural, racial, class and gender based
discrimination throughout the San Francisco East Bay. Review of the migrant experience
of southern blacks in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond alter 1940 reveals
effusions of institutional racism, uneven development, discriminatory and segregation
patterns. Examination of increasing southern black migration to the San Francisco East
Bay exposes white black and immigrant resentrnents and illuminates strategies employed
by southern migrants to c0pe with economic, social and political conditions.

World War II stimulated the midwestem migration of southern blacks and exacerbated
housing shortages. Increased demands for housing inﬂated property values by
unscrupulous landlords who demanded exorbitant rents and fees for decrepit, inferior
housing.27 Migrants were cramped into overcrowded, haphazard living spaces throughout
the San Francisco East Bay. In Richmond, shipyard workers rented “hotbeds” which
alternated between shipyard workers depending on their work shifts.28 Housing shortages
provided opportunities to supplement and increase the incomes of families, widows and
single women by subletting, renting and boarding.29 For example, Bobby Seale’s parents

who moved ﬁ'om Texas to Berkeley supplemented their income by renting halfof their

27 Sugrue, The O_rlg' ins Of The Urban Crisis, 34.
2‘ Shirley Ann Wilson Moore, To Plgce Our Deeds: The Aﬁican American

 

 

W0 ' In Richmond, Califognl_a,' 1910-1963 (Berkeley: The University Of California
Press, 2000), 75.

29 Johnson, The Second Gold Rush. 89.

25

living space to other families.30

Migrants constantly pushed residential boundaries which intensiﬁed restrictive covenants,
blockbusting and redlining, all of which prohibited realtors and property owners from
selling, leasing and renting to blacks. These three mutually reinforcing and complementary
measures bd to what Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton identiﬁed as hypersegregation
and spatial concentration whose geographic dimensions include clustering, concentration
and isolation.31 Hypersegregation was also a combination of prejudice, discrimination and
segregation infused with a conglomeration of private behaviors and institutional
practices.32

North Richmond’s black population was clustered along the westside of the city in an
area which became known as the “Black Crescent.” It was separated ﬁom the city of
Richmond by the Eastshore Freeway, the Santa Fe and Southern Paciﬁc railroads. North
Richmond, which became a “shanty town” during World War II, was plagued with
inadequate garbage collection, insuﬂicient sewage and drainage. Such conditions were
aggravated during stormy weather as water and mud ruined makeshift overcrowded tents
and trailer parks.33

Restrictive covenants geographically conﬁned blacks to West and South Berkeley. San

 

3° Bobby Scale, Seize Time The Sto Of The Black Panther P And Hue
P. Newton ( Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1991), 6.

3' Douglas Massey and Nancy Danton, American Apartheid: Segggation and the
M} of the Undercl_a_ss_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 74.

32 Hirsch, Makgrg' The Second Ghetto, 254.
33 Moore, To Rhee OLDeeds, 88,111-112.

26

Francisco’s Western Addition consisting of one hundred and fourteen blocks housed 37,030
people in 1943 who endured squalid and substandard housing which caused the city’s
health department to order two hundred and eighty-eight structures vacated because of
health and ﬁre hazards.” San Francisco’s Fillmore District also considered the worst of the
city was overcome with rodent infestations. West Oakland contained eighty-ﬁve percent of
the city’s black population by 1952 and provided the largest source of temporary housing
for migrants. It also contained the city’s highest level of units in dire needs of repair and
without private baths or adequate sanitary provisions.” Black migrant families usually paid
higher rents than non-whites for less living space.

Ronald V. Dellums who grew up in West Oakland recalled that his home, like many
others, contained three generations and multiple families. He also maintained that cooking
odors and “sounds of family life” exuded from garages throughout his neighborhood
which had been converted into living spaces.“ Huey P. Newton, whose family settled in
Oakland ﬁ’om Louisiana, asserted that his family never lived comfortably. Newton
slept on a cot in the kitchen with his older brother Melvin next to an icebox of a two-
room basement apartment which accommodated nine family members with little

opportunity for privacy.37 David Hilliard’s family settled with relatives in a two-bedroom

 

3‘ Broussard, Black San Francisco, 173-174.
3’ Lemke-Santangelo, Abidm' g Cgmge, 80.

3‘ Ronald V. Dellums and H. Lee Halterman, ng’ Down With The Lions, A Public
Life From the Streets of Oakland to the Halls of Power (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000) 11.

37 Huey P. Newton, Revolution__ag Suicide (New York: Writers and Readers

Inc.,1995) 16, 41.

27

apartment located on the second story of a one-family home in Oakland.38

The federal government responded to the housing crisis by constructing more than
thirty thousand public housing and “temporary” housing units throughout the San
Francisco East Bay. Although the federal government planned to construct eleven housing
units in addition to the ﬁve-thousand ﬁve hundred units at the Hunter’s Point naval yard in
San Francisco, wartime exigencies ﬁ'ustrated completion eﬂ‘orts. Only ﬁve of the
scheduled eleven units in San Francisco, Holly Courts, Potrero Terrace, Sunnydale,
Valencia Terrace and Westside Courts were completed by 1943.39

The San Francisco Housing Authority engaged in a federal policy of segregation as
blacks were conﬁned to Westside Courts located in the Western Addition as the four other
housing units did not contain any black tenants. Congested, subdivided and overcrowded
rental and federal housing threatened to disrupt traditional residential boundaries as
groups struggled over a handful of housing units. Some housing projects bordered
lowland areas and neighboring white neighborhoods.” Berkeley, which contained only one
housing project constructed in 1941 was a contested terrain as white residents vociferously
opposed a federal plan to construct housing in West Berkeley.

Historian Marilyn S. Johnson maintained that white Alameda, Berkeley and Albany

residents launched an anti-housing petition drive in 1943 to keep “an undesirable element”

out of their community, prevent integration of public schools and block ﬁrrther

 

3' Hilliard, This Side Of Clog, 62.
3’ Broussard, thk San Francisco 176-177.

‘° Johnson, Second Gold Rush, 99.
28

 

development of alleged prime industrial lands to accommodate black southern migrants.
Albany homeowners demanded installment of an eight-foot fence to discourage “transients”
and children of war workers from encroaching on Fairmont Trailer Park In addition, the
University of California opposed construction of Cordonices Village and claimed that the
construction site was slated for a future veterinary and agricultural school.“

Despite white opposition, the Federal Public Housing Authority (FPHA) constructed
nineteen hundred units of Cordonices Village segregated for both black and white tenants
on San Pablo Avenue."2 Most blacks resided West of Cordonices Village which was
situated near the Paciﬁc Rail line and the city dump, thereby exposing residents to
unhealthy conditions and pollution from burning trash fumes, scarce garbage collection,
poor sanitation and high decibel levels from passing trains. Bobby Scale who grew up in
Cordonices Village, recalled that residents lived in poverty and semi-poverty under
crowded conditions which ﬁ'ustrated housekeeping efforts. Scale noted, “the place was
always dirty.”43 The “heavy rumble” of freight and passenger trains was a permanent
aspect of Delltmrs’ West Oakland neighborhood.“

From 1940 to 1950, housing shortages increased the population density in Oakland

 

" Ibid, 103.
‘2 Lemke-Santangelo, Abidmg' Come, 87.

‘3 Scale, Seize The Tm , 6; Bobby Scale, A Lonely Qge: The Autobioggiphy of
EM Scale (New York: Times Books, 1978), 12-13.

“ Dellums, Lxmg' Down Wg' h The; Lions, 9.
29

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i \

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. .31:- 1.‘ cu -
'9 v. . '

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H 'V' A N
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+30

from 15.2 percent to 30.7 percent, and in Richmond, ﬁom 8.1 percent to 56.1 percent.“5
These shortages also accounted for low vacancy rates in the East Bay area such that
between April 1941 and September 1942, the vacancy rate in Oakland plummeted to sixty
percent. Although the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA) reported seven hundred thirty-
ﬁve applications for housing in December 1944, only six black families secured placements
in housing projects.“ Such ﬁgures indicated more than a housing shortage but evidenced
larger implications of racial discrimination proscribed and reinforced through government
endorsement.

The bourgeoning migrant populations overwhehned city municipal services
necessitating federal construction of the “Shipyard Railway” by the Maritime Commission
in 1942 including bus and streetcar lines. The Shipyard Railway provided access to eleven
thousand passengers daily for more than sixteen miles between west Oakland’s Moore
Shipyards and Richmond’s Kaiser shipyards."7 Public schools were also overwhelmed as
school enrollment multiplied exponentially. The Richmond student population increased
ﬁ'om three thousand pupils in 1940 to more than forty-three thousand in 1943."8

Although the public schools in the San Francisco East Bay area were integrated, the high

concentration of poor and minority students in schools throughout the East Bay

 

‘5 Johnson, The Second Gold Rush, 93.
‘6 Lemke-Santangelo, Abidgig' Cage, 86.
’7 Johnson, Second Gold Rush, 99.

“ Nash, The American West Transformed 72.

 

30

intensiﬁed race and class composition of schools and their geographic location.“9 Black
students attended elementary school in two main districts in Richmond and San Pablo of
which the larger Richmond district contained four elementary schools and only one for high
school juniors and seniors.50 Overcrowded schools and classrooms aggravated tensions
among students and fueled discrimination as black students were disproportionately
assigned to lower level classes in congested public schools.Sl

Huey P. Newton claimed to have been a casualty of Oakland overcrowded schools.
He maintained that although he was routinely promoted to higher grade levels, he never
learned to read as he drifted into what he termed, “patterns of petty delinquency.”
Newton was shuttled between Oakland public schools such as Lafayette Elementary
School, Santa Fe Elementary School and Woodrow Wilson High School because of
disciplinary problems which resulted in numerous expulsions and suspensions. He later
learned to read by memorizing poems and literature from his older brother Melvin
Newton’s poems and literature?2

Although class sizes increased and schoolteachcrs doubled class sessions, San Francisco

East Bay cities were unable to provide adequate playgrounds or community centers during

 

‘9 Harvey Cantor and Barbara Brenzel, “Urban Education And The “Truly
Disadvantaged”: The Historical Roots Of The Contemporary Crisis 1945- 1 990, ” In Michael
B. Katz ed. The Underclass Debate, Views from Hi_s_t01;y (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1993), 373.

5° Moore, To Place Our Deeds 102-104.

 

5' Ibid, 74, 78-79.
’2 Newton, Revolutiom Suicide, 19-33, 28.

31

schooldays because of deﬁcient funds to address educational demands. Inherently
unequal educational facilities particularly in southern black migrant strongholds may have
reﬂected larger inequities in diﬂ‘ercnces and variations in diﬂ‘erences and variations in
spending levels of districts per child in not only the educational system, but the reﬂected
larger irwquities in not only the educational system but the socioeconomic and political
system of the San Francisco East Bay area.53

The San Francisco East Bay area’s labor force evidenced the main example of
socioeconomic inequity. Economic marginality permeated the diversiﬁed and expanded
Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley and San Francisco labor force during World War II.
Oakland’s shipyard labor force was an assortment of “Okies” who were southwestern
white migrants ﬁom Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas. European and Chinese
immigrants and southern blacks also migrated to California.54 Whereas white irmnigrants
were allowed to join local unions, blacks and other minorities combated discrimination and
racism in the work force. Despite previous work experience and industrial skills that black
migrants brought with them, they were relegated to unskilled labor which yielded greater
income but a decrease in their professional status.55

Black migrants also experienced wage, race and gender discrimination as work

placements were not commensurate with previous professional or industrial experience.

 

’3 Jonathan Kozol, Sa e I ualities: hildren in America’s Schools (New York:
Crown Publications, 1991), 220-222.

5‘ Johnson, Second Gold Rush, 21.
5’ Moore, To Place Our Deeds 55.

 

32

Skilled positions such as welding, shipﬁtting, clerical and supervisory positions were
restricted to white employees. Migrant men were relegated to semiskilled and unskilled labor
in the shipyards and in the service sector.56 Black women were assigned to cleaning and
painting ship hulls whereas white women completed welding, considered the easiest jobs in
the shipyards.57 Black women in particular were relegated to arduous labor and were paid
less than white men, white women and black men. Hence, black women experienced
gender, race and class discrimination.

The exclusion of black men, women and other minorities ﬁom local unions was the best
example of discrimination and racism in the workforce. The Boilermakers Union which
controlled almost seventy percent of shipyard hiring and placements encouraged blacks
and other minorities to join segregated auxiliary unions such as Locals A-36, A-33, A-26 and
Local 513 which could all be dissolved at the discretion of international union ofﬁcials.”
A11 auxiliary union members necessitated white local union approval for promotion. Black
auxiliary union members could not vote on collective bargaining and other decisions and
could not attend local union meetings. Black women were denied membership in both local
unions and auxiliary unions. Black protest and resistance to segregated unions included
delays and nonpayment of dues and legal redress through the courts. “Nothing about

California” seemed to welcome Robert F. Williams, a Detroit resident recruited by the

 

5" Lemke-Santangelo, Abid_1r_1' g Come, 111,166.

’7 Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier African-Americans In The
American West 1528-1990 (New York: W.W Norton and Company, 1998), 256-257.

5’ Ibid, 259.

 

 

33

 

Mare Island Naval Yard in Port Chicago, California in 1943 Williams experienced “racial
ﬁghts” in naval dormitories, exclusion from the machinist union and unequal treatment
ﬁ'om police. Wllliams lelt California alter only three months of employment.’9
Despite economic, social and political barriers including ever-present economic, political
and social dislocation complemented by greater isolation from society at-large, black
southem migrants were determined to carve a space for themselves throughout the San
Francisco East Bay area. They engaged in a series of protest activities which later
provided templates for black protest activities in the 19603. A brief examination of black
protest activities in cities such as Oakland, Richmond, San Francisco and Berkeley
demonstrates that San Francisco East Bay cities did not suddenly spark into political
action in the 19608. Drawing from the union tradition of black workers, black
“radicalism” in the San Francisco East Bay originated from the southern migrant experience
of black workers and entrepreneurs. All four cities, Oakland, Richmond, San Francisco
and Berkeley enjoyed a long tradition of protest and resistance prior to the birth of its
most “radical” organization, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in October 1966.
CL. Dellums, founder of the Western Regional Headquarters of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) played a pivotal role in
resistance activities. Dellums became the international Vice-President of the Brotherhood
Of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) organized by A. Phillip Randolph and Milton P. Webster.

As the ﬁrst all black union to receive an international charter from the American

 

’9 Timothy B. Tyson, Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 42-43.

34

Federation of Labor (AFL), the BSCP challenged grievances of black porters from the
Pullman Company concerning wages, work hours, union representation, trade unionism and
employment conditions.60 By 1937, the BSCP, became the legitimate representative of
black porters and maids to secure overtime pay, rates of pay, seniority and union beneﬁts.
During the 19408 C.L. Dellums expanded the agenda of the NAACP to address migrant
concerns including “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaigns, equitable housing and
rates of pay, discrimination and equal access in employment. Black shipyard workers’
opposition to segregated unions strengthened Richmond’s NAACP established in 1944
which became the ﬁistest growing and most militant NAACP chapter on the West Coast.
Joseph James, a welder who worked in the San Francisco shipyards became the
President of the San Francisco NAACP. James played a pivotal role in organizing mass
protest against segregated auxiliary unions by mobilizing black shipyard workers and civic
leaders who later formed the short-lived Committee Against Segregation and
Discrimination." The San Francisco East Bay’s NAACP received substantial support from
black club women whose political activism demonstrated tlmt they belonged to a network
of southern black female activists, who emerged regionally as the leaders and
members of the club women’s national organizations.62 They phyed pivotal roles in a

variety of social movements including, suﬂiage, the black Baptist church, birth control,

 

6° Harris, K_e_epmg' The Faith, 218.

6' Albert S. Broussard, “In Search Of The Promised Land: Aﬁ'ican American
Migration To San Francisco, 1900-1945,” InDe Graafet. a1. Seek_l_r_1g' El Dorado, 199-201.

‘2 Jacqueline Anne Rouse, Lt_1gcnia Burns Hog, Black Southern Refom (Athens:
The University Of Georgia Press, 1989), 54.

35

welfare and health caref"3 Black club women in the San Francisco East Bay Area
organized interracial coalition campaigns with Mexicans, labor activists and Jewish
organizations to advocate fair employment practices, equal pay, child-care centers and fair
housing.64

Although black women experienced what historian Stephanie Shaw termed the “triple
burden of domesticity, professionalism and community empowerment,” San Francisco
East Bay area women formed clubs, founded institutions and created informal educational
programs throughout local communities.‘55 In Oakland, black women opened the
Housewives Market and with other migrants established DeFremery Park and Well Baby
Clinic. Black men and women’s anti-discrimination efforts culminated in the 1945
California Supreme Court ruling that the Boilerrmkers’ discriminatory practices of auxiliary
unions, layoffs and ﬁring of non-paying members were unconstitutional. Limited gains
inthe shipyards increased a small group of black men who prospered as aprofessional
elite made up of doctors, lawyers, ministers and business entrepreneurs.“

Black women prospered in the San Francisco East Bay area by establishing businesses,

 

‘3 Cynthia Neverdon-Morton, Afro-American Wom_en of t_h_e South and The
Advancement of th_e Racre 1895-1925 (Knoxville: University Of Tennessee Press, 1989),
202.

6‘ Shirley Ann Wilson Moore, “Your Life Is Really Not Just Your Own”: Black
Women in Twentieth Century California,” In De Graaf et. a1, Seeking El Dora_c_l_o_, 228-229.

‘5 Stephanie J. Shaw, What A Woman (Lught To Be and To Do: Aﬁ-icgn-Americans
Professional Wom_en Workers Quing' the Jim Crow Era (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1996), 1.

6‘ Broussard, “In Search Of The Promised Land,” 199-201.
36

especially restaurants and nightclubs which catered to southern cultural tastes and
provided employment opportunities for black workers. Two successﬁll black businesses
were Willie Mae “Granny” Johnson’s North Savoy Club which hosted blues performers
and Minnie Lue Nichols’ nightclub and restaurant."7 Minnie Lue’s was the ﬁrst black
establishment to secure a liquor license in 1958. Black women also ﬂourished as
beauticians and hairdressers who catered to black and white customers. Ronald V.
Dcllums’ mother brieﬂy worked as a beautician who perfected her skills by hot-
combing and practicing on the neighbor’s hair which suggests that hairdressing provided
and supplemented family incomes. Such enterprises demonstrate black women’s agency as
mnagcrs, owners and patrons.68

Historian Richard Thomas argued that individual efforts combined with local and
national institutions in the development of a “black community building process.”69 Local
and individual initiatives yielded a new “ghetto-based middle class” and increased the size
and number of black institutions such as churches and black businesses. Prosperity during
the war boom increased black consumerism. Oakland’s Tenth Street Market was the center
of spendthriﬂ war workers who asserted their economic prosperity by purchasing and
donning various items such as fur coats, cowboy hats and boots. Seventh Street in West

Oakland was the commercial center of black businesses such as barber shops, beauty salons,

 

‘7 Moore, To Place Our M 132-133.
6’ Dellums and Halterman, Lﬂn' g Down With The Lions, 11-12.

‘9 Richard Thomas, Life For Us Is Wh_at We Make lt- Building Black Commu_nm' in
Detroit 1215-1945 (Bloomington: Indiam University Press, 1992), xi.

37

nightclubs, cafes, grocery stores. Bobby Seale’s father who was a carpenter opened a
furniture store, Scale ’s Cabinet Shop, Reﬁnishing Furniture, Repair.70 Huey P. Newton
described the “special status” of what he termed “big men” in his ‘lower-class
community,’ “they drove big cars, were beautiful clothes and owned many of the most
desirable things life has to oﬂ‘er.”7‘

Historian Joe W. Trotter has argued that black men and women were workers who made
transitions ﬁ'om agricultural, domestic and personal service jobs into urban industrial
pursuits through complex interactions of race and class consciousness and behavior.72 He
deﬁned “proletarianism” as the process through which black migrants became urban
industrial workers. “Prolctarianism” intensiﬁed patterns of ghetto formation and directed
the emergence of a new black business and professional middle class, catering exclusively
to black customers. When compared to southern migrants, the majority of the new black
elite in San Francisco was younger, in their thirties and forties, and resided North and
West before migrating to San Francisco. They were graduates and alumni of black colleges
and played principal roles in major local campaigns and organizations and black churches.73

Members of the black middle class also played important political roles throughout the

San Francisco East Bay area. Tarea Hall Pittman, a representative of the Natioml Council

7° Scale, A Lonebz we, 29.

7' Newton, Revolutiom Suicide, 39.

72 Joe W. Trotter, Black Milwszkee: The Making of an Industrial Prolctariat 1915-
Q‘ié (Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1985), Xi, 83.

73 Broussard, “In Search of the Promised Land,” 199-201.
38

Of Negro Women (NCNW), mobilized a coalition with Mexicans, whites and labor
activists in securing ﬁve million dollars ﬁ'om Governor Earl Warren for childcare centers in
1949. Pittman’s coalition was responsible for statewide legislation ensuring equal pay for
women in the workplace. Charlotta Bass became the ﬁrst black woman to serve as a
memberof a grand jury in Los Angelesin 1943 and launched political campaigns for
city council in 1945 and vice presidential candidate of the Progressive Party in 1952.
William Byron Rumford, a black pharmacist in Berkeley, organized a petition drive
urging desegregation of housing units in Berkeley. Rumford was later elected to the
state assembly in 1948. Despite their political gains, there existed intraracial class
distinctions and conﬂicts between old timers and newcomers.74

Oakland, Richmond and Berkeley residents attributed negative characteristics to
newcomers as unruly, disorderly and unsanitary. Street peddlers, shoeshine boys, gamblers
and “lmdesirables” were perceived as a menace and bore the brunt of law enforcement.”
Newcomers and minorities in Oakland constituted a disproportionate share of those
arrested and accounted for an increase ﬁom thirty-nine percent of all those arrested in 1940
to ﬁfty-four percent in 1944.76 Such ﬁgures also demonstrate a deliberate attempt by
public ofﬁcials to control and regulate public space in the midst of “wartime urban
disorder.” Historian Marilyn S. Johnson argued that city ofﬁcials sensationalized the

“crime wave” to justify the proliferation of police personnel and to bolster federal assistance

 

7‘ Moore, “Your Life Is Really Not Just Your Own, ” 228-229.
75 Johnson, The Second Gold Rush, 154-156.
76 Ibid, 164.

39

for controlling business centers and downtown districts.77

Johnson maintained that San Francisco East Bay leaders employed inﬂammatory
rhetoric and federal assistance to discourage and eradicate absenteeism and turnover by
southern black migrants and other immigrant groups throughout defense industries. They
sought to “clean up” districts by reducing the visibility of newcomers, women and the
youth. Increased law enforcement presence heightened tensions which continued alter
World War II as a predominantly white police force proliferated throughout local
commimities to preserve order and patrol city streets. In West Oakland, police escalated
the number of arrests by “more than 275 percent” between 1940 and 1944.78 Mere
suspicion of illegal activity justiﬁed probable cause to accost and arrest black migrants
who violated unwritten rules and codes of conduct which governed race relations.

As the visibility of black migrants increased in downtown San Francisco East Bay
establishments, local mores governing race relations were violated. For example, some
black migrants denmnded service in local white establishments and refused to surrender
seats to white patrons in local restaurants, transportation and other municipal services. In
1944, a restless crowd of lilns smashed windows and doors after they were turned away
from a sold-out Cab Colloway dance at the Oakland Auditorium in 1944 resulting in the
Twellth Street Riot.79 Black migrants were blamed for the riots which prompted one

editorial to state “the Negro is making his big mistake, he is butting into the white

 

7’ Ibid, 164-169.
7’ Ibid, 168.
79 Ibid, 169.

40

civilization instead of keeping in the perfectly orderly and convenient Negro civilization
of Oakland, and he is getting himself thoroughly disliked.”80

Additional tumultuous changes throughout the San Francisco East Bay resulted in urban
crisis and urban renewal. Historian Thomas J. Sugrue argued that the origins of the urban
crisis were interwoven with histories of race relations, residence and work in the postwar
era within an economic and spatial context.m San Francisco East Bay cities epitomized
urban crisis as conﬂicts over control and use of public space remained unabated and
unresolved alter the end of World War II. Examination of housing conﬂicts, local and
national politics interspersed with race relations demonstrates that during the post World
War II period, Oakland, Richmond and Berkeley constituted a contested terrain as
southern migrants challenged economic, social and political barriers.

Southern migrants prioritized the struggle for housing as temporary housing projects
assigned to blacks and other minorities in the San Francisco East Bay became the targets
of demolition after World War II. The Richmond Redevelopment agency sought to
increase commercial and residential developments by eliminating and reducing temporary
war housing in north and south Richmond. Richmond’s Canal and Terrace Housing projects
were cleared by 1952 resulting in the eviction and relocation of seven hundred and four

black families into other temporary housing along State and Fall Avenue.82 Residents of

 

8° Editorial ﬁom The Observer 11 March 1944, Quoted In Beth Bagwell, Oakland
It; Story of a Qty (NovatozPresidio Press, 1982), 242.

" Sugrue, 1!; 9m ° of the Urban Crisis, 5.
’2 Moore, To Pm Our Deeds, 99.

 

41

Berkeley’s Cordonices Village, which contained eighty-eight percent of black residents by
1954, faced displacement and eviction after receiving notice in 1954 that the federal
government planned to evacuate the premises.83
Resistance to the destruction of black homes erupted in violent confrontations. Bobby
Scale witnessed a confrontation between “raging rmd crowd of people” of more than one
hundred black and white men and women and four ‘govemmcnt project men’ at
Cordonices Village. He wrote, “people fought taking policemen’s clubs, ﬁst ﬁghting, turning
cars over in the street, and one government car being set aﬁre and the ﬁre department
coming to put it out.”84 Despite many arrests, black men and women continued a daily vigil
to protest relocation, eviction and destruction of Cordonices Village because they were
determined not to “lose the issue” of saving apartments and homes. The city of Berkeley
authorized the demolition of Cordonices Village which displaced black residents and
increased competition for placements.85 For example, after leaving Cordonices Village,
Seale’s parents experienced housing difﬁculties and later managed a hotel in Oakland
primarily frequented by pimps and prostitutes which also served as their home.86
Strong opposition to demolition and displacement did not deter housing oﬂicials
throughout the San Francisco East Bay. Oakland’s BayAreaCouncilandthe Metropolitan

Oakland Area Program (MOAP) sought to promote industries by transforming designated

 

‘3 Johnson, Secgrd Gold Rus_h, 229.

“ Scale, A Lonely R_age, 39-40.
8’ Johnson, Second Gold Rush, 228-231.

'6 Scale, A Lonek Lage, 103.
42

“wasted” and “open”areas into industrial parks and new residential developments.87
Delineation of “wasted” and “open” spaces by the MOAP was based on race and class
because enclaves where blacks and other minorities resided became the targets of urban
renewal. Hundreds of acres of black homes and businesses including one halfof Oakland’s
Seventh Street, the center of black businesses during the 19408 was demolished to
accommodate the city’s transit system and postal complex. The Oakland Housing Authority
also demolished its seven housing projects as part of its West Oakland Redevelopment
Plan.88

The demolition of housing projects and businesses accompanied population increases
to the San Francisco Bay area resulting in a housing crisis. In West Oakland, the black
population increased ﬁom 16.2 percent in 1940 to 61.5 percent by 1950.89 Richmond’s
population increased by three hundred and twenty-one percent between 1940 and 1950
and Berkeley’s population increased by thirty three percent between 1940 and 1950.”0
Black migration to densely populated areas exacerbated spatial concentration of the urban
black poor. Discriminatory and segregation patterns in government housing programs

perpetuated racial divisions by placing public housing in already poor urban areas.9|

 

‘7 Gretchen Lemke Santangelo, “Deindustrialization, Urban Poverty and Aﬁican-
American Community Mobilization in Oakland, 1945 through the 1990s,” In De Graafetal

Seek_l_ng‘ El Dorado, 348.

33 Ibid.
'9 Johnson, The Secgg Gold Rush, 95.
90 Ibid, 35.

9' Lemke-Santangelo, Abidmg' Cou_r2_lge, 86-87, 110-113.

43

Through its “neighborhood policy,”and “neighborhood pattern” implemented in 1942, the
San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) assigned housing based on a community’s race
and ethnicity. In 1949, the Las Deltas Projects were constructed in North Richmond in the
Black Crescent area. 92 The SFHA built the remaining six housing developments of the
eleven housing units originally scheduled before World War II, but blacks were restricted to
only one housing project in a densely populated black neighborhood. Although the San
Francisco Superior Court nulliﬁed the neighborhood policy and pattern of the SFHA,
housing and racial segregation prospered throughout the San Francisco East Bay area.93

Black population increases resulted in Mite ﬂight.” Although some predominantly white
housing projects were also slated for demolition, white residents relocated to suburban
enclaves and new housing developments. Richmond’s Harbor Gate, a predominantly white
housing project was demolished and its residents relocated to Atchinson Village, the largest
newly constructed Richmond housing project. Newly constructed Parchester Village slated
by the federal government as an integrated cormnunity in 1949, became a contested terrain
when whites withdrew their ﬁnancial support and security deposits to express their
opposition to integration."

As whites moved, black migrants and other minorities assumed their former living spaces.
Over ten thousand displaced residents ﬁom West Oakland moved to East Oakland,

formerly a white neighborhood, after many white residents moved to the suburbs and newly

 

9’ Moore,To PlaceOurDeeds 111.

’3 Johnnson, Sec_ond @ld Rgsh, 105-108.
9‘ Moore, To che Ou_r Deed_s_, 110-116.

 

44

built housing projects. Black middle and working class Richmond residents also moved to
the one hundred and nine newly constructed homes of Parchester Village in North
Richmond in 1949 where they built a variety of institutions such as home associations,
veterans’ wives clubs, political associations, religious and citizen committees. Historian
Shirley Ann Wilson Moore maintains that Parchester Village exempliﬁed the attempt of
white power brokers to appease Aﬁican-Americans demands and simultaneously preserve
residential segregation.” Although seventy-eight percent of blacks in Richmond lived in
temporary housing scheduled for demolition by 1950, sixty percent of black migrants
residing in North Richmond owned mortgage-free homes by 19483”5

The economic, social and political status of blacks in the San Francisco East Bay post-
World War II worsened due to accelerated demobilization and deindustrialization which
began in 1947. The deindustrialization process included, “the closing, downsizing and
relocation of plants and sometimes whole industries.”97 Kaiser shipyards, one of the main
employers of black workers began laying oil workers ﬁ'om a total of over one hundred
thousand people in 1943 to nine thousand by the spring of 1946. Servicemen returned to
jobs assigned to bLacks during the wartime boom. As black workers, especially black
women were the “last hired, ﬁrst ﬁred,” black unemployment in Richmond rose to forty

percent of the total twenty-eight percent unemployment rate in 1947.” Oakland’s

 

95 Ibid.

9‘ Johnson, Second Gold Rush, 95.

97 Lemke-Santangelo, “Deindustrialization, Urban Poverty,” 350-351.
98 Anderson, “‘Last Hired, First Fired,” 82-97.

45

unemployment rate for non-white residents in 1950 was 19.8 percent for men and 21.7
percent for women doubling that of the city’s white population.99
Unlike the wartime employment opportunities of the 1940s, black men were relegated to
semiskilled occupations such as longshoremen, packers, construction, warehouse and
service jobs. ‘°° Women in the San Francisco East Bay area experienced ﬁnancial diﬂiculties
as the number of female shipyard workers decreased by sixty-three percent by 1945 and
only three hundred from a total of forty-one thousand women remained employed in the
shipyards statewide by June 1946. Black women were relegated to unskilled factory jobs,
clerical positions, laundries, the garment, food processing, custodial and service industries.
Although a small number of black women also engaged in private domestic service, the
unemployment rate for black women was higher than that of black men, white men and
white women. Black men and women received lower salaries than white men and white
women, but black women also experienced race and gender discrimination, and received
lower salaries than black men.‘01
Escalated decentralization adversely affected the economic status of black men and
women. Automobile manufacturers such as the “Big Three” Ford, General Motors and
Chrysler in Detroit were in the vanguard of decentralization and established precedents for
other American cities. Between 1947 and 1958, the “Big Three” built twenty ﬁve new plants

in suburban commimities in Detroit and, between 1950 and 1956, one hundred and twenty-

 

” Moore, To_l_’_l_ace Our Deeds, 94-95.
‘00 Broussard, Black San Francisco 209.

'°' Johnson, Second Gold Rush, 198.
46

 

four auto-related manufacturing ﬁrms also relocated to suburban Detroit. '02 Most of the
Detroit ﬁrms were located more than ﬁfteen miles from the center city. Similarly, in the San
Francisco East Bay area, manufacturing and defense ﬁrms such such as Ford, General
Motors, Borden Chemical, Hcil Equipment and Trailmobile in Oakland moved to the
suburbs of southern Alameda County because of tax breaks, greater and cheaper land for
construction.103

Job losses and long commutes ﬁlrther displaced workers. For example, alter the Ford
plant moved ﬁ'om Richmond to Milpitas, black workers who mainly resided in Richmond
and Oakland were excluded ﬁom new housing developments whereas white and white ethnic
workers had greater access to suburban housing enclaves. Scholars Joe T. Darden, Richard
Hill, June Thomas and Richard Thomas have argued that federal and state discriminatory
housing subsidies bankrollcd white suburbanization and intensiﬁed “uneven
development.”'°‘ The San Francisco East Bay area epitomized spatial concentration and
uneven development. Huey P. Newton described two ‘ﬁ/ery distinct geographic” Oaklands,
the “ﬂatlands” and the “hills.” The “ﬂatlands” consisted of substandard, dilapidated and
overcrowded housing in West and East Oakland. The “hills” referred to the suburban
enclave of the upper middle and upper class in Piedmont occupied by statesmen and

oﬂicials such as William Knowland, United States Senator and owner of the Oakland

 

"’2 Sugrue, grim of the Urlran Cri__s_is_, 128-129.
"’3 Lemke-Santangelo, “Deindustrialization, Urban Poverty,” 350-351.

'0’ Joe T. Darden et al., Detroit: Race and Uneven Developmgn; (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1987) 27.

47

Tribune newspaper.‘05

Deplorable economic and social conditions in the East Bay produced what journalist
Ken Aulctta described as an “underclass.”'06 The “underclass” constituted a distinct
socioeconomic class, self-perpetuating pathology and culture which reinforced
characteristics of the “inner city pathology,” “culture of poverty” and “ghetto pathology”
debated by scholars.‘07 The “underclass” composed a distinct socioeconomic class, self-
perpetuating pathology and culture. Aulctta argued that the “underclass” was characterized
by chronically poor unemployed welfare recipients, juvenile delinquents and street criminals,
alcoholics and drug addicts, high school drop-outs and “hustlers” partaking in an
underground economy. The most damaging effects from the conﬂuence of these factors
were promiscuity, Emily instability, emasculation of the male, criminal and delinquent
behavior, segregation and educational inequality. Scholars have argued that the
“underclass” reinforced characteristics of the “irmer-city pathology,” “culture of poverty” and
“ghetto pathology” because as a group, the “imderclass” was predisposed to anti-social,
criminal and immoral behavior.”

Sociologist William Julius Wilson clmllenged such an assessment. Wilson argued that the

 

"’5 Newton, Revolutiogg Suicide, 15.
'0‘ See Ken Aulctta, The Underclass (New York: Random House, 1982).

"’7 See, Kenneth B. Clark, Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas Of Social Power (New York:
Harper and Row 1965); St Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, Black Metropglis: A Study
Of Negm Life In A Northern ng’ (New York: Harcourt Brace And Co., 1945);
W.E.B.DuBois, IQ Philadelphia Negr_o, A Social Study Originally published n 1899, (New

York: International Publishers, 1982).
'°' Ibid.

48

term “underclass” depicted social transformations in the inner city due to increasing social
dislocation resulting from structural changes in the economy and the black middle and
working class exodus from inner city neighborhoods.” Wilson argued that social
dislocation exacerbated complementary sharp rises in female-headed families and black
male joblessness due to economic changes. However, scholars challenged Wilson by debating
the poverty paradox, the economic condition of the “underclass,” the causes and
consequences of concentrated poverty, the rationale for inner city life and policy
responses. Scholars including Michael B. Katz, Christopher Jencks and Paul Peterson
challenged Wilson by debating the poverty paradox, the economic condition of the
“underclass, ” the causes and consequences of concentrated poverty, the rationale for inner
city life and policy responses.“° Jencks, Peterson and Katz have argued that all of these
complementary factors affected the development of the ‘ﬁmderclass” but disagreed with
Wilsonon theroot causesof suchEctors in that,they cannotallbeexplainedbystructural
or institutional economic changes. They have emphasized the expansion and greater
isolation of the “underclass” ﬁ'om society at large ﬁom the additional Ector of
decentralization.”

Historian Thomas J. Sugrue argued that decentralization was an aggressive

 

109 William Julius Wilson, The T1_1_lly Disadvantgged: The Inner Cityhthc Underclass
And Um Public Policy (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1987), 56.

"0 Sec Christopher Jencks and Paul Peterson, The Urban Underclass (Washington
DC: The Brooks Institution,1991); Michael B Katz ed., W3 Debate: Views
From Histog (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993).

"' Lemke-Santangelo, “Deindustrialization, Urban Poverty,” 350-35 1.

49

transformation process which reconﬁgured local economies and industrial landscapes. It
included automation thereby increasing labor outputs and reducing the labor force and
labor costs. Decentralization also empowered corporate leaders to control labor management
relations. The conﬂuence of decentralization, racial discrimination, automation adversely
affected the black migrants and the youth by reducing the number of entry-level jobs
available. For urban black youth during the 19503, exclusion and systematic barriers in the
work force prevented them from securing skills, experience, connections, and simultaneously
entrapped them in “ an economic and political system which conﬁned them to the very
bottom.”"2 Three urban youth in the San Francisco East Bay area, David Hilliard, Huey P.
Newton and Bobby Scale were convinced that they were ensnared in an exploitive
capitalistic system strategically designed to dominate and exploit all blacks in particular.
Examination of the lives of Hilliard, Newton and Scale ilhlminate the formative
experiences of “urban youth” post-World War II who may have been considered members
of the “underclass” in Richmond, Oakland and Berkeley. Their life stories reveal that all
three were southem black migrant children who experienced and witnessed the economic,
social and political dislocation of their parents as children, and experienced similar
conditions as teenagers and adults. Their growing isolation society at large partly explains
why and how all three later formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, one of the most
“radical” political organizations in American history. Their background reinforces the

central argument of this chapter tlmt the southern migrant experience throughout the San

"2 Sugrue, Qr_ig'msfofth_e Urban Cri3_is_, 127-147.
50

Francisco East Bay area provides a fundamental source for understanding the “radicalism”
of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

David Hilliard, the youngest of twelve children, engaged in two main activities, “drinking
and sex,” in junior high school and fathered a child in the tenth grade. Hilliard later dated
Patricia, a teenage mother whom he later married. Hilliard and Patricia dropped out of
high school and had three children by 1962. Hilliard went ﬁom job to job performing a
variety of menial tasks as a “laborer” in the shipyards, a tile chipper, stacking and packing
at the canneries, cleaning trucks and meat barrels, and inspecting bottles. Hilliard gave
up onjobs altogether, he wrote, “ I no longer need real reasons to quit; I make them up, I
adopt and abandon jobs like I change clothes, shuﬂling things...working schemes on
welfare and unemployment.””3

Hilliard’s experiences paralleled that of his childhood ﬁiend Huey P. Newton.
Although Newton described his Ether a3 a “jack of all trades,” who worked two to three
jobs simultaneously and also worked as a minister at a local church, Newton did not wish to
emulate his father’s example. Newton’s multiple disciplinary problems culminated in his
dismissal ﬁ'om Berkeley High School. He was sentenced to Juvenile Hall after seeking
retribution from another youth by bringing a glm to school to “defend himself.” As a
teenager, Newton was convicted for what he termed, “various beefs, mostly burglary and
petty larceny” which disgusted his parents as he was continuously bailed out by his

childhood ﬁiend Sonny Man. Newton later graduated from Oakland Tech High School as

"3 Hilliard, This Side of Glory, 89-109.

51

what he termed a “functional illiterate.”"‘

While attending Oakland City College, (renamed Merritt College) in 1959, Newton was
also drinking, ﬁghting on street corners. He engaged in additioml criminal activities such
as bmglarizing cars by the emergency entrances of hospitals, gambling, pimping,
burglarizing homes, in Oakland and Berkeley Hills. He participated in what he termed
“small-time armed robberies” with his “crime partners.” He and his friend, “hid in the
parking lots of expensive white clubs and when the people came out, we took their fur
wraps, wallets, rings and watches.” He also utilized stolen credit cards and “short-change
games.” Newton admitted that be exploited and “lived oﬂ‘ of women.” He wrote, “women
paid my rent,cooked my food and did otherthings formewhilcanymoneylcameby
was mine to keep.” Newton was fascinated with criminality and initially studied law to
“outmaneuver” the police and “to become a better burglar.””s

While in college, Newton’s criminal activities yielded criminal charges for short-changing
sixteen stores which were dismissed. Newton also received three hung jury verdicts after
three trials for stolen books. Newton was later convicted of assault with a deadly weapon
and sentenced to six months in the county jail for the stabbing of another youth Odell Lee.
Although Newton admitted his guilt, he claimed that he was “falsely convicted” of assault
with a deadly weapon because he was not tried by ajury ofhis peers. Newton was

released ﬁ'omAlameda County Jail in 1965 and reunited withhis college ﬁiend Bobby

 

"‘ Newton, Revolutiowy Suicide, 19-109.

”5 Ibid, 93.
52

Scale.“6

A3 a teenager, Scale attended Berkeley High school where he and other ﬁiends joined the
Village Gang comprised of “a half-dozen boys from the project houses.” Three days
before his high school graduation, Scale learned that he could not graduate because of failing
grades during his last semester. Unable to ﬁnd a job, his unlawful activities resulted in a
sentence of ﬁfteen days in jail. He later joined the US. Air Force where he served as an
aircraft mechanic and corporal. After more than three years of service, Scale was
sentenced to the stockades because of ﬁghts with other servicemen and missing payments
on a set of drums owed to a collection agency owned by his Colonel’s relatives. After
shifting jobs in the steel industry, he obtained his high school diploma and enrolled at Merritt
College where he met Huey P. Newton and both joined the Alto-American
Association'”

The intertwining thread which binds David Hilliard, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Scale
is that all three typiﬁed sets of self-destructive behaviors ascribed to the “underclass”
including criminality and promiscuity. However, all three were determined to overcome
their difﬁculties. For example, despite dropping out of high school, Hilliard was committed
to support his family by whatever means necessary. Similarly, Sealejoined the army
because it provided some form of leverage to counter the economic hardships and his
gang-related past. Newton’s Ether worked multiple jobs to support his Emily. Although

Newton exploited women, he also attended krw school. Despite their shortcomings,

 

”6 Ibid, 89-90.

”7 Scale, Seize IQ Time, 7-11.
53

particularly their behaviors and criminal past, the experiences of Hilliard, Newton and Scale
show that they were disaffected with the economic, political and social conditions of the San
Francisco East Bay area. However, they were determined to survive the “inner-city
pathology” ascribed to the “underclass” which demonstrates the collective agency of the
‘ﬁmderclass” amidst adversity.

In 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Scale channeled their economic and political
ﬁ'ustrations to create one of the most radical political organizations in American history, the
Black Panther Party For Self-Defense (BPP). Newton’s childhood friend David Hilliard
later became the BPP’s Chief of Staff by 1968. Newton and Scale devised a Ten Point
Platform and Program which reﬂected “essential points for the survival of black and
oppressed people in the United States.” They separated their ideas into two sections
“What We Want” and “What We Believe,”(Figure 1) outlining fundamental demands and
“objective conditions” necessary to attain their goals.1 '3

The Ten Point Platform and Program borrowed heavily from two documents, the United
States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The BPP asserted that any
repudiation of their Ten Points amounted to a denial of fundamental human rights under
“absolute despotism” and justiﬁed their right and duty to “throw off such government and
to provide new guards for their future security.”"9 The BPP demanded in Point Seven

that self-defense groups be formed to protect and defend the black community from racist

 

m “October 1966 Ten Point Platform and Program of the Black Panther Party,
What We Want, What We Believe,” In Newton, Revolutiogy Suicide, 116—119.

"9 Ibid.

54

oppression and brutality. Newton and Scale asserted their Second Amendment right to
bear arms to thwart police aggression. They also urged black men and women to pick up
the gun to formally articulate grievances against police brutality and racial domination.
Scale and Newton argued that the gun provided self-defense and ensured federal, state and
local enforcement of fundamental constitutional amendments. Such an assertion has caused
the BPP to be considered one of the most “radi ” organizations in American history.

The Ten Point Platform and Program demonstrated that the BPP was not the precursor
of civil rights activism in the San Francisco East Bay. A3 a political organization, the BPP
was a continuation of the resistance and protest tradition of the San Francisco East Bay
area. TheTenPoint PlatformandProgramaddressedthebasicneedsandconcernsoflocal
black communities, and simultaneously served as a template which not only outlined but
universalized the fundamental needs and concerns of black communities mtionwide. Scale
and Newton argued that black communities were victimized by oppressive social,
economic and political conditions and needed “land, bread, housing, education, clothing,
justice and peace” to empower individuals living in these communities.

Self-determimtion was the resounding theme of the BPP Ten Point Platform and
Program. Newton, Scale and Hilliard transformed themselves into ardent and outspoken
proponents of self-help. The BPP came into contact with Ronald V. Dellums, the nephew of
C.L.Dellumswhooﬂ'eredthemlimitedsupportashetoo fought injusticesintheSan
Francisco East Bay area. Ronald V. Dellums canceled his plan to pursue a PhD at Brandeis
University in social policy for becoming a Berkeley councilnnn in 1967. He proclaimed

himself “a new breed black politician” whose politics confronted and addressed

55

contradictions throughout society at-large. During his term as councilman, he spearheaded
challenges to various measures including pursuing a court injunction to prevent the city’s
Department ofTransportation (BART) ﬁom building an above ground transit system which
he argued would be detrimental for poor neighborhoods.I20

Dellums also attempted to alter the jury selection process which he argued excluded
many blacks and ethnic minorities. In 1971 , Dellums defeated six-term Democratic
Berkeley Congressman Jeffery Cohelan who served from 1958 tol970 to become one of a
record munber of twelve black congressmen elected to the House of Representatives in the
92" Congress of 1971. Dellums who represented Berkeley California, was one of ﬁve newly
elected black oﬂicials from the Democratic Party including Parren J. Mitchell, Maryland’s
ﬁrst black congressman, George Collins of Illinois, Charles B. Range] who defeated
powerful Harlem Representative Adam Clayton Powell and Ralph Mctcalf who replaced
the late William Dawson of Chicago. Although Dellums acquired a reputation in the San
Francisco East Bayareaforhis ‘militancy’ andone blackpress heraldedhimas‘thcmanto
re-light the torch Adam Powell used to carry,” the national media was drawn to the BPP’s

radicalismfn

 

12° “Berkeley’s New Breed of Black Politician,” San Francisco Examiner 25 August
1968, 11; William Brand, “Berkeley Ex-Congressman Dies At 84 After A Long Illness,”
ng Tribune, 18 February 1999; “A New Breed Takes Over In Dixie,” Baltimore Aﬁ'o-
m 23 January 1971, l. Jeffcrey Cohelan was one of the Congressional delegates to
Sehna, Alabama to get Martin Luther King Jr. released from jail. He co-sponsored legislation
toprotectthe PointReyesPcninsuhandcreateRedwoodNatioml Park. He laterbecame
the executive Director of Group Health Association and also helped create legislation for the
creation of HMOs.

 

'2' Ibid.

56

All four men Newton, Scale, Hilliard and Dellums would later play substantial roles in the
history of the San Francisco East Bay area throughout the late 19603 and 19703. This
chapter has argued that it is erroneous to argue that the BPP ‘ﬁadicalized” the San Francisco
East Bay area. The BPP was not a sudden spark that fueled San Francisco East Bay cities
such as Oakland, Richmond, San Francisco and Berkeley into political action. All four cities
enjoyed a long tradition of protest and resistance prior to the birth of the BPP in October
1966. BPP leaders Newton, Scale and Hilliard migrated to the San Francisco East Bay
during the tmnultuous 19403 where they and their families encountered the trials and
tribulations ofthe southemmigrant experience inthe SanFrancisco East Bayarea. Their
“radicalisn1”mustbeunderstoodasanoutgrowthof the southemmigrant experience inthe
San Francisco East Bay area as they struggled through dislocation and greater isolation
ﬁ'om society at-large which propelled them to political activities in the form of the BPP in
October 1966.

Newton, Scale and Hilliard as leaders of the BPP were shaped and molded by the
southern migrant experience. They channeled their collective efforts to address the main
obstacles affecting black men, women and children nationwide, such as unemployment,
educational and economic inequity, political oppression, exploitation of black labor and
racial discrimination. This chapter highlighted some of the main problems which
necessitated formulation of the BPP’s Ten Point Platform and Program. It also
demonstrated strategies employed by black men and women during their migration ﬁom
theSouthtotheSanFranciscoEastBayarea toarguethatsouthemmigrationdidnot

necessarily translate into or yield greater ﬁeedom. Economic disparities remained

57

accompanied by housing conﬂicts and job competition.

This research demonstrated that BPP members cannot be separated ﬁom their past
without illuminating the turmoil, conﬂicts, trials and tribulations they endured as young
migrants to the San Francisco East Bay area. Such an examination offers a multi-
dimensional focus on their goals and objectives in forming the BPP to draw attention to
their individual and collective strengths and ﬂaws. Newton, Scale and Hilliard did not
suddenly surface in the San Francisco East Bay area in 1966. Therefore, their experience
throughout their residence in Oakland, Richmond and Berkeley is signiﬁcant and must be
included in the BPP historiography to better understand the “radicalism” of the BPP.

As members of the “underclass” Scale, Newton and Hilliard devised strategies for
coping with their hardships. Such strategies were employed in the realization of speciﬁc
objectives outlined in the Ten Point Platform and Program. Although the BPP’s political
platform is always cited throughout the BPP’s historiography, this chapter has shown that
the Ten Point Platform aptly reﬂected the social, political and economic conditions
experienced by the BPP’s founders who formulated the Ten Points Platform and Program
to address their immediate concerns for ‘employment, education, housing, justice and
peace.’ In other words, the BPP’s founders universalized ftmdamental demands for black
communities nationwide after experiencing social dislocation, economic and racial
oppression. The BPP has been the focus of ongoing debates among scholars who
dispute the BPP’s signiﬁcance and overall effectiveness. The following chapter explores main
themesof the BPP’s historiography to evaluate a variety of explanations accounting for the

rise of the BPP.

58

CHAPTER H
UNSHROUDING THE VANGUARD: REVOLUTION AND INTERNAL
DISSENSION IN THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY 1966-1970

The Black Panther Party (BPP) has been the focus of debates among scholars who have
traced its political ideology by examining dimensions of race, class, and gender. Scholarship
on the BPP highlight ideological ambiguities and shifts and its contribution to internal
dissension. Too often ambiguities of founder Huey P. Newton and his writings were cited
throughout the BPP historiography as the main ideologue of the BPP without tracing or
examining his overall direct and indirect effects on the leadership and membership.|

As a result, the multitude of voices of the BPP leaders and members are too often stiﬂed
and silenced by the various political “isms” expounded by the most vocal and visible
leaders of the BPP such as Co-founder Bobby Scale and Minister of Information Eldridge

Cleaver.2 For example, scholars have expounded the ﬁve min political ideologies of the BPP

 

' Huey P. Newton, To Die For The PetmLc, Th_e thmg' 3 Of Huey P. Neﬂog, edited
by Toni Morrison (New York:Writers And Readers Inc., 1995); Huey P. Newton,
Revolutionggy Suicide (New York: Writers And Readers Inc., 1 995); Huey P. Newton, ﬂ
Aggm_s_t’ The Panthers, A Study Of Repression In America (New York: Writers And
Readers Inc., 1996).

2 Bobby Scale, Seize The Time, The Stogy of the Black Panther Pgﬁy and Huey P,
Newton (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1991); Eldridge Cleaver, Eldridge Cleaver. Post

M' n Writmg' 3 And Speeches (New York: Random House, 1969); Lee Lockwood,
anversation With Eldridge Cl_e_avcr. Alg'grs (New York: Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1970);
Philip S. Foner ed. The Black Panthers S The Manifesto of the Party: TheyFirst
Documentagy Record of the Panthers’ Prom (Philadelphia: J .B Lippincott Company,
1970); G. Louis Heath, The Black Panther Leaders $21k, Huey P. Newton, 80% Scale,

59

as black nationalism, revolutionary nationalism, revolutionary intercommunalism,
internationalism and Marxism-Leninism3 No attention has been paid by scholars on how
individual members shaped and reconﬁgured these political “isms” at the local leveL
This chapter traverses and navigates the “political mineﬁelds” of individual BPP members
to explore and expose recurrent themes of “revolution” and “revolutionary” to unstack
recurrent political “isms” of the BPP. Such an examination reveals the strengths and
weaknesses of the BPP at the local and national level. It clucidates the autonomy and agency
of individual members and chapters of the BPP to better understand ideological
interpretations of “revolution” and “revolutionary.” It unearths and incorporates the
symphony of “other” voices throughout the BPP’s history from 1966 to 1970 to better
understand the BPP’s political ideologies.
Journalist Hugh Pearson blamed Newton’s excesses and chaotic doctrines for
disorganization eventually resulting in the demise of the BPP.4 This research rejects the
argument that Huey P. Newton’s ideological ambiguities were primarily responsible for

mass confusion and gross misinterpretations of the political doctrines of the BPP. The

 

Eldrﬂg' e Cﬂver and Com 8&1; Out Through The Black Panther Party’s Oﬂic_ial_
NeW§p_ap_er (Metuchcn, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press Inc., 1976); G. Louis Heath, Qﬂ‘

The Pigs The Histog And Literature of The Black Panthg Pm (Metuchcn, New Jersey:
The Scarecrow Press, 1976).

3 Jimmy Mori, “The Ideological Development of the Black Panther Party,” Cornell
Jgurnal Of Social Relations 12 (Fall 1977):]37-155; Floyd Hayes III and Francis A. Kiene
III, “ All Power To The People”: The Political Thought of Huey P. Newton and the Black

Panther Party,” In Charles Jones ed. The Black Pm Pm Reconsidered (Baltimore: The
Black Classic Press, 1998) 157-176.

‘ Hugh Pearson, The Shadow Of The Panther, Hucv P. Newton An_d Th; Price Of
thh Pgwer In mes (New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994), 345-347.

60

main argument of this chapter is that the historiography of the BPP, has been enshrouded
in a series of “isms” combined with political repression and internal dissension which have
cﬂ’ectively obscured the autonomy and agency of the leadership and the rank and ﬁle. Too
often, Newton and other leaders and national ﬁgures of the BPP accentuated political “isms”
without explaining how such political “isms” would foment fundamental changes in political,
economic and social institutions.

This chapter deﬁnes revolution as firndamental changes in the socioeconomic, political
and social structure of society. It connotes a redeﬁnition of power rooted in a redistribution
of wealth to compel transformations in the existing power hierarchy. The BPP revered the
“revolutiomry” ideals of international movements and their leaders including Mao Tse-
Tung in China, Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, Argentinian Ernesto “Che” Guevara,
the Vietnamese people and numerous others. One of the BPP’s main ﬂaws was that it did
not evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these movements to show how they were
applicable to the United States. The BPP did not explain how ﬁrndamental changes would
take place or which mechanisms it would construct to ensure freedom in an economic,
political and social context as reﬂected in its Ten Point Platform and Program demanding
ﬁeedom full employment, an end to the robbery of the black community, decent housing,
education, exemption from military service, and end to police brutality and murder of black
people, freedom of all blacks in state, county and local jails and prisons, that all black people

be tried by a jury of their peers, land, bread, housing, justice and peace.5

 

5 “October 1966 Ten Point Platform and Program of the Black Panther Party, What
We Want, What We Believe,” In Newton, Revolutionhry Suicide, 116-119.

61

Although the BPP’s Ten Point Platform and Program reﬂected fundamental demands, it
did not contain a concrete strategy for implementing those demands to eliminate political and
socioeconomic inequities. That is not to state that the BPP lacked vision or that they
drafted a “laundry list” which included everything they wanted. The BPP argued that all
expressions of capitalism fomented exploitation of the poor and must be eliminated. The
BPP’s Ten Point Platform and Program did not include a concrete formula or plan for
eﬂ‘ecting substantive transformations in existing power relationships but outlined speciﬁc
fundamental requirements necessary for self-dcterrnination. Newton explained that the
BPP’s main function was to “awaken the people and teach them the strategic method of
resisting a power structure” whose intent was to annihilate the black population.6

Huey P. Newton and Bobby Scale began the BPP by composing the Ten Point Platform
and Program then set out address the Ten Points as the organization developed and expanded.
One example is the declaration of the BPP’s Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver that
members of the BPP were “revolutionaries” who sought the transformation of the American
social order by destroying the existing power structure in the United States. He further
added, “ we have to overthrow the government...we say we will do this by any means
necessarymand the only means possible is the violent overthrow of the machinery of the
oppressive ruling class.”7

It was unclear which kind or type of machinery the BPP would construct to replace and

 

6 Huey P. Newton, “The Correct Handling of A Revolution, July 20, 1967," In
Newton. To Die For The People. 15.

7 Eldridge Cleaver, The Black Panther hereinafter cited as TBP 28 June 1969, 12-14,
Quoted in G. Louis Heath, The Black Panther Leaders Sp_egk_, 25.

62

correct economic, political and social disparities. As a young organization, the BPP
experienced a variety of trials and errors consistent with their perception of themselves as
“revolutionaries.” Given that Panthers viewed themselves as revolutionaries, this chapter
explores several questions such as, how did BPP members and leaders contextualize
“revolution” and “revolutionary?” What kind or type of revolution did individuals in the
BPP envision? Exposing multi-layered and multi-faceted interpretations of “revolution”
and “revolutionary” throughout speciﬁc moments in the BPP’s history provides yet another
terrain to explore fundamental unresolved conﬂicts, contradictions and inconsistencies. It
also accounts for factional rifts and inter-ml dissension within the BPP at the local and
national level.

In October 1966, the BPP prioritized Point Seven of its Ten Point Platform and Program
by patrolling the police in its assertion of self-defense. The BPP was profoundly inﬂuenced
by the works of Robert Williams, president of the North Carolina branch of the NAACP and
the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Louisiana.8 Both advocated defense of civil rights
marchers and community patrols of black neighborhoods to thwart police aggression.
Newton and Scale maintained that the BPP was the concrete testament to Malcom X’s call

for self-defense.9 They adopted the symbol of the black panther ﬁom the Lowndcs County

 

’ See Robert F. Will'mms, Neggoes With Guns (Chicago: Third World Press, 1973);
Timothy B. Dyson “Robert F. Williams, “Black Power” and the Roots of the Aﬁican
American Freedom Struggle,” The Journal of American Histogy (September 1998): 540-570;
Timothy B. Tyson, Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Newton, Revolutiom Suicide, 112.

9 Malcom X, “Message To The Grassroots, Detroit 1963,” In George Breitman ed.

Malcom X 8%, Selected Speeches and Statements (New York: Grove Press Inc., 1966),
17.

63

 

Freedom Organization and rationalized that the panther was a ﬁerce animal who would not
attack unless provoked. '0 Newton explained, “the nature of a panther is that he never attacks,
but if anyone attacks him or backs him into a corner, the panther comes up top wipe that
aggressor or that attacker out absolutely, resolutely, wholly, thoroughly and completely.”ll

For the BPP, police patrols and carrying guns were “a form of armed propaganda” to
arouse interest in the BPP. They were a realization of point seven of the BPP’s Ten Point
Platform and Program which called for self-defense and a recruiting tool which attracted
“street brothers.” They were strategically aimed at teaching the community security against
the police to provide a concrete model for defending, liberating “educating and
revolutionizing the black community.”‘2 Panthers did not engage in direct confrontations
with the police during random patrols in Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley and San Francisco,
nor were they expressly behind police cars.‘3 They were usually four or ﬁve blocks away,
if they witnessed police engaging in an arrest as they drove through the community, they
exited the car with shotguns, tape recorders and law books and observed."

From the outset, the BPP decreed police as “pigs,” a co-option of Elijah Muhammad‘s

doctrines to condemn police harassment, aggression and brutality to convey grotesque and

 

'0 Scale, Seize The Time, 65.

” Foner ed, The Black Panthers 8%.

'2 Newton, Revglhtiongy Suicide, 120-121.

‘3 Newton, Revolution_a;y Suicide, 143, 121, 166.

" Bobby Scale, Interview in Film, Berkeley In The Sixties, Produced and Directed
by Mark Kitchell, Kitchell Films In Association with P.O.V Theatrical Films, San Francisco:
California Newsreel 1990.

64

brutal qualities to their nemesis. The term also referred to “unpleasant connotations” of a
destructive, ﬁlthy swine, unclean animal that did not relate to humans because of its gross
and uncaring nature.‘5 The BPP likened police to occupying armies throughout local
communities and deﬁned “pig” as “an ill-natured beast who has no respect for law and
order, a foul traducer who’s usually found masquerading as a victim of an unprovoked
attack?" The BPP also coined the phrase “Off the Pig” translated as a call for self-defense,
or dehherate offensive action against police ofﬁcers if and when threatened. '7 Any arrest was
deﬁned as a “kidnapping,” bail was classiﬁed as “ransom,” and the United States was labeled
“Babylon?” Redeﬁning bail and arrests reiterated the BPP’s contention that both were
unreasonable, prohibitive and excessive measures unfairly targeting poor, unemployed,
ghetto residents.

Dcnotations such as “kidnaping” and “ransom” reinforced that ghetto residents were
victimized and exploited by the existing power structure. Renaming the United States
government “Babylon” was an abstract biblical reference justifying destruction similar to
that of the ‘decadent’ Babylonian empire.” The BPP’s labels especially ‘pig” were aﬂi'onts

to police oﬂicers and law enforcement authorities nationwide which prompted a temporary

 

‘5 Newton, Revolutiohm Suigide, 165-166.

'6 “A Pig,” In Foner ed, The Black Panthers thh, 14.

'7 Bobby Scale, T BP 10 January 1970, Quoted in Heath, The Black Panther
Leaders Sﬁh, 23.

" Lockwood, Conversation With Eldridge Cleaver, 41.

'9 Cleaver, Soul On Fire 92.

 

65

campaign of “Pigs Are Beautiful” buttons and pins by San Francisco East Bay police
oﬂicers.20 The BPP also coined the phrase “all power to the people” to raise the
consciousness of the community and to characterize the call for self-determination through
local community control. Negative connotations demonstrates a concrete attempt by the
BPP to challenge and alter existing power relationships by arguing that the people retain the
ultimate power to effect change. To Newton, the gun balanced power between the police
and the local community. Newton commented, “with weapons in our hands, we were no
longer their subjects but their equals?“

Newton argued that the gun was the “basic tool of liberation,” because it empowered the
masses to halt the terror and brutality of the “armed racist power structure.”22 Although the
gun provided some form of armor for the masses, it was unclear how the gun singularly
offered concrete changes in the power structure and how violence perpetrated by both the
power structure and the masses would translate into fundamental changes in the political,
economic and social structure of American society. The gun in and of itself did not
necessarily balance or equate the masses with police forces throughout local communities.

The BPP attracted local attention through its pivotal role in mobilizing the community
after the death of twenty- two- year-old Oakland resident Denzill Dowel]. Police gunﬁre

killed Dowell in Richmond, California on April 1, 1967. Newton, Scale and their ﬁrst

 

2° Newton, Revolutiogm Suicide, 166.
2' Ibid,l20.

22 Newton, “In Defense of Self-Defense,” TBP 20 June 1967, 4, Quoted In Heath,
1m Black Panther Leaders Smh, 19.

66

seventeen-year-old recruit Bobby Hutton who later became Treasurer of the BPP,
organized community meetings. They protested police inaction as the policeman
responsible for Dowell’s death did not receive a suspension and no other law enforcement
agencies conducted an ofﬁcial investigation.23 To denounce Dowell’s death the BPP
produced and circulated the ﬁrst issue of the Black Panther, Black Community Service
issue on April 25, 1967. The BPP alternately published its paper weekly and bi-weekly
from 1966 to 1972 and became the principal means through which the BPP publicized,
encouraged and organized community discussion groups. It also served as a recruitment
mechanism which drew individuals ﬁom the local community, college campuses, pool halls
and bars."

The BPP drew media attention during its escort of Malcom X’s widow Betty Shabazz.
Two years after her husband Malcom X’s assassination/murder at the Audubon Ballroom in
Harlem, New York, Shabazz was scheduled to speak at a Malcom X Memorial Day
Conference in Hunter’s Point, considered one of the largest black ghettoes in San
Francisco. Newton and eight BPP members volunteered to provide security for Shabazz
and to escort her during her visit. Arrmd with guns, Newton, Scale and other BPP members
arrived at the San Francisco airport where they Eced numerous challenges by police
oﬂicers. Newton asserted his constitutional right to bear arms and refused to allow the

media to take photographs.

 

2’ Scale, Seize The Tm , 134-149; Newton, Revolutionary Suicide, 137-142.

2‘ “Why Was Denzil Dowell Killed?” TBP, 1 April, 1967; Newton, Revolutiohahy
Suicide, 126-127, 143-144.

67

Newton and BPP members Eced additional challenges and “tense scenes” by police
ofﬁcers after escorting Shabazz to the Ramparts magazine oﬂicc in San Francisco. A
camera man challenged Newton when Newton blocked closer coverage of Shabazz from
the throng of media spectators. Similarly, police ofﬁcers challenged the BPP’s right to carry
guns in public view. A policeman refused to arrest news reporter Chuck Banks after he and
Newton engaged in a scuﬂle. Newton challenged the policeman whom he referred as a
“cowardly dog” to draw his gun as he and other members of the BPP were surrounded by
police ofﬁcers.25

This conﬁontation with police ofﬁcers would set the tone for what Newton termed
‘dramatic encounters’ with police oﬂicers. Newton wrote, “at times, they drew their guns
and we drew ours until we reached some sort of standoff?“5 Scale asserted that he and the
others “had spit on the pigs,” “stood these pigs oﬂ” and almost became involved in a
“righteous shootout” with pigs you know are racists?” Covering this event for Ramparts
magazine, Eldridge Cleaver a former convict who enjoyed literary acclaim ﬁom his book
Soul on Ice, was permanently transformed by this scene.28

Cleaver admired Newton’ 3 “revolutionary courage” to oppose the oppressor by traversing

 

2’ Scale, Seize The Time 113-130; Newton, Revolutionhry Suicide, 131.

 

2‘ Newton, Revolutionary Suicide, 123.

27 Scale, Seize The Time 129-130.

 

2’ “The Courage To Kill,” In Scheer ed. Eldridge Cleaver, Post-Prison Writings Ed
3.132%, 35-37.

68

and singlehandedly entering what he termed, the “no man’s land of revolution.”29 He
concluded, the “genie of black revolutionary violence is here and it says that the oppressor
has no rights which the oppressed are bound to respect.”30 Cleaver explained that he did not
envision a race war but a guerilla resistance movement amounting to a second civil war in
the US. Such a movement necessitated thousands of ‘white John Browns’ immersing
America into the depths of its “most desperate nightmare” towards realization of the
American Drearn”3'

Newton and Scale were awed by Cleaver’s nine-year incarceration, writing skills and Eme
after they heard him on the radio the evening after their escort of Shabazz. Scale contended
that Newton envisioned Cleaver as “a Malcom X, coming out of prison.”32 Newton initially
sought out then later met with Cleaver to urge him to join the BPP. Newton reasoned, “he
was an ex-convict...he could not be all bad if he had pulled time.”33 Cleaver became the
Minister of Information of the BPP.

In early 1967, funding was the main concern for the newly formed BPP for Self-Defense.
Newton and Scale alternately raised funds for the BPP by selling copies of the book

Quotations ﬁom Chairman Mao by Chinese Premier Mao Tse-Tung. They purchased the

 

29 Cleaver, Soul On Fire 83.

 

3° “The Courage To Kill,” In Scheer ed. Eldridge Cleaver, Post-Prison WritingsAnd
Smhes, 38.

3' “Playboy Interview With Nat Hentoﬂ‘,” In Scheer cd.,Eldridgc Cleaver, Post
Prison Writirr s and S hes 165.

32 Scale, Seize The Time, 132; Hilliard, This Side of Glory. 140.

33 Newton, Revolution_a;y Suicide, 135;
69

“red books” for less than a quarter from the New China Bookstore in San Francisco then sold
them for a dollar ﬁrst at Sather Gate on the University of California at Berkeley campus,
then to other university campuses throughout the Bay Area. Additional funding for the
BPP include speaking engagements, individual and group donations including the proceeds
ﬁ'om the sale of Eldridge Cleaver’s book Soul On Ice. Such ﬁrnding allowed the BPP to
lease ofﬁce space on 56m and Grove Street for $150 month in Oakland in January 1967
which served as BPP headquarters.34

Newton coined the phrase “revolutionary suicide” to convey that the ‘revolutionary’
must always be prepared to Ece imminent death because it symbolized a resolute
determination to effect change.35 Scale explained, “to be a revolutionary is to be an enemy
of the state, to be arrested for this struggle is to be a political prisoner.”36 Both Newton
and Sealc’s descriptions narrowly deﬁned “revolutionary” as opposition to both authority
ﬁgures and to representatives of the existing power structure. In other words, deﬁance
and contempt for the state was the prerequisite of a “revolutionary.” “Revolutionary suicide”
was the ultimate sacriﬁce and exempliﬁed the “revolutionary’s” commitment to eﬂ’ect
political, economic and social change. On July 3, 1967, Newton urged the masses to move

against the oppressor with “implacable fortitude,’ “the oppressor has no right that the

 

3‘ Scale, Seize Th_e Time. 179.

35 Newton, Revolution_ag Suicide, 7.

3" Bobby Scale, TBP, 10 January 1970,] 1, In Heath ed. The Black Panther Leaders
Speak. 23.

70

9937

oppressed is bound to respect.
On May 2, 1967, the BPP catapulted to the national media through its “storming” of the
state capitol. Twenty-four BPP men and six women converged on the steps to protest
Congressman Don Mulford’s proposed gun-control bill prohibiting the carrying of loaded
weapons within city limits. The BPP argued that the bill inﬁinged on their constitutional
right to bear arms and left them defenseless against police aggression. BPP Chairman
Bobby Scale and other BPP members were implementing Newton’s directive to deliver his
Executive Mandate Number One which beckoned the American people and black people in
particular, to note the ‘racist legislation’ in the California State Legislature strategically
ade at keeping them disarmed as police agencies exacerbated ‘terror, brutality, murder
and repression of black people.’38
Scale led BPP members inside the capitol building against the prudence of Newton,
seeking a spectator section to observe the Assembly. Bewildered by his surroundings and
overwhelmed by media attention, Scale was erroneously and perhaps deliberately led to the
Assembly ﬂoor interrupting its closed debate session. Privately, he thought he had made a
mistake, but be simultaneously experienced an ‘exhilarating high’ ﬁ‘om “vamping on these
pigs.”39 The guns were seized by police ofﬁcers who unloaded them prior to returning
them to BPP members. Any exuberance over the media attention soon evaporated as the

twenty-four BPP members were promptly arrested by the police minutes upon their

 

37 Newton, “In Defense of Self-Defense II,” In Newton, To Die For the People,” 88.
3‘ Scale, Seize The Time 158-162.

 

’9 Ibid.

71

departure from the capitol in route to their homes. They were charged by police with
felonious and misdemeanor conspiracy to wilfully disturb the Legislature and commit
disorderly conduct to interrupt its proceedings thereby impairing its authority.“0 Scale was
later sentenced to six months in jail.

Taped and ﬁlmed media reports of Scale and other BPP members conveyed alarm to the
American public that armed “riﬂemen” created a ‘shouting turmoil’ during their ‘storming’
of the California state capitol building and interruption of a closed debate session.‘l
Deliberate and prominent use of the term “invasion” by the media imparted that the state
capitol was susceptible to occupation by domestic, militant, “grim-Eced, silent young men
with guns,” who posed a genuine pervasive threat to society at large.42 Images of scuﬁlcs
as agitated Panthers yelled, “take your hands oﬂ’ me if I’m not under arrest!” and others of
Panthers angrily demanding the return of their guns from the “cop dogs” and “pigs” inside
the capitol building, accompanied fragments of Seale’s statement on nationwide
television.43

Panthers were portrayed by national media as forcefully protesting a gun bill in broad

daylight, in full view of gaping schoolchildren, startled and frightened state employees,

 

‘0 “Here’s Section Of Code Used For Arrests,” San Erancisco Examiner hereirmfter
cited as SFE, 3 May 1967, 4.

" “Panthers Invade Capitol,” “‘Panther’ Riﬂemen In Capitol,” “Loaded Guns In
Assembly,” All of these headlines were published by the SFE 2 May 1967, 6. Scale was
erroneously identiﬁed as Newton in the SF E’s ﬁont page story.

‘2 “Armed Negroes Enter California Assembly In Gun Bil] Protest,” M9115
1m 3 May 1967, 24.

‘3 Film, Berkeley In The Sixties.

72

bemused policemen, outraged and incredulous assemblymen. The media accentuated the
guns symbolizing and embodying the party’s confrontational paramilitary thrust and its
volatile propensity for violence to achieve political objectives. Portrayals of the BPP as
conﬁontational, unyielding, and contemptuous of law enforcement and authority ﬁgures,
were permanently engraved in the media throughout the BPP’s history. Although media
attention catapulted national publicity to the Party, it established a dangerous, ominous
tone and precedent for interpretations of “revolution” and “revolutionary.” Newton
avowed Scale “a true revolutionary,” shook his hand and wrapped his arm around him
because he and the others had done “righteous revolutionary work?“ Newton once again
interpreted the BPP’s conﬁontation with law enforcement as a “revolutionary” act
because Scale and the other BPP members formally and forcrhly challenged the legitimacy
of the Mulford Bill.

The BPP’s actions symbolized a dramatic shift in the political strategy of the civil rights
movement in general, because the BPP expanded the direct action strategy in general and
departed ﬁom the nonviolent and “we shall overcome” message. They confronted vestiges
of American political power in California at its doorstep by challenging the constitutionality
of the Mulford bill which they argued was an inﬁingement of the right to bear arms.
They also questioned the legitimacy of police forces throughout local black communities
nationwide. The BPP’s endorsement of armed self-defense as a resistance strategy signaled

that they abhorred ‘turning the other check’ when and if confronted. The BPP was ell-

 

“ Scale, Seize The Time, 171.

73

versed concerning the positioning of guns in the capitol building due to Newton’s
completion of law courses at Oakland City College and San Francisco Law School.
Newton noted that the BPP’s tactics in Sacramento were correct but were simultaneously
a grave error and miscalculation which exacerbated law enforcement efforts to disarm the
BPP.”

The BPP’s protest had the opposite eﬁect on gun legislation, it yielded dramatic
consequences which mobilized ambivalent voices at the State Capitol. Thus, the
“revolutionary” activities of Scale and other BPP members reinforced and strengthened the
necessity and legitimacy of more stringent gun legislation to prevent duplication of any
similar occurrence at the State capitol, other government buildings and public places.
The BPP’s objective in Sacramento was not to change gun laws, but to spark a national
outcry against the Mulford Bill, then to transform the outrage into the political mobilization
of local black communities nationwide. The BPP was unprepared for the spontaneous
response of state and local ofﬁcials.

Newton and Scale raised the $2200 bail for each person arrested. Both imparted to the
membership that the BPP would not abandon its members should incarcerations result
from implementing its directives. Several conclusions about the BPP’s early days can be
reached based on the records of those arrested. Although the core of the BPP’s
membership was based in Oakland, California, the majority of members were between

nineteen and seventeen years old. Moreover, of the twenty-four arrested only ﬁve were

 

‘5 Newton, Rgvolutiogy Suicide, 150.
74

between twenty-eight and thirty- three years old and those members were in leadership
positions. They include thirty-three-year-old Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver and
Organizer Mark Comfort, thirty-year-old Co-founder Bobby Scale and John Sloan, and
twenty-eight-year-old Captain George Edward Dowel]. ‘6

Yormger members also played important roles such as twenty- three-year-old Minister of
Culture Emory Douglas, nineteen-year-old Captain Warren Tucker, and seventeen-year—old
Treasurer Bobby Hutton. Several members were related including the two brothers of
Denzil Dowel], George Edward Dowel] and James Dowel] and brothers Sherwin and
Reginald Forte. The twenty-four members were recruited ﬁom three main areas, Oakland,
Berkeley and Richmond with the exception of Panther artist Emory Douglas who resided in
San Francisco and Eldridge Cleaver who worked for Ramparts magazine and also resided
in Ramparts. Most of the twenty-four members had prior misdemeanor and felony
convictions.47

Because of their similar past, Newton and Scale sought to transform criminal activities
by channeling them into signiﬁcant political actions to uplift the cormnunity through police
patrols and community service activities.“ Both Newton and Scale endorsed the belief that
“activities” for survival could be integrated with subversive actions to successfully
undermine the established social order. Throughout its history, the BPP successﬁllly

transformed former pimps, prostitutes, convicts, drug addicts, veterans and professionals

 

‘6 SFE, 3 May 1967.
’7 Ibid.
" Newton, Revolutiogy Suicide, 127.

75

into “revolutionaries” because these same individuals assumed leadership positions in the
BPP, administered the political education classes or conducted the community service
programs of the BPP. For example, Alprenticc “Bunchy” Carter who was the head of the
Slausson gang became the Deputy Minister Of Defense of the Southern California
chapter. In New York, Shaba Om stopped “hustling skag” and “pimping,” Afcni Shakur
stopped smoking cocaine and acid after joining the New York BPP chapter.”

Both Newton and Scale continued to partake in the ‘ﬁmderground economy” in tradition
with other “revolutionary” movements. Cognizant that international revolutionaries such as
Fidel Castro, Che Guevara for example, ﬁnanced their activities through sources
criminalized by the existing power structure, Newton and Scale fortiﬁed links with those
engaging in illegal activities willing to ﬁnance and contribute to the BPP. In Oakland,
burglars and those engaging in illegal activities contributed weapons and essential
nuterials to the BPP’s “commtmity defense.” Those who sold “hot” or stolen goods also
donated cash to the BPP. Thus, the “underground economy” initially ﬁmded and
supported some of the BPP’s “revolutionary” activities. Newton noted, “ripping off
became more than just an individual thing?”0 The BPP’s “revolution” encompassed ﬁnancial
and material support ﬁom those engaging in the “underground economy” consistent with
other international revolutionary movements.

Although “brothers off the bloc ” were very desirable for launching the “revolution”

 

‘9 Kuwasi Balagoon et. a], Look For Me In mLthang: The Collective
Autobiogmphy of the New York 21. (New York: Random House, 1971), 246, 287-293.

5° Newton, Revolution_ary Suicide, 127.
76

which Newton and Scale envisioned especially in Sacramento, it is erroneous to conclude
that the BPP only recruited the so-called “lumpcn-prolctariat” into the organization. The
BPP’s Oakland chapter in 1967 was not representative of all members of the BPP
throughout its history." The BPP was a diverse organization primarily composed 'of college
students although some high school students also joined. Women who joined the BPP
tended to have higher educational attainment than men in the BPP, usually in the form of
a minimum of one or two years of college.52 Black men and women joined the BPP
regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality or religion. Reasons for joining the BPP include,
a genuine desire to uplift the race and serve the community, an opportunity to cultivate
organizational skills, a realization and endorsement of the BPP’s political platform. Some
men and women also joined the BPP to express their support for spouses and signiﬁcant
others.

Kathleen Neal Cleaver a former SNCC member joined the BPP with her husband
Eldridge Cleaver and served as the Communications Secretary of the BPP in 1968. Emory
Douglas’ wife Judi Douglas also served as Deputy Communications Secretary. Newton’s
brother Melvin Newton assunnd the post of Minister of Finance in October 1968. David
Hilliard served as National Headquarters captain and later became the BPP’s Chief of Staﬂ‘

in 1968. HiswifePatriciaHilliardscrved asFinanceSecretaryandhisbrotherJuneHilliard

 

5' Charles E. Jones and Judson Jeﬂiies, “Don’t Believe The Hype”: Debunking The

Panther Mythology,” In Charles E. Jones ed. The Black Panther Pgty Reconsidgmg,
(Baltimore: The Black Classic Press, 1998), 27-55.

’2 Angela D. LeBlanc-Ernest, “The Most Qualiﬁed Person To Handle The Job”:
Black Panther Party Women, 1966-1982, In Jones ed. The Black Panther PM
Reconsidered, 318.

77

was the Assistant Chief of Staff in 1970.

Newton and Scale organized a Central Committee to serve the ruling body of the BPP
which operated under the principle of “democratic centralisrn.” Most of the BPP’s Central
Committee members had some prior experience and engaged in political activity in other
local and national organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), the National Association For The Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the
Nation Of Islam (N01), and other student or local community organizations. For example,
Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver was a co-founder of Black House and member of
the NO]. Newton and Scale were members of Donald Warden’s Aﬁ'o-American Association
and Robert F. Williams’ organization Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). Scale and
Newton also played signiﬁcant roles in the Soul Students Advisory Council which
advocated black history instruction at Merritt College?3

The BPP’s Central Committee was a male dominated hierarchy which governed policy
and administered ofﬁcial decisions of the BPP. Kathleen Cleaver was the only woman to
serve on the BPP’s Central Committee as Communications Secretary in 1968. In 1971,
Elaine Brown served as Deputy Minister Of Information and later became the only
Chairwoman of the BPP ﬁ'om 1974 to 1977. The Central Committee adhered to Newton’s
writings which initially deﬁned the BPP’s “revolution.” Newton’s 1968 essay “On The
Correct Handling Of Revolution” argued, the vanguard party must raise consciousness and

earn the respect of the masses through leadership. Its activities would necessarily be short-

 

” Scale, Seize The Time 24-29; Newton, Revolutionary Sum; 108-109.

 

78

lived, because it must exist aboveground until forced into secrecy underground whereupon
the masses would continue the resistance struggle. Newton maintained, members of the
vanguard group must be “tested revolutionaries” to minimize the dangers of informers and
opportunists. He concluded the masses would endorse the untraceable slaying of a
“gestapo policeman” as the resistance tactic by “revolutionary executioners.”54

The political signiﬁcance of the “revolutionary executioner” was ambiguous because it
was unclear how this oﬂ‘ensive action would bring signiﬁcant changes in the socioeconomic
and political structure. Newton argued, executing a policeman, one of the representatives
of the existing power structure would fuel the masses to duplicate similar activities as a
resistance strategy. Newton also argued that people initiated “revolution” by seizing defense
weapons ﬁom the power structure and that the sincere “revolutionary” must accept imminent
death because, “rcvohrtionary” activities were ‘extremely dangerous?”

Newton’s strategy was contrary to the principles espoused by the “revolutionary”
movements be emulated. The main idea of the vanguard party going underground reﬂected
his adherence to ideals of Argentinian Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s 1961 Guerilla Warfare
manual from which the BPP ﬁrstidiously quoted and printed excerpts. Guevara maintained
that all conditions for revolution would not necessarily be created through the impulses of

guerilla activities unless, and until the people were completely convinced that all possrbilities

 

5‘ Huey P. Newton, “In Defense Of Self-Defense, The Correct Handling Of A
Revolution,” TBP, 18 May 1968, 8.

’5 Newton, Revolutiorgry Suicide. 7.

79

for peaceful struggle were duly exhausted.56 In addition, the people must support and assist
what Guevara termed an “agrarian revolutionary” who is ﬁrst and foremost a “social
reformer” who takes up arms in response to the angry protest of the people against their
oppressors. The agrarian revolutionary’s intention was to “break the mold” of the
institutions which perpetuated “ignomy and misery” on the people. Guevara’s conditions
applied to “wild places of small population” where the struggle for reform is concentrated
on the “peasant masses” whose concerns primarily included ownership of land and the
means of production. ’7
Newton was convinced that the BPP would duplicate the guerilla warfare executed by
Guevara, Fidel and Ramon Castro in the Cuban mountains of Sierra Maestra. Newton and
BPP members argued that existing conditions of racial exploitation would necessarily
mobilize the masses to destroy ‘Babylon.’ Despite the turbulence of the 19605 primarily the
civil rights movement, conﬂicts over Vietnam, voting rights, desegregation, equal rights
issues and a variety of other conﬂicts, Americans remained unconvinced that the complete
overthrow of the United States government was the answer to their political, economic and
social problems. Picking up the gun as Newton advocated would not necessarily and
immediately yield ownership of land or control of the means of production.
Newton encouraged the development of the vanguard ’s political organ, the Black

Panther newspaper to popularize its political plat form and mobilize local black

 

5" Ernesto “Che” Guevara, “General Principles of Gucrilla Warfare,” Quoted In
Daniel Castro ed. Revolution aid Revolutiomaries. Gucrilla Movements in Latin America
(Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1999), 65-86.

’7 Ibid.

80

communities. The Black Panther became the principal means of disseminating and
articulating political ideology and what BPP Minister of Education George Murray, a
college instructor when he joined the BPP termed “revolutionary culture.” Murray deﬁned
“revolutionary culture” as the total ways of the people reﬂected through fundamental
changes in the existing institutionalized structure. “Revolutionary culture” would
necessarily be “anti-white, anti-capitalist, against imperialism, against the racist dogs?”8 To
Murray, “revolution” was imbued with violence and necessitated black political power
secured through the barrel of a gun.

He advocated black paintings depicting “dead businessmen, bankers, lawyers, senators,
congressmen burning up inside their stores, being blown up in cafes, restaurants,
nightclubs.”9 “Revolutionary culture” was reinforced through the BPP’s art and poetry
published in the BPP’s political organ by Revolutionary Artist and Minister of Culture,
Emory Douglas and Revohitionary Artist Matilaba (Joan Lewis). Douglas sought to educate
and agitate the people through representations, extensions and interpretations of
“revolutionary actions” of the masses ﬁom what he termd the “gallery of the ghetto.”60

BPP revolutionary artists portrayed and popularized black men with guns, choking,
stabbing, killing and assaulting the police portrayed in uniform with pig faces. In

numerous drawings, the black man or woman always emerged victorious as the “pig” police

 

5' George Murray, “For A Revolutionary Culture,” The Minister of Education, TBP,
7 September 1968, 12.

’9 Ibid.

6° “Position Paper #1 On Revolutionary Art, By The Minister Of Culture Emory
Douglas,”TBP, 20 October 1968, 5.

81

were always portrayed as cowards running away or dying from conﬁ'ontations with armed
black people. Douglas conveyed that the purpose of “revolutionary art” was to mobilize,
empower and invigorate the masses through illustrations."l It imparted that black people
would no longer be brutalized by ‘racist police forces’ occupying the community.‘52

The BPP’s political organ, contained illustrations of “revolution” elucidated in its political
platform. For example, Eldridge Cleaver interpreted Douglas’ “revolutionary art” as
capturing and embodying the essence of “revolution.” Cleaver wrote, “Ernory’s art says if
we really want pigs dead, Lyndon Johnson, for example or Henry Ford or his cousin or his
ﬁiends then we must kill them.”"3 In 1968, the BPP advertized instructions for making a
variety of weapons including ﬁrebombs, self-igniting molotov cocktails and home made
gremdes. Defensive armnunition fortiﬁed the masses against random, fatal conﬁontations
with law enforcement and adversaries depicted in the BPP’s “revolutionary art.”"4

The BPP caricatured and ridiculed what Newton and Scale considered main perpetrators
of black oppression, imperialism and capitalism, “racist pig cops, demagogic politicians and
avaricious businessmen.” All were denounced and characterized as “pigs” in
“revolutionary art” reinforced through “revolutionary poetry.” Although the BPP’s

“revolutionary poetry” was interrelated to Black Arts and Black Aesthetic themes exposing

 

6‘ Oral Interview by Author with Emory Douglas, April 3, 1999.

’2 “Position Paper #1 On Revolutionary Art, By The Minister Of Culture Emory
Douglas,”TBP, 20 Octobﬂ 1968, 5.

‘3 “Eldridge On Weatherman,” TBP, 22 November 1969, 5

6‘ “Grenades and Bombs: Anti-Property and Anti-Personnel,” TBP, 16 November
1968.

82

and confronting vestiges of racism and exploitation, it also delineated the BPP’S
interpretations of revolution and revolutionary.” “Black Revolutionary Poetry” reiterated
themes of self-determination and resounded the urgency of organizing the people against all
forms of exploitation and oppression. It was also employed as a recruiting tool.“

BPP Co-founder Bobby Scale ﬁequently recited his poem, “Uncle Sammy Called Me Full
Of Lucifer,” in the streets of Oakland and on college campuses."7 Alprentice “Bunchy”
Carter, was also renown for his “revolutionary poems.” The BPP dropped Self-Defense ﬁ'om
its name in 1968 to counter portrayals of the BPP as a paramilitary organization. However,
“revohrtionary artists” continued to emphasize negative portrayals and assaults of law
enforcement ofﬁcials throughout their artwork. By 1969, the BPP’s “revolutionary art” did
not reinforce its ideological emphasis ﬁom self-defense to community service programs such
as the Free Breakfast For Schoolchildren. For example, in its September 1968 issue of its
newspaper, the BPP featured two articles, “Black People Keep Your Guns” and a “Breakfast
for Schoolchildren” advertisement on the same page.“

Such drawings conveyed mixed messages. On the one hand, the BPP announced openings
of ﬁee breakfast programs nationwide to emphasize its community service activities. The

BPP simultaneously chmg to the ‘revolutionary’ artwork which encouraged confrontations

 

‘5 Regina Jennings, “Poetry of the Black Panther Party, Metaphors of Militancy,”
Journal Of Black Studies (September 1998):106—129.

6‘ “Black Revolutionary Poetry,” TBP, 2 November 1968, “Black Revolutionary
Poetry,”16 November 1968.

67 Scale, A Lonely _R_age, 144-145.
6‘ TBP, 28 September 1968.

83

with the police and exacerbated federaL local and state government efforts to neutralize the
organization. The BPP further alarmed law enforcement when it announced a merger with
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1967. Newton acknowledged
that the BPP’s long term plan was to organize northern black communities employing the
administrative and leadership resources of SNCC. Newton contended that the black
community needed both organizations and that partnership with or incorporation of SNCC
provided greater opportunities for developing an “administrative body” to better coordinate
BPP activities. The merger would allow the BPP to cultivate structure and give “ a powerﬁr]
striking force to black liberation.”

Newton’s assertions and the announcement of a merger between the two organizations
was a realization of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s fears as conﬁrmed in a1968 memo to
ﬁeld agents. Hoover Speciﬁcally outlined one of the objectives of the Counterintelligencc
Program (COINTELPRO) as “to prevent prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist
groups.”7° Particularly because both organizations were targeted by COINTELPRO, the
BPP’s announcement reinforced the perception of a paramilitary organization whose armed
members were strategically positioned to achieve “long term-growth” and perhaps gain
respectability in violation of the objectives set forth by the FBI Director.7|

Newton issued Executive Mandate No.2 on June 29, 1967 ofﬁcially ‘draﬂing’ Stokely

 

’9 Newton, gevolutionary Suicide. 154-158.

7° Nelson Blackstock. COINTELPRO. The FBI’S Secret War on Political Freedom
(New York: Anchor Foundations, 1988), 22.

7' Ibid.

84

Carmichael into the BPP as Field Marshal “to establish revolutionary law, order and justice”
because he had proven himself “a true revolutionary” dedicated to serving the people.72
Carmichael elicited major debates throughout local black communities when he popularized
the phrase “black power” to reﬂect the demands of the black masses. H. Rap Brown became
Minister Of Justice and James Forman became Minister Of Foreign Aﬁahs of the BPP. The
SNCC/BPP “merger” was ﬁagile, shortlived and inherently ﬂawed as the national
leadership and membership of SNCC were not ofﬁcially informed and did not formally
approve of the merger decision ratiﬁed between Carmichael, Forman, Brown and Newton.73
Newton’s Executive Mandate No.2 commended Carmichacl’s “new endeavor” to organize
and liberate Washington D.C, and to “establish revolutionary law, order and justice” from
the Continental Divide East to the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.74 It was also unclear
how the merger between the two organizations would create “revolution.” Although
Carmichael and Forman later denounced the BPP alleging menacing threats, main reasons
for the failure of the SNCC/BPP merger were political and organizational differences and
ambiguities, lack of trust, miscommunication, and COINTELPRO efforts.7s

On October 28, 1967, Newton was involved in a major confrontation with police oﬁicers

 

72 Huey P. Newton, “Executive Mandate No.2, June 29, 1967,” In Newton, To Die
For The People, 9-10.

73 George Forman, The Making Of Black Revolutionaries (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1997), 522-543.

7‘ Newton, “Executive Mandate No.2,” 9-10.

7’ Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC And The Black Awakemg' Of The 19608
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 280, 284-285 ; Kenneth O’Reilly, Racial Matters:
_Th_e FBI’s Secret File On Black America (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 300-301 .

85

after his vehicle was stopped . The ensuing encounter resulted in the death of police ofﬁcer
John Frey and Newton sustained a bullet wound in his stomach. Ofﬁcer Frey’s death was
characteristic of the violent defensive posture characterized in the BPP’s “revolutionary art”
and “revolutionary poetry.” Newton wilfully committed “revolutionary suicide” and
expected the death penalty. He reasoned that his execution in the gas chamber would raise
the consciousness of the community.“ Newton’s imprisonment resulted in a massive “Free
Huey” movement spearheaded by Kathleen Cleaver and Eldridge Cleaver who assumed
leadership of the BPP as both Newton and Scale were in prison.

The Huey P. Newton Defense Fund was formed to raise money for his defense and black
and white radicals joined forces to protest his imprisonment. The BPP employed Newton’s
trial to articulate grievances against the existing institutionalized American structure. It
sought to educate and organize the people against interrelated forms of oppression such as
unemployment, inadequate housing, educational, social and political inequities. Newton
maintained that his trial was a “political forum” demonstrating that ﬁghting for his life was
a logical and inevitable outcome of the BPP’s efforts to lift the oppressor’s burden.”77

The BPP promoted Newton’s imprisonment as a cause for mass protest in that Newton
made the ultimate sacriﬁce for the people’s ‘Tevolution.” BPP men and women demonstrated
daily on the ﬁ'ont steps of the Alameda County Courthouse chanting, “the revolution has

come, off the pig, it’s time to pick up the gun, off the pig, ﬁee Huey.”78 Support for

 

7" Newton, Revolutionary Suicide. 184-185.
77 Ibid, 188.
7' Film, Berkeley in the Sixties.

86

Newton’s release yielded increased membership in the BPP as nationwide chapters
skyrocketed nationwide. David Hilliard noted, “the organization just propelled, it took off
like a prairie ﬁre, it spread everywhere.”79

Although the BPP demanded “revolution” and Newton’s ﬁ‘eedom, larger questions
remained unanswered such as what kind or type of “revolution” did the BPP itselfenvision?
and how would the self-proclaimed ‘Vanguard” of the people lead the “revolution?”
Speeches delivered by two BPP members illustrated ideological ambiguities of the BPP’S
“revohrtion.” William Lee Brent, a Captain in the Oakland BPP, provided security for BPP
leaders, spoke at Panther rallies and conducted political education classes for BPP
members. During one Free Huey rally, Brent urged the crowd to free Newton because he
was the only leader black people should recognize because he was willing to face ‘pigs’ “gun
for gun if necessary.“0 Eldridge Cleaver dared the US. to “bring it on,” and that the United
States would erupt if Newton was not ﬁ‘eed."

Brent and Cleaver’s rhetorical metaphors projected and predicted further violent
confrontations between the BPP and those considered perpetrators of the existing
institutionalized structure. Neither Cleaver or Brent deﬁned or speciﬁcally explained how
picking up the gun translated into a realistic, concrete “revolution” espoused in the BPP’s
political platform. Both men did not provide examples to Show how Newton’s ﬁeedom

transformed existing economic, social and political relationships. Brent dismissed and

 

79 David Hilliard, Interview In Film, Berkeley in The Sixties.

3° William Lee Brent, Quoted in Film, Berkeley in the Sixties.

" Eldridge Cleaver, Quoted In Film, Berkeley in The Sixties.
37

deliberately overlooked predecessors of the US. freedom struggle. He publicly declared the
historical contributions of many leaders irrelevant and insigniﬁcant because supposedly none
was willing to commit Newton’s “revolutionary suicide.” Although the BPP advertized its
reading list which included various writings of Malcom X, Frantz Fanon, W.E.B Dubois,
Carter G. Woodson and many others, the BPP set Newton apart as the lone “warrior” of
black liberation.

One main example was Newton’s most famous portrait orchestrated by Eldridge Cleaver
which Newton Sitting in a wicker chair, spear in one hand, and a gun in another. Although
Newton himself despised the photograph, it illustrated continuity between Aﬁ'ican forebears
and the BPP in that Newton embodied the struggle for self-determination and was the heir
of the liberation struggle. The determination to ﬂee Newton was encapsulated in the BPP’s
rallying cry, “black is beautiful, Free Huey, set our warrior ﬁ'ee, Free Huey, the sky’s the
limit.”82 The BPP promoted Newton throughout its newspapers and posters as a victim of
police brutality, racial and political oppression. Hilliard noted the BPP’s “formula” for
popularizing Newton during this period. Each week, the cover of the BPP’s newspaper
featured Newton on the cover page with lingering shadows on his face to make him look
“handsome and deﬁant,” opposite the BPP’s Ten Point Platform and Program in the inside
back pages also contained a photo of Newton “with a bandolier over his chest and a pump

shotgtm cradled in his arms.”83 The BPP heralded Newton as a “revolutionary” black man

 

’2 Film, Berkeley in the Sixties; See also Film, All Power To The People, Directed
and Produced by Lee Lew Lee, 1998.

‘3 Hilliard, _Th_i_s Side of Glory. 149.
88

wrongfully incarcerated by “racist pig cops” intent on destroying the people’s “revolution.”
BPP members and other Newton supporters organized “Free Huey” rallies and birthday
celebrations. They printed and distributed thousands of leaﬂets nationwide and secured
some ﬁee time on local radio and news stations to publicize Newton’s plight.

Angela Davis, a philosophy professor at the University of California in Los Angeles
(UCLA) attended one Free Huey rally which featured widely known speakers such as SNCC
members and leaders such as Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, James Forman, BPP Co-
foundcr Bobby Scale, Ronald Karenga of the cultural US organization and Reis Tijerina.
Davis remarked that after all of the various speeches, “a gaping void rennined,” because no
strategies and no speciﬁc concrete proposals were articulated for Newton’s release or
defense. She noted, “ the applause was ample enough, but where were we to go ﬁom
there?”$4 Davis questioned the phrase the “sky’s the limit” because it was unclear how
demonstrations and rallies would organize the masses to guarantee Newton’s ﬁ'eedom.

Although the mass “F rec Huey” rallies drew national attention, they did not yield
Newton’s freedom. A jury convicted Newton of manslaughter for which Newton received
a two to ﬁfteen year sentence in 1968. The BPP’s ‘Violent rhetoric” alarmed law
enforcement which became determined to neutralize the BPP. Newton’s imprisonment and
conviction reinforced law enforcement’s characterization of the BPP as a violent,
subversive paramilitary organization intent on fatally executing police ofﬁcers. Whereas

Newton endorsed his “revolutionary suicide,” his actions renewed the perception of the

 

8‘ Angela Davis, Angela Davis, An Autobiwmty (New York: International
Publishers, 1988), 167.

89

BPP as violent “revolutionaries” willing to exact fatal retaliation on police ofﬁcers
nationwide. Police patrols combined with F rey’s death and provocative “violent rhetoric”
fostered a threatening image of the BPP. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued a memo in
November 1968, directing ﬁeld agents “to exploit a1] avenues of creating...disscnsion within
the ranks of the Black Panther Party ...recipients oﬂices are instructed to submit imaginative
and hard-hitting counter intelligence measures aimed at crippling the Black Panther Party?”
Newton’s conviction and imprisonment yielded unprecedented support for the BPP
from white radicals. The BPP attempted to forge coalitions which other radical groups
although whites were not allowed to join the BPP. The only notable exception was the White
Panther Party organized in Ann Arbor, Michigan which adopted the BPP’s Ten Point
Platform and program and also worked with individual members of the BPP nationwide.
Although the BPP did not permit white persons to join the organization, Scale and Newton
insisted that race restriction in its membership does not mean that the BPP was a racist
organization. They argued that it reﬂected the BPP’s adherence to the belief that black
people must endorse and lead the ‘Aﬁo-American struggle’ even as the BPP relished support
from white radicals especially the Peace and Freedom Party (PFP).“
The BPP formed a temporary coalition with the PFP which marked a signiﬁcant
evolution of the BPP’s “revohrtion.” The BPP’s most prominent leaders sought to control
local community institutions by becoming representatives in the Legislature. Candidates

for political oﬂice on the PFP ticket include Eldridge Cleaver ran for President, Kathleen

 

‘5 Churchill and Wall, Agents of Repression, 63.

8" Newton, Revolutiom Suicide, 155.
90

Cleaver for Assemblywoman 18‘h District, Bobby Scale For State Assemblyman 17'll District
and Huey P. Newton for 17‘“ District. These unsuccessful campaigns epitomized the root
of what Newton termed “functional deﬁnition of politics” which be deﬁned as “war without
bloodshed” to challenge and control the means of production87 In other words, BPP
members would become agents of change through participation in the political process.
They would negotiate with the existing power structure with what Newton termed “self
defense power” to exact a “political consequence” if their desires were unmet.88

Political candidacy of BPP leaders marked a redeﬁnition of the “revolution” because the
BPP’S “revolutionaries “ sought to become capable and competent administrators and
managers to energize a power base from which they would negotiate the desires and
concerns of the black masses. The BPP/PFP coalition epitomized what the BPP termd
the “fountainhead of radical political nachinery” to ﬁrse and “harness the h’beration
struggle in the black community and the class struggle in the white commrmity.”89
Although the “Free Huey” movement galvanized support for the BPP nationwide, it
did not sustain signiﬁcant momentum for the BPP nationwide to translate into any of the
BPP’s candidates gaining political ofﬁce. It did not yield a substantive political movement
which mobilized the support and resources of those discontented with the existing power

structure. Discontent with the existing criminal justice system did not convince the masses

 

’7 Huey P. Newton, “Functional Deﬁnition Of Politics,” TBP, 17 January 1969.
’8 Ibid.

8’ “The BPP-PFP Coalition—Explained And Deﬁned,” TBP 10 June 1968. In Heath,
[he Bmk Panthers SQL 90.

91

that the US government or ‘Babylon’ must be overthrown. Although the BPP/PDF
coalition was shortlived, it was not the BPP’s last attempt to merge with other groups which
indicated the BPP’s uncertainty, doubt and a struggle for legitimacy.90

Newton continued to authorize directives from prison. He issued Executive Mandate
No. 3 as a result of the police raids on Minister of Infornation Eldridge Cleaver’s home on
January 16, 1968 and the raid on BPP Chairman Bobby Scale’s home on February 25,1968.
Both raids indicate implementation of law enforcement’s directives to neutralize the BPP
consistent with the FBI’s denotation of the BPP as a threat. Newton mandated a general
order to all BPP members to acquire “technical equipment” to defend their homes and their
dependents. The “technical equipment” was a veiled coded reference to gtms, molotov
cocktails and other weapons. Newton declared, “any member of the Party having such
technical equipment who fails to defend his threshold shall be expelled from the Party for
life.’”' Bobby Scale reinforced Newton’s mandate with his published declaration that as
Chairman of the BPP, if any more ‘pigs’ came crashing down his door in a vicious unjust
and illegal manner unbecoming of police ofﬁcers, they would receive a 12 gauge buckshot
in return.92

Scale emphasized self-defense as the “law of survival” and urged all brothers and sisters
to retain a Shotgun in their home to counter abuses ﬁom the racist power structure and

the police. Newton’s order inﬂuenced the response of members of the Los Angeles

 

9° Ibid.
9' Huey P. Newton, “Executive Mandate No.3,” _TBL’ 16 March 1968, 1.
92 Bobby Scale, “Gestapo Tactics,” _T_B_P, 16 March 1968,11.

92

Chapter on December 8, 1969. BPP men and women trained by Elmer Geronimo Ji Jaga
Pratt, a Vietrmm veteran, exchanged gunﬁre with police for several hours at the BPP’S Los
Angeles oﬂice. Although all BPP involved were later arrested, the BPP extolled their
“revolutionary” valor in defending their Panther ofﬁce.

In public appearances, Cleaver advocated war against the US government and in a
televised interview with Mike Wallace of the television show 60 Minutes, he threatened to
kill a US Senator. Cleaver publicly ridiculed Governor Ronald Reagan as “Mickey
Mouse,” and spurred crowds in chants of “F— Ronald Reagan” as a “liberating,”
“revolutionary” exercise.93 Cleaver’s verbal public assault on the Governor were more
personal than political because in the fall of 1968, Cleaver was invited to teach a sociology
course at the University Of California at Berkeley. Reagan attempted to block the course
through the University Of California Regents. In one speech, Cleaver challenged Reagan to
“a due] to the death and you can choose the weapons, and if you can’t relate to that, right
on, walk, chicken, with your ass picked clean?“

Inﬂammatory provocative language interspersed with obscenity, especially
“mother ------ “ ﬁ‘equently appeared as “every other word” employed by some BPP members

at rallies, public speeches and the BPP’s newspaper.95 Some black preachers and

 

9’ Eldridge Cleaver, “An Aside To Ronald Reagan,” In Scheer, “Eldridge
Cleaver ”112.

 

9" Ibid.

 

9‘ Scale, Seize The Time 257-261; Huey P. Newton, “On the Defection of Eldridge
Cleaver ﬁom the BPP and the Defection of the BPP fiom the Black Community,” April 17,
1971,” In Newton, To Die For The People. 52.

93

congregations were offended by the language, causing the BPP to be “kicked out“ of some
churches. Cleaver also employed Similar language during an appearance at a Catholic Girls’
school in 1968.96 During a meeting of the National Committee of Black Churchmen at
Berkeley, Hilliard exclaimed that the preachers assembled were ‘a bunch of bootlicking
pimps and mother-mus?” Scale acknowledged that although his mother who was ‘about
sixty’ in 1968, supported the BPP and respected Eldridge Cleaver, she “wish[cd] he
wouldn’t cuss so much.”98

The BPP’s provocative messages were designed to recruit black people in the community
to become revolutionaries. Although many were entertained and reveled in such speeches,
BPP supporters, especially the rank and ﬁle were dismayed and “superﬁcially” related to
Cleaver, “not really understanding him?” BPP members imitating Cleaver’s prose were
convinced that “revolutionary” dcportment necessitated profane and inﬂammatory rhetoric
which exacerbated tensions among BPP leaders. Hilliard admitted, he was simply following
Cleaver’s lead and “went along” with him because he believed Cleaver was an embodiment

of Malcom X.‘°° He endorsed Cleaver’s thesis that the American ﬂag and the American

 

9” Hilliard, This Side ofGlog, 128-129
97 Newton, To Die For The People, 73-74.
98 Scale, Seize The Time, 258.
99 Ibid, 268.
'00 Hilliard, This Side Of Glog, 304.
94

eagle symbolized fascism.‘01 Hilliard publicly declared in a speech at the San Francisco
Moratorium Demonstration on November 15, 1969 “we will kill Richard Nixon, we will kill
any mother ------ r that stands in the way of our freedom.”102

Hilliard proclaimed that his assertion was a realization of Marxism-Leninism in service
of proletarians against the capitalist structure and system.”3 In an interview with CBS
News a month later, Hilliard staunchly defended his ﬁrst amendment right to espouse
“political rhetoric” in what he termed “the language of the ghetto.” He explained that he
did not call for the assassination of the president and that his use of profanity was “within
the idiom of oppressed people.”104 His rhetoric was construed by law enforcement as a
threat to the life of the President resulting in his subsequent arrest.

Scale praised Cleaver for exposing Reagan as what the BPP ternwd a “demagogic
politician” and for reng the “fascist” power structure.105 Whereas Scale and Hilliard
endorsed Cleavcr’s speeches, Newton considered such activities “phrase-mongering”

characteristic of what he termed a “ﬁlthy speech movement” which permeated not only the

 

‘°' “What You Are, Speak So Loud I Hardly Hear Anything You Say,” TBP, 8
November 1969, 6.

102 “If You Want Peace You Got To Fight For It,” Speech Delivered At San
Francisco Moratorium Demonstration, November 15, 1969, In Foner The Black Panthers

M1284”.

"’3 David Hilliard, TBP, 22 November 1969, In Heath ed., The Black Panther Leaders
5.22112, xi-

‘0‘ “Interview With CBS News, December 28, 1969, Reporters: George Hermit,
CBS News, Bernard Nossiter, Washington Post, Ike Pappas, CBS News,” In Foner ed. IE

Black Pgthers SM, 130-136.
'05 Hilliard, This Side Of Glor;v_, 261-263.

95

BPP’S newspaper but nationwide announcements and public appearances of BPP
members. Hilliard noted that Newton admonished BPP members over the “dirty language”
that ‘alicnatcd’ the BPP from the community.“ Enunciations of what many considered foul
language by the BPP served no greater political purpose other than to ridicule and castigate
local and national authority ﬁgures.

Whereas the profanity demonstrated the abrasiveness and boldness of BPP members and
leaders nationwide, it did not produce vital inducements for the masses to pick up guns
and join the BPP in armed struggle. It may have also offended older people to
misunderstand the “real” Program of the BPP.107 One main example is the reaction of some
preachers and religious congregations to the BPP who “kicked out” BPP members because
they considered expressions in the BPP vocabulary such as “F------s,“ ”mother --------
s”oﬂ’ensive. Therefore, instead of cultivating a base, the BPP was alienating fundamental
roots for any successful revolts against those whom they considered “common oppressors.”

Newton later blarmd what he termed the “ﬁlthy speech movement” for waning support
for the BPP in 1971. To discourage such language in its literature, the BPP published a
statement in its newspaper announcing to readers that it would attempt to publish all
relevant material to educate the oppressed and overturn its negative portrayals in the media.

The BPP warned contributors that its newspaper was not “an outlet for emotional outburst

 

‘06 Ibid, 262.
'07 Scale, Seize The Time, 258.
96

of irrelevant profanity.”'08 Such a warning was issued at the behest of Newton who, while
in prison, was infuriated over the “ﬁlthy speech movement.”‘°°
The BPP’s reaction to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968
exempliﬁed different BPP interpretations of “revolution” and “revolutionary.” Eldridge
Cleaver viewed it as an acrimonious and fatal repudiation of nonviolence, a resounding
alarm for black people to “ﬁght ﬁre with ﬁre,” and a signal to commence a “terrible and
bloody chapter” of what he termed a “holocaust.””° Although the BPP urged restraint
throughout the Bay area, on April 6, 1968, two days after King’s assassination, Cleaver was
involved in a shootout with Oakland police resulting in the death of seventeen-year- old
BPP Treasurer Bobby Hutton. The California Adult Authority (CAA) revoked Cleaver’s
parole status and ordered his return to prison on November 27, 1968. Determined never to
return to prison, Cleaver developed a secret plan from everyone including his wife “out of
the nornml corridor of Panther activities.”I ”
The necessity for secrecy was due to Cleaver’s strong suspicion of FBI informants in the

BPP including his distrust of the BPP’s Central Committee. He explained, “we were so

saturated and inﬁltrated with government agents that I could not possibly trust even the so-

 

” “Editorial Statement,” 2 February 1969, In Foner ed., The Black Panthers SE,
26.

"’9 Huey P. Newton, In “Playboy Interview: Huey P. Newton,” Playboy, May 1973.

”0 “The Death of Martin Luther King: Requiem For Nonviolence,” In Scheer ed.,
Eldridge Cleaver, 75.

"‘ Cleaver, SoulOnFire 141.

 

97

called inner circle?”2 After a public speech, Cleaver look-alike ‘Ralph Smith’ espoused
“revolutionary rhetoric” as Cleaver escaped into a waiting car disguised as a sick old man to
San Francisco airport. He took a ﬂight to JFK airport in New York then later escaped to
Cuba claiming he would have been killed if returned to prison.‘ ‘3

The BPP praised Cleaver’s disappearance in numerous BPP articles proclaiming that
Cleaver had taken the “revolution” underground to establish the International Section of BPP
abroad. The BPP heralded Cleaver’s departure as the realization of the “revolutionary
suicide” espoused by Newton. In its newspaper, the BPP announced that Cleaver
represented the international solidarity which had been at the core of the BPP’s self-
determination ideology chronicled in its Ten Point Platform and Program The BPP further
extolled Cleaver’s activities and blamed “racist” “fascist pig cops” for Hutton’s murder. In
other words, the BPP maintained that Cleaver’s “revolutionary” actions necessitated his
immediate escape to join other international “revolutionaries in Cuba.

The BPP assumed that Cleaver’s actions would yield intematiorml condemnation of the
American government and would become a rallying cry Similar to that of the Free Huey
movement. However, Cleaver’s escape and the death of Bobby Hutton only reinforced law
enforcement’s contention that the BPP posed a “greatest threat” to all law enforcement and
authority ﬁgures nationwide and also exempliﬁed the BPP’s total disregard for the law.

When combined with Newton’s conviction for shooting police ofﬁcer John Frey the year

 

112 Ibid.

"3 Gordon Parks, “ Eldridge Cleaver In Algiers: A Visit With Papa Rage,” Lif_e, 6
February 1970, 22.

98

before, Cleaver’s activities portrayed the BPP as instigating fatal confrontations with police
officers under the guise of ﬁghting the BPP’S “revolution.” Thus, Cleaver’s activities on
the night of April 4 1968 did not inspire, persuade or convince the masses of Cleaver’s
innocence. Hutton’s death spawned public outcries as many contended that Hutton was
unarmd when he was shot by police. Hollywood actor Marlon Brando appeared at the
BPP’s press conference to condemn the brutality of Hutton’s death and to denounce law
enforcement aggression and persecution of the BPP.""

Two months after Cleaver’s escape the BPP faced yet more probing questions after the
deaths of Deputy Minister of Defense, Alprentice Bunchy Carter, and John Jerome Huggins,
Deputy Minister of Information of the BPP’s Southern California Chapter. Both men were
killed at Campbell Hall on the campus of UCLA on January 17, 1969. The BPP issued a
statement to the black community condemning the murder of both men by two members of
the US organization headed by Ronald Karenga.l ‘5 Karenga maintained that the purpose
of US was to promote Aﬁican cultural and religious beliefs to better understand the concept
of “US against Them.”l '6 Mounting tensions between both groups escalated even as both

the US office and Panther headquarters were located next door to each other in Oakland

 

m Film, Berkeley In the Sixties.

"5 “Statement To The Black Community By The Black Panther Party Los Angeles
Chapter, Panthers Assassinated By US Organization: A Political Assassination,” TBP, 25
January 1969, 1.

"6 Author Conversation with Maulana Karenga, October 1997; Scot Ngozi Brown,
“The Us Organization, Maulana Karenga and Conﬂict with the Black Panther Party: A
Critique of Sectarian Inﬂuences on Historical Discourse,” Journal of Black Studies 28
(November 1997): 157-170.

99

since 1967.

The BPP ridiculed US as an acronym for United Slaves and charged that “pork chop
nationalists” assassinated two valiant revolutionaries and vanguards of the people. The
BPP was uncertain and conﬂicted in responding to the deaths. Most probing questions were,
how does a “revolutiomry” organization respond to the deaths of fellow comrades? Does
one avenge the deaths of “revolutionaries,” if so, how, when and where? The BPP answered
such questions in its newspaper. Although the BPP prochrimed, “today’s pig is tomorrow’s
pork chop,” Scale and others discouraged BPP members and others throughout the local
community ﬁ'om inciting what he termed a “jive war” among black people. He also
encouraged legal prosecution of the guilty parties responsible for the murders.“7

However, the BPP’s newspaper and political organ The Black Panther did not heed
Scale’s message. The Black Panther denounced and castigated Karenga as an ally of the
existing power structure intent on facilitating the demise of the BPP. In its January 25,
1969 issue, The Black Panther featured a full page entitled political assassins with a photo
of Karengawithfourmeninwhichadrawn arrow speciﬁed Karenga alongwiththreeother
photographs of US members, Twala, Larry Stiner his brother Ali or George Stiner and
Twalascen.”8

Another page in the same issue featured another article declaring that ‘pork chop

nationalism’ “must no longer be allowed to exist” as it threatened to destroy the ‘people’s

 

"7 Scale, Seize The Time, 271.

"3 “Political Assassinations Of Deputy Defense Minister Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter
and Deputy Information Minister John Huggins,” TBP, 25 January 1969, 2.

100

revolution.’ On the one hand, Scale called for calm, yet the BPP’S “revolutionary art”and
other members demanded revenge on Karenga and the guilty parties. Tensions between US
and the BPP continued unabated and were also exacerbated by COINTELPRO efforts of
“brown mail” consisting of provocative and insulting portrayals of organization leaders and
members.I '9 Intercine warfare between both groups resulted in confrontations including the
shootings of BPP members Anthony Dumas and Zeke Tate in August 1969 and the murders
of Sylvester Bell August 14, 1969 and John Savage on May 23, 1969.‘20

Conﬂicts between the US organization and the BPP reinforced some debilitating factors
about the BPP. First, it revealed that organizations mainly US challenged the BPP’s claim
to be the vanguard of the people. Although the BPP argued that culture was important, the
BPP also claimed that reverence for the past did not oﬂ‘er concrete strategies for addressing
persistent problems throughout local black communities such as housing, unemployment and
racial discrimination. In other words, the BPP concluded that Aﬁ'ican culture was not an
empowerment tool and only offered token beneﬁts.

Delineating cultural nationalism as “pork chop nationalism” did not necessarily mean
that the BPP abhorred Aﬁ'ican culture. The BPP argued that Aﬁican cultural expressions
such as those carried out by US members including daishikis, boubous and hairstyles did not
and would not alter the existing power structure. Some BPP members claimed that the US

organization was an afﬁ'ont to black revolutionaries because it was a covert organization

 

“9 Churchill and Vander Wall, MCoinLelpro Pamrs, 136-139.

m “John Savage Killed,” TBP, 23 May 1969; “Murder of Sylvester Bell, TBP, 30
August 1969, 8.

101

funded by the FBI to destroy the BPP. Although no documents conclusively supported such
BPP claims, some BPP members including Elaine Brown have remained unconvincedm

In conclusion, this chapter demonstrated that the BPP’s “revolution” from 1966 to 1970
underwent various strategic changes and evolution. From the BPP’s inception, the term
“revolution” was constantly being deﬁned and contextualized by both BPP leaders and
members. There existed no uniformity in the overall deﬁnition of “revolution” from
1966 to 1970 as the BPP experienced fundamental unresolved conﬂicts in its attempt to
popularize its Ten Point Platform and Program and challenge fundamental tenets of the
existing power structure. In prioritizing police patrols of the police, the BPP established
an ominous tone for the organization as conﬁ'ontational and unyielding which in turn
cemented perceptions of the BPP as threatening.

From its inception, the BPP demanded a “revolution” rooted in self-defense which became
inﬁrsed with violence as illustrated in the BPP’S “revolutionary art” and “revolutionary
poetry.” One of the main problems of the BPP demonstrated in this chapter was that the
contours of the BPP’s “revolution” never remained static. For example, the BPP initially
prioritized self-defense, but the BPP dropped self-defense ﬁ'om its name in 1968 and
implemented a series of measures in its struggle to contextualize its revolution including
short-lived mergers with other groups.

BPP members and leaders fostered negative threatening images of the BPP as its most
vocal and visible leaders Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver engaged in violent

conﬁ'ontations with police. Although the BPP argued that such actions were consistent with

 

'2' Brown, A Taste of Power. 163-177.

102

systematic oppression ﬁom the existing structure, the doctrine of “revolutionary suicide” did
not compel the masses to “pick up the gun” until driven underground even as some people
rallied behind the “Free Huey” movement. In its attempt to apply speciﬁc international
concepts to the “revolution” the BPP fostered internal contradictions and inconsistencies
among its membership and leadership.

In essence, the BPP’s “revolution” did not contain a complete strategy for effecting
substantive changes in existing power relationships even as the BPP argued that guns
balanced power between self-proclaimed “revolutionaries” and law enforcement authorities.
The BPP’S “revolution” from 1966-1970 was at times, ambiguous as reﬂected in through
its attempts to merge with other groups, the Free Huey movement and the ”ﬁlthy speech
movement.” Thus, characterizing various political ideologies or political “isms” as
representative of the BPP’S political ideologies does not aptly reﬂect the discordant actions,
ideological ambiguities and inconsistencies of the BPP as an organization.

Political “isms” espoused by the BPP’s most vocal and visible leaders does not necessarily
encompass the BPP’s strategies for eﬂ‘ecting fundamental changes in the socioeconomic and
political structure of American society. It did not result in either a redistribution of power
or a redistribution of wealth as I deﬁned “revolution” in this chapter. Even as the BPP sought
to empower themselves and local black communities against police brutality, goals of the
“revolution” outlined in the BPP’S Ten Point Platform and Program were not strictly
constructed or interpreted by individual members and chapters. This chapter does not
dismiss the contributions and mobilizing efforts of the BPP as insigniﬁcant or totally

ineffective, but argues that discordant actions combined with ﬂawed interpretations of the

103

terms “revolution” and “revolutionary” hampered the BPP. Although the BPP dropped
“Self-Defense” from its name in 1968, its paramilitary thrust continued to plague the
organization as some of the actions and activities of BPP leaders reinforced law
enforcement’s premise that the BPP posed a signiﬁcant threat to society at large.

This chapter demonstrated that despite political afﬁrmations throughout the BPP’s
literature, individual translations of the BPP’s “revolution” reveals inconsistencies and ﬁreled
internal dissension. It also highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the BPP’S most
visible leaders during a turbulent period of the BPP’S history. Although BPP members
espoused that they were “revolutionaries,” individual “revolutionary” goals and objectives
conﬂicted with the Ten Point Platform and Program of the BPP. The following chapter
explores some of the internal struggles in the BPP as members sought to emulate
international principles and adhere to the rules and regulations adopted by BPP

“revohrtionaries.”

104

CHAPTER III
“REVOLUTIONARY” LIFE
“We sell ourselves out, we sell our children out, and we sell

our women out when we treat them in any other manner. ”

Eldridge Cleaverl

The Black Panther Party’s (BPP) Central Committee outlined administrative duties,
expectations and procedures for its members. It developed points of attention, rules of
discipline and eight rules (Figure II) governing the conduct and behavior of its members
which expanded to twenty-six rules (Figure III) by 1969.2 This chapter explores the
responsibilities and duties of BPP men and women. It attempts to answer several questions.
What did a typical day in the BPP entail? What were some of the daily routines,
responsibilities and challenges of a BPP “revolutionary?” Did membership in the BPP
expose men and women to greater harassment by law enforcement? Answering these
questions offers insight into some of the daily routine activities of BPP members to
illuminate strengths and weaknesses of both individual members and local BPP chapters

nationwide.

 

' Eldridge Cleaver, The Black Panther hereinafter cited as TBP, 13 September 1969,
1 2-1 3 .

2 Bobby Scale, Seize The Time, The Story of the Black Panther Pgty and Huey E.
Newton (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1991), 391-393.

105

BPP leaders Huey P. Newton, Bobby Scale, Eldridge Cleaver, David Hilliard and Elaine
Brown offered very brief glimpses into the daily lives of BPP members in their
autobiographical accounts.3 BPP members Assata Shakur, William Lee Brent, Regina
Jennings and Steve McCutchen, have also enumerated their activities in some detail in their
autobiographies.‘ The main challenge in examining these various autobiographical accounts
is that the experiences of the BPP’S leaders are not representative of all BPP members,
namely, the rank and ﬁle. Although these primary accounts oﬁer signiﬁcant details about
individual lives, experiences and speciﬁc events, autobiographical accounts do not necessarily
or accurately convey all of the facts about speciﬁc events.

The accounts of BPP leaders cannot be generalized to account for the daily activities of
all BPP members and must be examined with other sources to note inconsistencies.
However, such accounts provides a window to contextualize individual interpretations of
“revohrtion” and “revolutionary.” Although recollections of speciﬁc events may differ

between BPP leaders and rank and ﬁle members, this research exposes some of the

 

3

Huey P. Newton, Revolutior_r_a_ry Suicide (New York: Writers And Readers

Inc.,1995); Bobby Scale, A Lonely Me, The Autobiography of Bobpy Scale (New York:
Times Books, 1978); Eldridge Cleaver, Soul On Fire (Texas: Word Books, 1978); David

Hilliard and Lewis Cole, ms Side of Gym: The Autobioggphy of David Hilliard And The
Stog of the Black Panther Parjy (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993); Elaine
Brown. A Taste of Power, A Black Woman’s Stog (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992).

‘ Assata Shakur, Assag An Autobiography (Connecticut: Lawrence Hill &

Company, 1987); William Lee Brent, Lopg Time Gone: A Black Panther’s T;u_e Life Stogy
of His Hijack_p_rg' and Twenty-Five Year‘s In Cuba_(New York: Times Books, 1996); Regirm
Jennings, “Why I Joined The Party: An Aﬁicana Womanist Reﬂection,” In Charles E. Jones
ed. The Black Panther PM Reconside_re_d_, (Baltimore: The Black Classic Press, l998),257-
266; Steve McCutchen, “Selections From a Panther Diary,” In Charles E. Jones ed. _The_;
Black Panther ng Reconsidered (Baltimore: The Black Classic Press, 1998), 115-134.

106

inconsistencies within primary accounts to explore fundamental gender and class differences
in connotations of “revolution” and “revolutionary” in the BPP.

Although some autobiographies contain personal disillusionments, conﬂicts and tensions
among individual BPP members and leaders, examining the autobiographies with oral and
published interviews and FBI ﬁles elucidate counterintelligence efforts to foment tensions
within the BPP. This chapter explores the “revolutionary life” of BPP members to probe
and contextualize the FBI’S delineation of the organization as the “greatest [single] threat.”
This chapter surveys some of the deﬁnitions and connotations of individual members, local
and national chapters to argue that membership in the BPP was laden with risks and that the
“revolutionary” environment of the BPP was ﬁaught with tensions between BPP men and
women. BPP members accepted such risks because of their strong commitment to serve and
liberate the people and because of their genuine commitment to racial uplift. Despite such
dedication and connnitment, the “revolutionary” environment of the BPP provided a fertile
terrain for exacerbating internal dissensions.

Many college students, high school students and high school graduates joined the BPP.
Some individuals also joined the BPP because of their “rnilitan ” image promoted in the
media after the BPP’S “storming” of the state capitol in 1967. Regina Jennings, sported her
best suede and leather outﬁt and cabaret hairpiece determined to join the Oakland BPP to
“kill all the white people.”5 BPP members ignored her outburst and took her number.
Jennings’ actions showed that she initially endorsed the media imagery of the BPP as

conﬁ‘ontational and unyielding. Some BPP followed Jennings for ‘over a week’ to verify her

 

5 Jennings, “Why I Joined the Party,” 257-259.
107

address and to conﬁrm whether she was deliberately sent by federal, state and local
authorities to inﬁltrate the BPP. That BPP members followed Jennings indicated their
caution and their overwhelming concern for security to ensure that Jennings was not an
FBI or law enforcement agent. Jennings became a BPP member after the BPP ensured and
conﬁrmed that she was not an agent.6

Such pertinent concerns for security were not strictly or uniformly enforced throughout
all BPP chapters. Assata Shakur who joined the BPP’s Harlem Branch noted careless
security concerns in the BPP’s Harlem Branch. On the ﬁrst day Shakur entered the Harlem
BPP ofﬁce, she was “knee deep” in paper, ﬁling the chapter’s “security ﬁles.” She remarked,
“I had just walked in off the street and they let me go through all the ﬁles”, The activities
of both the Oakland and the Harlem chapters suggest that security may have been more
highly prioritized by the BPP’s California chapters, particularly as Oakland was the national
headquarters of the BPP.

Such actions also indicate the Oakland BPP’s keen awareness that the organization was
under law enforcement surveillance which necessitated vigilance at all times to prevent
inﬁltration of the organization and hinder counterintelligence efforts. They also indicate
preventive measures implemented by the BPP to impede FBI inﬁltration. Hilliard noted
that the BPP’s rapid growth increased the problem of inﬁltration as new persons sought to
assume positions of trust. Hilliard wrote, “we have little trouble with this in Oakland, the

area’s fairly contained....we know everyone, but in larger cities and new chapters, guys bully

 

6 Ibid.
7 Shakur, Assat_a_, 205.

108

their ways into positions of trust.”8 Observation and surveillance of Jennings also suggests
that suspicion and mistrust permeated the organization as BPP members became more
cautious about exposing themselves to harassment and prosecution from law enforcement.
Some individuals initially joined the BPP for what Scale termed, “status reasons” because
they were enamored with the Panther uniform, “black beret, black slacks, black shoes, black
pimp socks or regular socks, shined s hoes, blue shirt and a black turtleneck.”9 Scale labeled
such individuals “do-nothing terrorists” because, they would linger in ﬁont of the BPP
ofﬁce assuming a macho stance with a “mean face,” chests stuck out and folded arms. Scale
surmised that such individuals were responding to “incorrect media sensationalisrn” of the
BPP as a paramilitary organization. Seale’s main annoyance with those engaging in such
behavior was that they were only interested in “rapping” to women, “they never did any
work at all or faked work.”lo Scale also complained of women who wanted assertive
brothers who would “ talk bad and loud, sell wolf tickets and carry on?” Although many
people joined the BPP, “many did not return, they were driven away by the discipline and

the reading.”'2
The BPP instituted political education classes to indoctrinate members about its Ten

Point Platform and Program and to counter misconceptions of what the “revolution” was

 

3 Hilliard, This Side of Glory, 248.

9 Scale, Seize The Time 367.

 

'0 Ibid.
" Ibid.

'2 Brown, A Taste of Power 137.

 

109

about and what it meant to be a “revolutionary” in the BPP. Such classes were “mandatory
for general membership” and include weapons training and handling and a review of selected
books ranging from Frantz Fanon, Karl Marx and Mao-Tse Tung. BPP Minister of
Information Eldridge Cleaver’s book Soul On Ice and all articles published in the BPP’S
newspaper were also required readings. BPP members were expected to study assigned
readings and be able to recite the BPP’s Ten Point Platform and Program on command.13
The BPP outlined administrative expectations and procedures for its members. The
BPP’s Central Committee developed rules of discipline and eight Points of Attention (Figure
II) governing the conduct and behavior of its members which expanded to twenty-six rules
by 1969 (F igurc III). BPP members were expected to memorize all ‘intraparty’ disciplinary
rules featuring a variety of edicts including, speaking politely, prohibitions from hitting,
swearing and damaging property. The Points also forbade men ﬁ'om “taking liberties with
women,” ill-treatment of captives and proper reimbursement for anything borrowed or
damagecl"
Points of attention were published in every edition of the BPP’s newspaper to reinforce
Rule 25 of the twenty-six rules of the BPP, “all chapters must adhere to the policy and
ideology laid down by the Central Committee of the Black Panther Party?" The nmin

problem with Rule 25 was that there was no unanimity in the BPP’s political ideology as

 

'3 Ibid.
" “Points of Attention of the Black Panther Party;” In Scale, Seize The Time. 391.

'5 “Rules of the Black Panther Party, National Headquarters, Berkeley California,”
In Scale, Seize The Time 391-393. See also Figure 11 and Figure III of this work.

 

llO

individual members and leaders misinterpreted and routinely violated codiﬁed rules of the
BPP. The most debilitating aspect of the political education classes administered in the BPP
was that, required readings were subject to individual interpretations of the person
administering political education classes.

Word- for-word repetition and automatic citation of quoted works did not guarantee
overall understanding of the literature. Tommy Lewis, a ‘sixteen or seventeen-year old’
former member of the Slauson gang who joined the BPP’s South California chapter
illustrates this point. Lewis did not know how to read but would have sonwone read political
education assignments to him then memorize and recite whole passages of text from
memory. '6 Elaine Brown studied “every revolutionary book” she could ‘lay her hand on’ and
. learned to shoot a pistol and an automatic riﬂe. Brown interpreted Lewis’ action as
indicative of his commitment to freedom and “revolution.”‘7

Brown’s “ﬁrst mission” as a “revolutionary” was to make molotov cocktails, travel with
BPP Captain John Huggins, other BPP members including Lewis wearing black clothing and
gloves to toss lit gasoline-ﬁlled bottles at an empty building.“3 Lewis and Brown also
transported caches of weapons to John Huggins’ apartment where Lewis also resided. Brown
maintained that Captain John Huggins had “gone over” the details and “political”

signiﬁcance of their activities. '9 Brown and Lewis viewed late night strikes to empty

 

'6 Brown, A Ta_ste of Power. 139.
'7 Ibid.

'8 Ibid, 138.

'9 Ibid, 154.

111

buildings as symptomatic of the “revolution” launched by the BPP’S Southern California
chapter under the tutelage of Huggins. It is also possible that such activities were
organized and reinforced in the political education classes administered by Huggins.
Despite political education classes, and the BPP’S rule that everyone in a leadership
position must read no less than two hours per day, the BPP was unsuccessful in curtailing
misconceptions of what the BPP’s “revolution” entailed and what it meant to be a
“revolutionary” in the BPP. As BPP chapters increased nationwide, the BPP experienced
difﬁculties with both leaders and rank and ﬁle members. All BPP members did not adhere to
all of the rules concerning conduct and behavior. Captain William Lee Brent best exempliﬁed
the BPP’S internal conﬂict with one of its ‘leaders’ and demonstrated ﬂawed interpretations
of “revolution” and “revolutionary” as interpreted by Brent and national leaders of the BPP.
Brent received three felony convictions before joining the Oakland BPP, he provided
security for BPP leaders, spoke at Panther rallies and administered political education classes
for BPP members.20 Brent admitted ignoring BPP rules while “doing Party work” which
resulted in his fatal conﬁontation between himself; BPP members and police. BPP Chief
of Staff David Hilliard assigned Brent to accompany the other BPP Panthers to their San
Francisco newspaper ofﬁce and bring them back ﬁom an important meting. Prior to the
incident, Brent and two BPP members took the BPP’S van to deliver the BPP’S newspapers.
Brent nnintains that all three individuals in the van had been drinking alcohol. Brent had
also taken ‘a couple of Dexedrines’ plus another pill given to him by a fellow Panther. Brent

contended that violation of some BPP rules was routine. Brent’s explanation of his behavior

 

2° Brent, Lopg Time Gone, 105.
112

and that of others in the van was, “any member who didn’t drink or smoke a joint once in a
while wasn’t completely trusted by the rest of us”2'

Brent and the others never arrived at the meeting, but were involved in a violent
conﬁontation with police involving an alleged robbery attempt of 875 using the BPP’S van.
Brent contended that he was in a drug induced state of mind, unaware of the fatality of his
actions, and had innocently accepted money given to him by a frightened attendant
intimidated by the sight of an automatic weapon ‘sticking out’ of his waistband.22 Law
enforcement authorities formally indicted and charged Brent with three counts of assault to
commit murder, one count of robbery and one count of an ex-convict carrying a gun.23 The
BPP’S Central Committee, the ruling body of the BPP immediately held a press conference
in which Eldridge Cleaver delivered the BPP’s press statement.

Cleaver asserted that the Party did not advocate ‘roving gangs of bandits’ robbing service
stations and taverns. He denounced Brent’s actions as a ‘foolish countcrrevolutionary act of
banditry’ and accused Brent of being a suspected provocateur agent who had inﬁltrated the
Party.24 Hilliard noted that the incident was “the last thing” the BPP needed because it

reinforced negative media portrayals of the BPP as “hypocrites and opportunists, members

of an outlaw organization using politics to justify petty thievery, plus the sheer stupidity of

 

2' Brent, Lopg Time Gone, 105.

22 Ibid,]18.

2’ “3 Cops Shot: Jury To Probe Panthers,” Oakland Tribune, 20 November 1968, 1.
2’ “Central Committee BPP Press Conference,” 1132, 4 January 1969, 6.

113

the action nukes us look asinine, a gang that can’t shoot straight.”25

The BPP expelled Brent for violating Party rules as the Central Committee was convinced
of Brent’s guilt which jeopardized the lives of unsuspecting BPP members. Brent was
dismayed by his expulsion from the BPP and “tom to pieces emotionally and psychologically
by their treachery?” He contended, on the one hand, he regretted the incident so that he
“could just keep talking about black h'beration and playing at being a revolutionary, on the
other hand, I was damned proud of myself, I thought I would burst.”27 Brent demonstrated
that despite the numerous political education classes he “never missed” and that he himself
taught to other members as Captain and ‘spokesman’ for the BPP, be interpreted his actions
as “revolutionary.”

Five months later, Brent met with the Central Committee to seek readmission in the BPP.
He maintained that all of the three Central Committee members upheld his expulsion but
Co-founder Bobby Scale agreed to publish a statement in the Party’s newspaper stating he
was not an agent. The BPP published Scale’s statement concerning Brent in its newspaper.
Scale exonerated Brent from the charge of being an agent and proclaimed that the BPP lmd
come forth to admit its “mistakes” to the community. He announced that Brent “cleared

up” his misunderstandings with the Party by relating to the organization as “a person who

 

2’ Hilliard, This Side onlogy, 157-158.

2‘ Brent, Lopg Time Gone, 125.
27 Ibid.

114

we ﬁnd really believes in the people’s revolution.”28

Scale emphasized that Brent was not in collaboration with other expelled members. The
statement was absent of any criticism, or reference to the botched robbery attempt, injuries
to the ofﬁcers and the arrest of unsuspecting BPP members in the van as events unfolded.
Scale admitted that the Party made a mistake, but he did not condemn or reassert Cleaver’s
earlier pronouncements that Brent was guilty of any wrongdoing.” Seale’s statement implied
that the Party erred in publicly denouncing and chastising Brent which eﬂ‘ectively exempted
Brent from any accountability or responsibility for his actions.

Scale was ominously silent in reprirnanding or condemning Brent’s actions. Seale’s
statement exempliﬁed seeds of internal discord within the leadership because a censure and
denunciation of a BPP member by Eldridge Cleaver was implicitly reversed by Co-founder
Bobby Scale. Brent, in his autobiography interpreted Seale’s statement as total vindication
in the community because it was the Party’s admission of an error concerning the accusation
of being an agent. Brent later hijacked a plane to Cuba to avoid criminal prosecution.”

Brent and other BPP members violated the BPP’s prohibition of possession of “narcotics
or wwd while doing Party work.” The BPP also banned possession of a weapon while drunk
or “loaded off narcotics or weed.” Such restrictions did not decrease the popularity of

“Bitter dog,”nicknamed “Panther piss” which was a Panther invention made of red port and

 

2’ Bobby Scale, “Being Honest With The People Concerning Bill Brent,” TBP, 20
April 1969, 7.

29 Ibid.
3° Brent, Lopg Time Gone, 126-129..

115

lemon juice throughout BPP chapters.3 ' Scale explained that the BPP admonished those who
brought alcoholic products to Panther ofﬁces to “go into the back” and not to get drunk.32
The ineﬂ’cctiveness of such a directive resulted in its abandonment in favor of more severe
penalties such as work suspension from all political work, expulsion from the BPP and public
denouncements.

Adoption and implementation of such severe measures suggest that some BPP members
did not abide by the alcohol prohibition in the BPP and on occasion violated or abused
alcohol. Violation of BPP rules and fundamental principles amounted to “individualism,” a
lack of discipline detrimental to its overall effectiveness and credibility throughout the local
community. The BPP announced that it would not tolerate “ultra-democracy” deﬁned as
an aversion of discipline and an expression of “petty-bourgeoisie desires.”33 The
organization suspended and expelled individuals through a purging process in 1968 and 1969
citing violation of discipline as the main reason for demotion and expulsion.34

The BPP promoted international resistance movements such as the Cuban revolution, the
Vietnamese people, Latin American and Aﬁican hheration struggles from which it modeled
interpretations of “revolutionary.” Individual chapters and members were expected to

practice the principle of Juche or self-reliance, co-opted ﬁ'om the North Koreans and

 

3' Hilliard, This Side of _G_log, 222.
32 Scale, Seize The Time 366-367.

 

’3 “Panther Purge” TBP, 20 January 1969.
3’ Ibid.

116

promoted by the national symbol of a ﬂying horse of Chulima in its newspaper centerfold.”

Elaine Brown, who later became the only Chairwoman of the BPP in 1974, explained, “if we
had been in Bolivia with Che, we told ourselves, we would be shot for violations of rules and
orders, discipline was essential in the vanguard?”

The BPP emulated Argentinian doctor and famous guerilla ﬁghter Ernesto “Che” Guevara
as a model for implementing disciplinary measures. Examination of such application,
reveals one of the main ﬂaws of applying such an international “revolutionary” model in the
BPP. Environmental conditions under which Guevara waged war and the disciplinary
measures he enforced were vastly different ﬁom the urban environment of the BPP.37

Guevara mainly engaged in guerilla warfare, he and his followers operated from the
mormtains, forests and hills of Sierra Maestra in Orba and ﬁ'om Bolivia. Guevara did not
tolerate insubordination ﬁom his very small group of less than twelve men who operated
“underground” under hazardous conditions such as sparse water and food supplies, lack of
basic necessities and long marches. Guevara and his men were constantly under attack by
authorities causing them to constantly rotate strategic positions under heavy gunﬁre."

Insubordination, lack of discipline and any evidence of indolence was punishable not only

 

35 Hilliard, This Side OfGlog, 211.
3" Brown, A Tgste Of Power. 275.

37 See Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara. A Revolutiongy Life (New York: Grove
Press, 1997); Ernesto “Che” Guevara, “General Principles of Gucrilla Warfare,” In Daniel
Castro ed. Revolution and Revolutionaries: Gucrilla Movements in Latin America
(Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1999), 65-86.

3' Ibid.

117

through corporal punishment but execution and torture. Newton and the BPP equalized
their oppression with those of “revolutionary” individuals especially Ernesto “Che” Guevara
and Mao Tsc-Tung because the same existing power structure and “the oppressor who had
controlled them was controlling us both directly and indirectly.”39 The BPP hailed these
fellow “kinsmen” whom Newton argued deve10ped “successful strategies” for liberating their
movie.”

Although the BPP struggled to combat state repression, conditions and extremes under
which Guevara functioned were not exactly similar to those of the BPP in Oakland and other
BPP chapters nationwide. Newton argued that the BPP did not deliberately attempt to
“import ideas and strategies” but also attempted to “transform what we learned into principles
and methods acceptable to the brothers on the block?“ In its attempts to operationalize and
transform a “revolutionary” model to endure disciplinary measures, the BPP induced great
latitude for abuse.

The BPP enforced disciplinary measures throughout all BPP chapters and branches as
an informal judicial system essential in the vanguard. Disciplinary measm'es varied from
chapter to chapter and were almost always at the discretion of those in positions of power
within the BPP hierarchy. As “revolutionaries,” BPP members were conditioned to accept

punishment for violations and inﬁactions to promote and enhance efﬁciency and

 

3’ Newton, Revolutiom Suicide, 111.
4° Ibid.
4' Ibid.

118

cohesiveness in all Party work.42 No one, not even those in leadership positions, was
exempt from disciplinary measures which always contained an element of violence or
corporal punishment. Brown recalled receiving ten lashes ordered by Bobby Scale because
as editor of the Party’s newspaper, she was late in ‘gctting the paper out on time.”3

A member of the Detroit Chapter known only as “A,” recalled her punishment of standing
in a closet with a red light to study Mao Tse Tung’s Red book for ﬁve hours.“ Such
activities may have been characteristic of “people’s jail” instituted in some chapters which
Hilliard described as, “the adult equivalent of quiet time when you stand in a corner and
consider your behavior, a room with a chair and light where pe0ple can read the Red Book
or an appropriate essay?" In Oakland, disciplinary measures included, “a marathon of push-
ups or pumping X number of laps around the corner?“5 Other disciplinary methods include
house arrest wherein a member was prohibited from engaging in BPP activities and under
the supervision of others.

“Mud-holing,” was perhaps one of the most violent disciplinary methods, described as a
‘beatdown’ administered to BPP men in some local chapters. John Scale explained, “that’s

old term that means beat your ass, it came out of the streets; if there were ﬁghts and a

 

‘2 Frank Jones, “Tightening Up,” TBP, 25 January 1969, 17.
‘3 Brown. A Taste Of Power. 275.

“ Author Ora] interview with A, Detroit BPP, 10/10/99. I have only used the ﬁrst
letter of A’s name to protect identity.

’5 John Scale, Quoted In Hilliard m Side Of Glory. 236.
’6 Ibid, 236.
1 l9

person fell down, he’d get stomped—“mudholed” you’re in the mud?“ Such a practice was
an undertaken by a cadre of people in the BPP to discipline BPP men. “They just beat them
up, nothing that would break arms or bones or anything like that” he explained, “you ﬁgure
four or ﬁve guys beating a guy in his ribs and his chest, popping him in his face, he’d get
bruised.”48 The ultimate decision on which methods to employ for disciplining a BPP
member was always left to the discretion of those in positions of power which provided
great latitude for abuse.

The FBI seized upon this opportunity to ﬁacture the BPP by inserting FBI informant
William O’Neal into the Chicago BPP. Unbeknownst to other BPP members, O’Neal was
later revealed as the FBI informant who arranged Fred Hampton’s assassination/murder in
Chicago.‘9 O’Ncal’s activities are not representative of all BPP members but elucidates a
concrete example of FBI manipulation and misappropriation of the term “revolutionary”
to hamper the BPP. It also highlights a deliberate attempt by an FBI informant to
manipulate connotations of “revolutionary” to adversely affect, disrupt and neutralize the
BPP’s leadership and membership. O’Neal concocted the most outlandish proposal for
discipline as head of security of the Chicago BPP.

O’Neal devised a plan to wire up an electric chair in the Party’s basement to discipline
Chicago BPP members. He expected other members and leaders to unquestionably accept

his proposal and reasoned that as ‘Tevolutionaries? BPP members should endure torture

 

‘7 Ibid, 235.
’8 Ibid.
’9 Hilliard, This Side of Glog, 270.

120

as a disciplinary measure. It is possible that had O’Neal succeeded in this endeavor, the
“electric chair” would have granted law enforcement authorities the necessary leverage to
prosecute the BPP. O’Neal’s outlandish proposal was innnediately rejected by the
mtional and local leadership.’0

The BPP implemented more rigorous methods throughout its local chapters for ferreting
suspected informants. In February 1969, the Indiana Chapter of the BPP publicized a
photograph of a male individual referred to as D.H suspected of being an informant." D.H
came to the Chicago chapter claiming to be sent from the Oakland Chapter. After calls to the
coast could not conﬁrm his aﬁliation with the BPP, he was ‘taken into custody,’ searched
and verbally interrogated, ironically by FBI informant and Security Officer William O’Ncal.
A “more intense stage” of questioning continued for three and a halfhours, causing D.H to
“make sense” of his statements, admitting he was an FBI informant. Such questioning
methods also show internal inconsistencies as members ignored one of the main 8 points
of attention, “ if we ever have to take captives do not ill-treat them.”’2 The Indiana chapter
asserted, “as quickly as they plant informer, so shall we root them out, but at our own

discretion.”53

 

5° Hilliard, This Side of Glory, 236.

5' Ministry Of Defense, Indiana Chapter of The Black Panther Party, “All Panthers
Beware,” TBP, 17 February 1969, 9.

’2 Point 8 of the BPP’s “8 Points of Attention,” In Scale Seize The Time 391-393.
“Rules of the Black Panther Party, National Headquarters, Berkeley California,” See also
Figure 11 of this work.

 

53 “Dealing With Pig Informers,” TBP, 20 April 1969, 8.
121

The BPP’s “intense questioning” methods of suspected informants caused the District
Attorney’s ofﬁce to indict several members of the New Haven Chapter, including Bobby
Scale and Ericka Huggins, for the New Haven murder and torture of Alex Rackley whose
body was found in a marshland May 1969. Rackley was a member of the New Haven
Connecticut BPP chapter organized by Ericka Huggins in 1969. He was accused by the
Connecticut leadership and membership of being a counterintelligence agent who inﬁltrated
the BPP’s Connecticut chapter. During the trial in which Huggins and Scale were acquitted
of all charges in May 1971, the State attorney played a recovered tape on which Rackley’s
excruciating screams were heard. Convicted of Rackley’s murder were two BPP members,
Landon Williams and Roy Hithe who both pled guilty to reduced charges of conspiracy to
murder. BPP member Lonnie McLucas was also convicted of conspiracy to cormnit
Rackley’s murder.’4

Rackley’s murder resulted from fatal methods of ferreting suspected informants which
suggests that some BPP members may have been defenseless against charges of inﬁltrating
the BPP. It also suggests that by 1969, heightened security concerns exacerbated tensions
as the BPP sought to counter state repression. Suspected informants and disruptive
individuals were labeled “jackanapes” by the BPP leadership and membership. Individual
actions of BPP members raised questions about overall interpretations of “revolution” and
further aggravated tensions iii the BPP.

The BPP’s most pressing dilemma was that some of the leadership and rank and ﬁle

 

5‘ See Gail Sheehy, Panthemp,’ The Clash Of Black Against Black In One
American pr' (New York: Harper & Row Publishers 1971).

122

membership interpreted revolution as authorization for committing illegal acts. Despite
political education classes, the BPP was unsuccessful in curtailing misconceptions of what
the BPP’s “revolution” was about and what it meant to be a “revolutionary” in the BPP.
The BPP coined the phrase “the stupid revolution” to describe illegal activities undertaken
by members under the guise of “revolution?” The BPP also redeﬁned “jackanape” to
refer to individuals who joined the Party whose only interest was Shooting police.“

Scale exph'lined, “ a jackanape generally works ﬁ'om an opportunistic position, he centers
things only around himself, he’s still selﬁsh, he thinks his pot and his wine are above the
Party,hethinkshisgunissomethingthathecanuseatwill,toripoft'stuﬁ‘forhimself.””
Hilliard himself recounted that after drinking with June and Bobby Scale one New Year’s
Eve,heunleasheda.380magnumandstartedﬁringatapolicecarthat rolledbyhishousc
to express “a material blow against the pigs?”8 Hilliard was ashamed of himself after
engaging in such behavior and after a rebuke ﬁ'om Scale. Hilliard renewed his studies of
Fanon and noted the importance of studying and analyzing revolution as “a science, not
simply a matter of risking a lot and acting like a rebel?”

Some BPP members did not concur with Hilliard’s experience. Hilliard recalled being

awakened by pounding on his door and shouts of “Let me in!” “The pigs are after us!” at

 

5’ Ibid, 157.
5’ Ibid, 147.

’7 Scale, Seize The Time 381.

 

’8 Hilliard, This Side of Glog, 151.
59 Ibid, 152.

123

4 AM. When he opened the door, two out of breath members pushed inside informing him
they’d just “made a move on police” that had resulted in a Shoot-out on 32"d street.
Although no one was hurt, they were seeking refuge as their car had been “all Shot up” and
was parked around the corner from his home. Hilliard described this incident as “an
unconscious abuse of loyalty” because their “foolishness” threatened themselves, the Party,
his own well being and the safety of his family.”0 Both Hilliard’s actions and those of the
BPP members involved in this incident demonstrate violation of the BPP’S rule that, “no
Party member will use, point or ﬁre a weapon of any kind unnecessarily or accidentally at
anyone?“

Bobby Scale differentiated between a “revolutionary” and a ‘jackanape’ in his
autobiography. Whereas the ‘jackanape’ was a selﬁsh and ‘foolish’ opportunist who
employed a gun at will to commit illegal acts, a “true revolutionary” was dedicated to the
community, competent to organize, support and facilitate the BPP’s programs. 62 As a
dedicated member of the BPP, “he is constantly trying to educate himself about the
revolutionary principles and how they function to get a broad perspective, he’ll also defend
himself and his people when we’re unjustly attacked by racist pigs?"3 Although Scale has

advanced his role in his autobiographical accounts in promoting and ensuring equality for

 

6° Ibid, 175-176.

6' “Rules of the Black Panther Party, National Headquarters, Berkeley California,”
In Scale Seize The Time 391-393. See also Figure III of this work.

 

’2 Scale, Seize The Tm , 380.
63 Ibid.

124

women in the Party, his description of the “true revolutionary” was male gender speciﬁc.
For Scale, the ideal “true revolutionary” was initially a tough macho male willing to
commit the “revolutionary suicide” espoused by Newton and who was undaunted by “pussy
power.” The concept of “pussy power” was popularized in the BPP by Edridge Cleaver who
argued that black women’s “revolutionary power” sprouted ﬁom “the lips of a pussy.” He
urged women to persuade their men to become part of the solution, “you can put them under
more pressure than I can with speeches, you can cut off their sugar,” he stated in an
October 1968 speech at Stanford University"4
“Pussy power” strongly inﬂuenced BPP members particularly during the BPP’s early days.
For example, two weeks after joining the BPP, Elaine Brown and a group of men and women
gathered for Wednesday night metings and political education chasses administered by BPP
members John Huggins and Ericka Huggins. Shortly after John Huggins explained the
structure of the BPP, the group “broke into small groups according to gender?“ Brown
contended that Ericka Huggins informed the group of women that they were in the
“vanguard of revolution,” and may have to engage in sexual encounters with the “enemy”
at night and “slit his throat in the morning?"6 The women were also informed that “gender
was but another weapon, another tool of the revolution.” As “revolutionaries,” BPP

women “had the task of producing children, progeny of revolution who would carry the

 

6’ Scheer ed., Eldrlﬁge Cl_e_'e_lver Post-Prison Writipgs, 143.
6’ Brown, A Tg_ste of Power. 135.
66 Ibid, 136.

125

ﬂame when we fell, knowing that generations after us would prevail”67

Such an assertion revealed the BPP’s parallels with Vietnamese, Cuban, Angolan and
Mozambique women and many others who employed their bodies against aggressors.
Sexual intimacy was but one of the main tools to neutralize and eliminate “enemies.” For
BPP women the term “revolutionary” denoted various interpretations which were not
always congruent with the BPP local and national leadership. In 1968, women of the BPP
published poems characterizing the supportive role of the “revolutionary woman” by
ﬁmctioning as “everything” for the “revolutionary black man.”68

One article in 1968 described the ideal “revolutionary woman” as “militant,

revolutionary, committed, strong and warm, feminine and kind.”69 However, it is erroneous
to conclude that such limiting descriptions aptly reﬂected the roles of women in the BPP
throughout the organization’s history. Historian Tracye Matthews argued that the BPP was
a male-dominated hierarchy wherein black women struggled to create an environment
conducive to their own empowerment amid sexism, harassment, male chauvinisrn and sexual
exploitation.”

By 1969, women proliferated among the leadership of the BPP in chapters such as

 

’7 Ibid, 137.

’8 Linda Greene, “The Black Revolutionary Woman,” TBP 28 September 1968,11;
Gloria Bartholomew, “A Black Woman’s Thoughts,” TBP 28 September 1968, 11; “Black
Wonmn” TBP, 14 September 1968, 6.

‘9 Ibid.

7° Tracye Matthews, “‘No One Ever Asks, What A Man’s Place In The Revohrtion
Is’: Gender and the Politics of the Black Panther Party 1966-1971,” In Charles Jones ed, _The

Black Panther Pam Reconsidﬂd, 291 .
126

Boston, Chicago and Connecticut. Jane Culberson of the Southern California chapter
articulated the role of a revolutionary wonmn in a May 1969 article. She revered examples
of Chinese, Vietnamese and Cuban women and asserted, “our role is to ﬁght in and
participate in this revolution on an equal footing with our men...we would like to be regarded
as PANTHERS not females (Pantherettes), just Panthers.”71 She further demanded equal
footing and equal rank for BPP women based on competence and devoid of “emotional
hangups” concerning gender. Unresolved conﬂicts concerning gender manifested in the
BPP’s “panther pads” and collectives throughout local BPP chapters.

The fundamental necessity of the Panther pads/collectives demonstrated the BPP’S
strained ﬁnancial resources. Members relied on the mobilization of their own limited
resources which were often insuﬂicient to provide rental fees for additional apartments and
collectives. It also suggests that in most chapters, the BPP lacked sufﬁcient living
arrangements to accommodate its membership. The BPP encomaged ﬁve or six members
to rent a house together to yield cheaper rent. Scale explained, as long as members were
“dedicated revolutionaries,” who worked around the clock, the Party would “take care of
them” by providing for their “basic necessities” such as rent and food."2 Although the BPP
instituted a variety of social programs to local communities, of which the Free Breakfast For

Schoolchildren Program was the most popular, “often-times Panthers themselves lmd little

 

7‘ June Culberson, “The Role Of The A Revolutionary Woman,” TBP, 4 May 1969,

72 Scale, Seize The Time 381.

 

127

food and certainly very little money.”73

BPP members with apartments accepted others into their living spaces, they
established and formed ﬁiendships, intimate and work relationships. However, for
those who enjoyed their own living spaces, any additions may have exacerbated tensions
and caused certain inﬁingements on both space and privacy. Members clashed over
delineations of duties in the Panther collectives concerning, cooking and cleaning. Brown
recalled a gathering in Los Angeles involving men and women including Central Committee
members. As Brown sat with the men, one of the women speciﬁcally notiﬁed her that all
sisters had to help with food preparation. Ten women prepared eggs, bacon, biscuits and
potatoes, served the food and poured the orange juice for the men who continued with their
discussions."

Brown became agitated over the fact that the women had to clean the kitchen after they
had eaten Brown avoided what she terrmd her “uglier tirade,” but banged dishes to express
her outrage and loudly exclaimed her displeasure. She also denoted sexism on the part of
Co-founder Bobby Scale, who later claimed that he was an ardent proponent of gender
equality ill the BPP.” Brown stated that her actions alienated most of the men and women
which suggest that in Los Angeles, cooking and cleaning roles were automatically and

routinely relegated to women. Thus, the Panther collective/pad represented another

 

73 Jennings, “Why I Joined The Party,” 260.
7‘ Brown, A Taste Of Power. 190-192

7’ Bobby Scale, Keynote Address delivered at Georgia State University, Black
Panther Party Revisited: Reﬂections and Scholarship,” Conference at Georgia State
University Atlanta, Georgia, October 24-25 1996.

128

“vignette of contestation” for BPP women.

In Los Angeles, Brown and other women who refused to accept what they considered “an
inferior role” in the BPP’S “revolution” developed a “collective posture” and became
known as the “clique.” Brown wrote, “we would not be rewarding any brother with our
bodies, iii the bedroom or in the kitchen.” The “clique” according to Brown acquired a
reputation for what some men in the BPP considered “bad attitudes,” and for being “smart
bitches who needed to be silenced.”77 Brown and the women of the “clique” were
determined to quell and dispel such negative labels through hard work and dedication.
Brown noted support for the “clique” by Geronimo “Ji Jaga” Pratt and Minister of
Education Raymond “Masai” Hewitt. Such an environment did not deter many BPP men
and women. Jennings explained, “(there were) women in the Party like me who tried to hold
on because we understood the power, the signiﬁcance and the need for our organization.”78

Brown described “Camelot house” which served as the “central nervous system” of the
Los Angeles chapter on Century Boulevard. The apartment was rented by Ericka and John
Huggins, but shared by eight other BPP members. Brown noted that the apartment was a
two-story, wood-ﬁamed ﬁxture, whose bottom structure included a garage which served as
a library and ofﬁce area. Brown slept on a mattress on the ﬂoor with a hatchet to deﬂect

what she termed the “obnoxious advances of Long John, a deﬁnite blight in Camelot?”

 

7’ Brown, A Taste of Power. 192.

77 Ibid.

7‘ Jennings, “Why I Joined The Party,” 263.
79 Brown, A Ta_ste Of Power. 153.

129

Deliberate placement of the hatchet by her bedside suggests that it was maintained for
protection against Long John’s unwelcoming sexual advances.

Panther pads/collectives epitomized the BPP’s realization of Juche because Brown and
women of the BPP were solely responsible for their security which suggests that the BPP’s
collective environment was also fraught with sexual tensions. Historian Tracy Ann Mathews
argued those living arrangements, especially for those who took residence in the apartments
of others, caused tensions among members concerning gender roles, class conﬂict and sexual
politics.80

All BPP men were not sexists. Those who challenged or repudiated unfair practices
against women in the BPP were in some instances “ostracized by the leadership.”81 Their
defense of women violated the BPP’s popularization of the macho “revolutionary male” who
was undaunted by “pussy power.” Assata Shakur greatly respected Zayd, the Minister of
Information of the BPP’s Harlem chapter because he refused to participate in “tmprincipled
attacks on sisters,” and volunteered to cook dinner and wash dishes.82 Shakur noted, “I
knewthishadtobeespeciallyhardforhirnbecausehewassrnallandhismasculinitywas

always being challenged ill some way by the more backward, muscle-headed men in the

Party. ”83

 

8° See Tracye Anne Matthews, “No One Ever Asks What A Man’s Place In The
Revohrtion 15”: Gender And Sexual Politics In The Black Panther Party 1966-1971, (PhD
diss, University Of Michigan, 1998).

8' Shakur, Assata, 223.
82 Ibid.
’3 Ibid.

130

Perhaps one of the most ardent criticisms of sexism in the BPP was issued by Eldridge
Cleaver from Algiers in support of Erica Huggins the widow of Slain BPP member John
Huggins. Erica Huggins who established the BPP’s New Haven Connecticut chapter was on
trial along with Bobby Scale for the murder of Alex Rackley. Cleaver argued that Huggins’
incarceration and suffering ill prison should be a “stinging rebuke” to all manisfestations of
male chauvinism within BPP ranks. He wrote

we must too recognize that a woman can be just as revolutionary as a

man and that she has equal stature, that along with men and that we cannot prejudice
her in any manner, that we cannot relegate her to an inferior position, that we have
to recognize our women as our equals and that revolutionary standards of principles
demandthat we goto great lengthsto sceto itthat disciplinaryactionistakenonall
levels against those who manifest male chauvinism behavior.“

BPP women reiterated their role as “revolutionary” women and reinforced Cleaver’s
position in a published interview on September 13, 1969. The women stated that they
emulated the “revolutionary women” of Palestine, Vietnam, South Aﬁica and China. One
woman stated, “as Panthers we cannot separate ourselves and divide ourselves and work as
as Pantherettes...we can’t be divided on the basis of sex and we can’t be divided on the basis
of principles or anything,”85 In essence, BPP women redeﬁned their relationships in the

“revolutionary” enviromnent of the BPP.

 

“ Eldridge Cleaver, “Message To Sister Erica Huggins of the Black Panther Party,”
TBP, 5 July 1969.

’5 “Sisters,” TBP, 13 September 1969, 12-13.

131

Brown contended, “Panther women were stripped of the pretty things the “bourgeois
sweetnesses that could have made them glamorous women, the kind I saw Huey adored
despite his revolutionized ways, Panther women were hard in a way, soldiers, comrades, not
pretty little things?“ Some BPP members engaged in “revolutionary marriages”
performed by Reverend Earl A. Neil.87 One of the most celebrated “revolutionary
marr'mges” in the BPP was that of Minister Of Education Raymond “Masai” Hewitt to
Shirley Neelcy on August 19, 1969 at the Free Church at Berkeley.

Photographs of the couple’s wedding were published in the BPP’S newspaper where the
BPP claimed that the couple received “million dolklr rings” made ﬁom destroyed U.S. planes
in Vietnam supplied by the People’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam.88 The wedding
devastated Brown who was four months pregnant with Hewitt’s child. She contemplated
leaving the BPP but changed her mind after a scolding ﬁom David Hilliard who convinced
her that as a “true revolutionary,” she should not be deterred by what Hilliard termed “dick
and pussy problems” and permit the ‘subjective’ to overrule her ‘objective.’89 Brown wrote,
“he had tried to make my pain seem absurd-when] knew it was not?”0

Hilliard’s admonishment revealed his notion of the “revolutionary” woman whose

commitment to the people outweighed her personal displeasure. Newton reinforced the

 

3" Brown, A Ta_ste Of Power. 260.

87 Author Interview with Reverend Earl A. Neil 7/99.

‘8 “Revolutionary Love, Revolutionary Wedding,”__T_B_P, 23 August 1969.
89 Brown, A Taste Of Power.199.

90 Ibid.

132

notion that the primary relationship between BPP men and women was that of “comrade”
and that deﬁning or claiming a BPP member as one’s own was to liken him/her to property."
Hilliard noted in his autobiography, that he did not accept the concept of ronmntic love and
struggled with “love relationships.” He wrote, “even in the best circumstances the idea of
a perfect match between a man and a woman is idealistic.”92 Hilliard fathered a child with
BPP member Brenda Presley. Hilliard recalled that his wife BPP Finance Secretary Patricia
Hilliard confronted him at gunpoint in a bedroom with Presley after spending months
ignoring rumors.93
Patricia Hilliard’s reaction to the fact that her husband and father of her three children was
with another BPP woman showed that although both Brenda Presley and Patricia Hilliard
continued to share Hilliard, the notion of sexual equality in the BPP was ﬁaught with tension.
The BPP attempted to diffuse tensions by redeﬁning intimacy for the BPP “revolutionary”
which was best reﬂected in Newton’s assertion that “the denmnds two people make upon
each other can be crippling and destructive?“
Some BPP men and women who readily endorsed such a view practiced freedom to
choose a sexual partner to the extreme. Hilliard wrote, “a lot of members are younger than

I and single; they seem to be playing romantic musical chairs, practicing to the extreme our

 

9' Ibid, 259.

92 Hilliard, This Side Of Glog, 223.

93 Ibid, 252.

9‘ Newton, Revolutiopa_ry Suicide, 96.
1 33

principle that people are ﬂee to choose their sexual partners.”95 Scale accentuated his sexual
encounters with women of the BPP in his autobiographical account. He claimed six sexual
encounters with ﬁve different women on the same evening three days before his arrest.”
He later blamed these encounters for his contraction of a venereal disease. Scale
acknowledged that he may or may not have infected these women. He dispatched messages
ﬁom jail notifying the women of the disease to ensure that they could receive “proper medical
care?” Scale’s statement demonstrated that sexual tensions manifested in the residence of
Party members in Panther collectives/pads. It also demonstrated a hazardous sexual
consequence resulting ﬁ‘om the sexual freedom of BPP “revolutionaries.” That is not to
state that al] BPP engaged in such a practice or were infected with sexual diseases, but to
note the sexual behavior of some BPP members, and its principal leaders as a source of
internal discord in the BPP. Sexual tensions in the Panther collectives did not deter BPP men
ﬁom fulﬁlling obligations to the local communities they served. Regina Jennings explained,
“since we expected to be killed or jailed, we loved one another ﬁilly, purely and platonically
unless we decided otherwise?”8
Disciplinary measures, purging and counterintelligence efforts did not hamper the Party’s
struggle to raise the consciousness of the community. Examination of the diaries of Cheryl

Foster of the BPP Harlem Chapter oﬂers insight into the daily activities of some Party

 

’5 Hilliard, This Side Of Glory, 221.

96 Scale, A Loneﬂ R_age, 187-190.

97 Ibid.

9‘ Jennings, “Why I Joined The Party,” 262.

134

members.”9

Monday to Friday Saturday

6:00AM-exercisc, clean up and cat 7 :00-gct up, exercise
clean, eat

7:00 Breakfast Program 9:00—ofﬁce opens

7:30 sell papers at busy train and bus stops 9:30-sel] papers in

9:00 sign in progressive areas
10:00 section work 2-3 lunch P.E class
12-1 Progressive paper selling 7 :00-sign in omcc

1:30—2:15 lunch, P.E (political education class) 7-8-dinncr

2:30-3:30 section work 8:30-10:30 ﬁeld
3:45-6:30 progressive paper selling work in colony-bars,
7:00 sign in dances etc.

8:00 dinner

8:30-10:30 community work, oﬂice work, P.E class.

Sunday

8:00-get up clean cut

9:30-drill Central Park
12:00-omcc opens
12:30-go into ﬁeld
Everyone will be
assigned to a speciﬁc
church to relate to the
people (in) service
3:00-door to door
section work, housing
complaints

6:00-sign in

Although Foster’s log is not representative of all BPP members’ activities nationwide, it

reﬂects a typical day in the life of a “revolutionary” in the BPP ﬁaught with paper sales,

community outreach measures, and political education classes. It is unknown whether

Foster adhered to this schedule to the letter. However, examination of all three activities

illuminates the daily, group and cormnunity activities of the BPP at the local level.

“Progressive paper selling” dominated Foster’s activities because it provided ﬁnancial

 

9’ Notebook of Cheryl Foster, Special Collections, Black Panther Party Collection,

Schomburg Center for Research Center In Black Culture.

135

support for individual members and chapters. Members kept ten cents from every paper
sold for twenty-ﬁve cents. They submitted the remaining ﬁfteen cents to the chapter’s
ﬁnancial oﬂicer who would submit halfof chapter’s total ﬁnances to national headquarters
in Oakland. The chapter’s lmlf of the money was used to pay utilities and expenses and
support Party activities.100

The Oakland leadership would then disseminate funds for the local chapters in 1969.
Very often, the ﬁnances of local chapters were strained partly because of the backlog of
unsold newspapers. One example was a counterintelligence memo documenting the activities
of the North Carolina chapter. One FBI Special Agent noted, that half of the group’s
newspaper income or $1,750 was required by national headquarters. The group frequently
retained the previous week’s newspapers on hand when their next shipment arrived.1m
Thus, they were not selling all of their newspapers which also meant acute ﬁnancial
difﬁculties. Such ﬁnancial difﬁculties explain why individual chapters were often stra'md
to raise bail money for fellow members including court and attorney costs.

According to a ﬁnancial report conducted by the United States House of

Representatives (U SHRS) Subcommittee of the Committee on Internal Security in 1970,
of twenty ﬁve active BPP chapters, nineteen of the groups were ‘barely solvent,’ ﬁve were

‘seriously in debt’ and only one was considered in “good ﬁmncial condition.”'02 Such dire

 

'°° Jennings, “Why 1 Joined the Party,” 260.

'°' FBI File, North Carolina Black Panther Party, T0 Director, FBI ﬁom SAC,
Charlotte, 8/ 19/ 70.

'°2 United States House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Connnittee on
Interim] Security 1970, Exhibit 25, 5081.

136

ﬁnancial straits suggest that BPP members were struggling to support themselves and their
families especially since the BPP did not encourage its members to retain full-time jobs.
Elaine Brown explained, “we were on twenty-four hour call, there were no part-time
revolutionaries, we were ﬁlll-time revolutionaries, ﬁlll-time Panthers.”‘°3

BPP members had unofﬁcially taken a vow of poverty to foster a greater sense of purpose.
Their very existence centered on the people and the communities they served despite
obstacles from law enforcement. To be a “revolutionary” in the BPP was to be bombarded
with some form of harassment from law enforcement. BPP leaders and members
complained of their arrests and imprisonment. Panthers in every locale were constantly,
“being stopped and/or arrested, and/or beaten, en route to or from breakfast programs, rallies,
ofﬁces and homes?“

Law enforcement. authorities frequently seized BPP newspapers upon an arrest and also
conducted raids on BPP residences. The BPP considered such raids “gestapo tactics,” and
‘Vamping? From April to December 1969, raids of BPP headquarters include San
Francisco, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Denver, San Diego, Sacramento and Los
Angeles?” The raids also indicate a concerted effort by law enforcement to wage a pre-

emptive strike to disarm and to disrupt the BPP consistent with its perceptions of the

organization as the “greatest single threat.” Raids on BPP residences included searches,

 

"’3 Brown, A Taste of Power. 138.

'0‘ Ibid, 196.

'°’ See G. Louis Heath, Oﬂ’ The Pigs, The Histogy And Literature Of The Black
Panther Pm (Metuchcn, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1976).

137

seizures of BPP property and arrests. Raids prompted Newton to issue a warning to law
enforcement ofﬁcials while he was in prison stating that anyone who approached BPP
members’ homes with intent to kick down doors and ransack was violating their human
rights; henceforth, would be “treated as outlaws, gangsters and evildoers” as the Party had
no way of distinguishing guardians of the law ﬁom lawbrealters.106

According to the BPP’s Rule 9, upon any arrest, any BPP member was to provide only
their name and address. BPP men and women were forbidden to sign anything when
arrested and were often brutalized by the police. One example involved nineteen-year-old
student nurse Joan Bird, a student of Bronx Community College who published an account
of her arrest on January 17, 1969. A photograph of Bird’s bruised and swollen face
supported her contention that she was tortured, threatened, beaten, harassed and
intimidated by police.”7 Although BPP men and women were accorded similar punishments
when arrested, brutal treatment had more serious consequences for pregnant BPP women.

For example, Afcni Shakur, one of the Panther 21 arrested in 1969 for allegedly trying
to bomb the Botanical Gardens in New York and various department stores, and Assata
Shakur both gave birth to their children in prison as the BPP was unable to pay the
excessively high bail amounts. Usually after paying such bails, the charges were later

dropped. Bail for the Panther 21 in New York was 8100.000 per person. Most of the

 

‘06 Huey P. Newton, “Executive Mandate No.3,” 1 March 1968, TBP, 16 March
1968, 1.

"’7 “Student Nurse Tortured,” TBP, 17 February 1969, 9; Kuwasi Ballagoon, Look
For Me In Th_e Whirlwind The Collective Autobiogr_aphy Of The New York 21 (New
York: Random House, 1971), 305-306

 

138

Panther 21 spent two years in prison after a ﬁfteen- month trial and ninety-minute
deh'beration of a jury which acquitted them of the total one hundred and ﬁfty-six counts
against them.108
Arrests and imprisonment of BPP leaders and members were strategically aimed at

draining the ﬁnancial resources of the organization and crippling its membership. Bobby
Scale and his wife were arrested on February 25, 1968. Prior to their arrest, Scale counted
$9,000 for the Huey P. Newton Defense Fund. However, when he was taken to jail, he
learned that four other Panthers including Chief of Staff David Hilliard and Audrey Hudson
had also been ‘busted.’ Scale, his wife and the four other Panthers, were all charged with
conspiracy to commit murder and Seale’s bail was set for $11,000. When he was bailed out
three hours later, he learned his wife’s bail was also set for $11,000, and the four other
Panthers’ bail was $6,000 each. Scale wrote, “what came to my mind was that with four of
uswith $6,000 baileachandmywife and Iwith$ll,000baileach, whenadded comesto
$46,000, now the ten percent premiums alone come to $4,600?“ Both examples
demonstrated that arrests and high bails devastated the BPP and ﬁnancially strained local
BPP chapters.

They also limited the resources of the BPP because ﬁ‘equent arrests and incarceration
removed BPP members ﬁom the local communities thereby limiting the BPP’s outreach.
Bail was very often raised through the mobilization of several local chapters as BPP

members often worked in more than one local chapter. For example, in the Bay area,

 

'08 Ballagoon, Look For Me In The Whiym, 364.

 

"’9 Bobby Scale, “Gestapo Tactics,” TBP, 16 March 1968, 11.

139

members of the Southern California chapter also worked ill Oakland, Richmond and
Berkeley. New York BPP members worked in Harlem, Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. Joan
Bird noted, “Panthers can go anywhere and know that there is another Panther, another
comrade, another person that will watch your back the same as you would watch theirs.”“°
Such interactions allow one to understand the degree of counterintelligence inﬁltration
in the BPP in that the very same people sharing section and ﬁeld work, administering or
attending political education classes, and representing the Party in the local community may
or may not have been the very same informants who devastated the Party by betraying fellow
members and leaders despite the cormadeship of the Panther collectives or pads.‘ll
Another example other than William O’Nea] in Chicago is that of Earl Anthony, Deputy
Minister of Information of the Southern California Chapter. Earl Anthony joined the BPP in
April 1967 and sought national fame and notoriety by publishing a book about the BPP in
1970. In October 1968, Anthony secured a book contract with Dial Books concerning his
experience in the BPP. The BPP’S Central Committee disapproved of his actions. Eager to
publish his account, Anthony left the BPP. Although Anthony stated that he was not
expelled from the Party until March 29, 1969 in his autobiography, he admitted leaving the

Party in November 1968. Anthony traveled to Stockholm in 1969 to write Picking Up The

Gun, A Report On The Black Panthers which was published by Dial Books in 1970.“2

 

”0 Joan Bird, In Look For Me In Th_e Whirlwind, 309.
111 Ibid.

”2 Earl Anthony, Pickrpg' Up The Gun. A Report On The Black Panthers (New
York: Dial Press, 1970).

140

In 1990, Anthony published yet another biography Spitting in the Wind, The True Story
Behind The Violent Legacy Of The Black Panther Party, conﬁrming that he began working
as an FBI informant August 1967, four months after joining the BPP.l '3 Anthony essentially
criminalized the activities of the BPP. Anthony’s unsubstantiated exaggeration iii his second
book was that by 1969 the membership of the BPP exceeded ﬁve thousand members, of
which three thousand went to prison, three hundred others were suspected of being
informants and killed by the Panthers themselves.“ Anthony’s unsubstantiated claims
expose internal disruption caused by yet another known FBI informant in the BPP who was
also ill a position of leadership.

Examining the “revolutionary” life of BPP members and leaders demonstrate that the
“revolutionary” environment of the BPP was not glamorous or glorious. BPP men and
women were committed to their local communities and endured harassment, police brutality,
incarceration and dire ﬁnancial straits as “revolutionaries.” BPP members endured such
conditions because it was consistent with similar consequences experienced by the
international movements they sought to emulate. BPP members also endured punishments
in ﬁllﬁhnent and realization of “revolutionary” principles.

The min ﬂaw in their evaluation was that although the organization experienced state
repression, such conditions did not necessarily mirror similar geographic and environmental

conditions consistent with that of other “revolutionaries.” This chapter drew a parallel

 

“3 Earl Anthony, Spittmg' In The W‘m_d. The True Story Behin_d The Violent Legacy
Of The Black Panther Pa_rg (Santa Monica, California: Roundtable Publishing, 1990), 8-9.

“’ Ibid, 38.

141

between one of the BPP’s models to argue that the settings within which the BPP launched
its “revolution” contained internal contradictions and ﬂaws. One example was the gender
interpretations of the term “revolutionary” which exposed a “contested terrain” within
which BPP men and women struggled to deﬁne, practice and implement on a daily basis.
Although BPP men and women were cormnitted, their actions at times, contradicted the
principles, codiﬁed rules and regulations established by the BPP particularly the BPP’s
twenty-six rules and eight points of attention specifying the conduct and expectations of
BPP “revohrtionaries.” Such rules demonstrate an internal struggle in the BPP concerning
discipline. Failures to comply with such codes were a violation of discipline which subjected
one to various acts of violence which varied ﬁom chapter to chapter. The BPP did not
enforce such methods merely to reﬂect adherence to codiﬁed rules but to ensure the overall
security of BPP chapters nationwide. Hilliard explained, “cadre must follow orders,
undisciplined brothers disrespect themselves and others, they jeopardize the Party.”‘ ‘5
Cognizant of COINTELPRO efforts to neutralize the BPP, the organization sought to
eradicate disruptive behaviors which could accomodate FBI inﬁltration and repression.
Thus, the BPP implemented a series of corrective measures modiﬁed ﬁom the local
environment of its members such as “rnud-holing” and “people’s jail.” BPP members were
dedicated but inconsistent. Such contradictions combined with counterintelligence measures
to exacerbate internal dissension in the BPP by FBI informants in leadership roles and
positions of power within the BPP hierarchy. Thus, the BPP was in several instances

incapable of ferreting suspecting informants and FBI informants who were at times in

 

"5 Hilliard, This Side of Glopy, 236.

142

esteemed positions of leadership.

At times, informants also resided in the Panther pads and collectives, promoted and
organized by the BPP. Whereas the Panther pads and collectives offered and fostered
comradeship, they did not shelter the BPP from FBI informants, destructive and disruptive
behaviors contextualized by the BPP’s leadership and membership as “revolutionary.”
This chapter has shown that becoming a “revolutionary” in the BPP was laden with risks.
Although BPP men and women strove to redeﬁne themselves as “revolutionaries,” at
times, their overall understanding and interpretation of the term were severely ﬂawed.

This chapter demonstrated that misinterpretations of “revolution” and “revolutionary”
directly and indirectly affected “revolutionary life” throughout nationwide BPP chapters.
Despite its internal struggles, the BPP successfully implemented social programs. The next
chapter examines the BPP’s mobilization efforts in fulﬁlment and realization of Point

Three of its Ten Point Platform and Program

143

CHAPTER IV
“THERE’S A PIG IN OUR COMMUNITY:” “AVARICIOUS BUSINESSMEN”
VS. THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY 1966-1970
“black dogs bite just as readily as white dogs—they both
have teeth, capitalism is capitalism in all its dog cat dog
viciousness, no matter what color the capitalist. ”'

Point Three of The Black Panther Party (BPP) Platform and Program originally phrased
‘er want an end to the robbery by the white man of our black community” in October 1966
formed the basis upon which the BPP viewed local businesses. The BPP adopted the term
“avaricious businessmen ” to descn’be individual businessmen and local businesses iii
general. “Avaricious businessmen,” were portrayed as “bloodsuckers” monopolizing on the
exploitation of the dispossessed and disadvantaged. The main purpose of this essay is to
explore inevitable conﬁontations betweenthe BPP and “avaricious businessmen”throughout
Oakland and other local BPP chapters ﬁ‘om 1967- 1971 to survey and evaluate the BPP’s
overall effectiveness in its mobilizing efforts.

This chapter explores and investigates the BPP’s grass roots activism focusing on
strategies employed in the administration of its Free Breakfast For Children Program

throughout local black communities. The thesis of this chapter is that the BPP sought to

 

‘ “Reverend Leon Sullivan High Priest Of Black Capitalism,” The Black Panther
hereinafter cited as TBP, 30 January 1971, 4.

144

control local businesses throughout black communities by wielding a series of tactics whose
signiﬁcance and overall effectiveness have been overlooked throughout the BPP’s
historiography.

Although scholars have acknowledged the dedication and commitment of the BPP to
fulﬁl] basic needs through its Free Breakfast for Schoolchildren Program, the BPP’S tactics
and implementation strategies have not been probed. The one exception is journalist Hugh
Pearson who charged that the BPP strong-armed, threatened, coerced, and bribed store
owners and local businessmen to donate to their various programs.2 This chapter argues
that the BPP maligned many local businesses and individuals under the guise of
“revohltion” and that in making certain demands of local businesses, the BPP sought to
establish itselfas the people’s speakers and representatives to collect the restitution due
them for historical and ongoing exploitation. In employing speciﬁc tactics and strategies,
the BPP unintentionally reinforced their delineation as a threat to local businesses.

Point Three accompanied the BPP’s “What We Believe” statement in its Ten Point
Platform and Program (Figure I) that black people were owed the “modest demand” and
“overdue debt of forty acres and two mules” as “retribution” for slave labor and ‘mass
murder.’3 The BPP demanded reparations for centuries of racial inequality, exploitation and

violence. The BPP also charged that it was incumbent upon the American government to

 

 

2 Hugh Pearson, The Shadow of the Pan_t_h+cr. Huey P. Newton and the Price of Black
Power in America (New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994), 243.

3 “October 1966 Black Panther Party Platform and Program, What We Want, What
We Believe,” In Huey P. Newton, Revolutiopm Suicide (New York: Writers and Readers
Publishing Inc. 1995), 116-119. See also Figure I.

145

compensate all blacks for the horror and violence which accompanied American slavery.4
“Retribution” was later changed to “restitution” in May 1968. The main difference between
both words was that whereas retrrhution denoted reparation, penalty, vengeance and
punishment, restitution symbolized contrition, compensation and atonement.’

Four basic enemies of the Panthers were, racism, capitalism, imperialism and police
brutality.‘’ Of the four, capitalism and racism were the main enemies of the people. Too
often, the two were intertwined. Panthers viewed all four variables as interrelated and
interdependent components that legitimized exploitation and colonization of people
throughout the world. The BPP equated racism and capitalism in deﬁnition, in that the
capitalist, particularly the white capitalist, was necessarily a racist and a “fascist.” As one
BPP member explained, capitalism was a man-made disease which allowed “ﬁve percent of
the people to control 95 percent of the wealth, imperialism is the cancer of capitalism that
spreads and destroys whole countries and whole nations of people, greed is the purpose,
racism is the excuse.”7

Newton charged that black people constituted a colonized people within the capitalist

structure and that the existing American political structure perpetuated, protected and

 

’ Ibid.
5 Ibid.

6 Marshall D.C At Fillmore “Speech By Field Re: Auditorium, S.F,” TBP, 20 April,
1969.

7 Ibid.

146

inﬂicted racism.8 He urged “drastic changes” in the political structure which BPP
Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver explained in his 1968 article, “Community
Imperialism.” Cleaver declared that black communities were colonized and controlled
ﬁom the outside and that the relationship between the black masses and capitalism was a
mercantile relationship wherein the “mother country” (capitalism) dictated and controlled
all aspects of the colony (black communities).9

The BPP condemned capitalism in all its forms for historically postulating inequality in the
black community and throughout the world. It imintained that capitalism exploited the
masses and produced a ruling class system which perpetuated racism.l0 The BPP argued
that capitalism and racism reinforced each other to stabilize and preserve the “monopolistic
interests” of the existing socio-economic structure." Class was the unifying factor bonding
“avaricious businessmen” as exploiters of the conmlunity. The BPP argued that capitalism
created “elite classes” among oppressed populations to exercise a form of “indirect rule”

over the masses secured through the cooperation of the “black bourgeoisie.”‘2

 

' Huey P. Newton, “In Defense of Self-Defense,” TBP 16 March 1968, 17

9 Eldridge Cleaver, Minister ofInformation ,“Comrnunity Imperialism,” TBP, 18 May
1 968, l 0.

'0 “Breaking Capitalism Down,” TBP, 20 April 1969; Scale, Seize The Time The
Stogz of The Black Panther ng and Huey P. Newton. (Baltimore: Black Classic Press,
1991), 70.

 

" Scale, Seize The Time. 70.

'2 Kathleen Cleaver, Communications Secretary, “Ministry Of Information Black
Paper, Position of The Black Panther Party on the Seventh Congressional District Election
In Alameda County And The Candidacy Of John George In The Democratic Party,” TBP 16
March 1968.

147

The BPP adhered to E. Franklin Frazier’s 1965 analysis of the behavior, attitudes and
values of the ‘black bourgeoisie.’ Frazier argued that upper and middle class blacks were
politically divorced, socially isolated and culturally detached ﬁom the black community.‘3
Frazier maintained, that the black bourgeoisie developed “a deep-seated inferiority complex”
and created “a world of make-believe in which it attempts to escape the disdain of whites
and ﬁllﬁll its wish for status in American life?” To the BPP, members of the “black
bourgeoisie” prioritized their own personal interests at the expense of the black “underclass.”
Newton explained, “they are pro-administration, they would like a few concessions made,
but as far as the overall set-up, they have a little more material goods, a little more
privileges than the have-nots, the lower classes.”'5

Throughout the BPP’s literatm'e, the “black bourgeoisie” was condemned as “a long
tradition of bootlickers, uncle toms, black Anglo-Saxons who are willing to rise to
prominence on the backs of the oppressed masses by selling their votes to the Democratic
Machine?“ Newton elaborated on this theme in a 1968 statement drawing ﬁ'om Malcom
X’s distinction between the “house slave,” whom he argued protected and defended the

interests of the slave masters, as opposed to the ﬁeld slaves, who conspired to kill the

 

'3 E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie, The Rise of A New Middle Class (Glencoe,
Illinois: The Free Press, 1957), 24-25.

" Ibid.

‘5 “Huey Newton Speaks To The Movement,” In Huey P.Newton and Toni Morrison

ed. To Die For The People, Selpcted Writpg' s and Saches (New York: Writers and
Readers Publishing Inc., 1995), 94.

'6 Kathleen Cleaver, “Position of The Black Panther Party,” TBP 16 March 1968.

148

master to h’beratc themselves and end the master’s dominion.l7

Newton argued that the BPP characterized the ‘ﬁeld blacks’ who promoted the interests
of the “black have-nots” whereas the ‘black bourgeoisie’ identiﬁed with and promoted the
interests of the existing power structure. Newton declared, “if the black bourgeoisie cannot
align itself with our complete program, then the black bourgeoisie sets itself up as our
enemy—and they will be attacked and treated as such.”18 The inherent ﬂaw of this
argument was that it was totally dismissive of any past or present contribution of the black
upper and middle class to local black communities in general.

Newton and the BPP exposed a blatant disregard of the historical contributions of the
black upper and middle class to local communities by contemptuously labeling them as
‘avaricious businessmen’ who exploited their brethren. Scholars have examined the
strengths and weaknesses of the black upper and middle class over time and place and have
appraised class divisions among them that any have impeded or enhanced the realization of
speciﬁc objectives in particular local communities during speciﬁc periods of time.'9

Studies have documented the contributions and the commitment of the black upper and

middle class to uplifting local black communities through a cormnunity building process

 

'7 Malcom X, “Message To The Grass Roots,” Detroit 1963, In George Breitman ed.

Malcom X 3%, Selected Smhes And Statements (New York: Grove Press Inc., 1966),
17.

'3 Huey P. Newton, “T o The Black Movement,” 15 May 1968, In Newton, To Die
For The People, 94.

'9 Richard Thomas, L_if_e For Us Is Wh_at We Make It (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1992), 52, 208-214 ; Darlene Clark Hine, Sm Truth To Power. Bla__ck
Professional Class In United Sprites Histog (New York: Carlson Publishing, 1996), 60—61 .

149

including cormnunity outreach programs, institution building through churches and schools,
and the establishment of professional and civic organizations that have drafted various
measures including conventions, resolutions and petitions.20 Thus, contrary to the views of
the BPP, it cannot conclusively be argued that the black upper and middle class historically
prioritized its own interests to the detriment of the black community. Although the BPP did
not distinguish between white and black capitalists, black capitalism was more reprehensible
because it symbolized betrayal and rejection of the ‘black masses.’

To the BPP, it also signiﬁed that black capitalists collaborated with ‘part of the sohrtion’
instead of uniting with the ‘black masses’ to solve pertinent problems. Such a view is best
expressed in an article by the BPP’s Philadelphia Chapter asserting, “black capitalism is
similar to the theory that a black dog won’t bite black people because it’s black, but in
reality, black dogs bite just as readily as white dogs—they both have teeth, capitalism is
capitalism in all its dog cat dog viciousness, no matter what color the capitalist.”21

Conﬂicts between the BPP and the “avaricious businessmen” irrespective of race, were
orchestrated on the contested terrain involving the implementation of the Party’s Free
Breakfast For Children Program. More than any other program, Free Breakfast For Children
served as the signature of the BPP. It was administered in twenty two of the BPP’s
twenty-nine chapters in November 1969. BPP Chairman Bobby Scale claimed that the BPP

fed one hundred and ﬁfty children on $40 per week, and that the BPP served over two

 

2° Ibid.

2‘ “Reverend Leon Sullivan High Priest Of Black Capitalism,” TBP, 30 January
1971, 4.

150

thousand children breakfast throughout the San Francisco Bay area on a “typical day.”22

The BPP’s organ The Black Panther was a fundamental element of the BPP’s “tax
deductible” Free Breakfast for Children Program The BPP solicited donations and elicited
support for the Program by featuring a donation form. Such a form required a name and
addressandalso listedthephone numberof the personincharge ofthe Program, aswellas
the address where the donations were to be sent. Such an address was usually that of a
local church or a community center.” Weeks before starting the program, some local BPP
chapters also sent letters to retail and wholesale stores in the community.

The BPP also published various “statements to the press” from local BPP chapters
requesting people to provide transportation, sisters and mothers to donate their time,
unlimited daily donations of storable and perishable foods, kitchen utensils, and cash
donations?“ Women were actively recruited for serving and donating food in addition to
contributing a few hours every day or every other day or week to support the Program
Many women from the local communities volunteered their services. Historians Tracye
Matthews and Angela Le Blane-Ernest maintained that women mainly facilitated and

implemented the Free Breakfast For Children Program25 For example, Elaine Brown

 

2 “Chairman’s Press Conference at Safeway Boycott,” TBP, 21 June 1969, 14.
23 Ibid.
2" "Statement To The Press On The Breakfast Of Children," TBP, 27 April 1969,3.

2’ Angela Le-Blanc-Emest, “The Most Qualiﬁed Person To Handle The Job:”Black
Panther Party Women 1966-1982,” In Jones ed. The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, 305-
336; See also Tracy Ann Matthews, “No One Ever Asks Wlmt A Man’s Place In The
Revolution Isz” Gender And Sexual Politics In The Black Panther Party 1966-1971, (PhD
diss., The University Of Michigan, 1998).

151

secured donations for the Los Angeles Chapter’s Free Breakfast Program after persuading
the director of food services at the University of California’s Weybum Hall’s to donate to
the BPP.26

The BPP’s funds came from many groups and individuals who supported the BPP
including lawyers groups, church organizations, speaking engagements and the BPP’s
newspaper sales.27 BPP members also solicited door to door donations from businesses and
the local cormnunity. Encounters between BPP members and businessmen were not
always friendly and did not always result in endorsements or contributions to the BPP’s
programs. Male and female BPP members published accounts of treatments they allegedly
received when confronting businesspeople. Examination of their various accounts revealthat
the treatment accorded to BPP members nationwide was similar in that some received
endorsement while others received unbridled contempt.

The San Francisco and Harlem BPP chapters published accounts of encounters with local
businessmen. Harlem BPP members Beth Bragg and Brother Ray successfully persuaded
four Harlem wholesale distributors to agree to make donations to the BPP but two other
local businesses refused to donate.28 The San Francisco BPP chapter took children with
them to secure food donations and traveled in large groups to “stare down” the owners who

refused to “relate” to them.29 Whereas the children were present to reinforce the urgency of

 

26 Brown, A Taste Of Power. 157-159.

27 Scale, Seize The Time, 178-179.

28 “White Plains Panthers Work for Breaklhst,”_I_B_lj, 20 July 1968, 20.
29 “Breakfast In S.F District” 132, 5 July I969, 19.

152

the BPP’s demands, the “stare down” was deliberately intended to exert more pressure and
probably intimidate the store owner to cooperate and support the BPP. It yielded
cooperation ﬁ'om most of the businesses solicited for donations in San Francisco which
suggests that some store owners may have been intimidated to cooperate and support the
BPP. The “staredown” may have also been utilized as a “threat.”

In addition to donation forms in the newspaper and door to door solicitation, letters were
also sent to retail and wholesale stores in the community. Examination of letters from two
local BPP chapters New Jersey and Southern California, sheds light into how the Party
sought donations from national and local businesses. Consider the content of the following
two letters sent to local and national businesses. A letter produced in April 1969, bearing
the name of BPP Chairman of Party Relations Gwen Goodloe of the Southern California
Chapter was submitted to the manager of General Foods Corporation. In the ﬁrst two
paragraphs, she informd, the Party would be instituting the John Huggins Hot Breakfast For
Children Program, however, because of Party’s “wafer thin resources” and the fact that
they were not, ‘subject to funding or control by any politicaL private or government
organization or agency,’ they solely depended on donations from those in the community “
able_” to share in the maintenance of the program.30

2913’ was underlined to reﬂect the BPP’s demand for restitution in that avaricious
businessmensuchasGeneralFoods had themeansandthe resources neededbytheParty

and were therefore, obligated to return some of its proﬁts back to the community. After

 

3° Letter ﬁom the South California Chapter to General Foods Corporation, April,
1969, Special Collections, Black Panther Party ﬁle. Schomburg Center for Research In Black
Culture,

153

listing the groceries and items needed, Goodloe concluded the letter with the following,
“as we will be visiting all community outlets, we welcome your telephone call for an
appointment with us or we will see you at an unappointed time, thank you for your help.”"I
The BPP contended that it was incumbent upon the corporation to contact the BPP to
discuss this matter, as the Party was merely ‘requesting’ a regular portion of the many
proﬁts the corporation reaped from the black community.

The intimidating tone of this letter implied that the BPP unmistakably intended to meet
with or confront the manager to collect the restitution due to the community. It is also
probable that Goodloe’s letter and other similar letters may or may not have been
manufactured by the FBI as a part of COINTELPRO “brown mail” efforts to neutralize
the BPP. It was not unlikely for the FBI to fabricate such letters to destroy and curb
sources of material or monetary support for the BPP. As the authenticity of this letter
and Goodloe’s signature have not been ascertained at the present time, if it was received by
General Foods and other businesses in 1969, it undoubtedly portrayed the BPP as menacing
and harassing local businesses to reinforce law enforcement’s premise that the BPP posed a
pervasive “threat” to local businesses.

The New Jersey BPP distributed a leaﬂet addressed to those who supported and those

who refused to feed hungry children32 In the ﬁrst two paragraphs, Panthers announced the

location of the Program then stated, that the food for the program was supplied by

 

3' Ibid

32 “Black Panther Party Free Breakfast For Schoolchildren & Those Who Reﬁise To
Feed Hungry Children,” Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture, Special
Collections, Black Panther Party File. Special Collections, Black Panther Party File.

154

merchants of the Jersey area, who were the same merchants and “avaricious businessmen”
who daily exploited and proﬁted from the community. They also charged that the
workers of this merchant took ‘huge proﬁts’ to beneﬁt their ‘greedy selves.’33 Both letters
illuminated another internal contradiction in that the Party acknowledged support from
merchants as it simultaneously berated them as “avaricious businessmen.” Thus, the BPP’s
line between exception and condemnation was very often blurred.

The BPP praised and accused businessmen in the same breath, therefore, cooperation and
support for the BPP’s Free Breakfast For Children program did not exempt one from being
labeled “avaricious.” Although local merchants General Meat Corporation, Kupfer Berger
Company, and Ace Packing provided meat to the Harlem Free Breakfast Program on a
regular basis, they along with other businesses were criticized in an article by Beth Mitchell
stating, the BPP received food for the Program from Harlem merchants who were “the same
avaricious businessmen” and “leeches” who exploited the Harlem community?”

Seale stated that when the stores and milk companies don’t donate, people should leaﬂet
the community. He asserted that any particular chain food stores that could not or would
not donate a small percentage of its proﬁts or one penny ﬁ'om every dollar it makes ﬁ'om
the community should also be boycotted.” He maintained, the BPP did not “ever threaten

or anything like that,” but informed people in the community that “avaricious

 

33 Ibid.

3‘ “Harlem A & P Refuses To Donate To Free Breakfast,” TBP, 16 August 1969,
3;“To Feed Our Children,” TBP, 27 April 1969, 3.

35 Scale, Seize The Timg, 414.

155

businessmen” exploited poor oppressed people in the community.”

In 1969, a collision ensued between the BPP and Safeway stores in Oakland. In an article
publist May 19, 1969, the BPP’s Oakland Chapter announced Safeway had taken the
initial step in showing a socialistic attitude towards the desires and needs of the people after
‘years and years of reaping proﬁts ﬁorn the people’ and ‘making grand theft money off black
people?” Safeway began donating food to the Free Breakfast For Schoolchildren Program,
on April 26, 1969. The article concluded with the insistence that donations from Safeway
should be of a minimum of $100 and on a weekly basis even as the BPP acknowledged
Safeway for taking “this revolutionary step toward the people.”38 Two weeks later, the BPP
published a very brief article urging the public to help the grape strikers of Delano by going
to the nearest Safeway store and asking to speak to the manager. The article urged, “tell
him that you refuse to shop at Safeway as long as they intend to carry grapes, if enough of
us do that, it will begin to make a difference.”39

In June 1969, the BPP called for a boycott of Safeway Stores because, they were “greedy
avaricious businessmen” whose refusal to feed hungry children was “ low and rotten.” They

charged that Safeway’s refusal was spearheaded by ‘top lieutenant fascist H00per’ and that

 

3‘ Ibid.

37 Samantha Cha Black, “Safeway Store Oakland Donates Food for Breakfast for
Children,” TBP, 19 May 1969, 19.

38 Ibid.
39 “Grape Boycott” TBP, 31 May 1969, 14.
156

“it is very insane for these avaricious fools to refuse to contribute $100 per week."0 In a
press conference at the Safeway Site on June 21, 1969, BPP Chairman Bobby Seale
addressed the question concerning further negotiation attempts with the store manager.
“Right now as of today, we’re going to raise the demands to $125, every week that he
doesn’t come arormd, we’re going to raise it an extra $25, all he has to do is come out here
and tell one of these people that they can pick up the food he’s going to donate to the
people’s Free Breakfast For Children Program?“

Scale afﬁrmed that the purpose of the boycott was to persuade Safeway to make
donations to feed children. Yet, be exhibited more insistence on the cash to be given. The
raising of the cash demand was a blatant example of a deliberate strategy employed by the
Oakland BPP wherein Safeway’s arm was economically twisted to force him to cooperate.
The Oakland BPP alluded to its success and persuasive ‘power’ by contending that in its
ﬁrst two days, Safeway closed forty-ﬁve minutes early.42

Throughout the collision between Safeway and the BPP, the BPP’s newspaper played a
major role. Initially, the BPP utilized the “power of the press” to praise as it simultaneously
condernrwd Safeway. It is likely that although Safeway had agreed to make donations, both
parties probably were still negotiating speciﬁc terms. By insisting on $100 on a weekly basis
the Oakland BPP outlined its ‘talking points’ and publicly solidiﬁed its steadfast position. The

article of May 19, 1969 was therefore a precipitous move and a pre-emptive strike by the

 

‘0 “Boycott Safeway Stores,” TBP, 19 June 1969.
4' “Chairman’s Press Conference At Safeway Boycott,” TBP, 21 June 1969, 14.
’2 Ibid.

157

Oakland BPP to persuade and compel Safeway to cooperate with its demands. This
explanation gains more credibility given that Safeway resolutely refused the terms set forth
in the article.

The BPP’s tactics during its collisions with Safeway were not unique. Leaﬂeting and
protesting businesses throughout local black cormnunities was reminiscent of the economic
nationalism of black men and women during the 19305. Both engaged in the “Don’t Buy
Where You Can’t Wor ” and the “Buy Black” campaign aimed at convincing white store
owners to hire black clerks. Such campaigns were mainly organized by black women who
formed Housewives Leagues, picketed and boycotted white-owned stores that did not hire
blacks during the Great Depression. ‘3 Unlike the Housewives’ Leagues the BPP primarily
focused on demanding contributions as “restitution” for operating throughout black
communities.

Larger political demands for employment, promotion and fair treatment were not
strongly prioritized by the BPP nationwide in administering the Free Breakfast For
Children Program. Despite such a shortcoming, the BPP’s determination to feed children and
its efforts to secure donations to implement a social program demonstrated the BPP
“revohrtion” throughout local black communities. The BPP sought to reﬁne the roles of all
businesses operating in local black communities. It demanded and compelled a
redistribution of power rooted in the redistribution of wealth as I deﬁned revolution

earlier in this research. The BPP’s efforts showed BPP members revolutionizing the

 

‘3 Darlene Clark Hine, “The Housewives’ League of Detroit: Black Women and

Economic Nationalism,” In Darlene Clark Hine Hine Sight, Black Women and The
Reconstruction of American Histog 129-146; Thomas, Life For Us 222-223.

 

158

community by not only securing some donations from local businesses but confronting
economic inequity by employing the boycott as a strategic mechanism to compel store
owners to make donations.

When the local A&P supermarket chain, Alpine Beef Company and A. Salmon and Sons
refused to make donations to the Harlem BPP Chapter, Panthers called for a boycott of the
stores. Beth Mitchell of the Harlem BPP published an article in The Black Panther
denouncing all three businesses as “fascist” “avaricious pigs” and “racists” that refused to feed
hungry children.“ She also asserted that the ‘racist, ‘avaricious businessmen’ at A&P
Foodstores specialized in ‘overworking, underpaying and overcharging the working
people.’45 Although A&P agreed to donate $10 a year to the Harlem BPP, Mitchell
charged that the people of Harlem “cannot and will not allow these ﬁlthy pigs the right to
exploit our cormnunity everyday then oink about returning $10 a year?“ Mitchell noted
alleged economic inequities but urged the boycott not because of labor conditions but
primarily because of A&P’s reﬁrsal to donate and support the BPP.

Alpine Beef Company and A. Salmon and Sons were denounced in the article “Fascist
Meat Companies Refuse Food To Hungry Children” and accused of being “avaricious pigs

and racists?”7 A statement from James Mott Lieutenant of Education of the Sacramento

 

“ “Beth Mitchell, “Harlem A&P Refuses To Donate Free Breakfast,” TBP, 16
August 1969, 18.

‘5 Ibid.
‘6 Ibid.

‘7 Janet Cyril, “Fascist Meat Companies Refuse Food to Hungry Children,” TBP 7
June 1969, 20.

159

BPP typiﬁed this strategy. Mott admonished ‘hypocritical preachers’ and ‘avaricious
businessmen’ as “conspirators” engaged in a concerted effort ‘to stop all progress’ on the
community Breakfast for Children Program in Sacramento because they reﬁrsed to answer
letters or meet with BPP representatives about the Pro gram.48 He afﬁrmed that the Party
would continue to ﬁght until victory was ultimately won inside the ‘pig pen of Sacramento’
where “the racist administrators plot their destruction and genocide against the people as
clearly shown in their attempt to let small hungry helpless children starve to death.“9

The BPP’s recurrent theme nationwide was that the refusal to donate was equated with
racism and signiﬁed that local businessmen sanctioned the exploitation of the masses by
refusing to provide restitution due to the community. Race was employed in an attempt to
isolate and condemn local businesses which refused to cooperate with BPP demands.
Refusal particularly by ‘white’ businessmen was analogous to racism and greed which justiﬁed
the actions of the Party. It also signiﬁed a rejection to feed poor, hungry children throughout
local black communities. In essence, hunger and poverty were politicized and racialized to
justify the Party’s call for boycotts against anyone who said “no.”

The politicization and racialization of hunger was a pattern ensued ﬁ'om 1968 to 1972
even as the Party shiﬁed focus as it adopted various themes ranging ﬁom dropping Self
Defense from its name in 1968, the Year of the Panther in 1969, a focus on community

service programs in 1970, and “the Youth Make The Revolution in 1971. Throughout this

 

‘3 James Mott, Lieutenant of Education, Sacramento Branch, “Conspirators Block
Breakfast Progress,” TBP, 4 May 1969,13.

‘9 Ibid.

160

period, attention to the Free Breakfast Program reached a peak ﬁom 1969 to 1970. Yet,
one salient factor remained the same, the deﬁnition of “avaricious businessmen” never
wavered and the Party impressed upon its readership that ‘avaricious businessmen’ had to be
stopped through boycotts.

The boycott was more stringent than the verbal lashing in the BPP’s newspaper as it
forced “avaricious businessmen” to recognize that the BPP would not simply speak from a
distance but would confront store owners at their doorstep. The boycott exempliﬁed the
BPP’s “revolution” throughout local communities in its attempt to restructure a power base
to challenge the existing ‘capitalist structure’ concerning access to ﬁmdamental resources.
The BPP sought to advance a cormnunity mobilization process through what Newton later
termed “survival programs.” At times, such a strategy proved to be very eﬁ‘ective as some
businesses deferred to the Panthers.

Steve McCutchen of the Baltimore BPP does not elaborate on this point in his diary, but
his entry from August 19, 1969 illuminates the realization of this ideology. He wrote, “we’ve
decided to boycott Roth’s Market On Gay St, the manager and owners won’t contribute to
the programs even after we’ve explained our position to feed hungry children, they refuse,
Jack is heading the picket and the one on one discussions with wary customers and inquirers,
good comrade.”so A few lines later, he wrote, “Roth’s Market Gave In, they will donate to

9951

our program on a weekly basis, Power to the People.

 

5° Steve McCutchen, “Selections From A Panther Diary,” In Jones. ed. The Black
Panther Recon_s_idered. 120.

5' Ibid.

161

The two operative words of this entry are “gave in” implying that the Party had been so
effective in its boycott that it neutralized the resistance of Roth’s Market. Moreover, in this
particular instance, the picket line was transformed as a political forum to espouse the
‘legitimacy’ of the Panther position. Jack’s role was described not only as an organizer but
to possibly convince the wary and generate support for the boycott of Roth’s market by
discouraging customers from shopping at the store.

BPP denouncements of “avaricious businessmen” became more pronounced in 1970.
Consider the following Black Panther headlines, “Avaricious Businessmen Refuse To Feed
Hungry Children,” “To Feed The Hungry,” “Avaricious Businessmen Stealing From The
Children,” “Big Business Kicks Out Hungry Children.” The BPP employed its newspaper
as the people’s organ to capture the attention and intensify the general public so that
businesses would have no choice but to commit to BPP donations. Another purpose of the
articles was to convey the message that the BPP had no tolerance for those who relied on
black communities for economic survival yet would not support the “people’s programs.”

Inevitably, the BPP’s newspaper was a major spark that fueled the collision course
between some local businesses and the BPP. Very often, the articles were accompanied by
photographs of grinning children at the site of the program This in no way suggests that
the BPP’s commitment to feeding children was suspect or that the BPP had sinister motives
in implementing the Free Breakfast Program nationwide. Throughout the various
photographs, male and female Panthers were shown feeding children and many chapters
published accounts attesting to the fact that most members were at the sites by 6 AM daily

to serve the children before engaging in any other Party activity.

162

The correlation between the headlines and the photographs was that both illustrated
the BPP’s campaign for political legitimacy and its struggle for leadership of the black
cormnunity. The BPP chastised schools for perpetuating hunger and contended tlmt the
schools and the ‘racist—oriented fascist’ Boards of Education should have instituted this
program long ago. However, because the school board and administrators were ‘part and
parcel of the US fascist pig apparatus,” the perpetuation of hunger was their main
weapon for carrying out genocide on the oppressed peoples of Babylon.’2

By 1970, Newton labeled the various BPP programs “survival programs.” Newton in his
autobiography stated, all of the BPP’s programs were aimed at one goal, complete control
of the institutions in the community.” He argued that mere control would not automatically
solve problems, therefore the BPP’s primary objective should be to organize community
institutions into co-operatives whereby proﬁts or surplus from the co-operatives would be
returned to the community, “in this way all communities would be allied in a common purpose
through the major social, economic, and political institutions of this country?”4 Newton
asserted that the BPP sought ‘natural rights’ for the people based on what it believed they
required and deserved as summed in the slogan “all power to the people.”

The BPP’s unsuccessful attempts to garner support were masked under other issues in
addition to avaricious greed. The BPP attacked and disparaged the individual and business

character of those who reﬁrsed to support its programs regardless of race. One example

 

’2 “Breakfast for School Children Programs,” TBP, 27 December 1969, 4.
53 Newton, Revolutiom Suicide, 167.
5’ Ibid.

163

to illustrate the BPP’s negative portrayal of individuals is that of ‘white businessman’ Sam
Belowitz of Baltimore and black businessman Wendell Handy of Oakland. Panther Baloti
of the Baltimore Chapter, wrote the article “There’s A Pig In Our Community” accusing
Belowitz of being “a pig,... a prominent animal member of the capitalist system, (who has)
executed his plan to rob steal and cheat the people in the black community.””

Next to the article was a drawing showing the halfdeﬁant face of a black man holding a
gun, staring directly at the reader as a white man labeled an ‘avaricious business’ lay dying
ﬁ‘om a bullet wound right between the eyes as dollars fell ﬁ'eely ﬁ'om where he laid. This
illustration had various overtones. On the one hand, it threatened Belowitz’s safety and was
purposefully intended to intimidate Belowitz to comply or else face fatal consequences. On
the other hand, it conveyed the message that the BPP was willing to protect the people by
avenging the cormnunity. Belowitz’s crime like that of the other businessmen was that he
owned a grocery store but refused to support the Free Breakfast Program.

Baloti maintained that Sam Belowitz and his store were “deadly” since they had been in
South Baltimore because they perpetuated ‘the starvation and suffering of the people living
in South Baltimore.’ Among his many faults, “everyone who has ever been in Sarn’s store
has seen the ﬂies and bugs he offers, his meat is rotten and his bread is stale?“ Baloti urged

the community to rid itselfof “pig Sam” and the rest of the people’s enemies by letting Sam

 

5’ Baloti, “There’s A Pig In Om‘ Community,” TBP, 10 October 1970, 2.;“Handy
Exploits The Black Community,” TBP, 31 May 1970, 3.

5‘ Ibid.

164

know that they would no longer accept his “rotten food, bug infested meat or sour milk?”7
Black Oakland businessman Wendell Handy was characterized as “a bootlicker and rectum
kisser of Mickey Mouse Ronnie Reagan” when he withheld his support for the Program58
Both examples illustrated that the character of both businessmen was attacked regardless of
race as neither Belowitz nor Handy escaped condemnation and contempt.

After its unsuccessful attempt to boycott the Matthias Company, the BPP’s Baltimore
Branch sought to expose the company as “bloodsucking pigs” who were “charging
outrageously high prices for inferior food.”59 Unsuccessful attempts to obtain donations from
the COImtry Farms Market in Compton, California were met with a call for boycott and an
accusation of the establishment as racists who did not hire blacks in management positions.
The following statement enumerated the many defaults of the store according to the South
California Chapter. The BPP claimed an “overwhelming stench ﬁ‘om “rotten foods” at the
“ﬂesh” meat and vegetables section.“

Consequently, people paid “exorbitant prices” for “inferior goods.” Panthers cautioned
people walking up and down the aisles to avoid slipping and breaking your neck on “spilled
contents of a broken bottle that nobody bothered to clean up, also there is only one bathroom

which is never kept clean.”"1 The BPP prioritized the alleged deﬁciencies and hazards of the

 

57 Ibid.
58 “Handy Exploits The Black Cormnunity,” TBP, 3 May 1970, 3.
5’ “Mathias Companies Must Be Exposed,” TBP, 2 May 1970, 12.

60 “People ofCompton Boycott Country Farm Market, “ TBP, 5 September 1970,
24.

6' Ibid.

165

store rather than the alleged racism of the store owners. The denouncerncnt of the business
establishment came after the refusal to support the BPP. Allan & Sons Meat Company which
refused to donate to the Free Breakfast Program in San Francisco was described as one of the
largest meat operations whose odors were “enough to knock an elephant out.”62

Such claims were grossly exaggerated to justify the Party’s decision to boycott the store.
Given that the Party ‘knew’ of such alleged deplorable conditions, why request donations
from such stores? Moreover, it would seem that if such statements were in ﬁrct true,
wouldn’t the Party also be committing irreparable harm to the very community it claims to
represent by soliciting “rotten food” or food and supplies ﬁom stores which functioned under
deplorable conditions. Such examples bring to mind a proverb of “washing one’s hands only
to wipe them in the mud” in that if the money that the stores took was tainted with injustice,
how would donations to the Panthers rectify the situation as the money would always remain
tainted.

The credibility of the articles was addressed by Frank Benson Jones who brieﬂy served
as the BPP’s managing editor. On October 7, 1970, Jones former editor of the Black Panther
newspaper, testiﬁed before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee of the
Committee on Internal Security ( USHR, SCOIS). Jones, a former bookstore owner,
testiﬁed in the Congressional record that when material was sent from any particular given
locality, he basically checked for grammatical errors. No attempt was ever made on the part

of the paper or the BPP’s national headquarters to check the accuracy of the articles sent

 

‘2 Ibid.

166

from the local community because the BPP had “ neither the facilities or staff to do that?”
Elaine Brown and David Hilliard also maintained that the BPP made no attempts to verify the
veracity of articles submitted then printed in the BPP’s newspaper.“

On August 9, 1971, the BPP circulated its newspaper calling for a boycott of black
businessman Willie R. “Bill” Boyettc. Boyettc, a long time community activist, was a
University of California at Berkeley business graduate who also belonged the Men of
Tomorrow, the Oakland Black Chamber, the National Business League and Operation
Push." In 1971, Boyette was the President of Cal-Pak and owned two local businesses,
Bill’s Liquors #1 located at 2520 Grove Street and Bill’s Liquors #2, located at 5350 Grove
Street in Oakland California. On July 31,1971, forty to ﬁfty male and female members of
the BPP hoisted picket signs outside Bill’s Liquors #2, proclaiming, ”Boycott Don’t Shop
Here,” “Black Businessman Says No,” “Boyette Must Donate To The People’s Survival
Programs,” “Support Those Who Serve The People.” Picketcrs chanted and sang as they
circulated in ﬂoat of his store.“

The BPP devoted the August 9, 1971 issue of its newspaper to the boycott and included
a supplement featuring a ﬁont page headline, “Black Businessman Says No,” with a

photograph of picketcrs and picket signs. The supplemental issue outlined the Party’s

 

‘3 United States House of Representatives Subcommittee of the Committee on
Internal Security, October 7, 1970, 4751-4756.

6‘ Author Interview with Elaine Brown and David Hilliard, March 1999.
65 “Willie Boyette” Oakland Tribune 23 March, 1990.

 

6" TBP, 9 August, 1971,.A-C.

167

objectives concerning the boycott. The article “Why Boycott Boyette” summarized the
Party’s complaints against Boyette."7 The Party insisted that they had ‘liberated’ their
brothers of Cal-Pak by endorsing and participating in a previous boycott of Mayfair stores.
The unwritten underpinning of this assertion by the BPP was that their presence
intimidated Mayfair and neutralized its resistance. The BPP aﬂirmed that it had an
“agreement” with all members of Cal-Pak concerning weekly contributions to the People’s
Community Survival Program in exchange for Panther support.

Such an “agreement” was very ambiguous as no detail was provided in the Party’s
supplement to reﬂect any exact amount agreed upon by any member of Cal-Pak, or when it
transpired. No information was furnished stating how soon after the boycott donations
would begin or how long any member was obligated to donate. The BPP did not elucidate
who would collect the donations and how they would be applied to any survival program of
the BPP. The only term hinting of any speciﬁc detail of this “agreement” was the clause “on
a weekly basis” implying that any support provided by Cal-Pack was expected to be indeﬁnite.

The BPP asserted, Boyette violated their “agreement” by refusing to donate ‘on a
weekly basis.’ Boyette’s “No” signiﬁed endorsement of racism and exploitation. The Party
substantiated their arguments with the publication of two photographs in its August 9, 1971
supplement. The ﬁrst photograph was of Boyette and a female employee with a white
policcrmn inside the store. It contained the following line, “Bill Boyette’s employees confer

with police about the peeple, the police intimidate, brutalize and murder black pe0ple.”“

 

67 “Why Boycott Boyette,” TBP, 9 August, 1971, A.
68 Ibid.

168

The photograph was incriminating evidence showing Boyette ﬁaternizing with their main
rivals, the “pigs” of Panther literature whom they asserted were also “enemies” of black
people in particular. In ‘conferring’ with police, Boyette and his employee were guilty by
association as the photograph substantiated the BPP’s charge that Boyette sanctioned
police brutality against the Panthers and the black cormnunity at large. The photograph
reiterated the Party’s argument that the police were not protecting the local community but
preserving business interests.

Featuring Boyette alone with his well-stocked shelves of liquor in the second photograph
with a line, “Bill Boyette sits alone-he could join the people by donating a small, small
minimal amount each and every week to the People’s survival programs,” epitomized the
extent of his estrangement from the community."9 Such a photograph also demonstrated
and reinforced the crux of Sociologist E. Franklin F razier’s thesis on the Black Bourgeoisie.
Frazier charged that the “black bourgeoisie” escaped into a world of ‘make-believe’ and
rejected “ both identiﬁcation with the Negro and his traditional culture, through delusions
of wealth and power, they have sought identiﬁcation with white America which continues
to reject them”"°

The shelves represented Boyette’s ﬁnancial resources and demonstrated that Boyette
had the means to contribute but had instead placed his own interests at the forefront by
severing all ties with the people who provided his source of income. The boycott

characterized a class struggle wherein Boyette and Cal-Pak represented the black upper and

 

69 Ibid.
70 Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie, 237.

169

middle class which the BPP and Frazier argued favored self-preservation over the well-being
of the local community. To the BPP, Boyette personiﬁed main characteristics and traits of
Frazier’s “black bourgeoisie?" Therefore, the BPP waged a deliberate political campaign
framing Boyette’s refusal as a rejection and betrayal of the Oakland community.

Bobby Scale elaborated upon this theme in his speech at the boycott site whose full
transcript was published in the Party’s supplement of August 9. 1971. Scale excused
Boyctte’s refusal by calling him ‘a fool,’ and an oppressed black victim of ‘white capitalists’
who didn’t yet recognize or understand the ﬁrll extent of his oppression."2 Therefore,
Panthers, “ had to teach him, just like you teach a little child, you have to spank him a little
bit, no we’re not going to hurt him, we’re not going to touch him, we’ll hold a legal
demonstration in front of that place?”

Scale evoked an image of Boyette reduced to a petulant child in dire need of parental
scolding. As ‘parents’ of the black comrmmity, the BPP was administering a “spanking”
through the boycott as a disciplining measure to teach Boyette to share his proﬁts. Scale
urged, “boycott him, boycott him, boycott him brothers and sisters, boycott him to death, till
the brother realizes that he’s one ofus, that he’s a victim like us, until he relates to us and
unity in the community?” Scale encouraged the community to ‘shut down’ black businesses

that refused to donate to the people’s survival programs. He reasoned that a massive

 

7' Ibid.
72 “Chairman Bobby Speaks at Boycott Site,” TBP, 9 August, 1971, B.
73 Ibid.
7’ Ibid.

170

consumer movement in which the people of the local community reﬁrsed to patronize Bill’s
Liquors #2 would force Boyette to return what the BPP considered the “restitution” due the
cormnunity by making Boyette lose one to two thousand dollars daily.”

Scale afﬁrmed that it was the duty and responsibility of the BPP to reunite ‘brother’
Boyette with the “family.” The BPP appealed to the biblical parable of the prodigal son in
Luke 15:11-32 who abandoned his father’s home to recklessly squander his wealth in a
foreign land only to return home penniless begging for his Ether’s forgiveness.” Scale
proclaimed, Boyette was a prodigal son who abandoned his Emily, the black community, to
lavish his money in partnership with the “alien community” of ‘white monopoly capitalists.’
Boyette’s “NO” was translated by the BPP as a desertion which caused division, fomented
dissension within the ‘Emily’ and demonstrated his indifference to its concerns.

He predicted that similarly to the prodigal son whose father celebrated his son’s
homecoming, Boyette would have no other choice but to return to his “family” having
learned his lesson. He also predicted an ‘open arms’ welcome for Boyette ﬁom the black
community, his “only Emily” when the boycott ended." Thus, the BPP’s boycott was also
a lesson in humility and an attempt to forge a reunion by raising the consciousness of the
‘prodigal son’ to make him more responsive to the needs of his ‘family.’

Lingering questions from Newton and Seale’s ideas were, if the end goal was the

organization of the black businesses, why seek to economically cripple Boyette as the

 

75 Ibid.
76 Luke 15:11-32.
77 “The Black Commrmity Is Boyette’s Only Family,” TBP, 21 August, 1971, 8.

171

inevitable result would be that Boyette would no longer be in a position to help or support
anyone including himself? Moreover, how can any black business act in unison when
resistance may result in a collision like the Boyette boycott? Newton reasoned that the BPP
must ﬁrst organize before pursuing dues owed to the ‘farnily.’78
Newton’s ambition to unite all local black businesses under the umbrella of the BPP
would establish what he termed a ‘complementary economic linkage’ between black
businesses and the community. Newton did not elaborate on any speciﬁc plan for
implementing this linkage, he merely forwarded the concept that black businesses would
support the people by contributing to the survival programs administered by the BPP.
Implicit was that the BPP was the intermediary and legitimate representative of the black
commrmity at large. He encouraged the incorporation of all local black businesses to
solidify a community-focused black united ﬁont in Oakland in particular.79
Such a proposal was within the historic tradition of black resistance organizations which
formed a variety of “united ﬁ'onts” to combat vestiges of social, political and economic
inequity. However, Newton assumed that the BPP would indisputably lead this “united ﬁ'ont”
throughout local black communities. He did not tabulate any other organizations vying for
positions of leadership within the Oakland black community. Newton reiterated this theme
in his essay “Black Capitalism Re-Analyzed : Theoretical Analysis And Its Practical

Application,” also published in the BPP’s August 9, 1971 supplement. He urged black

 

7‘ Huey P. Newton, “Black Capitalism Re-Analyzed : Theoretical Analysis And Its
Practical Application,” TBP, 9 August, 1971, H.

79 Ibid.

172

businesses to use a “common bank” to permit themselves ‘more economic muscle’ to better
serve the black community.80

Newton argued, regardless of ﬁnancial status, all black businesses were betrothed and
beholden to the community which enabled their economic success and survival. Although
Newton provided no details on the implementation strategy for creating and operating the
common bank, how and where it would be organized, implemented and administered, his idea
of a common bank cannot be casually dismissed or perceived as an impossible ambition.
Newton envisioned a ﬁnancing mechanism to empower Oakland’s black business community
by pooling its resources.

He viewed the BPP in charge of this “common bank” to ﬁnance the survival programs
of the BPP and to assist black businesses in crisis. However, he offered no details on how
the “common bank” would operate and assumed all black businesses would embrace his idea.
Newton and Scale surmised that the ‘black cormnunity’ at large consented to the BPP’s
leadership as evident by Seale’s assertion that the “ten years” he and Newton had spent in
the ‘struggle’ qualiﬁed them as leaders of the black community.‘’1 In other words, both Scale
and Newton epitomized American “political prisoners” whose multiple arrests (kidnappings)
certiﬁed their commitment to racial uplift. Whereas other leaders concentrated on
superﬂuous speeches, the BPP argued that it shifted away ﬁ'om the “jive talk” of politicians
by implementing concrete survival programs for the people such as ﬁee food, ﬁee shoes, ﬁ'ee

clothing, the free sickle cell anemia research program, ﬁee ambulance service and free

 

8° Ibid.
8‘ “Scale, Chairman Bobby Speaks At The Boycott Site,”TBP, 9 August, 1971, D.

173

mdical service.82

The BPP published a photograph of Newton hoisting the picket sign, “Don’t Support The
Greedy” in front of Bill’s Liquors #2 with a by-line, “the Minister of Defense boycotts in
behalfof the people.” Newton’s photograph reiterated that he was authorized to defend the
economic interests of the local cormnunity.83 Scale called for a redeﬁnition of freedom
through “revolution.” He stated, the ‘revolution’ was about freedom personiﬁed by the BPP
to ensure that the people receive new quality goods ﬁee, “that’s the real freedom?“ Scale
deﬁned ﬁ'eedom as social, political and economic access to fundamental resources for
survival. He contextualized “revolution” as a redistribution of wealth to be enforced by
the BPP as the legitimate representatives of the people.

The BPP’s aim was to “change it all” through a quantitative increase in the survival
program that also entailed the raising of black consciousness to advance the realization of
ﬁeedom in all its forms. To Scale, any other avenue than regular contributions ‘on a regular
basis’ to the survival programs indicated that the BPP was ‘jiving.’” Scale aﬂirmd, the
Party’s mission was to re-evaluate the relationship between the community and the people
by appealing to the humanity of exploiters.“ Boyette therefore, epitomized how this

lesson would be learned.

 

n Ibid.
83 Photograph of Newton in ﬁont of Bill’s Liquors #2. _'l:_B__BL 9 August, 1971.
3‘ “Scale, Chairman Bobby Speaks At The Boycott Site,”I_Iﬂ’, 9 August, 1971, D.
85 Ibid.
3 86 Ibid, C.

174

Neither Newton nor Scale provided any speciﬁc details as to how the money collected
from black businesses would be disbursed. Both assumed that the ﬁnancial commitment of
black businesses would establish equatability through social programs administered by the
BPP. The BPP provided no detail explaining how this change would take place or what
mechanism the BPP would construct to ensure freedom in an economic, political and social
context. Newton acknowledged that the BPP’s survival programs were merely temporary
vehicles through which some degree of social change would result. Newton argued, that the
survival pro grams of the Party were not intended to either replace revolution, demand radical
action or challenge existing power relations but meant “survival pending revolution.”87
Thus, they encompassed community empowerment for the ‘coming ﬁght’ and were akin to
“a lifeboat or raft” safely ushering the community to shore.88

Contrary to this assertion, the BPP’s survival programs did challenge power relations
especially through the boycott by advocating a reciprocal relationship between local
businesses and the black community. Through the boycott, the BPP demanded racial
solidarity and accountability ﬁom black businesses whom they argued, had a duty to uplift
and address the needs of the local black cormnunity. Hence, they were demanding “radical
action” by advocating a transformation of existing power relationships especially between
Boyette and the local black community. Newton’s assertion alluded to the political ideology

of the BPP in 1971 which he termed “revolutionary intercommunalism.”

 

“7 Huey P. Newton “Black Capitalism Re-Analyzed I,” In Newton, To Die For The
People, 110.

83 Ibid.

175

Its fundamental principle was that technology created one world, a “global village” that
mandated sharing all wealth produced and the people seized the means of production and
all social institutions to effect a ‘qualitative leap’ in the organization of society.” Newton
argued that the BPP embraced the “dialectical materialism”of Karl Marx and urged people
of the world to seize power from the small ruling circle and ”expropriate the
expropriators.” He urged the masses to extricate members ﬁ'om the pinnacles of power
thereby equalizing and making them accessible to the people resulting in an equitable
distribution of the ﬁ'uits of labor.”0

He concluded that the people would become autonomous by controlling their social
institutions and “establish corrmiunism, a stage in human development in which human values
will shape the structures of society, at this time the world will be ready for a still higher
level of development of which we can know nothing at this time?”1 Newton and Seale’s
pronouncements revealed a blatant inconsistency in the BPP’s political ideology concerning
black businesses in particular. On the one hand, they denigrated Boyette’s fundamental right
to operate a business. On the other hand, they prioritized their and defended their right to
conduct a lawful picket. The San Francisco Examiner praised Boyette’s courage in
withstanding the ‘ﬁnerchant levy” of the Panthers and concluded, “no matter what racial or

Marxist rhetoric the Panthers invoke to justify their demands upon him, those demands

 

’9 Huey P. Newton, ”Intercommunalism: In Conversation At Yale University, ”In
David Hilliard and Donald Weise The Black Panther Partv Reader. Selected Writings Of
I_~I_1_r_el P. Newton (California: The Huey P. Newton Foundation, 1998), 11.

9° Ibid, 16.
9' Ibid,

176

constitute a form of political extortion.”92
Newton ridiculed charges that the BPP impinged on Boyette’s constitutional rights as
Boyette was a marginalized black man in a historically victimized status.93 The BPP praised
businesses which complied with its demands and regularly featured advertisements for black
businesses which supported its programs. This strategy employed by the BPP was not new
but reminiscent of other local and national organizations such as Detroit Housewives
League (DHL) which promoted local businesses in exchange for free advertisements in its
newspaper.SM For example, the BPP praised black businessmen Al Ligon and his Ligon’s
Ford dealership and material store owner Herman Pico announcing “the black cormnunity will
support the black business that supports the community survival programs.”95
The Black Panther featured similar advertisements of other black businesses in the
Oakland Bay area along with requests for support from black businesses under the headline
“Black Businessmen, We Are Calling For Unity In The Black Community?“5 The BPP later
announced a “settlement” between Boyette and the Oakland community months later on the

front pager of its newspaper with the headline, “Unity Ends Boycott, Agreement Reached

 

92 SFE,13 August 1971, 32.
93 Ibid.

9‘ Darlene Clark Hine, “ The Housewives’ League Of Detroit, Black Women And
Economic Nationalism,” In Darlene Clark Hine, Hine Sight, Black Women And The
Reconstruction Of American History (New York: Carlson Publishing, 1994), 129-145.

9’ TBP, 9 August, 1971.
“6 Ibid.

177

Between Bill Boyette And Black Community.”97 Terms of this “settlement” were not
released to the public. The Black Panther ’s front page featured Newton sitting in the center
surrounded by Boyette and Congressman Ronald V. Dellums.

The BPP also published a picture of a child with a full bag of groceries ranging from
produce to cleaning product, on the bag was an inscription that urged support for “Brother
Bill Boyette” who contributed to the ﬁ'ee survival pro grams of the cormnunity, under the
headline “Have Mercy, Have Mercy Unity In The Community.”98 The BPP formally
acknowledged that Boyette had been the”example” for the black businessrrmn and the
community in general. The Party acknowledged that its conﬂicts with Boyette were
bitter, resolvable ‘family arguments.’ Boyette’s return ‘home’ according to the BPP, was
speared not only by ﬁnancial loss but “his love for and understanding of the people,” and
Boyette’s acknowledgment of the fundamental role of the black community in his survival
combined with the cormnitment to join the whole commtmity against the common
oppressor.”9 In other words, Boyette had recognized the error of his ways, he had come full
circle, Panthers had returned the prodigal son to his Ether.

Reﬂecting on the boycott years later, Elaine Brown wrote, “the ﬁght was so drawn out,
however, it hardly mattered when he removed the cognac ﬁ'om his shelves...the one

noteworthy yield ﬁ'om the boycott was that the publicity accompanying the effort contained

 

’7 “Unity Ends Boycott, Agreement Reached Between Bill Boyette And Black
Community,” TBP, 22 January, 1972.

9‘ Ibid.
99 Ibid.

178

a strong message- black merchants and businessmen-not only in Oakland but in every locale
where there was a party chapter or branch-were on notice that it was not proﬁtable to defy
the Party.”'°°

Examining the methods employed by the BPP in the realization of speciﬁc objectives,
particularly Point Three of the BPP’s Ten Point Platform and Program demonstrates the
strengths and weaknesses of the BPP at the local and national level. By instituting Free
Breakfast Programs nationwide, the BPP fed many children and simultaneously fulﬁlled a
basic need throughout local black communities. Thus, the Free Breakfast Program was a
concrete testament of the BPP’s revolution at the local level. The BPP mobilized black men
and women to serve children and to assist them through donations of fundamental resources.

The BPP canvassed the community and made genuine eﬂ‘orts to address a ﬁmdarnental
necessity throughout the local cormnunity. Their organizing efforts dispels the notion and
perception of the BPP as a paramilitary organization of former convicts engaging in criminal
activity under the guise of “revolution.” The Free Breakfast Program also showed the BPP
playing a very active role in the community as they struggled to reﬁne their “revolution” to
call for a redistrrhution of wealth. It also demonstrated concrete manifestation of the self-
determination represented in the BPP’s Ten Point Platform and Program because the BPP
mobilized resources throughout black communities to feed children. They also
implemented other “survival programs” without governmental support. Most important
was that many people donated their time and played a signiﬁcant role in administering the

BPP’s Program

 

'00 Brown, A Taste Of Power. 332.

179

The BPP successfully demonstrated a redistribution of wealth consistent with their demand
for a redeﬁnition and restructuring of existing power relationships between local businesses
and communities and between government and individuals. Point Three contextualized the
BPP’s “revolution” at the local level because the BPP constructed a medium through which
it sought to collect “restitution” due the community for historical inequities. By labeling
“avaricious businessmen” the BPP articulated its demand for ftmdamental changes in power
relationships. The BPP argued that businesses operating throughout local communities must
support the community by making donations “on a regular basis” to that cormnunity
especially to black communities in particular.

My analysis of the “revolutionary” tactics of the BPP to implement the Free BreakEst
Program reveled various ﬂaws and inconsistencies in the BPP. The BPP maligned many
businesses and individuals by condemning “avaricious businessmen” as leeches who
absorbed the vitality of local communities. Local BPP members also made a series of
unsubstantiated charges ranging ﬁom thievery to health hazards. In detailing speciﬁc
examples of the BPP’s implementation strategy, I have shown that although the BPP fulﬁlled
a signiﬁcant fundamental need throughout local communities, the BPP did not succeed in
persuading all merchants and businesses to embrace both the BPP’s political ideologies and
strategic methods.

The BPP’s inability to compel all stores to make donations to its programs was
representative of one of its main ﬂaws and further projected and substantiated the perception
of the organization as a “greatest single threat.” The BPP did not articulate a concrete

political ideology to reﬂect how it would effect permanent substantive changes in the

180

existing economic structure and “end the robbery” of local black communities nationwide.
Such a failure further aggravated tensions and conﬂicts in the BPP at the local and national

level which is explored in the next chapter to expose additional interml dissension in the BPP.

181

CHAPTER V
“A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF:” INTERNAL DISSENSION IN THE
BLACK PANTHER PARTY 1969-1971
We’ll battle like two bulls, we ’1! lack horns.
Huey P. Newton’
The title of this chapter “a house divided against itself” epitomizes the central theme of the
status of the BPP ﬁom 1969 to 1971 to illustrate and expose internal dissension, low morale,
ideological ambiguities, failures and poor leadership skills which combined to create a fertile
terrain for the “split” in the BPP in February 1971. Throughout the BPP’s historiography,
scholars have acknowledged a rift between Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver to
demonstrate the success of counterintelligence measures to aggravate and exploit extant

tensions in the Black Panther Party.2 Probing some of the causes of this rift demonstrates that

 

' Huey P. Newton, Conversation between Eldridge Cleaver and Huey P. Newton,
Quoted In David Hilliard and Lewis Cole, This Side Of Glory, The Autobioggphy Of David
Hilliard And Th_eStorv Of The Black Panther Pm (Boston: Little, Brown And Company,
1993), 324.

2 Charles E. Jones, “The Political Repression of the Black Panther Party, 1966-1971,
The Oakland Bay Area,” Journgl of Bla_c_l_( Studies, 18 (June 1988): 415-434; See Also, Ward
Churchill and Jim Varder Wall, Agents of Repression: Th_e FBI’s SecLet War Against The
Black Panther Pm and the American Indian Movement (Boston: South End Press, 1988);
Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO: The F BI’§ Secret War on Political Freedom (New
York: Anchor Foundations, 1988); Kenneth O’Reilly, Racial Matters. Th_e FBI’s Secret F i1_e
@ Black Amergg,’ 1960-1972 (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 293-324; Ward Churchill
and Jim Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Paxrs: Documents From the FBI ’5 Secret_W_g
Against Domestic Dissent (Boston: South End Press, 1990); Hugh Pearson, The Shadow of

 

182

it was a direct result of diﬂ‘erent interpretations of ‘revolution’ and ‘rcvolutionary’ espoused
by both Cleaver and Newton.

This chapter appraises Newton and Cleaver’s conduct to show how they fueled internal
dissension in the BPP. Such behavioral patterns and characteristics attracted the attention
of COINTELPRO agents who fomented existing tensions among the BPP’s leadership and
membership. This chapter brieﬂy analyzes fraudulent manufactured COINTELPRO letters
which neither Newton nor Cleaver acknowledged receiving in their autobiographies.
Utilizing autobiographies, oral and videotaped ﬁlms and interviews, including FBI
documents, this chapter exposes critical factors responsible for the divided “house” of the
BPP from 1968 until 1971.

The main argument of this chapter is that the BPP’s internal hemorrhage fractured the
BPP from 1967 to 1971 culminating in irreconcilable differences between BPP leaders and
members. My analysis departs from the BPP historiography which has solely blamed Huey
P. Newton and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover’s
counterintelligence efforts for both the demise of the BPP and internal dissension in the
BPP.3 This chapter investigates the assertions of the BPP’s national leaders who blamed
each other for critical ailments and shortcomings of the BPP throughout their

autobiographies. For example, Elaine Brown blamed the FBI, Bobby Seale’s weakness,

 

The Panther. Huey P. Newton and the Price gf Black Power In Americg ( New York:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994), 257-268.

3 Ibid.

183

Eldridge Cleaver’s cruelty and Huey P. Newton’s excesses for the demise of the BPP? Scale
has vociferously proclaimed in numerous public appearances that Elaine Brown’s
leadership destroyed the BPP. Newton solely blamed the FBI in his doctoral dissertation and
book War Against The Panthers, A Study of Repression in America. .5

Some BPP members have also portrayed Newton as a cocaine addict whose cravings
resulted in bouts of rage and abuse of other BPP members including depletions of the
BPP’s resources" BPP members in the videotape, “All Power To The People” implied and
stated that Elaine Brown was a counterintelligence operative who destroyed the BPP
through Newton.7 Review of the BPP ‘8 leadership conﬁrms that the BPP’s founders were
imprisoned during the organization’s greatest growth. In 1967, the BPP’s leadership
encompassed its founders, Huey P. Newton and Bobby G. Scale. Scale was imprisoned
ﬁom August 1967 until December 1967 ﬁom charges stemming from his appearance at the
State Capitol in May 1967.8

Scale was again imprisoned from August 1969 until May 1971 for his part during an

 

‘ Elaine Brown, A Ta_ste of Power. A Blac_k Womanf’s Story (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1992), 324, 350-357, 222-225.

5 Bobby Scale, Keynote address Delivered at Georgia State University, “The Black
Panther Party Revisited: Reﬂections and Scholarship,” Conference, Atlanta, Georgia October
24-25, 1996; See also Film, All Power To The People, Directed and Produced by Lee-Lew

Lee 1998; Huey P. Newton, War Against The Panthers, A Study of Repression in America
(New York: Writers and Publishers Publishing Inc., 1996).

6 See the accounts of Landon Williams, Mary Kennedy and Sheba Haven, In
Pearson, The Shadow of the Panther 227- 237.

 

7 Film, “All Power To The People,” Directed and Produced By Lee-Lew-Lce, 1998.

3 Bobby Scale, SQIZC Thg Time, The Stog of The Black Panther Pm Qd Huey P.
Newton (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1991), 187.

184

anti-Vietnam war rally followed by a charge of conspiracy to commit BPP member Alex
Rackley’s murder in New Haven Connecticut for which he was on trial in March 1971.9
Newton was imprisoned and later convicted in 1968 of manslaughter in the death of police
ofﬁcer John Frey in 1967."’ The BPP was virtually defunct with its two founders in jail, thus,
David Hilliard assumed leadership of the BPP was assumed by Minister Of Information
Eldridge Cleaver and to recruit and mobilize support for Newton’s release.

Cleaver and his wife Kathleen Neal Cleaver, who also served as Communications
Secretary of the BPP, launched a massive Free Huey movement to secure Newton’s
release from prison which spawned new recruits and local BPP chapters nationwide. On
April 6, 1968, two days after Martin Luther King’s assassination, Cleaver and seventeen-
year-old Bobby Hutton were involved in a shootout with Oakland police resulting in
Hutton’s death. The California Adult Authority (CAA) ordered Cleaver returned to prison
on November 27, 1968 after the State Appellate court afﬁrmed its discretionary powers.
Cleaver jumped his $50,000 bail, escaped to Cuba then he traveled to Algiers and
established the International Section of the Black Panther Party in Algiers on September 13,
1970. ”

Cleaver maintained a select group of former hijackers and BPP members wanted by US.

 

9 See, Gail Sheehy, Panthermania: The Clash of Black Against Biggk in One
American Ciy (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1971).

‘0 Scale, Seize The Time 240-244.

 

" Lee Lockwood, ConvmioAWIth Eldridge Cleaver- Algiers (New York: Dell
Publishing, 1970), 50. The BPP contributed $5000 to the bonding company. The signatures

of Dr. Jane Aguilar, Godﬁey Cambridge, Dr. Phillip Shapiro and Ed Keating served as
collateral for the $50,000 bail which all had to collectively pay when Cleaver jumped bond.

185

law enforcement in Algiers?2 He planned to develop what he termed a political arm and a
military arm of the BPP to launch what he termed, “a people’s war,” fundamental to urban
struggle. BPP men who joined Cleaver’s International Section had ofﬁcially “gone
underground” to avoid criminal prosecution. For example, Don Cox who joined Cleaver in
1970 was one of twenty-two BPP members in Baltimore indicted for murder. Sekou
Odinga and Larry Mack of the New York BPP came to Algiers shortly after hijacking a
plane to Guinea. Other men who hijacked planes to Cuba to avoid criminal prosecutions and
refuged with Cleaver in Cuba followed him to Algiers.

They include, Byron Booth, Clinton “Rahirn” Smith and James “Akili” Patterson.
Exceptions were Michael “Catewayo” Tabor and his wife Connie Mathews, Newton’s
secretary who went to Algiers over disagreements with Newton. Pete O”Neal of the Kansas
City BPP went to Algiers and BPP Artist Emory Douglas.l3 Whereas Cleaver advocated a
militaristic approach which employed violence to “revohrtionize” Babylon, the Oakland
chapter under David Hilliard’s leadership who also became the BPP’s Chief of Staff,
prioritized the survival programs of the BPP especially the Free Breakfast for Children
program popularized throughout BPP chapters.”

Proliferation of the BPP’s twenty-nine chapters in the US. by November 1969 caused

 

‘2 Cleaver, Soul On Fire ( Texas: Word Books, 1978), 154.

'3 Kathleen Neal Cleaver, “Back To Aﬁ'ica: The Evolution of the International
Section of the Black Panther Party, (1969-1972),” In Charles E. Jones ed. The Black Panther
Party Reconsidered (Baltimore: The Black Classic Press, 1998), 228-229.

" “On Eldridge Cleaver By Kathleen Cleaver,” TBP, 9 August 1969, 5-6;

186

rifts between branches and the national leadership of the Party.'5 There existed no
unanimity on the Party’s ideology between the local and national membership and
leadership. The New York BPP embraced cultural nationalism which Hilliard and the BPP
ofﬁcially condemned as “pork chop nationalism?“ There existed no unanimity on the
Party’s ideology between the local and national membership and leadership.

For example, in his autobiography, Hilliard expressed disapproval of the New York
Chapter’s focus on making citizens’ arrest of police. Some New York BPP members
accosted police ofﬁcers drunk or asleep on the job. Such a practice was very effective in
popularizing the BPP chapter in New York, however, the Oakland leadership particularly
Hilliard disapproved. He reasoned, “Let the police sleep, if they’re drunk, good for them!
Keep them asleep.”l7 Hilliard noted uneasiness, ‘personal discomfort’ and withering
“organizational security” after visiting the New York BPP.l8 Members of the New York
clmpter also adopted African names. One of the most popular last names adopted by the
chapter was Shakur. Other notable differences include the marriage of Afcni Shakur as a
second wife to Lumumba Slmkur whose ﬁrst wife Sekou Shakur also joined the BPP.l9

Moreover, the New York BPP also prioritized welfare, hospital and tenant rights.

 

'5 Hilliard, 1h_is_, Side of Glory. 250.

'6 “Political Assassinations of Deputy Defense Minister Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter
and Deputy Information Minister John Huggins,” TBP 25 January 1969, 2.

'7 Hilliard , Ibis Side Of Glory. 159.
‘8 Ibid, 236-237.

'9 Kuwasi Ballagoon, Look For Me In The Whirlwind The Collective
Autobioggphy Of The New York 21 (New York: Random House, 1971), 245-246.

 

187

Another notable difference in local chapters was the Chicago BPP led by Fred Hampton.
Hampton politicized street gangs such as the Blackstone Rangers, the Disciples and formed
coalitions with groups such as the Young Lords, the Young Patriots, the Mau-Maus and the
white radical group Students For A Democratic Society (SDS).20 Some members of local
BPP chapters engaged in illegal activities which prompted the BPP’s Central Committee to
issue a press statement asserting that the Party did not advocate ‘roving gangs of bandits’
robbing service stations and taverns.”

The BPP instituted a “purging process” to repair the internal and external damage caused
to its image and to ferret disruptive individuals committing illegal acts, or suspected agents
who inﬁltrated the BPP. Purging, was an internal cleansing process to stop internal
hemorrhage in the BPP by removing individuals whose actions besmirched the BPP’s
image nationwide. The BPP’s Central Committee released a press statement proclaiming
that if the vanguard failed to criticize and denounce “buﬂ'oons and simplctons” in its midst,
it would become immersed in hypocrisy.22

Frank B Jones, managing editor of the BPP’s newspaper, likened the purge to that of a
‘prepatory process’ of a boxer. He stated, “we are preparing much as a boxer who is over
weight must do, the boxer sheds weight to gain greater stamina, more speed and agility, we

are doing with our organization what a boxer must do with his body and for a similar

 

2° Churchill and Vander Wall, _T_h_e COINTELPRO Papers. 136-139.
2' “Panther Purge” TBP, 20 January 1969.
22 Virtual Morrell, “Panther Purge,” TBP, 25 January 1969, 17.

188

purpose.”23 Violation of discipline was the main reason for “purges” in the BPP.
Voluntary dismissal, suspension or expulsion in the BPP deemed one,
“counterrevolutionary.”2’

Main problems with the purging process include, the absence of a uniform national or
local standard to identify and determine purged members and the absence of a concrete
system of checks and balances to safeguard abuses from the unlimited discretion of those
in positions of power. For example, some men of the BPP employed disciplinary measures,
particularly expulsion, as retaliation against those who contested their authority or who
resisted sexual advances, particularly women. Assata Shakur of the New York BPP, Frances
Carter of the New Haven chapter, Regina Jennings and Elaine Brown of the Oakland
chapter recounted examples of sexual coercion and offensive verbal exchanges resulting in
their expulsion and punishments for allegedly abrogating responsibilities.”

Purging decimated the size of chapters after the boom of the Free Huey movement. To
the BPP, two or three dedicated, functioning people were more effective and preferable to

twenty ‘non-functional names’ in its ranks. For example, one local BPP clmpter published a

list of twenty-six purged members including at least nine women whom it considered

 

23 Frank B. Jones, “Tightening Up,” TBP, 25 January 1969, 17.

2‘ Elaine Brown, A Ta_ste Of Power. 351.

2’ Assata Shakur, Assag 217- 218; Frances Carter In Hilliard, This Side Of Glog,
249; Regina Jennings, “Why 1 Joined The Party: An Aﬁicana Womanist Reﬂection,”In
Charles E. Jones ed. The Black Panther Par_ty Reconsidered (Baltimore: The Black Classic
Press, 1998), 261.

189

“reactionaries, renegades, counterrevolutionaries and traitors?” Of the published lists and
photographs in the BPP’s newspaper of those purged from the BPP between March and
August 1969, about two hundred and ﬁfty members were purged, of which sixty-two were
labeled ‘renegades,’ twenty-four were deemed ‘counterrevolutionary,’ eight were ‘police
informants.’27 Expelled and disgruntled members complained to the media alleging BPP
misconduct, criminality and violence.28

Hilliard complained in his autobiographical account that Cleaver’s supporters were
disrupting the BPP by engaging in illegal activities.29 However, expelled members from the
BPP claimed that the BPP sanctioned criminal activities as long as perpetrators were not
caught and the BPP was not directly implicated. Those arrested or apprehended claimed
denouncements and disclaimers by the BPP displayed pervasive betrayal of “revohrtionaries”
by the leadershipf"0 Conﬂicts arose between local chapters over dwindling chapter ﬁnances
as group and individual arrests and high bails exacerbated tensions over who was released
and when.

It became nearly impossible for the BPP national and local chapter to raise money to

 

2" “Discipline Violated, Sister Ousted,” TBP, 27 September 1969, 5; Vallejo Chapter
Expels Reactionaries,” TBP, 31 March 1969, 21.

27 G. Louis.Heath Off The Pigs The Histog And Literam of the Black Panther
PM (Metuchcn, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1976), 127.

2’ Rush Greenlce, “Ex-Panthers Call Party “Black Klan’” San Francisco Examiner
hereinafter cited as SFE, 8 April 1969, l.

2’ Hilliard, _Th_‘g Side of GlorY.175-176.

3° William Lee Brent, Brent, Logg Time Gone: A Black Panther’s True Life Stog
of His Hijack_mg° and Twenty-Five Years in Cuba ( New York: Times Books, 1996),118.

190

release fellow comrades. Confrontations with police notwithstanding fatal confrontations
for selling the BPP’s newspapers, soliciting donations, weapons possessions resulted in
ﬁequent arrests particularly as the BPP itselfwas under COINTELPRO surveillance. There
began suspicions and accusations of favoritism towards individuals as decisions on who
would be released was left to the discretion of local leaders. The FBI exploited ﬁnancial
diﬁculties throughout BPP chapters to foment suspicions and accusations of
mismanagement by Hilliard. One example was noted in Hilliard’s FBI ﬁle.3|

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover suggested in a September 16, 1970 memo that agents
forward an anonymous communication to Newton accusing David Hilliard of stealing BPP
funds and depositing them in foreign banks, although there existed “no record” that Hilliard
was skimming huge amounts of money. Hoover conceded, it was immaterial whether facts
existed to substantiate the charge, “the skimming of money is such a sensitive issue that
disruption can be accomplished without Ects to back it up.”32

This method of creating suspicion through rumors and manufacture of “evidence” to
ignite accusations of ﬁnancial mismanagement and mistrust was better known as “bad
jacketing” or “snitch jacketing.”33 Hilliard himself became controversial as individuals
throughout local chapters became pessimistic about the ﬁscal accountability of the Oakland

leadership. Discontented with Hilliard, many BPP members eagerly anticipated Newton’s

 

3' Air tel to SAC’s From Director, FBI, 9/16/70, 2-3. The FBI ﬁle of David Hilliard.
Huey P. Newton Foundation Records, Stanford University.

32 Ibid.
3’ Blackstock, COINTELPRO. 22.

191

return. Analysis of Newton’s activities upon his release from prison, exposes his major role
in aggravating and fomenting internal dissension in the BPP.

Immediately after his release, Newton appeared at his lawyer Charles Garry’s law oﬂice
library for an interview with the media announcing his plans for the BPP. He planned to ask
the United Nations to return Eldridge Cleaver to the U.S. and to ﬂee all political prisoners
including Bobby Scale and the Soledad Brothers. His most controversial statement was that
the BPP would commit troops internationally to any people ﬁghting American imperialism
and to the Vietnamese people in particular to ﬁght the “cowardly American aggressor?“ As
the self-proclaimed “spokesman” for the BPP, he planned to present this proposal through
a national liberation front at the Paris peace talks to the Vietnamese people. Newton did
not elaborate on any speciﬁcs such as, the number of the troops oﬁ‘ered, where they would
be recruited from, when and where they would serve and for how long any of them
would be committed to any speciﬁc nation.35

Newton’s announcement was divisive for those who marched and demonstrated for his
release, especially white radicals and hherals. It was one thing to vociferously oppose the
war in Vietnam and demand justice for all, but quite another to ﬁght a civil war on foreign
soil. Many BPP supporters were disillusioned and questioned the prudence of defending
Newton. Newton outraged sympathizers and critics of the BPP who expressed their disgust

and anger in newspaper articles and commentaries nationwide, including letters to FBI

 

3‘ Film, All Power To The People, Directed and Produced By Lee-Lew-Lee, 1998.

3‘ FBI File #105-165429, Section Three Serials 40-57 To Director From San
Francisco, 8/6/70, 1-3.

192

Director Hoover. Hoover received angry letters, one of which demanded Newton’s
immediate arrest for treason, and for levying war against the United States government
according to Article III of the United States Constitution.”

Simihr letters may have prompted Hoover to issue a memo to agents throughout twenty-
six cities urging them to expeditiously develop all pertinent information concerning
Newton’s activities, travel plans and public appearances.37 Thus, Newton inadvertently
increased the ﬂoodgates of investigations not only on the BPP’s local chapters but mainly
on himself. The U.S. Attorney General authorized microphone and telephone surveillance
of his residence four months later?8 Increased FBI surveillance may have entailed greater
efforts to recruit and inﬁltrate informants in the BPP and greater persistence and
persecution of BPP members. Newton’s announcement stunned the BPP’s rank and ﬁle
who were unfamiliar with him except through his published writings in the BPP’s
newspaper.

BPP rank and ﬁle supported Newton but did not join the BPP to be shipped to foreign

 

3" FBI File #105-165429, Section Three Serials 40-57 To Director From San
Francisco, 8/6/70, Letter to Mr. J. Edgar Hoover From Anonymous, August 5, 1970. The
identity of the author was concealed in accordance with Freedom Of Information Act
guidelines.

’7 FBI File #105-165429, Section Three, Serials 40-57 Airtel To SACs, From
Director, 8/10/70. Given BPP’s leaders’ history of ﬂeeing to other countries to avoid
imprisonment, FBI agents contacted Alameda Assistant District Attorney Don White to
inquire of any legal constraints concerning Newton’s travel. White informed them that
Newton’s current bond did not include any restrictions and he doubted any such restrictions
would be imposed.

3' FBI File 105-HQ-165429, June Mail To SAC San Francisco, From Director
12/1/70.

193

lands to ﬁght fellow Americans, or ﬁght foreign battles notwithstanding their admiration
and support of international liberation movements. Newton may have raised doubts about
membership in the BPP and support of the BPP nationwide. He formally asserted his
discretion to make decisions directly and indirectly affecting the national leadership and the
rank and ﬁle. He also ofﬁcially declared his sovereignty by adopting the title, Supreme
Commander of the BPP days later. Newton appeared at colleges and universities to
popularize BPP ideology at Boston College, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor,
Michigan State University, Oakland University in Michigan and New York City
Community College. Those who expected ﬁery chants of “off the pig,” “revolution” and
violent overthrow of the U.S. as advocated by Eldridge Cleaver were sadly
disappointed. Rather than the ﬁery “off the pig” rhetoric and profanity of Eldridge
Cleaver, David Hilliard and other local BPP leaders and members nationwide, Newton
presented a restrained and philosophical approach to the BPP.

Newton displayed more than merely stylistic rhetorical differences in the BPP, but a
deliberate strategic attempt to re-invent the BPP in his own personal vision and image.
He popularized the BPP’s solidarity with other movements as “revolutionary
intercommunalism” which was perhaps the most confusing idea espoused by Newton to
the rank and ﬁle membership. Its fundamental principle was that the world was a
collection of dispersed communities which must be united against their common
oppressor. Newton argued that the U.S. government was an imperialist power and that
technology created a “global village” mandating sharing all wealth produced. He urged

people around the world to seize power ﬁom the small ruling circle and ”expropriate the

194

”39

expropriators.

He argued that democratic capitalism was replaced by bureaucratic capitalism and
advocated a new U.S. constitution based on a socialist framework. Newton did not
espouse a concrete strategy for implementing such transformation nor did he deﬁne or
elaborate on the various political “isms” espoused in his speech He did not offer a
concrete strategy for establishing and sustaining the “global” intercommunal village he
envisioned. He did not indicate what kind or type of changes he supported.

Newton did not epitomize or fulﬁll the popularized image of himself standing with
Scale in ﬁont of the BPP’s oﬂice guns in hand and bandolier of bullets strewn over one
shoulder. He hardly lived up to his image seated in a wicker chair with a gun in one
hand and a spear in another and of articles in the BPP’s newspapers proclaiming his
“genius.” Nowhere was this more evident than during Newton’s appearance at Yale
University during a conference with sociologist Erik Erickson where he discussed the
‘dialectics’ of Marx, Hegel, Freud, Kant and others for almost two hours.40
Transcripts of Newton’s speeches, FBI reports, interviews with attendees as well as local
nedia coverage of Newton conﬁm'ted the opinion of one FBI agent, who noted, the speeches
were “rambling, incoherent and poorly organized?”l Newton admitted, “I am not a good

speaker, I tend to lecture and teach in a rather dull fashion-but the people were not

 

3’ Huey P. Newton, “To The Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention:
September 5, 1970,” In Newton, To Die For The People, 156-162.

‘° See, Kai T Erikson, In Search Of Common . Conversations With Erik H. Erikson
An__,d Huey P. Newton (New York: W.W. Norton, 1973).

 

‘1 FBI ﬁle 105-HQ-165429 Section 6, Domestic Intelligence Note, 11/16/70.
195

responding to my ideas, only to an image?”2

Stringent ‘security’ measures combined with Newton’s disastrous speeches, projected
a negative image of the celebrated ﬁgure of the “Free Huey” movement as inconsistent
and incompetent. Discomﬁture with Newton’s vision of the BPP interspersed with
ambiguous ‘dialectics’ concerning the BPP’s political ideology diminished morale in the
BPP. His incoherence dominated BPP political education classes as BPP members
“couldn’t grasp where he was coming ﬁ'om.”43

One such climax occurred at the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention

(RPCC) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania November 27-29, 1970 in ﬁrlﬁlment of drafting a
new United States constitution by a conglomeration of “revolutionary” organizations and
coalitions including the women’s hheration movement and the gay h'beration movement.“
Five hundred BPP east coast members reunited at one locale to sponsor, organize and
coordinate convention activities as marshals and guides. The RPCC highlighted
turbulence in the BPP shortly after Newton’s return.

On its ﬁrst day, the BPP ran out of registration slips, three ﬁlms were to be shown but
only one torn, spliced tape with unintelligible audio of Bobby Scale was shown and the ﬁlm
broke before ending. The convention was unable to secure space at Howard University.

Very few events were planned and poorly attended, attendees were mostly entertained by the

 

‘2 Newton, Revolutiom Suicide, 296; Hilliard, E Side of Glory. 302.
’3 Brenda Presley, In Hilliard, This Side Of Glog, 310.

“ Huey P. Newton, “To The Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention,”
September 5, 1970,” In Newton, To Die For The People, 156-162.

196

”45

BPP’s singing group “The Lumpen,” and “Freedom Messengers. The one noteworthy
event was a rally at Meridian Hills Park and a speech by Newton on “intercommunalism.” No
constitution was drafted due to the divergent suggestions of the many different groups
gathered. They agreed to draft another constitution at a second RPCC convention weeks
later which also yielded similar results.“

Overall, the RPCC was considered an embarrassing debacle by the BPP’s leadership.
Newton ordered a national central staff meeting on November 30, 1970 with all national staff
members present to discipline and expel those deemed responsible for the event.47 The
RPCC exposed lack of coordination, poor plarming and attendance and withering support
for the BPP. Newton rapidly espoused a series of positions for the BPP without explanation
or elaboration.

For example, Newton delivered the eulogy for Jonathan Jackson and William Christmas
after what the press termed, the “bloodiest prison escape attempt” since that of the 1927
Folsom prison outbreak. On August 21, 1971, three prison guards, Charles Breckenridge,
Kenneth McRay and Urbano Rubianco were wounded, six people were killed in what prison
ofﬁcials deemed the “blackcst day” in San Quentin’s history. Killed were, prison guards

Sergeant Jere Graham, Frank P. De Leon, Paul Krasner, prison inrmtes, John Lynn, Ronald

 

‘5 FBI File 105-HQ-165429 Section 6, “Revolutionary People’s Constitutional
Convention,” 2.

‘6 Ibid.
‘7 Ibid.

197

L. Kane and George Jackson, the “underground Field Marshall” of the BPP."8

Prison ofﬁcials claimed that shortly after Jackson met with his lawyer Stephen Bingham,
he ﬁred shots ﬁ'om a .38 caliber pistol smuggled to him which he hid either in his hair or
under an “Afro-wig” later found jammed into a toilet in the prison’s adjustment center.
According to prison oﬂicials, George Jackson was killed as he broke ﬁ'om jail running out of
the adjustment center. Jonathan Jackson and William Christmas were killed after a failed
attempt to free the Soledad Brothers from prison by holding up a courtroom killing the
judge“9

Newton heralded both men courageous revolutionaries who achieved freedom by

committing revolutionary suicides for the ‘revolution.’ He declared, “there is a big
difference between thirty million unarmed black people and thirty million black people
armed to the teeth?“ Such an assertion was an internal contradiction with his earlier
attempt to distance the BPP ﬁom the violent language of its earlier days. Writing from
Algiers, Cleaver extolled Jackson’s actions as an attempt to create the “right climate” for
the people to pick up the gun?1

Newton immediately sought to stiﬂe other voices in the BPP by becoming the BPP’s

 

‘8 Larry D. Hatﬁeld, “3 Guards, 3 Cons Slain In San Quentin Break Try,” SE, 22
August 1971; Dick Alexander, “ Bloodiest Since Folsom 1927,” _S_Fli 22 August 1971, 30;
Dexter Waugh, “Deathly Calm At A Marin Hospital,” _S_F_E_ 22 August 1971; Will Ellsworth
Jones, “A Guard’s Reaction--“Pretty Mad Bitter”’_S_F_E_, 22 August 1971, 29.

‘9 Ibid.

5" “Eulogy For Jonathan Jackson And William Christmas: August 15, 1970, In
Newton, To Die For The People, 222.

5' Eldridge Cleaver, Cited in Hilliard, _Thrs'_ Side Of Glory. 301 .

198

sole spokesman which created undercurrents between him and Cleaver who continued
vocalizing his thoughts in the BPP’s newspaper. One controversial undercurrent between
Cleaver and Newton concerned Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
CBS News correspondent Richard T. Hottelet reported on a Cleaver and Al-Fatah
partnership wherein Al-Fatah would train Panthers in combat, assassinations, bombs and
sabotage against both the U.S. and Israel?2 Although Cleaver visited Al-Fatah, it is
unknown and unclear whether such training occurred. His statements and those of David
Hilliard expressing support for opponents of U.S. imperialism and Zionism stirred the
resentment of Jewish sympathizers and supporters of the BPP in the U.S.53

On September 5, 1970, Newton called a press conference to repudiate a delegation led
by Stokely Carmichael in Jordan stating that the BPP was not anti-Semitic despite
assertions by “some member of the Party” made in anger to cripple relations with the
BPP’s ‘white radical ﬁiends?” Such a statement was a veiled response to all BPP members
especially Stokely Carmichael who Newton denounced as a CIA agent. Newton may have
also been indirectly referring to Cleaver and other BPP supporters who spurned Israel while
expressing support for the Palestinian h'beration struggle.”

Newton’s statements concerning Israel were also ambiguous and inconsistent. Newton

 

’2 Kathleen Rout, Eldridge Cleaver, (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991), 144.

53 Statement Of David Hilliard, TBP 17 February 1970, In Heath. ed. The Black
Lapther Leaders Speak, 29.

5‘ “On The Middle East, September 5, 1970,” In Newton, To Die For The People,
1 93-196.

’5 Ibid, 191.

199

proclaimed that the BPP ofﬁcially condemned “that government” which persecuted
Palestinian people but supported the Jewish people.“5 He favored the creation of a “people’s
republic” in the Middle East by Palestinian people because Israel was a manifestation of
western imperialism maintained by western military power. He argued that Israel was a
religious state operating at the height of chauvinism and ethnocentrism?7 Newton urged
harmony in the Middle East and afﬁrmed, that the BPP supported the Palestinian ‘just
struggle’ for hheration “one hundred percent?"8
Newton may or my not have inadvertently alluded to his support of a possible
Palestinian state independent of Israel in cooperation with other worldwide nations.
Although he provided no further details on strategies employed in the realization of
Palestinian liberation, his contradictory statements presented a unique opportunity for the
FBI to ﬁ'acture the BPP’s relationship with its Jewish contributors. Counterintelligencc
operatives immediately tapped into the vulnerability of both leaders concerning
connotations and interpretations of ‘revolution’ and ‘revohrtionary’ by manufacturing
ﬁaudulent letters ﬁom Jewish supporters.
Two such letters concerned BPP Jewish supporter Algonquin J. Fuller. Agents asserted
in one letter that as “one who believes in the revolution,” the BPP would be better served

with a leader who would bring the BPP back to the people.59 Another letter criticized

 

5" Ibid, 193.
57 Ibid, 194.
’8 Ibid, 196.

59 Newton, War Against The Panthers, 66.
200

Newton as “a part time revolutionary” to reiterate the necessity for Cleaver’s leadership of
the BPP?" The FBI’s Los Angeles Bureau authorized an anonymous letter to Newton
welcoming him back and disclosing that the authors left the BPP because Hilliard and
others were only interested in themselves and not in “revolution?”1

The three counterintelligence letters reinforce and illustrate manipulation and exploitation
of both terms “revolution” and “revolutionary” to successfully sever Cleaver’s relationship
with Newton. In other words, Cleaver’s urban guerilla warfare was preferred and
congruent with the “revolutionary” aspirations of his supporters and would better mobilize
the people. In addition to such letters, the FBI also fabricated letters from BPP members.
One letter attributed to Comrade Connie Matthews, Newton’s secretary, cast doubts on
Field Marshal] Don Cox and targeted suspicion on Geronimo Pratt, Deputy Minister of the
BPP’s Southern California chapter.

The letter reported a dismal and “dreadﬁrlly disorganized” BPP headquarters, poor
decisions, weaknesses and excesses of Newton. It also noted that the BPP’s newspaper
was “in shambles,” and that a ‘rebellious spirit’ hrrked between the rank and ﬁle as the
‘foreign’ chapter received no support.” Deliberate infusion of “foreign” to describe the
International Section was pmposcﬁrlly intended to question the validity and legitimacy of
Cleaver’s International Section. “I fear there is rebellion working just beneath the

surface,” the letter continued, it recommended one of two “drastic”steps, “we must either

 

60 Ibid.
6' FBI File 105-HQ-165429, Airtel to SACs, From Director, FBI,” 9/16/70, 3.
62 Ward and Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Pamrs, 153, 160.

201

get rid of the Supreme Commander or get rid of the disloyal members?”3

Such a statement was deliberately infused to incite violence and complete elimination or
assassination of Newton to satisfy dissident voices in the BPP. One San Francisco FBI
agent noted in a report to Director Hoover that, “increasing dissension, serious morale
problems, strained relationships among the Panther hierarchy [were] due to the dictatorial,
irrational and capricious conduct of Huey P. Newton, his extreme sensitivity to any criticism,
jealousness of other leaders and belief he is some sort of deity?”4 The San Francisco
Examiner (SF E), days later charged that Newton under the assumed name of Donn Penn was
living a ‘high style’ life in his in a $650 per month 25"I ﬂoor ‘plush pad’ at 1200 Lakeshore
Apartments.”

The SF E reported that Newton’s penthouse was daily decorated with ﬂoral arrangements,
imported furniture, a full time doorman, sauna, gynmasiurn and plush green since November
1970.“ A photograph of Newton leaving the building with fellow BPP members David
Hilliard and Viron Redwine appeared on the front page as he was picked up by John Scale.
The lease was negotiated by Stronghold Consolidated Productions Inc. of New York with
David Gabriel Lubell who was described in the press as “a white lawyer with communist party

afﬁliations?”7 Lubell’s description was intended to fuel suspicions and accusations of the

 

63 Ibid.
6‘ Airtel to SACs From Director of FBI 9/16/70, 3.

6’ “Huey Newton’s Plush Pad, $650 A Month 25‘” Floor Digs,” SFE 21 February
1971, 1, 16.

6" Ibid.
‘7 Ibid.

202

BPP’s communist afﬁliations. To discontented members, Newton’s extravagance veriﬁed
that Newton was not defending the people and was no longer leading the vanguard but
basking in ‘a glamorous bourgeois penthouse?”8
Assata Shakur of the Harlem chapter noted that news of Newton’s residence ‘contrasted
sharply’ with the living conditions of the New York BPP. “Panthers who owned little
more than the clothes on their backs were out in the street in the freezing cold weather selling
papers, with big pieces of cardboard in their shoes and with ﬂimsy jackets that did nothing to
hold back the hawk...I wanted to believe the security story, but it didn’t ﬁt my sense of
logic?”9 To some rank and ﬁle members, Newton indulged in elegance and decadence.
Six days later, the SF E published another article which described Newton’s furnishings
being “of a very basic design” with vinyl couches and conference type dining table near a
25‘” ﬂoor window.70
Newton claimed that he was told to live at his new residence by the BPP’s Central
Committee who convinced him that the apartment was necessary for “security reasons.”
He described his new residence as a prison, “I feel like I’m a prisoner, I can’t walk down
the streets like I used to, when I go, there’s a security force that goes with me.”7| He

claimed that the apartment was the only place where he could get a good night’s sleep

 

‘8 Brown. A Ta_ste Of Power. 265.
‘9 Assata Shakur, Assatg 230.
7° “Newton’s Pad For “Security,” SFE 18 February 1971, 9.

7' “Huey Newton Luxury Life Stirs Growing Resentment,” Oakland Tribune 26
September 1971, 1.

 

203

without the danger and threats on his life from expelled enemies of the BPP.72

The BPP reprinted an article proclaiming that the SFE’s story was a “plantation trick in
modem trappings” to arouse suspicion, dissension, distrust and separation.73 It ﬁrrther
claimed that as tax money supported the ‘plush living’ of government ofﬁcials, Newton
and other Panther leaders risked their lives to challenge the existing system and should
have moved from their modest locale at Lake Merritt to a top ﬂoor V.I.P. suite with a
helicopter at their disposal. Some rank and ﬁle members remained unconvinced as the
article may have added salt to an already gaping wound in the BPP. Newton received
letters bitterly expressing outrage. Newton’s residence violated the unofﬁcial vow of
poverty of many BPP members who predominantly languished on meager incomes and
overcrowded Panther collectives.

Two former members in Cambridge, Massachusetts sarcastically lamented in a letter to
Newton, ‘yve are sorry to hear that you feel like a prisoner in your $700 month penthouse,
we feel so ﬁ'ee here in our $65 month cold-water, heatless walkup.”74 According to FBI

surveillance, Newton had male members driving him wherever he wanted to go and kept

 

72 James M. Stephens Jr., “Inside Report On transformed Black Panthers,” .191, 11
May 1972.

73 “‘Huey Newton’s Plush Pad’ A Gross Distortion,” TBP, 23 February 1971, also
published in The Sun Remrter, 20 February 1971.

7‘ To Huey P. Newton From M.H.G and A.H.G. Lancaster Massachusetts, March 13,
1971. Huey P. Newton Foundation Records, Stanford University, Series 3, Box 6, Folder
6.

204

at least two bodyguards with him at all times.75 COINTELPRO agents noted in a memo
to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, that internal dissension coupled with ﬁnancial
diﬂiculties in the BPP oﬂ‘ered an exceptional opportunity to “firrther disrupt, aggravate
and possibly neutralize this organization through counterintelligence?"
Newton’s additional purges of BPP members further increased tensions with Cleaver.
On February 10, 1971, Newton declared Michael Cetewayo Tabor, Richard “Dharuba”
Moore and Connie Mathews Tabor expelled from the BPP in a meeting with New York
BPP leaders.77 Newton stated, with only two exceptions, the two men were expelled for
abscounding with Party funds and Connie Mathews for leaving with valuable Party
information. Newton ordered that no BPP members were to relate to the New York 21
and were forbidden ﬁom attending their trial or offer any type of moral or physical
assistance." He justiﬁed the purges as a “necessary thing” undertaken by himself because
of their waning support of Bobby Seale’s trial and one of the two men with Connie Tabor
threatened his life.
The New York chapter and the New York 21 deemed Pratt’s expulsion and those of

Moore, Tabor and Mathews as “the straw that broke the camel’s back and...the spark that

 

7’ FBI File 105-HQ-l65429, Section 12, Report of SF 157-203, 1/15/71-4/20/71,

279.
’6 Ward and Churchill, COINT‘ELPRO Pm, 161.
T7 “Enemies OfThe People,” Di, 13 February 1971, 12-13.
2 7* FBI File 105-HQ-165429 Section 12, Report of SF 157-203, 1/15/71-4/20/71,
80.

205

set oﬁ‘ the prairie ﬁre.”79 The Panther 21 published a letter demanding Hilliard’s
irmnediatc expulsion from the BPP. Publication of their letter reveals not only
discontent over Hilliard’s leadership of the BPP but disagreements with the leadership of
the BPP at large. Newton responded to the letter by expelling the Panther 21. Michael
Cetewayo Tabor released a letter explaining what he and the New York chapter
considered the main contradictions in the BPP. He outlined ten reasons inchlding,
abandonment of democratic centralism, opposition of military activity, splurging of BPP
funds and deterioration of morale between the rank and ﬁle.80

The Panther 21 released additional letters in defense of their criticisms of Hilliard and
the Central Committee. Two letters were published in the April 3, 1971 issue of the
RIGHT ON! newspaper claiming that the Panther 21 did not mention any speciﬁc group
by name. The Panther 21 summarized their views, “to be very blunt about it, Huey
Newtoncame out of prison more like a kitten thana Panther.”m On February 26, 1971,
in a televised long distance phone call while appearing on Jim Dunbar’s television Show,
BPP Minister Of Information Eldridge Cleaver in Algiers stunned Huey P. Newton by
demanding Chief Of Stall~ Hilliard’s resignation and the reinstatement of the NY 21 in the
BPP. Cleaver declared, purges of the New York 21 and Geronimo Pratt were “regrettable”

and took place “without proper consultation” of the entire Central Committee.

 

7’ Michael Cetewayo Tabor, “On The Contradictions Within The Black Panther
Party,” RIGHT ON! 3 April 1971, 14.

8° Ibid.

8‘ “An Open Letter To The People From Bobby Hutton, RIGHT ON! 3 April 1971,

 

206

He charged that David Hilliard should either be dismissed or should resign from the
BPP as the BPP was “falling apart at the seams.”82 Cleaver demanded the reinstatement of
the New York Panther 21 in the BPP. Newton refused to discuss BPP affairs publicly.
Following their conversation, Newton made another call to Cleaver in which both expelled
each other from the BPP. “We’ll battle like two bulls,” Newton declared, “ we’ll lock
horns?”3 After their conversation, the media announced a “split” in the BPP as ﬁagments
of the conversations reverberated on television and radio.

Scholars examining the BPP pinpoint the conversation between Cleaver and Newton on
Febnlary 26, 1971 as epitomizing a factional division in the BPP which some have
termed the “Newton-Cleaver split?“ Newton and Cleaver supporters made charges and
countercharges against one another in the media. From a New Haven Connecticut jail,
Scale released a letter denying a “split” in the BPP, he declared his allegiance to Newton, “1
am the Chairman of only one Party.” Scale condemned what he termed the “divisionary,
counterrevolutionary actions and jive tactics” of Cleaver and his supporters which he

claimed jeopardized the support and defense of BPP political prisoners."5

 

‘2 Transcript, Jim Dunbar’s Television Program A.M” KGO-TV, San Francisco,
California, February 26, 1971, FBI File 105-HQ-165429 Section 12, Report of SF 157-1203,
1/15/71-4/20/71, 165.

“3 Huey P. Newton, Conversation between Eldridge Cleaver and Huey P. Newton,
Quoted In Hilliard, lh_is Side Of Glory. 324.

8‘ Ollie A Johnson III, “ Explaining The Demise Of The Black Panther Party: The
Role Of Internal Factors,” In Charles Jones ed., The Black Panther PM Reconsidered
(Baltimore: The Black Classic Press, 1998), 391-416.

‘5 “The Black Scholar Interviews Bobby Scale,” The Black Scholar (September
1972): 13-14,

207

Newton deemed Cleaver’s “defection” “reactionary suicide” claiming Cleaver appealed
to all negative attributes of the BPP including “force, ﬁrepower and the intense moment
when combatants stood at the brink of death?“ Newton’s most blistering criticism of
Cleaver was that he was a repressed homosexual whose affiliation with the BPP fulﬁlled a
“masculine kind of demonstration to reinforce his very shaky sexual identity.” Newton
claimed to have witnessed “a long passionate kiss,” between Cleaver and writer James
Baldwin which he kept secret until a Playboy interview in 1973."7

Elaine Brown’s “Free Kathleen Cleaver” article published in the BPP’s newspaper
caused a nationwide media ﬂurry days later. It epitomized one of the many internal
conﬂicts and disputes affecting the BPP in 1971. Both women served on the BPP’s
Central Committee, Brown and Kathleen Neal Cleaver who had previously served as
Communications Secretary. Brown charged that during her visit to Korea in July and
August 1970, Kathleen Cleaver conﬁded ill her through “clandestine discussion” and
“whispered conversations” that she lived in constant fear of her physically and mentally
abusive husband. Allegedly, Eldridge Cleaver harassed his wife charging that the second
child she carried was not his. Brown cited Kathleen Cleaver’s routine use of dark
sunglasses as concealment attempts to disguise bruises and black eyes ﬁom physical bouts

with her husband."8

 

8" Newton, Revolutiogy Suicide, 330.

’7 “Playboy Interview: Huey Newton, A Candid Conversation With the Embattled
Leader of the Black Panther Party,” Playboy, May 1973, 84.

‘3 “Free Kathleen Cleaver and All Political Prisoners,” TBP, 6 March 1971 A-D.
208

Such allegations lent some credence to allegations not only of spousal abuse and
physical abuse of women but of other possible allegations of mistreatment of black women
in the BPP. Such allegations may have further reinforced the possrhle suspicions of the
physical threat that males in leadership positions posed to all BPP women. Other radical
groups supporting the BPP printed this story in their publications. Kathleen Cleaver
emphatically denied Brown’s charges as “patently absurd” and evidence of a
“counterrevolutionary clique” in the BPP. ‘9 Brown’s most serious charge was that
Cleaver murdered Clinton “Rahirn” Smith, a BPP member who hijacked a plane to Cuba
to avoid criminal prosecution then joined Cleaver in Algiers.

Brown claimed that Smith’s subsequent disappearance in Algiers was due to his
involvement with Cleaver’s wife and because he was the alleged Ether of Kathleen
Cleaver’s baby. Brown claimed that Eldridge Cleaver kept a burial ground in Algiers for
eliminating his opponents. Brown also denounced Algerian President Houari
Boumdienne’s alleged duplicity in concealing Cleaver’s alleged crimes and violence.90
Contrary to Brown’s assertions, although the Algerian government provided refuge to the
International Section, Cleaver did not enjoy diplomatic immunity ﬁ'om Algerian law

enforcement who ﬁequented the International Section. In Ect, Cleaver repeatedly declared

 

‘9 “Mrs Cleaver Denies Charges Of Being Hubby’s Prisoner,” Baltimore Afro-
A_merl_°_ca_n, 13 March 1971, 7.

9° ”Cleaver Accused Of Slaying Over Wife,”SFE, 4 March 1971,]; “Free Kathleen
Cleaver and All Political Prisoners,” TBP, 6 March 1971 A-D

209

his desire to return to the US 9' Although Cleaver acknowledged difﬁculties with his cadre
of recruits and violation of discipline as the main causes for expulsions and conﬁ'ontations
in Algiers, FBI agents boasted of their pivotal roles.

They acknowledged manufacturing and sending a spurious letter to create ﬁiction
between BPP leader Eldridge Cleaver in Algiers and BPP Headquarters concerning “an
internal dispute” which Cleaver accepted as genuine. As a result, the International staff of the
BPP was neutralized when Cleaver later expelled most of the members of the International
Section. FBI bureau personnel later received incentive awards ﬁom the Director for this
particular operation.92 Weeks after the Dunbar show, BPP chapters became dangerous
terrains for rank and ﬁle members because of violent reprisals between Newton and
Cleaver supporters.

Intercine warfare escalated in New York where the Corona, Queens branch supported
Newton and the Harlem branch aligned with Cleaver resulting in Etal conﬁontations. On
March 1971, twenty-year-old Robert Webb, Field Marshall of the pro-Cleaver faction of the
BPP in New York was shot through the back of the head when he and another Panther
attempted to stop three Newton supporters from selling The Black Panther on Harlem’s

main street, 125‘” street and seventh avenue.93 Zayd Malik Shakur Deputy Minister Of

 

9' “Newton Says Little On Feud With Cleaver,” SFE, 6 March 1971, 3; Phil
Garlington Jr., “Party Split Widens, Cleavers Ridicule Panther Charges,”SFE, 5 March 1971;
1, 10; “Panthers Accuse Cleaver,”SFE, 4 March 1971, 1- 2.

92 To Mr W. C Sullivan From G.C Moore, May 14, 1970, In Churchill and Vander
wall, The COINTELPRO Papprs,l49.

93 “Panther’s Body Returned To S.F,” SFE, 13 March 1971, 6; “Death Here Tied To
Panther Feud,” The New York Times 10 March 1971, 29.

 

210

Information of the pro-Cleaver New York BPP chapter held a press conference the
following day charging Newton supporters with murder. He defended Webb’s attempt to
conﬁscate Newton’s “reactionary rag sheet” and further charged that Newton had
deployed ‘seventy-ﬁve robots’ to curb opposition to the Oakland leadership.

Less than a month later, police recovered the bullet-ridden body of Samuel Napier,
Circulation and Distribution Manager of the BPP’s newspaper found bound and gagged on
a bed in the basement of the BPP’s Corona Queens, ofﬁce in New York. Napier was
shot six times, three bullet holes in his back and three to his head.. Twenty-one year old
Gwen Dolores was tied up on the ﬁrst ﬂoor with her mouth taped and left in a ﬁrst ﬂoor
closet ﬁom which she was rescued. .“ Newton delivered the eulogy at Napier’s ﬁmeral and
declared, “to die for the reactionaries, the racists, the capitalists is lighter than a feather,
but to die in service to the people is heavier than any mountain and deeper than any sea.”95
Newton supporters mourned Napier’s death as the loss of a “revolutionary spirit” in the BPP.

Two days later, on April 20, 1971, the charred remains of BPP captain Amon Frederick
“Fred” Bennett was identiﬁed by two keys and a ring among scattered bone ﬁ’agments

discovered at a remote hideout in the Santa Cruz mountains 9" In addition, to one hundred

 

9‘ “A Black Panther Found Slain Here,” The New York Tglp' s, 18 April, 1971, l, 57;
“Panther Found Slain In NY,” SFE, 18 April 1971, 6; “2 Witnesses Held In Corona Death,”
The New York Timpg, 20 April 1971, 73.

9’ “Eulogy For Samuel Napier, May 1, 1971,” In Newton and Morrison ed. To Die
For The Peopl_e, 230; TBP, 1 May 1971, 6.

9" “‘Bomb Pkmt’ Panther Killing Quiz,” SFE, 20 April 1971, l, 10; “Panther Killing,
Fire Linked,” SFE, 21 April 1971, 4; “Charred Remains Of A Man Thought To Be Panther
Found, The New York Time_s_, 21 April 1971, 36.

211

 

and forty nine sticks of dynamite, bomb components, fuses, nitroglycerin and C-4 plastic
similar to that used in Vietnam, police found materials linking the cabin as the manchturing
site of bombs placed and detonated in Oakland.”7 Such discoveries implicated the BPP in
violent explosions throughout the Bay area and illustrated the brutality of ﬁatricidal warErc
in the BPP. Although police alleged that Bennett may have been killed on January 6, 1971
because of “an unsanctioned romance with a woman Panther,” the barbarity and execution
of Bennett suggested that under the veneer of a “revolutionary” organization, laid a
criminal component as two Black Panthers were sought for questioning amidst a national
rivalry.

Bennett’s death provided opportunities for FBI agents to further disrupt the BPP.
Agents proposed a letter to Field Marshall Don Cox in Algiers on February 17, 1971
suggesting a “long talk” with Cleaver before allowing Kathleen Cleaver come to the US as
two other BPP members were supposedly missing and Geronimo Pratt was “really
uptight?”8 Similar COINELPRO “brown mail” letters were intended to isolate Pratt,
prevent Kathleen Cleaver from attending the RPCC, discourage any possibility of
reconciliation between Newton, Cleaver and ‘dissident Ections,’ and to “ﬁrrther split the
BPP and nullify any further attempts to unify the BPP?”9 Convinced of successful and
irreversible ﬁ'actures in the BPP, one FBI agent boasted in a memo to the FBI

Director that the “chaotic condition” of the BPP was “possibly a direct result of our

 

97 Ibid.
9" Churchill and Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Pays, 151-152.
99 Ibid, 152.

212

 

intensive counterintelligence efforts aimed at causing dissension between Newton and
Cleaver and within the Party.”‘°°
Irreconcilable differences were manifested in the publication of RIGHT ON! Black
Community News Service by Cleaver supporters to rival the BPP’s The Black Panther
Intercommunal Service. RIGHT ON! discouraged the sale of The Black Panther as a
“ﬁlthy slander sheet”supplementing the lavish lifestyle of Newton and Hilliard. It also
denounced Revolutionary artist Emory Douglas as an “Al-Capp.” RIGHT ON! published
artwork by Brad Brewer portraying a black man staring at the reader preparing to shoot
a policeman who was about to enter or exit ﬁom his vehicle with an open car door?“
The work proclaimed, “if I should go forward-follow me, if I should hesitate-push me, if I
should stop kill me.”"’2 Brewer claimed that the work, inspired by the death of Robert Webb,
portrayed “revolutionary violence.” It further illuminated the deliberate execution of an
authority ﬁgure characteristic of the urban guerilla warErc embraced by Cleaver supporters.
Brewer’s drawing depicted a glaring misconception of “revohrtion” as spontaneous,
violent aggressive action which the people were encouraged to emulate and support. One
noteworthy difference was the abandonment of the pig image of the policeman popularized
by the BPP which highlighted one main difference not only between the two different

newspapers but ideological differences between Cleaver and Newton supporters.

 

'00 FBI File 105-HQ-l65429 Section 12, Report of SF 157-1203, 1/15/71—4/20/71,
Counterintelligencc Informative Note, March 4, 1971.

'°' Brad Brewer, “Revohltionary Artist Or Revisionist Al Capp?” RIGHT 0N1. 3
April 1971, 15.

'02 Ibid.

213

Whereas Newton on March 20, 1971 ordered all drawings of guns and references to violence
stricken ﬁom the BPP’s newspaper in favor of photographs depicting the BPP’s survival
programs, Cleaver’s supporters demonstrated their willingness to execute a police oﬂicer
as manifestation of ‘revolution."°3 Newton formally repudiated Cleaver’s guerilla warfare
and employment of guns in pursuit of “revolutionary” objectives in an essay published on
April 17, 1971. Newton clariﬁed and reiterated Mao Tse Tung’s statement that political
power was begotten ﬁom guns?“

He stated, “the gun by all revolutionary principles is a tool to be used in our strategy, it
is not an end in itself.”'°5 He criticized what he termed Cleaver’s “either or attitude” and
maintained that Cleaver translated personal problems in political terms resulting in
Cleaver’s and the BPP’s ‘defection’ ﬁom the community. He argued lmder Cleaver’s
direction, the BPP was not fulﬁlling the bhck community’s needs through various social
programs. Newton considered survival programs such as, the Free BreakEst For Children,
Free Sickle Cell Anemia Testing, Free Busing to Prisons and various others as essential
mechanisms to mobilize the community. He acknowledged that revolution was a process,
not a particular action or conclusion, “the only time an action is revolutionary is when

people relate to it in a revohltionary way, if they will not use the example you set, then no

 

'03 FBI File 105-HQ-l65429 Section 12, Report 0f SF 157-203. 1/15/71-1/20/71.
286.

'0‘ “On The Defection Of Eldridge Cleaver From The Black Panther Party And The
Defection OfThe Black Panther Party From The Black Community,” April 17, 1971, In Huey
P. Newton. To DiLF‘or The Peoplp, (New York: Writers And Readers, 1995), 44-53.

'0’ Ibid, 49.

214

 

matter how many guns you have your action is not revolutionary.”'°"

Newton endorsed promoting community structures to promote a community’s interests.
He repudiated Cleaver’s call for revolution through warfare, “we would not order everyone
into the streets tomorrow to make revolution.” Newton later sought to solidify his
international mantle of leadership of the BPP during a trip of China in November 1971. He
released a photograph of himself with Chinese dignitaries to reinforce his international
leadership of the BPP and effectively ostracize and nullify Cleaver’s International section in
Algiers. He argued that Cleaver’s exile in Algiers was symbolic of ‘reactionary suicide” and
‘geographical, psychological and spiritual’ defection ﬁ‘om the community?07

Disunity in the BPP may have provided greater access and inﬁltration of the BPP by
FBI informants. The FBI’s San Francisco oﬂice, in its report on the BPP ﬁom July 25,
1971 to November 2, 1971, enumerated at least twelve informants in the BPP ‘s San
Francisco ofﬁce, perhaps including one source which the FBI considered “highly sensitive”
who particularly reported on the leadership of the Party particularly on Newton and Elaine
Brown?08 Division in the BPP denied vital testimony to Panthers on trial. One of the
worst casualties may have been Geronimo “Ji Jaga” Pratt. FBI documents conﬁrm that

Julius Butler, the Director Of Security of the Southern California chapter was a pivotal

 

'06 Ibid, 48.
"’7 Newton, Revolutionary Suicide, 331.

"’8 FBI File # 105-HQ-165429. Section16, FBI Report ﬁom San Francisco, 7/25/71-
11/2/71. Inone memorandum to Mr. E.S Miller ﬁom GC Moore dated 9/21/71, in the same
ﬁle Section 15, the “highly sensitive source from San Francisco” reported on Elaine Brown’s
correspondence including details ﬁom telephone conversations not only with Newton but also
with BPP headquarters.

215

 

FBI informant who enabled Pratt’s conviction of murder and over twenty-ﬁve year
imprisonment for a crime he did not commit.109

Newton’s expulsion of Pratt accompanied by his directive that no BPP member should
assist or support Pratt in his criminal trial denied Pratt access to pivotal testimony
corroborating his ah'bi which may or may not have resulted in his acquittal.‘ '0 Hilliard and
Scale provided afﬁdavits in 1991 attesting that Pratt was attending a Panther meeting at the
time the alleged murder took place. In 1994, Hilliard stated that Newton showed him letters
he received during his imprisonment stating Pratt was planning to assassinate him.”l
Newton’s letter my have been one of the many “brown mail” manufactured by FBI agents
engaged in COINTELPRO activities.

Reﬂecting on the rift decades later in 1998, Kathleen Neal Cleaver attributed the “split”
to Newton’s “arrogant title of Supreme Commander,” Hilliar ’s “harshly authoritarian
policy,” ‘purges of rebellious Panthers’ and the Oakland leadership’s obstruction of
“revolutionary acts” by individual members. "2 Although she did not enumerate or elaborate
on the “revolutionary acts,” she might have been referring to illegal activities, which Eldridge
Cleaver contended drove him to “gangster patterns” in Algiers. ' ‘3 Although Newton deﬁned

revolution as the mobilization of the local black community through a variety of survival

 

'09 Reginald W. Major and Marcia D. Davis, “Prisoner Of War,” Emerge, June 1994,
30—35.

”0 Ibid.

m Ibid.

“2 Kathleen Neal Cleaver, “Back To Aﬁica,” 236-240.
“3 Cleaver, Soul On Fire 153-154.

 

216

 

 

 

 

programs, Cleaver instituted no such programs in either Cuba or Algiers.

Although scholars and national media claimed a “split” in the BPP, Newton dismissed the
“split” in the BPP as a ﬁctional myth as only two BPP chapters, New York and the
International Section were lost and he was relieved to see particular individuals leave the
BPP?” RIGHT ON! as well as the BLA gradually vanished into non-existence. There has
not been a comprehensive work examining and analyzing the BLA, thus the activities and
contributions of its members remain largely unknown. In seven pages of his doctoral
dissertation, published in 1980, Newton provided examples of COINTELPRO letters
mailed to BPP supporters to demonstrate that the FBI was solely responsible for fostering
the “Newton-Cleaver split.”"’ Newton asserted that the “Newton-Cleaver split” in the
BPP in 1971 was a misnomer which characterized a “split” between Cleaver and the BPP
not a personal rift between the two men?”

This research conﬁrms that deﬁnitions and interpretations of ‘revolution’ and
‘revolutionary’ formed a contested terrain which permeated the BPP cuhnilmting in
permanent schisms in the BPP. Diﬂ‘erences between Newton and Cleaver supporters
resulted in violent Etal confrontations which yielded a violent portrayal of the BPP in the
media. It further conﬁrmed suspicions and allegations that the BPP was imbued with

violence and epitomized an organization whose volatile members unleashed fatal

 

m “Statement By Huey P. Newton, Minister Of Defense, Black Panther Party,
Servant Of The People To The Black Odyssey Festival,” TBP, 29 May 1971.

”5 Huey P. Newton, War Against The Panthers, 65-71.

”6 “Playboy Interview: Huey Newton, A Candid Conversation With The Embattled
Leader Of The Black Panther Party,” Playboy (May 1973), 82.

217

 

 

consequences on each other.

This research illuminated the pivotal role of COINTELPRO in fomenting dissension
in the BPP. However, COINTELPRO alone does not sufﬁce as an adequate explanation for
all of the interim] and external conﬂicts plaguing the BPP. My research has shown that
internal dissension included the culpability of BPP leaders and rank and ﬁle members in
fomenting divisions in the BPP. Seizing on the internal strife due to differing interpretations
and connotations of ‘revolution’ and ‘revolutionary’ FBI agents manipulated pre-existing
conditions and divisions in the BPP to successfully sever ties between Newton and Cleaver

supporters. Thus, the BPP’s demise cannot be explained merely by external Ectors.

218

 

 

CONCLUSION

My dissertation explored key factors directly and indirectly affecting the BPP at the
local and national level and argued that the interchangeability of two terms, “revolution and
“revolutionary” employed by the BPP fomented internal dissension within the organization.
I argued that the overall articulation and employment of these two terms combined with
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover’s tactics were partly responsible
for the demise of the BPP. This research departed ﬁom traditional studies of the BPP
which have singularly focused on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s COINTELPRO
efforts and Newton’s excesses as main reasons for the demise of the BPP. It explored some
internal and external Ectors to expose some of the roots of internal dissension within the
organization.

This research began with an exploration of the historical background of the Oakland Bay
area to root the BPP within the historiography of black activism to demonstrate tlmt the BPP
was not a sudden spark which ignited black activism throughout the San Francisco East Bay
area. The BPP built upon the protest tradition of Aﬁican-Americans and on the civil rights
activism of the San Francisco East Bay area in particular to recruit members into its political
party. Although the BPP’s historiography brieﬂy mentions Newton, Scale and Hilliard’s
ﬁiendship prior top joining the BPP, critical details about their backgrounds especially their
migrant experience has not been explored. Scholars have not probed the backgrounds of the

BPP other than to brieﬂy mention their friendship and troubled past. I contend that the

219

 

backgrounds of the most visrble and well known leaders of the BPP cannot be ignored and
must be framed within the context of the political, economic and social conditions of the San
Francisco East Bay area. By analyzing some of the urban conditions experienced by southern
migrants such as Huey P. Newton, Bobby Scale and David Hilliard, my dissertation ﬁlls an
important gap in the origins of the BPP to better understand some of its political ideologies.
I explored contested terrains in housing, education and labor throughout the San
Francisco East Bay area to argue that analysis of the origins of the BPP must include their
southern migrant experience which is pivotal to understanding their Ten Point Platform
and Program My dissertation surveyed pivotal social, economic and political conditions
which ﬁamed and contextualized the origins of the BPP within the historiography of the
political, economic and social conditions of the East Bay area during the post 19408 period.
Scholars Albert Broussard, Marilyn S. Johnson, Gary B. Nash, Shirley Ann Wilson-
Moore, and Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo highlighted conﬂicts over urban space
throughout the San Francisco East Bay area. ‘ By posing the following questions, who
were Huey P. Newton, Bobby Scale and David Hilliard and why do scholars need to probe
their past? I argued that the BPP’s founders were molded and shaped by the southern

migrant experience of the San Francisco East Bay area. My research shows that the BPP’s

 

' See, Albert Broussard, Black San Francisco: The StLuggle For Egﬂpy’ In The
M 1900-1954 (Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 1993); Gary B. Nash, _T_h_e

American West Trﬂformpd. The Imt Of The Secopd World War (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1985), Marilynn S. Johnson, _T_h_gSeCtLrLd Gol_d Rusl'lLOakland and the E
Bay in World War 11 (Berkeley: University Of California Press, 1993); Shirley Ann Wilson
Moore, To P1_a_ce Our Deegs: The Aﬁican American CommprpIy' In Richmog, Califoma,’
1910-1963 (Berkeley: The University Of California Press, 2000); Gretchen Lemke-
Santangelo, Abidmg' Come: Aﬁ'ica‘n-Amerim Miggnj Women and the East Bay
C_ominu_m (Chapel Hill: The University Of North Carolina Press, 1996).

 

 

220

 

principal leaders and rank and ﬁle members experienced political, economic and social
dislocation which in part contributed to their “underclass” status.

Examination of social, economic and political conditions in cities such as Oakland, San
Francisco, Richmond and Berkeley illuminated intersections of race, gender and class to
expose the conﬂuence of political, economic and social Ectors throughout the San
Francisco East Bay area. Such a conﬂuence resulted in unequal treatment, inherent racism,
segregation, urban poverty, unemployment and uneven development throughout local black
communities, economic, political and social dislocation throughout the San Francisco East
Bay area. Many BPP members were members of the “lmderclass” who cultivated and
nurtured their own leadership of an organization designed to protect the community ﬁom
what they perceived as hostile police forces.

Such an analysis frames the BPP within the historical context of social movements because
the BPP exempliﬁed the agency and autonomy of local individuals who composed what
sociologists termed the ‘ﬁrndcrclass” amid oppressive social, economic and political
conditions. The BPP also demonstrates the mobilization efforts of individuals, some with
similar and diverse backgrounds to generate some measure of social change throughout local
black communities. The BPP was a composed of young black men and women who had a
genuine commitment to community uplift and although some BPP members had prior
experience working with other organizations and groups, many did not.

Bobby Scale and David Hilliard did not graduate ﬁ'om high school. Huey P. Newton
later attended Merritt College. Both Scale and Newton had criminal pasts, they initially

recruited men with similar backgrounds to launch the BPP. Such Ectors challenge the

221

negative characteristics ascribed to the underclass by showing that despite negative social,
economic and political conditions, the “underclass” maintained both autonomy and agency.
The young men who later formed the BPP struggled to sustain jobs, secure an education and
support Emilies.

Newton and Scale formulated and composed the Ten Point Phtform and Program of the
BPP to articulate grievances and to demand access to ﬁlndamental resources and a
restructuring of existing power relationships. Throughout my research, I argued that the
demands of the Ten Point Platform and Program were not “new.” The Ten Point Platform
and Program echoed and reﬂected similar demands of Aﬁican-Americans throughout
American history. It also evidenced self-determimtion which forrmd the core of the Ten
Point Platform and Program and Program The BPP built upon the protest tradition of
Aﬁican-Americans and drew from the civil rights tradition of the San Francisco East Bay area
in particukir to recruit members. Newton and Scale proclaimed the BPP, the “vanguard
party” as Newton explained the purpose of the BPP’s ‘revolution,’ “ the people make
revolution, the oppressors by their brutal actions cause resistance by the people, the vanguard
party only teaches the correct methods of resistance?”

The BPP did not have a concrete strategy for effecting the substantive changes they sought
in the Ten Point Program and did not provide a template for effecting each of the objectives
speciﬁed in the Ten Point Platform and Program. Although I argued that the BPP did not
provide a concrete map or plan for achieving and realizing the objectives set forth in the Ten

Point Platform Program, the BPP’s political platform cannot be dismissed as incoherent or

 

2 Ibid, 18.

222

 

unrealistic.

The BPP articulated its Ten Point Platform to demand “revolution” which I deﬁned as a
redeﬁnition of power rooted in a redistrlhution of wealth to compel transformations in the
existing power hierarchy. I argued that the BPP’s “revolution” was conducted by trial and
error. Newton and Scale purposely composed an open-ended political platform which
Newton explained, “ we left the program open-ended so that it could develop and people
could identify with it, we did not offer it to them as a conclusion, we offered it as a vehicle
to move them to a higher level.”3 This research provided examples of the BPP’s
modiﬁcations, alterations, and changes affecting the BPP’S leadership and membership.

The lack of speciﬁcity in The Ten Point Platform provided a fertile terrain for cultivating
ideological ambiguities and inconsistencies within the organization. For example, the BPP
initially argued that “picking up the gun” empowered the trusses against aggressors in 1966-
1967. The BPP adopted “self-defense” strategically aimed at policing the police. The BPP
decreed police as “pigs,” to condemn police harassment, aggression and brutality to convey
grotesque and brutal qualities to their nemesis. They also urged the masses to pick up the
gun. The main problem with this strategy was that the gun in and of itself did not create a
counterbalance force to local and national police agencies.

The BPP restricted its membership to black men and women because of their genuine

commitment to racial uplift. The Panthers believed, like other organizations throughout

 

3 Huey P. Newton, “On the Defection of Eldridge Cleaver ﬁom the Black Panther
Party and the Defection of the Black Panther Party from the Black Community,” April 17,
1971,” In Huey P. Newton. To Dip For The People (New: York: Writers and Readers Inc.,
1995), 47.

223

 

American history that black people must liberate themselves ﬁom oppressive forces. The
BPP demanded “all power to the peOple” to raise the consciousness of local communities
and and to characterize the call for self-determination through local community control. 1
The organization sought to transform the negative characteristics of some of its members.
Regina Jennings joined the BPP to conquer her “serious drug habit, ”and to join other black
men and women to “transform the black community with social programs, to defend where
we lived and breathed with our lives.”5
Jermings’ reasons for joining the BPP are not unique. Many BPP with criminal records
and drug habits successfully altered their lives to become revolutionaries. Jennings explained,
“the void I used to ﬁll with drugs was now ﬁlled instead with a pure and noble love for my
people?” Throughout the various autobiographical accounts of BPP members, many
acknowledged their personal transformations upon joining the BPP which demonstrates one
of the main successes of the BPP’S “revolution.”
For example, individual members of the Panther 21 case in New York provided
testimonials on how their lives changed upon joining the BPP. In New York, Shaba Om
stopped “hustling skag” and “pimping,” Afcni Shakur stopped smoking cocaine and

dropping acid after joining the New York BPP chapter? Perhaps one example of personal

 

5 Regina Jennings, “Why I Joined The Party: All Aﬁicana Womanist Reﬂection,”In
Charles E. Jones ed. The Black Pgther ng Reconsidered (Baltimore: The Black Classic
Press, l998),259.

6 Ibid, 260.

7 Kuwasi Balagoon et. a1, Look For Me In Th_e Whirlwind: The Collective
Autpbiogpaphy of the New York 21 (New York: Random House, 1971), 246, 287-293.

224

 

transformation was that of Alprentice “Bunch ” Carter who was the head of the Slausson
gang. Carter became the Deputy Minister Of Defense of the Southern California chapter.
Similar transforrmtions throughout local and national BPP chapters evidence the BPP’s
“revolution” in that the BPP rehabilitated its members to serve and mobilize the cormnunity.
Such successes evidence the constructive beneﬁts and signiﬁcance of the BPP’s political
education classes and the BPP’S insistence that its members become agents of change.

Such transformations dispel the myth that BPP members were all hustlers and gang
members or that they were members of a “black maﬁa” organization as charged by journalist
Hugh Pearson.8 Many men and women who joined the BPP were college students. Although
the BPP was committed to community service and racial uplift consistent with its Ten Points
Platform and Program, two main obstacles in the BPP were class and gender tensions fueled
by the Ect that some of the BPP’s ‘transformed’ “revolutionaries” had severe character and
disciplinary ﬂaws which did not disappear upon joining the BPP. Such ﬂaws fostered
ambiguities and inconsistencies in the BPP’s “revolution.”

Members and leaders of the BPP did not adhere to all the guidelines set forth in the BPP’s
Ten Point Platform and Program which outlined the BPP’s overall political objectives. Some
BPP members interpreted “revolution” as criminal activities strategically aimd at inducing
conﬁontation with the existing power structure. The provocations and conﬁontations
between individuals and law enforcement disrupted both the BPP’s leadership and rank and

ﬁle membership. The BPP argued that it must exist aboveground until driven underground

 

‘ Hugh Pearson, The Shadpw Of The ngther: Hpgy P. Newtpn And The Price Of
Black Powe_r In America (New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994), 346.

225

whereupon the masses would continue the liberation struggle?

I argued that such a view reﬂected the BPP’s and Newton’s attempts to contextualize
the BPP’s “revolution” based on co-optation of the concepts of other hheration movements.
The BPP particularly adopted the doctrines of Argentinian Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s
description of the “agrarian revolutionary.” Newton and the BPP modiﬁed Che Guevara’s
assertions to suit their own reality. The BPP argued that federal, local and state repression
compelled BPP members to accept “revolutionary suicide” which represented the ultimate
sacriﬁce of one’s life to the liberation struggle. In its attempts to operationalize and
transform a “revolutionary” model to endure disciplinary measures, the BPP induced great
latitude for abuse.

The BPP enforced disciplinary measures throughout all BPP chapters and branches as
an informal judicial system. Disciplinary measures varied from chapter to chapter, they were
almost always at the discretion of those in positions of power and always contained an
element of violence or corporal punishment. The ultimate decision on which methods to
employ for disciplining a BPP member was always left to the discretion of those in
positions of power which provided great latitude for abuse. “Counterrevolutionary”
accusations provided a coercive means employed by some BPP men seeking to extract
sexual Evors ﬁom BPP women. For those engaging in such behavior, the role of the
“revolutionary” male was masculinist and egotistical and the “revolutionary” woman was

perceived as compliant and subservient.

 

9 Huey P. Newton, “The Correct Handling of A Revolution, July 20, 1967, In Huey
P. Newton, To DieﬁFor The People, The Writings of Huey P. Newton (New York: Writers
and Readers Inc., 1995), 16

226

BPP members and leaders daily struggled with disciplinary guidelines which also became
a contested terrain as men and women sought to deﬁne and contextualize “revolutionary.”
My research has shown that gender and class distinctions delineated expectations of the BPP
“revolutionary.” Although BPP women revered Vietnamese, Cuban, Palestinian, Chinese,
Angolan and Mozambique women and many others who employed their bodies against
aggressors, many BPP women rejected the doctrine of “pussy power” espoused by BPP
Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver.10 BPP women carved a space for themselves
within the “revolutionary” environment of the BPP which often contained manifestations of
male chauvinism and sexism.

BPP members and leaders daily struggled with disciplinary guidelines which also became
a contested terrain as men and women sought to deﬁne and contextualize “revolutionary.”
Examination of the “revolutionary life” in the Panther pads and collectives conﬁrms that the
gender contested terrain of the BPP was ﬁrmly rooted in interpretations of the term
“revolutionary.” This research has shown that the gender dynamics between men and women
in the BPP was one of the main Ectors fomenting internal dissension in the BPP. BPP
members had personal ﬂaws which in turn created ambiguities concerning connotations of
the BPP’s “revolution” and what it meant to be a BPP “revolutionary.”

In its attempt to emulate and operationalize disciplinary measures similar to that of other
movements, the BPP provided great latitude for abuse as BPP members exacted penalties for
violations of its codiﬁed rules and regulations. The absence of a system of checks and

balances in the BPP provided a fertile terrain for counterintelligence measures and inﬁltration

 

'0 Scheer ed., Eldridge Cleaver Post-Prism Writings, 143.

227

of the organization by COINTELPRO operatives. Examples of the activities of
COINTELPRO agents in leadership positions in the BPP show that the FBI exploited existing
tensions and “all avenues” of creating dissension in the BPP.” Such “hard-hitting”
intelligence measures were speciﬁcally intended to create suspicions among BPP members and
included ﬁequent arrests and high bails. At times, the “revolutionary” activities of both BPP
leaders and members diametrically opposed to one another. Disciplinary methods in the BPP
almost always contained an element of violence and provided great latitude for abuse. On at
least one occasion, disciplinary measures culminated in the death of Alex Rackley suspected
FBI informant.

Disciplinary methods reinforced by intermtional resistance movements supplemented by
the disappearance of BPP “revolutionaries” in Cuba and Algiers ﬁreled the accusations of the
BPP as a threat to national security. The BPP heralded BPP Minister of Information
Eldridge Cleaver’s escape to Cuba and his subsequent residence in Algiers with other BPP
“revolutionaries” to escape criminal prosecution as evidence of the BPP’s adherence to and
fulﬁlment of international “revolutionary” expectations. Although the BPP revered
interrmtional resistance movements, the BPP Eiled to persuade the masses that the
organization offered the best alternative for addressing fundamental inequities.

Additional violent conﬁontations with police throughout the US drew the attention of
the federal govermnent especially Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Chief Edgar J.

Hoover who declared the organization, “the greatest threat to the internal security of the

 

” Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO. Th_e FBI’s Secret War On Politiﬂ Freedom
(New York: Anchor Foundations, 1988), 22, 37.

228

 

 

United States.”'2

Nationwide violent and Etal confrontations between BPP members and police reinforced
such a view beginning with May 2, 1967, when twenty-four armed BPP men and six women
converged on the steps of the California State Capitol Building to protest a proposed gun
control bill prohibiting the carrying of loaded weapons within city limits. The media
accentuated the guns symbolizing and embodying the party’s confrontational paramilitary
thrust and its volatile propensity for violence to achieve political objectives. Newton’s
conviction for the manslaughter of a police oﬂicer supplemented with BPP Minister of
Information Eldridge Cleaver’s shoot-out with police ofﬁcers resulting in the death of Bobby
Hutton, and the trial of several BPP members including Bobby Scale for the death of an
accused FBI informant, fueled FBI investigations.

The inﬂammatory and provocative language employed by BPP leaders and rank and ﬁle
members reinforced the confrontational paramilitary thrust of the organization. Newton’s
doctrine of “revolutionary suicide,” conﬁrmed the FBI’s premise that the organization
included a volatile propensity for violence to achieve political objectives. It also resulted in
the inﬁltration of the organization by FBI informants who further aggravated tensions in the
BPP and were in positions of leadership in the BPP. I argued that organizational and
individual ﬂaws in both the BPP’s leadership and membership ﬂamed the ideological
ambiguities and internal contradictions plaguing the BPP. Both combined to create a fertile

terrain upon which the FBI targeted 233 of its 295 counterintelligence efforts to neutralize

 

'2 Kenneth O’Reilly, Racial Matters The FBI’s Secret File On Black A_me;rrc_,_a,' 1960-
1972 (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 290.

 

229

and discredit the BPP.l3 As an organization, the BPP did not have a concrete structure to
address some of the serious problems directly affecting the rank and ﬁle membership.

By 1968, the BPP dropped Self-Defense from its name to dispel views of the BPP as a
paramilitary organization. The BPP also implemented a variety of free programs to forge a
link between the organization and the cormnunity. The Free BreakEst Program provided a
window to evaluate strategies employed by the BPP in fulﬁlment of speciﬁc objectives. By
politicizing hunger through its Free BreakEst Program, the BPP drew attention to larger
structural barriers which prevented black children from having fundamental necessities such
as, food, housing, and equal access to education. The Free BreakEst Program was a concrete
example of the BPP’s “revolution” because it conveyed the BPP mobilizing resources and
organizing to feed schoolchildren.

Examining the relationship between local businesses and the BPP to illuminate the
strengths and weaknesses of the BPP at the local and national level. BPP members solicited
and received support ﬁ'om both local businesses and the local community. Although the BPP
successfully mobilized men and women to support and implement its Free BreakEst Program,
I argued that the methods employed by the BPP included harassment and coercion and public
denouncements. The BPP condemned and simultaneously praised “avaricious businessme ”
which revealed an internal contradiction in the BPP’s implementation of a concrete strategy
to demand a redeﬁnition of power rooted in the redistribution of wealth as I deﬁned

revolution throughout my research.

 

'3 Winston A. Grady-Willis, “ The Black Panther Party: State Repression and Political
Prisoners,” In Charles E. Jones ed., The Black Panther Party Recons_idered (Baltimore: The
Black Classic Press, 1998), 366.

230

 

 

 

The BPP blurred the lines between exception and condemnation as both supporters and
non-supporters of the BPP were labeled “avaricious.” The BPP’s methods and strategies
were not unique and including boycotting and denunciations as well as implied and
expressed threats which may or may not have validated FBI delineations of the organization
as a disruptive and subversive organization targeted by COINTELPRO. The BPP’s methods
were ﬁrmly rooted in the civil rights tradition of other groups throughout Aﬁ'ican-American
historiography. The BPP employed methods consistent with that of other Aﬁican-Americans
throughout American history particularly the boycott to ﬁllﬁll the demands of Point Three of
its Ten Point Platform and Program.

This dissertation explored recurrent themes of “revolution and revolutionary” throughout
the BPP’s literature to demonstrate that although scholars have enumerated the BPP’s
political ideology as nationalism, revolutionary nationalism, Marxism, Leninism and
intercornmunalism, examination of individual BPP leaders and rank and ﬁle members
interpretation, deﬁnition and application of political ideologies were also based on class and
gender. My main argument is that examining themes such as “revolution” and “revolutionary”
exposes differences in overall interpretations of the political “isms.” Too often, the “isms”
were not uniformly applied and understood by the BPP’s leadership and rank and ﬁle
membership.

Exanrples include chapter differences between New York, Chicago and Oakland.
Whereas it was acceptable in New York to wake police and monitor their activities, such a
practice was not prioritized in Oakland. Another example included the implementation

strategies of various BPP chapters for the Free Breakfast for Children Program I argue that

231

 

the differing interpretations of political ideologies account for internal dissension in the BPP
at both the local and national level.

Thi study challenged the historiographical view of the BPP as an organization whose
members were victimized by federal, state and local repression. Too often, scholars point to
COINTELPRO as the main debilitating cause for both the decline and demise of the BPP.“
Throughout this dissertation, I’ve argued that COINTELPRO in and of itself does not
adequately explain many of the individual and group complexities and ambiguities of the
BPP. COINTELPRO explanations tend to portray an organization composed as hapless,
naive victims unaware of the full extent of their persecution. Despite COINTELPRO, I
argue that the BPP exhibited autonomy and agency at both the local and national level.
Although BPP members were not completely aware of all 233 counterintelligence measures
against the organization, they initiated security and safety measures to prevent further
inﬁltration of the BPP. Such measures were ineffective when compared with the large scale
organization and strategic planning of local, federal and state authorities detemrined to
neutralize the BPP.

One of the main ﬂaws of the BPP’s strategies and preventive methods was that they

 

" See Charles E. Jones, “The Political Repression of the Black Panther Party, 1966-
1971, The Oakland Bay Area,” low of Black Studies, 18 (June 1988): 415-434; See Also,
Ward Churchill and Jim Varder Wall, Agents of Repression: The F Bl’s Secret War Against
The Black Panther Party grid thg Americgn Indipn Moveme_n_t (Boston: South End Press,
1988); Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO: Th_e FBI’S Secret Warr on Political Freedom
(New York: Anchor Foundations, 1988); Kenneth O’Reilly, Racial Mgtters. Th_e FBI’s
S_e_t;ret Fil_e On Black America. 1960-1972 (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 293-324;
Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Th_e COINTELPRO Papgrs: Documents From the
FBI’L Secret War Again—st Domestic Dis_se111 (Boston: South End Press, 1990); Hugh
Pearson, The Shadow of The Panther. Huey P. Newton apd the Pﬁcge of Black Power In
m ( New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994), 257-268.

232

were not uniformly applied throughout the BPP’s chapters and at times proved to be
unsuccessful particularly when some FBI informants assumed leadership positions in the
BPP. The BPP’S efforts to combat COINTELPRO ﬁts within the context of resistance
strategies to counter state repression.

This research evaluated and exposed some of the strengths and weaknesses of the BPP’s
leadership. I argued that individual weaknesses exposed the vulnerabilities of the BPP and
granted counterintelligence agents opportunities to further disrupt the BPP by exploiting what
they perceived as inherent ﬂaws mainly differing interpretations of “revolution” and
“revolutionary.” By 1971, individual and group differences culminated in the BPP “split”
which Newton characterized as personal not organizational. Such a “split” had Etal
consequences for both New York and Oakland chapters.

I maintain that the “split” was a culmination of personal and organizational differences
supplemented by COINTELPRO activities. This research sought to answer two main
questions: to whom was the BPP considered the “greatest single threat?” and why? I argued
that the BPP’s mobilizing efforts threatened existing power relationships. The BPP
mobilized dislocated and discontented people and also recruited college students and
professionals with its Ten Point Platform and Program The BPP also initiated “survival
programs” strategically designed to empower local communities by pooling community
resources to address social, economic and political inequities. People who endorsed the
BPP’S political platform also joined the BPP and others assisted in implementing the BPP’s
social programs. However, the BPP’s methods for implementing at least one of its more

popular programs, The Free BreakEst program portrayed BPP members coercing,

233

 

denouncing and even threatening businessmen. Such activities rendered them a threat to local
businesses at large.

Intercine warfare within the BPP combined with fatal confrontations nationwide between
the BPP and law enforcement further conﬁrmed that the BPP employed violence against law
enforcement and within itself to resolve disputes. Thus, the BPP was also “single greatest
threat” unto itselfas it struggled with political and ideological ambiguities supplemented by
state repression. The BPP did not pose the greatest single threat to the national security of
the United States govemment because it was plagued with internal and external

contradictions.

234

 

APPENDIX

235

 

FIGURE I
OCTOBER 1966
BLACK PANTHER PARTY
PLATFORM AND PROGRAM
WHAT WE WANT
WHAT WE BELIEVE‘

1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black
community.

We believe that black people will not be ﬁee until we are able to determine our destiny.
2. We want full employment for our people.

We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man
employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the white American businessmen will
not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken ﬁ‘om the businessmen
and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ
all of its people and give a high standard of living.

3. We want an end to the robbery by the CAPITALIST of our thk community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the

overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100

years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black people. We will accept the

payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are
now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans

 

' “October 1966, Black Panther Party Platform and Program, What We Want, What

We Believe,” Quoted In Bobby Scale, Seize The Time, The Stog ofThc Black Panther P_a_rt_y
And Huey P. Newtop, With a New Introduction by Author. (Baltimore: Black Classic Press,
1 991 ), 66-69.

236

murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over ﬁfty
million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.

4. We want decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings.

We believe that if the white landlords will not give decent housing to our black
community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our
community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.

5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent
American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in
the present-day society.

We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If
a man does not have knowledge of himselfand his position in society and the world, then he
has little chance to relate to anything else.

6. We want all black men to be exempt from military service.

We believe that black people should not be forced to ﬁght in the military service to defend
a racist govermnent that does not protect us. We will not ﬁght and kill other people of color
in the world who like black people are being victimized by the white racist govemment of
America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the
racist military, by whatever means necessary.

7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black
people.

We believe we can end police brutality in our bhlck conummity by organizing black self-
defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community ﬁom racist police
oppression and brutality. The second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves
for self-defense.

8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons
and jails.

We believe that all black people should be released from the many jails and prisons
because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their
peer group or people from their black communities as deﬁned by the Constitution of
the United States.

237

 

We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that black
people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution gives a
man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from similar economic, social,
religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court
will be forced to select a jury from the black community from which the black defendant
came. We have been and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of the
“average reasoning man” of the black community.

10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our
major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout
the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for
the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with one another, and to assume, among the
powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s
God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and
the pursuit ofhappiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of
government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are suﬁemble, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and
usrn'pations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under
absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to
provide new guards for their future security.

238

 

 

 

FIGURE II

8 POINTS OF ATTENTION2

1 Speak Politely

2. Pay fairly for what you buy.

 

3. Return everything you borrow

4. Pay for anything you damage

5. Do Not Hit or Swear at people.

 

6. Do not damage property or crops of the poor, oppressed masses.
7. Do not take liberties with women.

8. If we ever have to take captives do not ill treat them. ‘

 

 

2 The Black Panther. The Eight Points of Attentions were printed weekly in the
BPP’s newspaper.

239

FIGURE III
RULES OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY3

Every member of the Black Panther Party throughout this country of racist America
must abide by these rules as functional members of this Party. Central Committee
members, central staffs, and local staffs, including all captains subordinate to either
national, state, or local leadership of the Black Panther Party will enforce these rules.
Length of suspension or other disciplinary action necessary for violation of these rules
will depend on national decisions by national, state or state area, and local committees
and staffs where said rule or rules of the Black Panther Party were violated.

Every member of the Party must know these verbatim by heart. And apply them
daily. Each member must report any violation of these rules to their leadership or they
are counterrevolutionary and are also subjected to suspension by the thk Panther

Party.
The Rules Are:
1. No Party member can have narcotics or weed in his possession while doing Party work.
2. Any member formd shooting narcotics will be expelled from this Party.
3. No Party member can be DRUNK while doing daily Party work.

4. No Party member will violate rules relating to oﬂice work, general meetings of the
BLACK PANTHER PARTY, and meetings of The Black Panther Party ANYWHERE.

5. No Party Member will USE, POINT or FIRE a weapon of any kind unnecessarily or
accidentally at anyone.

6. No Party member can join any other army force other than the BLACK LIBERATION
ARMY.

7. No Party member can have a weapon in his possession while drunk or loaded oﬂ’ narcotics
or weed.

 

3 “Rules of the Black Panther Party” Quoted In Bobby Seale, Seize The Tm , The

Story of the Black Panther PM and Huey P. Newton, (Baltimore: Black Classic Press,
1991), 391-393.

240

 

8. No Party member will commit any crimes against other Party members or BLACK people
at all, and cannot steal or take from the people, not even a needle or a piece of thread.

9. When arrested, BLACK PARTY MEMBERS will give only name, address and will sign
nothing. Legal aid must be understood by all Party members.

10. The ten-point program and platform of the BLACK PANTHER PARTY MUST BE
KNOWN AND UNDERSTOOD BY EACH Party member.

11. Party communications must be National and Local.

12. The 10-10-10 program should be known by all members and also understood by all
members.

13. All ﬁnance ofﬁcers will operate under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance.
14. Each person will submit a report of daily work.

15. Each Sub-Section leader, Section leader, Lieutenant, and Captain must submit daily
reports of work.

16. All Panthers must learn to operate and service weapons correctly.

17. All leadership personnel who expel a member must submit this information to the Editor
Of the newspaper, so that it will be published in the paper and will be known by all chapters
and branches.

18. Political Education Classes are mandatory for general membership.

19. Only ofﬁce personnel assigned to respective ofﬁces each day should be there. All others
are to sell newspapers and do Political work out in the community, including Captains,
Section Leaders, etc.

20. COMMUNICATIONS- all chapters must submit weekly reports in writing to the
National Headquarters.

21. All Branches must implement First Aid and/or Medical Cadres.

22. All Chapters, Branches, and components of the BLACK PANTHER PARTY must
submit a monthly Financial Report to the Ministry Of Finance, and also the Central

Committee.

241

23. Everyone in a leadership position must read no less than two hours per day to keep
abreast of the changing political situation.

24. No chapter or branch shall accept grants, poverty funds, money, or any other aid from
any govemmental agency without contacting the National Headquarters.

25. All chapters must adhere to the policy and the ideology laid down by the CENTRAL
COMMITTEE of the BLACK PANTHER PARTY.

26. All branches must submit weekly reports in writing to their respective chapters.

242

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

Anthony, Earl. Picking Up The Gun. A Report On The Black Panthers. New York: Dial
Books, 1970.

. Spitting In The Wind, The True Story Behind The Violent Legacv of The Black
Panther Party. Santa Monica, California: Roundtable Publishing, 1990.

Brent, William Lee, Long Time Gone: A Black Panther’s True Life Sto f his Hi'
and Twenty-Five Ym in Cuba. New York: Times Books, 1996.

Brown, Elaine. A Ta_ste of Power. A Black Woman’s Stog. New York: Pantheon
Books,l992.

Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul On Ice. New York: Dell Publishing Inc., 1970.
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.Eldridge Cleayer Post Prison Writigrgs And Sﬂhes. Edited and With An Appraisal
by Robert Scheer. New York: Random House, 1969.

Hilliard, David and Lewis Cole. This Side Of ﬁlog The Autobioggphy Of Dau'd Hilliard
Ag! The Story Of The Black Pam. Boston: Little Brown And Company, 1993.

Jackson, George. Soledad Brother. The Prison Letters of George Jackson. Introduction by
Jean Genet. New York: Bantam Books, 1972.

.Blood In My Eye. New York: Random House, 1972.

Newton, Huey P. With the Assistance of J. Herman Blake. Revolutionary Suich Reprint.
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.To Die For The People, The Writrr_1g° s of Huey P. Newton. Edited by Toni Morrison.
Reprint. New York: Writers And Readers Publishing Inc., 1995.

.War Against The Panthers. A Study of Repression In America. New York: Writers
and Readers Inc., 1996.

243

Scale, Bobby. Seize The Time. The Storv of The Black Panther Parly and Huey P. Newton.
Reprint. Baltimore: Black Classic Press 1991.

. A Lonely Rage. The Autobiogpgphv of Bobby Scale. Foreword by James Baldwin.
New York: Times Books, 1978.

Shakur, Assata. Assata; An Autobiography. Connecticut: Lawrence Hill and Company,
1987.

GENERAL WORKS ON THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

Boyd, Herb. Black Panthers For Beginngps. New York: Writers And Readers Publishing Inc.,
1 995 .

Foner, Philip S. ed. The Black Panthers Spgak, The Manifesto of the; P113: The First
Complete Documentary Record Of The Panthers Prom. Philadelphia: J .B. Lippincott
Company, 1970.

Haskins, Jim. Power To The People. The Rise And Fgll of the Black Panther Pa_rt_y, New
York: Sirrron and Schuster, 1997.

Heath, G. Louis ed. Off The Pigs: The Histog And Literature of the Black Panther PM,
Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1976.

.The Black Panther Leaders SE3, Huey P. Newtop. Bobm Scale, Eldridge Cleavp;

And Compapy SE Out Throgh The Black Panther Pgty’s Oﬂicial Newm. Metuchen,
New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1976.

Jones, Charles E. The Black Panther Pm Reconsidered. Baltimore: Black Classic Press,
1998.

Lockwood, Lee. Conversation With Eldridge Cleaver. Algiers. New York: Delta Books,
1970.

Marine, Gene. The Black Panthcps. New York: Signet Books, 1969.
Moore, Gilbert. _R_agg New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers Inc., 1993.

Moore, Joe Louis. The Legacy of the Palm A Photoggphic Exhibition. Project of The
Huey P. Newton Foundation. California: Desktop Publishing And Printing, 1995.

244

 

Pearson, Hugh. The Shaﬁw of the Panther. Huey P. Newton and the Price of Black Power
In America. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994.

Rout, Kathleen. Eldridge Clem. Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers, 1991.

Sheehy, Gail. Panthem’ The Clash of Black Against Black in One American ng’ . New
York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1971.

PERIODICALS ON THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

Acoli, Sundiata. “A Brief History Of The Black Panther Party And Its Place In The Black
Liberation Movement, “ Written April 2, 1985, Originated on January 25, 1995 @
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Abron, JoNina M. “The Legacy of The Black Panther Party.” The Black Schplar 17
(November/ December 1986), 33-37.

Ballagoon, Kuwasi. Look For Me In Th_e Whingd,’ The Collective Autobiomphy Of The
New York 21. New York: Random House, 1971.

 

Booker, Chris. “Lumpenization: A Critical Error OfThe Black Panther Party,” In The Black
l_’a_n_ther Part; Reconsidered. Edited by Charles E. Jones, 337-362. Baltimore: Black Classic
Press, 1998.

Brown, Scot Ngozi. “The US Organization, Maulana Karenga, And Conﬂict With The Black
Panther Party, A Critique Of Sectarian Inﬂuences On Historical Discourse.” on Of Black
Studies 28 (November l997):157-170.

Cleaver, Kathleen Neal. “Back To Aﬁica, The Evolution OfThe International Section OfThe

Black Panther Party 1969-1972.” In The Black Panther Pm Reconsidered. Edited by
Charles E. Jones, 211-256. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998.

Davenport, Christian A. “Reading The Voice OfThe Vanguard”: A Content Analysis Of The
Black Panther Intercommunal News Service, 1969-1973.” In The Black Panther Pm
Reconsidered Edited by Charles E. Jones, 193-210. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998.

 

Brnest-Le-Blanc, Angela. “The Most Qualiﬁed Person To Handle The Job:”Black Panther
Party Women 1966-1982,” In 1m Black Panther Party Reconsidered Edited by . Charles E.
Jones, 305-336. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998.

245

Goings, Kenneth W. “Unhidden Transcripts, Memphis And Aﬁican-American Agency 1862-
1920,” In The New Aj’ican American Urban History. Edited by Kenneth W. Goings and
Raymond A. Mohl 142-166. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1996.

Hayes, Floyd III and Francis A. Kiene III, “ All Power To The Pe0ple”: The Political Thought
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Reconsidered, ed. Charles E. Jones, 157-176. Baltiomore: Aﬁ’ican-Arnericans Classic Press,
1998.

Jennings, Regina, “Poetry Of The Black Panther Party, Metaphors Of Militancy,” Journal Of
Black Studies (September 1998): 106-129.

 

Johnson III, Ollie A “ Explaining The Demise Of The Black Panther Party: The Role Of
Internal Factors.” In The Black Panther Party Rccgsidered. Edited by Charles E. Jones,
391-416. Baltimore: The Black Classic Press, 1998.

Jones, Charles E. “The Political Repression of The Black Panther Party, 1966-1971, The
Oakland Bay Area.” Journal Of Black Studies 18 (June 1988): 415-434.

Jones and Judson Jeﬂ‘ries, “Don’t Believe The Hype”: Debunking The Panther
Mythology,” In The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. Edited by Charles E. Jones, 25- 56.
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Linﬁcld, Susie, “The Education of Kathleen Neal Cleaver,” Transition 77 ( 1999).

Mori, Jimmy, “The Ideological Development Of The Black Panther Party,” Cornell Journal
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McCutchen, Steve. “Selections From A Panther Diary,” In. The Black Panther Reconsidered
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Singh, Nikhill Pat. “The Black Panthers And The Undeveloped Cormtry OfThe Leﬂ,” InI_he;_
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246

NEWSPAPERS
The Black Panther
The Baltimore A fro-A merican
The New York Times
The San Francisco Examiner cited as SF E
The Oakland Tribune
RIGHT ON!

FILMS

Berkeley In The Sixties, Produced and Directed by Mark Kitchell, Kitchell Films In
Association with P.O.V Theatrical Films, San Francisco: California Newsreel 1990.

All Power To The People, Produced and Directed By Lee-Lcw-Lee, 1998.

INTERVIEWS BY AUTHOR
“A,” Detroit BPP
Elaine Brown
Emory Douglas
David Hilliard
Father Earl A. Neil
DISSERTATIONS

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Brandeis University, 1980.

Rice, Jon F. “Black Radicalism On Chicago’s West Side: A History Of The Illinois Black
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Smith, Jennifer Bradford. “An International History OfThe Black Panther Party.” Ph.D diss.,
State University of New York At Buﬂ‘alo,1997.

White, Monica Marie. “Panther Stories: A Gendered Analysis Of The Autobiographies Of
Former Black Panther Party Members,” Ph.D diss., Western Michigan University, 1998.

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Baloti, “There’s A Pig In Our Community,” TBP, 10 October 1970, 2.
Bartholomew, Gloria, “A Black Woman’s Thoughts.” TBP, 28 September 1968, 11.

Brand, William, “Berkeley Ex-Congressman Dies At 84 After A Long Illness,” Oakland
Trrbu_ne, 18 February 1999.

Brewer, Brad, “Revolutionary Artist Or Revisionist Al Capp?” ﬁght On! 3 April 1971, 15.

Brown, Elaine, “Free Kathleen Cleaver And All Political Prisoners,” TBP, 6 March 1971, A-
D.

Cleaver, Kathleen, “Messagc To Sister Erica Huggins Of The Black Panther Party,” TBP,
5 July 1969.

Cleaver, Eldridge. Minister Of Information, “Community Imperialism,” TBP, 18 May 1968,
10.

252

 

Cleaver, Kathleen, Communications Secretary, “Ministry Of Information Black Paper,
Position of The Black Panther Party On The Seventh Congressional District Election In
Alameda County And The Candidacy Of John George In The Democratic Party,” TBP, 16
March 1968.

.“On Eldridge Cleaver By Kathleen Cleaver,” TBP, 9 August 1969, 5-6.
Culberson, Jane, “The Role Of The A Revolutionary Woman,” TBP, 4 May 1969, 9.

Emory Douglas. “Position Paper #1 On Revolutionary Art, By The Minister Of Culture
Emory Douglas,” TBP, 20 October 1968, 5.

Fleming, G. James, “Black Panther In-Fighting,” Baltimore Aﬁ’o-Americg, 3 April 1971,5.

Garlington Jr., Phil, “Party Split Widens, Cleavers Ridicule Panther Charges,”San F misco
Examiner, hereinafter cited as SFE., 5 March 1971, 1, 10.

Greene, Linda, “The Black Revolutionary Woman,” TBP, 28 September 1968,11.
Greenlce, Rush, “Ex-Panthers Call Party ‘Black Klan,’” SFE, 8 April 1969,] .
Jones, Frank, “Tightening Up,” TBP, 25 January 1969, 17.

Ministry Of Defense, Indiana Chapter of The Black Panther Party, “Dealing With Pig
Informers,” TBP, 20 April 1969, 8.

Morrell, Virtual, “Panther Purge, ” TBP, 25 January 1969, 17.

Mott, James, Lt. Of Education, Sacramento Branch. “Conspirators Block Breakfast
Progress,” TBP, 4 May 1969,13.

Murray, George, “For A Revolutionary Culture. The Minister Of Education, ” TBP, 7
September 1968, 12.

Newton, Huey P., “In Defense Of Self-Defense, The Correct Handling Of A Revolution,”
TBP, 18 May 1968, 8.

. “Functional Deﬁnition Of Politics,” TBP, 17 January 1969.

. “Executive Mandate No.3, 1 March 1968,” TBP, 16 March 1968, 1.

253

Parks, Gordon, “ Eldridge Cleaver In Algiers: A Visit With Papa Rage,” Life, 6 February
1970, 22.

Scale, Bobby, “Gestapo Tactics,” "LEE, 16 March, 1968, 11.
Stephens Jr., James M. “Inside Report On transformed Black Panthers.” J_c; 11 May 1972.
Tabor, Michael Cetewayo. “On The Contradictions Within The Black Panther Party.” Rigm
9p! 3 April 1971, 14
Anonymous Works.
“A Black Panther Found Slain Here,” The New York Times. 18 April, 1971, 1, 57.
“A New Breed Takes Over In Dixie,” Balti_more Aﬁo-Amerr__'_ca_r;,_ 23 January 1971, 1.
“All Panthers Beware,” 113, 17 February 1969, 9.
“An Open Letter To The People From Bobby Hutton,” Rim 3 April 1971, 8.

“Armed Negroes Enter California Assembly In Gun Bill Protest,” _T_h_e New York Tim_e_s_, 3
May 1967, A24.

“Avaricious Businessmen Refuse To Feed Hungry Children,” TBP, 21 November 1970.
“Berkeley’s “New Breed Of Black Politician,” SFE, 25 August 1968, 11.

“Black Revolutionary Poetry,” TBP, 2 November 1968, 16 November 1968, 28 September
1 968.

“Black Woman,” 11312, 14 September 1968, 6.

“‘Bomb Plant’ Panther Killing Quiz,” _SFE, 20 April 1971, 1, 10.
“Breakfast For School Children Programs,”_T_B_P_, 27 December 1969, 4.
“Breakfast In SF District,” 1313, 5 July 1969,19.

“Breaking Capitalism Down,” Di, 20 April 1969.

“Central Committee BPP Press Conference,” TBP, 4 January, 1969, 6.

254

“Charred Remains Of A Man Thought To Be Panther Found,” The New York Times. 21
April 1971, 36.

“Cleaver Accused Of Slaying Over Wife,” s3; 4 March 1971,].

“Death Herc Tied To Panther Feud,” The New York Times. 10 March 1971, 29.
“Discipline Violated, Sister Ousted,” IE, 27 September 1969, 5.

“Eldridge Cleaver,” TBP, 13 September 1969, 12-13.

“Eldridge On Weatherman,”_'ﬂ3_l_’, 22 November 1969, 5.

“Enemies Of The People,” 1132, 13 February 1971, 12-13.

“Grape Boycott,” [BL 31 May 1969, 14.

“Grenades And BombszAnti-Property And Anti-Personnel,” 11112, 16 November 1968.
“Handy Exploits The Black Community,” _T_BP, 31 May 1970, 3.

“Harlem A & P Refuses To Donate To Free Breakfast,” [BL 16 August 1969, 3.
“Here’s Section Of Code Used For Arrests,” _S_Fﬁ, 3 May 1967, 4.

“Huey Newton’s Plush Pad, $650 A Month 25m Floor Digs,” SFE, 21 February 1971, 1,
16.

“Huey Newton Luxury Life Stirs Growing Resentment,” Oakland Tribune, 26 September
1971, 1.

“‘Hucy Newton’s Plush Pad’ A Gross Distortion,” TBP, 23 February 1971, also published
in The Sun Ramrtcr, 20 February 1971.

“John Savage Killed,” TBP, 23 May 1969.
Marshall D.C At Fillmore, “Speech By Field Re: Auditorium, S.F,” TBP, 20 April, 1969.
“Mathias Companies Must Be Exposed,” TBP, 2 May 1970, 12.

“Murder Of Sylvester Bell,” TBP, 30 August 1969, 8.

255

“Mrs Cleaver Denies Charges Of Being Hubby’s Prisoner,” Baltimore Aﬁ'o-Amcricg, 13
March 1971, 7.

“Newton Says Little On Feud With Cleaver, ” §£_E_,_ 6 March 1971, 3.

“Newton’s Pad For “Security,”§l_*‘l_3_, 18 February 1971, 9.

“Panthers Accuse Cleaver,” SEE, 4 March 1971, 1- 2.

“Panther’s Body Returned To S.F,” S_FI_3_, 13 March 1971, 6.

“Panther Purge,” _'I_’B_P_, 20 January 1969.

“‘Panthcr’ Riﬂemen In Capitol,” “Loaded Guns In Assembly,” _S_EE, 2 May 1967, 6.
“Panther Found Slain In NY,” SEE, 18 April 1971, 6.

“Panther Killing, Fire Linked,” §F_E, 21 April 1971, 4.

“Panthers Invade Capitol, ” SEE, 2 May 1967, 6.

“People Of Compton Boycott Country Farm Market,” 1132, 5 September 1970, 24.

“Political Assassirmtions OfDeputy Defense Minister Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter and Deputy
Information Minister John Huggins,” TBP, 25 January 1969, 2.

“Playboy Interview: Huey Newton, A Candid Conversation With The Embattled Leader Of
The Black Panther Party, ” Playboy, May 1973.

“Political Legacy To Oakland,” Oakland Tribune 26 June 1999.

 

“Reverend Leon Sullivan High Priest Of Black Capitalism,”_le_, 30 January 1971, 4.
“Revolutionary Love, Revolutionary Wedding,”_"l_’_B_IZ, 23 August 1969.

“Scale Speaks Out Against Cleaver,” Bﬂrrpme Aﬁo-America_n, 17 April 1971.
“Sisters,” E, 13 September 1969.

"Statement To The Press On The Breakfast Of Children," TBP, 27 April 1969,3.
“Statement To The Black Community By The Black Panther Party Los Angeles Chapter,

256

“Panthers Assassinated By US Organization: A Political Assassination,” TBP, 25 January
1969, 1.

“Statement By Huey P. Newton, Minister Of Defense, Black Panther Party, Servant Of
“The People To The Black Odyssey Festival,” TBP, 29 May 1971.

“Student Nurse Tortured,”_"l’_l_3_j_’, 17 February 1969, 9.

“To Feed Our Children, ” £313, 27 April 1969, 3.

“2 Witnesses Held In Corona Death,” The New York Times. 20 April 1971, 73.
“Vallejo Chapter Expels Reactionaries,” El), 31 March 1969, 21.

“What You Are, Speak So Loud I Hardly Hear Anything You Say,” TBP, 8 November 1969,
6.

“White Plains Panthers Work For Breakfast,” TBP, 20 July 1968, 20.

“Why Was Denzil Dowcll Killed?” TBP, 1 April, 1967.

257