My People Are Rising (13 page)

We heard Voodoo Man arguing with the police as they arrested four brothers from the firebomb squads. They had returned to Voodoo Man's house, followed by the cops. Dewayne and I thought for sure that Voodoo Man's bloodbath would start right then on that night, a night filled with conflicting emotions—whether to stay or leave, to live or die, to fight or surrender.

After several minutes, Voodoo Man came back in the house, the red and blue lights still flashing. “We goin' have to kill some of these cops. They arrested the brothers. The Man only understands one thing, and that's these things right here,” he said, holding up his carbine. “You brothers get yourself ready 'cause I'm in need of you two warriors.”

The cops eventually left. The night went on with the constant sound of sirens in the distance. Dewayne and I dozed off and on, clutching our carbines, hoping we would live to see the next day. He and I had played football and basketball together. Despite his diminutive size, Dewayne had become a phenomenon on both the football field and basketball court. And here we were, together on this ugly night, seeking to avenge the death of our fallen leader.

In the morning, Dewayne and I left Voodoo Man's house. Dewayne never went there again. I probably should have done the same, but I was in too deep now. For me there was no turning back, despite what seemed a dim, sometimes suicidal road ahead. As a show of his confidence in me, Voodoo Man gave me the carbine I had held all night. I sneaked it into the house and hid it in my bedroom closet.

10

The Panther Emerges

I left my home in Georgia Headed for the Frisco bay 'Cause I've had nothing to live for And look like nothin's gonna come my way

—Otis Redding, “(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay,” 1967

Several days later,
a group of fifteen to twenty of us—BSU and SNCC members—rented four or five cars through the BSU. Elmer disconnected the odometers so we would not be charged for the mileage we would be racking up. In a caravan, we headed down to San Francisco to attend the second annual West Coast BSU Conference. Anthony Ware had attended the first West Coast conference the previous year in Los Angeles and described a heated disagreement between two organizations that had almost led to bloodshed. One was a cultural nationalist organization led by Maulana Ron Karenga; the other was called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, led by two brothers named Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. They were the same group I had seen on the news a couple years before, leading an armed demonstration to the California capitol building in Sacramento.

This was the first time Elmer and I had traveled together without our parents. It was exciting to be in San Francisco, free of parental constraints. Young people from all over the country came to this city, searching for meaning, looking for their place in a conflicted society. Otis Redding's “(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay” had become a call of sorts for young people to come to the windswept hills and the beautiful bay of San Francisco. So it was no coincidence that we were here, too, searching, looking to the conference and elsewhere for direction in our quest for liberation.

After checking in at San Francisco State, where we registered and got our housing assignments, we were assigned a driver to show us around and take us to our sleeping quarters. Our driver was a smooth-skinned Black brother wearing a semi-short, neat, jet-black Afro. The car sped through the often narrow San Francisco streets, swishing past streetcars, old, colorful Victorian homes, and intermittent views of the Pacific Ocean. He took us through the Haight-Ashbury district, where throngs of longhaired white kids wandered through the streets wearing rainbow-colored clothing. Some were hugging each other, looking glassy-eyed. Within minutes we were on Fillmore Street, filled with proud Blacks and Black businesses, jazz clubs, blues clubs, barbeque joints, and corner liquor stores. Our driver pointed out significant landmarks, such as Marcus Books (named for Marcus Garvey) and the Black Muslim Mosque.

When we asked if he knew any Panthers, he began to open up. “Yeah, I know a lot of the Panthers. Matter a fac' we goin' to raid a Hell's Angels house tonight,” he said, pulling some bullets out of his pocket along with a beret. He added, “They're havin' a funeral tomorrow over in Oakland for a Panther killed by the police.”

Eventually, he dropped Anthony, Kathy Jones, Gary Owens, Elmer, and me off at the Black professor's house where we were staying, not far from the university campus.

The next day Elmer, Anthony, and I went around the conference and tried to find some workshops that interested us. We even sat in on a couple, but left disappointed. Not one was interesting to us. Or, at least, none seemed to fill our needs. We saw a flyer about the funeral the driver had mentioned, and decided to drive one of the rented cars to Oakland to check out the funeral of the slain Panther, a young man called Little Bobby Hutton. Larry Gossett, Gary Owens, and a few other BSU members went with us. On the way to Oakland, we stopped to buy some black berets to show our solidarity with the Panthers. After crossing the Bay Bridge into West Oakland, we spotted a small church in the distance. As we approached we could see a group of Black men in leather coats and black berets gathered in front. We pulled out our berets and put them on. As we got closer we saw Marlon Brando, my mother's favorite actor, dressed in a black leather coat and black beret, standing in front of the church, talking to a tall Black man—Bobby Seale, as we later learned, the chairman of the Black Panthers.

We got out of the car and walked quietly into the small, white church. Inside it was dark and packed full of mourners standing, and on both sides of the church were Black men dressed in black leather jackets, black pants, and powder-blue shirts, with black berets. They stood half at attention, their eyes focused toward the front, where a brown wooden casket held the body of the murdered young Panther. In the center front of the church, a group of older, heavyset Black women were bunched together, wailing uncontrollably, reaching out to the casket for the hand that could not reach back.

We stood there, listening to the preacher as he gave his eulogy over the soft cries that sometimes erupted into loud shrieks. The faces of the young men and women in black were unchanged, almost emotionless. We fell into the procession as it wound its way to the front, past the casket. I looked into the casket of the one known as Little Bobby. He was so young-looking, yet there was an oldness about him, his face uneven and somewhat swollen. The cries of Mrs. Hutton and the other women filled my ears, almost blocking out everything else. I don't think any of us had ever experienced anything as somber and as sad as the funeral of Little Bobby Hutton.

On the way back to our lodgings, I paged through the Panther paper handed out at the church and read the story of Little Bobby Hutton: how he had joined the organization at age sixteen and risen to the position of minister of finance, how he and Eldridge Cleaver, the minister of information, had been cornered by the police in an abandoned house and overcome with tear gas. Bobby Hutton had been shot numerous times, despite having come out of the house unarmed and with his hands up. He was killed just two days after Martin Luther King Jr., in the police crackdown on the riots following Martin's death. Seventeen Panthers had been arrested on charges of conspiracy to murder.

Later that evening we went back to San Francisco State to await the BSU conference keynote address by Bobby Seale. Those of us who had attended the funeral were in a solemn mood. Looking into the casket of Little Bobby Hutton had been almost like looking into the future and glimpsing what the movement might hold. It was not the glory and the victory we had romanticized.

It began to get dark outside. Bobby Seale was already an hour late. Elmer, Anthony, and I found a corner of the auditorium and stood quietly talking, waiting for the messenger. We were wondering if the Panthers were going to show up. Maybe something else had happened. Maybe the police had attacked the brothers again. Finally, the doors to the auditorium flung open, and in walked Bobby Seale, followed by a handful of brothers and sisters. I recognized the tall, light-brown sister with the big brown Afro as Kathleen Cleaver, the wife of Eldridge Cleaver. I had seen her picture in the Black Panther paper. She almost glided across the room. Next to her was a Panther walking with a limp. I would learn later that he was Warren Wells, one of the brothers wounded in the shootout. The entourage moved quietly, almost sullenly, occasionally whispering among themselves.

The Panthers spread out across the audience. Jimmy Johnson, the BSU president at San Francisco State, introduced Bobby Seale, who took center stage. Bobby Seale looked beleaguered as he began to address the crowd.

“All power to the people, brothers and sisters.

“We just came from burying our comrade, Little Bobby Hutton, who was murdered by a bunch of racist, fascist pigs. The pigs murdered Little Bobby despite the fact that he was unarmed, despite the fact that he had his hands up. The pigs also shot and wounded the minister of information, Comrade Eldridge Cleaver, who is locked up in the Alameda County Jail, along with seventeen other party members, including our national captain, David Hilliard.

“The comrades were transporting supplies in preparation for a rally for Huey P. Newton at DeFremery Park when they were ambushed by a bunch of low-life racist dog pigs.

“They killed Little Bobby because they knew Little Bobby was a revolutionary who wasn't afraid of confronting the pig power structure.

“Huey taught us that we have a right to defend ourselves, that we have a right to defend our community. Huey said the pigs occupy our community like a foreign troop occupies foreign territory. The pigs aren't there to protect us. They're there in our community to protect the interest of the pig power structure and the avaricious pig businessmen.

“Brother Malcolm didn't take no shit. Brother Malcolm was a revolutionary brother. He understood that racist white America would do whatever it has to do to maintain the power structure. Brother Malcolm also knew that we are in an international struggle for the rights of all people. Whether you be black, brown, red, white, all oppressed people have a right to live decently. Brother Huey understood that. Brother Huey knew we had to go forth and organize the brothers on the block, the brothers that don't have any interest in this racist system.

“Black intellectuals always want to analyze, ‘The hypothesis for this matter is. . . .' That's a bunch of bullshit. We don't need to analyze this shit. We don't need to intellectualize. We need to get serious. We need to organize. We need to pick up some guns.”

I was standing in the middle of the crowd, separated from Anthony and Elmer. I looked around at the audience as the tall, rangy Bobby Seale continued, contorting his face, using his hands to punctuate his ideas and the philosophy of the Panthers. Some in the audience were becoming uncomfortable. Others were mesmerized, just as I was, listening to every word Mr. Seale had to say.

At one point, he stopped speaking. “Who got something to drink in here?” he asked, taking off his leather jacket and loosening his black tie. I remembered the vodka I had bought earlier in the day as a present for Mommy and Poppy. I went over to the corner where my belongings were, reached in the bag, pulled out a quart of vodka, and handed it to a Panther brother standing next to me. He handed it to Bobby Seale, who opened the bottle and took a long swig. Soon the bottle was traveling around the room. It came back to me, so I followed suit and took a swig of the tasteless alcohol and passed it on.

Bobby Seale was loosening up. He became more animated. His facial expression began to soften. He talked about being a drummer and a comedian and his stint in the air force. He talked about Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers, and for a few seconds he portrayed a Black man chained up, struggling to be free.

After nearly two hours, the speech was finally over, and the lights went on in the auditorium. Without thought or hesitation, I found myself making a beeline to where Bobby Seale was standing. Elmer and Anthony arrived in front of Bobby Seale at the same time.

“We want a Panther chapter in Seattle.” The words came out of my mouth automatically. The four of us talked briefly, and we left our phone number with Bobby Seale.

I had seen Martin Luther King speak in person. I had listened to records of Adam Clayton Powell often, and to the taped speeches of Malcolm X. All these had inspired me, but the speech I had just witnessed totally blew me away, pushing me off my safety perch, casting me out into the wind, my eyes wide open. I could not sleep that night. I only wanted time to move ahead; I wanted to speed up time, propelling me faster toward my fate.

At home in Seattle, a week after we returned from the BSU conference, I received a call from Bobby Seale. He and two other Panthers were coming in the following day at 1:30 p.m. I wrote down the flight information and told him someone would meet them at the airport. After the call, I immediately began to spread the word. By 1 p.m. the next day, about twenty-five people had appeared at our house. Chester Northington and John Eichelburger, whom I had met at Voodoo Man's, came carrying rifles. I sent Elmer and Anthony to the airport to pick up Bobby Seale and the others.

When they finally arrived, Bobby Seale looked tired yet energized, a man on a mission, ready to stir our hearts and emotions, ready to lay out the party's philosophy and platform to us young, eager listeners. He introduced his two companions. “This is George Murray, the minister of education, and Brother Reginald Denning, San Francisco State organizer,” said Bobby Seale, scanning the faces of his young audience.