My People Are Rising (39 page)

For me, personally, things only got worse. I came in from the field one evening and was given word that
Tanya
had left for Seattle, taking Aaron Patrice with her. I was devastated. Aaron Patrice was my closest friend and weekend companion. Tanya had been working at the LampPost, and because of her late hours, Aaron spent most of his time with me when he was not in school. His constant bright smile always brought joy and amazement into my life. When I contacted Tanya in Seattle, she threatened to disappear and never allow me to see Aaron again. I sank into deep despair, wondering if I would ever be reunited with my son.

It seemed the party was falling apart. Huey's drug use and paranoia was dissecting and destroying the party brick by brick, comrade by comrade. Prior to Huey's arrest and imprisonment, he had not indulged in drugs, nor had he disrespected party members. But when he came out of prison, all the elements were there, waiting to ensnare him. At the time, cocaine was considered the hip new drug. Consumed by the stars, hip politicians, artists, players, and hustlers, it was a drug that made its users feel bigger and more important than they were. For Huey, next to the US government, cocaine became his greatest enemy. Now, without Chairman Bobby by his side, Huey slowly wandered down the path of no return.

Oakland in the early '70s was awash in the drug. Coming in through the port and as abundant as water, still labeled a “recreational drug,” it was easy for cocaine to seep into people's lives, destroying its users and everything in its wake. I remember being ordered to leave Central Headquarters at 3 a.m. to pick up Comrade Bethune to take him to get Huey some coke. Everything came to a head shortly thereafter.

In 1974, a warrant was put out for Huey's arrest in the murder of a prostitute. The pimps and hustlers had also put out a $25,000 contract on our leader's head, and with many of the members of the security squad no longer in the party to protect him, Huey and his wife, Gwen Fontaine, disappeared. They eventually resurfaced in Cuba.

So many good soldiers had been expelled or run off—dedicated sisters and brothers, people who had been in the trenches from the early days into the peaceful times. Many were people I knew very well, including Valentine. After Valentine refused to kiss Huey's feet at his orders, Huey broke the butt of a shotgun over Valentine's shoulder. Valentine was taken to the hospital. While waiting, he called Big Malcolm and asked him to bring him a weapon. But the party was taking no chances: after being released from the hospital, Valentine was put on a Greyhound bus to Seattle by John Seale and Flores Forbes from the Southern California chapter.

The most shocking development was the departure of Chairman Bobby Seale, his second wife Leslie, and his brother John. Huey may have been the party's figurehead and chief theoretician, but Bobby Seale was the heart and soul of the Black Panther Party. He was the organizational genius. It was hard to imagine the party without him. It was Chairman Bobby who had influenced Elmer and me to found the Seattle chapter. But the party and its purpose were much larger than any individual or any of its leaders. Those of us left in Oakland did not know what to expect.

I began to allow myself to wonder, to question why I was still hanging on.

29

Elaine's Rise to Power

Time is truly wastin' There's no guarantee Smile's in the makin' You gotta fight the powers that be

—The Isley Brothers, “Fight the Power,” 1975

I remember sitting
on a cement block outside the Oakland Community School, wondering about the future of the Black Panther Party. Almost all the party leadership in place at the inception of the Seattle chapter in 1968 was now gone, and only a few chapters were left—Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas. Central Headquarters was down to 150 comrades from a peak of nearly 500.

Elaine gathered the remaining troops in the school auditorium and announced that she was in charge. We had assembled there on many other occasions for announcements and directives from the chairman and others, now gone. It was a somber gathering, yet there did not seem to be any doubt as to whether we could regroup and rebound.

Rise from the ashes is what the Black Panther Party did better than any other organization. It was in our nature always to recover, always to land on our feet. It was the spirit embodied in the party's philosophy, which was to dare to struggle, dare to win. The fight for freedom is one of the strongest desires on this earth, and with such a wind at our backs, we would provide the sails and ride this revolutionary vehicle as far as we could—and in most of our minds the ride would end only in victory or death.

Elaine laid down the strategy with confidence, empowering the rest of us. One of her first moves was to fill the vacancies on the Central Committee. Most of the new appointees were women, some of whom were the brightest and most commanding of the remaining party members—sisters like Phyllis Jackson from Tacoma, Norma Armour and Joan Kelly from Los Angeles, and Donna Howell from Boston, as well as Ericka Huggins, who was appointed director of the Oakland Community School.

Elaine had already begun to rebuild the military unit of the party by designating Comrade Bethune from Detroit as chief of staff. Big Bob from Boston and Flores Forbes were to be assistants to the chief of staff. I remember my first encounter with Bethune. It was at the child development center, the Panther day care at the big house on 10th Street in Berkeley, the same house where Tanya and I had stayed with the chairman and Randy Williams in '69. I remember how dutifully and gently Bethune changed the diapers of the Panther babies, wiped snotty noses, and fed the children. In that environment he had been so full of humility; now, he was head of all the military and disciplinary aspects of the party.

Bethune and Flores came to visit me at Central several days after Elaine's accession. I wondered what they wanted and why they were smiling.

“Hey, A. D.,” Flores called out, sticking out his hand for one of his very soft handshakes. “Hey, man. You were chosen to be Elaine's bodyguard and to be on the squad.”

“Good. Right on, man,” I replied, unsure if I wanted this glorified position, knowing all too well the dangers of being on the security squad.

That night Flores came by the apartment where I was living with my new girlfriend, Lola. “Hey, man. Look through these books and let me know what kind of piece you want,” he said as he handed me several issues of
Guns & Ammo.
He pulled out his piece and handed it to me. “A. D., I have a 1911 Colt .45.”

The .45 automatic handgun was the preferred choice of most of the comrades; a few favored the Browning 9mm automatic. I finally settled on a Colt Combat Commander, which was shorter and more compact than the standard .45 automatic. With black rubber grips and a brushed silver finish, it was a beautiful weapon and would become my faithful companion for the next four years.

In the earlier years of the party, when the government was trying to annihilate us, every Panther was expected to take up arms and know how to use them, break them down, and clean them. There was no distinction between the day-to-day work and picking up a gun. As we shifted our focus to developing the Survival Programs and organizing in the churches, Black businesses, and political campaigns, the party began to shed the image of the urban guerrilla. In effect, we put our guns in the closet and instead drew upon the talents of our members to
develop the programs and strategies for moving the community forward.

Now, the party's weaponry was largely the province of the security squad, focused on protecting the party leaders, ensuring the security of the party's facilities, and taxing the illegitimate capitalists, usually after-hours club owners or drug dealers. The toughest, most seasoned comrades were selected for the squad. I learned later that Flores, Valentine, and others had lobbied on my behalf for some time, but Huey had always objected. This had probably worked to my benefit, as the closer you were to the flame, the more likely to get burned. A handful of others were also newly recruited to the security squad: Clark “Santa Rita” Bailey; Tim Thomson; Allen “House Man” Lewis; Lamar and Leonard Donaldson, two brothers from San Francisco; George Robinson; Rollins Reid and Tex from Detroit; and Ellis White and his son Darnell White, who was the oldest of the Panther kids and now, as a young adult, was elected to be a full-time Panther. There was an attempt to reenlist Valentine, but we had no way of contacting him.

One of the first steps for Flores as head of security was making sure the party's arsenal was secure. Before the collapse, about a year earlier, the Oakland police had raided the house on 29th Street and seized a cache of weapons. The rest had been scattered throughout the East Bay and only a few people knew the exact locations. Flores slowly began to secure the party's illegal weapons, many of which had been left in deplorable condition. Working mostly in the dead of night, Flores traveled from location to location, cleaning, wrapping, breaking down, and concealing the armaments. He would take an assistant with him, constantly alternating assistants so no one aside from himself knew more than one or two locations of the weaponry. Over time, everything was successfully secured.

Going into my new position, I knew not to take Elaine's mood for granted. I vividly remember the second time we met, at Central Headquarters on Peralta, right after the split with Eldridge. Tension and paranoia were running high. That day I was the acting OD, filling in for Robert Bay and trying to coordinate the rides for the morning activities, a task that could sometimes be very complicated. The two most important rides were those to take the Panther children and staff to school and, equally important, to get the layout of the paper to the printers. Through no one's fault, the ride for the newspaper delivery was late. Elaine, who was the acting minister of information and had been working all night on the paper, lit into me with profanity. I had never been cursed out in such a manner. Having stayed up all night as well, I responded with my own barrage of profanity. Even so, the experience troubled me. Maybe I wasn't used to such volatile exchanges between comrades, or maybe it was the fact that the person I was arguing with was Elaine Brown.

On a fall evening, I reported to work on my first assignment as Elaine's bodyguard and driver. I had put on a suit and tie, as instructed, a cream-white, double-breasted suit. The engagement was the annual dinner of the California State Package Store and Tavern Owners Association (Cal-Pac), a large group of Black liquor store owners in the Bay Area. Former San Francisco 49er Gene Washington and his brother had founded the organization. Elaine, having announced another campaign for city council, felt it was highly important to garner the endorsement of Cal-Pac.

Elaine was an attractive person. She had a little-girl cuteness about her that men liked, yet when she opened her mouth she was an extremely articulate, decisive, and confident woman. She had facts and information to back up every point she made. I sat quietly as she addressed the audience of Black men, some of whom had been intimidated by the party in the not-too-distant past. Many of these liquor store owners had supported the Black lackey Otho Green, who had entered the mayoral race to draw votes away from Bobby Seale. Winning over these antirevolutionaries would not be easy.

After a dynamic speech and time spent talking with the leading members of Cal-Pac, it was quite evident that Elaine had won over not just Cal-Pac but, most important, the Washington brothers themselves, who owned the largest alcohol distributors in the Bay Area. The older of the two was Gene, a retired All-Pro. Another All-Pro, former Oakland Raider Gene Upshaw, also endorsed Elaine's campaign. The Washington brothers not only threw their endorsement to Elaine but went on to sponsor many fundraising events for Elaine's campaign.

After the near-victory of Chairman Bobby's mayoral campaign, many Northern California politicians had taken note of the party's ability to organize the community and get people to the polls. It was safe to say the Black Panther Party had a well-run political machine. A handful of Northern California state representatives and local politicians began to approach the party in the hope of gaining access to our ability to get out the vote, as well as receiving our endorsement.

The most significant candidate looking for support was Jerry Brown, a very unconventional politician, who was running for governor. According to Elaine, Jerry Brown had worked with the Southern California chapter when he had served on the LA Community College Board of Trustees. The party gave Jerry Brown its support, and Elaine cultivated a political relationship that remained intact after he was elected governor in 1974. Upon taking office, Jerry Brown appointed as his right-hand legal counsel Tony Kline, who had also worked with the Southern California chapter as a law student. Elaine made frequent visits to Sacramento to meet with both of them. Jerry Brown was definitely not your normal, everyday politician. He turned down the traditional black limousine and driver, instead driving himself around in a light-blue '73 Plymouth. He also refused to live in the governor's mansion. He was a perfect fit at the right time for the party, and Elaine took smart advantage of this opportunity.

Within a year, Elaine had developed solid connections with many of the main power brokers in not only the Bay Area but Sacramento as well. Large corporations such as Clorox and its CEO, Robert Shetterly, a gray-haired white man who expressed an interest in the “new Oakland,” soon became additional feathers in the party's cap. The time was ripe for Black political power in Oakland, and Elaine and the party represented the vanguard for the new Black politicos. The first victory for the party and the people was the election of John George, the party's longtime lawyer, as the first Black member of the Oakland/Alameda County Board of Supervisors.