My People Are Rising (41 page)

“Right on,” I said, glad it was over.

“You want some 'yack?” said Bob.

“Yeah, I'll have some.”

We sat and sipped cognac and smoked a joint as my wounds burned fiercely. I knew Bob was only doing his job. He was one of the most honest, kindest persons around. There were also times when I found myself in Bob's position, meting out discipline to comrades who had violated a rule. It was the way things were in the party, particularly in the cadre. In truth, this kind of physical discipline was something we could have done without. But our willingness to use it, and our acceptance of it, was symptomatic of deeper issues having little to do with revolution.

I was temporarily relieved of my driving and bodyguard duties for Elaine and was replaced by Bill Elder from Detroit, “Still Bill,” as we called him, a tall, handsome, bespectacled brother. Elaine went through half a dozen brothers in that role, finally settling on alternating between Bill Elder and me. I looked forward to the breaks from driving Elaine. It gave me more time to spend with Lola, as well as more time to read. I had discovered the books of Carlos Castaneda, and was drawn in particular to
The Teachings of
Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge,
one of the few nonpolitical books that I'd gotten into in a very long time.

For the first time since joining the party, I began to think outside a revolutionary context. But I could not allow my thoughts to stray too far from our mission. There was still much work to be done.

The End of the Line

Left to right: Me, Darren “The Duke” Perkins, and Louis “Tex” Johnson at the LampPost, 1975.

31

The Death of Deacon

Give me my freedom for as long as I be. All I ask of living is to have no chains on me. All I ask of living is to have no chains on me, And all I ask of dying is to go naturally.

—Blood, Sweat & Tears, “And When I Die,” 1969

The Oakland Community Learning Center
had become a popular hangout for young people in East Oakland, from the Martial Arts Program to the CETA and Teen Programs to the movie nights. The party always paid close attention to security; at any given time, there were one or two armed members of the security squad at the center. As in any ghetto in America, tempers could get hot and situations could get out of hand quickly if not handled securely. There were a few problems, a few incidents of gunplay, but we were always able to manage things. That is, until one fateful Friday night.

The Teen Program had become such a success that we began to hold teen dances at the center. The City of Oakland had outlawed teen dances at schools and city facilities due to outbreaks of violence. Through our work with the neighborhood youth, we felt we would be able to handle any problems that might arise. The first two dances came off without a hitch. We checked every teen coming in for weapons and alcohol, and had armed security throughout the cafeteria to ensure the dances went without incident.

The first two went so smoothly that, for the third scheduled dance, Bethune gave the orders to drop the search; he also ordered security to disarm. That night, I was in charge of the security detachment. Tex, Deacon, Allen, and George Robinson were on duty with me. It was odd being on security and not being armed. But after all, these were kids.

Everything was going fine until the Brown brothers came in. They were two lanky, cocky, derby-wearing brothers well-known among the East Oakland youth. They belonged to a gang called the Derbies.

As an alternative to a pat-down, some of the comrade sisters had been assigned to dance with certain males to find out if they were packing. One of the sisters, Arlene, discovered that the Brown brothers were carrying weapons. She approached me and whispered in my ear, “Aaron, those two brothers have guns.”

“Which ones?” I asked.

“The Brown brothers—the ones with the derbies.”

“Okay,” I said.

Allen and Tex were nearby, so I motioned to them and explained the situation. We slowly walked over to the two brothers, who apparently had been drinking before coming into the dance and were obviously intoxicated and talking loudly. I approached and asked them to turn in their weapons until the dance was over.

When confronted they became hostile and boisterous. Apparently, the alcohol was affecting their judgment—so much that they pulled out their guns. As we moved forward to disarm them, they began shooting. The sounds of the gunfire caused a panic, alarming the other young people. The situation turned chaotic as we scrambled for cover, some of us trying to usher the kids to safety. George slipped into the maintenance room where our weapons were locked up. In the meantime, two young people had been hit by gunfire. The Brown brothers backed their way out to the parking lot, where the younger of the two took off running toward the exit, leaving his brother behind. Comrade Deacon was able to sneak up behind the older brother, grabbing him and disarming him. Meanwhile, during all the chaos the younger brother returned, ran up behind Deacon, and shot him in the back.

I, along with several other people from the community, ran the shooter down, daring him to shoot us as we approached. We pounced on him and began letting out our rage. We beat him until we could beat no more. When I got back to the school, Deacon was already on his way to Highland Hospital. The guns the Brown boys were carrying were only .22-caliber. We sighed with relief, thinking surely it would take more than a .22-caliber bullet to kill a comrade with a heart as large as Deacon's.

Santa Rita heard what happened and came to the hospital to stay with me as we waited for Deacon. When the doctor came out after several hours and told us Deacon was dead, we thought maybe he was joking, or maybe he was talking about another Black casualty. But it was true. Deacon was gone. He and I had been assigned to the security squad together. We were a two-man cadre, spending time cleaning weapons, pulling security. I had first met him in West Oakland after the split with Eldridge, when he was assigned to Central Headquarters after arriving from Philadelphia. He'd grown up on the mean streets of Philadelphia and, despite his small size, had quite a reputation among the gang members there. After joining the party, he had distinguished himself in battle against the Philly police. He was now a fallen comrade, leaving behind a small son.

That night, as I was lying next to Lola, I thought about how indiscriminate death was. It wasn't so much that we would be burying another comrade—that was something we were used by now—but the fact that Deacon had died during one of the more peaceful periods for the party. And he died at the hands of kids, our own community kids. His death also exposed me to my own vulnerability, which, up to this point, I had never really given much thought. We in the cadre were very close. We trained together, went out at night for business or pleasure together. At times it seemed we knew what each other was thinking. To lose someone as close as Deacon was painful.

Several nights later, three comrades entered Highland Hospital, the same hospital where Deacon had drawn his last breath. One carried a dagger and a hypodermic needle filled with battery acid, another carried a green duffel bag with an AK-47 inside. They hurried past a crowd of youngsters sitting in the lobby, gathered around the older Brown brother. Quickly, they went upstairs to the sixth floor and located the room where the wounded Brown brother was recuperating.

The dagger came out and was driven into the back of the victim several times as he weakly screamed out. The attackers rushed back down the stairs, past the unsuspecting crowd. If cops had made any attempts at stopping them, their orders were to let loose with the AK-47
.
This attempt to finish off the younger Brown brother was unsuccessful.

There would be other attempts, nights of sitting up in the safe house in West Oakland, sipping brandy while we cleaned our weapons, crisscrossing our shells and wiping them down with garlic—rumored to cause blood poisoning—as we waited for the clock to strike 3 a.m., when the streets were silent. Doors were kicked in as the hit team ran inside. We searched high and low for the Brown brothers but learned they had been sent away. Revenge is an unquenchable thirst. It is a bottomless pit to hell, an emotion both bitter and sweet, one that is never satisfied.

Deacon's funeral was held at the community center. Armed Philly Panthers stood at parade rest with their shotguns, wearing black berets and powder-blue shirts. It would be the last of the traditional Panther funerals as we bid our comrade farewell.

32

Oakland Is Ours

The world won't get no better if we just let it be The world won't get no better

We gotta change it

Yeah, just you and me.

—Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, “Wake Up Everybody,” 1976

The campaign for city council
had been a rocky road for Elaine. Certain entities did not want her to be an elected official. She kept a rigorous schedule, moving between campaigning and running the party, being sure to maintain the party's funding at a high level. We thought victory was near and the city council seat would be ours.

Winning the seat would be putting one more piece of the puzzle in place. Many of us gathered at Elaine's campaign office in November 1975, waiting for the results, hoping our hard work would pay off. But Elaine was defeated by the white incumbent. The margin of defeat was small, but that was no consolation. We all felt the sting of losing the race, having worked so hard and set our goals so high. To be denied victory yet again was painful.

My job was challenging, yet I was determined to do it to the best of my ability. Although Elaine could be difficult for men to deal with and a tyrant at times, I saw a brilliant strategist, a perfectionist who never seemed to tire. Once she set her mind to something, it was done, no matter how monumental the task.

After the election, Elaine began spending a great deal of time in Sacramento. She knew the importance of developing her political connection to Jerry Brown and did not falter in that task. She became known and highly respected by many state legislators, a few of whom had been elected thanks to the party's political machine. Her influence and power in Sacramento grew so great that she was invited to the annual Passover seder held by an all-male group of Jewish legislators. Elaine, Willie Brown, and myself were the only Blacks in attendance. Not only was Elaine the only woman present, she was also the only woman who had ever been invited to this annual holiday celebration.

I sat back in the shadows and watched as these powerful men fawned over Elaine. She deflected every trite remark with quick wit. Her mind was working while they were playing. In Oakland, despite losing the election, Elaine had expanded the party's constituency, and she became a dominant figure in Oakland city politics.

When Governor Jerry Brown went to appoint judges for Northern California, he called Elaine for advice. Elaine selected a handful of Bay Area Black attorneys for judgeship, and they all knew the party was responsible for their being appointed. It was no surprise when Elaine was appointed to the executive committee of the Oakland Council for Economic Development. The council had been pushing for the construction of a freeway exit ramp into downtown Oakland. The hope was to entice the big developers to invest in reviving downtown Oakland, which had been slowly dying for the past ten years. This project could only move forward with the governor's approval. Eventually, Elaine was able to deliver on the freeway, thanks to Jerry Brown. Part of the deal she negotiated was for a thousand homes to be developed for the low-income families displaced by the ramp's construction.

In the summer of 1975 Elaine visited Huey in Cuba. After two failed campaigns to get Panthers elected to political office, Huey had devised another plan for capturing Oakland. History had shown that running a revolutionary for political office was not a sound strategy because the individual was either unelectable or susceptible to compromising his or her revolutionary focus. Huey had a new approach. Upon Elaine's return, at Huey's request, Elaine approached former superior court judge Lionel Wilson about running for mayor of Oakland. If Wilson agreed, the party would run his campaign. Before Huey had departed Oakland, he and Lionel had become good friends. Lionel's son was heavily involved in the street life, and Huey had often looked out for him. Despite not having any real political ambitions, Lionel Wilson was a highly respected, very distinguished-looking Black man. He agreed to run, and his chances of success were high.