Nine Lives of a Black Panther Page 12

  As Russell and I came to the end of our day selling papers, he stopped and looked at me squarely. “We know that Us has been trying to run the show on some campuses. Are you having to deal with them Us niggas at Harbor?”

  “At Harbor? Nah, we don’t have any trouble with Us,” I assured him. “They know we accept Malcolm’s philosophy of working with all people who are against capitalism and imperialism. Plus, I don’t think Us wants to spend the gas money to come all the way out there and try to influence us.”

  Russell laughed at that. “OK, let me know if you start having trouble,” he said.

  “Right on, brother,” I said, acknowledging his concern.

  While they did at least try, the Panthers’ and Us Organization’s attempts at peace were always short-lived. I had heard that Ronald Freeman became involved in some serious conflicts with Us, so when I saw him, I asked him what had happened in that incident.

  “Well,” Ronald answered with a frown, “Comrade Sherwin, who was hanging with us from Oakland, had come to L.A. to check us out when we were at the Congress. He needed to go to the bathroom at some point, but the only way he could get there was to walk through a room where some of the Us members were practicing martial arts. The Simbas wouldn’t allow the brother to walk through a room to get to the bathroom!”

  I shook my head. “So what happened?” I asked.

  Ronald continued. “He called me. So I met him there, and we walked on through the room to the bathroom, which the Simbas saw as a challenge.” He shook his head. “They were heated!”

  I could see where this was going. “Then what?” I said.

  “One of the Simbas pulled a gun on me, so Sherwin pulled a gun on them. No one in the room showed fear, but I know some hearts were beating faster, and there was cold sweat flowing. In the midst of the stalemate, one of the Us members walked out and made a phone call. He came back, and they put away their guns.

  “Was that it?” I asked, surprised.

  “Hell no!” he said quickly. “Later that evening, one of them Us niggas came to my house and knocked on the door. When I answered they started shooting, and bullets came flying through the door! We defended ourselves and had a damn shoot-out at my house! Our only casualty was our Oakland comrade, who got shot in the hand. Even to this day, we don’t know if we hit any of the Karangatangs. And dig this: even though the Karangatangs came to my house to shoot it up, the pigs arrested me. Then, when Roland came home after everything was over, they arrested him too! And he wasn’t even there!”

  “Damn, that’s fucked up,” I frowned. “How are we going to deal with this kind of bullshit?”

  As members of the Party, we were obligated to defend ourselves against violent attacks by any means necessary. And I intended to defend the Party, my comrades, and myself to the fullest.

  This matter between the Panthers and Us was tricky, for sure. Ronald told me that at the leadership level, Karenga and Bunchy had several conversations about how to keep the peace between the two organizations. Bunchy didn’t want disagreements with Us to look like gang fights or war between two black liberation groups. And to stress the point, during one of our meetings at Central Headquarters, Bunchy told us to keep our eyes on the real enemy, the pigs and the power structure. He told us to not let ourselves get sucked into petty conflicts with other activist organizations. He then issued an executive order mandating that we should avoid physical altercations with other black organizations, to ensure that we understood the importance of working through problems rather than drawing blood.

  Bunchy’s mandate, however, did not end the violent altercations. It couldn’t, because Us didn’t adhere to a similar mandate. So, while Panthers attempted to avoid confrontations with Us and other black groups, others didn’t share the commitment to a nonviolent relationship with the Black Panther Party.

  The Panther-Us conflict reached its highest level of violence in January 1969, when the Black Student Union at UCLA objected to Ron Karenga’s efforts to dictate who would head a new black studies program at their university. The Black Panther Party had strong ties to the students there because a number of our members, including Al, Lux, Bunchy, John Huggins, G, and Elaine Brown, were all registered students in UCLA’s High Potential Program. High Potential was set up to open the admissions process to disadvantaged youth. After UCLA administrators proposed a black studies program, the Karenga-backed candidate to head black studies drew opposition from students in the BSU. They organized to fight for their voices to be heard, calling several meetings to discuss their concerns and determine how to proceed with administration. Some of the students asked Panthers who were attending UCLA to be present at the meetings because of their fear of retaliation from Us.

  This brought together a volatile combination of interests, resulting in one of the most devastating encounters in Black Panther history. It was this conflict—among Us, the BSU, and the Black Panther Party—around black studies at UCLA that changed the trajectory of black power politics in Los Angeles forever. At a BSU meeting in Campbell Hall at UCLA on January 17, Bunchy Carter and John Huggins were shot and killed by members of Us.

  On that infamous day, I began my day in the usual manner. I headed off to Harbor and went to class. After I left school, I went to Jerry’s to hang out. We were eating when Baba walked into the house. He looked dazed. “Bunchy and John are dead,” he said numbly.

  There was a pause for a few seconds, and none of us said anything. Yes, I heard him, but it didn’t register in my brain. So I just stared at him.

  “What do you mean, Bunchy is dead?” Jerry blurted.

  “There was some kind of meeting at UCLA, and there was a shootout. Bunchy and John got killed,” Baba replied sadly, still looking like he was in a state of shock. We were all in a state of shock.

  Even though I trusted Baba, I still didn’t believe him. Bunchy was our symbol of strength and power, so maybe he got shot and wounded, but he wasn’t dead! No way. Not Bunchy!

  Jerry turned on the TV and then turned the channel until he found the news. We all sat down on the couch, glued to the set, listening to the breaking news report in disbelief. It was being reported, just as Baba said, on CBS. Three members of Us, after a BSU meeting, around 2:40 this afternoon, shot Alprentice Carter and John Huggins. It was unbelievable!

  I decided to make a few phone calls to find out what happened. The first person I reached was Larry Scales at the office in Watts. “What’s happening?”

  Larry responded gloomily, “Tomorrow you need to definitely be here, so we can deal with this. The word from G and Long John is that we don’t need to say anything individually. They are in touch with Bobby and David in Oakland. They want us to respond with one voice.”

  “Understood,” I said. “I know we need to stay focused. But does anybody know the next move that might come from Us?”

  Larry paused a moment and then cleared his throat. “Well, you know that all the comrades who were at UCLA, plus a few others, have already been arrested.”

  “What?” I said, surprised.

  “The pigs claim that they’re just trying to prevent anyone from retaliating and causing more bloodshed.”

  I asked Larry if any of Karenga’s boys were arrested, and he said he didn’t know. I decided to lay low.

  Baba, Jerry, and I spent that evening talking about Bunchy and John. Bunchy’s brother Arthur Glenn Morris had already been killed, on March 13, 1968, in a friend’s backyard. Nobody really knows what happened because the other two men involved in the murder died in the shooting too. Morris was a Panther and served as Bunchy’s bodyguard. Damn, we felt really bad for Bunchy’s mother.

  No one could sleep. We talked and talked. How in the hell could Bunchy and John get killed with all of the other Party members in the room we asked each other. G, Nathaniel Clark, Al Armour, Joe Brown, Joan Kelly, and a few others had been up there that day. I was sure everybody was armed. How could this have happened?

  The next morning, I went straight to
the Watts office, where I met up with James, Larry, and Lux. We sat around the office and went over what had just happened, at first expressing our emotions, which ranged from anger to sadness to a desire for revenge. I was ready to put my foot, plus a .48 caliber pistol, in the ass of Karenga and all of them Us niggas. We began to strategize the many ways we could blast them motherfuckas. As we were going over the possible plans, Long John came by the office. He quietly listened in for a few minutes. Then, with a wretched but stern look on his face, he admonished us not to engage in any independent action against Us. Comrades at the top would handle the matter.

  The next day, we found out the background on what happened at UCLA: Long John came by the office again and reported what he knew. Apparently, a member of Us, Harold “Tuwala” Jones, was accosting Elaine Brown, and in her defense, word was that John Huggins pulled his gun. But some Us nigga by the name of Claude “Chuchessa” Hubert shot John in the back. Hubert also shot Bunchy in the chest.

  Bunchy and John died two feet from each other in a blaze of bullets not from the pigs or the power structure but from a conflict with another activist organization. We knew there was much more to the story.

  Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, deputy minister of defense, Southern California Chapter, BPP, martyred January 17, 1969. COURTESY OF IT’S ABOUT TIME ARCHIVES

  10

  ALPHA AND OMEGA

  I had only been in the Party for three months when Bunchy and John were murdered and Captain Franco was killed. Just a few months earlier, the police had murdered Tommie, Steve, and Robert in broad daylight. I knew it was time to check in with my family to let them know I was OK.

  I walked into my mother’s house and found her in the family room watching TV. It seemed eerily quiet. I walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek. “Mom, how are you?”

  She didn’t answer my question but asked me wearily, “Are you all right? I’ve been watching the news.”

  “I’m cool, Mom. I just wanted to let you know that everything is fine with me. You don’t need to worry.”

  “Where were you when those boys were killed?”

  “I was at school.”

  “Good. That’s where you need to be. You know I really want you to leave the Panthers alone. At least for now, while there’s so much violence.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just looked at her and then got up and headed for the kitchen to get something to eat. She followed me in there, and we sat for a while and made small talk about the family. By the time I left, she seemed to be OK, although I knew she was still concerned.

  Later that day, I called Nanny and got the same response from her that I received from my mom. The next conversation I needed to have was with Sharon, the other important woman in my life. So I called her up and asked her if I could stop by. As it turned out, I ended up liking Sharon even more after our conversation. She knew that my involvement with the Party could put me in danger, but she also understood my commitment. She didn’t need to be educated about why I remained in the Party, because she was active in the BSU at Washington High. Unlike other women who would have immediately asked me to withdraw, Sharon told me that we would stand together.

  On the day of Bunchy’s funeral, we all rode to the church caravan style, stopping traffic along the way. The funeral was held at Trinity Baptist Church on Jefferson Boulevard. James and I rode together in my car, mostly in silence. It rained that day, but the sun was shining too. Chairman Bobby Seale did the eulogy, and Chief of Staff David Hilliard spoke as well. Although the service was sad, it still contained the revolutionary fervor of the Party—even bolstered it. After the funeral, we went to Woodlawn Cemetery in Compton to bury our comrade. I felt sorry for Evon Carter, Bunchy’s wife, who I learned later was pregnant at the time. As for John Huggins, his body was shipped back to New Haven, Connecticut. Ericka and their baby went with him. Bunchy and John were so young when they were murdered: Bunchy was twenty-six and John was twenty-three.

  After the funeral, a large contingent of us went to the Panther apartment on Main Street to get a grip on the gaping emptiness we were suddenly left with and to pay homage to our fallen comrades. A heavy sense of grief and melancholy gripped the air. We drank Panther Piss; we told stories. I wished that I had spent more time at Central Headquarters so that I could have worked more closely with Bunchy and John.

  David Hilliard and Bobby Seale visited Los Angeles to keep us encouraged, and they helped us to reorganize. There was no question that Bunchy and John would have wanted us to get back to work immediately. To help close the gaps left by the loss of our leaders, other comrades were moved into new positions. G became the deputy minister of defense, which had been Bunchy’s position. He would now lead the Southern California chapter. Elaine Brown was appointed to the position of deputy chairman, while Paul Moffett became the deputy minister of information, taking the place of John. Others maintained their positions, like Blue, Long John, and Ronald Freeman, who remained field secretaries.

  Some animosities developed because some of the members thought that they should have been given the chance to play a much larger role after the reorganization. Julius “Julio” Butler, a section leader who ran the West Adams office, was one of those disgruntled. He had hoped to move up to one of the minister positions. Long John called him an “old-man hairdresser” and said I should stay away from Julio because he was strange as hell.

  “What makes him so strange?” I asked, amused at his description.

  “He had a few younger comrades kill some cats and dogs to prove that they could kill. You ever heard of such bullshit?” Long John said with disgust.

  “No, not really,” I answered, a little disgusted myself. Then I asked, “So, then why is he in the Party?”

  “I can’t really answer that, but a lot of people say he might be an agent provocateur. I don’t know. Bunchy had the ability to keep him in a cage where he could only do minimal damage.”

  I shrugged and nodded, thinking to myself that Long John was right. Stay away from that fool.

  Long John continued, “But with Bunchy gone, we need to watch him closely.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  In addition to the leadership changes, our membership base began to change. Some of our people just stopped coming around. That didn’t bother me, because I thought we had too many “dress-up Panthers” and “black leather coat suckers” in the Party. These were the fake revolutionaries who would show up for rallies and try to look like a Panther but never put in any measurable work. After the Us killings, those niggas understood that being a Black Panther was not about playing games; it wasn’t the BSU; and it definitely wasn’t styling and profiling: it was black liberation.

  Some people actually got expelled too. Shermont was spokesperson for the L.A. branch, so he had been appointed to make public statements on behalf of Bunchy and the Party. Bunchy didn’t want the press and the public to fixate on his criminal past, which could throw shade onto the Party, and Shermont came off sounding like a bourgeois college student, so his presence made the Party look better in the press. After Bunchy passed, though, Shermont faded away into oblivion. The last thing I heard about him was that he had been expelled.

  Then there were those who disappeared who weren’t asked to leave but whose commitment was shaky because of outside influences. People like Larry Scales, a Watts native and captain in the Party, just kind of drifted away; in Larry’s case, many of us believed he left because he had gotten hooked on dope. It’s hard to handle the commitment the Party required and to chase drugs at the same time.

  The Central Committee was giving us more attention. In April, Chairman Bobby Seale again traveled to Los Angeles to meet with us and to reiterate the Central Committee’s position that we should not engage in war with Us. We were reminded of Bunchy’s mandate that we were not at war with other black people. Our fight was against the system of oppression, so we needed to honor Bunchy by not going to war with Us. While he was in town, Chairman Seale also spoke a
t Los Angeles Trade Technical College to recruit and to inform people about the community service work of the Party, such as the Free Breakfast Program. I provided security for him during his visit.

  Interestingly, as we attempted to put things back in order, people started demonstrating their love and support for Bunchy, John, and the Black Panther Party. Posters of Bunchy were showing up everywhere—on the walls at community centers, even in liquor stores—and his poems were being recited at major events. We hoped that this public attention would remind people of the ideas Bunchy stood for and to support the work he and John sacrificed their lives for.

  However, I still wasn’t satisfied with the explanations about what really went down at UCLA. I kept wondering how some suckers could just kill Bunchy Carter like that. Hell, Bunchy was the leader of the Renegade Slausons, the most dangerous gang in Los Angeles. No one could lead the Renegade Slausons without a serious edge, and Bunchy had that edge. He knew how to engage in warfare. Why wasn’t there real muscle in the room with Bunchy and John when everything went down? Where were G, Al, and Nathaniel, the people who would have put some bullet holes into those Simbas and protected Bunchy and John? I needed some answers. I didn’t want to find myself in a similar situation with some Simbas and no defense coming from my comrades.

  In fact, Al was at UCLA the day Bunchy and John were killed. I asked Al, “Where was G when the shooting went down?”

  Al told me that Bunchy had asked G to go and visit a friend at UCLA’s Medical Center.

  “But Al, that doesn’t make sense to me. Why the hell would Bunchy do that, knowing how dangerous those Karangatangs were?

  Al looked at me. “I can’t get into Bunchy’s head. The whole day was a little off to me.”

  What I believe happened played out like this: Bunchy and John are at a meeting. Elaine gets into an altercation with this Tuwala fool. Bunchy pulls her to the side, but John is trying to defend Elaine. And of course John would do that, because he and Elaine were in a sexual relationship. John pulls a gun out, and Bunchy tries to defuse the situation, as always. But Bunchy didn’t even have a gun because he didn’t want to be intimating. Now, if G, Blue, Roland or Ronald Freeman, or Long John had been in the room with Bunchy, things wouldn’t have gone down like that.