Nine Lives of a Black Panther Read online

  But I wasn’t waiting for the police to take me out: I was preparing for the war by making sure I knew the layout of the sewers and which ones we could access when we needed to. In fact, by this time, I had been going down into the sewers once a week. As the situation intensified, I went down even more often.

  G had an informant inside law enforcement, so several of us learned of a planned police attack on the Los Angeles Panthers. But we weren’t sure of when. I didn’t know if G’s informant was inside the FBI or the LAPD, but I did know that he was a black person sympathetic to the Party. G didn’t share that kind of information with everybody, but it was essential information for those who would organize the Party’s defense.

  G gave the order that we needed to consolidate our people and resources. We found this out from Al Armour, who walked into the Watts office one day with a bundle of papers in his hands.

  “What’s up?” Hasawa inquired, looking up from the gun he was cleaning.

  Al casually put down the Panther newspapers and asked us all to gather around. He said he had some news from Central. “In order to ensure the survival of the Party and its work,” Al began, “we must defend our people and our resources.”

  “OK, comrade, but what exactly are you saying?” Hasawa asked, putting his weapon to the side.

  “Consolidating offices, resources, and personnel will make the task of security easier and more effective,” Al exhorted.

  So far, he wasn’t telling us anything we didn’t already know. Those of us in the room were all looking at him now, still wondering exactly where he was going with all this. I leaned back against the wall, waiting.

  Al continued. “The Broadway office is the easiest to close right now, due to Roland’s situation.”

  He was referring to Roland Freeman, the section leader and driving force of the Broadway office, who had accidentally shot himself by sticking a gun down one of his pant legs before going outside. The gun went off and blew a hole in his foot.

  “You all know that Roland’s been out of action all year, so we are missing leadership there.”

  Hasawa looked at me and then back at Al. “Where are the Broadway comrades going to operate?”

  “Some of the comrades will be assigned to Watts or headquarters. We’re also closing the Adams office and reassigning some of those comrades to the Touré Community Center.” Located on Exposition and Normandie, the Touré Community Center had been named in honor of our fallen comrade, Walter “Touré” Pope.

  Then Al surprised us. He stood up, striding across to the other side of the room. He stopped and turned around. “I have been assigned to run the Touré Community Center, and Wayne will be running the Watts office,” he declared.

  I said nothing, instead nodding my head to acknowledge Al’s revelation. It was time to get moving, then.

  Along with reorganizing locations, we began to fortify Central Headquarters. It was October, shortly after Touré died. We couldn’t fortify all of our offices because of the large number of resources it would take, but we absolutely needed to strengthen Central, since the leadership operated there. It was also where mass meetings were held, and most important, it was where G’s informant said a hit might come.

  As minister of defense, G led the fortification project. His war experience and military skills were critical for planning and execution. We were also fortunate to have Cotton on board, because he had the construction skills we needed to build structures that would hold. And as one of our most respected captains, Long John brought both leadership and a serenity that gave our soldiers the confidence necessary to keep moving forward. Long John managed the daily efforts of the rank and file, and he provided the team with an exceptional understanding of defensive tactics and strategy. Captain Omar brought important skills to Central’s fortification too. His role in the Party expanded after Ronald and Blue were out, doing time. Omar had served in the military and, like G, brought those skills to the Party. And then there was George Young, whom we called Duck because of his voice inflection. He had been a marine before joining the Party. He worked out of Central, often serving as officer of the day. George’s role was to help out in the office and dig in the tunnels when he had time. As for me, I participated in defensive strategy sessions, helped to devise our escape plan, and worked alongside Long John organizing and working with the troops. I also made sure we had access to weapons. Even though some of us specialized in specific areas, a lot of our work overlapped.

  Knowing that headquarters would be attacked with heavy forces, we made our plan: One, fortify Central. Two, resist and fight as long as possible. Three, escape through the tunnel we would build into the sewers. Four, while in the sewers, blow the office.

  G never called for any kind of official large group meeting about our plan and the work involved; instead, he gave us our orders in small group settings or individually. The first order of business was to make sure we had the material needed for the fortification. We used our meager resources to purchase as many items as we could from hardware stores. Obviously, what we couldn’t purchase, we liberated from construction sites.

  Before long, we got pretty much everything we needed to begin our work. Everyone was busy; everyone had a task or role. G walked around, surveying the headquarters layout. “Cotton, where do we start digging?” he queried.

  Cotton walked into one of the conference rooms on the northeast side of the building, toward the front. He pointed to a spot on the floor. “Right here,” he said confidently. “This will give us the best line to the sewers.” He knew the best route because Ronald had gotten maps of the city layout before he went to jail, and Cotton now had those maps. “We need to dig about thirty-five to forty feet to get to the sewer line,” he finished.

  G looked at Long John. “Comrade, I need you to begin organizing the soldiers into squads and get started.”

  Long John nodded his head. “Right on!” he grinned.

  Within half an hour, we were tearing up the floors to access the dirt underneath and putting shovels into the ground.

  Comrades worked in squads of four or five at a time; we were digging into the tunnel every day, all day, and sometimes all night. Everybody participated in the digging at one point or another. We passed the time talking and listening to music from the KGFJ radio station. The Magnificent Montague, Lucky Pierre, and the other DJs from KGFJ were playing Top 40 soul cuts for us, which made the work seem easier and go faster. We dug to B. B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone” and the soulful gospel hit “Oh Happy Day.” The 5th Dimension invited us to a “Stone Soul Picnic,” and James Brown shouted out, “Give It Up, Turn It Loose.” And we turned it up and dug that dirt loose.

  It was pretty warm in the tunnel, so sometimes comrades would take their shirts off to continue digging in comfort. There was no ventilation. Any air we had coming in came from the fans above the hole. Guys wore bandannas around their faces to keep the dust from getting into their mouths and noses; the work was exhausting and never-ending. But remembering our dead and the beatings we had taken kept us motivated. We also knew that we had no future in Los Angeles if the pigs maintained their posture and attitude toward us. We had a slogan to remind ourselves of why we were working so hard: “Off the Pigs.”

  Entrance to the tunnel we dug from the Party headquarters at Forty-First and Central heading to the sewers. We had almost reached the sewers when LAPD SWAT attacked on December 8, 1969. UCLA CHARLES E. YOUNG RESEARCH LIBRARY DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, LOS ANGELES TIMES PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES

  G came to check on the comrades, to make sure the work was moving at a good pace. At one point he looked at me. “Comrade Wayne,” he said directly, “what’s up with the sewers and artillery?”

  The task that had been given to me was to map out escape routes through the sewers and determine how to dodge the police. “We have been checking for every possible way to make it out of here, and we are covered,” I answered. “We got the heat covered too.”

  When it came to d
igging into the tunnel, Cotton was indispensible in making sure we did things right. “Comrades,” he explained to all of us, “you have to understand that we can’t just dig a hole in the ground. If we want success and want to live through this task, we have to brace the walls so the whole goddamn thing don’t collapse!”

  I don’t know about the others, but I was a little nervous about the tunnel collapsing, so I was glad Cotton addressed the issue. He instructed us on how to shore up the tunnel as we used our picks and shovels, so it wouldn’t cave in on us. We also helped Cotton run an electrical line into the tunnel for light, so we could see what the hell we were doing.

  Another consideration was that digging the tunnel produced a lot of dirt. To handle that issue, G’s military training kicked in: he had us use the dirt to make sandbags, and also pour the dirt into the walls, which would give the office some added protection against pig bullets. While some of the brothers dug, others poured the dirt into burlap sacks and tied them up for sandbags. Using a hammer, crowbar, or even an ax, brothers with more skills demonstrated how to break open the walls, find the empty spaces, and pour the dirt between the studs. We could hear it throughout the day: Bam! Bam! Bam! and then swoosh, as the dirt poured in.

  The last area we had to deal with was the training room downstairs. It had a rear door that opened up to the backyard and rear alley, which created another vulnerability. For that, we used the tunnel dirt to secure the back door by piling it from the floor to the ceiling. It turned into a big mountain. No one, not the LAPD, the FBI, or the army, was getting through that door without going through two or three tons of dirt!

  Periodically, someone would shout, “Man, I’m hungry!” which was a signal for a meal break. Then one or two of the brothers would make a run to the hamburger stand on the corner and bring back hamburgers, fries, and drinks. Other times, people brought in food, and sometimes we cooked. On the days when we cooked, mostly it was beans, rice, and spaghetti: something in a big pot that could feed a lot of people. Sometimes we ate stuff leftover from the breakfast program. We washed down the food with beer every now and then, but mostly it was RC Colas, Nesbitt’s, or Cactus Coolers.

  G was sure the pigs would try to throw tear gas in the office. “Long John, Cotton,” he demanded, “you need to get some brothers to cover the windows with chicken wire. We need to prepare for tear gas grenades.”

  Cotton volunteered. “I’ll hit up the hardware store tomorrow to pick up what we need.”

  Long John put the brothers on task when the supplies arrived. Things continued to progress smoothly.

  As our fortification project began to take shape, G turned to Cotton and me. “You brothers need to make sure there are firing ports upstairs,” he ordered. We assured G that it would be done.

  Cotton built firing ports, which were rectangular holes cut in the wall or the wood, big enough for us to see out of. A metal hinge was used for the ports so that we could open them up to shoot and then close them to keep out bullets and tear gas, decreasing the chances of us getting hit. Cotton made two gun bunkers downstairs that had excellent fields of fire, meaning we could see everything that moved for one to two hundred yards. It gave us outstanding command of the street. These bunkers were reinforced with dirt and sandbags on top and in front to protect us in case the cops were shooting down. The bunkers had slats too.

  We also needed to resolve the issue of the pigs coming at us from our office next door, as well as from the upstairs. Cotton built a trapdoor and a ladder to give us access to the upstairs without having to go outside. His idea for the trapdoor was genius. Luckily for us, the police didn’t even know about it. We made sure that Party members didn’t use the trapdoor either, because we didn’t want to alert the police to its existence. Everybody was still walking up and down the stairs from outside. Even if the pigs found out about it, we needed to make sure they had no access to that door, because otherwise they would be able to raid downstairs and upstairs at the same time. So we reinforced the doors with big metal braces and wood. That way, the door of 4115½ South Central Avenue would resist even the pigs’ handheld battering ram.

  While we were fortifying the office, we continued our Party work, selling newspapers, feeding kids, holding political education classes, doing food and clothing drives, recruiting, training, and opening new locations. Carl Hampton was visiting us from Houston—he had been invited by G, came to Los Angeles in October, and spent most of his time at Central Headquarters. He was there to learn about setting up and operating a chapter. We explained the processes we used when selling the papers and collecting the money, setting up the office, recruiting, and holding political education classes. We worked with him about two days. He was serious about the Black Panther Party and didn’t come to Los Angeles to go to parties and chase girls. I gained respect for him while he was here. He was intelligent but also demonstrated street-smarts. Carl Hampton never started a chapter but established a People’s Party II modeled after the Black Panther Party. The Central Committee in Oakland refused to allow any new chapters because of police repression. Carl Hampton didn’t even live a year after he visited Los Angeles. He was killed in July 1970.

  Another project that was extremely important to us during this period was establishing the Bunchy Carter Free Health Clinic, a grassroots community operation to which physicians and nurses donated their time. It was located on the same block as our headquarters. Elaine, Gwen Goodloe, Norma, and Masai worked heavily on that.

  One evening in November we held a meeting at the headquarters to discuss the health clinic. The physicians, lawyers, nurses, and volunteers attended, along with thirty members from other offices. The meeting began around 5:00 PM. As we moved toward 7:00, the meeting was ending, so the visitors started leaving. At some point, Will Stafford noticed some police activity while looking out of the window.

  Will went over to G to speak to him. About two to three visitors were left, but G knew he couldn’t wait any longer to take action. With serious authority, G said, “Attention comrades, everybody stop what you are doing.”

  We all stopped talking and started walking toward G so we could hear what he had to say.

  “There are about a hundred pigs out front, blocking off the street.”

  The police had blocked off Central Avenue between Santa Barbara and Vernon Avenue and were diverting traffic away from the area. They cleared the streets so that no cars could get through. Then we noticed that they had surrounded the building; some of the pigs were on the rooftop, and police cars and vans were parked up and down the street. We saw some police running as they moved into position. The police were positioned to raid us.

  G directed us. “Everybody move into position. Elaine, man the phones and let people know what’s going on.”

  Elaine, Joan, and a few other women went upstairs to handle the communications. They contacted the news media, the national office in Oakland, and community activists. After the media was called, reporters, community leaders, and those from the neighborhood came out to see what was happening.

  While the women were moving, G said, “Everybody else move into defensive position. Long John and Cotton, make sure everybody has a weapon.”

  Long John and Cotton went into the gun room on the first floor and quickly parceled out the arms. Of course, some of us were already packing, but having an additional weapon was not a bad thing. There were a variety of weapons in the gun room, but we had more people than guns. The guns were given to the most senior and most experienced in warfare. Those in leadership positions took the best guns, like the Thompson and M-14s. If a comrade didn’t have a gun, then he was to stand by to take one from someone who had gotten shot or couldn’t use it for whatever reason. Also, if a comrade didn’t have a gun, he would be given a pipe bomb instead. As we received our weapons, G walked back and forth, issuing orders that ensured all of the entry spots were covered. Except for Elaine, who was on the phone, and G giving instructions, we all stayed quiet.

  There were appro
ximately eight rooms upstairs, which encompassed the newsroom, communications room, conference room, and others. The meeting room was in the center, with all the other rooms radiating off of it. I was positioned upstairs in a conference room, looking over Central Avenue, covering the window with an M-1 carbine. Will Stafford, Lloyd Mims, Long John, and Tony Quisenberry were upstairs too, spread throughout the other rooms. There were at least two people in every room, sometimes three. Paul Redd, Cotton, Duck, and Jimmy Johnson covered the windows and doors downstairs.

  It became a cat-and-mouse game for the next two hours. Apparently, part of the negotiation with the police was that any women and children present could leave. G told the women to go, and they left gladly. About an hour later, the cops pulled out, but we stayed armed. We talked for hours about what had occurred. We knew we needed to urgently intensify our efforts after this.

  The next day, G and I met and surveyed the situation. We noticed right away that the police did not leave anything behind that indicated they had been there. G said to me, “This was a reconnaissance mission. They were checking to see what kind of defenses we have.”

  I said, “Well, I think it was a pretty dumb move on their part. Coming in on us with that classic police shit of jumping out of cars and running toward the office. We could’ve easily smoked twenty to thirty of them in a few minutes.”

  “Yeah, I know. It would have been a bloodbath. They don’t know our capabilities,” G commented.