Nine Lives of a Black Panther Read online

  After being transferred to the county jail in Los Angeles, the next month, January 1971, G read in the Party newspaper that he was expelled from the Party. He didn’t even know why. I don’t know for sure, but it seemed obvious that Huey’s intention was to destroy the militant wing of the Party. In this case he eliminated some of its most dedicated cadre. None of them could adequately fight back because they were all in jail. That was some treacherous shit!

  Not surprising to me at all was Eldridge Cleaver’s expulsion from the Party in February, a month after G’s. The disagreements between Eldridge and Huey went back to the early days. They were ideological and tactical. When Bobby and Huey established the Black Panther Party, they worked within the confines of the law. But after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Eldridge, Bunchy, and G wanted to go on the offensive. Beyond that, the Party expanded under Eldridge’s leadership while Huey was in jail, which I think contributed to a little jealousy on Huey’s part. Instead of Huey being mad at Eldridge, I thought he should have been thankful. Eldridge did a great job maintaining Huey’s image while he was in prison.

  New York Panthers were also expelled—in particular, the Panther 21, a group of Panthers who had been arrested for various charges, including conspiracy to blow up department stores, railways, and police stations. New York members Michael Tabor and Dhoruba Moore challenged David Hilliard and Huey Newton in an open letter about what they believed were misuses of Party funds and abuse of power. In the same letter they praised the work of the Weather Underground. Dhoruba and Michael eventually resigned from the Party and went to Algeria to work with Eldridge. Other members in New York sided with Cleaver, and soon the entire group was expelled.

  I truly believe that if the Party’s strongest leaders had been able to meet and talk together during this crucial time, the dissension wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand. But Bunchy was dead, Bobby was locked up, and G was in the South when Huey expelled him, so there was no personal confrontation. Huey had a few valid arguments, such as the enormous cost of bailing out members hurting the party. But his response was not to engage in dialogue, but to purge and attack. His behavior was so erratic that many of us were sure Huey was a drug addict and most likely was already addicted when he came out of prison. Huey didn’t have to listen to anyone. He was unchallenged, in full control.

  I really began to question Newton’s sanity when he began calling himself the “supreme commander” and then “supreme servant of the people.” These titles appeared in the Party newspaper, and Party leaders like Elaine were introducing and addressing him in public, emphasizing those titles. What bullshit! Somebody should’ve hit Huey in the mouth when he started referring to himself as supreme! Chairman Mao didn’t call himself nothing with “supreme” on it.

  Meanwhile, the problems between Huey and Eldridge were played out in public and out loud. The FBI had gotten in on the action by sending bogus letters and other information to both parties. It all came to a head during a talk show interview, with Huey live in San Francisco and Eldridge on the phone in Algeria to promote an Intercommunal Day of Solidarity. At the end of the conversation they got into an argument about the expulsions. Eldridge criticized David Hilliard’s leadership and accused him of mismanaging Party funds. After that Huey called Eldridge a maniac and expelled his section of the Party. Not everyone supported Eldridge. Field Marshall George Jackson wrote to Eldridge and accused him of being a compulsive disruptor or agent provocateur.

  But that didn’t matter to Eldridge. During a telephone interview in March on KSAN Radio in San Francisco, Eldridge accused Huey of refusing to support acts of armed resistance. He expelled Huey and David Hilliard from the Party, and he reinstated G and the Panther 21. The Party would now be headquartered in New York under his leadership. Eldridge also called for the formation of a Black Liberation Army (BLA), which was to become an underground network of people committed to revolutionary activity.

  I had buried myself in Watts, surrounded by my crew, when the split was going down. Because of the community work I had done in Watts, I was untouchable. But as a result of the internal Party war, Panthers were disappearing, turning up shot and missing, which was adding more police pressure. Robert Webb, a supporter of Cleaver, was shot and killed in Harlem on March 8, 1971, apparently by some pro-Huey Panthers. Sam Napier, distribution manager of the Party newspaper, was found dead in New York City on April 17, 1971. He was found bound, gagged, and shot six times. Considered a supporter of Newton, his death was blamed on the Cleaver faction. Fred Bennett, coordinator of the East Oakland branch, was missing for months before pieces of his body were found in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Rumors were spreading like wildfire about the reasons for his death: being pro-Cleaver or dating Bobby Seale’s wife. I didn’t know what would happen next.

  (L to R) Bobby Seale, Elaine Brown, Huey Newton, and John Seale at Newton’s home, 1973. COURTESY OF IT’S ABOUT TIME ARCHIVES

  18

  TORN ASUNDER

  Huey and Eldridge’s rancorous feud not only affected the Party nationally and internationally, it caused great acrimony and divisiveness locally too. Some Panthers in Los Angeles sided with Eldridge, while others stayed with Huey. For those of us fighting charges related to the December 8 raids and shoot-out, the split in the Party had an enormous impact on our lives. We had come out of gangs, battled the Us Organization, and become hardened even more by war with the LAPD and its Metro and SWAT squads. We had learned military tactics and strategies and functioned together as a team to survive. Now, we were looking at each other with suspicion.

  One day while the split was going down, Harold Taylor came by my spot in the projects. I was happy to see him; we knew each other from the neighborhood and our Teen Post days. He was underground quite a bit and constantly on the run, so having him come by the house was a special occasion, and we treated it that way. I invited him in and we went straight to the kitchen. “All I got is Schlitz or milk,” I said to him with a laugh. “Which will it be, brother?”

  Harold threw his head back and let out a laugh as I pulled two beers from the refrigerator. “Let’s go on into the living room,” he said. “I want to relax.”

  “You know the way,” I replied as I handed him his beer. We both settled in, sitting back and relaxing, drinking brew, and catching up with small talk. Inevitably, the subject of our conversation finally turned to Huey and Eldridge.

  “Which way are you going?” Harold looked at me. He had a mischievous grin on his face.

  Actually, my choice didn’t require any serious thought. “I know you’re joking,” I smiled coolly. “Shit. You know how I feel about self-defense. That alone requires me to join with Eldridge and the BLA. Plus, I’m going to be on G’s side, whatever happens.”

  Harold grinned.

  “From what I know,” I continued, “only Al, Craig, Robert Bryan, and Tommye Williams are with Huey.”

  “Man, it’s hard to believe that Huey has rejected the armed struggle.” Harold shook his head, finishing his beer and getting up for another. “I never thought we would have a conversation like this.”

  I stopped and watched Harold walk into the kitchen, thinking about the split and everything else that was going down at the same time. I voiced my agreement: “You speak the truth, brother.”

  “Have you talked to anybody on Huey’s side?” Harold called out from the kitchen.

  “No, not really,” I hollered back. “But I ain’t mad at nobody as long as they don’t mess with me. I just don’t know if I can trust them like I used to.”

  Harold nodded. “Yeah, can we really be in the same room with them? I mean, Huey has done some foul shit. I can’t ignore it!”

  “I hear you man, but Al and I have always been tight. With Lux gone, it just doesn’t feel right. I wouldn’t mind talking with Al to clear the air, in fact.”

  Harold agreed. “Ain’t nothing like knowing where you stand with somebody.”

  The BLA was a network of activists committed to self-
defense, armed struggle, and appropriating what was needed for revolutionary change. Someone in the network approached me to confirm that I was down with the philosophy and the work. I assured him I was.

  Shortly after this, a few brothers from the BLA came over and said G wanted me to go with them to hit a snitch. G was in jail, so I asked the brother about the specifics of the plan. After he explained it to me, I told him I couldn’t do it.

  “That stinks,” I told him. “You guys can use my guns and whatever equipment you need, but I can’t go with you on this one.” I was always thinking about my children.

  We talked a little while longer and they eventually left.

  The brothers from the network were front-page news the next day. The operation had been a SWAT setup. Once they hit the scene, SWAT lit up their car. Luckily, no one was killed, but the car they rode in was shot up and the brothers got busted. My instincts were correct. I always felt that had I been there I would have been killed. Even though I had sided with the BLA, I wasn’t going on any suicide missions.

  The trial for the shoot-out started in February 1971. We were charged with conspiracy to murder police officers and possession of illegal weapons. No matter what the charges were, I understood that we were really being tried for defending ourselves against the SWAT team’s assault on the Panther headquarters.

  Going to court every day was exhausting. I dreaded getting dressed to go. In the mornings, I would throw on my Levi’s or slacks and a pullover shirt and jacket and get in my blue Comet to drive to Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles. I was still running crews, making money at night and then making it to court in the morning. I realized I was hooked on the adrenaline from the robberies, and it gave me some relief from the stress of the trial.

  Then one day I see Red in the courtroom. We hadn’t spoken since the day she came to the house with Huey’s thugs to shake me down. But the previous month, she had been expelled from the Party along with G. Now, with G locked up, she was pretty much out on her own. Red wasn’t showing too much, but it was obvious that she was pregnant.

  After court, she walked toward me. “Wayne, I really want to talk to you and apologize for my role in what happened. I shouldn’t have been involved in that situation.”

  I had no problem with Red. I knew she had been manipulated by Huey, David, or both and was acting on their orders. I hadn’t been hurt, so it was cool. “I’m not holding any grudges. So, what happened?”

  “It came from up the chain of command,” she said.

  “Yeah, I figured that.” I changed the subject. “How many months along are you?”

  She smiled as she answered, “About four months.”

  Red had gotten played just like Cotton and the others in Dallas. When she was going back and forth to Oakland with G she thought she had established some cool relationships with the leadership.

  After that conversation, Red and I bonded. Since we were part of the outlaw faction, two of the few from the Southern California chapter that were out on the streets at the same time, it only made sense. Plus, Red was G’s woman, and I wanted to help her out for his sake.

  Red was traveling by bus, so I starting driving her home from court to an apartment way over on the Westside, off of Fairfax and San Vicente. We were hanging pretty tough because I had some action going with weed and red devils, and Red could move those pills. She needed the money, so it worked out for both of us. On a few occasions Red hung out with Richard, Pam, and me. We had a good time, reminiscing about the Party, laughing, drinking, and getting high.

  One day, while we were in the car, we talked about the unexpected changes in the Party since Huey had gotten out of prison. “It’s bad, Wayne. Huey’s coke habit is dominating everything. He smokes and snorts up everything in eyesight. People spend more time feeding his habit than running the Party. He has severe mood shifts too. It’s fucked up, really.”

  I said to Red, “The only way we can salvage what’s left is to take him out. I say we hit him right now, make him a martyr—a hero to the movement before he completely destroys the Party.” It was something to be considered.

  Regarding the trial, I had no faith in the criminal justice system, so I didn’t think we had a chance to beat the charges. Sometimes Pam and I would talk about what would happen if I were convicted. I let her know to get prepared, because I thought I would do some real time. One reason I was so fatalistic was the behavior of Judge Dell. He openly showed his disdain for us. For instance, G, Paul, and Roland wanted to replace their attorneys, but Dell denied their request, asserting that they really just wanted to make their attorneys errand boys. Then Judge Dell kept overruling the objections of the attorneys we truly believed were on our side. The goddamn judge even threatened to reprimand and lock up Johnnie Cochran under the guise that he was objecting too much. Equally contributing to my fatalism was the feeling Johnnie Cochran had that the prosecutors knew our strategy. Later we found that Cochran was right. He told us that one of the defense lawyers was an informant; it was Arthur Alexander, my attorney. Cochran said that Alexander admitted to him that he was sharing information because he thought we might escape. Fuckin’ traitor. He should have been disbarred for his actions.

  Weapons confiscated from LAPD SWAT raids of Geronimo and Sandra Pratt’s home, the Walter Toure Pope Community Center, and the Panther Central Headquarters on December 8 on display by the LAPD in the Exhibit Room of Weapons. UCLA CHARLES E. YOUNG RESEARCH LIBRARY DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, LOS ANGELES TIMES PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES

  The lead prosecutor was Deputy District Attorney Ronald Carroll. He relied heavily on the police officers as his witnesses and approximately two hundred exhibits. Most of the exhibits were of weapons, including ammunition, shells, ammo belts, the Thompson submachine gun, rifles, and others found at headquarters. If the actual weapon wasn’t exhibited, then there were photos of weapons with one of us holding them, to convince the jury that we wanted to kill police officers.

  To our benefit we had some skilled and kick-ass attorneys who were able to counter some of that bullshit the prosecutors were selling. However, we did have one major disagreement with our attorneys: we wanted to testify, and they didn’t trust us on the witness stand! We had a message about police brutality against the black community and the Black Panther Party that we wanted to communicate from Los Angeles to the world. We also wanted to start a national discourse on the issue of self-defense, which the Party believes is a God-given right, and we were within our rights to defend ourselves on December 8. Our attorneys still refused to allow us to testify. Their concern, according to Cochran, was that our side might lose control of the trial during cross-examination. But I knew the real deal was that they didn’t trust us on the witness stand, not even to answer questions with yes sir, no sir. The more I thought about it, I recognized that they were right in denying us the witness stand. Chuckling to myself, I thought, Some of us could be hotheaded or not smart enough to spar with those professionals. Eventually, we capitulated and relied on our attorneys to do their jobs. Plus, Ronald Freeman was a witness for us, and so we knew he could get our message out to the public. Johnnie Cochran and James Gordon made racism in the police ranks an important part of the trial, and we appreciated that.

  The most unsettling aspect of the trial for me was when I found out that the star witness for the prosecution was Cotton! That chump made a deal to turn state’s evidence against us in order to get the charges against him dropped. I was staggered when my attorney told me; at first I didn’t even believe it.

  I went home and told Pam. “Babe, I just heard today that Cotton turned on us! He is going to testify for the prosecution. That motherfucka knows everything.”

  She looked at me, stunned, just like I was. “No, I can’t believe that. What is he going to do, talk about how he shot those cops? Damn!”

  “But, you know, the more I think about it, working with the feds is probably the only move that Cotton can see right now. He’s scared as hell of G. People are still
wondering if he set up the brothers in Dallas. And remember, Touré’s gun jammed, and he was blamed for that. He probably thinks people are after him.”

  Pam and I analyzed it together. “Yeah, and if he was set up by Huey to take the fall for all of that, he can’t trust them niggas in Oakland either.”

  I said, “If Cotton is innocent of setting up Panthers, then he sees himself as caught in the middle and doesn’t know who to trust. To stay alive, at least a little while longer, he put his faith in law enforcement.” Shaking my head, I said, “Shit. He can’t trust them either. The nigga should have just disappeared.”

  Pam replied with her hands on her hips, “I’m wondering how much of what happened he is going to talk about. He can’t tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Can he?”

  “He is being protected by cops. All we can do is wait and see.”

  My involvement in the Party was rooted in Watts, so I felt that my exposure to Cotton was limited, compared to those based out of Central Headquarters. But I was partially correct.

  Detective Raymond Callahan walked Cotton into the courtroom. A hush fell over the room. When I saw Cotton with Callahan, I knew we were in trouble. Callahan was the Panther expert for the LAPD’s criminal conspiracy section, and he was committed to destroying us, whatever it took. I wondered what Callahan had gotten out of Cotton.

  In his testimony, Cotton talked about being a handyman for the Party and someone who ensured that our guns worked. He stated that he attended classes on making bombs; he shoplifted bullets with the women and distributed literature on guerilla warfare. On the issue of children, Cotton said they were taught to hate policemen at the breakfast program and that we allowed little boys to play with pipe bombs. He also testified that the Black Panther Party was teaching him so much hate that he had to undergo psychiatric counseling.