Nine Lives of a Black Panther Read online

  Now I had some stability. A relationship and a job and, of course, family. My only problem was that I couldn’t keep up with the drinking lifestyle. People were drinking 24-7, all day and all night. When running a bar, the owner or employees are required to keep the party going, which kept the booze flowing. I ran the bar, but I did it without drinking all that liquor.

  One night at the club, a brother in khakis and a nice jacket walked in. When I heard him ask for Wayne, I knew something was up. Everybody in the South called me Billy, after my father. He pulled me to the side and said, “I got a message from G.”

  I took him to a private spot in the club, served him a drink, and offered him some food. He was eating heartily as if he had not had a meal in a while: baked chicken, red beans, and greens. “How’s G?” I asked.

  “He’s holding up well and still working on the appeal.”

  I wondered how G knew where I was or what I was doing, but it was likely just word of mouth. I was connected to Dru, who was well known throughout New Orleans, and people knew my history.

  My guest then said to me, “I am here because the BLA is making moves in Louisiana and Mississippi and G needs a little help with something.”

  “Right on. I will do what I can to help.” I was pleased with the offer, because it meant that I was still acknowledged as associated with the BLA, which kept me connected to the movement.

  Being in Louisiana was working for me. I had never perceived a bond with my brother or my father. After I had been there for two years, I felt like I finally had a strong and very close relationship with Dru. But, I had to admit, I missed my children and I missed Nanny. My mother and Sharon were taking care of Tammy, and Nanny helped with the boys. I called and sent money, but it wasn’t enough. They needed my presence. I also missed Los Angeles. It was time for me to go back home.

  Dru was sad to see me go but understood the need for me to raise my children. After being abandoned by our father, we agreed that I needed to be there for my own. I asked Carmen to go to Los Angeles with me and she agreed. I did the respectful thing and sought approval from Carmen’s mom, promising to take care of her. We got the OK and took off. As soon as we got an apartment, she went to work. We eventually married.

  The first place I worked after I returned was Smitty’s Liquor Store. It was a nice gig, and I developed a reputation in the business of being an honest, hard worker. After a few run-ins, word got around that I didn’t tolerate shoplifting and that if somebody got rowdy, they might get their brains blown out.

  Soon opportunities from other store owners came knocking. Earl Livingston offered to pay twice as much as Smitty, so I changed jobs and started working for him on Seventy-Sixth and Compton Avenue. I was back on the Eastside.

  I married Carmen after meeting her in New Orleans while visiting my brother Dru. WAYNE PHARR COLLECTION

  Former members of the Black Panther Party started dropping by. The first one I saw was Roland Freeman. “Wayne, I heard you was back. It’s good to see you.” Roland looked like he had been taking care of himself.

  “Same to you, brother. I was in Louisiana for a while, hanging with my brother and my father. What are you into?”

  Roland said, “Insurance, man. It’s not exciting, but I’m living.”

  Curious, I asked, “So, what’s up with everybody else?”

  “Long John went to school and got a bunch of licenses to do plumbing and electrical work. He is also a licensed mechanic.”

  “That’s cool. So you both are entrepreneurs, running your own businesses.”

  Roland answered, “Yeah, you know it’s hard for us to get jobs, or even work for somebody. By the way, Ronald got involved with some church and moved to San Francisco. Masai is doing work for the Communist Party. He’s married to a Filipino woman.”

  I was finally able to get together with my old comrades when Harold Taylor threw a party. A lot of the comrades showed up: Ronald, Long John, Masai, Roland, Jerry, and others. Richard wasn’t there because he was doing time for a robbery, but Tyrone contributed to the fun. We had a blast being together again, reminiscing.

  After the event, all of us remained in touch. We were still each other’s comrades and tried to keep each other on the straight and narrow path. This was especially true when it came to dealing with the temptations of drugs or continued confrontations with the police. One of the most important issues my comrades worked on together was the Free Geronimo Pratt campaign. Roland, Ronald, Peaches, and Long John took the lead. They proved to be tireless and dedicated warriors, raising money and awareness.

  Working for the store owners was cool, but a dead-end job for me. I didn’t want to kill anybody for money, and the liquor store business could be dangerous, with the characters and clowns who sometimes came through. Like my brother Dru and Roland and Long John, I wanted my own establishment.

  I would eventually start my own business, and I did it in the arena that had been a part of my life since I was a child: real estate. I had watched my mother engage in the business of real estate and property ownership all of my life. Two of my cousins, Gloria Prescott and Sue Pharr-Smith, were also successful in real estate sales. I was checking out my cousins and realized that my ability to hustle would be an asset in the business. I expressed my interest to a guy named Paul Baker, who worked for Charles Williams’s Century 21 office. He brought me a bunch of brochures on attending real estate school. Then, I asked Uncle Henry Green for a loan to pay for school, and he came through. I finally got my real estate license in 1978. I was worried about my criminal record, but all I had were assault cases and the possession of weapons conviction from the SWAT case. I had no fraud, drug cases, or anything that was considered moral turpitude. I was given a restricted license, which meant that if I was convicted of any crime, the real estate board could take my license without a hearing.

  Charles Williams hired me to work at Century 21 as an agent. He was a sharp broker and taught me what he understood about the business. I loved the real estate game. It was a hundred percent better than working in liquor stores. The harder you worked, the more money you could make. Plus, I was also able to purchase my own property.

  With Charles Williams’s assistance and the help of my family, I was able to grow my business. Soon, I had enough resources to hire an agent to work with me. Joe Armistead became that agent. Joe had gone to Liberia and invested in diamonds, but things turned sour and he lost his ass over there. Joe had given me the dope game when I really needed some money, so I gave him the real estate game. I loaned him some money and gave him the books and information he needed to work in real estate. He took the exam and passed it.

  I worked for the Charles Williams Century 21 Agency for two years. In 1981, I moved to Citizen’s Realty with Jim Hobbley, a broker who was located in a more integrated area on the Westside of Los Angeles. That was a great move for me because it gave me access to a whole new clientele. Jim was a good guy, but he was a poor money manager. After he neglected to pay a few important bills, we received an eviction notice. Jim and the staff collectively agreed that I had the skills and ambition to head the office. I became the head of the Citizen’s Realty franchise. By then, I had four agents working for me.

  I had found my niche: the business of real estate. I participated in professional development programs throughout the city. One of the best was the broker development business run by Century 21. I learned how to recruit and train more agents and expand the business overall. I was a good trainer because I had great organizing and people skills, skills I learned from my comrades and mentors in the Black Panther Party. Over time, I grew my business to a staff of sixty people, including my mother, who became one of my secretaries. We moved again, staying Westside, to Pico and La Brea because we needed more space.

  Fortuitously—and ironically—it was the business that had caused me so much misery as a kid that ultimately provided me with a legitimate avenue to wealth and prosperity. It has also been the engine that allows me to make a meaningful c
ontribution to black people, especially gaining access to a home and land. Even when people experience financial crises, I can use the tricks of the trade to help save their homes or use that resource to pay for their children’s college education or finance other important needs. I know from experience that real estate is one of the best ways for a poor person to obtain wealth. I see my work as a way to fulfill one of the tenets of the Ten Point Platform of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. We want land, bread, property …

  By the 1990s I had become one of the top-producing real estate brokers in the Los Angeles area. I am in my office pleased after closing another big deal. WAYNE PHARR COLLECTION

  EPILOGUE

  HONOR AND SACRIFICE

  It was, unfortunately, just a matter of time: Huey’s love affair with crack cocaine ultimately proved too great for him to overcome. Huey Newton, the cofounder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, died on August 22, 1989, gunned down by a drug dealer outside of a crack house in Oakland. The Party’s minister of defense was only forty-seven years old when he was murdered. The killer wanted to score points with the Black Guerilla Family—a prison group that began as political before some members turned to criminal activity—by offing Huey.

  Before Huey’s death, the Party leaders most loyal to him bore the brunt of his out-of-control, drug-induced, violent, and paranoid behavior. Among other things, he expelled David Hilliard, viciously assaulted Bobby Seale, and had one of his goons pistol-whip Masai. Before he was expelled, David Hilliard developed a crack cocaine habit that had become just as bad as Huey’s. David had started calling me for cash. “This is Chief of Staff David Hilliard. I need you to send money to the Party,” he would say. But I wouldn’t do it. Other than being desperate to feed the demands of his addiction, I’m not sure why David would call me anyway, considering that I had sided with Eldridge and not Huey. David did at least finally sober up, joining a substance abuse treatment program.

  It took years for me to get over it, but I wasn’t mad at Huey or David anymore. Addicts do crazy things, and those with power are worst-case scenarios because their subordinates will aid irrational behavior. After Huey was released from prison, the contradictions were apparent to anyone who bothered to look. The Southern California chapter of the Black Panther Party was labeled by Huey as a bunch of “out-of-control gangsters,” and that part of the lumpen that couldn’t be saved; but at the same time, our national leaders had goon squads beating people on a whim. Then, after our entire chapter had been expelled from the Party and our offices shut down, Panther leaders in Oakland started shooting prostitutes and pistol-whipping tailors. It was ironic that the Los Angeles Panthers proved our commitment to the revolution while the leaders of the Party, who were calling themselves revolutionaries, were acting like gangsters. We in L.A. put in serious work, and that is what vindicates us.

  In 1975, a few years after the Southern California chapter was shut down, Eldridge Cleaver returned to the United States. He did a year or so in prison for his involvement in ambushing the cops when Bobby Hutton got killed. I never learned what Eldridge had to do or say to get back into the country, and it didn’t really matter to me. Eldridge, like many of us, did what was necessary to stay alive and hopefully avoid living his final days in prison. As with Huey and David, I held no grudge against Eldridge, although many of us in the Party had risked our lives to support his leadership instead of Huey’s.

  After returning, Eldridge went through a lot of changes, ultimately metamorphosing into someone I didn’t recognize. First, he started using crack cocaine, and then got busted in Northern California. He cleaned up his act and then publicly committed to Christianity. On the issue of Eldridge’s drug addiction, he was no different than so many other black people trying to survive while living on the edge. At the time Eldridge returned to the United States, black communities were being flooded with hard-core drugs—a planned assault intended to quash the black liberation struggle. At the same time, jobs for blacks were scarce, which made it all the more easy to succumb to those dangerous substances.

  Every black leader, if not every individual, would be well-served to read the “Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,” written in 1968 in response to the urban uprisings in the 1960s led by black people. The study called for jobs and better education in the cities as solutions to the crisis. But, despite what the report advised, little changed: few opportunities for employment appeared, and the educational system went from bad to worse. Crack cocaine and heroin distracted many in our community, and we stopped pushing the system to negotiate our demands for opportunities, rights, and respect. Tragically, the dope trade filled the economic vacuum and became the provider of some economic opportunities, which were so lacking in the inner cities. Then a “war on drugs” was instituted throughout the country and included harsh penalties, such as “three strikes,” which locked up our people.

  The so-called war on drugs has been a veiled war on black people. I truly believe that drugs were put in our neighborhoods to destroy leaders like Huey and Eldridge, along with thousands of young black men. Drugs destroyed our will to fight as a community against oppression. Imagine how many Malcolm Xs have been locked up or killed because of the drug trade. The highly addictive nature of crack cocaine began destroying our family structure: black men were in jail, black women hooked on the drug began selling their bodies and sometimes their children for a hit. Those of us living in the cities in the early 1970s witnessed the transformation.

  In the 1980s, Congresswoman Maxine Waters exposed the link between the Central Intelligence Agency and the international drug trade. When right-wing groups in Nicaragua, called the Contras, sold cocaine in black communities to fund their war against the Nicaraguan government, the CIA and the Reagan administration turned a blind eye. Ricky Ross, a Los Angeles dope dealer, purchased the drugs at cheap prices and trafficked them in major cities, thus contributing to the crack cocaine epidemic. Drugs were so plentiful and lucrative that the local gangs became major players in the dope game. The next thing I knew, community youth had gone from aspiring to be the next Malcolm X, Bunchy, Huey, or Eldridge to bragging about living a thug’s life. Becoming a gangster became more prestigious than being a freedom fighter.

  At the premiere for the movie Panther, written by Mario Van Peebles and starring Marcus Chong as Huey P. Newton. Chong’s strong resemblance to Huey was noted by many Panthers. WAYNE PHARR COLLECTION

  It’s obvious even today that the police are not interested in ending the scourge of drugs that is ravaging our community. Going back to when I was selling, I knew then that the police weren’t putting much effort into trying to bust me, because slinging dope is not a threat to the capitalist system. What a contrast to my Panther days! I truly believe that if the police had put the same intensity into ending the dope business that they had put toward destroying the black liberation struggle, there would be no dope business today.

  I’m proud of the sacrifices the Black Panther Party made for our people. And I recognize that so many others who came before us suffered tremendously and gave even more of themselves. We should know about the efforts of our freedom fighters so that young people might gain the will and strength to fight another day.

  Geronimo ji-Jaga Pratt should not be forgotten. As one of the L.A. 18 arrested on the morning of December 8, 1969, G waged war above-ground and underground until he was framed and wrongly convicted of murdering of a white schoolteacher in 1972. Even behind bars, G never stopped fighting. It took twenty-seven years, but with the skill of his lawyers, the work of the community, and his commitment to be free, the courts eventually had no other choice but to release him. Johnnie Cochran, one of the attorneys who represented G in that case, later said that overturning that conviction was the greatest victory of his career.

  In 1997, hundreds of people waited outside the courthouse in Santa Ana. Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, Roland and Ronald Freeman, Long John, me, and so many others who made up the Free
Geronimo Pratt Committee, were all there to greet him on the day he was released. As usual, Peaches sang a freedom song. Looking strong and vibrant, G walked out of the courthouse. The crowd applauded, shouted, and cried. He said a few words and then drove off in a black Jeep that had been purchased for the occasion. That night, the Free Geronimo Pratt Committee held a banquet in his honor at a local church.

  Geronimo and Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald in captivity together in San Quentin during the 1980s. By this time, both had served more than a decade. Geronimo’s murder conviction was overturned and he was released in 1997. Chip remains in prison today, making him one of the longest serving political prisoners in the United States. COURTESY OF VIRGINIA PRATT

  Eldridge and G reignited their friendship, and from time to time during the late 1990s I would hang out with them and Kathleen. We went to bars or restaurants, spending long hours holding court wherever we were, rearguing Panther history and politics. After Hugh Pearson’s biography of Huey Newton, The Shadow of the Panther, garnered attention, we had a lively discussion about the book. I remember G saying that Pearson’s description of his relationship with Huey while they were in San Quentin together was so accurate that it seemed like Pearson had been in the room with them. It was eerie, we all agreed.

  Eldridge and Kathleen had divorced in 1987, and it became obvious that G and Kathleen had more in common with each other than G and Eldridge had at that time. Kathleen had become a lawyer, and she had worked with the legal team for G. Eldridge was elated that G had gotten released from prison, but he had little involvement in revolutionary politics.

  Geronimo and my daughter Dana at my home on Bronson Street after his release from prison in 1997. WAYNE PHARR COLLECTION

  Eldridge and I were never close, but we engaged in plenty of conversation and debate when we were together with G. He knew about the shoot-out and the role that Los Angeles played in the Party. We agreed that Huey Newton destroyed the organization, along with COINTELPRO. On May 1, 1998, at the age of sixty-two, Eldridge died of a heart attack in Pomona, California. I drove G to the service. It was a revolutionary funeral, in honor of his revolutionary past. Another chapter in Panther history ended.