Nine Lives of a Black Panther Read online

  “About Us,” I said to Louis, “I just can’t understand why they spend so much time trying to get people to learn an African language, when most black people haven’t even learned basic English, because the education system is so fucked up.”

  “Right on, man. I wouldn’t learn an African language right now, even if they paid me.”

  “Plus, them Us niggas want us to wear a dashiki every day, wear a ten-foot Afro, and put five earrings in our ears and a bone through our noses.”

  Then we both fell on the ground laughing.

  Finally, it was Sharon’s turn to weigh in on the conversation, so I got together with her as planned. We grabbed some food to go and rode out to a quiet place. I wasn’t looking at it as a picnic, but I did want to keep out distractions: gawking brothers, hunger, seeing people she or I might know. When we finally sat down, she jumped in immediately.

  “So, what on earth is going on?” She searched my eyes for a clue as to what I was thinking. “You sounded pretty serious when you were up in Oakland.”

  “I was,” I replied. “In fact, ‘serious’ is pretty much on point; things are serious all around us. Brothers getting shot up left and right by these racist police. It’s like black people are getting bulldozed every day. We’ve got to stand up to this shit.”

  “I hear you,” she responded with a knowing nod of the head.

  “I feel like we are at war,” I continued. “It’s time that I do more in response to this war.”

  Sharon sat quietly for a long while, chewing her food and looking up into the sky. Finally, she said quietly, “War is real. People die in war, and real undertakers pick up real dead bodies. This ain’t no Hollywood movie. Everybody ain’t going home in the end, to eat some good-ass chicken and greens like we doing right now.”

  We both chuckled at the last part of her point, but it was real talk. I knew that. No one knew that better than me. I guess somewhere along the line, maybe when I purchased the second or third gun, I had already come to grips with that. Sitting there then, realizing that, I was amazed at how we could make such big decisions inside ourselves without even noticing.

  The Black Panther Party of Los Angeles had several offices. The branch closest to me was on Eighty-Second and Broadway. Most of the brothers from the ’hood worked out of this office. Since I knew so many of the Panthers there, that’s where I ended up going to check out their program.

  I went up to the door, and a tall, lanky dude by the name of Ronald Freeman answered. He invited me in.

  “I know you guys have been fighting with the police, and I’m down with that,” I announced as I walked through the door.

  I noticed a few other people in the office, including Ronald’s younger brother Roland. We talked for what seemed like a long time. They told me about the reasons the Black Panther Party existed, the programs of the organization, and their focus on recruiting more young people. In fact, they were on their way to UCLA, they told me, to organize students there and talk to them about the Party. Roland said they were waiting on a ride.

  I made an instant decision and asked them if they wanted me to take them to UCLA. I didn’t want to boast, but I was proud of my ride, and I felt they would know what kind of cat I was by the way I took care of my low-rider. We all hopped in the car and drove the forty-five minutes to UCLA. I had some guns in my glove compartment; I thought it was important I let these dudes know I was packing. “By the way,” I said casually, “I’ve got some guns.”

  Roland studied me. “What you got?”

  “A .38 and a .45.” I showed them my weapons.

  For a long moment, no one said anything, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake by saying what I did. Then Roland laughed. “Right on,” he said.

  We drove on up to UCLA and parked. I realized that I was hanging out with some outlaws when Roland took the parking ticket off of somebody else’s car and put it on ours.

  We walked up to the room where the meeting was being held, and I saw a boatload of students and Bunchy leading the meeting.

  “Hey, man, you’re on guard duty since you’re packing,” Roland nodded at me.

  “Good,” I replied.

  The meeting lasted about an hour, and then we left. On the way back to the office we got into another discussion about guns. I really wanted to check out what they had, but they didn’t produce any. I wanted to brag as well as let them know that I could make a major contribution to the party. So I went home and got a few more.

  I came back with a couple of my pistols. “If you going to throw down with the police you need some real heat,” I told Roland and the rest of them.

  That was my introduction to the Black Panther Party, taking me one step closer.

  7

  COMMITTED TO WATTS

  There were five Party offices in Los Angeles, but I wanted to operate out of Watts. The office was located in Charcoal Alley, so named because of the large number of buildings in the area that had burned to the ground during the Watts Rebellion of ’65. It was the smallest of our offices in L.A., located near the railroad tracks on 103rd Street, east of Wilmington. Some people considered the area a wasteland, but I didn’t mind at all. I picked the Watts office precisely because there weren’t a lot of people I knew in that part of Los Angeles. In fact, the Broadway office was in the middle of my neighborhood, which meant I was either friends with or associated with most of the guys there. But I didn’t join the Party to hang out with my friends; I came to put in some serious work for my people.

  Tyrone Hutchinson had joined the Party a few months before me. He was based out of the Broadway office and couldn’t understand why I was considering working out of Watts. “Man, what the hell will you do over there at the Watts office?” he asked me one day when I stopped by Broadway. “It’s in the boondocks and ain’t hardly anybody there!”

  I looked at him and smiled. “That’s why I want to be there. Seriously, Watts needs a lot of work. Recruiting needs to be done. The community there needs our presence.”

  “Well, good luck to you, then, brother,” he shrugged.

  I looked at him and smiled.

  Tyrone was right, though. The Watts office suffered from a manpower shortage, with only six or seven of us operating from there on the regular. It was hard to get cats to volunteer to work in Watts. Vacant lots were everywhere. The big shopping stores, like Kress, were gone or gutted out. The closest market was a few miles away from the center of the city, so people shopped at mom-and-pop stores or went to Compton. Even the satellite police station on 103rd Street was being phased out. No matter what reasons local officials and the police claimed, we knew the truth was that the station couldn’t defend itself against the wrath of local residents.

  “Broadway is popping, Central is popping, even Adams,” Tyrone added. “You should come join us at Broadway or at least work where you can see how things are really being done and get yourself groomed for taking on a leadership role.”

  I joked, “In Watts, I’m developing the Party’s model for ‘Food and Finance Management: How to keep your belly full when your pocket is empty.’” I explained to him that between the twenty-cent hot dogs at the Chinese spot and Pappy’s twenty-cent hamburgers, a brother could win the war on hunger hands down.

  “Right on, brother,” he said with a laugh as I turned to head for the door.

  “Right on,” I replied with a nod. “All power to the people.” I left Tyrone and went straight to the Watts office, my mind made up.

  The building was an unassuming one-story storefront with an ugly iron gate surrounding its perimeter, and it had a bad paint job to match the gate. Party offices were always open to the people, so I just walked in. James Wilson greeted me. Originally from Watts, James was a dark-skinned brother, muscular, and about a year younger than me. He was sitting at the desk in a black leather coat, reading the Ten Point Platform. He looked up at me and immediately started talking. “Power to the people. Come on in, brother,” he said invitingly, standing up to greet me
.

  “Absolute power to the people,” I shot back, not missing a beat as I stepped inside.

  “When the people have power, then we can make this earth civil and humane,” James nodded.

  “I agree,” I retorted. “So every day that the people are out of power brings just another day of the madness.”

  “Right on, right on,” James said, clenching his fist and raising his arm toward me in the black power salute. “So, what can I do for you today, brother?” he asked.

  “I’m here to learn more,” I replied. “And maybe join.”

  As I engaged him in dialogue, I simultaneously checked out the layout of the office. I noticed three desks, but other than that, it was relatively empty. The room was divided by a partition separating the area with the desks from a large open area that I learned was where the political education classes were held. There were two windows—one on the door and a larger one in the front area covered with a collage of the Party’s leaders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Included in the collection was the famous picture of Huey sitting in a wicker chair and a picture of Bobby Seale holding a shotgun with a string of bullets across his chest. Besides the posters covering the window, the revolutionary artwork of Emory Douglas, the Party’s minister of culture, was taped to the walls. Of all Douglas’s images, I identified most with the iconic one of a pig, going “oink, oink.”

  “I see you’re reading the Ten Point Platform,” I said to James inquiringly, as I nodded my head toward the papers on his desk.

  “Yes, brother,” he replied. “The Ten Point Platform is as important as the Ten Commandments. It gives the people the blueprint needed to build and sustain our community. If one understands the Ten Point Platform, then he will know the kind of foundation necessary for political education, awareness, and revolutionary action. Can you dig?”

  “That’s exactly why I am here, because I can dig it,” I said decisively.

  He smiled. I thought he was probably glad to have some potential new recruits.

  “I was just over at the Broadway office and was saying how I really preferred to come here with the Watts crew. I’m in this area a lot already, from hanging out with my boy from Harbor College, Joe Thompson.”

  “That’s good, man,” James responded, “because we can use all the help we can get.”

  “So what’s the state of affairs?” I asked. “What needs to be tackled first?” I was ready.

  James cleared space for me by his desk and motioned for me to sit. “Well, first,” he said as I settled in, “let me tell you who’s working here out of the Watts office. There’s Larry Scales, who’s the captain here. Larry’s originally from Watts, right up the street. He doesn’t take no shit. He’s for real about the business.”

  “Right on,” I nodded. A stick-to-business man. Sounded good so far. “Who else?”

  “Al Armour is the section leader in charge of our office. His job is to run the office, recruit, hold political education classes, and make sure papers get sold. Al is from the Westside and so is Luxey Irving, who is in charge when Al is not here. Al and Lux are both book crushers over at UCLA.”

  I laughed. “I’m a student, too, at Harbor.”

  I later learned from James about other comrades stationed in Watts, such as Nathaniel Clark and Craig Williams. Nathaniel was light-skinned and thin. He had a thing for red devils, but he was always ready to defend the office; he had guns and wasn’t afraid to use them. Craig was from Compton and served diligently, selling papers and recruiting. Nathaniel and Craig didn’t show up every day, but everyone knew their work.

  I met Al and Luxey at the Watts office later that week. Al was serious and dedicated. He was another light-skinned brother and stood a solid six feet. He stood out because he had such bad feet, which gave him a funny hop to his walk. One of his quirks was that he played with his mustache, and when you were talking to him it could be distracting. He was from the Westside, and his family lived in the Venice/Buckingham area of Los Angeles, which was a mixed working-class neighborhood of houses and apartments. I liked Al.

  Luxey, who preferred that we call him Lux, came from middle-class parents. His father was an entrepreneur who owned a barbershop in Watts on Central Avenue. Lux wore glasses with thin wire frames like Malcolm wore; they gave him a studious, deep-thinker look. He, too, was dedicated, friendly, very calm, and controlled. No matter what we were up against, I never saw him fly off the handle. I learned that Al and Luxey were recruited by Bunchy, who then sent them both to the Watts office. I guess Bunchy wanted these Westsiders to get their hands a little dirty.

  The more time I spent there, the more I liked working out of the Watts office. It was off the radar and kept me away from the intrigue at the headquarters on Central Avenue and away from the jackanapes and clowns who joined the Party to get girls or some other kind of attention. I soon developed a close working relationship with James and Craig. We worked well together as a team, building support for the Party and our office. Our practice was to hang out in the ’hood and persuade people to drop by. Al and Lux didn’t have the same street credibility as us, but they took care of their responsibilities well—making a lot of runs to Central, handling Party business, and recruiting at UCLA.

  Although we recruited throughout Watts, we focused on those who lived in the housing projects of Imperial Courts, Jordan Downs, and Nickerson Gardens. The projects were established and funded by the state and federal government to provide affordable housing for poor people during World War II. Initially, a diverse group of people lived there, including whites. But after years of neglect and inadequate funds for maintaining the buildings, the projects became slums: a wretched sight, with rats and roaches running amuck, and children running around hungry. The public image of the projects was dilapidated centers of poverty and crime.

  But the Black Panther Party considered the project residents our people, part of the lumpenproletariat, people who might see the usefulness of the Party. The lumpenproletariat, as opposed to the proletariat, who formed the basis of Marxist theory, had been excluded: Marx thought they had no revolutionary potential. According to Marxist theory, the proletariat was made up of the working class, who would overthrow the upper classes and the oppressive forces of government to create a new and just society. But when we applied Marxist theory to our situation, we realized that our blackness and minority status in the United States made us different from the general working class. Our folks lived at the lowest basic level, even lower than the working class. These were the people who took the most menial jobs, those even the “working class” didn’t want to do. Some of them had given up on work altogether, were hooked on drugs, or just couldn’t make enough money no matter how many jobs they worked. They were the people who might snatch a woman’s purse, rob a liquor store, engage in prostitution, or sell illegal goods to get by. These were the people who had given up on the system altogether. They were the ones who could really understand the need for revolution, once they were educated about their position in society and the nature of capitalism.

  Each project in Watts had a section called the parking lots, where most of the outside activity on the grounds took place. People hung out in the parking lots, engaging in daily craps games or selling and buying drugs. The police would always go there first if they were looking for someone. But now we were there too, to get to know the residents and, we hoped, recruit them into the Party. As they got to know us, we began to earn their respect. Soon, they were coming to our political education classes. And at the office, we began to take calls and settle disputes between people who didn’t want to call the police.

  One day, a woman named Anne, whom I had met a few times in the Jordan Downs, called during a fight with her husband.

  I happened to answer the phone. “Hello. Black Panther Party, Watts office,” I said into the receiver.

  An agitated voice yelled at me from the other side. “Can I get some help with this crazy motherfucker over here?” It was a woman’s voice, but I had no i
dea who she was.

  “Whoa, sister, slow down. What’s going on? Relax. Take your time and tell me what’s going on. Where are you?” I said coolly and calmly.

  “This punk-ass nigga actually slapped me. Can you believe that? After all I do for his no-good ass, he gonna actually put his hands on me!”

  “Where are you? Who is this that you’re talking about?”

  By now, she was screaming. “I’m in the Downs! Apartment 3-G. Y’all betta come get this motherfucker—I don’t wanna call the police up here. They might be haulin’ off a lotta folks around here—you know how that goes. They just need to come get this half of a man, this no-good-ass S.O.B.!”

  I could hear the man she was referring to in the background, speaking with an angry tone. “How the hell you gonna be calling somebody on me?” he was raving. “Who the hell you callin’, Super-Damn-Man or somebody? Tell whoever it is to fly they ass over here, so I can give them some of what I just gave you,” he growled.

  We took down her address and left right away, headed straight to the apartment.

  When we arrived, we knocked on the door and the woman who made the phone call immediately opened it. I saw that it was Anne and said hello.

  “I’m glad y’all came,” she said excitedly. “Thank you, because this motherfucker done lost his mind. I don’t want my family from Mississippi to have to come all the way up here and deal with his ass.”

  About that time, a burly brother, standing about six foot two and weighing about 250 pounds, appeared in the doorway. He had a daunting presence and hovered angrily over the front door. “Who the fuck are y’all?” he snarled. “Are y’all the Superman squad her ass calling on me?”

  “We’re members of the Black Panther Party,” I said, firmly but politely. I could see an immediate change in the brother’s demeanor. “There’s no need to continue fighting. Why don’t you step outside and just talk to us? Perhaps that can help calm things down a bit.”