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Panther liberation fire still burns

2006-10-23T22:50:00.000-04:00

by Lester Holloway
black information link
23/10/2006

SURVIVORS OF AMERICA’S war against black leaders regrouped last week as they marked the Black Panthers 40th anniversary.

The reunion was missing some important names – Fred Hampton, Huey P Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Lil’ Bobby Hutton – the heads of a once-powerful organisation that was decapitated by the state.

With their trademark berets, rifles and revolutionary zeal, the Panthers embodied the black power movement and liberation struggle.

What scared Washington the most, their armed self-defence militancy or their social programmes to fed and clothed poor African-Americans, is open to question.

Whichever it was, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover launched COINTELPRO, a covert counter-intelligence operation followed by wave after wave of arrests and shoot-outs.

brutality

The end of the 1960s cops had shot over 20 Panthers dead, including Hampton and Hutton. Others like Newton and Cleaver ended up in exile after being charged with killings themselves.

A long line of tragedies saw the Panthers eventually fold in the mid-80s, long after they had ceased to be a major player.

The days when Cleaver ran for US president, when they fed 10,000 hungry mouths every day with a Breakfast for Children programme, and when armies of uniformed men patrolled neighbourhoods to deter police brutality seem long gone.

Militaristic images now seem frozen in time, overshadowing their extensive social programme that delivered healthcare and education to thousands, and a radical ten-point plan for justice and freedom.

200 or so veterans of the war who gathered in Oakland, California, last week surveyed their legacy and perhaps pondered what could have been if their ideological mission had not been disrupted by the might of government.

propaganda

Some, like David Hilliard, entered academia to teach a younger generation the ideals and faults of the Black Panthers.
Hilliard was one of the original Panther founders and its chief of staff. He became leader when Newton was arrested in 1968.

He is also lucky to be alive after being ambushed by Oakland police in the same incident that saw Hutton shot ten times despite surrendering with his hands in the air.

The killing occurred just two days after the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jnr.

Hilliard told said that the Black Panthers had lost the propaganda war. ‘Without a doubt victors write the history and we don’t control media. We were a political movement with clinics and educational programmes.

‘It was the government strategy to criminalise our movement and to discredit us. Even the militancy was just self-defence responding to Americas violence.

philosophies

‘The reunion is not just about celebrating of the existence of the movement. I’m more interested in how we translate that historical phenomenon into something contemporary.

‘Like how do we develop programmes for ex-offenders, housing, education and jobs. I’m about a living organisation, not just nostalgia.’

One of the Panthers great achievements was fusing the political philosophies of Karl Marx, Chairman Mao and William Du Bois with practical and well-organised community outreach social action.

They ran door-to-door tests for Sickle Cell anaemia in an age when the state hardly recognised the condition, delivering groceries to thousands of homes, and persuading local gangs to clean up their act.

Many of the original Panther leadership were students of Malcolm X who broke away because they believed bearing guns was necessary to carry out their programme without interference.

The Panthers burst onto the national consciousness with a regimented march on California’s state capital Sacramento while carrying loaded weapons.

Patrols by armed Panther units achieved instant success with a sudden reduction in police brutality in black neighbourhoods.

But the image that so terrified white America also presented a ready-made excuse for the state to use arms against the Panthers.

Minister Hilary Mohammad, leader of the UK’s Nation of Islam, said: ‘We knew that it would give the government justification to shoot and kill them.

‘The US were threatened by the coming together of black men to protect their community and the emergence of strong black leadership.

‘Forty years ago our organisations were under attack, but what is happening today? The minister Louis Farrakhan is till banned today in Britain. What is this indicative of?’

tentacles

By 1969, just three years after its birth, America’s war against the Panthers began to divide the organisation.

Not long after Hoover denounced the group as “greatest threat to the internal security of the country”, Hampton was shot in his bed during a police raid.

Fellow Panther Mark Clark was also shot dead. Over ninety bullets were fired in the operation with just one coming from Clark.

After Newton was imprisoned for manslaughter, a conviction later overturned, a dispute flared about whether to allow white people in.

Stokley Carmichael represented one strand of belief encapsulated by a speech when he said: ‘we are to proceed toward true liberation we must cut ourselves off from white people… [otherwise] we will find ourselves entwined in the tentacles of the white power complex that controls this country.’

But others, influenced by Mao’s Red Book which was compulsory reading, saw the Panthers as part of a wider class war.

forged

At the height of their power, the group has 45 chapters and 5,000 dedicated members while their newspaper had a circulation of 100,000.

But as they entered the early 70s the movement faced more strife with dozens of members indicted for murder, many of them trumped-up charges, and Hilliard prosecuted for threatening President Richard Nixon.

An FBI campaign of forged letters widened internal splits between Cleaver and an exiled Newton in Algeria.

Bobby Seale’s bid to become mayor of Oakland, when he came second with 40% of the vote, was one of the last highs before factional fighting and resignations took hold.

The Black Power concept, that empowered and emboldened a whole generation of black people survived, but a structure that allowed young African-Americans to stand up to oppression did not.

crush

Today the New Black Panther Party, led by Malik Zulu Shabazz, carries forward some of the legacy although Hilliard thinks the NBPP have been sold the “militaristic” Panther image but lack the underlining socio-political bedrock.

Hughie Rose, leader of the UK branch of the NBPP, disagrees. ‘We are now standing on the shoulders of these original Panthers.’

He said: ‘A lot of conditions that existed then still exist today, bad housing for our people, bad healthcare, overt and covert racism, and the rise of white supremacists around the world.

‘They wanted to ultimately crush the ideology of the Black power movement but fortunately we’ve been able to re-ignite it again and step back up on that same programme.’

technorati tags: Black+Panthers, Fred+Hampton, Huey+P.+Newton, Eldridge+Cleaver, Bobby+Hutton, David+Hilliard, COINTELPRO,

Black Panthers' legacy at 40

2006-10-11T23:18:00.000-04:00

SFGate.com
Leslie Fulbright, Chronicle Staff Writer

Former Black Panther Party members plan to reflect on the black power movement, their experiences and their work in the black community when they celebrate the 40th anniversary of the controversial organization's founding Friday through Sunday in Oakland.

The group is known for its involvement in a handful of violent confrontations in the late 1960s, some of which killed both party members and police. Now, surviving former members and associates are working to evoke a more positive image. They point out that an interest in politics, black history and the plight of African Americans led them to form the party in 1966.

"Our legacy is one of social-change activism that was probably one of the most profound grassroots anti-institutionalized racism messages," said Bobby Seale, who together with Huey Newton formed the Black Panther Party in Oakland.

"We did things in the community and organized successful programs," Seale said. "It wasn't about guns and hating white folks."

Leaders required party members to volunteer long hours and memorize 36 books on black history and socialism. They served food to hungry children in a 5 a.m. breakfast program in local churches, sold the party's official newspaper, and registered voters. They offered groceries and medical care to the poor, drove people to the hospital in a Panther ambulance and took families by bus to visited incarcerated loved ones.

Several members of the organization -- Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Geronimo Pratt and others -- became infamous when they were arrested on a variety of charges.

At his first trial in connection with the fatal 1967 shooting of a police officer, Newton, who was killed in West Oakland in 1989, was convicted of manslaughter. He was subsequently cleared when juries couldn't reach a verdict in retrials twice.

Cleaver, who served time in prison before joining the party and ran for president in 1968, fled the country after a shootout with Oakland police that killed a young Panther named Bobby Hutton. Cleaver later served five years' probation. He died in 1998. His ex-wife, Kathleen, also a party member, became a law professor.

Murder conspiracy charges against Seale stemming from a 1969 incident in Connecticut were eventually dismissed. And Pratt's conviction in a Santa Monica homicide was overturned in 1997 after he had been incarcerated for 27 years.

Clarence Walker, a professor at UC Davis who specializes in African American history, said activist black organizations in the United States often are seen as militant by the general public because the country has a schizophrenic vision of black people.

"You are either dancing and happy or you are a militant. The Black Panthers represented that phase of black power that believed black people should be armed and defend themselves and turn away from the nonviolent resistance movement," Walker said. "There is this image of them in white America -- as well as some parts of black America -- as a threatening and dangerous thing.

"Then there are a large number of people -- especially in the Bay Area -- who grew up seeing them do good things. There have always been two sides to it."

"We put our theories into practice as teens," said former member Kiilu Nyasha, who lives in San Francisco. "We really felt like we were going to change the world and set about doing it. Our political education classes taught me how ignorant I was, that I only knew European history. The Black Panther program helped me begin to learn."

That makes the continued focus on the group as militaristic even more disturbing, she said. "We were more civil rights than self-defense."

But the image that stuck with many Americans was that of black militants with berets and guns. Stories of Panthers' shootouts with police overwhelmed coverage of their work with the poor, said Seale, who changed the group's name from Black Panther Party for Self-Defense to Black Panther Party because "we got tired of being confused with a paramilitary-type organization."

The party gained international notoriety when Seale and Newton sent armed members to the State Assembly in Sacramento in 1967 to oppose gun restrictions. Several members who walked onto the Senate floor with loaded weapons were arrested for disturbing the peace but not on weapons charges, because they were carrying theirs legally, Seale said.

At its height, about two months after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, the Black Panther Party had 5,000 members in 49 chapters and branches across the country, Seale said. The 1968 confrontation that left Hutton dead, along with other shootouts with Oakland police, caused the negative image, members say. The incidents also brought the federal scrutiny that they say ultimately broke up the party. The FBI infiltrated the Panthers and several other activist groups in its infamous counterintelligence program called Cointelpro, begun in 1967.

"J. Edgar Hoover saw the guns and what we were accomplishing and said the organization was a threat to security, and he told people that we wanted to shoot and kill white people," Seale said. "We were about defending ourselves against white racists."

Seale said that in the 1960s, that primarily meant protecting African Americans from police brutality and the institutionalized racism he says plagued the black community.

"Even though we were doing a lot of things in the community, like running for political office, grassroots organizing, handing out breakfast and offering free preventative medical health care and sickle cell tests, people remain confused to this day," Seale said.

Jamal Joseph, a filmmaker and former member who teaches at Columbia University in New York, said the movement has been criminalized because members believed in the constitutional right to arm themselves.

"We were in a bad position because of class and race, and that is why the party was necessary," he said.

Former Panther Elbert "Big Man" Howard, who met Newton and Seale in 1966 at Merritt College in Oakland, said many people misunderstand the Panthers these days because racism isn't as obvious anymore.

"The local police are observed, so they are not so blatant with their brutality. They let the courts do it now. They lock you up on little or nothing and keep you there forever."

Many of the members hope the reunion will draw young people and inspire them to start social programs or a new activist movement.

"Today's youth have a different mind-set," Howard said. "Social consciousness is the last thing on their agenda."
Panther events

Activities celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Black Panthers' founding in 1966 are set for Friday through Sunday in Oakland. There will be workshops, speeches, films, exhibits, panels and presentations from chapters and branches nationwide. Details available at www.itsabouttimebpp.com. Registration is $50 and includes most activities.

E-mail Leslie Fulbright at lfulbright@sfchronicle.com.

Early left-wing liberation: ‘Unity with all the oppressed’

2006-10-08T12:30:00.000-04:00

Workers World
Lavender & red, part 75

By Leslie Feinberg
Published Oct 5, 2006 8:03 PM

The multinational left wing of early gay liberation was defined by its struggle against racist state repression and in defense of national liberation here and abroad. Even white activists who lacked a thoroughgoing anti-racist consciousness or were uneven in their understanding saw unity in the struggle against all forms of oppression as key to gay liberation.

For example, the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front’s statement of purpose read in part, “We are in total opposition to America’s white racism.” The Los Angeles chapter also started a Gay Action Patrol to monitor the police.

In cities from Houston to Chicago, gay liberationists protested local bar owners’ segregationist policies that only admitted white gay men and lesbians.

In London, too, the Gay Liberation Front allied itself with Black liberation, defending Black activists like the Mangrove Nine, who were framed by police in the early 1970s.

The very first resolution from the floor of the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations conference in August 1970 was a call from the Radical Caucus to support the Black Panther Party—which was under state siege across the United States. The motion passed. A later attempt to overturn the motion was decisively defeated.

The Radical Caucus had also won passage of a resolution that called for support of Chicano grape pickers, who were trying to organize a United Farm Workers union in the field factories.

The Radical Caucus program read in part: “We see the persecution of homosexuality as part of a general attempt to oppress all minorities and keep them powerless. ... A common struggle, however, will bring common triumph. Therefore we declare our support as homosexuals and bisexuals for the struggles of the black, the feminist, the Spanish-American, the Indian, the Hippie, the Young, the Student, and other victims of oppression and prejudice.”

The left wing of gay liberation won demonstrations of solidarity from the left wing of the militant nationally oppressed movements, as well.

The Black Panther Party invited the Gay Liberation Front to take part in the September 1970 Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention. Nine members of Third World Gay Liberation and one lesbian member of GLF attended a planning meeting for the convention that summer. At that time, Panther David Hilliard reportedly told the lesbian participant that BPP leader Huey Newton was about to issue a statement in support of the gay and women’s liberation movements.

Newton issued his message in “The Black Panther” newsletter on Aug. 21, 1970. It was titled “A Letter from Huey Newton to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters about the Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements.” (Full version can be found at www.workers.org.)

Newton wrote, “When we have revolutionary conferences, rallies, and demonstrations there should be full participation of the gay liberation movement and the women’s liberation movement.” He urged revolutionaries to excise any historically anti-gay references to “men who are enemies of the people, such as Nixon.” Newton concluded, “Homosexuals are not enemies of the people.”

This message from the Supreme Commander of the Black Panther Party sent shock waves of solidarity that reverberated throughout the progressive and revolutionary movements.
Rivera: ‘A great moving moment’

Lesbian and gay delegates—Black, Latin@, Asian and white—traveled by car, bus, train and plane to take part in the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention on the weekend of Sept. 5, 1970. At a time when the Panthers were being rounded up, assassinated and framed by the state, some 10,000 to 15,000 people answered the Panther call to take part in the convention.

The aim of the revolutionary gathering was to draw up a revolutionary people’s constitution. Each delegated group was asked to convene its own workshop to draw up its own demands for rights to be included in the constitution.

At least 60 self-identified gay men and some two dozen lesbians formed a delegation. They traveled from Ann Arbor, Mich., Los Angeles and Berkeley, Calif., Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia, Tallahassee, Fla., and Yellow Springs, Ohio.

There were problems at a gathering that size, to be sure. But here are some important recollections and impressions.

The publication Gay Flames wrote in its issue No. 2: “When we got there, the women and men each got a place where they could stay together and be with gay people from other cities. Some of the men dressed in drag the first night and rapped to some Panthers who came over.”

The next morning “Panther Michael Tabor, a N.Y. 21 defendant, spoke about ‘how we’re all in the same boat’ when it comes to facing the power of the pigs. He talked about the oppression of gays and women.”

Transgender Stonewall combatant Sylvia Rivera said it was “a great moving moment to be there.”

Rivera told me that when she saw Huey Newton at the convention, he already knew of her: “Yeah, you’re the queen from New York!”

On Sunday morning, the multinational gay men’s caucus met. Issue No. 8 of Gay Flames explained, “Long meetings dedicated to the adoption of [the] gay platform for the constitution were interrupted for vital discussions of racism and sexism.”

Gay Flames No. 2 elaborated: “The most important discussion centered around the Third World/Gay Male statement. They confronted the gay whites on our racism, specifically on our willingness to criticize the sexism of black men but not that of white men. They asked us to recognize Huey Newton’s recently stated position in favor of Gay Liberation as being a tremendous advance in the revolution and that the Black Panther Party holds the most out-front position in terms of the struggle to give power to the people.”

Panther 21 defendant Afeni Shakur spoke to the gay men’s gathering. “She helped to explain a lot about the Black Panthers to all of us. She said that all she wanted was a farm with lots of trees and grass and a place to grow cabbage, but that to get this for herself and her people, it would be necessary to fight. Most of us were convinced by what she had to say. We therefore decided to include in our statement that gay men at the Session recognized the BPP as being presently the vanguard of the people’s revolution.”

Many of the white lesbians left the convention with resentments. The most often expressed grievance—that the Panther women related to them as Black and as Panthers rather than bonding as women—showed a low level of understanding of national oppression by the white women.

In the gay men’s caucus, a revised version of the Third World Gay Revolution platform “was adopted by the group as the basis of a national gay liberation program. ... Gay people formed a 15-member delegation under the leadership of Third World people and women, which attempted to present the 16-point program to the Panthers. This delegation gave gay people the experience of women and men, Blacks, Latins and Asians and Whites, working collectively in a practically revolutionary context, though the chaos and crowd kept the delegation from completing its task.”

The gay men’s statement, read by the delegation at the convention, concluded: “We recognize as a vanguard revolutionary action the Huey P. Newton statement on gay liberation. We recognize the Black Panther Party as being the vanguard of the people’s revolution in Amerikkka.”

Next: More solidarity: D.C. 21, Panthers, Young Lords, Cesar Chavez.

Email: lfeinberg@workers.org
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011

Panthers took a stand but couldn't stand long

2006-10-08T12:19:00.000-04:00

Although the group's flaws destroyed it, the party laid the foundation for social justice and black advancement ever since
By William Brand and Cecily Burt

MEDIANEWS
ContraCostaTimes.com

OAKLAND - One warm spring day in 1967, two dozen young men and women -- mostly from Oakland, clad in black leather jackets and black berets and carrying loaded pistols, shotguns and assault rifles -- barged into the California State Assembly chamber in Sacramento and onto television screens and newspaper front pages around the world.

Black people with guns!

In a heartbeat, the Black Panther Party became the most famous radical group in 20th-century America's most radical time. The founders, Bobby Seale, 30, and Huey Newton, 25, furnished fiery rhetoric to match the image, accusing the government of brutalizing poor black communities and claiming the right to arm themselves in self-defense.

Back in Oakland, there was another reality.

Seven months earlier, Newton and Seale had scratched out a 10-point manifesto that would become their guiding principles. It was filled with revolutionary demands reflecting the tumultuous political climate of the civil rights movement in the South, the nascent black power movement, and the anti-Vietnam War protests sweeping the country.

"We want Freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black community," Seale and Newton demanded in point No. 1.

They also listed demands that seemed elusive in 1960s black communities: full employment, decent housing, land, food, education and peace.

Their ideas struck a chord in the Bay Area's black community and among citizens everywhere, who saw the yawning gap between black and white worlds, between poor and rich.

So while the Black Panther leadership grabbed headlines and drew fire from the white establishment, the police and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, its rank-and-file members and thousands of volunteers quietly laid the groundwork for social programs that have become national standards today. They provided nutritious breakfasts for school children who usually went to school hungry, groceries for poor families, free medical care, after-school and summer-school programs teaching black history.

The breakfast program was the idea of Bobby Seale, who had grown up in West Oakland helping his father at his successful carpentry shop. He enlisted the Rev. Earl Neil of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in West Oakland and parishioner Ruth Beckford to help.

Beckford, now 80 and a well-known Afro-Haitian dance instructor, signed on. She said she was criticized by some who disagreed with the group's militant tactics, but not deterred. "I said, 'Well, I'm not a Black Panther Party member, but I believe in the breakfast program, so that's what I'm going to do.'"

The idea of a free medical clinic and testing for sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder that affects one in 400 African Americans and people of Mediterranean origin, also was a groundbreaking idea of the Black Panthers.

At Seale's urging, Tolbert Small, an Oakland doctor, started the first widespread testing for sickle cell disease. Eventually all 11 Panther clinics and 49 Panther chapters around the country offered free screening. It helped raise the medical community's awareness of the little-known disease. The Panthers' political lobbying led to passage of the Sickle Cell Act, and President Richard Nixon mentioned sickle cell disease for the first time in a State of the Union address.

For all those efforts, police on the West Oakland beat saw a darker side of the Panthers. "I worked West Oakland when the Panthers were doing their extortions, following the police and shooting cops," said retired Officer Bill Gillespie. "I spoke with the merchants after the throngs of Panthers would request 'donations' from Seventh Street merchants who were hardly getting by.

"I remember the owner of one business in tears. He was ashamed. He gave them $100 because he was scared to death. They would come in, 10 or 12 of them in their black leather jackets. They called it a community tax," Gillespie said. "I don't think much of that money went to those programs."

Things like the breakfast program were positive. But different people were running that, he said.

The history of violence often overshadowed the good works. In 1967, Newton was arrested in the death of Oakland police officer John Frey during an Oakland shootout in which Newton and another officer were wounded. In 1968, Bobby Hutton, 17, the party's first recruit, died in a shootout with Oakland police.

Newton's trial made him an international cause celebre, and the relatively small, tight-knit organization was suddenly flooded with new members. He was acquitted of murder, and his manslaughter conviction later was overturned.

The party's ranks swelled to 5,000 in chapters across the country after the April 4, 1968, assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. But by the end of 1969, 28 party members had been killed, and the FBI had infiltrated the party in an effort to discredit it and turn the leaders against each other, Seale said.

"I had 28 dead party members. There were 14 dead policemen -- 12 of them we can attribute to the Panthers," Seale said. Seale spent time in the Berkeley jail on a weapons charge after a police raid. He also served two years in prison after a conspiracy conviction for events connected to the disruption of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.

"The problem was what the establishment press tended to call 'militancy.' It was distortions planted by the FBI that said things like we hated all white people and that we were trying to invade the white community and shoot and kill white people," he said.

"That was not true. I truly believe in democracy, real power to the people, and I believe in human equality to all people, white, black, brown," Seale said. "When I said things like 'the bullet or the ballot,' I preferred the ballot."

The Panthers registered thousands of black voters across the country. When the party formed, there were fewer than 100 African Americans in elected office. By the 1990s, more than 12,000 blacks had been elected, and also many women, Seale said.

"This is what my revolution was all about, putting (control) back into the hands of the people," Seale said.

Stanford University Professor Clayborne Carson, editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. papers, compares the Panthers to the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the group famous for its voting rights drive in the rural South. "The Black Panther Party's main accomplishment was to set a new tone in the urban north, in terms of the black community and its goals," he said.

"They were young people who were idealistic, who were willing to put their lives on the line to make the world better," Carson said. "I think they made a lot of mistakes, like a lot of young people. They raised a number of issues that are still with us -- police brutality, the need for institutions that serve the needs of the black community."

Indeed, that first headline-grabbing action in Sacramento was a protest over a gun-control bill, as well as the shooting death by a sheriff's deputy of a young black North Richmond man. Although he was shot in the back, it was ruled "a justifiable homicide."

Members saw themselves as revolutionaries, said Curtis Austin, Southern Mississippi University assistant history professor and the author of a new book on the Panthers, "Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party."

"They had the guns. They had the rhetoric, and they were on the ground floor of social change. It was shocking," Austin said. "White society in general was used to dominating black society. Here, you had these people saying, 'No. You're not going to do that.'"

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, was typical of people drawn to the Panthers while she was a student at Mills College. "They were committed to changing the system that gave rise to racism and oppression," said Lee, who volunteered in the Panthers' community learning center and worked on Seale's mayoral campaign.

"For me, their 10 points are still very relevant today. When they went to Sacramento, it was a testament to their commitment to social and economic justice."

However, in the early 1970s, the Black Panther Party was dissolving into chaos because of dissension among the leadership. Eldridge Cleaver, the party's minister of information, and his wife, Kathleen, had fled to Cuba. There were only about 200 members left at that point, although the party hung on for another few years.

"My hope was to kill the party," Seale said about his 1974 resignation. "My friend, Huey, who had done all this positive stuff in the past, had degenerated and was a drug abuser," Seale said. "The party was over when I left. The dynamic, organizing Black Panther Party was over. It would never happen again."

Newton died outside a crack house on a West Oakland street in 1989, shot in the head over a drug deal, police said.

As he looks back today, Seale says there are many things to be proud of: the breakfast program, sickle cell testing, registering people to vote, feeding the poor, and those efforts can be credited to the rank and file, he said.

"They did all the hard work. They are my heroes," Seale said. "I love them."

"History will say this," Austin said: "This was probably the most profound movement of black people pushing for liberation in the 20th century, important not because of their rhetoric, but for trying to include all people, Native American people, Asians. It was in reality an inclusive fight. They accepted anybody who wanted a revolution."

"Despite all the mistakes they made, I wish there was a Black Panther Party here today working for the kinds of changes those young people were working for 40 years ago," Clayborne Carson said.

Rights pioneer Hulett dies

2006-08-26T13:23:00.000-04:00

By Alvin Benn
Montgomery Advertiser

MOSSES -- John Hulett, a civil rights pioneer who helped found the organization that became the Black Panther Party, died Monday after years of declining health. He was 78.

Hulett was at his home here, surrounded by his family. He and his wife of 46 years, Eddie Mae, had 11 children.

"John Hulett did more for race relations than any man I know of in this state," said Ted Bozeman, a former Lowndes County district judge who is white. "He was well liked and respected in both the white and black communities."

Unafraid of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups, Hulett helped blacks not only gain the right to vote but to win public office. Hulett himself was elected sheriff and probate judge, the first black to hold either of those positions in
Lowndes County.

Hulett gained a national reputation in 1966 when he and other black leaders, including Stokeley Carmichel, created the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. Hulett and Carmichael chose a black panther as the group's emblem because of its ferocious independence.

On a trip to California in May 1966, the men told crowds about Lowndes County and a new political symbol.

In the civil rights volume "At Canaan's Edge," Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch describes how Hulett won over the crowds.

"There was something in Alabama a few months ago they called fear," said Hulett, who described the black panther as an animal known to retreat "backwards, backwards into his corner and then he comes out to destroy everything that's before him."

Radical activists Huey Newton and Bobby Seale eventually took Hulett's symbol and formed the Black Panther Party, which in its early days relied on violence to settle conflicts. Later, the party became much more of a conventional political player.

Alabama historian Richard Bailey said, "there is no doubt the Black Panthers owed a huge debt to Lowndes County for helping them to establish what they had in California."

"The people of Lowndes County also are very proud that their Panther emblem was used by the organization out there," he said.

Hulett returned home to become one of Alabama's leading black politicians and a top Democrat in the Black Belt region.

In 1970, he was elected Lowndes County sheriff -- a position he held for more than 20 years before being elected probate judge. One of his sons currently serves as probate judge.

"John Hulett was a very humble person and you could mistake that humbleness for weakness," said state Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma. "He didn't act like he was in charge, but he was always in charge. He didn't act like he was smart, but he was as smart as they come."

As sheriff, Hulett helped in several capacities because his staff was so small. Besides supervising inmates at the county jail, he cooked for them and helped them turn around their lives.

After he retired, Hulett led Lowndes County's clean-up program and picked up empty soft drink cans and beer bottles from ditches and roads.

"He was always doing something to help other people," said his wife, Eddie Mae.

The most difficult time for her was in 1983 when the sheriff went into rural Lowndes County to serve a warrant for child support deliquency.

Clarence Timmons struggled with Hulett, grabbed the sheriff's gun and it discharged, striking Hulett in the stomach. Doctors had to remove one of Hulett's kidneys.

Timmons served 13 years in prison. One of the first things he did after being released was to meet Hulett and apologize for what had happened.

"A lot of people change when they are incarcerated," Hulett said at the time. "I think it's important that we all acknowledge our wrongs and forgive each other. Jesus taught us that."

A service for Hulett is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at Central High School in Mosses, which is about 10 miles from the Lowndes County seat of Hayneville.

Black Power with shades of gray

2006-08-20T21:51:00.000-04:00

Newsday
BY SCOTT McLEMEE
Scott McLemee is the editor of "C. L. R. James on the Negro Question."

August 20, 2006

WAITING 'TIL THE MIDNIGHT HOUR: A Narrative History of Black Power in America, by Peniel E. Joseph. Henry Holt

A familiar story about the 1960s goes something like this: Between the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and the March on Washington in 1963, a movement took shape that not only challenged the second-class citizenship of African-Americans (especially those living below the Mason-Dixon line) but spoke a new language of civic morality. It won some important victories, consolidated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of the following year.

But then something went wrong. Perhaps it was the rising tide of black expectations. Perhaps it was white backlash - especially in parts of the country outside the benighted South, since it was easier to pretend that racism had its home there than to face de facto segregation elsewhere.

Then there was the whole complex matter of black and Jewish relations in the civil rights movement, which did not grow less tense when a handful of intellectuals on each side told the other: "You know what would really do you some good? If someone told you exactly what we think of you. So here goes ..."

Thus began what is sometimes called "the disuniting of America" - a phrase that grossly overestimates just how unified the culture was in the first place.

It is one of the great strengths of "Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour" by Peniel Joseph - a young historian who teaches African studies at Stony Brook University - that it avoids the usual tale of the decline and fall of the civil rights agenda. Nor is it, for that matter, an uncritical celebration of the rise of Black Power after 1965 as its successor.

"Midnight" covers not quite two decades, from the late 1950s through the mid-1970s. But the author is clearly influenced by an understanding that both integrationism and separatism have had their role in the shaping of African-American politics, going back at least to the early black nationalism of the 19th century. Rather than champion one strategy over the other, Joseph takes each as a given.

He concentrates instead on narrative history, or what might better be called (in less academic terms) storytelling. He zeroes in on the formative moments and guiding personalities of the movement - conveying the arguments over strategy without getting too bogged down in sectarian differences. The writing is nimble without being facile. The author is often willing to face the more discreditable facts about the movement, giving the book a tough-mindedness necessary for coming to terms with the past.

A case in point is his treatment of the Black Panthers - a group it is easy either to glorify or to demonize. By the early 1970s, it was both providing social services in black neighborhoods and running extortion rackets to shake down local businesses. Joseph's admiration for Panther founder Huey Newton's obvious intelligence is balanced with candor about his failings as a leader.

"Haunted by substance abuse," Joseph writes, "Newton's revolutionary politics atrophied into a quest for material wealth and personal pleasure, punctuated by intermittent moments of sobriety.... Newton's star was on the descent at the exact time that the Black Panthers came closest to approximating his early vision of a radical community organization to meet the needs of the people rather than the whims of political leaders."

But the brisk confidence of the narrative voice at times has the effect of leaving an important problem with the slogan of "Black Power" somewhat out of focus. That expression - coined by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee leader Stokely Carmichael in 1966 - was more a catchphrase than a concept.

It summed up the feeling that formal equality in the law books meant almost nothing without the power to make good on it in the economic, political and cultural spheres. But that implied no definite course of either long-term strategies or short-term goals.

Did a demand for Black Power mean separatism? If so, what kind? Neighborhood control of schools? Racially conscious capitalism (as in, "buy in your own community")? Stockpiling weapons to prepare for building a black republic in Mississippi?

Did it permit alliances with other ethnic groups - perhaps inspired by some more or less Marxist-Leninist vision of "people's war" against Babylon Amerika? Or did it mean electing black politicians to office? Should the emphasis be, rather, on reconnecting with African cultural traditions? If so, which ones?

As "Wait 'Til the Midnight Hour" shows, the movement included variations on each of these (contradictory) positions - tried on in succession, in some cases by a single individual. As a historian, Joseph chronicles the mutations and internal conflicts of Black Power. But he stops short of grappling with the idea that the movement itself may have been deeply befuddled from the very start. That is not a criticism of Black Power, by the way. Rather, it indicates how profoundly American the movement was - guided by vast, if formless, ambitions that left it indifferent to ordinary logic.

Huey P. Newton's Life

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Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 - August 22, 1989), was co-founder and inspirational leader of the Black Panther Party, a Black nationalist organization that existed in the 1960s and '80s.

Newton and Seale decided early on that the police abuse of power in Oakland against African-Americans 'must be stopped'. From his college study of law, Newton understood the California penal code and the state's law regarding weapons and was thus able to convince a number of African-Americans to exercise their legal right to openly bear arms (concealed firearms were illegal). Members of the Black Panther Party carrying rifles and shotguns began patrolling areas where the Oakland police were said to commit crimes against the community's black citizens. This program was widely supported in the African American community for its efforts to stop reported racial crimes by their local police. In addition to patrolling, Newton and Seale were responsible for writing the Black Panther Party Platform and Program, which drew largely upon Newtonâ€™s Maoist influences. Newton was also instrumental in the creation of a breakfast program that fed hundreds of children of the local communities before they went to school each day. Former Panther Earl Anthony said the party was created with the goal to organize America for armed Maoist revolution to change the social situation to help black people. For Black Panthers this meant the realignment of economic policies in the United States to benefit everyone (including other races) who were being crushed under the weight of American big-business capitalism. In 1985, Newton was arrested for embezzling state and federal funds from the Black Panthers' community education and nutrition programs. In 1989, he was convicted of embezzling funds from a school run by the Black Panthers, supposedly to support his alcohol and drug addictions.

In the predawn hours of October 28, 1967, Newton was stopped by Oakland police officer John Frey who attempted to disarm and discourage the patrols. But, after fellow officer Herbert Heanes arrived for backup, shots were fired, with all three individuals wounded. Frey was hit four times and died within an hour, while Heanes was in serious condition with three bullet wounds. Newton, also being hit by gunfire, but apparently not as seriously wounded, staggered into the city's Kaiser Hospital. He was admitted, but shocked to find himself chained to his bed. Accused of murdering Frey, Newton was convicted in September, 1968 of "voluntary manslaughter", and was sentenced from 2 to 15 years in prison. In May, 1970 the California Appellate Court reversed Newton's conviction, and ordered a new trial. The State of California dropped its case against Newton after two subsequent mistrials. While Newton had been imprisoned, party membership had decreased significantly in several cities. The FBI had been actively involved in a campaign to eliminate the Black Panthers 'community outreach' programs such as free breakfasts for children, sickle-cell disease tests, and free food and shoes. Funding for several of their programs were raised as the result of the co-operation of the only independent commerce in the area, drug dealers and prostitution ring leaders. Bobby Seale later wrote about his belief of Newtonâ€™s involvement and attempted takeover of the Oakland drug trade. Seale further claimed Newton attempted to 'shake down' pimps and drug dealers, and as a result, a contract was taken out on Newtonâ€™s life. This story, however, was never proven. In 1974, several charges were filed against Newton, and he was also accused of murdering a 17 year-old prostitute, Kathleen Smith. Newton failed to make his court appearance. His bail was revoked, a bench warrant was issued, and Newton's name was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's 'most wanted' list. Newton had jumped bail and escaped to Cuba, where he spent three years in exile. He returned home in 1977 to face murder charges because, he said, the 'climate' in the United States had changed, and he believed he could get a 'fair trial'. Because the evidence was largely circumstantial and not solid beyond hearsay, Newton was acquitted of the murder of Kathleen Smith after two trials were deadlocked.

On August 22, 1989, Newton was shot and killed by a man known for drug dealing in Oakland. Media reports theorized Newton had become involved in drug dealing and was shot during a 'drug deal gone sour.'

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