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We Want Freedom | Excerpt
From Chapter Eight: A Panther's Life
Tens of thousands of ghetto souls came into contact with the Party daily. Elementary school students attended the morning breakfast programs, adult poor came for the free clothing and free shoes programs, the ill came to the Party's People's Medical Centers across the nation for sickle cell anemia testing, and treatment for high-blood pressure, sexually transmitted diseases, and other fairly simple ailments. To this number must be added those many people who bought the Party's newspaper, The Black Panther, on ghetto street corners, in bars, in beauty parlors, and outside high schools.
Who were these people called Black Panthers?
Much has been written about Party leadership, its so-called stars: the photogenic Newton, the charismatic (Eldridge) and brilliant (Kathleen) Cleavers, the ambitious and talented Elaine Brown, the long-suffering Geronimo, and the like. As leaders, many of these people formed the Party's public profile and came to typify a Black Panther in much of the public mind.
Most people, indeed most Panthers, never came into intimate contact with such people, for they usually traveled in a rarefied, higher strata than did the average Panther.
The average young man or woman in the Black Panther Party was between seventeen and twenty-two years old, lived in a collective home with other Panthers, worked long and hard days (and sometimes nights) doing necessary Party work without pay, and owned nothing. Except to their neighbors, and, of course, the ubiquitous police (and their snitches), most Panthers lived in relative obscurity and rarely, if ever, got their picture in the paper (in either the bourgeois press or the Party press). Friends, comrades, and lovers were primarily other Party members.
With very little exception, other than the folks who participated in the various programs, most Panthers spent every waking hour with other Panthers. The people looked up to and admired were the leadership, but close, loving relationships, of true care and concern, were with fellow Panthers. They were our confidants, our counselors, our comrades—those we could be easy and relaxed around.
The average Panther rose at dawn and retired at dusk and did whatever job needed to be done to keep the programs going for the people, from brothers and sisters cooking breakfast for the school kids, to going door-to-door to gather signatures for petitions, to gathering clothes for the free clothing program, to procuring donated supplies from neighboring merchants.
The average Panther's life was long, hard, and filled with work.
A Philadelphia-born member of the Oakland branch was struck by the deep poverty she found among Party members in West Oakland:
Many of the brothers were hunters so they cut up the deer meat in the back of the office. I almost fainted. The Panther men in particular laughed at my reaction, but after it was cooked, I refused to eat the meat. Knowing that I was very hungry, some of them chased me around the office and playfully urged me to sample the spicy scented deer. Ironically, as we fed hungry children breakfast, and later gave out bags of groceries to the poor, oftentimes Panthers themselves had little food and certainly little money. We lived mostly off paper sales. We sold each Panther paper for twenty-five cents and kept ten cents for ourselves.
While that division of the paper sales money may have been the case for her chapter, it differed in other places. In some chapters, where Panther members lived communally and ate Party dinners, it was argued that the additional dime should be donated to the office, for the Party met all of the essential needs of its full-time members. That was certainly the case for the Philadelphia office.
People could be affiliated with the Party in the following ways:
Party supporter: This person might buy a paper or attend a rally organized by the Party, but was not a member.
Community worker: This person might donate time to Party efforts, as some non-Panthers would assist in the breakfast program, for example, or assist the Party in administering Party programs. Often, this person would be unable to secure parental permission to formally join the Party, but would help in some form; as students who sold the paper at their school, for example.
Panther-in-training (PIT): These were probationary members, who were expected to memorize the 10-Point Program and Platform; they were expected to obtain a copy of the Red Book by Mao Tse-Tung and to learn from it the Three Main Rules of Discipline and to memorize them. These PITs would also be required to attend a given number of Political Education (PE) classes, to learn more about the Party. If a PIT failed to attend required PE classes, he or she would be counseled and if unresponsive, could be dropped from consideration for full membership.
Black Panther: These persons were expected to use any and all of their skills or expertise to help build and protect the organization and further its aims and objectives as determined by local, regional, and national leadership. They were traditionally full-time Party operatives, who spent virtually seven days a week conducting Party business.
Being a Black Panther, for many members, was never a single thing; indeed, it was many things, at different times, in different places. Panthers were taught to eschew what was called careerism and to shun compartmentalist thinking. This meant that one should not perceive any given rank as one's own, nor to look at things from a narrow, linear perspective, but from a broad one, asking, "What is in the best interest of the Party?" Individualism, like careerism, was seen as a negative, bourgeois trait that was criticized. The highest achievement was for a brother or sister to think in collectivist terms, as in we not I.
This way of thinking fostered humility, self-sacrifice, and discipline in Party ranks. It promoted the best interests of the collective, rather than arrogance and egotism, which threatened cohesion and working relationships.
In this environment, the Party became the central focus in the lives of thousands of Panthers across the nation, and an extraordinary morale and sense of unity of purpose were engendered. Thus, there were few things more exciting than meeting a fellow Panther from another part of the country.
Although there is considerable linguistic diversity in Black America, these regional forms of speech did not divide Panthers, but acted as bonds of affection between brothers and sisters. The deep, southern drawls of our North Carolinian or Virginian comrades drew smiles from Pennsylvanians or New Yorkers in the Party. Similarly, when we met Panthers from New Haven or Boston who wanted to drive a "cah" to the "bah," we found ourselves rolling on the ground, giddy with laughter, and really with a kind of amazement that Black people—Black Panthers—really talked like that. In many of these informal settings, Panthers learned from other Panthers how life was lived in different parts of this vast nation.
That joy, however, was tempered by gritty moments of terror. The slaughters of the sleeping Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in a Panther pad in Chicago on December 4, 1969, had sent a disturbing message to Panthers all across the nation: we will kill you in your sleep with impunity.
…
Being a Panther in Philadelphia was a unique challenge. One was home, but not at home. For "home" meant where Panthers dwelled, not where one's mother lived or where one's biological brothers and sisters lived.
It meant living in a family of several hundred young men and women, all dedicated to building, defending, or promoting the revolutionary collective. With offices in several sections of the nation's fourth largest city, the BPP was in contact with broad segments of the Black community on a frequent and daily basis: in North Philadelphia, through the two offices at 1928 West Columbia Avenue and 2935 West Columbia Avenue; in West Philadelphia, through the office at 3625 Wallace Street; and in Germantown, through the office at 428 West Queen Lane. There was a free breakfast program for schoolchildren in a South Philadelphia community center and near all major offices.
The offices were like buzzing beehives of Black resistance. It was always busy, as people piled in starting at its 7:30 a.m. opening time and continuing 'till after nightfall. People came with every problem imaginable, and because our sworn duty was to serve the people, we took our commitment seriously.
Early in the morning, we might get visits from nearby merchants, who just wanted to chat. We welcomed such visits, for they normalized our presence in the neighborhood, and they cemented relationships with businesspeople who had a stake in the area. When people had been badly treated by the cops or if parents were demanding a traffic light to slow traffic on North Philly streets where their children played, they came to our offices. In short, whatever our people's problems were, they became our problems. We didn't preach to the people; we worked with them. Some of us worked hard to develop relationships with our neighbors, because we knew that they knew the neighborhood intimately and they could teach us things about it. Throughout the early afternoon, we would get visits from school kids, not those of breakfast school age, but junior high and high school kids, who wanted to sell the paper in their schools. We would caution them to be careful, to only take as many as they were fairly certain they could sell, and ask them to return to the office 20 cents on each paper sold before the week was out.
One of our closest neighbors were the Siedlers, a family who ran a children's clothing store across the street from us. They were an older couple, affectionately called Mom and Pop Siedler, who lived in an apartment overtop their Columbia Avenue storefront. Although they were white, they were warm and supportive, and as they were apparently well-read in Marxist literature, we held political discussions with them after the office was closed. One of our sisters, a mother with a young child, stayed with them, as it seemed far more conducive to their well-being than the rough and tumble and dangerous Panther pad where we lived communally. Although unstated, we knew that the cops would be more hesitant to raid a home where white merchants lived, than a Black Panther apartment building, where we were known to be well-armed. The sister was the wife of a well-known Panther from the West Coast who left the country surreptitiously, so we were grateful for the Siedlers's generosity and kindness. Unfortunately, all did not go well for the Siedlers as Pop (Bill) was killed during a robbery of the downstairs store. We shared our grief with Mom (Miriam) at the tragic loss of her mate. As an officer, it was disconcerting to have older members come to me with Party, and even personal, problems. I had to dispel the suspicion that I was a young snot, that I instead had the confidence of the chapter and Party leadership, and thus had a duty to try to do my level best to help any Panther brother or sister, older or younger, who came for help, and if unable to do so, to refer them to other leaders in the organization.
The days were full, the nights too short, and the fellowship was electric with Black love and die-hard commitment. One could be transferred in the blink of an eye, for reasons that were beyond one's ken. A Panther accepted this with equanimity or even looked forward to it with anticipation.
I was excited when transferred to the BPP Ministry of Information in the Bronx, New York. The size and scale of New York's five boroughs were stunning. It would take a vast metropolis like New York to make a city like Philadelphia seem small and somewhat parochial.
The people of the Bronx were outgoing and warm in their response. Once, while we were racing from our home on Kelly Street to the office on Boston Road near Prospect, we hailed a cab, and as all five of us couldn't fit in the back, the cabbie, a middle-aged guy who spoke with Spanish-accented, broken English, invited one of us into the front seat, where he and his woman sat. He was a happy, gregarious man who exuded an infectious joi de vivre. He passed around hot, steaming English muffins to his riders and chatted amiably with us in a way that warmed us despite the biting New York winter all about us. I couldn't help thinking that we wouldn't have received such warm hospitality if we were in the city that claims to be reflective of brotherly love. Philadelphia never seemed smaller or meaner.
New York's branches were also unique in the racial composition of party members, for it was the only site where Puerto Ricans served as Panthers. While they seemed to make up a higher percentage in Brooklyn, there were also some in our Bronx and Harlem branches. Some were former members of the Young Lords Party, who, because of their African heritage or their radicalism, felt more at home en el Partido Pantero Negro. They gave the Party a deeper penetration in the communities of color in New York and served with both pride and distinction.
New York seemed like an ethnic and cultural stew that was far more varied and textured than its Oakland-based progenitor. In New York, for example, a significant portion of Panthers were Sunni Muslims, as many of them had either known personally, or profoundly respected the Sunni-convert, Al Hajji Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X). Indeed, Dr. Curtis Powell (one of the famed New York Panther 21) met and talked with Malcolm in Paris after his pilgrimage to Mecca. Fellow Panther 21 veteran Richard Harris heard Malcolm preach as a Black Muslim minister at the Newark Temple.
Consequently, the National Office saw the New York branch as somewhat skewed, perhaps tacking toward the dreaded heresy of "cultural nationalism." New York Panthers boasted African or Islamic-oriented names, had Hispanic names or accents, often wore African or traditional garb, and were riotously independent. The secular, uniformed center in California looked at New York as a wildly undisciplined little brother (with, incidentally, a larger membership).
If Philadelphia was busy, then New York was a frenzy.
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