by Joshua Bloom
David Hilliard later recalled tensions during that period between some Panthers’ call for immediate revolutionary war and the limits of allied support: “I speak to Eldridge every day and am mindful of the cadre who want to pick up the gun. But the concept of the Party as a liberation army overthrowing the American government is not realistic. When we begin our attack who’s going to join us? Party comrades will jump off the moon if Huey tells them to. Our allies won’t.”59
On January 19, 1971, the New York Panther 21 published an open letter to the Weather Underground in the East Village Other, not so subtly denouncing their own Black Panther Party national leadership. The Weather Underground was a splinter group that had broken off from the Students for a Democratic Society to engage in bombings and other acts of war. They believed that they would attract a large following and help lead a revolutionary overthrow of the state, but they never attracted more than a handful of members willing to participate in guerilla warfare. Alongside a cartoonish graphic of a souped-up jeep with a semipornographic depiction of a woman blasting a top-mounted machine gun and the words “Instant Proletarian Vengeance” stenciled on the side, the New York Panthers praised the Weather Underground for embracing guerilla warfare and decried their own Party’s restraint.
The Panther 21 asserted that the Black Panther Party was not the true revolutionary vanguard in the United States and hailed the Weather Underground as one of, if not “the true vanguard.” In line with the vanguardist ideology of the Weather Underground, the Panther 21 argued that it was now time for all-out revolutionary violence that they believed would attract a broad following and eventually topple the capitalist economy and the state:
The only thing that will deal with reactionary force and violence is revolutionary counter-force and counter-violence. . . . The Amerikkkan machine and its economy must be destroyed—and it can only be done with intelligent political awareness and armed struggle—revolution. . . . as Che stated—“Armed struggle is the only solution for people who fight to free themselves”. . . . Revolution is—in the final analysis—ARMED STRUGGLE—revolution is VIOLENCE—revolution is WAR—revolution is BLOODSHED! How long have different successful national liberation fronts fought before they have won large popular support? Che stated—“A revolution is a handful of men and women with no other alternative but death or victory. At moments when death is a concept a thousand times more real and victory a myth that only a revolutionary can dream of.” Are you hip to Marighella—Carlos Marighella? . . . “Revolutionary organization usually grows by two important methods: 1) grouping and training of political cadres to hold meetings and discuss documents and programs; 2) revolutionary action—its method is extreme violence and radicalization. We chose the latter because we feel it is the most convincing method and that the former leads—if not combined with the latter—to bourgeois tactics and loses initiative.”. . . . The object is to 1) destroy the economy—like bombing sites which will affect the economy the most; 2) rip-off money, weapons, and etc; 3) sniping attacks. Bomb factories, mine factories, gun factories, and bullet factories are needed. Let’s talk about “Large scale material damage”—this economy must fall—There is a war on.60
The New York Panther 21 also criticized the gradualist approach of the Black Panther Party Central Committee:
We realize that this will be a protracted struggle—but when does protracted become non-movement—escapism isolation and retrogression?. . . . For instance, take a group, a party and its supporters with a few activists—it can move in a revolutionary manner against the pigs OR it can function—have a newspaper, hold rallies, conventions, congresses, etc.—then rhetoricians rhetoric, functionaries function, printing presses print, delegates travel, international friendships grow, “leaders” become overwhelmed with “work”—then the prospects of armed struggle—real revolution—diminish. It gets lost in the “works”—it comes to be looked upon as adventurism—always premature—it might “sabotage” the legality of the party—(which if it was effective would be illegal anyway)—it might bring down too much repression—meanwhile, the fascists snatch out the activists who are not so noisy—but deemed more dangerous. Does this not sound familiar?61
Meanwhile, as the New York Panthers denounced their own Party’s gradualism, Geronimo Pratt was still in prison in Dallas fighting his extradition to California. He tried calling Huey Newton and members of the Black Panther Party Central Committee but could not get through.62 Then, on January 23, four days after the New York Panthers published their open letter, Huey Newton published a letter in the Black Panther purging from the Black Panther Party Geronimo Pratt—one of the most famous and well respected Black Panthers—along with his close allies Saundra Lee, Will Stafford, Wilfred “Crutch” Holiday, and George Lloyd. Newton claimed that while trying to survive underground, Geronimo had demanded money from the Party and threatened to kill David Hilliard if the Party did not provide it.63
After learning that he had been purged, Geronimo signed the California extradition papers and was sent to face trial in Los Angeles. He desperately tried to reach someone in the Party headquarters to find out what was going on, but he was shut out. But when he spoke to Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria he found a welcome reception. Geronimo told an interviewer later that year, “I tried to contact David, somebody to lend an ear. It was like I was already tried and convicted. When Papa [Eldridge Cleaver] contacted me, it was like a fresh breath of life. Eldridge told me that he knew what was going on, that the brothers were not expelled, that he would talk to Huey.”64
About two weeks later, on February 8, two of the leading New York Panthers—Dhoruba Bin Wahad (Richard Moore) and Cetawayo Tabor—did not appear for their scheduled court date as part of the New York 21 trial. In failing to appear, they forfeited $150,000 in bail money raised from Panther supporters. The judge ordered a warrant for their arrest. He also revoked the $200,000 bail of Joan Bird and Afeni Shakur, the only two other New York Panthers who were out free on bail, and returned them to prison.65
At the same time, Huey Newton’s secretary, Connie Matthews, also disappeared, taking important Party records, including contact information for Black Panther allies in Europe. New York assistant district attorney Phillips, one of the prosecutors in the Panther 21 case, announced in court that Cetawayo Tabor had married Connie Mathews in California several months earlier and that Matthews had Algerian citizenship. He speculated that Matthews had obtained passports for Tabor and Dhoruba and that they had fled with her to Algeria.66
Dhoruba Bin Wahad explained his decision to desert the Black Panther Party as a response to the increasing moderation of Newton, Hilliard, and the Central Committee and their efforts to appease wealthy donors. In a public statement in May 1971, Dhoruba wrote,
We were aware of the Plots emanating from the co-opted Fearful minds of Huey Newton and the Arch Revisionist, David Hilliard. We knew of their desires to destroy, with their fear-oriented plans and bourgeois dreams, the only truly revolutionary organ of social change that Black People possessed [the Black Panther Party]. . . . We therefore took up completely the war against our People’s oppressor—to either win or die. . . . It became clear almost a year ago that David Hilliard was destroying the desire in comrades to wage resolute struggle by confining the Party to mass rallies and “fund raising benefits.” Of course mass mobilization is important and money is necessary to function, but the effects that these restrictions have upon the mentality of a Brother or Sister is horrifying. . . . Obsession with fund raising leads to dependency upon the very class enemies of our People. . . . These internal contradictions have naturally developed to the Point where those within the Party found themselves in an organization fastly approaching the likes of the N.A.A.C.P.—dedicated to modified slavery instead of putting an end to all forms of slavery.67
On February 9, the day after Dhoruba and Tabor failed to appear in court and forfeited their $150,000 bail, the Central Committee expelled most of the New York 21 from the Black Panther Party.
In a mimeographed statement signed by Newton and distributed outside the courtroom at 100 Centre Street, the Central Committee called the New York renegades “enemies of the people.” The statement charged that by skipping bail, Dhoruba and Tabor “gave the pigs an excuse to throw Joan Bird and Afeni Shakur, four months pregnant, back into maximum security,” jeopardized the possibility of bail for their codefendants, and “propped up the dying case” of the prosecution.68
The cover of the February 13, 1971, issue of the Black Panther, under the headline “Enemies of the People,” featured photographs of Michael Cetawayo Tabor, Connie Matthews Tabor, and Dhoruba Bin Wahad and reproduced the mimeographed statement distributed outside the New York courtroom that expelled most of the New York Panthers from the Party.69 The statement explained that nine imprisoned New York Panthers had already been expelled for their “Open Letter to the Weathermen” in January but that the leaders had kept the expulsion quiet as an intraparty matter until the trial was over. The disappearance of Tabor and Dhoruba had forced the Party to reveal the split.
This sequence suggests that the Central Committee was concerned about how the Party’s allies and supporters, especially funders, would perceive the expulsions. The committee’s quick and high-profile expulsion of the underground New York Panthers signaled that the leadership wanted to distance itself from any underground activities Dhoruba and Tabor might undertake and to make clear its disapproval of their forfeit of the bail money that Party donors had provided. The Central Committee still was willing to advocate revolution, but it would also try to further its cause in court—not in immediate armed struggle. And it wanted allies, supporters, and donors to know that.70
On February 26, on the Jim Dunbar “A.M. Show” aired live on San Francisco’s ABC-TV affiliate, tensions in the Party exploded. From the studio, Huey Newton spoke with Eldridge Cleaver in Algiers via telephone. Cleaver demanded that Newton reinstate the New York 21 and that Newton expel Hilliard from the Party. Newton refused to continue the discussion.71 After the program, in a private phone call that Cleaver secretly recorded, Newton blasted Cleaver for airing Party business publicly and expelled him and the entire International Section from the Party. He told Cleaver he would have him cut off from the Party’s international allies: “I’m going to write the Koreans, the Chinese, and the Algerians and tell them to kick you out of our embassy, and to put you in jail.”72
FACTIONAL NASTINESS
The factional dispute quickly intensified. Two days after the televised flare-up, Eldridge Cleaver and Donald Cox released videotapes to the U.S. press accusing Hilliard of turning the Panther organization into a top-heavy and undemocratic bureaucracy that served his personal purposes and of purging those he did not favor. Cox called for the removal of David and June Hilliard from Party leadership by force: “Conditions should be created so they can’t even walk the streets. . . . They must not be allowed to go to any office of the Black Panther Party. This machinery that they are now using was built on the blood of our comrades, like Bobby and Bunchy. . . . And if Huey can’t understand this and relate to this then he’s got to go too.”73
The cover of the March 6, 1971, issue of the Black Panther featured an image of Kathleen Cleaver wearing shades and the headline “Free Kathleen Cleaver and All Political Prisoners.” Inside the issue, an article by Elaine Brown alleged that Eldridge Cleaver was beating Kathleen, preventing her from leaving Algiers, and not allowing her to talk with her fellow members of the Central Committee. Brown claimed that Kathleen was scheduled to speak on behalf of Bobby Seale on March 5 but Eldridge would not let her come. She also said that Eldridge had isolated Kathleen in North Korea and confiscated letters she tried to send to Oakland. She asserted that Eldridge was having multiple affairs but that he forbade Kathleen from doing the same. And she charged that Eldridge murdered Clinton “Rahim” Smith in Algiers for having an affair with Kathleen. She wrote, “Even though, if Kathleen is allowed to speak for herself, she will probably support the ravings of her personal, mad oppressor, we know that to speak otherwise at this time would be a death warrant for her.”74
Two days later, on Monday March 8, Black Panther Robert Webb was shot in the head and killed at 125th Street and Seventh Avenue in New York. In a press conference the following day, Zayd Shakur of the Cleaver-aligned New York Panthers asserted that Webb was shot while trying to “confiscate the reactionary rag sheet from two fools.” In other words, Shakur said that Webb was killed when he attempted to seize copies of the Black Panther that described Kathleen Cleaver as a political prisoner from two Newton allies who were distributing the newspaper on the street. Shakur also alleged that Webb had been killed because he had joined the call to dismiss or force the resignation of David Hilliard, and he referred to the Newton faction as “revisionist” or “right wing.”75 In another account of the killing, Shakur said, “The six or seven mad dog assassins who took the life of our brother Robert Webb were the first ones to arrive [in New York].”76 The Panther Central Committee called this charge that they had sent someone to Harlem to kill Webb “ridiculous.”77 No one was ever convicted of killing Webb.78 Nevertheless, the killing was widely alleged to be a result of the factional dispute.79
Samuel Napier was the national distribution manager for the Black Panther. Aligned with the Party’s national leadership, he worked out of New York City. On the afternoon of April 17, 1971, assailants shot Napier three times in the back, tied him to a bed in the headquarters of the Oakland-aligned Corona Queens Black Panther chapter, gagged him, shot him three times in the head, and then set the building on fire. Burned beyond recognition, Napier’s body was identified through his fingerprints. Following a murder trial and a hung jury, New York Panthers Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Michael Hill, Eddie Jamal Joseph, and Irving Mason pled guilty to a reduced charge of attempted manslaughter.80
IDEOLOGICAL SPLIT
Overall, relatively few Black Panther chapters challenged the national Party leadership.81 Most of the local Panther leadership across the country stuck with the Party. On March 20, 1971, alongside a notice that the International Section had “defected from the Black Panther Party,” the Black Panther published letters in which crucial national leaders proclaimed their loyalty.82 One letter was cosigned by Doug Miranda, leader of the New Haven mobilizations; Masai Hewitt, minister of education; “Big Man” Howard, editor of the Black Panther; Emory Douglas, minister of culture; and Bobby Rush, leader of the Chicago chapter. They declared their unequivocal support for Huey Newton and claimed that the “defection” of some Panthers actually strengthened the Party: “Corrosive elements of our Party . . . are falling off and purging themselves. Thus, they are cleansing our Party, so that we remain the strong invincible force we always were.”83
On trial for his life in New Haven, Bobby Seale wrote a letter condemning Cleaver: “The Party accepts constructive criticism. . . . But the divisionary, counter-revolutionary actions and jive tactics of Eldridge Cleaver are doing nothing but aiding the pig power structure in their attempt to put in gas chambers and jails over 130 political prisoners, who are presently, like myself and Ericka, caught up in these jails, and are being railroaded to the gas chamber, where we’re fighting for our lives in these trials. . . . There is no split in the Black Panther Party.”84 Another letter, from the San Quentin branch of the Black Panther Party, headed by George Jackson, derided Cleaver and declared strong support for Newton. On August 7, 1970, George Jackson’s younger brother Jonathan Jackson, attempting to free George, was killed when he stormed into a court and kidnapped a judge. The support of the San Quentin branch was important for Newton because Eldridge Cleaver had widely heralded Jonathan Jackson as a martyr and lauded his insurrectionary act the previous August as emblematic of the kind of action that was needed. The San Quentin branch’s endorsement of Newton did a lot to undermine Cleaver’s credibility.85
The number of recognized leaders who turned against Huey Newton and the national Party leadership in early 1971 remained small. But with the
killings of Robert Webb and Sam Napier, the mutiny became the basis of a catastrophic ideological split. The split brought an end to the politics of the Black Panther Party that had enabled its growth from a local organization in the beginning of 1968 to a considerable national political power by the end of 1970.
For these three years, the Panthers had had a winning recipe. Their politics of armed self-defense had tapped the wells of resistance among black youth, and the national organization had mobilized broad support from a spectrum of black, antiwar, and international allies. This support in turn allowed the Party to flourish in the face of government repression and to sustain its anti-imperialist movement. In comparison, most other Black Power organizations were politically impotent and did not come close to the Panthers in their effectiveness or influence. Some, like Karenga’s US organization, remained small, tight-knit organizations, delivered no political consequences, and garnered a limited national following. Others, like the Republic of New Afrika, challenged the state and suffered heavy repression as a result, but—drawing little allied support—were unable to sustain or expand their struggle.
While the Panthers’ strategy proved highly effective for three years, it eventually created significant organizational tensions. The Central Committee had an organization to run and a public face to maintain. As a consequence, it focused primarily on maintaining organizational coherence and allied support. Conversely, many members and local chapters participated in the Party because they wanted to challenge the status quo. They wanted to stand up to the police and to the system that oppressed them. But the boundaries between revolutionary action, adventurism, and criminal activity were not always clear. As a result, tensions developed between the necessarily independent activities of the local chapters, some of which bordered on open insurrection, and the Central Committee’s efforts to maintain allied support.
