by Joshua Bloom
The Black Panther Party, as a national organization, is near disintegration. . . . The committee hearings document the steady decline in [party membership] during the last year. Furthermore, the feud between Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton threatens the start of a time of violence and terror within what remains of the Panther Party. Probably only remnants of the party will remain alive here and there to bedevil the police and enchant a few of the young, but its day as a national influence and influence in the black community seems over. It is hard to believe that only a little over a year ago the Panthers . . . ranked as the most celebrated ghetto militants. They fascinated the left, inflamed the police, terrified much of America, and had an extraordinary effect on the black community. Even moderate blacks, who disagreed with their violent tactics, felt that the Panthers served a purpose in focusing attention on ghetto problems and argued that they gave a sense of pride to the black community. . . . Liberals and idealists who once sympathized with the Panthers have . . . withdrawn their support.13
MARTYRS WITHOUT A MOVEMENT
On August 21, 1971, guards at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California, shot and killed Panther leader, author, and prison activist George Jackson. Three prison guards and two white inmates were also killed in the incident, their throats slashed. Prison authorities claimed that Jackson had smuggled a gun into the prison, killed the guards with help from other inmates, and was attempting to escape when he was shot.14 The “truth” of what actually happened is still contested.
George Jackson had been an important and influential Black Panther leader. Sent to prison at the age of eighteen for the theft of seventy dollars, he organized prisoners against repression. His leadership was transracial, overriding the racial divisions that set black, white, and Latino prisoners against one another and kept them under control. In prison, he learned to write well and became a noteworthy Marxist political theorist. His compelling collection of letters, Soledad Brother, was widely read and quite influential, particularly in certain circles of the U.S. and international Left.15 Soledad Brother confirmed Jackson’s growing influence not only as a Marxist theorist but also as a vital spokesman for political prisoners everywhere. Jackson founded and led the Black Panther chapter at San Quentin Prison and organized a strong revolutionary movement among prison inmates. His writings and leadership garnered an impressive international as well as domestic audience. In effect, he became a powerful symbol for the Black Panther Party, the international human rights movement to free political prisoners, and the convergence of their causes.16
Jackson’s death put the Black Panther Party in a difficult dilemma that revealed how much the times had changed. A year earlier, the Party would have heralded Jackson as a martyr for revolution. In fact, the Party had heralded the efforts of his brother, Jonathan Jackson, to break him out of the Marin County courthouse in August 1970. If George had met death at that moment, the Party would have touted his death as a great injustice perpetrated by the “pigs” and would have called for revenge, encouraging its supporters to take insurrectionary actions against the state, as it had when John Huggins and Bunchy Clark were murdered in Los Angeles in January 1969 and Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were murdered in Chicago in December 1969.
A week after the killings of John Huggins and Bunchy Carter, the January 25, 1969, issue of the Black Panther had been filled with graphics of weapons and violent confrontations with the state, as well as calls to revolutionary violence. The cover headline called the killings “Political Assassination” and featured a photo of John Huggins holding up the poster of Huey Newton with a spear in one hand and a rifle in the other. The top story argued that the state and its stooges had assassinated Huggins and Carter because of the revolutionary threat they posed.17 Under a series of photos of an armed Huey Newton and a photo of a submachine gun was the caption “Free Huey Now—Guns, Baby, Guns!” Under a photo of Vietnamese women carrying rifles and participating in military training, a caption read “Hanoi’s militiawomen learn techniques for shooting down American planes.” One page featured an image of a young black man carrying a submachine gun in one hand and a “Black Studies” book in the other. Another page featured a drawing of a policeman with a bloodied head. The caption read “This pig will be back. Don’t let this happen. Shoot to kill.”18
Similarly, the December 13, 1969, issue of the Black Panther had argued that the December 4 killing of Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in Chicago was state-sponsored assassination and demanded revenge. The front page featured a photo of Fred Hampton in red with the caption, “He stood up in the midst of fascist gestapo forces and declared, ‘I am a revolutionary.’ Fred Hampton, Deputy Chairman Illinois Chapter Black Panther Party, Murdered by Fascist Pigs, December 4, 1969.” The article explained that Hampton was a martyr and called on readers to take up his revolutionary struggle:
Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton . . . has joined the ranks of martyrs, revolutionary heroes: Lumumba, Malcolm X, Little Bobby Hutton, Bunchy Carter, John Huggins, Che, Toure, Jake Winters and the countless other revolutionaries who have given the most precious gift that they could give in the name of the people. . . . These brothers and sisters gave their lives in order that you and yours may one day enjoy true freedom. . . . Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information, has stated that “it is time to intensify the struggle,” and that now is the time for “mad men.” Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton was just such a “mad man.” Reactionaries wondered why Deputy Chairman Fred waged such a resolute struggle seemingly against the greatest of “odds”. . . . [In] Malcolm’s words . . . we are a generation that don’t give a f—k about the “odds.” . . . Deputy Chairman Fred dug that vulturistic capitalists were growing fat off the flesh and blood of the toiling masses of the world. So Deputy Chairman dedicated his life to destroying the number one enemy of mankind. . . . By raising their hands against Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton, they lifted their hands against the best that humanity possesses. AND ALREADY OTHER HANDS ARE REACHING OUT, PICKING UP THE GUNS!!! . . . The arm of the people is long and their vengeance TERRIFYING!!!19
Illustrations further advocating armed confrontation with the state filled the rest of the issue. A full-page color graphic depicted a black man wearing a bandolier. In one hand, he held a military rifle equipped with a bayonet dripping blood, and he thrust a grenade into the air with the other hand while yelling out. Pigs in the distance fled as a grenade flew through the air after them. The large caption quoted Huey Newton: “The racist dog policemen must withdraw immediately from our communities, cease their wonton murder, brutality and torture of Black People, or face the wrath of the armed people.” Beneath a photo of armed police surrounding the Southern California office after the December 8 siege, a caption read, “Fascist troops mill around after attempted massacre.” Another picture on the same page showed young, bare-chested Panthers handcuffed and held by police with the caption “Youthful Panther Warriors.” A beautiful graphic of a black mother carrying her baby and a rifle bore the caption “If I should return, I shall kiss you. If I should fall on the way, I shall ask you to do as I have in the name of the revolution.”20
By the time of George Jackson’s death in August 1971, such a response was no longer tenable. If the leadership was to hold onto the Party’s dwindling allied support, it could not advocate revenge killings of police. Since early that year, the Party had moved definitively away from advocating insurrection.
The issue of the Black Panther published immediately after George Jackson’s death heralded and mourned him. But the Party’s message was essentially nonviolent. The cover of the paper featured a photo of Jackson sitting contemplatively by a sunny window under the headline “George Jackson Lives!” Commemorative writings by Jackson himself, some of it promoting violence, filled the issue. Yet the Party issued no calls to insurrection and made no suggestions that violent revenge was appropriate. The Party celebrated and supported Jackson, but it did not agitate for immediate violent retribution. The newspaper contain
ed not a single image of a weapon or violent action by a revolutionary against any agent of the state. Jackson was a martyr, but without an insurrectionary movement. Stripped of its insurrectionary rhetoric and the politics of armed self-defense against the state, the Party no longer offered a practical outlet for the anger that Panther members and supporters felt about Jackson’s killing.
While the editorial policy of the Black Panther was tightly controlled, the political views of Black Panther members and supporters were not. Many of George Jackson’s admirers took his insurrectionary writings to heart and wanted vengeance for his death. A group of Black Panthers incarcerated at Folsom State Prison in California wrote to Jackson’s parents to commiserate:
We know, Father and Mother Jackson, that our pitifully few words fall far short in filling that vacuum created by George’s murderers; you see we feel that vacuum also. You must be strong and take consolation in the reality that George lives in all of us and we all therefore are your sons. Take pride in the fact that you have a large strong revolutionary family of budding warriors—we will not let you down. Comrade George, the battleground is defined and that split between the enemy and ourselves has become a chasm. This cruel cut can never heal; the pain is too intense.21
Given the calls by the Cleaver faction for immediate armed action, the Black Panther Party national leadership could not afford to alienate those Jackson supporters who were deeply angered by Jackson’s killing and wanted revenge. To manage the complex and vast outpouring of emotions from members and supporters after Jackson’s murder, the leaders organized a massive funeral. Thousands participated. Huey Newton gave a long, philosophical eulogy emphasizing the strength and beauty of George Jackson’s character. “He lived the life that we must praise. It was a life, no matter how he was oppressed, no matter how wrongly he was done, he still kept the love for the people.”22 Bobby Seale read letters from Panther members and supporters representing a range of perspectives on Jackson’s death, giving voice to those who wanted revenge as well as those who simply wanted to express sadness about the loss.23
The next issue of the Black Panther, on September 4, was dedicated to Jackson’s funeral, and the editors reproduced many of the letters read by Seale along with statements from notables such as scholar-activist Angela Davis (a close comrade and love of George Jackson), French writer Jean Genet, and author James Baldwin, as well as a transcript of Newton’s speech. Consistent with its new editorial policy, the newspaper presented not a single drawing or photo of violent confrontation, though it did contain a number of photos of the funeral, including images of members of an honor guard standing by holding rifles to their chests. Dressed in fancy suits, they looked ceremonial, not at all aggressive. Aside from the guards, the issue contained no images of weapons. The overriding message was one of mourning and loss: Jackson was a hero, and he had been unjustly taken away. The last article in the issue was a statement by Genet, which ended, “In these 11 years, Jackson learned to write and think. The American police shot him down.”24 As the Black Panther reported it, Jackson’s death was a tragic loss but not a call to arms.
The following week, on September 9, inmates took over Attica prison in New York. They called in the Panthers to help negotiate their demands but achieved no resolution. On September 13, Governor Rockefeller responded with force, sending in a thousand National Guardsmen, prison guards, and police to take back the prison. The troops killed twenty-eight prisoners, while nine hostages died in the battle.25 The New York Times reported on its front page that the prisoners had slit the throats of the nine hostages.26 An editorial emphasized the brutality of the killing and suggested that Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers were partly to blame:
The deaths of these persons by knives . . . reflect a barbarism wholly alien to civilized society. Prisoners slashed the throats of utterly helpless, unarmed guards whom they had held captive through the around-the-clock negotiations, in which inmates held out for an increasingly revolutionary set of demands. . . . What began last Thursday as a long-foreseeable protest against inhuman prison conditions, with an initial list of grievances that many citizens could support, degenerated into a bloodbath that can only bring sorrow to all Americans. . . . The contribution of Black Panther Bobby Seale seems to have been particularly negative, that of an incendiary, not a peacemaker.27
The charge that the Panthers had contributed to the violence at Attica had potential to alienate many of the Black Panther Party’s more moderate allies.
The next day, the Times reported on page one that the hostages had actually been killed by gunfire and that the prisoners had no guns—implying that state troopers had killed the hostages as well as the prisoners.28 Several elected officials, including New York congressman Herman Badillo and Assemblyman Arthur Eve from Buffalo, charged that Governor Rockefeller’s administration had fabricated the story that the prisoners had killed the hostages.29
The false story that prisoners had brutally killed hostages and that the Panthers had helped instigate the killing vilified the Attica insurgents and the Black Panthers. In response, the Panthers shied away from insurgent rhetoric. Rather than call for resistance to prison authorities in the spirit of Attica, the Panthers advanced a moderate stance. They dedicated the next issue of their newspaper to the uprising, with the title “Massacre at Attica” across the cover. Again, as with the killing of George Jackson, the Party’s rhetoric stopped short of advocating insurrection, instead mourning the loss of the prison rebels and decrying their oppression. The issue contained no photos or images of revolutionary violence and no calls to armed action.30 This treatment of the event stood in stark contrast to the rhetoric of the Party before the ideological split. Strategically, the Panthers were trying to hold onto allied support in the shifting political environment. At the behest of the Panthers, a committee of eighteen official observers who had been allowed into Attica as negotiators during the rebellion, including Seale, issued a statement supporting Seale against the charges in the New York Times editorial that he had inflamed the Attica rebels from within: “No individual on the observer committee adopted any position which prevented or hindered a peaceful resolution of the crisis.”31
RETREAT
No longer advocating armed insurrection, the Black Panthers sought to build power through other means. In addition to their service programs, the Oakland Panthers launched an extended boycott of Bill Boyette, a local black businessman who owned markets in black neighborhoods and ran a black business association called Cal-Pak but refused to donate to the Black Panther Party. In January 1972, the Party announced it had reached an agreement with Boyette. His stores would now donate regularly to the Party’s programs, and the Party would call off the boycott.32 The Party deepened relationships with black elected politicians, including Congressman Ron Dellums and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm.33
On May 20, 1972, the Black Panther Party announced that it was running Chairman Bobby Seale for mayor of Oakland, and Minister of Information Elaine Brown for a seat on the Oakland City Council.34 The Party had earlier participated in electoral politics with Eldridge Cleaver’s 1968 presidential candidacy on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket, but it had never actually sought to win. Now, the Party turned all of its national notoriety and resources to winning the Oakland elections.
Facing dwindling public support, and embarrassing violent activity by rank-and-file members in chapters across the country, Newton and the national Party leadership decided to cut their losses and consolidate their political strength in Oakland. Since they could not expect to win violent confrontations with the state and could no longer win politically either, the Party decided to use its still considerable national clout to win electoral political power in Oakland. The leadership put out the message in July 1972, declaring Oakland a “base of operation” and calling on Party members to close down their local Panther chapters and bring all Party resources back to Oakland.
Instead of pursuing immediate insurrectionary activity, now the Party wou
ld consolidate its power to take over the city of Oakland, including its strategically and economically important port, through electoral struggle. Once Oakland was liberated through electoral victory, the Party would expand the revolution by taking over other cities. “In this interest, each week the Black Panther Intercommunal News Service will publish a supplement examining one aspect of the city of Oakland in the hope that this information can be used to turn a reactionary base into a revolutionary base.”35
On the campaign trail, Elaine Brown explained the strategy to a supportive audience at Merritt College in Oakland, where the Panthers got their start in 1966:
We’re talking about liberating the territory of Oakland. . . . Are we ready to defend at this moment? I don’t think we are. The Oakland Police Department has got all the guns. There’s a practical problem, when you talk about liberating territory, or establishing a provisional revolutionary government. Think about those issues when you start talking about implementing a revolutionary process in the United States of America, with its super-technological weapons, where they do not have to commit a troop to take out the whole city, because they have “smart” bombs, helicopters, and all kinds of things so that it doesn’t even require the entrance of one troop. Think about that. We have to start talking about how to win, not how to get killed. We can begin by talking about voting in the city of Oakland, the Oakland elections, in April 1973, for Bobby Seale, for Elaine Brown.36
