by Joshua Bloom
22. Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves, 147.
23. Ibid., 132; DeBenedetti and Chatfield, An American Ordeal, 214.
24. In 1964, Johnson won every state except those in the Deep South (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina) that had been alienated by his civil rights policies and turned toward the Republican Party for the first time, and his opponent’s home state of Arizona.
25. Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves, 158.
26. Tom Wells, The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 237–40; Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS (New York: Random House, 1973), 473.
27. “Chairman Bobby Seale and Chief of Staff David Hilliard in Chicago,” Black Panther, September 7, 1968, 3.
28. Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam Books, 1987), 321–23; New York Times, August 29, 1968. Sixty black soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas, refused to help put down protests against the war in Chicago, and forty-three of them were taken to the stockades as a result: “60 Negro GIs Balk at Possible Riot Control,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1968, F9.
29. Wells, The War Within, 277–78; DeBenedetti and Chatfield, An American Ordeal, 227; New York Times, August 26, 1968; Earl Caldwell, “Chicago Negroes Stirred by Clashes between Whites and Police, Not Convention,” New York Times, August 29, 1968, 22.
30. Caldwell, “Chicago Negroes”; Sale, SDS, 475.
31. J. Anthony Lukas, “War Critics Liken Chicago to Prague,” New York Times, August 25, 1968, 62.
32. DeBenedetti and Chatfield, An American Ordeal, 227–28; Gitlin, The Sixties, 332; Wells, The War Within, 279.
33. “Chairman Bobby Seale and Chief of Staff David Hilliard in Chicago,” Black Panther, September 7, 1968, 3; see also “White Radicals vs. Pigs at Chicago,” Black Panther, October 5, 1968.
34. Gitlin, The Sixties, 332–34; Wells, The War Within, 279–80.
35. Ibid. The “Battle of Algiers” refers to the bloody urban warfare in 1957 between the National Liberation Front and the French Army during the Algerian struggle for independence, famously depicted in the 1966 film by the same name by Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo.
36. DeBenedetti and Chatfield, An American Ordeal, 228.
37. “Opening Salvos from a Black/White Gun,” Black Panther, October 5, 1968.
38. Sale, SDS, 475; DeBenedetti and Chatfield, An American Ordeal, 228.
39. Sale, SDS, 478–79. Sale also cites the Liberation News Service, “SDS Membership Mushrooms,” October 18, 1968, part reprinted in Guardian, October 26, 1968; Guardian, November 16, 1968, and January 4, 1969; Jack Gerson, “Go Go Stanford,” Movement, November 1968; Newsweek, September 30, 1968; “Across the Country,” New Left Notes, October 7, 1968; Carl Davidson, Guardian, November 16, 1968.
40. “Pledges End of War, Toughness on Crime,” New York Times, August 9, 1968, 1.
41. John W. Finney, “Nixon and Reagan Ask War on Crime,” New York Times, August 1, 1968, 1.
42. White supremacist George Wallace ran as a third-party candidate, eventually winning 13 percent of the popular vote and most of the electoral votes in the Deep South. Many on the left refused to vote. Of those in the left wing of the Democratic Party who did vote for Hubert Humphrey, most were disgusted by the party leadership and declined to help the campaign with time or money. Humphrey was lagging far behind in the polls until, desperate to bring the Democratic base back into the election in the last few weeks of the campaign, he became critical of President Johnson’s war policy and called for a halt to bombing. When Johnson announced he would stop the bombing, Humphrey surged ahead in the polls, closing in on Nixon. But the comeback surge was not enough.
43. Nixon and Hoover conversation reported in memos by FBI Assistant Director Tolson, cited in O’Reilly, “Racial Matters,” 298. Nixon also eventually placed the Black Panther Party on his infamous list of “enemies,” which was revealed in the Watergate scandal; see David E. Rosenbaum, “Scores of Names,” New York Times, June 28, 1973, 1; and “Opponents List,” in Edward W. Knappman, ed., Watergate and the White House (New York: Facts on File, 1973), 1: 96–97.
44. “The Panthers and the Law,” Newsweek, February 23, 1970, 26. Some sources have quoted Mitchell telling Newsweek in February 1969 that the Department of Justice would “wipe out the Black Panther Party by the end of 1969.” But that is incorrect. Public statements by the Justice Department about the program against the Panthers came a year after Nixon took office, not right away. Even Hoover did not make broad public statements about the threat the Panthers posed until the summer of 1969. And we could find no quote from Justice Department officials promising the eradication of the Panthers and no quotation in Newsweek of any direct statement by Mitchell about the Black Panthers. See also “Too Late for the Panthers?” Newsweek, December 22, 1969, 26; “Order in the Court,” Newsweek, February 16, 1970, 27; “Gentlemen Songsters Off on a Spree,” Newsweek, May 11, 1970; “The Revolutionaries,” Newsweek, May 11, 1970, 34; “Mr. Nixon’s Home Front,” Newsweek, May 18, 1970, 26–28.
45. J. Edgar Hoover quoted by United Press International (UPI) in “FBI Director Blacks Black Panthers,” Oakland Tribune, July 15, 1969, 17. This is perhaps the most famous quote Hoover made about the Panthers. Usually, the 1976 Church Committee Report is cited as a source, but the report cites a New York Times article on September 8, 1968, that doesn’t exist, and the timing is wrong. Hoover took no such public position on the Panthers in 1968. The UPI story ran on July 15, 1969, in dozens of newspapers, including the San Mateo Times, Washington Court House [Ohio] Record Herald, Tucson Daily Citizen, Hayward Daily Review, Long Beach Independent, and Ukiah Daily Journal. It was also reported that day on the CBS Evening News (retrieved from the Vanderbilt News Archive). But interestingly, the report and the statement were not mentioned independently in any of the major newspapers in July 1969. The first major newspaper report of the quote that we could find was David McClintick, “Black Panthers: Negro Militants Use Free Food, Medical Aid, to Promote Revolution,” Wall Street Journal, August 29, 1969, 1.
Of further interest, UPI (July 15, 1969), CBS (July 15, 1969), and the Wall Street Journal (August 29, 1969) all attributed the quote to the FBI fiscal report for 1969. But that is not correct. The formal FBI fiscal report for 1969 was not released until October 29, 1969, and it contains milder language. Subsequent quotes from Hoover were similar and provide one clue to the context in which Hoover may have made the statement. See, for example, Hoover in Earl Caldwell, “Declining Black Panthers Gather New Support from Repeated Clashes with Police,” New York Times, December 14, 1969, 64; “F.B.I. Brands Black Panthers ‘Most Dangerous’ of Extremists,” New York Times, July 14, 1970, 21; Interagency Committee on Intelligence (Ad Hoc), Special Report [Huston Report], June 25, 1970, 9 [hereafter Huston Report]. The July 14, 1970, article in the New York Times cites an annual report released in July for fiscal 1970. We found a July 14, 1970, press release from the Office of the Director of the FBI from which that article quoted. The tone of that press release was much stronger and more similar to the famous “greatest threat” quote than the formal FBI annual reports (1968, 1969, 1970, etc.) and had a similar release date as the June 15, 1969, reports by UPI and CBS. There may have been a similar July 15, 1969, press release by J. Edgar Hoover that was presented as an annual report, apart from the formal report. If so, this begs the question why the release was reported only by UPI and CBS and whether Hoover ever sent the press release to the major papers. One possible explanation is that Hoover wanted a more limited and less traceable release of the provocative quote. The release to UPI (which CBS may have reported) gave public exposure of the quote while making it hard to trace. To date, we have not been able to recover the precise context of the quote, but at least the UPI stories date it precisely.
46. The following is the only mention of the Panthers in the report: “Another such organization is the Black Panther Party, which was founded as the Black Panther Party for Self-
Defense at Oakland, California in December, 1966, for the alleged purpose of combating police brutality and uniting militant black youth. The political philosophy of its leaders is based on the writings of Mao Zedong and black revolutionary writers. They advocate the use of guns and guerrilla tactics to end their alleged oppression.” Office of John Edgar Hoover, FBI Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1968, October 1, 1968, 24.
47. Church Committee Report, book 3, 188. The program was initiated in 1967; see Memo, J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director, to Field Offices, August 25, 1967 for initiation of the COINTELPRO against black nationalist groups. The COINTELPRO was terminated in 1971; see David Cunningham, There’s Something Happening Here (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 13.
48. Airtel, Director, FBI, to SAC [Special Agent in Charge], San Francisco, May 27, 1969. Reproduced in Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars against Dissent in the United States (Boston: South End Press, 1990), 145.
49. Church Committee Report, book 3, 210–11. See also assorted news coverage of these revelations, such as Richard Philbrick, “Panther Free Meals ‘Threat’ to Hoover,” Chicago Tribune, May 8, 1976, 5.
50. Memo, Internal Revenue Service Assistant Commissioner D. W. Bacon to chief counsel and other officers, “Re: Activist Organizations Committee,” July 24, 1969; “Internal Revenue Service: An Intelligence Resource and Collector,” in Church Committee Report, book 3, 876–90.
51. Huston Report, 9–10.
52. “Denver Pigs Incite Riot,” Black Panther, October 19, 1968, 6; “Panthers Account of NY Incident,” Black Panther, October 5, 1968, 3; “Review of Panther Growth and Harassment,” Black Panther, January 4, 1969, 14; “Nationwide Harassment of Panthers by Pig Power Structure,” Black Panther, January 15, 1969, 8.
53. “Indianapolis Panthers Target of Pig Attack,” Black Panther, January 15, 1969, 8; “Pigs Raid Indianapolis Panthers,” Black Panther, January 25, 1969, 6.
54. Ronnell Steward, “Denver Pigs Raid and Ransack Panther H.Q.,” Black Panther, December 21, 1968, 22; Melvin D. Briscoe, “Rap Denver Cops for Wrecking Center,” Chicago Daily Defender, December 21, 1968, 28.
55. “Des Moines Panthers,” Black Panther, February 17, 1969, 9; “Pigs Raid Des Moines Panthers,” Black Panther, January 15, 1969, 8.
56. Charles Buesey, “Pigs Uptight: Bomb New Jersey Panther Office,” Black Panther, December 7, 1968, 3; “Panther Offices in Newark Bombed,” New York Times, December 2, 1968, 29.
57. Murray Kempton, The Briar Patch: The Trial of the Panther 21 (1973; repr. New York: Da Capo, 1997), ch. 1 (arrests), ch. 3 (history), 162 (conspiracy allegations), 277 (acquittal). Kuwasi Balagoon, Joan Bird, Cetewayo, Robert Collier, Dhoruba, Richard Harris, Ali Bey Hassan, Jamal, Abayama Katara, Kwando Kinshasa, Baba Odinga, Shaba Ogun Om, Curtis Powell, Afeni Shakur, Lumumba Shakur, and Clark Squire, Look for Me in the Whirlwind: The Collective Autobiography of the New York 21 (New York: Random House, 1971); Zayd-Malik Shakur, “Pig Conspiracy against NY Panther Twenty-One,” Black Panther, April 20, 1969, 10; Olaywah, “NY Pigs Move to Destroy Panthers,” Black Panther, April 20, 1969, 11; “Statement by the Central Committee of the Black Panther Party,” Black Panther, April 27, 1969, 14; Morris Kaplan, “Bomb Plot Is Laid to 21 Panthers,” New York Times, April 3, 1969, 1; Edith Evans Asbury, “Black Panther Party Members Freed after Being Cleared of Charges,” New York Times, May 14, 1971, 1.
58. “Pigs Bomb Des Moines Panther Headquarters,” Black Panther, May 11, 1969, 2; “Des Moines Pigs Try to Halt Free Breakfast Program through Terror,” Black Panther, May 11, 1969, 3; “Des Moines Panther Bombing,” Black Panther, May 19, 1969, 15; “Iowa Panther Headquarters Hit by Blast,” Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1969, A16.
59. Donald Cox, “Pigs Vamp on SF Panther Office,” Black Panther, May 4, 1969, 5; “Frisco Cops Put Lid on Disorder,” Chicago Daily Defender, April 30, 1969, 5; “10 Seized on Coast in Raid on Panthers,” New York Times, April 29, 1969, 9.
60. “Fascist Milwaukee Pigs Attempt to Bait Panthers into Shootout,” Black Panther, July 5, 1969, 1; “Panther Struck Down in Milwaukee,” Black Panther, July 5, 1969, 16.
61. “Fascist Actions against the People of Sacramento,” Black Panther, June 21, 1969, 12; Carl Ingram, “A Score Wounded, 37 Arrested in Calif. Shooting,” Chicago Daily Defender, June 17, 1969, 2; “37 Arrested, 13 Policemen Wounded in Sacramento,” New York Times, June 17, 1969, 28.
62. “Fascist Pigs Vamp on San Diego Panther Office,” Black Panther, July 19, 1969, 3.
63. “Attempted Murder by the Fascist Pigs of Richmond Calif,” Black Panther, August 16, 1969, 21.
64. “Press Release: San Diego Branch,” Black Panther, September 20, 1969, 3; “40 San Diego Police Storm Panther Office,” Los Angeles Times, September 4, 1969, 31.
65. “FBI’s Philly Frame-Up,” Black Panther, October 4, 1969, 4.
9. 41ST AND CENTRAL
1. Pratt citation quoted in Jack Olsen, Last Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt (New York, Doubleday, 2000), 31.
2. Pratt in ibid., 32; 33.
3. Ibid., 4.
4. Ibid., 38–39.
5. Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 153–55.
6. Memo, J. Edgar Hoover to Field Offices, “Counter Intelligence Program, Black Nationalist Hate Groups, Racial Intelligence (Black Panther Party),” November 25, 1968. All FBI memos cited in this chapter are available in the FBI Reading Room, FBI Headquarters, Washington, DC.
7. Memo, Special Agent in Charge, Los Angeles, to J. Edgar Hoover, “Counterintelligence Program, Black Nationalist—Hate Groups, Racial Intelligence, Re Los Angeles letter to Bureau dated 9/25/68,” November 29, 1968.
8. William J. Drummond and Kenneth Reich, “Two Black Panthers Slain in UCLA Hall,” Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1969; Douglas Kneeland, “17 Black Panther Members Are Arrested at the Home of Slain Youth in Los Angeles,” New York Times, January 19, 1969, 45; William J. Drummond, “Black Panther Aide Lauds 2 Who Were Slain in UCLA Hall,” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1969, B; “Brothers Arraigned in UCLA Slayings,” Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1969; Ron Einstoss, “5 Negroes Indicted in 2 UCLA Slayings: All Ranking Members of US,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1969; Ron Einstoss, “Three Found Guilty in UCLA Panther Killings,” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1969; “Stiner Brothers Get Life Prison Terms,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 1969; Scot Brown, Fighting for US: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 95–97; Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power, 153–67; Gene Marine, The Black Panthers: Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale—A Compelling Study of the Angry Young Revolutionaries Who Have Shaken a Black Fist at White America (New York: Signet, 1969), 208–9. Although some authors dispute the specific immediate motives of the shooting, most are in basic agreement about the events as we present them in this chapter. In a February 13, 1971, article in the New Yorker titled “Black Panthers and the Police,” Edward Jay Epstein argued that the fact that the conflict was between members of rival black organizations shows that there was no government conspiracy; but the FBI memos quoted here show that while the extent of FBI involvement in planning the confrontation is not clear, the agency certainly conspired to escalate the conflict with the specific intention of undermining the Black Panther Party.
9. Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power, 167–70; Kneeland, “17 Black Panther Members Are Arrested,” 45.
10. Bobby Seale quoted in William Drummond, “2 Black Panther Students Slain in UCLA Hall,” Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1969, A1; Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power, 167–74; Ray Rogers, “Accusations Hurled at Slain Panther’s Rites,” Los Angeles Times, January 25, 1969, B10; Kneeland, “17 Black Panther Members Are Arrested,” 45;
11. “A Political Assassination,” Black Panther, January 25, 1969, 3.
12. Scot Brown, Fighting for US, 97.
13.
Donald Freed, “Breakfast for Children,” Black Panther, March 16, 1969, 6; Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power, 181; “L.A. Panthers Begin Free Breakfast Program,” Black Panther, June 14, 1969, 3.
14. Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power, 208–10. Panther allies such as Seberg and Freed became the targets of FBI counterintelligence measures because of their support of the Panthers. See Judson Jeffries and Malcolm Foley “To Live and Die in L.A.,” in Comrades: A Local History of the Black Panther Party, ed. Judson Jeffries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 283–86.
15. “L.A. Opens First Community Center,” Black Panther, November 22, 1969, 2; Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power, 197.
16. Los Siete de la Raza Los Angeles Chapter, “Free Breakfast,” Black Panther, October 25, 1969, 8. This effort grew out of the Los Siete de la Raza campaign in San Francisco discussed in chapter 13.
17. “L.A. Oppression,” Black Panther, November 22, 1969, 2.
18. “Repression and Harassment of L.A. Panthers Stepped Up,” Black Panther, May 31, 1969, 20; “News of the Day: Metropolitan,” Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1969, A2.
19. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities [Church Committee], Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Final Report, S. Doc. No. 94–755 (April 1976), book 3, 190–92.
20. “Black Panther Shot to Death in San Diego,” Los Angeles Times, August 16, 1969, 16; “Southland,” Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1969, OC2; “3 US Members Go on Trial in Panther Slaying,” Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1970, A32; “Southland,” Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1970, 2.
21. Memo, Special Agent in Charge, San Diego, to J. Edgar Hoover, August 20, 1969.
22. Geronimo Pratt in Olsen, Last Man Standing, quote on 59, discussion of Pratt’s appointment on 53.
23. “L.A. Oppression,” Black Panther, November 22, 1969, 2; Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power, 201–2.
24. Renee Moore quoted in Dial Torgerson, “Police Seize Panther Fortress in 4-Hour Gunfight, Arrest 13,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1969, 1. The account of the December 8 events also draws from: “Pigs Attack Southern California Chapter of Black Panther Party,” Black Panther, December 13, 1969, 10; “Statement by Witnesses of Attack at Black Panther Headquarters,” Black Panther, December 13, 1969, 10; Olsen, Last Man Standing, 63–64; Kenneth Reich, “National Pattern Followed in Raid on Panthers Here,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1969, 1; Philip Fradkin, “Bombs, Gunfire Shatter Quiet of Central Ave,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1969, 3.
