Panther Baby

by Jamal Joseph

  I was grateful that Afeni was right there introducing me to people and pulling me to the side when she saw me getting stressed. “You all right?” she asked.

  “Real cool,” came my automatic, show-no-weakness response. What was I supposed to say? That I was really shittin’ bricks and that I wished I was back in Branch Queens jail with the rest of the 21?

  “Call your grandmother,” Afeni said firmly. “Let her know you’re out and you’re okay.”

  I spun the rotary dial. Noonie answered after the second ring. “It’s me, Noonie. I’m out,” I said cheerfully, trying to hide the Panther voices and the James Brown music playing in the background.

  “Praise the Lord,” she intoned. “Where are you?”

  “At the Panther office,” I replied meekly. Silence. I could tell she wasn’t happy I didn’t come straight home and that I made my first stop the Panthers.

  “When will you be home?” she asked, as if I were calling in late from a basketball game or a community center dance. Hell, I just got out of prison.

  “Soon,” I said respectfully.

  I knew Noonie would be watching from the front window so I declined a lift in the Panther car and took the subway with money that Afeni pressed into my hand. I hugged Noonie a long time when I walked in the door. She seemed smaller and older than before. We sat and talked a long time. There wasn’t much I felt I could share about my prison experiences. Instead I listened to church and neighborhood stories as I relished the home-cooked meal she prepared for me.

  The next day Noonie and I walked to Evander Childs High School to reenroll me. The guidance counselor told me he was placing me in the tenth grade. “But I was in the eleventh grade,” I protested. “Two more months and I would have been promoted to the twelfth.” The guidance counselor made some calls and said there was nothing he could do. The principal and the superintendent’s office all said that I had to repeat tenth grade. These people were trippin’! I had been an honor student with no marks lower than 85. I had skipped eighth grade as a Special Progress student, and was well on my way to graduate high school at sixteen and a half. No way was I down with this charade.

  “The fascist board of miseducation is collaborating with the government swine to deny me my rights,” I shouted as I jumped to my feet.

  Noonie would have broken my shin with a kick had I been close enough, but instead I caught a stiff “Eddie, sit down and be respectful.” Even though she was embarrassed by my outburst, she saw my point. “I don’t know why they’re making you repeat a grade,” Noonie said as we walked home through the chilly February air. “You should be getting ready for graduation now.” All I could do was shrug. I was sure that the cops and FBI had been around to the school to make sure that I was given a hard time.

  There were a number of alternative schools called street academies that opened as a result of community activists’ struggle for more meaningful community-based education. These certified schools were having success educating kids who had dropped out or were having a difficult time in regular schools. Noonie agreed to let me check out one of the street academies.

  I enrolled in a school called Harlem Prep, short for Harlem Preparatory Academy. It was a large storefront located near 135th Street and Eighth Avenue. The curriculum featured math and science classes along with black and African history courses that weren’t part of the regular school curriculum. The director and most of the teachers were black and prided themselves on their ability to engage students and to get them into college. They knew I was a Black Panther out on bail and welcomed me. Class discussions were open and Afrocentric. When I spoke, I felt like I was joining in a real forum of ideas instead of battling a teacher who was trying to brainwash the students. After class I would walk downtown to the Panther office where I would help sell newspapers, run meetings, or be out in the community organizing.

  At night Panthers would meet back at the office or at one of the “Panther pads” (an apartment or a house that had been set up as a Panther commune) for a meal, some wine, music, and a few short hours in bed—sometimes alone but most of the times with another exhausted Panther or with a Panther lover. A bed was often nothing more than a mattress on the floor, sometimes two or three mattresses in the room.

  Three days after I got out of jail I spent the night at a Panther pad. I had been all over the city selling Panther newspapers with an eighteen-year-old Panther girl named Sheila. We started out with a group of other Panthers along 125th Street, then left the “black colony” to head downtown to Times Square and then the Village, so we could sell the remainder of our papers in “the mother country.” We’d duck in and out of bars listening to rock music on Bleecker Street, and we hung out in Washington Square Park watching hippies dance around the fountain. By the time we got to the Panther pad on 153rd Street all the food was gone, so we whipped up some leftovers and ate in the kitchen. Sheila and I brushed against each other as we were doing dishes. A bolt of electricity shot from my loins to my brain. Of course, I didn’t know what to do except say “Excuse me” and soap up another dish. It was close to midnight when I grabbed my coat to head back to the Bronx.

  “I know you ain’t trying to get out on the street this time of night, brother,” said Jacob, a Panther who was wearing sweatpants as pajamas. “The pigs out there are like vampires, just waiting to vamp on a Panther rollin’ by himself.”

  That was all the prodding I needed. I picked up the wall phone and dialed Noonie. I told her I was staying at a friend’s house and would be home in the morning. She wasn’t pleased, but at least I had called.

  I undressed down to my T-shirt and socks, keeping my pants on, and lay on the narrow couch. Sheila said I could crash on her mattress. When I told her I was fine on the couch, she took me by the hand and led me to her room, which looked like it had been a large closet. It had no window and was barely able to accommodate a full-size mattress. I lay next to Sheila like a train rail, scared to move. The apartment was quiet. Most of the other Panthers were knocked out. “You always sleep with your pants on?” Sheila teased. She had a pretty smile and wore only a baggy T-shirt and panties. I jettisoned my pants and tossed them in the corner. Sheila lay with her back to me. She nudged closer and guided my arm around her waist. I got up my courage and kissed her on the neck. She moved even closer and turned to me. We kissed. We helped each other out of our remaining clothes and got under the covers. Sheila could tell I was a virgin. She slowed me down and taught me how to move. We made love until we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  I walked into Noonie’s apartment around eleven o’clock the next morning. Noonie was angry, but she didn’t yell or scold. Instead she sat on the couch sewing and told me that I could not use her house like a motel. I needed to be in by a certain time and that was that. I took a deep breath and told Noonie what I had been thinking about on the long subway ride home. “I’m leaving, Ma. There’s too much work to do for the revolution and I need to be with the party.” My words hit Noonie like a heavy weight, and she sagged. She wanted to continue life where we left off. Church, Sunday dinner, school conferences, watching a show on the black-and-white TV together on the worn but comfortable couch. I wanted to spend all my time agitating, fighting, and hanging with my Panther comrades. Plus I had slept with a woman. No way was I letting Noonie tuck me in at 10 p.m. in her house when sexy Panther women like Sheila were willing to share their beds with me.

  I reminded Noonie that both she and Pa B. had left home when they were teenagers.

  “But times were different,” Noonie said with worry.

  “Times are worse,” I responded, “and I need to be out there in the struggle.”

  I expected Noonie to call our pastor or another family friend to talk sense to me, but she didn’t. I spent one more night at the apartment, then next morning packed a few things. Noonie gave me a long hug and fifty dollars to see me on my way. I could feel her heart beating as she held me close. Part of me wanted to turn back and be the man-child again—safe
and spoiled by Grandma. But scar tissue had already grown over my youth. I let Noonie go and headed out the door to battle—without looking back.

  There was one more family visit I needed to make. Noonie told me that my maternal grandmother, Alita, had been calling her the whole time I was in prison. Since Alita spoke no English, my little sister, Elba, would do the telephone Spanish–English translations. Elba was now thirteen and Luis was eleven. I thought my family might be reluctant, perhaps even ashamed, to see me, but my brother and sister opened the front door of their Brownsville house and jumped into my arms. Alita cried tears of joy. We sat at the kitchen table eating a home-cooked Cuban feast. My Spanish was poor at best, but I clearly understood the love and the prayers as Alita squeezed my hand and told me to be safe. That night I stayed at a Panther pad in Brooklyn and headed back to Harlem the next day.

  The life of the full-time Panther wasn’t as romantic as I thought it would be. Life in the Panther pad was tough. The Panthers, especially those in the Harlem branch, were poor as shit. The boiler in our tenement building was old and out of commission two or three times a week. Even though we had organized a rent strike and were making repairs ourselves, the building was in sad shape. It was February, and the rags and blankets stuffed in the cracked windows did not keep the cold out. Lovemaking could keep you warm for a while, but Sheila and I would have to put on sweat clothes and sometimes coats on those frigid nights.

  Picture dragging yourself from exhausted sleep, out of whatever little warmth you had in your bed, to boil water to wash up and head out into the cold to start work at a Panther breakfast program, where all Panthers were required to work. Getting up at five and trudging through the freezing cold with three hours of sleep took commitment, although once you made it to the church or community center basement you were energized by the kids. They were glad to be there and happy to have a hot meal provided by the Panthers. We would have them sing songs, and we’d talk about black history and love for the community as we served pancakes, eggs, cereal, and juice.

  By eight o’clock, the kids were gone and the pots and pans were scrubbed and put away. From there I walked ten blocks to my classes at Harlem Prep. I was freezing. My only winter clothing was a thin leather jacket and a light sweater.

  One afternoon I stood shivering on a corner of 125th Street selling Panther papers. A community activist named Sayeed, one of the Harlem Five, took me to his apartment in the Lincoln projects and gave me a long army-style coat out of his closet, and Afeni made the Panther finance officer give me twenty dollars so I could buy a pair of warm shoes. Now I was really ready for the cold—bring on the revolution!

  My classes at Harlem Prep ran from 9 a.m. till noon. Afternoons were spent selling newspapers and community organizing. The Panther paper was the main source of income for the party. Panthers got to keep five cents from each twenty-five-cent paper. The rest went to the chapter and national headquarters. So selling a hundred papers meant five dollars. And five dollars meant carfare, a meal, and a dollar or two in your pocket. There were no salaries, so if your stomach was growling at lunchtime or you needed to take a train or a bus someplace, then you’d better sell some papers.

  There was usually a collective pot of food for dinner at the office or Panther pad. Our best cook was a three-hundred-pound, six-foot-five-inch intimidating-looking Panther named Bashir. Bashir could cook a pot of stew or fry a pile of chicken that would bring tears to your eyes. He was truly a gentle giant. When a group of racist white militia men jumped out of their cars and stood in military formation outside the Panther office, Bashir whipped most of their asses as a small crowd of Harlem residents cheered. I got in a few punches, but it was Bashir that put them on the run. A few minutes later he was laughing and crawling around on the floor of the Panther office as five kids rode on his back.

  Bashir and I would go out together to seek donations for the Panther breakfast program. His size would give my smile the advantage we needed as we asked local merchants to donate milk, eggs, and cereal to the program. We were careful not to make threats or ask for money. A few storekeepers had been shaken down by fake Panthers in uniform demanding cash to protect their stores. A couple of these fakers were caught and given a real Panther ass-whipping. Bashir and I would invite the store owners to see the breakfast program in action before they gave. We wanted them to be assured that their donations were going straight to the community. Most of the store owners would donate once they saw the program. Some would give us additional canned goods, rice, and vegetables that made it possible to have food giveaway programs.

  A lot of white high school and college kids would come to the Panther office to buy papers, books, and buttons and to attend the Wednesday night community PE classes. I became friends with a high school kid named Neal from New Jersey. On Saturdays he would bring his Volkswagen van and help us pick up boxes of food donated by merchants in the community for the breakfast program. An older Jewish man, who ran a nearby dry cleaner, also became a supporter. He would give us unclaimed clothes and would clean donated clothes for free, which we would set out on racks for the community. Dozens of people got free bags of food and free clothing from the Panther office each week.

  Teenage activists from around the city came to the Harlem office to train and work as Panthers. Among them was Nile Rodgers, who later started the band Chic and became a famed musician, composer, and producer of hundreds of songs, including “We Are Family”; Joseph Harris, who became a physician and part of the Nobel Prize–honored “Doctors without Borders”; and Charles Barron, who is now a New York City councilman.

  With so many of the Panther men being arrested and killed, women took on key leadership roles in the Panthers, running many of the programs and offices around country. Sisters Wonda, Safiyah, and Claudia kept the Harlem office going against all odds. Malika held the fort in Brooklyn, and Sister Audrey led the fight in Boston.

  A Panther sister named Olewa, who was a trained nurse, organized a free storefront health clinic in Brooklyn, which was open on Saturdays and several afternoons a week to give free care to community folks who might otherwise not have been able to see a doctor. It was also the place where Panthers from Harlem, the Bronx, and Queens could go for health care.

  It’s amazing how sick we all were. A number of young Panthers, including me, had ulcers, directly related to stress and poor diets. Many of the young women suffered gynecological problems, also related to stress. High blood pressure and migraines were common. We would drink the chalky antacids, dry swallow the aspirins, and say, “Fuck it, we’ll be dead in battle soon anyway.”

  I did a lot of speaking engagements on behalf of the Panther 21, both alone and with Afeni. I was giving at least one speech a day, sometimes more—at schools, community centers, and churches; on college campuses; even at the Apollo Theater. The biggest trip was speaking at cocktail-party fund-raisers in the homes of the rich and the elite. The Panther 21 Defense Committee was organized soon after our arrest, and many members were young white activists. The Panthers and the committee separated the issues of civil liberties from the belief in Panther ideology and created a way for people from diverse backgrounds to join the conversation.

  Composer Leonard Bernstein and other prominent Manhattanites opened their homes for cocktail fund-raisers, a “sixties happening” that author Tom Wolfe called “radical chic.” The Panthers called it fund-raising and consciousness raising. From the days of the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement, white people of conscience have committed time, money, sweat, and sometimes blood to the cause of social justice.

  Not long after the Panther 21 arrest, a group of young white radical students were taken into custody for planting a bomb at a government building. They were released on low bail. Members of the Minutemen, a white separatist group, were arrested with bombs and guns, and they were also released on low bail. The exorbitant bail levied in the Panther 21 case was a key organizing point used by our supporters. Why are there two standards—
one black, one white—for justice in America? The next logical question raised at these events was whether the Panthers or any person of color could receive a fair trial.

  I would often find myself in an elegant town house or penthouse talking about these issues and raising money for the Panther Bail Fund. An hour or two later I would be back in Harlem trying to grab three hours of sleep in a rat- and roach-infested tenement.

  Another celebrity who supported us was the actress Jane Fonda. I first met her when she came by the Harlem office one afternoon to pick up some papers and pamphlets about political prisoners. Her hair was cut short and straight, and she wore no makeup and had on jeans, so I didn’t recognize her. I guess I was expecting Barbarella, who had titillated my fourteen-year-old eyeballs a few months before I joined the Panthers. “Hi, I’m Jane,” she said, extending her hand. She was relaxed and down-to-earth. She played with the children in the office and asked questions about the community programs and the Panther 21 case. There were no bodyguards or escorts, just a waiting taxi to take her back to the set of her current movie, Klute.

  She invited me to stop by USA/Filmways, where the film was being shot, which I gladly did. I had no idea that Harlem was the home to a major film studio. USA/Filmways took up most of the block between Second and Third Avenues on 127th Street. The Godfather, Taking of the Pelham 123, The Cotton Club, and New Jack City were some of the movies shot there. It was my first time on a film set. Watching Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland act in the midst of the mass of lights, cameras, equipment, and people was a mind blower. Jane would talk to me between takes and explain how the different camera angles and shots would be cut together to create a scene in the film. When I left the studio a couple of hours later it was still light outside, although the scene inside had been a night bedroom scene. Wow! I thought. Film is powerful! No wonder the Panther leadership encouraged young progressive filmmakers to interview and to document us.