The Savage City

by T. J. English

  SPONGE (Society for the Prevention of Niggers Getting Everything): Cannato, The Ungovernable City, pp. 123–124.

  “Get the hell out of Bedford-Stuyvesant”: Cannato, The Ungovernable City, p. 136.

  Verbal attacks on Lindsay: Ibid.

  Ernest Gallashaw incident: Anderson, David, “Youth, 17, Wins Bail in Slaying of Boy, 11, During Racial Battle,” New York Times, September 7, 1966; Cannato, The Ungovernable City, pp. 123–124, 604.

  “No more Whitmores”: Ibid.

  Gallashaw trial and verdict: Gallashaw’s attorney was Paul O’Dwyer, an Irish-born civil rights attorney and brother of former mayor William O’Dwyer. Reeves, Richard, “Gallashaw Free in Boy’s Slaying,” New York Times, October 14, 1966.

  New York Times poll: Powledge, Fred, “Poll Shows Whites in City Resent Civil Rights Drive,” New York Times, September 21, 1964.

  CCRB ballot measure vote: Jacoby, Tamar, “The Uncivil History of the Civilian Review Board,” City Journal, Winter 1993; Cannato, The Ungovernable City, p. 187.

  10. BLACK POWER

  Bin Wahad released from prison: Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008).

  “I’ll never forget this shit”: Ibid.

  “It happened fast”: Ibid.

  Attempted robbery with Augustus Qualls et al.: Ibid.

  “[The cops] didn’t even say halt”: Ibid.

  Shakur brothers: Ibid.; Balagoon, Kuwasi, et al., Look for Me in the Whirlwind, pp. 11, 24–25.

  Revolutionary Action Movement: Ahmad, Muhammad, We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations, 1960–1973, pp. 95–166; Austin, Curtis J., Up Against the Wall, pp. 12, 30, 32–33.

  Republic of New Afrika: Austin, Up Against the Wall, p. 253; Joseph, Peniel E., Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America, pp. 55, 219.

  Speeches of Malcolm X: Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, entire book.

  “If we’re going to talk about police brutality”: Ibid.

  “Recently, three students from Kenya”: Ibid.

  Eddie Ellis and others in the wake of Malcolm X assassination: Interview with Eddie Ellis (May 15, 2009).

  “Lyndon Baines Johnson is bombing the hell out of Vietnam”: Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, p. 145; Van Deburg, William, New Day in Babylon, p. 113.

  Stokely Carmichael background: Carmichael, Stokely, Black Power, pp. 4–11; Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, pp. 124–127; Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, pp. 76–85.

  “The only way we going to stop them”: Branch, Taylor, At Canaan’s Edge, p. 333; Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, p. 35.

  “Stokely had that intellectual brilliance”: Interview with Eddie Ellis (May 15, 2009).

  “Voting rights was the issue”: Ibid.

  “This country…knows what power is”: Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, p. 331; Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, p. 163; Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, p. 84; Lester, Julius, Look Out, Whitey!, p. 63.

  Use of term “black” instead of “negro”: “Black Power and Black Pride,” Time, December 1, 1967; Carmichael, Black Power, pp. 181–182; Lester, Look Out, Whitey!, pp. 11, 23–24; Cleaver, Eldridge, Soul on Ice, pp. 17–25.

  Lowndes County Freedom Organization: Austin, Up Against the Wall, pp. 12–15; Branch, Pillar of Fire, pp. 23–25, 421, 511; Carmichael, Black Power, pp. 85, 87–88; Estes, Steve, I Am a Man!, pp. 31, 33–34; Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, pp. 124, 128–130, 147, 164; Lester, Look Out, Whitey!, pp. 38–41; Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, pp. 87–89.

  “We chose for the emblem a black panther”: Carmichael, Black Power, p. 88; Austin, Up Against the Wall, p. 17; Pearson, Hugh, Shadow of the Panther, p. 142.

  Birth of Black Panther Party for Self Defense in Oakland: Newton, Huey P., Revolutionary Suicide, pp. 115–172; Pearson, Shadow of the Panther, pp. 97, 107–112; Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, pp. 175–178, 207–211; FBI COINTELPRO (confidential memo).

  Origins of black militancy in the United States: The Black Panther Party was not the first black militant group in the United States. In Louisiana in the 1950s a group known as the Deacons for Self Defense advocated the carrying of arms, based around the concept of self-defense. In North Carolina, Robert F. Williams founded an organization that advocated direct confrontation with the KKK. He was expelled from the NAACP for his militancy and later hunted by the FBI. Williams was the first to tie the concept of armed self-defense to revolution. Together with his wife, Mabel, he established a radio program called Radio Free Dixie that was designed to be the voice of black militancy. In 1960, Williams, wanted by the FBI, fled to Cuba and became the first in what would be a long line of black militants who wound up fleeing American law enforcement and settling in Castro’s Cuba. In 1962, Williams published Negroes with Guns, a book about his experiences taking on white supremacy, which Huey P. Newton and others in the black liberation movement cited as a formative work. Williams’s example was the inspiration for the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), the most cohesive black militant organization before the Black Panther Party, with followers in the prison system and around the United States. Robert F. Williams died in Cuba in 1996.

  Black Panthers at capital building in Sacramento (May 2, 1967): Newton, Revolutionary Suicide, pp. 153–159; Pearson, Shadow of the Panther, pp. 129–134, 140–141; Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, pp. 169–170.

  New York City meeting among SNCC, RAM, and Huey Newton: Interview with Eddie Ellis (May 15, 2009).

  “We were ready to stand and fight”: Ibid.

  “Open Letter to the Harlem Community”: Ibid.; FBI COINTELPRO file. Documents pertaining to the Black Panther Party in New York City first appear in 1968, though files of the NYPD’s BOSS unit date as far back as the early 1960s, when they first penetrated the Nation of Islam and also Malcolm X’s OAAU.

  OPERATION SHUT DOWN: BOSS files (NYPD); FBI COINTELPRO file.

  “He still got drunk most every day”: Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

  Aida de Jesus: Ibid.; Shapiro, Whitmore, pp. 212, 225; Lefkowitz and Gross, The Victims, p. 498.

  Whitmore robbed in Brownsville: Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

  Gerald Whitmore and the Suicide Frenchmen: Interview with Gerald Whitmore (June 18, 2009); interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

  George and Gerald confrontation with rivals: Ibid.

  “I washed my hands of the whole thing”: Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

  Gerald Whitmore arrest: Interview with Gerald Whitmore (June 18, 2009); Perlmutter, Emanuel, “Brother of Whitmore Arrested in Slaying in a Brooklyn Brawl,” New York Times, February 26, 1967; Anderson, F. David, “Gerald Whitmore Freed in Slaying,” New York Times, March 4, 1967.

  “You know what you’re being charged with?”: Ibid.

  George and Aida wedding (March 9, 1967): Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009); Shapiro, Whitmore, p. 215.

  George and Aida settle in Wildwood: Ibid.

  “In view of the fact that the defendant’s statements”: Shapiro, Whitmore, p. 211; Lefkowitz and Gross, The Victims, p. 554; Raab, Justice in the Back Room, p. 255.

  Whitmore replaces Reiben: Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009); Shapiro, Whitmore, pp. 218–220; Lefkowitz and Gross, The Victims, p. 511; Raab, Justice in the Back Room, p. 255.

  Samuel Neuberger: Ibid.

  Position of D.A. Aaron Koota: Fleming, Thomas, “Case of the Debatable Brooklyn D.A.,” New York Times, March 19, 1967.

  Third Borrero trial: Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009); interview with Selwyn Raab (April 22, 2009); Shapiro, “Annals of Jurisprudence: The Whitmore Confessions,” The New Yorker, February 8, 1969; Shapiro, Whitmore, pp. 220–227; Lefkowitz and Gross, The Victims, pp. 554– 560; Raab, Justice in the Back Room, p. 259.

  “I am restrained to say at the outset”: Shapiro, Whitmore, p. 226; Lefkowitz and Gross, The Victims, p. 560.


  Judge Helfand decision: “Whitmore Given 5-Year Sentence,” New York Times, June 9, 1967; Shapiro, Whitmore, p. 225; Lefkowitz and Gross, The Victims, p. 559; Raab, Justice in the Back Room, p. 259; Shapiro, “Annals of Jurisprudence: The Whitmore Confessions,” The New Yorker, February 8, 1969.

  “I would say from thirty-nine years of practicing in my borough”: Lefkowitz and Gross, The Victims, p. 560; Shapiro, Whitmore, p. 227.

  “I thought that was it”: Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

  11. “HOLY SHIT!”

  NYPD arrests of RAM: Perlmutter, Emanuel, “16 Negroes Seized; Plot to Kill Wilkins and Young Charged,” New York Times, June 22, 1967; “Mass Poison Plot Laid to Negroes,” New York Times, September 28, 1967; Austin, Up Against the Wall, p. 62.

  The Harlem hate scare (Black Brotherhood): Griffin, Junius, “Anti-White Harlem Gang Reported to Number 400,” New York Times, May 6, 1964; Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 64–71.

  Urban riots in United States 1964–1967: Rucker, Walter, and James Nathanial Upton (eds.), Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, pp. 238, 240– 244; Rustin, Bayard, “A Negro Leader Defines a Way Out of the Exploding Ghetto,” New York Times Magazine, August 13, 1967.

  Newark riot (July 1967): Newark ’67, PBS documentary; Hayden, Tom, “A Special Supplement: The Occupation of Newark,” New York Review of Books, August 24, 1967; Hayden, Tom, Rebellion in Newark, entire book.

  “The line between the jungle and the law”: Hayden, “A Special Supplement: The Occupation of Newark,” New York Review of Books, August 24, 1967.

  “They put us here because we’re the toughest”: Ibid.

  Killing of Jimmy Rutledge: Hayden, Rebellion in Newark, pp. 33–34; Newark ’67 PBS documentary.

  Detroit riot 1967: Rustin, “A Negro Leader Defines a Way Out of the Exploding Ghetto,” New York Times Magazine, August 13, 1967; Rucker and Upton, Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, pp. 240–242.

  “My partner and me pulled up to 110th Street”: Shecter with Phillips, On the Pad, p. 208.

  East Harlem riot: The riot described by Phillips is chronicled in Hamill, Pete, “El Barrio: Hot Night,” New York Post, July 24, 1967, and “El Barrio: The Line,” New York Post, July 25, 1967.

  “Our bosses told us, do nothing”: Ibid.

  “I came down the stairs”: Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009).

  Bin Wahad meets Iris Bull: Ibid.

  Bin Wahad and Iris settle in East Village: Ibid.

  Slugs jazz club: Slugs became famous—or infamous—on a night in 1969 when trumpeter Lee Morgan was shot and killed on the bandstand by his wife.

  Further readings of Bin Wahad: Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009).

  Cleaver article in Ramparts: Cleaver, Eldridge, “The Courage to Kill,” Ramparts, June 15, 1968; Cleaver, Eldridge, Target Zero, pp. 101–112.

  Bin Wahad attends “Rise on the Pentagon”: Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009). The march on the Pentagon was one of the seminal 1960s political events, chronicled in many histories of the era, most vividly in Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night, which won a Pulitzer Prize for literature.

  “One of the college students was talking”: Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009).

  Bin Wahad visits BPP office on Seventh Avenue and 141st St.: Ibid.

  Dhoruba and Iris get married: Ibid.

  Huey P. Newton shooting and arrest in Oakland: Newton, Revolutionary Suicide, pp. 181–214; Austin, Up Against the Wall, pp. 49–56, 65–68; Ahmad, We Will Return in the Whirlwind, pp. 5–6; Heath, G. Louis, Off the Pigs!, pp. 37–38, 40–45; Hilliard, David, and Donald Weise (eds.), The Huey P. Newton Reader, pp. 212–228; Hilliard, This Side of Glory, pp. 175–178, 181; Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, pp. 204, 206–207; Pearson, Shadow of the Panther, pp. 3, 7, 145–147, 220–221; Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, pp. 113–116.

  “Free Huey” movement: Ibid.

  Myron Beldock takes over Whitmore case: Interview with Myron Beldock (January 27, 2009).

  “I’m sure Arthur used the word ‘injustice’”: Ibid.

  Beldock background: Ibid.; Glaberson, William, “A Foe of Injustice and Champion of Lost Causes,” New York Times, September 21, 2004.

  “There was a basic prejudice to the system”: Ibid.

  “He was sweet tempered and pretty simple”: Ibid.

  12. REVOLUTION

  Ellis plans for BPP based on Irish Republican Army model: Interview with Eddie Ellis (May 15, 2009).

  Philosophical differences between SNCC and BPP: Fraser, C. Gerald, “S.N.C.C. in Decline After 8 Years in Lead,” New York Times, October 7, 1969; Ahmad, We Will Return in the Whirlwind, pp. 23, 27–28; Austin, Up Against the Wall, pp. 118, 129–132; Estes, I Am a Man!, pp. 87, 92; Heath, Off the Pigs!, pp. 16–18; Hilliard, This Side of Glory, pp. 146–148, 161; Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, pp. 232–233, 236; Lester, Look Out, Whitey!, pp. 129–131; Pearson, Shadow of the Panther, pp. 142, 150–152, 158–164, 183; Wolfe, Tom, Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, p. 78.

  Meeting with James Forman and BPP: Fraser, “S.N.C.C. in Decline After 8 Years in Lead,” New York Times, October 7, 1969; Hilliard, This Side of Glory, pp. 201–208.

  “You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem”: This phrase was first put into use by Eldridge Cleaver and eventually became a kind of catchphrase for the Black Panther Party, used by many of the party’s most notable speakers, including Dhoruba Bin Wahad.

  Origins and goals of COINTELPRO: O’Reilly, Kenneth, Racial Matters, pp. 293–324; FBI COINTELPRO files; Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers, pp. 91–164.

  Eleven-page confidential memo: The memo that was used to lay out the need for COINTELPRO was written by Assistant Director Mark Felt, who would later go on to achieve notoriety as Deep Throat, the secret Watergate source used by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their reporting on the scandal that would eventually bring down the Nixon administration.

  Black Agitator Index: Interview with Robert Boyle (November 21, 2008).

  Bin Wahad reads Soul on Ice: Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 19, 2008).

  “The police do on the domestic level”: Cleaver, Soul on Ice, p. 122.

  Bin Wahad reaction to King assassination: Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008).

  Bin Wahad visits BPP office in Brooklyn: Ibid.

  Whitmore reaction to King assassination: Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

  Nationwide reaction to King assassination: Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, pp. 723–766; American Experience: Eyes on the Prize, PBS documentary.

  Lindsay response to King assassination: Cannato, The Ungovernable City, pp. 210–215.

  Phillips shooting of Calvin McCoy: “Burglar Suspect Killed in Harlem,” New York Times, April 17, 1968; Shecter with Phillips, On the Pad, p. 194.

  “The guy is going like a raped ape”: Shecter with Phillips, On the Pad, p. 194.

  “A police officer is supposed to understand”: Ibid.

  BPP benefit at Fillmore East: Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008); Sullivan, Dan, “Black Panther Benefit Is Held in East Village,” New York Times, May 21, 1968.

  Oakland police shoot-out with Cleaver et al.: Ahmad, We Will Return in the Whirlwind, pp. 16–17; Austin, Up Against the Wall, pp. 165–168; Pearson, Shadow of the Panther, pp. 154–156; Hilliard, This Side of Glory, pp. 181– 185, 188, 191–192; Cleaver, Target Zero, pp. 85–96. In the wake of the shoot-out in Oakland that resulted in the death of Bobby Hutton, a group of prominent writers published an open letter in the New York Review of Books (May 9, 1968) denouncing the actions of the police. The letter was signed by, among many others, James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Gloria Steinem, and Susan Sontag.

  “What We Want, What We Believe”: The BPP Ten-Point Program was as follows: 1. We want freedom. We want the power to dete
rmine the destiny of our Black Community. 2. We want full employment for our people. 3. We want to end the robbery by the white man of our Black Community. 4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings. 5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society. 6. We want all black people to be exempt from military service. 7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black people. 8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails. 9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States. 10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations–supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national identity. Source: Black Panther, vol. 3, no. 2, May 4, 1969.

  Influence of Frantz Fanon: Both Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks were essential texts for advocates of Black Power.

  The Battle of Algiers: Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, the movie depicts the successful guerrilla uprising in Algeria in the early 1960s. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the movie became an international phenomenon and de rigueur viewing for would-be revolutionaries around the globe.

  Detective Randy Jurgensen remembers going to a screening of the movie with his partner, Sonny Grosso. Jurgensen and Grosso would eventually become part of a squad investigating BLA cases. The Battle of Algiers had been described to them as a black militant training film. “After seeing that movie,” said Jurgensen, “I think for the first time we realized what we were up against. The movie opens with a revolutionary coming up behind a cop and putting a bullet through the back of his head. I said to Sonny, ‘You still think this is about drugs? It ain’t about drugs. We represent the system to these people, and they want to bring down the system. They’re out to hunt and kill cops.” Interview with Randy Jurgensen (February 12, 2010).