by Aaron Dixon
When we asked if he knew any Panthers, he began to open up. “Yeah, I know a lot of the Panthers. Matter a fac’ we goin’ to raid a Hell’s Angels house tonight,” he said, pulling some bullets out of his pocket along with a beret. He added, “They’re havin’ a funeral tomorrow over in Oakland for a Panther killed by the police.”
Eventually, he dropped Anthony, Kathy Jones, Gary Owens, Elmer, and me off at the Black professor’s house where we were staying, not far from the university campus.
The next day Elmer, Anthony, and I went around the conference and tried to find some workshops that interested us. We even sat in on a couple, but left disappointed. Not one was interesting to us. Or, at least, none seemed to fill our needs. We saw a flyer about the funeral the driver had mentioned, and decided to drive one of the rented cars to Oakland to check out the funeral of the slain Panther, a young man called Little Bobby Hutton. Larry Gossett, Gary Owens, and a few other BSU members went with us. On the way to Oakland, we stopped to buy some black berets to show our solidarity with the Panthers. After crossing the Bay Bridge into West Oakland, we spotted a small church in the distance. As we approached we could see a group of Black men in leather coats and black berets gathered in front. We pulled out our berets and put them on. As we got closer we saw Marlon Brando, my mother’s favorite actor, dressed in a black leather coat and black beret, standing in front of the church, talking to a tall Black man—Bobby Seale, as we later learned, the chairman of the Black Panthers.
We got out of the car and walked quietly into the small, white church. Inside it was dark and packed full of mourners standing, and on both sides of the church were Black men dressed in black leather jackets, black pants, and powder-blue shirts, with black berets. They stood half at attention, their eyes focused toward the front, where a brown wooden casket held the body of the murdered young Panther. In the center front of the church, a group of older, heavyset Black women were bunched together, wailing uncontrollably, reaching out to the casket for the hand that could not reach back.
We stood there, listening to the preacher as he gave his eulogy over the soft cries that sometimes erupted into loud shrieks. The faces of the young men and women in black were unchanged, almost emotionless. We fell into the procession as it wound its way to the front, past the casket. I looked into the casket of the one known as Little Bobby. He was so young-looking, yet there was an oldness about him, his face uneven and somewhat swollen. The cries of Mrs. Hutton and the other women filled my ears, almost blocking out everything else. I don’t think any of us had ever experienced anything as somber and as sad as the funeral of Little Bobby Hutton.
On the way back to our lodgings, I paged through the Panther paper handed out at the church and read the story of Little Bobby Hutton: how he had joined the organization at age sixteen and risen to the position of minister of finance, how he and Eldridge Cleaver, the minister of information, had been cornered by the police in an abandoned house and overcome with tear gas. Bobby Hutton had been shot numerous times, despite having come out of the house unarmed and with his hands up. He was killed just two days after Martin Luther King Jr., in the police crackdown on the riots following Martin’s death. Seventeen Panthers had been arrested on charges of conspiracy to murder.
Later that evening we went back to San Francisco State to await the BSU conference keynote address by Bobby Seale. Those of us who had attended the funeral were in a solemn mood. Looking into the casket of Little Bobby Hutton had been almost like looking into the future and glimpsing what the movement might hold. It was not the glory and the victory we had romanticized.
It began to get dark outside. Bobby Seale was already an hour late. Elmer, Anthony, and I found a corner of the auditorium and stood quietly talking, waiting for the messenger. We were wondering if the Panthers were going to show up. Maybe something else had happened. Maybe the police had attacked the brothers again. Finally, the doors to the auditorium flung open, and in walked Bobby Seale, followed by a handful of brothers and sisters. I recognized the tall, light-brown sister with the big brown Afro as Kathleen Cleaver, the wife of Eldridge Cleaver. I had seen her picture in the Black Panther paper. She almost glided across the room. Next to her was a Panther walking with a limp. I would learn later that he was Warren Wells, one of the brothers wounded in the shootout. The entourage moved quietly, almost sullenly, occasionally whispering among themselves.
The Panthers spread out across the audience. Jimmy Johnson, the BSU president at San Francisco State, introduced Bobby Seale, who took center stage. Bobby Seale looked beleaguered as he began to address the crowd.
“All power to the people, brothers and sisters.
“We just came from burying our comrade, Little Bobby Hutton, who was murdered by a bunch of racist, fascist pigs. The pigs murdered Little Bobby despite the fact that he was unarmed, despite the fact that he had his hands up. The pigs also shot and wounded the minister of information, Comrade Eldridge Cleaver, who is locked up in the Alameda County Jail, along with seventeen other party members, including our national captain, David Hilliard.
“The comrades were transporting supplies in preparation for a rally for Huey P. Newton at DeFremery Park when they were ambushed by a bunch of low-life racist dog pigs.
“They killed Little Bobby because they knew Little Bobby was a revolutionary who wasn’t afraid of confronting the pig power structure.
“Huey taught us that we have a right to defend ourselves, that we have a right to defend our community. Huey said the pigs occupy our community like a foreign troop occupies foreign territory. The pigs aren’t there to protect us. They’re there in our community to protect the interest of the pig power structure and the avaricious pig businessmen.
“Brother Malcolm didn’t take no shit. Brother Malcolm was a revolutionary brother. He understood that racist white America would do whatever it has to do to maintain the power structure. Brother Malcolm also knew that we are in an international struggle for the rights of all people. Whether you be black, brown, red, white, all oppressed people have a right to live decently. Brother Huey understood that. Brother Huey knew we had to go forth and organize the brothers on the block, the brothers that don’t have any interest in this racist system.
“Black intellectuals always want to analyze, ‘The hypothesis for this matter is. . . .’ That’s a bunch of bullshit. We don’t need to analyze this shit. We don’t need to intellectualize. We need to get serious. We need to organize. We need to pick up some guns.”
I was standing in the middle of the crowd, separated from Anthony and Elmer. I looked around at the audience as the tall, rangy Bobby Seale continued, contorting his face, using his hands to punctuate his ideas and the philosophy of the Panthers. Some in the audience were becoming uncomfortable. Others were mesmerized, just as I was, listening to every word Mr. Seale had to say.
At one point, he stopped speaking. “Who got something to drink in here?” he asked, taking off his leather jacket and loosening his black tie. I remembered the vodka I had bought earlier in the day as a present for Mommy and Poppy. I went over to the corner where my belongings were, reached in the bag, pulled out a quart of vodka, and handed it to a Panther brother standing next to me. He handed it to Bobby Seale, who opened the bottle and took a long swig. Soon the bottle was traveling around the room. It came back to me, so I followed suit and took a swig of the tasteless alcohol and passed it on.
Bobby Seale was loosening up. He became more animated. His facial expression began to soften. He talked about being a drummer and a comedian and his stint in the air force. He talked about Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers, and for a few seconds he portrayed a Black man chained up, struggling to be free.
After nearly two hours, the speech was finally over, and the lights went on in the auditorium. Without thought or hesitation, I found myself making a beeline to where Bobby Seale was standing. Elmer and Anthony arrived in front of Bobby Seale at the same time.
“We want a Panther chapter in
Seattle.” The words came out of my mouth automatically. The four of us talked briefly, and we left our phone number with Bobby Seale.
I had seen Martin Luther King speak in person. I had listened to records of Adam Clayton Powell often, and to the taped speeches of Malcolm X. All these had inspired me, but the speech I had just witnessed totally blew me away, pushing me off my safety perch, casting me out into the wind, my eyes wide open. I could not sleep that night. I only wanted time to move ahead; I wanted to speed up time, propelling me faster toward my fate.
At home in Seattle, a week after we returned from the BSU conference, I received a call from Bobby Seale. He and two other Panthers were coming in the following day at 1:30 p.m. I wrote down the flight information and told him someone would meet them at the airport. After the call, I immediately began to spread the word. By 1 p.m. the next day, about twenty-five people had appeared at our house. Chester Northington and John Eichelburger, whom I had met at Voodoo Man’s, came carrying rifles. I sent Elmer and Anthony to the airport to pick up Bobby Seale and the others.
When they finally arrived, Bobby Seale looked tired yet energized, a man on a mission, ready to stir our hearts and emotions, ready to lay out the party’s philosophy and platform to us young, eager listeners. He introduced his two companions. “This is George Murray, the minister of education, and Brother Reginald Denning, San Francisco State organizer,” said Bobby Seale, scanning the faces of his young audience.
“All power to the people,” replied Murray, a brother with uncombed hair and dark sunglasses.
The three Panthers sat down on the couch. Among our group were Kathy Halley, Kathy Jones, Larry Gossett, and a handful of other BSU members from the UW. Willie Brazier and some of his street buddies were there as well. It was quite a mix of young people. We sat or stood, huddled around these three men of experience, listening intently to every word.
“First off,” Bobby started, “to be a member of the Black Panther Party, every member must have two weapons and a thousand rounds of ammunition. And you need to know how to clean your weapons and break them down and you need to know how to carry your weapons in a disciplined fashion—you dig?”
“Right on,” we responded.
“The party isn’t just about a bunch of niggas getting together with a bunch of guns. You gotta have some ideology. Brother Huey says the power of the people grows out of the barrel of a gun, but at the same time we have to study to understand how to unravel all the shit the oppressor has put down on the people. Right?”
“Right on,” we answered, quietly.
“The minister of education, Brother George, is going to talk to you about political education classes.”
“You know who Frantz Fanon is?” Brother George asked, as he pulled out several books from a large, overstuffed, black briefcase he was carrying. “This book, Wretched of the Earth, is essential for Panthers to read. Brother Frantz Fanon breaks it down about the psychology that develops between the oppressed and the oppressor. He talks about the Algerian people and the fight for liberation against the French colonizers. We, as oppressed people, have taken on a number of attributes that can be considered detrimental to our struggle for liberation.
“This is another book by Fanon.” He pulled another book from the briefcase, Black Skin, White Masks. “Somebody here taking notes?” he asked.
Kathy Jones answered quickly, “I’ll take notes,” pulling out her high school notebook.
“Panthers must read at least two hours a day. Here is a list of books that you have to study. They got some righteous bookstores around here?”
“Yeah,” someone bellowed out. “Mrs. Boyetta’s bookstore.”
“And the books you can’t find, we will send you some.”
The meeting went on all day and well into the night. People came, people left. My parents came in from work, prepared dinner as usual, not really saying much but sharing the sense of history we were all feeling. Many questions were asked, and the three visitors answered them all, including one Joyce Redman posed about the sisters in the party.
“We say that the woman is our better half. In the party, a sister is our equal. And we don’t play that male chauvinism shit. You gotta respect a sister, just like you would a brother, you dig?”
“Right on,” we answered.
Bobby spent considerable time talking about Huey Newton. “Brother Huey was a bad motherfucker when he ran the streets with his runnin’ buddies. He was known as a fierce street fighter. But he also read a lot of books. He always studied a lot of shit. Huey understood what was goin’ on with the masses of oppressed people. He realized that we have to organize the people against the racist pig power structure. We have to raise the consciousness of the people and educate them about the fact that they have a right to defend themselves, just as it says in the Second Amendment of the Constitution.
“Me and Huey and Little Bobby sat down and came up with the ten-point program and platform of the Black Panther Party. The ten-point program and platform speaks to the needs of Black people and all Panthers must memorize it, know it by heart. Number one, we want freedom, we want the power to determine the destiny of our Black community. Number two, we want decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings. . . .”
I sat and listened to the words of Bobby Seale as he continued detailing the Panthers’ platform. The words eased from his lips. His face was unshaven, his hair uncombed. He wore an unbuttoned blue shirt and black slacks.
I felt privileged to have him and the others here in my house. I also felt uncertain. On one hand, I felt the pull of history. On the other hand, I felt afraid—afraid about the future, and scared that bit by bit my young freedom was now being committed to the struggle.
“Who’s going to be the defense captain?” Seale asked.
I was caught by surprise, having slipped off into deep thought. Fingers were pointing my way. It was as if no one wanted the responsibility for leading what lay ahead. I felt a little like a trick had been played on me, and I fell for it because, as usual, my response was slow. Reluctantly, I accepted my new role.
“Okay, Dixon. You’re the captain. I want you to come with me back to New York on an organizing tour through the East Coast. There’s a lot of shit you have to learn,” said Bobby Seale.
The title “defense captain” may have been placed on my head without my resistance, but I definitely was not ready to up and go with Bobby Seale and the others. I felt deeply about the movement that was rapidly gaining steam, coming over the horizon, but I was not yet a true, committed revolutionary. I was not ready to leave the comfort of my home, the love of my parents, or the tranquility of Madrona.
“Bobby, I can’t leave right now. I have some stuff to take care of.” I hoped my response didn’t sound too weak, like a cop-out. I needed time to think, to adjust to everything that was happening.
The next morning, Bobby Seale and the others were gone, heading to their East Coast destination to appoint more captains, to arouse the hearts of hungry young men and women. A week later, I would be on my first plane ride—to Oakland and the beginning of a much different life.
11
7th and Wood—April 1968
Look over your shoulder
There will I be
Look over your shoulder
There I’ll be waiting patiently
—O’Jays, “Look Over Your Shoulder,” 1968
Ever since my arrest for the Franklin sit-in, rebellious events had been erupting in a quick, staccato manner. I was changing rapidly but also had some inner resistance, creating a push-and-pull; it felt like a tug-of-war, an exciting yet very dangerous game of tug-of-war. Yet, this rebellion is what I was being prepared for. In some ways, this seemed to be what I was born for—to add my voice to the chorus of dissent and the cry for change. No matter the shyness, the inexperience, the doubts. Resistance was my path and I was ready—even if reluctantly—to follow.
I, along with many others on the West Coast, was now a member of the Bl
ack Panther Party, an organization born on the streets of Oakland, born not out of desperation but out of an innate desire to be free—free from the racism, poverty, and police brutality that seemed to engulf almost every person of color in the United States. Fueled by anger, frustration, and the Black Nationalism of the mid-sixties, the party began to unfold. Two friends, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, along with their young protégé, sixteen-year-old Bobby Hutton, and later David Hilliard, Elbert “Big Man” Howard, and other schoolboy friends, formulated the organization. Ron Dellums, the inspiring radical whose words had so affected me when he spoke at our BSU lectures, also took part in the strategizing sessions. And in October 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was born.
Based on Malcolm X’s vision of a broad revolutionary movement, they began to piece together a militant, internationally minded organization, which Huey and Bobby infused with their knowledge of history and other, kindred liberation struggles in Africa and Latin America. Drawing on the US Constitution, Huey and Bobby based the party’s ideology and strategy around particular Constitutional elements, the first being the right to bear arms. Dressed in the Panther uniform, armed with shotguns, .30-caliber carbines, and .45s, Huey and Bobby led their small group of young, Black, armed rebels into the streets on missions that ranged from providing security for Malcolm’s widow, Betty Shabazz, to protesting the murder of young Denzil Dowell by a sheriff’s deputy in Richmond, to patrolling the police on the streets of Oakland. And now I was about to enter into this world of tough Black revolutionaries.
I remember that first flight so clearly. It was late April 1968. This was not only my first trip to Oakland as a member of the Black Panther Party but also my first time ever flying in an airplane. My emotions were running wild—the exhilaration of my first flight combined with excitement, apprehension, and fear of what might await me at the other end. I could barely hold a single thought in my mind. In many ways I was leaving behind my childhood, all the games at Madrona Park, the innocence of youth, the protective comforts my parents had provided during the first nineteen years of my life. All those memories would soon be supplanted by defiance, anger, rage, uncertainty, fear, and pain—as well as dedication, hope, and occasionally victory.