This story is a
chapter of a memoir focused on the insights I gained from interactions with
certain notable people. All these stories are true. I admit, however, my memory
may not be flawless.
Bobby
Seale – Black Panther Christmas Party
My first ever trip by commercial airplane was
cross-country to San Francisco at Christmas time 1967. I was barely 19 years
old, a baby-faced, skinny kid at 120 pounds with a Beatle haircut. I almost
always wore boot cut blue jeans, suede desert boots, a blue work shirt over
white undershirt, and an army green Eisenhower jacket with a button on each
chest pocket flap, a peace sign on the right, a draft resistance movement omega
on the left.
I was excited but apprehensive. The purpose of the
trip was to visit my girlfriend, Judy. We fell in love during the summer after
my senior year in high school. She was a year younger than me. It was my first
serious love affair. Our relationship survived and even flourished during my
freshman year in college. The next spring Judy was accepted at Stanford
University.
During the summer I found myself foolishly trying to
convince her not to go to a first rank college on the west coast. I was afraid
our relationship would not survive the separation. At first we wrote each other
daily. Gradually her letters became less frequent. Hoping against hope, I gave
up my college meal plan and used the money for a plane ticket.
I tried to clear my head as I flew west. On
reflection, I had to admit that I could no longer see a joint future for us. I
had recently gotten deeply involved in the peace movement. I was making new
friends. Although the idea of breaking up was impossibly sad for me, it was
time to face the truth. I resolved to tell Judy that we should break up. All during
the rest of the flight I couldn’t get a popular Jefferson Airplane song out of
my head.
When the truth is found
To be lies
And all the joy
Within you dies.
Don't you want somebody
to love?
Don't you need somebody
to love?
Wouldn't you love
somebody to love?
You better find somebody
to love.
Judy met me at the airport. Outside her sister waited
in a green and white Volkswagen van. She worked for a civil rights organization
somewhere in the bay area. Judy often spent weekends in a spare bedroom in her
sister’s downtown apartment.
The closet-sized spare room was in the back. There
was almost no furniture except for a futon on the floor and a small desk with a
hard wooden chair. The only light came from a floor lamp next to the desk. I
was so exhausted I fell asleep as soon as I lay down.
I woke the next morning in full daylight. Judy was
not in the room. I looked out the single window onto a tiny courtyard where the
trashcans were stored. Judy came in with coffee. She pointed out an avocado
tree in the courtyard. I’d never seen a real avocado tree before.
As we ate granola and drank more coffee in the small
kitchen I talked about all the iconic sites I wanted to visit: Fisherman’s
Wharf, City Lights Bookstore, Chinatown, cable cars, and, of course,
Haight-Ashbury. We could walk to economize. I think I had about $25 in my
pocket.
Out of the blue Judy looked at me sadly, took my hand
and said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, dear Ed, but I’ve got to tell you
right now. I think we should break up.”
I don’t know if she could see the relief flash across
my face. I told her I understood and had reluctantly reached the same
conclusion on the flight. We agreed that although we still loved each other, there
was really no other course. With that decision thankfully out of the way, we
made plans for our final few days together.
I remember cool fog in Golden Gate Park. Judy and I
walked to the narrow stretch of the park called the Panhandle a few mornings in
a row to take in the scene. So this was Haight-Ashbury, the reputed epicenter
of the counter-culture. As the fog burned off, handfuls of men and women with
long hair and colorful clothing began to populate the benches near us.
The previous summer up to 100,000 young people from around the world
flocked to the Haight-Ashbury district. The media called it “the Summer of
Love.” It was a true blossoming of the hippie culture. Golden Gate Park was its
heart with free music, free food, free drugs and free love. I saw it on TV and
in Time magazine. Young people like
me were going to save the world by living lives free from the culture of
capitalism and death. The Mamas and the Papas sang:
If you’re
going to San Francisco
Be sure to
wear some flowers in your hair
By that fall the positive energy was waning. The hippies who still
inhabited the Haight were out of money and mostly homeless, drifting from couch
to couch. Drug addiction had also taken a toll. We saw a lot of people who
seemed permanently zoned out walking around in bell-bottoms and beads carrying
their few belongings in a guitar case.
I felt like I had arrived at a long-anticipated party just as everyone
was leaving. On October 6, 1967 resident activists had staged a mock funeral in
Golden Gate Park. The message was that the revolution of peace and love needed
to transform the culture of death could not be accomplished by traveling to San
Francisco. Cultural transformation would only happen when the ideas of peace
and love were successfully carried to all of America.
I agreed wholeheartedly.
For a Christmas present, Judy’s sister gave us tickets
to a concert at the Fillmore Auditorium. We drove over there in the VW bus. I can’t
remember the names of the two psychedelic rock bands we heard that night. What
I do vividly remember was the total sensory overload created by the lightshow.
A dozen or so shadowy figures were on stage behind
the band fiddling with a variety of light and image sources. I counted five
overhead projectors, two movie projectors, and about a dozen slide projectors.
Spotlights with rotating color wheels illuminated the band.
The overhead projectors were each fitted with a tray
of liquid floating with blobs of color. When the music started the operators sloshed
a combination of water, oil, and liquid dye around in time with the music to
make fantastic pulsing patterns on the musicians, the walls, the dancing crowd
and the ceiling.
The slide projectors were aimed at random spots on the
walls. The slides changed rapidly and seemed roughly choreographed to the music.
Some slides were scenes of nature, but most were hand-painted with abstract
images. Some contained popular slogans like “Peace now!” “Turn on, tune in,
drop out,” and “Fuck the draft.” The movie projectors cast blurry rectangles of
fast moving images that changed erratically. I soon felt like my brain was
melting.
Everyone was dancing. Along the left wall a group of
seven women in classic hippie clothes complete with braided leather headbands
held hands forming a circle. They moved slowly at first so the crowd had a
chance to get out of the way. In less than a minute they were whirling almost
out of control. It was beautiful. Legs and long colorful skirts flying, they whooped
at the top of their lungs. They seemed to levitate until they bumped into a guy
who wasn’t paying attention and all fell in an ecstatic heap.
In a back corner I saw two men sitting on the floor
with their arms on each other’s shoulders. One was laughing hysterically and
the other crying uncontrollably. I asked a guy by the door if he thought they
were all right. “Bad trip, man,” was all he said.
I completely lost track of time. At some point Judy’s
sister magically appeared and dragged us out into the fresh air. She said she
had run into some activist friends who insisted that she go to a Christmas
party across the bay in Oakland. We climbed into the van and set off.
It must have been late by the time we reached Oakland.
We drove through mostly deserted streets. A few scattered places were decorated
with Christmas lights. The whole neighborhood was pretty beat up. I was glad I
was not on foot.
We found the address. We climbed some rickety steps
to an apartment above a store. I could hear the Four Tops blasting from the
stereo in sweet harmony before we even opened the door.
Now
if you feel that you can't go on
Because
all of your hope is gone
And
your life is filled with much confusion
Until
happiness is just an illusion
And
your world around is crumblin' down
Darling,
reach out, come on girl, reach on out for me…
In the living room a crowd was dancing, eating cold
fried chicken, drinking wine and laughing. A small Christmas tree twinkled in
the corner next to the front window but the main decorations were the black
power posters on the walls. Here was Malcolm X pointing forward with the
caption: “We want freedom by any means necessary.
We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means
necessary.” On the facing wall was a garish red poster featuring the chubby
face of Chairman Mao declaring: “Power proceeds from the barrel of a gun.” Next
to the entrance to the kitchen someone had crudely painted a large black fist
right on the wall.
The living room was too crowded for me.
I worked my way to the kitchen. A dozen
or so white folks were clustered in the back corner. They looked like college
students to me. A guy with long brown hair held in place with a rolled up bandana
and wearing a colorful dashiki shirt grabbed me a cup of some cheap red wine. I
desperately needed to find a bathroom and a quieter place.
I followed a black woman wearing jeans and a shiny
red sequined top up the stairs to the third floor. I found the bathroom. When I
came out I turned into a large room that might have been a bedroom. It was a
lot quieter there. I couple dozen people stood around, mostly African
Americans.
Four young black men sat on folding chairs with their
backs to the wall at the far end of the room. They were all dressed alike:
black boots, black pants, blue shirts and leather jackets. One of them was
wearing a black beret. I noticed four rifles propped against the wall behind
them.
After a few minutes a guy with a modest Afro and a
little mustache stood up.
“Brothers and sisters, HEY NOW! HEY! Can I have your
attention.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Judy’s sister over
at the side of the room speaking with some black women. I walked over to her
and asked if she could explain what was going on. All she said was, “Be quiet,
Bobby is going to rap.”
“Brothers and sisters, we are at a turning point. As
you know, our good brother, Huey P. Newton, was framed by the pigs a month ago
and is now in jail.”
There were murmurs of assent from all corners of the
room as people turned their attention to the speaker.
“Me and the brothers,” he gestured to the other three
men, “the council of the Party, we have been talking and thinking. We have to
find a way to free Huey. We must make our voices heard! We will have justice!”
The crowd was warming up. I heard voices scattered
throughout the room call out, “Yes! Say it, brother! Amen, brother!”
“Our brother Huey was arrested on false charges that
he shot and killed a police officer. We all know brother Huey would not do such
a thing. That would go against everything he believes in.”
“That’s right.”
“Well the time has come to act and we have a plan.”
“Tell it, brother.”
“We party leaders have been meeting during the last
few weeks with our allies on the college campuses and in the national peace
movement. They have agreed to join in our cause to Free Huey.”
“Free Huey! Free Huey! All power to the People!”
I stood there in shock. Holy shit! These guys were
the Black Panthers. It all made sense. Judy’s sister worked for a civil rights
organization. Her friends, all of whom were probably civil rights or peace
activists, invited her to this party where an alliance was in the process of
being forged between the Panthers and the New Left.
What little I knew about the Black Panthers I heard from Walter Cronkite
on the evening news. Throughout the 1960s a number of cities across the country
experienced race riots, often immediately after incidents of police brutality.
One such riot occurred in late September 1966 in the Hunter’s Point
neighborhood of San Francisco following the police shooting of Matthew Johnson,
an unarmed young black man.
Huey Newton and Bobbie Seale were first hand witnesses to this riot.
They saw the anger of young people in the black community as a force that could
be organized for change. They were dissatisfied with
the failure of civil rights organizations to directly challenge police
brutality. Toward the end of 1966 they began to conduct armed patrols on the
streets of Oakland. When confronted by the police, they cited California law
that permitted carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun as long as it was publicly
displayed and not pointed at any one.
Newton and Seale called their organization the Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense. They
soon became the most visible element of the Black Power movement that was gaining
strength in black communities across the nation.
The national media was fascinated by the image of young
black men holding rifles in an urban streetscape. White Middle America was terrified. The FBI under J.
Edgar Hoover declared the Black Panthers to be
"the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." The
FBI immediately instituted a program of surveillance, infiltration and police
harassment designed to incriminate the Panther leadership and drain the organization
of resources. Bobby Seale knew about the FBI’s plan. He had concluded that the
arrest of Huey Newton was proof that the FBI would stop at nothing to destroy
the Panthers.
As I listened to him talk, I began to feel
a strong admiration for what Bobby Seale was trying to do. His passion for
justice was so strong. His vision of a brighter future for his community was
amazing. His commitment to directly and personally confronting police brutality
totally blew me away. It was impossible for me to reconcile my own commitment to
non-violence with the Panther’s belief that violent revolution may be necessary
to achieve justice for the black community. Even so, it was a revelation for
this country boy just to be in the same room with Bobby Seale.
Bobby Seale was right, I think, about
the need to forge an alliance with the wider community of left-leaning
activists. As it turned out the “Free Huey” campaign did have wide appeal for
both peace activists and other black power organizations. The Peace and Freedom
Party and its Presidential candidate, Dick Gregory, supported the Free Huey
campaign as it promoted antiwar and antiracist politics. The overall result was
a growing awareness among those on the left of the structural connection
between the causes of the Vietnam War and the roots of racism in America.
Despite everyone’s efforts on his behalf, Huey Newton was
convicted of murdering the police officer and was sentenced to prison. He was
released three years later when his conviction was reversed on appeal.
The Free Huey campaign resulted in Bobby Seale being invited
to join the organizers of the huge anti-war demonstration during the 1968
Democratic National Convention in Chicago. All the top organizers, including
Seale, were quickly arrested and charged with inciting a riot. Seale was
convicted of multiple counts of contempt of court because he would not sit
quietly during the obviously sham court proceedings. He was sentenced to four
years in prison. He was released years later after his conviction was reversed
on appeal.
By the time Bobby Seale and Huey Newton got out of jail
the Black Panther Party had lost its momentum. J. Edgar Hoover’s plan had
worked. By depriving the Black Panthers of their two strongest leaders and
diverting cash and energy to their defense, the FBI caused them to collapse.
Although the Black Panthers did not create a sustained national
black power movement, it did succeed in drawing a great deal of public attention
to issues of race and justice. As I stood in Oakland that night listening to
Bobby Seale, I understood the irrational power of hope for the first time. All
idealism is fueled by hope. If Bobby Seale and the Panthers could hope for
justice, I could hope for justice.
We left the Christmas party in the early morning hours. It
was getting light by the time we sat in Judy’s sister’s kitchen eating breakfast.
I managed a few hours of fitful sleep then headed to the airport, said a
tearful last goodbye to Judy and to caught the red-eye back to the east coast.
Almost as soon as the plane was airborne I fell asleep. I
was floating free. I felt so confident. I dreamed of a revolution of peace and
justice that would transform America. I vowed to somehow find a way to live
that dream.
Power to the people! Right on!
References:
On the Black
Panther Party:
On Bobby Seale:
On Malcolm
X, by any means necessary:
On the
Summer of Love:
On the
Fillmore Auditorium:
Volunteers video – Jefferson
Airplane 1967
