Where have all the (Black) Panthers gone?
Document 029.32.0.0 # 54
Where Have All the Panthers Gone? by Dan Flynn.
The Black Panthers held their 35th anniversary reunion at the University of
the District of Columbia in late April. As evidenced by the gatherings
nearly vacant workshops and sparsely populated main sessions, a lot of the
Panthers weren't able to make it.
To paraphrase a popular song of their heyday, where have all the Panthers
gone?
Eddie Conway of the Baltimore branch of the Black Panther Party couldn't
make the gathering. For the past 32 years, Conway has been serving a life
sentence for murdering a policeman and attempting to kill another cop.
Anthony Jones, a Philadelphia Black Panther, was absent from the reunion.
He got caught up in a bank-robbery more than a generation ago in which
someone was murdered. He's now serving a life-sentence as well.
Assata Shakur, perhaps unable to obtain a visa, remained in Cuba rather
than catch-up on old times with her comrades. Shakur murdered a New Jersey
patrolman in 1973. In 1986 she escaped from prison and fled into the arms of
Fidel Castro.
Although Wesley Cook was unable to attend, he had the courtesy to send
several emissaries, including his crackpot lawyer, Elliot Grossman. The
teenage minister of information for the Philadelphia branch of the Party now
goes by the name of Mumia Abu-Jamal and calls Pennsylvania State
Correctional Institution at Greene home. In 1981, Abu-Jamal murdered police
officer Daniel Faulkner. In the intervening years he has become a hero to
the Left.
H. Rapp Brown didn't make the reunion either. Like Cook, he's since changed
his name. He now goes by Jamil Abdullah al-Amin. Like Abu-Jamal, al-Amin
delayed the seemingly obligatory act among Panthers of murdering a policeman
until well after the Party had ceased to exist. He's now serving a life
sentence in Georgia for murdering a cop serving a warrant on him and
shooting the deceased policeman's partner.
David Rice and Ed Poindexter of the Omaha, Nebraska branch of Panthers
weren't in DC for the gathering either. They've been in prison for the last
32 years. In 1970, Rice and Poindexter instructed a juvenile associate to
plant a bomb in an abandoned house. On instructions the youth called the
police and reported a woman screaming inside the house. Larry Minard, one of
the officers who arrived at the scene, stumbled upon the bomb and was
killed.
Romain Chip Fitzgerald, a Southern California Black Panther, must have sent
his regrets too. Fitzgerald, whose death sentence was overturned when the
Supreme Court outlawed capital punishment, is incarcerated in California.
His supporters label him the longest serving political prisoner in the
United States. His detractors simply call him what he is: a murderer.
With these and many more Panthers either dead or wasting away in jail, who
actually showed up to the meeting?
A woman named Sister Sheeba presided over large portion of the proceedings,
declaring, We have a little rat-faced boy in the White House who stole the
election. Foul-mouthed Pam Africa attended, but failed to show up to conduct
her workshop. She shouted to a cheering audience later in the conference, I
am a revolutionary without a mother f---in doubt. The New Black Panther
Party made their presence known, donning all-black military costumes and
shouting All Power to the People at opportune times. Charles Pinderhughes, a
Boston College professor, spoke and was so incensed by questions from a
writer from this publication that he followed him several city blocks and
forcefully took his bag. The largely non-Panther attendees enthusiastically
cheered at speakers describing the murder of law enforcement officials. An
anti-Semitic and anti-white rapper delighted conference-goers with his
hateful rhymes.
Other than Bobby Seale and Kathleen Cleaver, few of the conference speakers
or attendees had anything to do with the Black Panthers. Most were
Generation X wannabes or graying radicals attempting to relive a nostalgia
that they never experienced. The fact that so few people actually attended
the conference-even at a predominantly black college like UDC-demonstrates
that the ugly truth about the once lionized hate-group is now quite known.
The next time the Black Panthers hold a reunion, they might want to try
hosting it at a venue where actual Black Panthers might be able to
attend-like a jail.
(senders comments)
If we could get a bunch of us together and attend the next meeting and have
the "political prisoners" call in maybe we could ask them, "Does hate pay?"
David Lewellyn
029.31.0.0 #54 End.
"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary
Americans." Comrade Pres W. J. Klinton. USAToday. 11 Mar 93. Pg 2A. "You
know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to
have their fair say." Comrade Pres W. J. Klinton. 28 May 93. The Courtyard.
City Hall, Philadelphia. "I'm not going to have some reporters pawing
through our papers. We are the President." Comrade Hillary Diane Klinton.