My People Are Rising (20 page)

Eldridge said he knew someone else who might be able to help us—Mother Moore, whom he described as the mother of the Black Power Movement. It wasn't long before we made our way up to a high-rise in the Bronx, where we were introduced to a large Black woman in yellow-flowered African garb, including headdress. Although she didn't have the UN contacts James Forman had, she had one contact who was able to arrange a meeting at the UN with delegates from Tanzania and several other African nations, to be followed by a press conference. All week, the New York Panthers had been preparing the baby-blue flags with a silhouette of Huey, his tam tilted aside his head.

The next day, June 25, more than a hundred Panthers stood at attention, holding the Panther flags in front of the flags of each UN member nation. The Panther delegation went in and met with delegations from several African nations, including the Tanzanian UN representative. We all posed for a group picture and then left. Although we were not successful in our mission, we did get press coverage and generated more attention for Huey's upcoming trial.

Later we headed for Lenox Avenue, the famous street in Harlem where Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X had addressed great crowds of Black people. Someone said Chairman Bobby should get up on a box and give a speech. At that time not many people in New York knew who Bobby Seale was or anything about the Black Panther Party. Chairman Bobby immediately launched into an impromptu speech on a Lenox Avenue corner, talking about Huey and describing the party's ten-point program and platform. A few people stopped, but most people in New York had not gotten turned on to the party yet. Soon the New York chapter would be well-known, and it would make a dramatic impact on the ghettos of the city.

Emory and I spent the night in a run-down Puerto Rican hotel in Brownsville, Brooklyn. I went out several times to use a pay phone to call the office and Tanya. I had never seen anything like the poverty I saw in Brownsville. It looked like a bombed-out, deserted hellhole. There were empty, glass-filled lots with weeds and grass growing unchecked, broken-down buildings, boarded-up windows, and liquor stores. Winos and junkies mingled on vacant street corners. This scene even surpassed what I had seen on Chicago's Southside. One thing was sure—places like this were fertile ground for the organizing the New York chapter would soon be doing.

We left New York just as we had come, determined that Huey P. Newton would someday be free, despite whatever obstacles appeared in our path.

14

July 1968, Seattle

The time to hesitate is through

No time to wallow in the mire

Try now we can only lose

And our love become a funeral pyre

—The Doors, “Light My Fire,” 1967

As the Black Panther Party
was exploding onto the scene all over the country, unbeknownst to us, the US government and local law enforcement agencies were systematically plotting to destroy it. What we did know is that they would try to kill us just as they had killed Little Bobby Hutton. In South Central Los Angeles, three young Panthers—Tommy Lewis, Robert Lawrence, and Steve Bartholomew—were shot and killed at a gas station by the Los Angeles pigs as they were getting out of their car. The Los Angeles Panthers were literally catching hell. And in every city where the party opened an office, it would just be a matter of time before the local authorities began to arrest the Panther leaders and sometimes shoot party members in cold blood.

In Oakland, National Headquarters was preparing intensely for Huey's upcoming trial. Panthers from all over the West Coast as well as supporters from around the world were converging on Oakland. The party was adamant that we would not allow Huey to go to the gas chamber. In the minds of party members, we were preparing for war. Trucks mounted with megaphones went through East Oakland, West Oakland, Hunters Point, and Fillmore in San Francisco, announcing the trial and calling for mass support. Panthers were dispatched throughout the area, putting up posters, handing out flyers, and talking to people in the community. “The Sky Is the Limit If Huey Is Not Set Free!” was our mantra, and no one knew what was going to happen.

Back in Seattle, early one July morning, I headed down to the office, hoping to get a head start on the day's activities. When I turned the corner to walk the final block, I was alarmed at the sight before me. Seven or eight police cars were parked in front of the office, and uniformed police officers were walking in and out. As some of the police exited, they were carrying items I could not quite make out. My first instinct was to flee and head back home. Instead, I decided to continue on and find out what the cops were doing. Just as I reached the office, Curtis Harris drove up and got out of his car.

I shouted at the cops, “Hey, what's going on? What are you doing in our office?”

“Are you Aaron Dixon?” one of them blurted.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“You're under arrest for stolen property.”

Curtis and I were immediately handcuffed, taken downtown, jailed, and booked for grand larceny. We were put in separate cells. Curtis was later released. After a while, several plainclothes cops took me upstairs to the detectives' office.

“Dixon, somebody said they saw you carrying a stolen typewriter into the office, and that's a felony punishable by five to seven years in prison. If you cooperate with us, we can work something out.” The detective paused, apparently to see if I would take the bait.

Another detective interjected, “You know, Dixon, some of the older guys think you aren't doing a good job. Some of them think somebody else ought to be the leader.”

Sitting in the sunlit office, listening to these cops, I was startled by this description of the state of affairs in our chapter. I was fully aware that there was some dissent among the ranks, but I was puzzled as to who was providing the cops with information. “I don't know what you are talking about,” I answered.

As far as the charge of the stolen typewriter went, the accusation might not have been entirely untrue, I realized months later. An older brother who often hung around the office had told me that someone at Model Cities, a community support program, said we could have a typewriter, which we sorely needed. I had carried that very typewriter into the office, apparently an unwitting participant in a classic setup.

Eventually, the detectives took me back downstairs and put me in the high-security wing on another floor, isolating me from the main part of the jail. I was the only one on that floor, completely separated from everyone and everything, which in some ways was okay for me. This isolation gave me some time to reflect, some valuable time alone, which had been impossible since I had joined the party.

I was angered by the officers' allegations concerning my leadership. But I was more perturbed about who was giving the police information about the internal strife in our chapter.

I made several phone calls to the office and home to my parents. As word spread about my arrest, Elmer, Willie, and the other comrades called for a rally at Garfield Park, where I had listened to Martin Luther King years earlier. After the rally, they organized a march downtown to the jail, demanding my immediate release. Mike Rosen from the ACLU came down to visit me, and expressed concern that tensions were so high he feared a riot would break out. The party's position was that riots were futile and destructive. I wrote a note for Elmer to read at the rally, hoping it would quell the intense emotions and prevent the rally from breaking out into a full-scale riot. I could only sit, wait, and hope that the comrades would be able to keep the situation under control. I lay in my jail bunk, wondering where all this would lead, not realizing this was only the very beginning of a long, violent summer.

Later that evening I heard voices shouting in the distance. I could faintly make out the words, but as I listened closely, the chorus grew louder and the words came clearer—“Free Aaron, Free Aaron!”

It had only been a year since I had graduated from high school, just another obscure Black youth, unsure of my place or my role in this often contradictory, confused society. Now I had become the center of attention of Seattle's entire Black community. I desperately wanted to get out of jail so a confrontation could be avoided. I knew that dynamics in the community were at the point of explosion, and I did not want to be the cause of a riot that could lead to destruction and possibly death. Seattle had not yet had a big riot. Unfortunately, my arrest would be the spark that would put us on the list with Newark, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and many other cities throughout America.

I learned later that the marchers had headed back to Garfield Park, where the protest erupted into an explosion of youthful, pent-up anger, frustration, and mayhem. Police were attacked, cars with whites in them were stoned, windows of businesses were shattered, and police cars were overturned. Two news reporters were about to be attacked when Elmer intervened and rescued them from a ravaging crowd, escorting them to safety. A full-scale riot had erupted in Seattle. As I lay in my cell, I could hear continuous sounds of sirens blaring, as if the entire city were falling apart.

Around midnight, the guard came and opened my cell and said I was free to go. To my surprise, I had been released on personal recognizance. I guess they felt it was in their best interest to let me out onto the streets. It was too late. Once a riot has begun, it ends only when the rioters near exhaustion. As I walked out of the booking room, I was met by our lieutenant of information, Bobby White, and lieutenant of political education, Willie Brazier.

“Man, everything's gone crazy,” Willie said. “They're fighting cops up on Cherry Street. Man, it's a full-scale riot.”

We headed back to the Central District, taking side streets to avoid the barricades and the pitched battles between the young rioters and the police. As we headed to my parents' house, we could see throngs of young people rampaging through the streets, overturning cop cars and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. Scores of cops were grouped together, using batons to make attacks on the rock-throwing youth.

When we arrived at the house, there was a squad of armed Panthers waiting to get involved in the action down at Garfield Park. “Aaron, we gotta go down and help the young brothers,” someone said.

I was in a precarious position. The party did not openly advocate attacks on the police. We were supposed to be organizing the masses, helping them to prepare for self-defense and eventually guerrilla warfare, if it came to that. We were in no way ready to engage the cops in warfare. Yet many of the young brothers and sisters rioting were friends and probably even relatives of those brothers gathered around, holding their shotguns and rifles. I, too, was caught up in the emotions and drama of the situation. I decided we should try to make our way down to Garfield Park on foot. What we were going to do when we got there remained unclear.

We headed out slowly, crouching along the way, carrying our weapons, unsure of what the hell we were doing. It wasn't long before a police helicopter spied us and shined its spotlight on us. A comrade aimed and took out the light with one shot. All of us knew that within seconds we would be surrounded by pigs.

Just then, we heard a voice. It was our comrade Ron Carson. “Hey, you guys, in here. Come in here.” He was standing in the doorway of his enclosed back porch, beckoning. We ran over and streamed onto the dark, covered porch. Just as the last man entered, the entire area where we had stood only seconds before was swarming with police cars. The police stayed in their vehicles, shining their spotlights on bushes and behind parked cars. On the porch, we crouched in silence, hoping we would not be detected. Finally, the cops left. Recognizing it was foolish to think that, under these circumstances, we could possibly be successful in an attack on the police, we disbanded.

The following evening the rebellion resumed. Some older members on the Central Staff suggested that we divide into three groups and ambush the cops. I wanted to argue against such a move. Although the party often invoked guerrilla warfare in articles and pictures in the party paper and on posters depicting armed men and women, the chairman had never once informed me that I was to lead guerrilla attacks against police forces. At the time I did not realize that new chapters and branches all over the country were grappling with this same dilemma—to attack or not to attack.

As a generation, we were not far removed from slavery, and its remnants were with us constantly. Jim Crow had only recently subsided. We listened to our elders' stories about the rapes, lynchings, murders, and brutality committed against our ancestors. We had all experienced personal conflicts with the police and the daily bites of racism in all aspects of our lives. Additionally, the murders of Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and, most recently, Martin Luther King Jr. were still fresh in our minds. At some point, we felt we had to stand up and fight. The party gave us that opportunity, and the present situation provided us with an excuse to exact our revenge for the evils of American racism.

Reluctantly, I agreed, feeling that my courage would otherwise come under question—that if I refused to go along, others would doubt my bravery and sincerity. We divided into three teams of four or five men to a team, and chose our operating locations. I ended up with three comrades with whom I was very close. Though I was a few years younger, they were loyal and willing to follow me into battle despite my greenness. Elmer went with another group, and I could only hope that he would be safe.