My People Are Rising (22 page)

The city had already tried to buy me out, sending a light-complexioned Black man, casually dressed, to the office a few months earlier. “Hello, Mr. Dixon,” he began. His polite demeanor reminded me of my father. “The City of Seattle would like to offer you a position with the city at $35,000 a year,” he said, providing no further details or information about the job. That was a large amount of money to offer anyone, let alone a nineteen-year-old, but I turned him down politely. He said with a smile, “Well, if you change your mind, give me a call,” as he handed me his card and left.

That summer, for the first time, militant organizations in the Seattle Black community came together in a town meeting with the aim of forming a united front for greater organizing power. The groups included Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Black United Front, the
African American Journal
, the Black Panther Party, and a few others, as well as individual activists like Daisy Boyetta. That night it was a packed house at the YMCA on Madison, with mostly older members of the community. There were many impassioned speeches against the white man and the system, as well as against Uncle Toms,
considered complicit with the man. Toward the end, I was nominated to head this united coalition of militants. I strolled to the front of the room, took the mic, and spouted some revolutionary rhetoric. They were looking to me for the answers to their dilemmas, answers I did not have. I was just a nineteen-year-old idealist doing my best to run the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party. I was ill-prepared to take advantage of this brief moment of unity, and nothing ever came of the opportunity.

Toward the end of the summer, we lost a very dedicated, beloved comrade, but not at the hands of the police. Seventeen-year-old Henry Boyer came to the aid of his distraught mother, who was being attacked by her boyfriend. Henry was big and thick for his age, willing and able to give someone a good ass-kicking if he wanted to. The man grabbed Henry's shotgun and killed him. It was incredibly sad to lose Henry in this way. He had a lot of potential, not only as a revolutionary but also as a valuable asset to humanity.

Everybody loved Henry, and to honor our first fallen comrade, we wanted to send him away in splendid fashion. Nafasi, Maud Allen, and other sisters made beautiful baby-blue, African-inspired robes for the comrade sisters, and all the comrade brothers wore full Panther uniform. We had a double line of nearly two hundred Panthers standing at attention, extending all the way down the block on either side of Angelus' Funeral Home. It was an inspiring, revolutionary farewell for our beloved comrade. The next day the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
reported that it was the largest funeral in the history of Washington State.

A week after the funeral, Mr. Angelus, the funeral director, called and asked for Elmer and me to come over to the funeral home. When we arrived, he took us back into a side room full of caskets. It was dark and very eerie. He opened one of the caskets and inside were more than a dozen rifles.

“These are for you, brothers.”

We couldn't believe our eyes—they were Argentine British .303 rifles. We thanked him and took them away. Though we never used these weapons, we were deeply appreciative of his gesture of support. There weren't any other professional Black people willing to risk their livelihood by giving us arms. We considered this a revolutionary act by Mr. Angelus.

Voodoo Man had moved to a house near the office. After I joined the party, I had never really trusted him anymore. He was definitely more than a little crazy, and even traveled to Oakland in an attempt to sow discord between the Seattle chapter and National Headquarters. He tried to speak with Bobby Seale about me, but the chairman sent him on his way. As the environment became increasingly dangerous, Voodoo Man, along with his white girlfriend, disappeared into the night, leaving behind everything in the house. We never heard from him again.

As summer drew to an end, I took a much-needed trip to Oakland to restore myself, reinforce my revolutionary direction, and gain some fortification against the struggles I was facing within the Seattle chapter. There had already been an assassination attempt by the police; the chapter had obviously been infiltrated. I was grappling with a general lack of discipline and insubordination among party members, as well as older comrades who questioned my authority. And the death of Henry Boyer had been difficult for everyone.

It was always good and invigorating to see Matilaba, Landon and Randy Williams, Tommy Jones, and Robert Bay. My timing was good; Tommy and Robert were going down to the Monterey Jazz Festival to set up a booth in the concession area to sell the party's posters, books, cards, and Black Panther papers. I was able to tag along. Being away from the stress of Seattle, in the sun of Monterey with Tommy and Big Bay was just what I needed. We were able to enjoy the silky voice of Carmen McRae and listen to the stellar sounds of the Modern Jazz Quartet. We even ran into Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver and Bobby and Artie
Seale.

A few tense incidents occurred, one while manning our booth. Some Los Angeles brothers wearing overalls, members of a gang known as The Farmers, came by our booth and made some provocative remarks, causing Tommy to go for his snub-nosed .38. At one point it looked like we were going to have to throw down with these apolitical jackasses. The Farmers had formed out of the ashes of the Watts riot. Apparently, due to their Black Nationalist stance, they had positioned themselves as adversaries of the party. But all in all, it was a peaceful trip. It would be the last time I would spend real time with Tommy, who had recently been appointed to the rank of captain and given his own office to run in West Oakland down on 7th Street. He still looked out for me, treating me like a little brother.

It had been a wild summer, the most rebellious in modern US history, and many of the new chapters were going through similar growing pains as we were in Seattle. We were all trying to understand what our role was to be as an organization, and trying to come to grips with our deep hatred toward the police and all they represented. The government was adjusting as well, and their tactics would soon become much more deadly for the Black Panther Party. We had no idea what lay ahead, no inkling of the undercover operation that was silently being launched against us.

16

Death in Winter

Sometimes in winter forgotten memories remember you behind the trees with leaves that cry.

—Blood, Sweat & Tears, “Sometimes in Winter,” 1968

On September 8, 1968,
Huey P. Newton was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, which carried a two- to five-year sentence. Charles Garry, Huey's attorney and the legal counsel of the Black Panther Party, had developed a solid case for Huey's innocence. The prosecution's one eyewitness, an Oakland bus driver by the name of Grier, had told the police he had a clear view of the shooter. Grier had, in fact, stated on tape that he did not see the shooter. Charles Garry was able to get this evidence admitted in the court, but it was never disclosed to the jury. Huey had been railroaded. While we were angry about Huey being railroaded, we also breathed a collective sigh of relief that the charge against Huey had been knocked down to manslaughter, thus averting the death penalty. Huey gave orders that the party should fight the guilty verdict in the courts, not in the streets. An appeal was filed by Charles Garry and his longtime legal partner, Fay Stender, and we would have to wait for our leader to be vindicated in the courts. 

For me, that winter began with another benchmark of manhood. Tanya became pregnant. She called my mother to tell her before telling me. I actually found out from my father. Poppy told me, “Aaron, you are going to have to marry her.”

I replied, “No, I can't. I am too young.”

Poppy's answer to me was, “If you don't marry her, I will disown you.”

That was a heavy statement for him to make. I could not understand why Poppy was forcing me to do something for which I was ill-prepared. But this was the way of my parents' generation.
Tanya's
father, a nightclub owner known for his hot temper, called me over to talk to him regarding the situation. He toyed with his .38 as he asked me my intentions. Shortly thereafter, Tanya and I were married.

Elmer and I made a pact that he would interrupt the shotgun wedding. I remember standing at the altar in the church I had grown up in, my back to a sparse crowd, wearing a new, long, black leather coat Tanya had bought for me, occasionally looking over my shoulder, waiting for Elmer to interrupt this crazy proceeding. But he never showed. For me, this was yet another omen that it was time to leave behind my childish ways and brace myself for adulthood.

Up to that point our losses in the party had been minimal. Our only incarcerated leader was Huey, and there were only a few martyred comrades. However, destiny—in the form of the US government—was rapidly moving to change both of those statistics. Eldridge's departure from the party's leadership was imminent. Nicknamed “Papa Rage,” he had taken a guest lecturer position at UC Berkeley, and used it as a stage from which to launch a continuous verbal assault against Richard Nixon, whom Eldridge called “Tricky Dick,” and the then governor of California Ronald Reagan, whom he labeled “Mickey Mouse.” Eldridge even came out with an album,
Dig
, a recording of a speech given at Syracuse University during his 1968 presidential run as a candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party.

Nationally, the Black Panther Party had formed a coalition with the white, liberal Peace and Freedom Party. The Peace and Freedom Party refused to recognize either the Democratic or Republican candidates, and instead nominated Panthers and other radicals to run for political office. For the 1968 national election, we collaborated with the Peace and Freedom Party to run Eldridge for president. In California, Bobby Seale, Kathleen Cleaver, and Huey Newton ran for local California political seats, while in Seattle, on the Peace and Freedom ticket, we ran two Panthers, Curtis Harris and E. J. Brisker, for legislative seats. We had a big campaign kickoff party on the top floor of the Sorrento Hotel, a classy place near downtown Seattle. Maud Allen, Nafasi (Kathy Halley), and the other sisters did a magnificent job of organizing this event. It was a festive occasion, with hundreds of Peace and Freedom Party members and Black Panther Party members and supporters. But despite all this successful momentum, a storm was brewing.

It had begun in October with the murder of seventeen-year-old Welton Armstead. Welton, like many young, Black, disenfranchised youth, had dropped out of high school, unable to see or find the value in a racist educational system. He turned to crime and eventually found his way into the party. He participated from the fringes, supplying us with weapons and sometimes money when we needed it. On a cold autumn morning, Welton watched from the window of his third-floor apartment as the Seattle police cornered his mother in the parking lot below, crudely questioning her about her son's whereabouts. Welton grabbed his Winchester and ran to his mother's aid. He was gunned down, shot in the back by Seattle police as he attempted to protect his mother. Welton was the first Seattle Panther killed by the police, arousing an angry, violent retaliation. That same evening, two pigs, while answering an emergency call, were ambushed by two seventeen-year-old Panthers. The pigs, despite being wounded, escaped death. Several days later, we buried Welton Armstead and attempted to console his grieving mother. The shooting left us bitter and angry, and Welton's death left a wound in his mother's heart that would never heal.

Here I was, nineteen years of age, at my third Panther funeral, presiding over the death of a seventeen-year-old man-child, Welton Armstead, in a little, dingy chapel, the family sitting and weeping, Panthers lining the walls. At that instant, standing in front of Welton's family, I felt an icy shield slowly cover my spirit. There would be no tears, no anguish, just a cold demeanor that slowly replaced the warm kindness I once carried. The Aaron my parents raised was now gone, for there would be many more dead comrades to bury, many more Panther funerals with stone-faced men and women, clenched fists thrust to the sky.

Shortly after my July 1968 arrest for the stolen typewriter, a young Jewish woman from the Young Socialist Alliance suggested that I organize a defense committee around the case. The chapter's Central Staff agreed and began organizing a Free Aaron Dixon Defense Committee. A pamphlet entitled “Hands Off Aaron Dixon” was created. Speaking engagements were set up around the Pacific Northwest as well as in Chicago.

In Oakland, during one of my frequent visits, I talked with Eldridge shortly before his exile, his long body sitting on the footsteps of St. Augustine's Church as he ate a plate of black-eyed peas, oxtails, and corn bread from the soul food restaurant across the street.

“Aaron,” he stated, as he slowly ate, “you have to be careful of those Socialists. They like to use shit for their own purposes, you dig? I'm not saying the defense committee is a bad thing; it's a good idea. Just don't let them use you.”

“Right on, right on, Eldridge,” I assured him. That was my last conversation with Eldridge.

Eldridge was facing the possibility that his parole for the April 6 shootout might be revoked by the state, which would mean he would have to return to San Quentin. This was not something Eldridge was prepared to do. He had stated many times that he was not going back to prison. One cover headline of
The Black Panther
read “Damn Pigs and Prison.” A vigil was set up at Eldridge's house in the Fillmore district of San Francisco. As the day drew near for him to report for his parole hearing in November, I was at his house with other Panthers, armed, waiting for the pigs to come. But Eldridge was long gone. He chose exile, in Cuba and later Algeria, rather than life in the dungeons of San Quentin. For those of us living in America—enduring in what Eldridge had coined as “the belly of the beast”—we would see our remaining leaders, one by one, killed off or imprisoned.