The Savage City (58 page)

Origins of black militancy in the United States:
The Black Panther Party was not the first black militant group in the United States. In Louisiana in the 1950s a group known as the Deacons for Self Defense advocated the carrying of arms, based around the concept of self-defense. In North Carolina, Robert F. Williams founded an organization that advocated direct confrontation with the KKK. He was expelled from the NAACP for his militancy and later hunted by the FBI. Williams was the first to tie the concept of armed self-defense to revolution. Together with his wife, Mabel, he established a radio program called
Radio Free Dixie
that was designed to be the voice of black militancy. In 1960, Williams, wanted by the FBI, fled to Cuba and became the first in what would be a long line of black militants who wound up fleeing American law enforcement and settling in Castro's Cuba. In 1962, Williams published
Negroes with Guns,
a book about his experiences taking on white supremacy, which Huey P. Newton and others in the black liberation movement cited as a formative work. Williams's example was the inspiration for the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), the most cohesive black militant organization before the Black Panther Party, with followers in the prison
system and around the United States. Robert F. Williams died in Cuba in 1996.

Black Panthers at capital building in Sacramento (May 2, 1967):
Newton,
Revolutionary Suicide,
pp. 153–159; Pearson,
Shadow of the Panther,
pp. 129–134, 140–141; Joseph,
Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour,
pp. 169–170.

New York City meeting among SNCC, RAM, and Huey Newton:
Interview with Eddie Ellis (May 15, 2009).

“We were ready to stand and fight”:
Ibid.

“Open Letter to the Harlem Community”:
Ibid.; FBI COINTELPRO file. Documents pertaining to the Black Panther Party in New York City first appear in 1968, though files of the NYPD's BOSS unit date as far back as the early 1960s, when they first penetrated the Nation of Islam and also Malcolm X's OAAU.

OPERATION SHUT DOWN:
BOSS files (NYPD); FBI COINTELPRO file.

“He still got drunk most every day”:
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

Aida de Jesus:
Ibid.; Shapiro,
Whitmore,
pp. 212, 225; Lefkowitz and Gross,
The Victims,
p. 498.

Whitmore robbed in Brownsville:
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

Gerald Whitmore and the Suicide Frenchmen:
Interview with Gerald Whitmore (June 18, 2009); interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

George and Gerald confrontation with rivals:
Ibid.

“I washed my hands of the whole thing”:
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

Gerald Whitmore arrest:
Interview with Gerald Whitmore (June 18, 2009); Perlmutter, Emanuel, “Brother of Whitmore Arrested in Slaying in a Brooklyn Brawl,”
New York Times,
February 26, 1967; Anderson, F. David, “Gerald Whitmore Freed in Slaying,”
New York Times,
March 4, 1967.

“You know what you're being charged with?”
: Ibid.

George and Aida wedding (March 9, 1967):
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009); Shapiro,
Whitmore,
p. 215.

George and Aida settle in Wildwood:
Ibid.

“In view of the fact that the defendant's statements”:
Shapiro,
Whitmore,
p. 211; Lefkowitz and Gross,
The Victims,
p. 554; Raab,
Justice in the Back Room,
p. 255.

Whitmore replaces Reiben:
Interview with George Whitmore
(April 3, 2009); Shapiro,
Whitmore,
pp. 218–220; Lefkowitz and Gross,
The Victims,
p. 511; Raab,
Justice in the Back Room,
p. 255.

Samuel Neuberger
: Ibid.

Position of D.A. Aaron Koota:
Fleming, Thomas, “Case of the Debatable Brooklyn D.A.,”
New York Times,
March 19, 1967.

Third Borrero trial:
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009); interview with Selwyn Raab (April 22, 2009); Shapiro, “Annals of Jurisprudence: The Whitmore Confessions,”
The New Yorker,
February 8, 1969; Shapiro,
Whitmore,
pp. 220–227; Lefkowitz and Gross,
The Victims,
pp. 554– 560; Raab,
Justice in the Back Room,
p. 259.

“I am restrained to say at the outset”:
Shapiro,
Whitmore,
p. 226; Lefkowitz and Gross,
The Victims,
p. 560.

Judge Helfand decision:
“Whitmore Given 5-Year Sentence,”
New York Times,
June 9, 1967; Shapiro,
Whitmore,
p. 225; Lefkowitz and Gross,
The Victims,
p. 559; Raab,
Justice in the Back Room,
p. 259; Shapiro, “Annals of Jurisprudence: The Whitmore Confessions,”
The New Yorker,
February 8, 1969.

“I would say from thirty-nine years of practicing in my borough”:
Lefkowitz and Gross,
The Victims,
p. 560; Shapiro,
Whitmore,
p. 227.

“I thought that was it”:
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

11. “HOLY SHIT!”

NYPD arrests of RAM:
Perlmutter, Emanuel, “16 Negroes Seized; Plot to Kill Wilkins and Young Charged,”
New York Times,
June 22, 1967; “Mass Poison Plot Laid to Negroes,”
New York Times,
September 28, 1967; Austin,
Up Against the Wall,
p. 62.

The Harlem hate scare (Black Brotherhood):
Griffin, Junius, “Anti-White Harlem Gang Reported to Number 400,”
New York Times,
May 6, 1964; Breitman,
Malcolm X Speaks,
pp. 64–71.

Urban riots in United States 1964–1967:
Rucker, Walter, and James Nathanial Upton (eds.),
Encyclopedia of American Race Riots,
pp. 238, 240– 244; Rustin, Bayard, “A Negro Leader Defines a Way Out of the Exploding Ghetto,”
New York Times Magazine,
August 13, 1967.

Newark riot (July 1967):
Newark '67,
PBS documentary; Hayden, Tom, “A Special Supplement: The Occupation of Newark,”
New York Review of Books,
August 24, 1967; Hayden, Tom,
Rebellion in Newark,
entire book.

“The line between the jungle and the law”:
Hayden, “A Special Supplement: The Occupation of Newark,”
New York Review of Books,
August 24, 1967.

“They put us here because we're the toughest”:
Ibid.

Killing of Jimmy Rutledge:
Hayden,
Rebellion in Newark,
pp. 33–34;
Newark '67
PBS documentary.

Detroit riot 1967:
Rustin, “A Negro Leader Defines a Way Out of the Exploding Ghetto,”
New York Times Magazine,
August 13, 1967; Rucker and Upton,
Encyclopedia of American Race Riots,
pp. 240–242.

“My partner and me pulled up to 110th Street”:
Shecter with Phillips,
On the Pad,
p. 208.

East Harlem riot:
The riot described by Phillips is chronicled in Hamill, Pete, “El Barrio: Hot Night,”
New York Post,
July 24, 1967, and “El Barrio: The Line,”
New York Post,
July 25, 1967.

“Our bosses told us, do nothing”:
Ibid.

“I came down the stairs”:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009).

Bin Wahad meets Iris Bull:
Ibid.

Bin Wahad and Iris settle in East Village:
Ibid.

Slugs jazz club:
Slugs became famous—or infamous—on a night in 1969 when trumpeter Lee Morgan was shot and killed on the bandstand by his wife.

Further readings of Bin Wahad:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009).

Cleaver article in
Ramparts:
Cleaver, Eldridge, “The Courage to Kill,”
Ramparts,
June 15, 1968; Cleaver, Eldridge,
Target Zero,
pp. 101–112.

Bin Wahad attends “Rise on the Pentagon”:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009). The march on the Pentagon was one of the seminal 1960s political events, chronicled in many histories of the era, most vividly in Norman Mailer's
Armies of the Night,
which won a Pulitzer Prize for literature.

“One of the college students was talking”:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009).

Bin Wahad visits BPP office on Seventh Avenue and 141st St.:
Ibid.

Dhoruba and Iris get married:
Ibid.

Huey P. Newton shooting and arrest in Oakland:
Newton,
Revolutionary Suicide,
pp. 181–214; Austin,
Up Against the Wall,
pp. 49–56, 65–68; Ahmad,
We Will Return in the Whirlwind,
pp. 5–6; Heath, G. Louis,
Off the Pigs!,
pp. 37–38, 40–45; Hilliard, David, and Donald Weise (eds.),
The Huey P. Newton Reader,
pp. 212–228; Hilliard,
This Side of Glory,
pp. 175–178, 181; Joseph,
Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour,
pp. 204, 206–207; Pearson,
Shadow of the Panther,
pp. 3, 7, 145–147, 220–221; Van Deburg,
New Day in Babylon,
pp. 113–116.

“
Free Huey” movement:
Ibid.

Myron Beldock takes over Whitmore case:
Interview with Myron Beldock (January 27, 2009).

“I'm sure Arthur used the word ‘injustice'”:
Ibid.

Beldock background:
Ibid.; Glaberson, William, “A Foe of Injustice and Champion of Lost Causes,”
New York Times,
September 21, 2004.

“There was a basic prejudice to the system”:
Ibid.

“He was sweet tempered and pretty simple”:
Ibid.

12. REVOLUTION

Ellis plans for BPP based on Irish Republican Army model:
Interview with Eddie Ellis (May 15, 2009).

Philosophical differences between SNCC and BPP:
Fraser, C. Gerald, “S.N.C.C. in Decline After 8 Years in Lead,”
New York Times,
October 7, 1969; Ahmad,
We Will Return in the Whirlwind,
pp. 23, 27–28; Austin,
Up Against the Wall,
pp. 118, 129–132; Estes,
I Am a Man!,
pp. 87, 92; Heath,
Off the Pigs!,
pp. 16–18; Hilliard,
This Side of Glory,
pp. 146–148, 161; Joseph,
Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour,
pp. 232–233, 236; Lester,
Look Out, Whitey!,
pp. 129–131; Pearson,
Shadow of the Panther,
pp. 142, 150–152, 158–164, 183; Wolfe, Tom,
Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers,
p. 78.

Meeting with James Forman and BPP:
Fraser, “S.N.C.C. in Decline After 8 Years in Lead,”
New York Times,
October 7, 1969; Hilliard,
This Side of Glory,
pp. 201–208.

“You're either part of the solution or part of the problem”:
This phrase was first put into use by Eldridge Cleaver and eventually became a kind of catchphrase for the Black Panther Party, used by many of the party's most notable speakers, including Dhoruba Bin Wahad.

Origins and goals of COINTELPRO:
O'Reilly, Kenneth,
Racial Matters,
pp. 293–324; FBI COINTELPRO files; Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wall,
The COINTELPRO Papers
, pp. 91–164.

Eleven-page confidential memo:
The memo that was used to lay out the need for COINTELPRO was written by Assistant Director Mark Felt, who would later go on to achieve notoriety as Deep Throat, the secret Watergate source used by
Washington Post
journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their reporting on the scandal that would eventually bring down the Nixon administration.

Black Agitator Index:
Interview with Robert Boyle (November 21, 2008).

Bin Wahad reads
Soul on Ice:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 19, 2008).

“The police do on the domestic level”:
Cleaver,
Soul on Ice,
p. 122.

Bin Wahad reaction to King assassination:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008).

Bin Wahad visits BPP office in Brooklyn:
Ibid.

Whitmore reaction to King assassination:
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

Nationwide reaction to King assassination:
Branch,
At Canaan's Edge,
pp. 723–766;
American Experience: Eyes on the Prize,
PBS documentary.

Lindsay response to King assassination:
Cannato,
The Ungovernable City,
pp. 210–215.

Phillips shooting of Calvin McCoy:
“Burglar Suspect Killed in Harlem,”
New York Times,
April 17, 1968; Shecter with Phillips,
On the Pad,
p. 194.

“The guy is going like a raped ape”:
Shecter with Phillips,
On the Pad,
p. 194.

“A police officer is supposed to understand”:
Ibid.

BPP benefit at Fillmore East:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008); Sullivan, Dan, “Black Panther Benefit Is Held in East Village,”
New York Times,
May 21, 1968.