Tuesday, November 19, 1968

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Page Three

Tuesday, November 19, 1968 THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Page Three

The Panthers:

Their battle with the

By HAROLD V. STREETER
and
JERRY BUCK
Associated Press Writers
The story of the Black Pan-
thers is one that is told largely
through the clashes of its big
three-Huey P. Newton, Bobby
Seale and Eldridge Cleaver-
with the police.
In fact, the police are to a de-
gree a reason for existence of
this quasi-guerrilla, California-
based black nationalist political
organization, oriented to the
philosophy of the late Che Gue-
vara.
Called "racist pigs, the po-
lice are pictured by the Pan-
thers as the occupation forces of
the Establishment--"brutaliz-
ing" Negroes, keeping them
"contained," protecting w h i t e
{ interests and blocking Negro
control of their communities.
The Panther triumvirate is
young, but experienced with the
police. Cleaver, at 33 the oldest,
has spent most of his adult life
behind bars. Seale, 31, is on pro-
bation. Newton, 26, is serving a
2-to-15-year sentence imposed
in September for voluntary man-
slaughter in the death of Oak-
land policeman John F. Frey,
Jr.
Uppermost in the minds of the
Black Panthers is to accomplish
Negro control of their own des-
tiny.
There is fear of- the extrem-
ism of Black Panthers in some
black communities, but so me
Negro, ,psychiatrists and civil
rights leaders see in the organi-
zation a positive force, in establ-
ishing a sense of identity for
Negroes.
Reliable sources place the to-
:.0 L O~.tA~

tal nationwide strength of the
Panthers at no more than 500,
with at least 300 of these in
Oakland, Calif., where they were
formed, and about 100 in New
York.
In an interview printed in the
Cuban newspaper El Mundo,
Newton said from his jail cell
that the Panthers consider
themselves "as an integral part
of the army of resistance" urged
by Guevara to combat Ameri-
can "imperialism."
Newton said, "We are in-
creasing our resistance and we
are taking up our position, and
we are placing ourselves beside
all other nations to resist the
No. 1 criminal of the world, U.S.
imperialism."
PROGRAM
The goals of the Black Pan-
thers, as outlined in their party
platform and program, ar e:
freedom for blacks to run their
own communities; an end to
what they call the robbery of
the black community by white
merchants and landlords; hops-
ing that's fit to live in, the re-
moval of white police from
black communities; an educa-
tional. system that teaches
,blacks their truehhistory and
their role in present society; the
release of all blacks for 411 jails
and prisons; exemption from
military service and a United
Nations-supervised plebescite of
black people in America to see
howthey want themselvestgov-
erned.
In testimony tape-recorded
for hearings being held by Pres-
ident Johnson's commission on
violence, Newton predicted that
the Black Panther movement
would spread until "we siniply.
replace the two-party system."
He testified that "we must
' control all the institutions in
our community throughout the
black ghetto" and said there
would be "bloodshed" and
"struggle" in achieving this
goal.
One of the first missions of
the group, organized by Newton
and Seale in ,October 1966 in
Oakland as the Black Panther

capitol and their arms later'
were returned.
After passage of the bill, New-
ton ordered the Panthers to
keep their guns at home. Nev-
ertheless, about a year later the
Panthers were involved in a
shootout with Oakland police
that left one Panther dead, two
wounded - including Cleaver -
and two policemen wounded.
Cleaver, relieved of an Army
rifle, was charged with violation,
of his 1958 conviction for assault
to commit rape and murder and
was sent to the state medical fa-
cility at Vacaville. A judge later
ordered Cleaver's release, say-
ing the action against him had
been "political." The case is
still pending.
Soon after his release, Cleav-
er was nominated for president
by the predominantly white
Peace and Freedom party at
Ann Arbor, Mich. He was kept
off the ballot in some states, in-
cluding California, because he
had not reached the 35-year age
limit required of a president
by the C6nstitution.
NEWTON TRIAL
The cause celebre of the Pan-
thers, however, centers on New-
ton and the killing of Frey.
On Oct. 27, 1967, Newton set
out to celebrate the end of his
three-year probation. Subse-
quent court testimony showed
that as dawn the next day near-
ed, he and Gene McKinney got
into a car belonging to New-
ton's fiance, Laverne Williams,
and set out in a search of West
Oakland for "soul food."
Frey, according to testimony,
spotted the little car tooling
along, checked the license plate
and radioed, "It's a known Pan-
ther vehicle." He stopped t h e
car and from there the rest is
in dispute.
Newton testified that Frey
used abusive language, roughed
him up and shot him without
provocation. Officer Herbert
Heanes, - who arrived on the
scene in time to assist Frey, tes-
tified Newton opened fire first.
Rallying to a cry of "Free
Huey," 60 Panthers in their
black berets and black leather
jackets assembled outside the
Alemeda County Courthouse in
Oakland at the outset of the
trial in July.
Inside, McKinney refused to
testify and was sentenced to six
months in jail. But a Negro bus
driver, Henry Grier, said he
saw Newton shoot Frey.
A few days before Newton's
conviction, the Black Panther
weekly newspaper warned: "If
those funky racists don't set our
brave warrior free . . . the sky's
the limit . . . and even the sea's
going to burn."
The jury deliberated for four
days and finally on Sunday,
Sept. 8, rejected the prosecu-
tion's demands for conviction of
first- or second-degree murder

-Daily-Thomas R. Copi
Eldridge Cleaver

1ns
and found Newton guilty of vol-
untary manslaughter.
Jenevie E. Gibbons, a bologna
slicer who served on the Jury,
said the jury felt Newton h a d
fired in the heat of passion. She
said they were influenced by his
testimony that Frey had called
him a "nigger" and roughed him
up.
Two days after Newton's con-
viction two Oakland police offi-
cers fired carbines from a pa-
trol car into the Panther head-
quarters. They were charged
with firing into an inhabited
dwelling and discharged from
the police force.
POLITICAL PRISONERS
In a roster of the party hiera-
chy published in the Panther
newspaper, the Black Panther,
Newton was listed as a "politi-
cal prisoner."
The list also expresses t h e
feeling of "nationhood" preva-
lent in Panther thinking: Seale
is chairman, Newton is minister
of defense, Cleaver is minister
of information. Stokely Carmi-
chael carries the rank of prime
minister of colonized Afro-A-
merica and H. Rap Brown is
minister of justice.
The Student Nonviolent Coor-
dinating Committee was affiliat-
ed with the Panthers for a few
months this year, but broke off
the association last summer.
Carmichael and Brown, b o t h
former SNCC leaders, remained.
OTHER CLASHES
The Panthers and police have
clashed in other cities.
Last August two policemen
were wounded and three men
identified as Panthers were
killed in a shootout in the Watts
district of Los Angeles.
In New York, the Brooklyn
district attorney said he be-
lieves the Panthers were in-
volved in the ambush of two po-
licemen last August.
Outside a Brooklyn court-
room recently some 200 men,
including some off-duty police-
men, assaulted about a dozen
Panthers and their supporters.
Inside the courtroom a hearing
was being held for three Black
Panthers accused of assaulting
three policemen.
In Indianapolis, charges of
conspiracy to murder the police
chief and a narcotics officer
were filed in June against three
men identified as Panthers.
DISTORTED IMAGE
Banks says the image of the
party has been distorted. He
lays the blame on the white
press.
"We've been pictured as
white-hating racists who want
to kill anything and everything
that isn't black," he said. "This
just isn't so. We simply want to
change a system that is carrying
out a policy of genocide against
nonwhites and we're trying to
change it in a nonviolent way-
if we can."
In Pittsburgh, Joe Kibber, a
17-year-old Panther who was
expelled from school, said, "The
Panthers are trying to regain
confidence in the Negro race.
We're trying tobe friends with
the white man, but we'l fight if
we have to."
The Panther leaders deny
they are a secret organization,
but they steadfastly refuse to
get down to the nitty gritty of
membership and financing.
Besides Oakland and N e w
York, there are Black Panther
chapters in Sacramento, Los
Angeles, San Diego, Seattle,
Omaha, Newark, Pittsburgh and
Baltimore. An organizing effort
in Boston didn't get off the
ground.


THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT upheld t h e
constitutionality of the death penalty yesterday in a 4-3

the
{news today
b'y The Associated Press and College Press Seriice
THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT took steps last night to
combat its worst financial crisis in a decade.
Premier Maurice Couve de Murville, speaking on nation-
wide TV said the French franc was feeling the effects of a
flood of speculation which began last week when an estimated
$1 billion dollars in French, British, and American currencies
were dumped on the European market.
The speculators were buying up West German marks
with the other cu'rrencies in hope that the West Germans
will revalue (increase the value of) the mark in light of the
trade advantages they have been showing this year over both
France and Britain.
Couve de Murville said the French government was trim-
ming its spending and tightening credit to meet the emer-
gency. The French are currently running on a deficit bud-
get, which is hurting efforts to keep the franc stable.
IN A MAJOR BREAK with the "political question doc-
trine," the U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear
Adam Clayton Powell's case against the House of Rep-
resentatives.
By taking the case, the court risks a major clash between
the judicial and legislative branches of the federal govern-
ment, a risk the court has consistently avoided in the past
when faced with questions of a political nature.
Powell's attorneys will argue that his exclusion from his
seat in the House of Representatives during the 90th con-
gress was unconstitutional. Powell lost his seat after a select
committee of the House had-found him guilty of "gross mis-
conduct" as a congressman. The committee recommended
Powell be censured, fined, and stripped of all seniority.

LAST FILM OF A FESTIVAL BY LUIS BUNUEL,
WORLD-FAMOUS DIRECTOR OF "BELLE DE JOUR"

Party for Self Defense, was to
send out armed patrols to keep
the police under surveillance.
The Panthers, wearing a uni-
form of black berets and black
leather jackets, said they want-
ed to see that Negroes were
treated fairly.
RHETORIC
Panther rhetoric often has
been inflammatory. Cleaver,
who joined the party when he
was released from prison two
months after its formation, said,
"From now on, we niggers have
got to stop killing other niggers
and start killing police."
In his best-selling book on his
nearly nine years in prison.
"Soul on Ice," Cleaver wrote:
"We shall have our manhood.
We shall have it or the earth

"Seldom in cinema has the nature of revolution
realized with such profundity and expressed with
power"--Time

been
such

will be leveled by our attempts
to gain it."
Over the vigorous protests of
Gov. Ronald Reagan and others,
Cleaver has begun a series of
lectures at the Berkeley campus
of the University of California
on the "dehumanization and re-
generation of the American so-
cial order."
In his first lecture he showed
up in a black business suit in-
stead of the Panther uniform,
spoke courteously and without
the usual obscenities that fill his
talks. He said "blackis a conno-
tation of evil in this country"
and it "stigmatizes the black
man as having evil connota-
tions."
PROTEST BILL
For sometime after their for-
mation, the Panthers continued
their police-watching patrols
and on May 2, 1967, members
marched fully armed into t h e
California state capitol at Sa-
cramento to protest a bill to res-
trict the carrying of loaded guns
within city limits. They were
disarmed and ejected from the

decision.
Justice Louis H. Burke declared in the majority opinion
that imposing the death penalty was not cruel or unusual
punishment. The opinion also said that retention or abolition
of the penalty was a legislative not judicial matter, to be car-
ried out by the people or their representatives.
The case, which came as an appeal by two convicted mur-
derers, had stayed the executions of the eighty-four men and
ode woman who presently sit, on death row in California
prisons.
In a related opinion, the court ordered new trials for both
the convicted murderers, saying that they must be tried un-
der the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision barring the ex-
clusion from juries of anyone opposing the death penalty.
The mass stay for the 85 capital prisoners in California
will not be lifted for at least thirty days, when the court's de-
cision goes into effect.
THE OFFICIAL Soviet news agency TASS last night
branded as "obviously provocative" warnings against fur-
ther Soviet agression given by NATO.
NATO member-nations, meeting last week in Brussels,
laid plans for defense in case of another Czechoslovakia-type
invasion by the Soviets. The. NATO allies also posted a warn-
ing against further intervention in the affairs of other
states."
TASS said the Soviet Union and other countries oppose
any "war preparations, any steps against peace and security."
'We would like to believe," it said, "that more realistic
and sober considerations would prevail among NATO military
circles concerning the European situation."
* 0
EXPANDED PEACE TALKS will most likely be post-
poned another week even though the United States and
South Vietnam are reaching accord on representation at
the talks.
According to official sources, a compromise agreement
being worked out would give the U.S. and Saigon equal status
in the allied delegation. It is thought that theSouth Vietna-
mese representatives will play a major role in the political
end of thq talks while the U.S. team will concentrate on mili-
tary matters.
Currently, the U.S. team is waiting for response from
Hanoi to its charges that there have been some serious vio-
lations of the demilitarized zone. A neutral DMZ was one of
the conditions to continuation of the halt in bombing of the
North.


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