And I'd like to add a thanks to William Mandel for this empirically-grounded
posting regarding the murder of Fred Hampton and the persecution of Larry
Pinkney.
Ted M.
William Mandel wrote:
> A personal experience with respect to the Panthers:
> "Early in December, [1969], Chicago police conducted a
> pre-dawn raid, murdering Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in his
> bed. This was part of a nationwide pattern in which that
> organization's leadership was physically decimated. Later that
> month word came down that a similar raid would occur upon the
> founding Black Panther organization, that of Oakland, although
> its headquarters was actually a couple of blocks over the line in
> Berkeley. Whites were needed to stand guard around the building,
> in the hope that police would not shoot randomly into them. Tanya
> [my wife] and I went down, and found about fifty other whites
> there. Most were 1960s youth, but there were others in their 50s,
> chiefly old-time radicals like ourselves. By the close of the
> '60s, would-be world-changers were divided into at least
> half-a-dozen warring sects: Maoist, Trotskyist of several
> varieties, pro-Soviet Communists. After the fashion of religious
> sectarians from time immemorial, they would not even speak to
> each other, and there had been a couple of violent incidents. In
> the aftermath of the People's Park military occupation and mass
> shooting, willingness to be at Panther headquarters that night
> was a litmus test of sincerity. I felt a surge of warmth to all
> present. They were the core who meant what they said." Saying No
> to Power, p. 418.
> Later in that autobiography, I write (p. 500): "...Larry
> Pinckney, a former Black Panther. His militancy started with his
> experiences as the only AFrican-American student in a Maryland
> High School of three thousand, which had Ku Klux Klan agitators.
> Years later, Pinkney had been appointed by San Francisco Mayor
> Alioto, under pressure from segments of the Black, white, and
> Chicano communities, to the Civil Service Commission oral board
> interviewing candidates for the Fire Department. He had been the
> only Black member, the only civilian, the youngest. Having lost
> the key to an apartment available to him, he tried to get in
> through a window. Police, tailing him, said as they seized him:
> 'We have you now, nigger!' and beat him badly. He was convicted
> of burglary under the illegal-entry clause of the penal code.
> <snip>
> "U.S. desire to imprison Larry after he fled
> this country subsequent to that frame-up in 1973. It was only
> after the UN Human Rights Committee officially condemned the
> actions of the Canadian government in his case that he was
> transferred to imprisonment in the U.S. in his seventh year of
> incarceration, instead of being released. The Canadian M.P.
> wrote:
> "'I am our Party's spokesman on issues relation to Correction
> and Parole...I became acquainted with Mr. Larry Pinkney....I was
> quickly impressed with the high level of personal integrity which
> he displayed. He was not looking for any favours, he was not
> enumerating an inventory of complaints or alibis. In short, there
> was no evidence that he had ever become part of the criminal
> sub-culture which makes up so much a part of our prison
> population....I have...found...him...meticulously honorable. My
> experience with him is that his word is his bond.'"
> "A year after we became acquainted, he was framed for
> allegedly tryin g to start a riot in prison. None had occurred.
> In fact -- I had been kept informed of the situation as it
> developed in the previous week -- he was trying to stop one from
> developing."
> "For anyone with any doubt why militant activists like
> Pinkney wound up in prison, the following excerpt from his FBI
> file, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, speaks for
> itself: 'Pinkney is potentially dangerous due to his demonstrated
> ability to unify black and white. His associates are Negro,
> White, and Chinese. Special attention is being given to
> neutralizing him. The areas of sex and drugs appear to be the
> most effective ones to utilize. His habits in these areas are
> unknown, but are being monitored with this objective. The FVI is
> working in conjunction with [blacked out, but a covering note to
> the U.S. Secret Service, San Francisco, accompanies this]."
> I have seen the originals, and possess copies of the letter
> and document cited.
> This presents a somewhat different picture of Panther people
> and of government policy toward them than that which David
> Horowitz would have us accept.
> William Mandel
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