Stop! in the name of love
Before you break my heart
Think it over
Think it over
—Diana Ross
That’s the night the Panther makes his escape. He does not stop in the name of love. He does not have to think it over. He is never there on Pine Street. Never does his scheduled talk at UC Berkeley. Long gone. Standoff was a sitting decoy. When word comes down he’s across the border, West Oakland breathes a long sigh. How did RG know for sure the yellow sister was there risking her neck? Who can be sure? Think it over. Down the line, who will be left to tell the story?
Panther’s stuffing a pipe with a sweet concoction. Gives it a light. Ooowee! That’s potent product. Put it out before the KGB gets here! RG jumps up, fans the air. Too bad they’re not Cuban cigars. Castro’s finest might be justifiable. Speaking of which . . .
Everyone was reading Robert F. Williams’s Negroes with Guns. He’s the man. He’s in Cuba transmitting Radio Free Dixie. Akagi finds a postal system to his box in Havana. It’s complicated, but he gets the word to Brother Robert: Salutations! The Black Panthers for Self-Defense are opening for business. Then one day, Akagi gets a package by way of Peking: 1 Tai Chi Chang, Peking, China. Got a stamp of a Vietnamese shooting down a U.S. warplane. It’s The Crusader, Williams’s newsletter. Do you know how many copies you can smuggle if they’re printed on rice paper? Slip a hundred of those papers under your jacket and distribute them on the Third World picket line at UC Berkeley. Check it out. Brother Robert’s in China, sitting at the left hand of Mao.
Fifty percent Malcolm. Fifty percent Williams. Mix and stir into a magic brew. Poof. You got a Black Panther. Huey’s got the plan and the ten points, but who knows about guns? Bobby and Akagi. They turn the thing into a military operation. It’s better than religion. Akagi can identify any weapon through his binoculars, take apart an M-1 blindfolded. He’s got a Chinatown supplier with a good price. It’s like shopping in another country—access to every kind of gun, shape, and caliber. Pretty soon he’s Field Marshal. You gotta train with Akagi, or you don’t get your weapon. Think it over. Trains the brothers who die.
Panthers walk on Sacramento; it’s national news on prime time, and overnight there’s forty-three Black Panther Party chapters nationwide. Telegrams come in daily; this one’s from this place called Reed College, wants to form a chapter.
Huey asks, “Akagi, you’re a college man. What’s this Reed College?”
Akagi thinks about it. “College for geniuses, but the crazy John Reed kind.”
“Check it out.”
Reed is honky territory out in Portland, Oregon. Shit. Could be a bunch of black brothers infiltrated behind the lines. How’d they get into Reed? They’re letting colored people into fancy places everywhere. Affirmative action my ass! Could be a hoax. A trap! Akagi gets three of his best men. Drive up to Oregon and do calisthenics and shoot up the desert on the way. Take a pilgrimage detour to Tule Lake and shoot at the leftover guard towers. Get to Reed in prime condition—trained and mean and looking sharp. Field jackets, black berets, shades, rifles. March into the designated coffee shop for the meeting. At attention.
Who walks in? It’s one black dude. Just one.
“Where’re the others?”
“It’s just me.”
“Just you?”
“Just me.”
It’s a chapter of one! A fucking chapter of one! Break my heart!
Akagi could lose it, but stop! He tugs nervously at his leather gloves, then faces Reed off and says, “Name the ten-point program!”
I call upon the workers, peasants, revolutionary intellectuals, enlightened elements of the bourgeoisie and other enlightened personages of all colours in the world, white, black, yellow, brown, and so forth, to unite against the racial discrimination practiced by U.S. imperialism and to support the American Negroes in their struggle against racial discrimination.
—Mao Tse-tung
August 8, 1963