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.

In December, without my knowledge or approval, Panther Sidney Miller, a Chicago transplant, was ordered by Curtis Harris to rob a West Seattle store for what Sidney had been told was Panther business. In the process, Sidney was shot in the head by the store owner, dying instantly. At the time, the circumstances leading to his death were unknown, but eventually the details would all come to the surface. It was a travesty that should not have happened. Sidney was a gregarious, happy-go-lucky comrade with an infectious smile. Everyone loved Sidney and his dedication, yet it was this same blind dedication that led to his death.

Not long after Sidney’s killing, a young man named Larry Ward returned from Vietnam. A year older than me, during high school Larry Ward ran with the fast crowd. He was one of the sharp dressers and his hair was processed. I was surprised to learn that after returning from Vietnam he was interested in the revolution at home. Larry Ward reconnected with some of his old buddies who had joined the party and asked how he could join; unfortunately, a couple of those old buddies were suspected of being police informants.

Determined to put an end to the party’s firebombing campaign, the Seattle Police Department had put out a $25,000 contract on my head, and since their attempts on my life had failed, they settled for setting up Larry Ward. Someone told Larry that if he firebombed Hardcastle Realty, he would be able to join the party. The people who set him up told him that the Molotov cocktails would be waiting for him in the bushes.

When Larry arrived, prepared to carry out his mission, the pigs came out of nowhere. A startled Larry raised his hands and the pigs opened up, shooting and killing him instantly. The pigs used one-inch deer slugs, solid pieces of lead used mainly for hunting large wild animals. Larry never had a chance to play the role of the revolutionary—instead he became a sacrificial victim.

To make things worse, LewJack was wounded accidentally by another party member, resulting in the paralysis of his left arm. It was becoming more evident to me that there were many things happening in the Seattle chapter of which I had no knowledge, and many of these were extremely serious, life-and-death matters. Around this time I began to feel a tremendous amount of pressure and to question the decisions I was making. I started drinking more often as I tried to sort out the problems in our chapter.

I took another trip to Oakland, which always seemed to give me the strength to carry on. While meeting with Chairman Bobby, I mentioned my upcoming speaking engagement in Chicago that the Socialists had set up.

“Aaron, when you go back there, I want you to check on some brothers who are starting a chapter,” he said. “Their names are Fred Hampton and Bobby Rush. Betty will get you their number.”

In early December, Bobby Harding, Jimmy Davis, and I were off to Chicago, where we stayed at my grandmother DeDe’s house. Our first speaking engagement was at a high school near Cabrini-Green, a housing project in the southwest part of the city. The place was packed and there was a lot of excitement in the air about the party. The next day we spoke at a small college north of Chicago, and a few days later we found ourselves at the University of Chicago on a chilly Wednesday evening.

The auditorium was filled nearly to capacity with mostly Black students and others. I was pleasantly surprised to find I was sharing this speaking engagement with one of the brothers organizing the Chicago chapter, Fred Hampton. After I spoke, Fred Hampton, Bobby Rush, and about eight other very rough-looking brothers took the stage. One of the brothers, Chaka Walls, carried a large African walking stick. The brothers assumed positions around the stage and secured the doors as Fred Hampton, a large, husky brother with uncombed hair, wearing an army fatigue jacket, began to speak.

He began, “Ain’t nobody leavin’ this mothafucka until we finish.”

Fred Hampton spoke for the next thirty minutes. It was a rough, sharp speech that expressed the end-of-the-road mentality that most young urban Blacks shared at that time. He said it was time to put the rhetoric and the analytical bullshit behind us, and be prepared to pick up guns and fight.

My speech paled in comparison to the powerful words of this young Black man, my same age. I had no idea—nor did any of us at the time—that we were witnessing the next Malcolm X, the next Martin Luther King. In essence Fred Hampton was poised to become the next great leader of Black America.

He and I talked briefly afterward and said we would try to hook up before I left, but a snowstorm prevented that from happening. We returned to Seattle to await my trial.