I had only been in the Party for three months when Bunchy and John were murdered and Captain Franco was killed. Just a few months earlier, the police had murdered Tommie, Steve, and Robert in broad daylight. I knew it was time to check in with my family to let them know I was OK.
I walked into my mother’s house and found her in the family room watching TV. It seemed eerily quiet. I walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek. “Mom, how are you?”
She didn’t answer my question but asked me wearily, “Are you all right? I’ve been watching the news.”
“I’m cool, Mom. I just wanted to let you know that everything is fine with me. You don’t need to worry.”
“Where were you when those boys were killed?”
“I was at school.”
“Good. That’s where you need to be. You know I really want you to leave the Panthers alone. At least for now, while there’s so much violence.”
I didn’t say anything. I just looked at her and then got up and headed for the kitchen to get something to eat. She followed me in there, and we sat for a while and made small talk about the family. By the time I left, she seemed to be OK, although I knew she was still concerned.
Later that day, I called Nanny and got the same response from her that I received from my mom. The next conversation I needed to have was with Sharon, the other important woman in my life. So I called her up and asked her if I could stop by. As it turned out, I ended up liking Sharon even more after our conversation. She knew that my involvement with the Party could put me in danger, but she also understood my commitment. She didn’t need to be educated about why I remained in the Party, because she was active in the BSU at Washington High. Unlike other women who would have immediately asked me to withdraw, Sharon told me that we would stand together.
On the day of Bunchy’s funeral, we all rode to the church caravan style, stopping traffic along the way. The funeral was held at Trinity Baptist Church on Jefferson Boulevard. James and I rode together in my car, mostly in silence. It rained that day, but the sun was shining too. Chairman Bobby Seale did the eulogy, and Chief of Staff David Hilliard spoke as well. Although the service was sad, it still contained the revolutionary fervor of the Party—even bolstered it. After the funeral, we went to Woodlawn Cemetery in Compton to bury our comrade. I felt sorry for Evon Carter, Bunchy’s wife, who I learned later was pregnant at the time. As for John Huggins, his body was shipped back to New Haven, Connecticut. Ericka and their baby went with him. Bunchy and John were so young when they were murdered: Bunchy was twenty-six and John was twenty-three.
After the funeral, a large contingent of us went to the Panther apartment on Main Street to get a grip on the gaping emptiness we were suddenly left with and to pay homage to our fallen comrades. A heavy sense of grief and melancholy gripped the air. We drank Panther Piss; we told stories. I wished that I had spent more time at Central Headquarters so that I could have worked more closely with Bunchy and John.
David Hilliard and Bobby Seale visited Los Angeles to keep us encouraged, and they helped us to reorganize. There was no question that Bunchy and John would have wanted us to get back to work immediately. To help close the gaps left by the loss of our leaders, other comrades were moved into new positions. G became the deputy minister of defense, which had been Bunchy’s position. He would now lead the Southern California chapter. Elaine Brown was appointed to the position of deputy chairman, while Paul Moffett became the deputy minister of information, taking the place of John. Others maintained their positions, like Blue, Long John, and Ronald Freeman, who remained field secretaries.
Some animosities developed because some of the members thought that they should have been given the chance to play a much larger role after the reorganization. Julius “Julio” Butler, a section leader who ran the West Adams office, was one of those disgruntled. He had hoped to move up to one of the minister positions. Long John called him an “old-man hairdresser” and said I should stay away from Julio because he was strange as hell.
“What makes him so strange?” I asked, amused at his description.
“He had a few younger comrades kill some cats and dogs to prove that they could kill. You ever heard of such bullshit?” Long John said with disgust.
“No, not really,” I answered, a little disgusted myself. Then I asked, “So, then why is he in the Party?”
“I can’t really answer that, but a lot of people say he might be an agent provocateur. I don’t know. Bunchy had the ability to keep him in a cage where he could only do minimal damage.”
I shrugged and nodded, thinking to myself that Long John was right. Stay away from that fool.
Long John continued, “But with Bunchy gone, we need to watch him closely.”
I nodded in agreement.
In addition to the leadership changes, our membership base began to change. Some of our people just stopped coming around. That didn’t bother me, because I thought we had too many “dress-up Panthers” and “black leather coat suckers” in the Party. These were the fake revolutionaries who would show up for rallies and try to look like a Panther but never put in any measurable work. After the Us killings, those niggas understood that being a Black Panther was not about playing games; it wasn’t the BSU; and it definitely wasn’t styling and profiling: it was black liberation.
Some people actually got expelled too. Shermont was spokesperson for the L.A. branch, so he had been appointed to make public statements on behalf of Bunchy and the Party. Bunchy didn’t want the press and the public to fixate on his criminal past, which could throw shade onto the Party, and Shermont came off sounding like a bourgeois college student, so his presence made the Party look better in the press. After Bunchy passed, though, Shermont faded away into oblivion. The last thing I heard about him was that he had been expelled.
Then there were those who disappeared who weren’t asked to leave but whose commitment was shaky because of outside influences. People like Larry Scales, a Watts native and captain in the Party, just kind of drifted away; in Larry’s case, many of us believed he left because he had gotten hooked on dope. It’s hard to handle the commitment the Party required and to chase drugs at the same time.
The Central Committee was giving us more attention. In April, Chairman Bobby Seale again traveled to Los Angeles to meet with us and to reiterate the Central Committee’s position that we should not engage in war with Us. We were reminded of Bunchy’s mandate that we were not at war with other black people. Our fight was against the system of oppression, so we needed to honor Bunchy by not going to war with Us. While he was in town, Chairman Seale also spoke at Los Angeles Trade Technical College to recruit and to inform people about the community service work of the Party, such as the Free Breakfast Program. I provided security for him during his visit.
Interestingly, as we attempted to put things back in order, people started demonstrating their love and support for Bunchy, John, and the Black Panther Party. Posters of Bunchy were showing up everywhere—on the walls at community centers, even in liquor stores—and his poems were being recited at major events. We hoped that this public attention would remind people of the ideas Bunchy stood for and to support the work he and John sacrificed their lives for.
However, I still wasn’t satisfied with the explanations about what really went down at UCLA. I kept wondering how some suckers could just kill Bunchy Carter like that. Hell, Bunchy was the leader of the Renegade Slausons, the most dangerous gang in Los Angeles. No one could lead the Renegade Slausons without a serious edge, and Bunchy had that edge. He knew how to engage in warfare. Why wasn’t there real muscle in the room with Bunchy and John when everything went down? Where were G, Al, and Nathaniel, the people who would have put some bullet holes into those Simbas and protected Bunchy and John? I needed some answers. I didn’t want to find myself in a similar situation with some Simbas and no defense coming from my comrades.
In fact, Al was at UCLA the day Bunchy and John were killed. I asked Al, “Where was G when the shooting went down?”
Al told me that Bunchy had asked G to go and visit a friend at UCLA’s Medical Center.
“But Al, that doesn’t make sense to me. Why the hell would Bunchy do that, knowing how dangerous those Karangatangs were?
Al looked at me. “I can’t get into Bunchy’s head. The whole day was a little off to me.”
What I believe happened played out like this: Bunchy and John are at a meeting. Elaine gets into an altercation with this Tuwala fool. Bunchy pulls her to the side, but John is trying to defend Elaine. And of course John would do that, because he and Elaine were in a sexual relationship. John pulls a gun out, and Bunchy tries to defuse the situation, as always. But Bunchy didn’t even have a gun because he didn’t want to be intimating. Now, if G, Blue, Roland or Ronald Freeman, or Long John had been in the room with Bunchy, things wouldn’t have gone down like that.