The Southern California chapter had suffered heavy losses. Within a year, the cops had assassinated three of our comrades, and the Us Organization had murdered four. And then there was Captain Franco, who got three bullets in the head because of an internal Party riff. Sure, I was aware of casualties in other chapters: the cops killed Bobby Hutton in April 1968 in Oakland, and Alex Rackley from the New York chapter was found dead in Middlefield, Connecticut, in May 1969. But our chapter seemed especially hard-hit. Despite the blitz of dirty tricks, espionage, and bloody murder, I understood that such danger was the consequence of our no-compromise position on self-defense, and our stance would lead to even more casualties—maybe including me one day. I chose to live with that reality and take it one day at a time.
During one of those stressful days, while I was working at the Watts office, this fine, sassy, brown-skinned girl walked in. She had a beautiful laugh and sparkling eyes. I welcomed her and introduced myself. Her name was Pam, she said, and she had dropped by the office with her friends on the way home from Jordan High School. I was playing a speech by Eldridge Cleaver—we made sure the community could hear speeches by putting the speakers outside. Pam and her friends stopped to hear the speech, so I engaged them in conversation. At some point in the exchange, I asked for her phone number, and to my delight, she gave it to me. I called her a few days later. We set up a date for Friday night and planned to meet at her home in the Imperial Courts project.
I took Tyrone with me to Pam’s because one never knew who might turn up in the projects. When we got there, we were surprised to find out that her father was Big Ed, or, as some called him, the Golden Arm. “Hey, don’t I know you?” he asked, looking straight at me.
“Yes, sir!” I exclaimed. “Big Ed, good to see you. What a surprise! How’s that golden arm of yours?” I stuck my hand out to shake his. I hoped he wasn’t going to give me a hard time for taking his daughter out.
Big Ed nodded. He grabbed my hand and held it firmly. “You kids have a nice time tonight,” he said to me. “Stay out of trouble, you hear?”
“Absolutely,” I replied, “we will.”
Big Ed was a pool hustler who hung out at the All Nations Pool Hall and at Sportsman’s Billiards on Broadway. We hung out in the area a lot; there was a movie theater, a bowling alley, a hair salon, a chicken shack, and a Thrifty’s right around there. The red bus came through Watts and Compton; it stopped at Manchester and Broadway. What a small world! Big Ed used to teach us how to play pool.
During our evening together, Pam let me know that she was in a relationship. Of course, I was too. Earlier that year, in January, Sharon informed me that she was pregnant. We knew that having a baby would change our lives, but we were committed to each other. Even though Sharon was my woman, I was having a good time that evening with Pam. So, I decided to put in the full-court press anyway and got her into bed. We made passionate love and then kissed good-bye. She was a fine lady, and it was a wonderful interlude; it helped calm me from the intensity of the Party work and police pressure.
A few months after meeting Pam, Sharon had our baby. I was now a father with family responsibilities. Sharon was in Pasadena when the baby was born, and I immediately went to see her and my new daughter, Tammy. I was glad to have a baby, and I knew Tammy would be my legacy. Nanny and my mother enjoyed having a new child in the family to fuss over too.
I wanted to be there for this new family I had created, but there was no way I could just end my commitment to the struggle. I found myself living in two worlds: one where I was Dad, just a regular guy with Sharon and our baby, and one where I was a revolutionary, head of the BSU and member of the Black Panther Party, focused on community service and self-defense. I felt it was important for me to continue my service to the people. I wanted so badly for my daughter to grow up in a world different from ours: a world where social justice was a value our society embraced and where black people could walk the streets freely, without being harassed or killed because of our skin color.
But the pigs were not about to accept a group of black men who weren’t afraid to fight back. And they identified me as one of those men: my work with the Panthers in Watts had begun to increase my visibility. When I was at the office, from time to time, the police would circle our building. And when they were driving by, sometimes they’d pause and look me dead in my face to purposely let me know they recognized me.
How much they recognized me, though, didn’t become clear to me until one particular day, when I was standing in front of the office talking to some children who were passing by. Inside were about four or five students listening to tapes and reading some literature. We had a lot of activity going on that day. It was sunny outside, and I was feeling good about our status in the community and especially pleased with the good work we were doing for them. In the course of my conversation with the kids outside, I noticed a blue Plymouth drive by a few times. I could tell that these were special agents in plain clothes, riding in an unmarked car.
They eventually stopped the car right in front, where I was standing. The pig on the side closest to me rolled down his window and looked me straight in the eye, with unveiled hatred behind his squinting glare.
“Hey, we just left Sacramento, where we raided the office and took some of you niggers down,” he sneered. “So, before we have to bust all of you, let us come in so we can check out what’s going on in there.”
“Do you have a search warrant?” I said defiantly, before turning and walking back into the office. The kids I was talking to had already scattered.
“No, and we don’t need one,” the cop said with a smirk.
“Then you can’t come in,” I replied, and closed the door.
Once inside, I didn’t want to alarm the students, who were studying intently. I turned to James calmly and said to him quietly, “Undercover cops are outside and they want to come in.”
James immediately went to get his shotgun so he could stand guard behind the door, just in case they went crazy. I glanced out the window and saw both policemen get out of their car and approach our building. A hush fell over the students, who were now listening closely. The police didn’t bother to knock; one of them just grabbed the door and rattled the doorknob, trying to open it. “Let us in,” he barked.
“No, you can’t come in,” I yelled back.
Silence.
They stood outside for a while, looking over the premises and trying to peer through the window. As they got ready to leave, one of them said to me, “We will see you again, Wayne.”
A chill went down my spine. I knew they had come to disrupt our operations. But what I hadn’t known until that moment was that the cops knew my name.
Now that I knew I had become a target, I began to take extra precautionary steps, especially when I was by myself, to avoid a run-in with the police. I walked on the opposite side of the street so I could see the cars coming. That way I could bank to the left if I saw a pig. I also avoided riding in cars, so I wouldn’t get jacked up at a stop.
In the early summer of 1969, the Watts office got a much-needed injection of fresh energy. Walter Touré Pope, Bruce Richards, Kibo, Hasawa, Chris Means, and Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald all walked into the Watts office to join the Party. They had done time together at Tracy and had made a pact to connect with us upon their release. The day they came by, I was officer of the day; my job was to make sure the office was staffed at all times, the phones were covered, and we were ready to handle any situation that might require our attention. I was reading the newspaper in the early afternoon when all six of them walked in. I noticed right away that they were all yoked-up from lifting weights. Based on that alone, I figured they had all done some time. Their ages ranged from about eighteen to twenty-three, which was similar to most of us in the Los Angeles branch of the Party at that time. They wore a combination of army coats, bush jackets, leather jackets, and Levi’s, which let me know they were interested in putting in some work for the people.
As I checked out their faces, I immediately recognized Hasawa, who had gone to school with me at Edison Junior High School. Back then he went by Lemelle James, but he changed his name as he had become more conscious of the black struggle. Hasawa was friends with Leroy Williams, my main dog back then. Hasawa had gotten kicked out of Markham Junior High in Watts, so he was transfered to Edison. But some of the Edison boys, like Big Munson, wanted to jump Hasawa because he was from Watts. Munson would later become a leader of the Avenues, one of the baddest gangs in Los Angeles during the 1980s and 1990s. But Leroy and I kept Munson and his boys off of Hasawa by letting it be known that he was our homeboy and that we were willing to go down with him. Munson knew us, so he let it go.
Right away, Hasawa and I acknowledged each other with the black power salute. “Right on,” we said in unison.
“It’s good to see you again,” I said.
“What’s happening, Wayne?” he grinned. “I didn’t know you had joined the Party.”
“Man, I’ve been here for a while now, trying to give power to the people. I hope you’re here to join. I know you could add strength to what we do.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Hasawa replied with a nod. Hasawa’s strength and street cred would bring people in that he knew from the streets. I’d be glad to have him on board. “I haven’t seen you in a long time; where have you been?” I asked.
“Been hanging with this crew up at Tracy,” he said as he pointed to the other men he had walked in with.
Hasawa told me they had all been there for typical ghetto crimes, like car theft and robbery. But while they were in prison they educated themselves by reading revolutionary books by Frantz Fanon and Malcolm X, as well as Mao’s Red Book. They were also getting information about the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and realized they wanted to join to help end the brutal systems of capitalism and racism.
Kibo, whose real name was Virgil Smith, was also from Watts. He was wearing a leather coat and sported a Fu Manchu mustache, which I thought was stylish. He was a cool brother who was more considerate than a lot of us soldiers. Next was Bruce Richards, who hailed from Compton. He was a tall brother, about six foot two, and had a very intelligent demeanor. Bruce would become a recognized player in the Party. He brought mental toughness and a fighting spirit and worked every day and everywhere. He might be at the breakfast program in the morning, the Watts office in the afternoon, and then later at a rally to provide security. Bruce wore a lot of hats and could be counted on to be available.
The fourth brother was Chris Means, also from Watts. He was a serious foot soldier, which meant that he wasn’t coming into the Party looking for glory. Chris was down for doing mundane work, hard work, all the work; it didn’t matter to him, he’d do what was needed. Although Chris liked getting high—especially drinking Bitter Dog and taking pills—he could come down long enough to work for the Party. Every now and then I had a drink with Chris to discuss his time at Tracy and talk about Party work.
Romaine Fitzgerald, whom we called Chip, was a short brother, strong and muscular. He spoke at a fast pace and had a lot of ideas and plans he wanted to implement. Like the others, Chip was dedicated and participated in a number of Party programs, such as tutoring kids, selling papers, and building the Free Breakfast Program.
Of the group that came in that day, it was obvious that Walter “Touré” Pope was the driving force. A striking image in his dark leather coat, he reached out to shake my hand. “They call me Touré, after Sekou Touré, the first African president of Guinea,” he said with a firm grip on my hand.
“I like that, man,” I nodded in welcome, returning his firm handshake. “Where you from?”
“These parts.” He waved his hand in a broad stroke. “We’ve been looking forward to becoming a part of the organized struggle for a while. What do we need to do to get started?”
“First, you got to start coming to our political education classes on a regular basis. Then you’ll receive training on how to work with the people, sell papers, and work our community service programs. If you’re ready, we can start now,” I suggested.
All the brothers turned to me, in a booming chorus of “Yeah, brother!” and “Right on!” I respected their enthusiasm; I was glad to have them on board.
Touré became a fund-raiser for the breakfast program and sold and distributed the Black Panther newspaper with zeal. Early on, the leadership recognized his ability to lead and take initiative. It wasn’t long, in fact, before Long John and G tried to recruit him away from the Watts office by assigning him duties at Central—after he had only been in the Party for a few weeks. Despite their efforts, Touré and I continued to work together, even if it wasn’t full time. He loved the Watts office, so he came in from time to time to help out. We worked together well and established a strong bond.
Added to the members we had already, these new recruits put the Watts office off the charts. The energy flow was high, and our adrenaline was pumping day and night. Around the time the new crew joined, Al had given me the charge of sprucing up the office. I decided to use the new recruits to help liberate some wood, paintbrushes, and other equipment. I chose Chip and Touré, who were definitely up for the task. We found what we needed at a construction site operating in Watts. We staked the place out for a few days to determine the best way and time to enter and gain access to what we needed.
One quiet evening, we broke the locks on the fence, walked onto the site, and took the equipment. Touré served as our lookout to make sure the police didn’t catch us. It took about thirty minutes to get what we needed. Back at the office, within just a few days, we fortified the windows and doors with the material we had lifted. We also painted the office and gave it the newer, fresher look it deserved. The office building had been white, and the new paint was also white, so we weren’t concerned that the upgrade would create any unwanted attention from the cops.
Over time, I realized the sound of my name was ringing though the streets, even though I had no police record and I wasn’t part of the Bunchy-Geronimo goon squads. It was because of my organizing skills and the relationship I had built with the community on behalf of the Panthers. I was sure of that.
The cops finally decided to vamp on me that August. On the day it came down, I had been assigned to security at a Panther rally for Huey Newton at South Park. After the rally was over, I hopped in the car with Lux, who was playing taxi in Al’s blue Volkswagen, driving people home. Also with us were Touré, Rachel, and Robert Williams. Rachel was a Panther based in Watts with us. She had joined before I did and worked closely with James and Larry Scales. Her involvement was sporadic, but this was one of the times she came through. We called Robert Williams “Caveman,” because he was a really big brother who wore a wild, curly Afro. He also looked like he had a lot of Indian in him. I met Caveman at the Teen Post when we were in high school; we hung out at his house sometimes, smoking weed, drinking, and getting into fights on Main Street. When Caveman became a Panther he worked out of the Broadway office, then later switched to Watts.
Lux was driving Rachel home first, because she was closest. She asked him to stop by the office on the way because she had left her notebook there. “OK, no problem. That’s a quick stop,” Lux said agreeably. We were all in a pretty good mood after the success of the day’s rally, so nobody minded.
We pulled up to the big, black iron gate in front of the office that we kept closed by using a big rock. Caveman got out and opened it so we could go in. At the same time, I noticed that an old, overweight street cop who went by the name of Cigar had pulled up. Cigar was the kind of cop who tried to know everybody, and he acted like he was the sheriff of Watts. The word on the street was that he was called Cigar because he used to walk around with an old chewed-up cigar in his mouth. We all saw him but stayed cool and went about our business, although everyone was watching him closely out of the corner of their eye.
“Hey,” Cigar snarled at us gruffly, stepping out of the shadows. “Let me see your driver’s licenses.”
Still cool, we all acquiesced to his demands without saying a word, handing over our IDs. While he was pawing our licenses, I noticed that he had a partner with him who’d stayed in the squad car. Then I noticed Metro watching from a distance. Cigar returned our IDs and started to walk away.
As he walked, he turned around and looked back. “You’re never going to make twenty-one,” he said directly to me.
I laughed at him, while thinking to myself, That’s what you think, greasy-ass pig. If I die, we’re going down together.
After Cigar and his partner left, we got back in the car and Lux headed down 103rd Street toward Rachel’s, and then he made a right on Wilmington. “Comrades, don’t look now,” Lux said in a composed tone, “but I think Metro is behind us.”
“Take it slow,” I said evenly. Suddenly everyone was quiet.
As if it was some sort of cue, as soon as we crossed 108th Street, sirens were suddenly screaming at us and flashing red lights were assaulting us through the car windows. Calmly, Lux pulled over. Four or five cars had come from out of nowhere and now they surrounded us.
As we were sitting there, one of the pigs shouted, “All of you, get out of the car!”
We opened the door; they had their guns drawn. One of them reached in and started yanking us out one at a time as he barked at us: “Put your hands on the fence!”
We all walked toward the fence, then put our hands up, facing away from the cops. They grabbed our wallets and checked our IDs, one at a time. Apparently, the pigs had the office staked out, waiting for us. And they had one of the neighborhood dope fiends with them.
When they got to me, she pointed at me and said, “That’s him. That’s Wayne Pharr right there.”
I thought to myself, What the fuck?! Why are they looking for me?!
“So you’re Wayne Pharr?”
Things were happening too fast, so I didn’t say anything; I just turned and looked at them.
“Put your goddamn face up on a fence!” one of them yelled.
As I did, one pig kicked me dead in my ass. Of course, my first reaction was to jerk back around, which I did. I recognized him: this was the pig called Hole, and I had seen him hanging around Panthers before. Hole pushed me off the fence, out into the street, and started waling at my head with his nightstick.
My immediate reaction when he started beating me for no reason was to try to defuse the situation. With my arms covering my head, I yelled, “Hey man, hold it; wait a minute! Stop! What’s going on?”
His response was to amplify his efforts, busting me upside my head with even more venom. I had a big natural back in that day, so I think my hair cushioned the blows a little. But when he hit me with his stick again, I knew I had to fight back to stop this fool from killing me. I put my shoulder into his chest and pushed him back up against the fence. This pig was bigger than me, and he had his arms up over my head. For a split second, I thought about grabbing his gun and busting a cap in his ass, but I could hear the other cops behind me, jacking rounds into their shotguns: yack, yack, yack. I decided against that move and just went limp instead.
A group of them swarmed me and commenced to beat my ass. This was a time I was glad I had been on the gymnastics team in high school and had done the parallel bars. I’d also been the only one with a set of real boxing gloves in the neighborhood, which I’d used for what we called box-offs. My fitness and strength base paid off: the entire time the pigs were beating me, I never passed out.
After they swarmed me, one cop named Fisher put me in a choke-hold. I had on a pair of army boots, which delivered enough power that I was able to kick one of the cops off me. But Fisher still had me in a chokehold and was really trying to take me out. I felt like I might pass out, but desperate for air, I found the strength to reach back, grab his ears, and yank hard, which made him let go. He let go at the last second, and I sucked in a deep breath. Two cops were still on me, each one holding one of my legs. Fisher went at it again, trying to choke me out; these pigs were working me over pretty good. While all this was going on, I could briefly see Touré turn around, as if he was coming to my aid—but one of the pigs stuck a shotgun in his mouth and shouted at him, “Turn around and get back on the fence!” There wasn’t a thing he could do.
A crowd of folks from the neighborhood had formed around us and began shouting at the pigs. Someone started to throw rocks, so the pigs put handcuffs on me and threw me in the backseat, as if they were taking me to jail. That was a good move for them, because it got them out of the neighborhood. I had no idea what was happening to Touré, Lux, Rachel, and Caveman.
I was sitting in the backseat, thinking that they were taking me to jail. But instead, they drove a few blocks down the street and started beating my ass again. Fisher was in the backseat with me, hitting me in my kidneys with his stick. Hole, who was driving, had one hand on the steering wheel and with the other hand was reaching back to strike me with his heavy flashlight.
There I was ducking and jumping, trying to protect myself as best I could, when Hole took a swipe at me and broke his flashlight. I thanked God for that, but with the flashlight broken, he pulled out his gun and stuck it straight at my forehead. “I oughta kill your black ass right now!” he exclaimed.
“You can’t kill me. You already called it in,” I replied.
“You ignorant bastard!” he laughed. “I’ll kill you, they’ll send me to the Valley for a month, they’ll give your mother a nice write-up in the Sentinel newspaper, and I’ll be back out here shooting the rest of your friends.”
I couldn’t believe that pig Hole had actually said that to me. I replied, “All right, you’ve got the power.” Asshole.
They kept driving me around, kept beating my ass. At one point, we reached Will Rogers Park. One of the cops pulled me out of the car. “Run, you black motherfucker!” he yelled.
I stood there, frozen, with my head down.
He yelled again. “Run if you want to live!”
I wouldn’t run because I knew that if I did, they would shoot me in the back. That wasn’t going to happen.
Fisher pushed me back in the car, and Hole started hitting me with his stick again. I looked at him and realized that he was holding himself while he was hitting me. This is a crazy, sick bastard, I thought. He’s getting off on this shit.
We began riding around again. They took me to different places: to the back of the Goodyear plant on Florence and Central and then on the freeway, where they acted like they were going to push me out of the car. After that, they started hitting me again.
I was getting tired, and they must’ve been tired too, because they finally drove me toward the hospital on Manchester and Denker. I wasn’t sure if we were really going to the hospital, so I pointed out a homosexual club on Manchester. Since Hole was holding himself and got off on beating people, I wanted to give him somewhere else to go to possibly find somebody else to beat. That fool asked me, “Where? Where’s the club of freaks?”
I said, “Right there!” with a nod in the direction of the club.
“All right,” he said, and they took me to the hospital.
Back when I was low-riding, one of my friends had a neighbor who was a nurse at that hospital. When we pulled up, she came out, took one look at me, and immediately placed herself between the pigs and me to keep them off of me. Then she got word to my friend Lewis, who let my family know what had happened and where I was. I never knew that nurse’s name, but she saved my life that night.
I let the doctor know that I was in a lot of pain. He examined me and found no broken bones or teeth knocked out. He gave me some pain medication and ice for the bruising and released me back to the cops.
The pigs put me back into their squad car and then took me to the jail over at the Seventy-Seventh Street police station. They shoved me into the interrogation room, behind one of those two-way mirrors, so that all the pigs could come and check me out. While I was waiting, I found the strength to do a few push-ups and sit-ups to show them I was still ready. Several of the undercover officers came to get a look at me. Pointing their guns, they tried to scare me. “We’re gonna kill you, Wayne. Then we’re gonna bury you with Geronimo, Blue, and Ronald.”
That sadistic pig Hole came into the interrogation room. “How are you feeling, baby boy?” he sneered.
I gave him my middle finger. “Your ass-whipping days are over, you disgusting pig.”
“What did you say?” he growled.
“If I see you on the street and I’m packing, I’m going to put one in you!” I replied coolly.
“Repeat that!” he challenged.
I repeated myself, and it was on between us.
They put me into a one-man cell with thick glass windows, away from the general population, so that they could see me at all times. They came into the room and told me with a laugh that they had a bounty on all of us. The bounty for G was $2,000, they said, and they might get $500 for me.
This was my first time going to jail, but I felt that I would be OK. I knew folks in jail from the neighborhood, like Floyd Bell, who would look out for me.
I was moved around to different places in the jail for the next couple of days. Eventually, my mother was able to bail me out. As we were walking outside, my mother could barely recognize me. She wanted to hug me, but she was afraid to touch me. “Wayne, have you seen your face?” she sobbed.
My head was lopsided, my ears were like cauliflowers, and my lips were puffed up and busted open. I had two black eyes, and breathing was still difficult. I had wounds around my neck from when they tried to strangle me.
“Yeah, Mom,” I mumbled, not knowing how to console her. “But there ain’t nothing I can do about it now.”
If you weren’t already an angry black man, an experience like that would make you one. I was charged and convicted of assaulting a police officer. I was given one year’s probation. During the sentencing, the judge couldn’t look me in the eye, seeing how brutally the police had fucked me up.
After I was released from jail, I stayed home with my mother, who had just purchased a home in Inglewood. Nanny came by the house, too, to make sure I was healing properly. They openly voiced their desire for me to get out of the Party. Sharon came by and brought Tammy. I was so happy to see my baby girl. And as much as Sharon wanted to support my work, she echoed my mom and Nanny. I pretended I didn’t hear them.
I rested for about a week, and then I went right back to work at the Watts office. I walked in and immediately saw Lux. He came up to me with a bewildered look on his face. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and we embraced.
“What happened to everyone else?” I asked.
“They roughed us up and let us go. We thought they’d killed you.”