Black Panthers
During the summer of 1968 extensive organizing went on to defend Black Panther Party chairman Huey P. Newton, who was facing murder charges in the death of an Oakland policeman during a shootout the previous year.
The Black Panthers had a dynamic life in San Francisco. Some participants in the Black Student Union at San Francisco State College, who led a lengthy strike in 1968-69 partly on behalf of a fired instructor who was a Panther, went on to participate in Black Panther Party organizing. From their founding in the mid-1960s to the many attacks that led to their slow disintegration, many of the key participants moved back and forth between the East Bay and San Francisco during the crucial years 1967-1974. In the aftermath of Newton's conviction for voluntary manslaughter, reporter Earl Caldwell visited a Fillmore Street storefront occupied by the Panthers and published this on Sept. 10, 1968 in the New York Times:
In front of the cluttered storefront they occupy on Fillmore Street, the Black Panthers gathered early today to expressing their range.
"You better stick around, a tall, lanky youth quietly advised. "In a few days there is going to be war."
A jury in nearby Oakland: had found their leader, Huey P. Newton, guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the death of an Oakland policeman. Unless the decision is reversed, it will mean a prison term for Newton of 2 to 15 years. It was a decision the Panthers could not accept.
But not all members of the organization talked of war.
"We don't want any emotional outbreak," one of the Panther leaders explained. We don't want anything to break out that will give them [the police] the chance to shoot us down. They are hoping that we will do something like that but we are passing the word to our people to be cool."
However, in the streets talk of violence persists.
"From this day on the war is on until black people are free," another of the Panthers on the street said. "This is it and we know it."
Even before the jury came up with its verdict the Panthers were preparing to move. In the back room of an apartment deep in the Fillmore slum a bearded youth in an Afro hair style uncovered a stack of rifles that was only partly hidden in a dark corner.
He said nothing but began wrapping the weapons in robes and old blankets, preparing to transport them to Oakland, where Newton has been jailed for nearly a year.
"The verdict is irrelevant," the youth said. "The sky is the limit."
Inside the storefront headquarters early today a tall, husky man who said that his name was D.C. spoke about the verdict.
"Our position is that he should have been set free," he began. "It was a racist decision by a racist court."
Like most of the Panthers,D.C. wore his hair Afro style. But the beret and the familiar black leather jacket were missing. As tensions here have increased, most of the Panthers ,have decided not to wear jackets that make clear their identity.
D.C. said he thought Newton should be set free. "The brother should be on the streets today,” he said. But he added that he was not surprised by the verdict. The most I expected," he said, "was a hung jury."
This is the proposal by the Black Panthers for a community policing system based on racial districts:
