Showdown in Desire: The Black Panthers Take a Stand in New Orleans

8. Just before the Shootout

8 Just before the Shootout What was it like in and around Desire just before the cataclysmic shootout occurred? There seem to be as many stories as there were people down there that night. It was a Monday, the night youth from the project and elsewhere gathered in and around Panther headquarters for Public Education (PE). There was an unusually large crowd for PE this night, more than fifty. Police had been stepping up surveillance (some say harassment), residents believed, in an attempt to provoke a confrontation with the Panthers. For their part, the Panthers had had enough of pretending they did not know that Israel Fields and Melvin Howard were under cover. People sensed the tensions and gathered at headquarters to find out what was going on. The Panther headquarters wasn’t just an office; it was also their home. Panther families lived on Piety Street communally, sharing resources, labor, fundraising and organizing tasks, and responsibilities for parenting. They had a close relationship with many Desire residents. Additionally, many outsiders came to Desire that night, either curious or wanting to help. I’ve captured descriptions of what that mean Monday was like from the perspectives of a white history teacher and his wife; a white Panther lawyer named Robert Glass; reporters from the alternative NOLA Express; Warren Brown, a black reporter for the States-Item; Israel Fields, one of the undercover officers; Panther Malik Rahim; and Panther Althea Francois, who had the horrific job of minding the children that night. Another alleged kidnapping in Desire caught the attention of the 55 media—this time the mainstream media—just before the shootout. A white couple had ventured into the project on the evening of September 14, they said, because they had been told that white people should come into the project area “to keep police from getting carried away.” The Times-Picayune reported that the couple had been attacked by the people they tried to help. According to the report, neither Peter Wolslawski, a history teacher at L. W. Landry Junior High School, nor his wife, Evelyn, expressed hatred for those who beat them. “’How much must have been done to those people for them to hate so much?’” asked Peter, who received two black eyes and a fractured cheekbone. “’I’m not a saint, but I don’t hate them.’”1 According to Evelyn Wolslawski, after she and her husband were pulled out of opposite sides of the car, her captors took her to a dark room in an old building where sandbags were stacked up to the windows and furniture was piled on furniture. She said a man hit her with a gun, causing her to pass out. “She said she did not remember if she provoked the assault.”2 When she regained consciousness, she found herself lying alone outside. She then flagged down a car, she said, and a black man took her home to Gretna.3 One report stated that she had been kidnapped and woke up naked from the waist down.4 But many people who were in Desire, including Malik Rahim and Panther attorney Ernest Jones, say the newspapers were wrong. Mrs. Wolslawski was so drunk she didn’t know where she was or what she was doing, according to them. Desire residents took pity on her and made sure she got home safely, they say. 5 The Times-Picayune reported Jones as saying that the allegation about the white couple being dragged from their car was an “absolute lie,” because they had walked into the area. He didn’t doubt that they were beaten, but he said it was unfortunate that the couple was there at a time when emotions were running so high.6 Whatever happened, Mrs. Wolslawski’s statement to the paper about not remembering whether she had provoked the alleged attack could be explained by an excess of alcohol, an excess of liberal white guilt, or both. Mrs. Wolslawski’s description of the room she had been taken to by her “captors” sounded a lot like the Piety Street Panther headquarters to the police. But eventually, the story of the assault, which JuSt Before the Shootout 56 possibly didn’t hold together well under closer scrutiny, just seemed to go away. On the evening of September 14 it was getting dark outside of Robert Glass’s central city New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation (NOLAC) of...