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49 CHAPTER 2 The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense AFTER ABOUT A MONTH OF GOING IN AND out of their office on Fifty-sixth and Grove in Oakland openly displaying their weapons, the moment of truth finally arrived.1 Bobby Seale wrote that by early 1967 “Huey was on a level where he was ready to organize the black brothers for a righteous revolutionary struggle with guns and force.” In addition to its founders, the Black Panther Party’s members at this time included Sherman and Reginald Forte, Bobby Hutton, and Elbert Howard. Hoping for the opportunity to demonstrate to the community that their philosophy and tactics helped advance the cause of black liberation, they held political education classes daily in an attempt to bring ideological uniformity to the group. They also had sessions where they learned how to break down, clean, and reassemble weapons, to fire them, and to handle them safely. Newton wrote, “a number of people who [he] knew had just come from Vietnam, and they helped train [the Panthers] in weaponry.” Oakland resident John Sloane, who had been in the military, gave the group its first lessons on “field stripping and shooting,” according to Seale. (The following chapters further address the Vietnam connection in the following chapters.) One frigid day in early February 1967, several well-armed Panthers were leaving the office when an Oakland police officer cruised by. The officer continued down the street, radioed to headquarters then quickly made a U-turn and drove back toward the Panthers, who were by then getting into their car to leave. Just as they expected, the police officer pulled behind them. Newton instructed everybody in the car to remain silent because, according to Seale, he said “the minute somebody says something, the man is going to try to arrest you for some jive about interfering with an officer carrying out his duty” or “on a traffic ticket.” The people who were “subject to gather around” them would then “think he arrested you because you’ve got the gun. We want to prove to the people that we’ve got the right to carry guns and they’ve got a right to arm themselves and we will exhaust our constitutional right to carry these guns.”2 Once all the Panthers agreed Newton would do the talking, the scene began to shift. Like a seasoned director, Huey guided the situation through a series of phases that demonstrated his point to the average person . He complied with the officer’s request to see his driver’s license and verbally confirmed that all the information on it was correct. Not until after the officer asked for Newton’s phone number did the situation grow more tense. Huey responded by saying “five,” which he said referred to the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. He told the officer, “I don’t have to give you anything but my identification, name and address. So therefore I don’t even want to talk to you,” and demanded the officer get away from his car and leave him alone. “I don’t even want to hear you,” he said. Newton proceeded to explicate on the Constitution and a citizen ’s right “not to testify against himself.” Referring to this incident, Seale wrote, “this is where all the shit between the Party and the pigs began.”3 As the encounter continued to escalate, Newton had his M-1 rifle in full view and Bobby Seale had his 9 mm pistol on the seat beside him. Three other police cars pulled onto the scene. One of the arriving officers inquired about what had been going on and asked if he could take a look at the 9 mm sitting beside Seale. Newton yelled “no” and then told the officer to “Get away from the car. We don’t want you around the car and that’s all there is to it.” With the situation clearly escalating, one of the officers asked Newton, “Who in the hell do you think you are?” to which Newton replied, “who in the hell do you think YOU are? . . . We have a constitutional right to carry the guns anyway, and I don’t want to hear it.” With his M-1 in tow, Newton proceeded to exit the car. All the policemen immediately retreated a few steps as they watched Newton jack a round into the gun’s chamber. By that point the scene had become electric as dozens of people gathered...

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