By Kiilu Nyasha (a.k.a. Pat Gallyot)
This year of 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding
of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, October 1966, in Oakland,
California.
In 1968, prior to joining the Party, I was employed by Community
Progress, Inc. (CPI), the nation’s pilot program of President Lyndon Johnson’s “War
on Poverty,” also euphemistically called “The Great Society.”
I became one of the “Field Trainers” deployed in each of the seven
impoverished neighborhoods of New Haven, Conn.
Assigned to the predominately Black area of Newhallville, I worked at
the Teen Center, a government facility that eventually became the cite for the
Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program; launched by a town hall meeting
and a popular vote.
My work for the Community Action Institute (CPI) was to organize the community around
practically every issue relevant to the needs of the residents. However, on
doing so, I quickly came under attack and was eventually fired. The intention
of this so-called “war on poverty” was in fact NOT to serve the people; but to
set up neighborhood corporations run by local governments to monitor and
control community activists and quell any potential resistance.
As part of my job, I had been attending (without overtime pay) numerous
community meetings re health care, lead-paint poisoning, education, housing,
etc.; working with various groups, such as “Welfare Moms,” already addressing
those issues.
Upon recognizing the divide & rule tactics of CPI, and joining with
community leaders from each neighborhood, some of us formed a group called “Seven
Together.” Of course, such organizing got me in hot water fast.
At nearly every community meeting, I would encounter Black Panthers who
were organizing on a strictly volunteer basis.
Once I was fired, I quickly discovered there was no safety net. I couldn’t
get unemployment insurance because both of the jobs I’d had -- working for Yale
and the Government – disqualified me. So I went to the City Welfare Department
where I was offered $25 a week to support my son (9) and myself.
“What!!? I was giving you nearly double that in taxes per week, I told
them (paraphrasing). How was I supposed to pay my rent, my bills, support my
child on such a pittance?”
At that time, 1969, Panthers across the nation had come under vicious
attack by J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) and by
year’s end a reported 28 Panthers had been murdered by police. The most blatant
murders of Panthers happened on December 4, 1969 in the Chicago chapter when
police raided the Panther pad in the pre-dawn, premeditated murder of Fred
Hampton, 21, and Mark Clark, 20.
I knew then it was time to stand up.
I decided to join the Party and commit myself to a lifetime of
revolutionary struggle. We single moms
pooled our AFDC (Aid for Dependent Children) checks and lived communally,
sharing all our resources.
Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Chicago Chapter, was a dynamite organizer
who brought together the first rainbow coalition and called on folks to “Repeat
after me; I AM a revolutionary!”
He was also very conscious of the struggles of Black people throughout
the diaspora and particularly in Haiti.
He denounced the infamous brutal dictator known as Papa Doc Duvalier who
was conducting a reign of terror on the Haitian people fighting for dignity and
human rights.
Since I was one of the oldest members of the Party (30!) comprised
mostly of youth in their teens and early 20’s; and one of the few with an
employment history, office skills, and church experience in quantity cooking, I
started off working as the Breakfast Program Coordinator. (Later on, I was recruited to work as legal
secretary to the Panther lawyers on the two capital trials of Panthers Lonnie
McLucas and the joint trial of Chairman Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins.) I continued to do community organizing as a
rank and file Panther in the New Haven Chapter.
I loved working at the breakfast program, despite the difficulties of
getting up at before 5 a.m. to rally the troops and begin the task of feeding
scores of kids every weekday morning. Sending young students to school with a
full stomach instead of going hungry was very gratifying.
There were no food stamps at that time, no school lunch programs in the
City. What shocked me and raised my
political consciousness was when we found ourselves under attack for feeding
hungry kids.
I’m reminded here of Father Jean Juste of Haiti who was brutalized and
imprisoned for feeding hungry children in Haiti. May he rest in peace.