Panther Baby by Jamal Joseph Page B

senior citizen across the street and up the stairs with her groceries.
    Guns were around, but in a drawer or a closet, and not as constant companions to Panthers on duty. Once a week or so there would be weapons safety training and military drill with the purpose of giving young Panthers the skills needed to protect the Panther office or home in the event of an attack or police raid. Th ere was a lot of talk in Panther literature and speeches about armed revolution, but it was made clear that the duty of a Panther was to organize and teach so that the political consciousness of the broad masses of people could be raised to the point that they were ready to engage in revolution. We were taught that the revolution could not be fought or won without the people and that if the masses were organized and unified enough that armed struggle might not even be necessary.
    Th at being said and at least partially understood, I couldn’t wait for my chance to fight and if need be to die in the people’s revolution. It’s what young Panthers talked about. Next to the poster of Che was a poster of Panther man-child hero Bobby Hutton, who was the first Panther to join at age fifteen and the first Panther to be killed at age seventeen.
    I spent most of my time in the Panther office or engaged in Panther activities. I was a pretty good public speaker, with an ability to adapt the best lines from Rap Brown, Bobby Seale, Malcolm X, and Harlem Panther leaders and to make them sound like my own. I would be in lunchrooms and hallways of high schools around the city organizing students into Black Student Union chapters, a sister group of the Black Panther Party. Older Panther leaders like Lumumba and Afeni took notice of me, and I got promoted to section leader in charge of the youth cadre.
    Th e more I rolled with the Panthers, the more my grades fell off. I went from As to Cs in most of my subjects. “School is irrelevant,” I would shout at high school rallies. “ Th e struggle is about making progressive change on the university of the streets.”
    Not only was my school work falling off, I was also slacking on my home chores. Noonie would have to remind me to take out the garbage, clean the cat litter box, and help her get the groceries home on Saturday morning. She was constantly on me about making up my bed and straightening my room. One day Noonie got tired of getting after me and decided to clean my room herself. As she was changing my sheets she noticed newspapers and magazines hidden between my mattress and box spring. Th is is where most normal fifteen-year-old boys hide their Playboy magazines, but when Noonie looked at my stash she got much more of an eyeful than pictures of nude girls. It was Black Panther literature. Th e artwork of cops depicted as pigs and little black schoolchildren blowing cops’ brains out with guns while shouting, “Power to the people! Death to all fascist pigs!”
    When I came in that night, Noonie had my Panther papers, her Bible, and a belt all spread out on the kitchen table, looking like it was an altar prepared for some secret society initiation. “Hi, Noonie,” I said as I headed for the refrigerator. I stopped in my tracks when I saw the “altar.”
    “Boy, what is this?” Noonie demanded.
    “What is what?” I replied, trying to play dumb.
    “All of this. Th ese books about killing cops and hating everybody I found in your room.”
    “You were going through my stuff?” I said indignantly.
    “Don’t even try that,” she said firmly. “I don’t know whether to bless you with this belt or kill you with this Bible, but you better tell me where this nonsense came from.”
    I admitted that I had been going to “a few” Panther meetings. Th e truth was I had been sneaking off to Panther meetings and activities for about four months now, making up lies about extra activities at school and the Minisink community center to cover my “missions.”
    I showed her the Ten-Point Program and