New Jersey police have opposed the release of Sundiata Acoli, who killed a state trooper more than 40 years ago, since he became eligible for parole in 1992
Tuesday 29 November 2016 16
A former Black Panther who turns 80 next month has been denied release from prison and ordered to wait 15 years before seeking freedom again.
Sundiata Acoli is serving a life sentence for the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper during a shootout in which Assata Shakur was also arrested. Shakur escaped in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum.
New Jersey state police have actively opposed Acoli’s release since he first became eligible for parole in 1992. But the decision still shocked his supporters.
“This is a punch to the gut,” said Soffiyah Elijah, an attorney who represented Acoli for decades and visited him days before he learned of his latest denial on 21 November.
__
The move comes after a panel of New Jersey judges ordered the board in 2014 to “expeditiously set conditions” for Acoli’s release. The court cited his good behavior since 1996, and argued the board had ignored a psychologist’s 2010 testimony that Acoli “expressed regret and remorse about his involvement” in the state trooper’s death. The expert determined Acoli posed a “low to moderate risk” of reoffending.
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In February, a higher court overturned the order in a decision welcomed by state police as “a victory for law enforcement”. This prompted a new parole board hearing in June that led to the denial.
In a letter to supporters, Acoli said the June hearing focused “primarily about the events on the turnpike and almost nothing about my many positive accomplishments”. Acoli wrote that parole board members asked him, “Aren’t you angry that they broke Assata out of prison instead of you?” He responded that “I don’t or wouldn’t wish prison on anyone.”
Most of Acoli’s four decades in prison have been spent at “supermax” federal penitentiaries in Marion, Illinois, and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was held 23 hours a day in his cell under high security. He is now incarcerated at a federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland.
“They are determined to bury him alive,” Elijah told the Guardian. “And we are equally determined to get him out.”
Larry Hoover, reputed leader of the Gangster Disciples street gang, is serving a 150- to 200-year murder sentence. A 1993 parole bid by Hoover was supported by several community leaders and politicians, including former Chcago Mayor Eugene Sawyer, who argued the convict was a peacemaker who could be a Pied Piper of reform to young people in violence-wracked neighborhoods. His bid for parole was turned down. (AP Photo/Chicago Sun-Times)
The Vision
In the beginning of the early 1990’s, Mr. Hoover reached out to the streets from his prison cell and shared his vision to the prisoners of the ghetto. His vision was spoken through a book called “The Blueprint of a New Concept – From Gangster Disciple to Growth and Development” by Roderick L. Emery, Sr. The Blue Print of a New Concept was written and completed by 1990, but was later revised in 1996 for the people to view. Here’s a brief synopsis of Mr. Hoover’s vision from those who were looking for positive Growth and Development.
THE BLUEPRINT OF A NEW CONCEPT
“…The vision is for us to acquire marketable skills that will provide us with a legal avenue of financial support. The Vision dictates that we learn the political process of our community and become involved to the extent of having a voice in our destiny; that we conduct ourselves in a manner that is compatible to our community; that we frown upon the senseless rape, robbery, burglary, theft and murder that is rampant in our community; that we establish ourselves in business that is an asset to ourselves as well as to our community that we set examples that will make it safe for our youth to be part of us; and ultimately, that we eliminate the awesome rate of recidivism that is the experience of a large portion of our youth.”
“The Vision is that we dedicate ourselves to a war on illiteracy; that we pursue professional business careers such as accounting, drafting, computer science, business management, etc; that we master the trades of industry such as brick masonry, building and road construction, textiles, machine shop, surveying, welding, etc., that we acquire knowledge and expertise in areas that are needed in our community, such as plumbing, carpentry, building management and maintenance, auto body repairs, auto mechanic, etc., that we prepare ourselves to become small business administrators in areas such as grocery stores, clothing stores, hardware’s, entertainment (lounges and dance halls), distributors of general household merchandise, etc., that we amass credentials such as certificates, diplomas and degrees as a statement to our desire to excel positively; that we expand our views to include the educational, economical, political and social realities of society; that we began to value the positive implications of righteous endeavors.”
INMATES CALL FOR ACTION
The current state of affairs within Minority communities in general and African American in particular are deplorable and totally unacceptable. There cannot be one among you that is not dissatisfied with conditions as they exist.
As an elder statesman within the penal system of Illinois, I am acutely aware that there are currently more than 36,000 including approximately 90% or more are Black and Hispanic Males serving time. This imposes serious consequences for our communities because many among us possess the strong leadership abilities so desperately needed in these most crucial of times.
Our women and children are suffering a greatly at the hands of an oppressive, dominate and racially political system. From home there is a heart wrenching cry for help, bouncing off the walls and echoing throughout our incarcerated halls.
As proud Black Men and Brown Men we CAN NO LONGER AFFORD THIS FORCED LUXURY OF NON-INVOLVEMENT OR NON-PARTICIPATION. AS MEN UNABLE TO PHYSICALLY CLAIM OUR RIGHTFUL PLACE AS HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD, THE QUESTION REMAINS; HOW CAN WE CONTRIBUTE WITHIN OUR LIMITED CAPACITIES?
MAN TO MAN I SAY TO YOU, IF WE ACCEPT A PARTIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PLIGHT OF OUR OWN THEN, WE MUST TAKE AN ACTIVE ROLE IN THE GAME OF “POLITICS.” I challenge each and every one of you to accept the obligation to personally guarantee that each adult member (18 and older), of your family and within your circle of friends registers to vote and participates in the November elections. (Not less than 5 people)
For far to many years the political establishment has taken us for granted and rightfully so. We have demonstrated time after time our unwillingness to go to the poles and vote. They foolishly and mistakenly believe that because we never have, we never will.
We possess a great deal of power by the sheer virtue of our numbers. Collectively these numbers represent enormous change in the lives of our loved ones. We must become more responsive in electing competent, responsible and capable Representation for our selves and for our own.
We have each experienced the power of this unfair and unjust system. We have learned much at the hands of our oppressors. Now we have an opportunity to beat them at their own game!
If you can’t become a part of the solution then live with the knowledge that you are contributing to the problem!!!!
GET YOUR PEOPLE REGISTERED TO VOTE AND TO THE POLLS!!!!!
Respectfully,
Larry Hoover
CO1829
Political Prisoner
Contact Information
Prison Address
#86063-024-Florence ADMAX,
P.O. Box 8500,
Florence, CO 81226
United States
Birthday: November 30, 1950
Captured: 1973 –150 year
IN PRISON 43 YEARS
Excerpt from 1993 Call For Peace: “…And finally, in my sincere appeal for peace and unity: Those of us that have experienced being our brothers’ keeper — We must educate our members around us. Education brings about awareness. Awareness generates the ability to think. Our youth must know the end result of crime is shame, disgrace, and imprisonment to themselves, as well as the community. We must come to the point of outlawing those who willfully disrupt our communities and our call for peace and unity. “
21st century V.O.T.E.
Note: This previously unpublished article was provide to gangresearch.net by Greg Donaldson who observed the election campaign of Gator Bradley in 1994. This is The Hole, six 16 story red brick buildings at the north end of the Robert Taylor Housing project on the South Side of Chicago. The structures loom straight and stark. High above, shadowy figures drift behind cyclone fence mesh that drapes the open air walkways. At the foot of the buildings lies a nightmare landscape, rusted green garbage compactors, a ruined playground. Gang land.
In an eruption of violence the week before Easter in 1994
___
there were 300 shooting incidents in the area of the Taylor Homes. Gangbangers pumped shots from hi rise to hi rise, ambushed each other in the dim lobbies. Four young men were killed. In timeslike those, the only sound to cover the pop of gunshots and the howl of police sirens is the unconquerable Chicago wind.
It was quiet here last winter. A gang truce was negotiated
____
after the bloodletting. Shootings were down forty percent.
___
But even with the gang truce the Chicago Housing projects are no place to grow up or grow old. Over the course of a year, a resident of the Taylor Houses has a better than 1 in 10 chance of being the victim of a violent crime. Nationally, the number is 1 in 135. If the gangs are not on the move, the police are. Dogs. Sweeps. Midnight raids. Even the ice-eyed Nation of Islam guards hired for security in some projects, look wary as they man the front door metal detectors at night, their bright red bow ties glowing like targets.
Gator Campaigns
It is late February, a week before election day. Wallace “Gator” Bradley, 43, a former enforcer for the Gangster Disciples, the G.D.’s, a mega street gang which rules much of the South Side and
twenty-two of the twenty-eight buildings in the Robert Taylor Homes, is running for Alderman here in the Third Ward against the incumbent Dorothy “The Hat” Tillman. Backed by a renegade political
action group, 21st Century VOTE, Bradley is telling people he is the only one who can bring peace to the bullet-pocked landscape of
the Robert Taylor Homes.
Bradley’s white sound truck covered with orange campaign posters rolls slowly into the blasted courtyard of The Hole. Instead of a shrill metallic voice petitioning for votes, deep, soothing words from the truck’s speakers waft up the stone
ramparts.
“Much respect to the residents of The Hole. Out of respect to the people in The Hole, Gator Bradley is comin’ through here at 5:30. Come out and meet him. He needs your vote. Dump Mayor
Daley by Dumping Dorothy. Punch 115.”
Gator Bradley personally negotiated the Chicago gang truce. Still, he is reluctant to campaign in The Hole without meticulous introduction. The Hole is a ghetto within a ghetto. When the Taylor homes, the largest public housing project in the world, was
constructed in 1962, there was careful screening. But by the time the north end was built, the screening process had broken down.
Troubled families spawned angry young men and the area became a free fire zone known as The Hole.
by Greg Donaldson
From Publishers Weekly
“The Ville” is the name given by residents to the two-square mile area encompassing parts of the Brownsville and East New York sections of Brooklyn, N.Y. Once heavily Jewish, now populated almost exclusively by African Americans and Hispanics, the community contains 21 housing projects and has the highest murder rate in the city. Donaldson, a longtime teacher in Brooklyn’s inner-city schools, has composed a powerful, searing look at Gary Lemite, a brave and dedicated Housing Authority police officer who tries to stem the tide of crack and guns in the area, and Sharron Corley, a talented and handsome teenager, who is hoping to escape the neighborhood of which he is very much a product. Donaldson captures unforgettably the despair and resignation of the residents, especially the younger ones, who may be shot at any moment and wage a desperate, unending battle to create an image and gain respect. He also depicts two educators who struggle to keep students from sliding into hopelessness. Donaldson’s insightful analysis and deep human understanding make this a memorable book.
Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
There is another reason why Bradley hesitates to charge into The Hole, knocking on doors. These six buildings are not controlled by the Gangster Disciples, Bradley’s allies. Somewhere in the complex shifting of boundary lines among Chicago street gangs, the Hole had become property of a small but fierce cadre of Mickey Cobras. Traditionally, the sight of a Gangster Disciple in the Hole means somebody is about to get shot.
There are no trees left here to bend in the punishing wind. Slowly, the young men of The Hole, the M.C.’s, spokesmen for their neighborhood, whether by default or violence, drift from the doorways toward the Bradley van with their heads down and their
hands in their pockets. Cal and Fly, Bradley’s campaign workers in the van slouch with feigned unconcern. “What up, Money?”
“Gator’s runnin’. He needs your support.”
A dark reed of a lad peers into the back of the van. “B.D.’s votin’,” he assures Gator’s people.
The Mickey Cobras are sometime allies of the much larger B.D.’s, Black Disciples, once brothers now mortal enemies of the
Gangster Disciples.
“Gator goin’ all the way,” Cal, the driver, predicts.
“What if he don’ make it?”
“Just come back again next year. There’s a meeting tomorrow at the Boys and Girls Club.” Cal names a spot farther south in the Taylor Homes.‘ M.C.’s don’ go there,” the slim kid reminds. Then he recounts what happens when boundary lines are treated too casually.
“Money got free tickets from Hoover’s wife,’ he says, referring to Gangster Disciple chieftain Larry Hoover, serving a 150 to 200 year sentence for a 1972 murder. It was Hoover who conceived 21st Century VOTE and launched the G.D.’s into politics.
“We went to the concert,” the young Mickey Cobra continues. “Thought it was chill. Shit. Mad G.D’s there. Money flipped.” The young man remembers the aftermath of the ill-considered concert
attendance. “Shootin’ much G.D.’s,” he recalls.
“Gator ended all that,” Cal steers the subject from mayhem. “He brought the peace.”
“Naa, we did that,” an M.C. corrects. “But it’s all good now, Money. We got no problem with y’all.”
The M.C.’s wander back to their doorways and Gator’s workers continue their gentle campaigning.
“Vote for Gator,” Cal whispers over the loudspeaker to a young woman leaning into the wind. She makes her way to the window of the van. “You have my undying support,” she promises.”Life’s Transformation” At 5:30 a.m. Life rises from his mattress in the back bedroom of his sister’s apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes on the South
Side of Chicago. He pulls on a pair of baggy white denim pants, laces up a pair of factory fresh red and black Fila sneakers, and slouches into the bathroom. In the mirror Life’s khaki eyes catch
the sparkle from his gold tooth. Life is twenty-six years old. He graduated from Du Sable High School on State Street and has fathered three children, but this is the biggest day of his life. Outside, there is a dull rain and glorious possibilities.
Just two years ago at this hour of the morning Life would have been sliding into the apartment after a night of selling crack in front of his building, fingering a damp wad of bills in his pocket
and thanking his stars for making it through another night. His credo in those days consisted of three words, “Watch your ass.” The customers would try to rob you,” he tells. “The police, the competition and even your own people might move on you.” Life’s own people — then and now — are the Gangster Disciples.
But Life isn’t thinking about rock cocaine these days. It is election day and he is thinking about votes. Life is one of Bradley’s Political Directors. For the past six months he has been heading a voter registration drive in his project, coordinating
community rallies, and recruiting gang “shorties” for the political movement.
Life’s apparent conversion is one of a series personal transformations of South Side gang leaders that have left most Chicagoans throughly unconvinced. Candidate Gator Bradley went to
jail for armed robbery in ’75. When he emerged four years later, he seemed a changed man. During lengthy prison conversations with charismatic Gangster Disciple leader, Larry Hoover, Bradley
concluded that no matter how much loot he had made on the street, it wasn’t worth the prison time.
But it is Hoover’s self described metamorphasis from warlord‘ to political leader that elicits the most suspicion and outright fear throughout Chicago. The figure of Larry Hoover seems to float
over the South Side like the Wizard of Oz. Police portray him as an evil mastermind. Community leaders and ministers recoil at his name. But respected African American political leaders, like former Mayor Eugene Sawyer, have championed Hoover’s petitions for parole. And the blank-eyed baby gunmen of Chicago’s black ghettoes, the
ambitious street operators like Life will listen to no one else. Even though still incarcerated, Hoover is so revered he is known on the street as “The Chairman” and “King”, and he was voted “most
admired” person by a Chicago High School student body. He even has a popular line of hip hop clothing that sports the logo “Ghetto Prisoner” and his corrections department number.
When Hoover changed the name of the Gangster Disciples to Growth and Development and started preaching political empowerment, his message whipped through the Illinois prison system and into the South Side housing projects, converting thousands of gangbangers at least temporarily into true believers. “Think of it,” Life muses on his way to campaign headquarters, “from stickup kid to dope man to political man.”
But for now, there was no money in the fledgling political movement, and a battle raged in Life’s psyche, his allegiance to Hoover and his desire to do the right thing against a tide of suppressed cravings. “A Lex (Lexus) and a Rolex,” he dreams out loud, even as he steers his twelve year old Buick Skylark with frayed tires and bent rims over to the Bradley campaign‘ headquarters. The slender Life executes the duties of daily existence with
studied ease, his voice a honeyed whisper, but there is a devoutness to his personality that made him a formidable figure on the street and makes him an asset to 21st Century VOTE. A diabetic, he injects himself with insulin every morning, he has had
to fend for himself for a long time in other ways. Life’s father was born with gray hair and gray eyes. “People said he was cursed,” Life recalls. His father left when he was ten and Life was raised by his mother. When he talks about “the old man,” Life
is referring to Larry Hoover whom he has never met. “I wouldn’t mind if he was my father,” he admits.
Life’s mother suffered a stroke when he was twelve years old and he passed into manhood Chicago style, joining the Gangster Disciples. Even as a teenager Life never dressed flashy, “I was
always righteous and conservative, not radical,” he maintains. He stayed cool and minded his business. But Life’s business was what he calls “street activity.” As a fleetfooted boy he and his crew robbed the freight trains that run along the tracks behind the projects. “They’d come by all loaded and they’d slow down. We’d jump on with bolt cutters. Just like Jesse James.” When a Chicago sports team won a championship the young marauders hit the commercial districts on the South Side with a vengeance. “It was
like we won the ‘Lottery’,” Life quips. “One time we shut the whole city down. We stopped the busses, everything. People were just lookin’ out their windows.”
Empowering the Underclass
______
All Chicago was mesmerized by the Third Ward race. Gang membership numbers, the arithmetic of rumor, are unreliable. Both police and gang members have reason to exaggerate. But one thing
is sure, the Gangster Disciples have tens of thousands of members. In the summer of ’93, 21st Century VOTE turned out ten thousand people, mostly young men with gang affiliations, who surrounded City Hall, and helped force an end to a confrontation between teachers and the city that was headed for a strike. In a city where ten thousand votes could swing any election, the
possibilities were obvious. At the same time, the truth about 21st Century VOTE remained maddeningly elusive. Whether a long-awaited inner city political empowerment movement or a crude grab for power, 21st Century VOTE is under the
closest surveillance by Chicago police and the FBI. Referring to a 21st Century VOTE sponsored event, a Chicago law enforcement official says, “We were in it. We were around it. We were above
it.”
Gangs and Politics
____
Gang participation in the electoral process “scares the bejeesus out of me,” Richard Kozak, Deputy Director of Public Safety for the Chicago Housing Authority, moans.. But in the hothouse of Chicago politics gangs have been players for a long time. Al Capone paid for his politicians with bootleg whiskey
money. The current Mayor Daley’s father in his youth was a member of the Hamburgs, a brawling street gang with political ties. In the ’70’s, Blackstone Ranger leader, Jeff Fort, was invited to
Nixon’s inauguration. A convoy of Rangers, Vice Lords, and‘ Disciples helped escort Martin Luther King through the howling white mobs in Marquette Park in 1966. When a rock struck King in the forehead, the Disciples were ready to do what they did best, rumble. “But we held back,” Gator Bradley remembers. “We were the shorties then. Our leaders told us not to retaliate. We followed
orders.”
Gangster Disciples still follow orders. Its impressionable young members crave the quasi military hierarchy, gang slogans, and signs like the Disciple’s signature six point Star of David with
crossed pitchforks at the top. Below the star insignia on a wall in the Taylor homes is scrawled, “If I should die have no pity. Bury me in sin city. Tell King Hoover that I did my best and put two pitchforks across my chest.” Gang membership can mean different things. For some Gangster Disciples the group represents an identity and a protective shield The first thing a South or West Side teenager is asked on the street is, “Who you ride?” What is your gang affiliation? A member is required by gang law to “represent”, to identify his gang, no matter how dire the consequences. For other members, the gang provides a ready vehicle for criminal activity.
The Gangster Disciples chain of command travels from “Chairman” Hoover to a Board of Directors then to a network of Governors, Regents and Directors. The sight of a G.D. Regent convening an open air meeting attended by several hundred teenagers and men is not an usual sight to people in the Taylor Homes. Still, estimating the level of real control possible over such a‘ huge street organization as the Gangster Disciples is as puzzling as the true motives of Larry Hoover.
Part diplomacy, part symbolism, and part fear, Hoover’s power on the street is mysterious. One thing is sure, Hoover controls the prisons in Illinois. When he was transferred out of Vienna State Prison in late 1994 the guards complained, fearing the
institution would fall into chaos in his absence.
Gang culture, a kind of tribalization, grows when social structures have withered. In the black and latino neighborhoods of Chicago, schools, community organizations, and family units all
began to disintegrate in the ’60’s when industrial jobs disappeared and nothing came to take their place. “You are not talking about fallen heroes,” a West Side minister explains, “you are talking
about a fallen society.” The result has been a phantasmagoria of street gangs. Besides the Black Gangster Disciples, Gangster Disciples, Mickey Cobras and Vice Lords, there are the Traveling
Vice Lords, Conservative Vice Lords, Insane Vice Lords, Mafia Insane Vice Lords, Latin Kings, Four Corner Hustlers, and a dozen others.
In the 80’s Chicago gangs started calling themselves “Nations” instead of gangs, both to avoid prosecution under anti gang laws, and to emphasize their right to recognition as legitimate political ‘entities. Ten years ago, Larry Hoover √ changed the name of the Gangster Disciples to Growth and Development, and began issuing
anti dope and stay in school directives.
“Lions do not walk among sheep,” declares one such G.D.‘ communication, entitled, “Who are We?”. The document distributed to members reads, “Our transition from a lifestyle of ill repute to one of respectable and productive people is not from fear or force…. There are many who promised to assist us on our war on oppression, but proven themselves to be unworthy deserters and cowards, afraid to tread unconquered territories.” The second page of the letter lists rules of silence and secrecy as well as a ban on drugs, stealing, missing school, confronting the police, and even littering. All members are forbidden to “use membership in
the group to extort funds or favors from any member or anyone in the community.” The communication assures that the “Honorable
Chairman” is pleased with the positive changes and achievements of a few of you.”
When hordes of young men like Life started showing up at protests and political rallies it became clear that Hoover’s idea had given the youth something their hearts yearned for even more
than gold chains and state of the art sneakers. But political organizers have long been wary of relying on youth notorious for their lack of wisdom and short attention span. Many of the gang members would not be able to vote for a year or two. It was time to hold their imagination with a victory in the Third Ward. “We’ve got to win,” a leader of 21st Century VOTE said, “We just got to
win.”
It wouldn’t be easy. Dorothy Tillman had the savvy and the political connections throughout the city. But she did have weaknesses in the Third Ward. Once viewed as a bonafide community‘ activist, she now rarely enters the projects for any reason. Life is on the phone at the Third World People’s Organization, Bradley’s campaign headquarters, talking with a girlfriend. “No, “I don’t have no money….Money don’t mean shit to me.
No, I ain’t trippin’. Do for you? What you want, furniture? You’re materialistic. I guess I”m just a good guy gone bad,” he says wearily and hangs up. Living within the law isn’t easy on the South Side of Chicago. “I’m down to my last crumb,” he admits to
his friend across the room. Life picks up the telephone and cradles the receiver contemplating his sorry state. Recently, he has been shorn even of his signature gold chain. His jewelry and his small savings were robbed from of his apartment. Even though he knows who did it, he cannot retaliate in the way he would have just a year and a half ago. “Naa,” he says,” deciding not to call the girl back. “Got to let it go. I’m easy. I’ll wait my turn.”
The Taylor Homes run hard by State Street on one side, the railroad tracks and the Dan Ryan expressway on the other. Built to stop the spread of blacks into surrounding white neighborhoods, the
project runs two miles from 35th to 54th street, and houses 40,000 people. According to census reports, it is the poorest district in the country. Here waiting for a bus is a status symbol. It means
you have somewhere to go.
A fistsized moon floats pale above the building tops. The night is cold but blessedly windless. At 4845 State Street two security guards behind a metal detector and a thick window disavow
knowledge of the neighborhood political meeting known as a coffee‘ sip. But a hundred feet away, down an unlit tunnel, eighteen women and six men sit on plastic chairs listening to Wallace Gator
Bradley. The candidate, in an exuberant yellow sweater and a Kente cloth fez, is the picture of ease among his people. Short, full-shouldered and slim-waisted, Bradley is in good shape and full voice.
“I did four years and a day in Statesville pen. In ’89 I got a full pardon from the Governor,” Gator is telling. “The Chicago crime commission, called me public enemy number one,” he brags. Actually, the commission, a dusty relic from the Capone days,
called gangs “the number one problem.”
“This transcends the Third Ward,” he begins. “They don’t want me to win because it will send a message to people in the ghettos all over the country. They ain’t nothin but a bunch of Euro
Gentiles,” Bradley charges. “They say the gangs are killin’ in the name of Larry Hoover. Hell, those fifteen to twenty one year olds shootin’ never seen no Hoover. I got no problem reachin’ out to them (gangs). The authorities are after me now, not because I’m sellin’ crack or guns or pimpin’ women. Because I believe the ballot is more important than the bullet. Bradley begins to lay out some principles of his community program. “We want a twenty percent discount to seniors on Wednesday.” Then he offers his self-improvement message. “Children must obey their parents. I’ll have an 800 number. If
you got a hardheaded child call me. ‘Fore you know it, he’ll be washin’ windows.” The crowd of mothers chuckles appreciatively. ‘”We ain’t havin’ no abuse and no stalkin’ young girls. We’re talkin about this here.”
The lean, sallow man in thhe back row is Mack, about forty years old, one of Gator’s campaign managers. “We’re usin’ the American way,” he says to a tenant seated in front of him. Next to Mack is Life, who, along with the president of the tenants’ group organized the coffee sip. “It’s all good,” Life says.
Bradley is jamming now, “Don’t talk to me about no gangs. The governor is irish, the sheriff is irish, the Mayor is irish. They’re four percent of the population and they run everything. The mob who is attacking our communities is the Irish mob. Who
killed (Black Panther) Fred Hampton? Not no gangbangers. Gangbangers never bombed no church. They touch me and I’m comin’ after their first born.”
Life leans over and whispers to Mack, “Lady cop had me down, had her gun in my mouth. She says, ‘I’ll blow your head off’ I
just smiled. He opens his mouth wide and round, performs a smile,
and leans back in his seat with a sigh of contentment. “Tired of
bein’ the lowest scum on earth. This here is the beginning of
something. In twenty years I want to look back and say I helped
start this here.”
Gator Bradley is winding down, but before he can wrap up, an
ocher-skinned woman in the center of the room launches a raucous
harangue. No one, including Bradley, tries to shut her up. “Let
me tell you…don’t tell me shit,” she hollers. It seems there is
no way to stop the woman until the door swings open and a larger,‘
louder, lady claims the stage. She is only about twenty five but
strapping and tougher than trouble.
“I ain’t havin it,” she booms. “Beat him down? Naaa.” A
conventional candidate would have blanched, fled to a waiting car.
But Bradley has lived all his life in this maelstrom. He stands
his ground and questions the woman calmly. It seems the police
snatched the woman’s son off the street for no good reason. A cop
was seen slapping the boy to the ground. In a moment, Bradley and
his campaign operatives, Mack, Life, and Cal, trailed by a gaggle
of residents, head over to the police station located in a building
a few hundred feet away.
The wolf faced, light-skinned sergeant is not happy to see
Gator Bradley. The police, black and white, despise Bradley and
those who support him. Some have been spotted wearing 21st Century
VOTE buttons upside down, knowing the practice of upending of an
insignia is an insult in the gang culture.
“Sit down,” he orders Bradley, who faces the booking desk with
ten Taylor residents behind him. ¡ Bradley remains standing. “This
woman has a complaint of an officer beatin’ on her son. Simple as that.”
The sergeant locks eyes with the candidate. Cal, standing in
the doorway, snaps a picture of the scene. At the flash, a
plainclothes officer across the room takes immediate offense.
Apparently, he is concerned a photograph will compromise his
plainclothes activities. Veins bulging, he pushes his way across
the room to confiscate the camera.
“Stupid shit,” a Bradley follower hisses. “Everybody know all
y’all anyway.”
“You took my picture?”
“I didn’t take …..picture,” Cal explains, holding the camera
behind his back. The cop lunges and Gator steps between the men.
Two white cops quickstep from the backroom. The sergeant bellows,
“Sit down,” nodding to his officers to back off, “and,” he says,
his voice softening to a purr, “everything will be love.”
As tensions ease, the sergeant finally gets to the heart of
the matter. “There was a physical arrest, Cannabis Misdemeanor.”
“Pickin up thirty a night. Is that the deal?” Bradley wants
to know. He is talking about the police interfering in the
election by tearing up voter registration cards and arresting his
campaign workers. “Brought them attack dogs out last night,” one
lady complains. “Said we couldn’t be more than one hundred feet
from our apartment.”
“We don’t run a head count operation,” the sergeant says, “We
ain’t part of it.”
Bradley nods knowingly to his people at the tacit reference to
a quota system.
When all is said and done, Bradley gains points for
statesmanship. The police allow the mother to inspect her son. A
moment later, she emerges from a back room satisfied.
Outside, in the icy moonlit night, Life shows Mack a piece of
notebook paper with his creed written upon it. He had distilled
his philosophy into a list of phrases and transcribed them in‘
careful hand. “Life is a tragedy, Face it,” one reads. Another,
“Life is a duty. Perform it.”
Mack, Wali, and Fly are a block away from the Taylor Homes in
the Bradley campaign headquarters on 47th street, making last
minute preparations. Forty-Seventh Street was once a mecca for
blacks who had taken the “blues highway” north from Mississippi.
Now, the men who warm their hands by a fire in a garbage can nearby
call the shabby street Tobacco Road. One of the reasons Life wears
a spotless red cap, new shirt, and sneakers even when he can’t
afford them is that for him the first sign of wear harbingers a
descent into the ragged despair he sees all around him.
One of the tragedies here is that too many of the teenagers
have raised themselves, passing on impressions and unformed ideas
to each other as knowledge. But today, the shy youngbloods stand
quietly and listen as Mack and Wali, like wise older brothers,
explain campaign strategy. “Ask the girl if she’s registered.
Just ask her to vote for Gator. It’s a way to break the ice.”
Mack and Wali are no nonsense middle-aged men. But their age
would not be enough to bring them respect from the young men in
this world. These youths have seen too much unwholesome behavior
to look up to their elders. It is Mack and Wali’s connection to
Bradley and by extension to Larry Hoover, that gives them what the
teenagers call “props”, proper respect. Dwight Conquergood, a
professor at Northwestern University who has studied gangs, spoke
in Hoover’s behalf at his last parole hearing. Conquergood
believes that this precious mentoring factor is enough to take a‘
chance on releasing Hoover. “I don’t know if he is totally
rehabilitated,” Conquergood says. “No one can really know that
until he gets out. But it would be cost effective to parole him.
He has the potential to be worth more to the youth than scores of
social workers and psychologists, and any number of programs they
might devise.”
Later in the day, there would be a large Growth and
Development orientation session over at the Boys and Girls Club.
The plan is to instruct palm card holders who will blanket the
Third Ward with Bradley fliers, organize building captains who will
get out the vote in the projects, and train pollwatchers to prevent
the Tillman forces from engaging in the vote stealing for which
Chicago elections are notorious.
A visitor from another city approaches Mack who is in a back
room fretting over organizational details and asks if he can attend
the orientation session. Mack shakes his head. “I deal in
protocol,” he explains. The outsider approaches Gator Bradley
who motions the man into the hallway. Bradley’s concern is
understandable. Even if 21st Century VOTE is everything its
leaders say it is, there are sensitive issues to be confronted.
Drug dealing is virtually the only viable business in the community
and some G.D.’s continue to deal drugs, of that there is no doubt.
Certainly, in this street alliance there are compromises to be made
to go along with admonitions. 21st Century VOTE has been taking a
beating in the press.
“I’d like to go over to the Boys and Girls club and watch the‘
training session,” the man tells Bradley.
He shakes his head. “Do you know what game we’re playing here
in Chicago?” The vistor cocks his head.
“The murder game.”
“”Like Fred Hamton” the man asks, naming the Black Panther
murdered in his bed in 1969 by Chicago police. Bradley nods.
The threat of such an attack is probably not as serious as
Bradley believes, but the FBI has called 21st Century VOTE “the
new mafia” and authorities have taped hundreds of Larry Hoover’s
telephone conversations in jail, including the one where he
broaches the idea of political action committee to a gang leader in
another prison. “We got the army,” he said. “We got what nobody
else got out there.”
In his tiny first floor office a mile from the Taylor Homes
Deputy Director Richard Kozak is sick with contempt when he talks
about Growth and Development. He has a heart condition but his
hand, keeps creeping toward the pack of cigarettes in the drawer of
his desk. In 29 years as a policeman Kozak has become steeped in
gang lore. Once he starts talking about gangs he can’t stop.
“There were a lot of Chicago police dicks walking around with raw
(gang) data on 3 by 5 cards. When the state police got the Hoover
telephone tape, that was the smoking gun and we started pooling our
information.” Kozak worries that in time 21st Century VOTE
movement will become legitimatized. “The Gangster Disciples have
more liquid cash than the Rockerfeller Foundation,” he says,‘
shuffling photographs of gang members like playing cards.
Kozak contends that 21st Century VOTE is a device to hide
behind the First Amendment. “Gator Bradley calls a press
conference and talks about oppression and all this nonsense, but
people are not comprehending that this is organized crime.” Kozak
alleges that the real role of 21st Century VOTE is to “funnel ill
gotten gains to candidates.” He cites police intelligence reports
showing the influence of the Gangster Disciples spreading across
Illinois and the country to St. Louis and the West Coast. ¡
In the summer of ’92 the Gangster Disciples held a picnic.
Ten thousand people attended, transported in 80 buses. Allegedly
the picnic cost $70,000 and the purveyors were paid in cash. “They
had an altar,” Kozak says. “An altar to ‘King Hoover’.
Kozak produces a “dues” list to show that the Gangster
Disciples collect a street tax depending on the profitability of a
dope location. “You know what they do when somebody on their count
messes up? He gets a sanction. One of the sanctions is a
‘pumpkin head,’ where they lay you down and tap you on both sides
of the head with the blunt end of a baseball bat till your head
swells up. Ergo, the ‘pumpkin head.'”
There are no shortage of black community leaders who agree
with Kozak. Minister Jeffrey Haynes, himself a former Gang member
and now director of the West Englewood Youth and Teen Center,
claims to have helped thousands of kids get out of gangs. He gives
a tour of his neatly appointed men’s shelter on the West Side. The
residents greet Haynes with the self consciously decorous manner of‘
men who are piecing their lives together.
“If you really want to see things change,” Haynes says, “it’s
not hard to believe in Gator Bradley. But If Gator got elected he
wouldn’t stand for anything.” Haynes wants to know how Bradley and
those who support him brokered the gang peace. “Did they do it by
negotiating boundaries for drug trafficking?” Haynes calls the
participation of gangs in politics “regression”. “I was excited
for a minute, then I realized it was set up to exploit children.
Gator is scary. He’s past scary.”
On the other side of town, Tom Harris, Director of 21st
Century VOTE, scoffs at such talk. “They try to criminalize our
movement because they think we might be bad for business.” Harris
has the short arms and mechanical movements of the old television
talk show host Ed Sullivan. But the man is no joke. Like the
Reverend Haynes, Harris is anxious to display his organization’s
accomplishments. He hustles down the street from his office and
bounds up the unfinished interior stairway of a residential home
under renovation as a black history museum. “The police say that
the Gangster Disciples are in 120 cities. Jesse James didn’t rob
all those banks and this is the same principle” he says. In
Chicago, minority Aldermen comprise nearly half the city council
yet little seems to change in the places like the Third Ward.
Harris rankles at so called “plantation politics.” We’re tired of
beggars and panhandlers. We won’t stand with losers. They can
kiss my ass. We’re not backdooring and not receiving funds from
negative sources.”‘
Outside in the cold, Harris clears his throat and spits hard
across the wind. “Drug money? Everybody in the country got dope
on their money. If a dog sniffed it he would smell the dope. The
truth is we are not supported by the drug dealers. Talk to the car
dealers selling $45,000 cars and the lawyers. They’re the ones who
live off the drug dealers.”
Prince Asiela Ben Israel, a black community and religious leader, supports
Gator Bradley.√ In the back room of his spotless Soul Vegetarian
Restaurant he speaks softly, while a clear eyed
woman in a printed wrap serves lunch. “21st Century VOTE is not
just the gangs but the permanent underclass. We have to
participate in the political process or participate in our own
assassination.” When the question of 21st Century VOTE’s
association with those in the drug trade is raised, Asiela’s face
hardens to marble. He opens and closes his hands slowly. “There
is not a sane, intelligent, black person who supports drugs.” It
is Asiela’s belief that the media’s preoccupation with the drug
question is a device to demonize and derail 21st Century VOTE.
“Larry Hoover hasn’t committed a crime on these streets for twenty-two
years,” he says evenly. “If I am correct in interpreting
Christian philosophy, it is not immoral for a man who (once) broke
the law to participate in the political process.”
At an Operation PUSH meeting, a national empowerment group
organized by Jesse Jackson, Bradley charms hundreds of concerned
citizens and well heeled politicos. These are black Chicagoans,
but they are from a different world than the people in the Taylor‘
Homes. From their vantage point in the middle class the PUSH
members have their own concerns, morality and style.
The crowd laughs politely at Bradley’ jokes and smiles in his
face. Then Life and his boys saunter in the back of the hall to
warm up after distributing fliers out in the cold. Life, the hood
of his sweatshirt up and his hands wrapped around a container of
coffee, settles in next to a woman with a fox coat draped over her
bony shoulders. She recoils, her face quivering with distaste.
Life has not read many books but he is a student of
disrespect, and he is finally fed up. He has had it with the drab
image he has been seeing in the mirror lately, with his girlfriend
harping about money. This time, Life is anything but cool.
“What,” he hisses at the woman. “What,” he repeats, leaning
closer. There is trouble in Life’s light eyes. Before he can
fully break his vow of restraint a hand settles on his shoulder.
It is Mack. The touch is enough to remind Life of his mission and
he eases. The woman arches her neck and slides her chair a foot
farther away.
Late that night Fly cruises the Third Ward with another worker
in the campaign van putting up Bradley posters. As he rolls down
Michigan Avenue, a car pulls in fronts and Fly yanks the wheel,
jerking the van into oncoming traffic for a moment. At the light,
he stomps on the brake tossing his passenger forward in his seat.
“Watch out, Fly. You’re gonna get us killed,” the man cautions.
Fly grunts and bears down on the task. “I just got out of jail
last month,” he explains, “did fourteen years.”‘
“I’m not going to let Dorothy steal this election,” Mack
announces at headquarters on election morning. Like Life, scores
of young men and women have gotten up at dawn. Outside polling
places they hunch in the morning rain, handing out palm cards with
Bradley’s picture and whispering “Punch 115. Vote for Gator”.
Life is carrying a walkie talkie, communicating with palm card
holders, making sure all polling spots are covered. Five white
vans arrive, probably supplied by 21st Century VOTE, as well as six
lawyers in crisp suits.
The atmosphere is buoyant. Mack is coordinating the
pollwatchers and Wali is chasing down problems. The denizens of
47th street outside sense a winner and wander upstairs to feel the
precious warmth of success. A blush of young men stands in the
office hallway waiting for assignment. It looks as if things are
being done the right way. There is even a subtle congratulatory
touching of hands as campaign workers pass each other. But soon
plans go wrong.
Tillman’s minions are challenging people at the polls in the
Robert Taylor Homes. But Bradley’s young pollwatchers are reticent
to do the same in the spots where Tillman has strong support. One
lad sits by blinking absently as Dorothy instructs the judges at
one of her strongholds. “Don’t even ask for (registration) cards.
Folks get too intimidated.”
The irony is heavy. The gangster insurgents are worried sick
that the respected incumbent will steal the election. The terrible
teenagers, lords of the streets, are too shy to challenge the‘
adults over voter registrations.
Nevertheless, people are pouring out of the projects. Two of
Gator’s followers stand all day with a megaphone outside 5247 South
Federal. “We need everybody’s support. Please come out and vote.”
Not all the Disciples are so committed. A check reveals that
some palm card holders have abandoned their posts, including
Eightball. Mack is beside himself. “When a people never had
responsibility, they run from responsibility,” he says.
“Damn,” a well dressed campaign worker says, lamenting the
soft approach of Growth and Development. “What we need is some
P.H., a chilling reference to the old pumpkin head.¡
At midday, Wali bursts into the control room at headquarters.
“Dorothy is performing,” he says. Sure enough, Tillman sporting a
black leather hat, has been on television leveling charges, later
proven unsubstantiated, that Bradley campaign workers have been
attacking her workers, harassing voters, and breaking into her
office to steal poll watcher applications. Life was walking out of
a polling place when Tillman stalked toward him trumpeting her
accusations about theft and assault. Life kept his mouth shut.
“It wasn’t my part to speak,” he explains to Mack. “I just kept the
fuck on.” News sound trucks swoop down on Bradley’s headquarters
and he faces the lights.
“Hey Mack. I’m nationwide.” Life allows himself a moment of
self congratulation.
“Freeze that shit,” Bradley orders.
Suddenly, the 47th street headquarters is invaded by half a
dozen strange looking old gentlemen, campaign workers from the 27th
Ward, come by to pay their respects. Each wears a stingy brimmed
hat, three piece striped suit, and fancy shoes. Through a haze of
cigarette smoke, they look like Frank Nitti, a Capone enforcer in
the old Untouchables television series. Surely, they have lost
touch with reality. But the costumed oldtimers are not alone in
their folly in a country where gangbangers and mafiosi learn how to
dress and act by watching movies about themselves. Chicago gangs
did not use machine guns, Gator Bradley says, until they saw Al
Pacino with an uzi in the movie “Scarface”. Bradley hugs each one
of the gents. Old Gangsters Disciples never lose their status.
By nine o’clock, it is clear that Tillman will not get her
majority, she has only 47 percent of the vote, Gator 31. There
will be a runoff. The News trucks are back. As Bradley stands
before the microphones, Life is by himself in a corner smiling
dreamily. “I’m part of this movement,” he says. “I want to see‘
the headlines tomorrow. Black youth defeat dirty Alderman. I know
the Chairman is going to be happy.”
The headlines came. Word that a convicted felon, backed by an
organization with ties to street gangs, has forced a runoff in a
Chicago election drew reporters form far and wide. The New York
Times and CBS Evening New With Dan Rather and Connie Chung run
features. An Italian News crew, the BBC, Biegel T.V. in Germany,
and CNN showed up. But the center could not hold. The very
morning after the election, Bradley, elated by his support in the
Taylor homes, and annoyed by constant badgering from reporters
about his gang support, blurted during a television interview, “I’m
a Gangster Disciple, O.K. I’m a Gangster Disciple that ain’t gonna
let no more killing happen in his community by nobody.” He didn’t
say “former” Gangster Disciple. The furor was predictable, and any
chance Bradley has to widen his support, withered. But it was just
a matter of time before Bradley fell off his trembling tightrope.
It could have been a drug bust or a drive by, almost anything so
people could say, “I told you so.”
The evening before the runoff five hundred young people file
quietly into the Boy’s and Girl’s center for an organizational
meeting. 21st Century VOTE has purchased 400 white shirts and ties
to fight the gangster image. Suddenly, all outsiders are asked to
leave.
The Boys’ and Girls club meeting is followed by an unusual
affair. A Mickey Cobra Regent who had been convinced to attend is
impressed by the turnout and tone of the Boys’ and Girls’ club‘
gathering. “I’m on the wrong page,” he says. Then he goes back to
The Hole and calls a crisis meeting of his own membership to
consider more active participation in the runoff. Within the hour
one hundred M.C.’s turn out at a Parks Department building in
nearby Fuller Park. The M.C.’s begin their meeting with a solemn
Cobra ritual, turning to the East their left hand behind their leg
in a fist, their right hand raised performing gang signatures. The
M.C. Regent addresses the gathering. “We can do other things
besides sell drugs. Whatever you want to be you can be. If you’re
not down with it you can leave.” Nobody leaves. “Gator is here
and I want you to give him respect.”
After Bradley speaks he fields questions. One query cuts to
the heart of the matter. “I deal drugs. If you are elected are
you gonna shut us down?”
There is no proof that Gator Bradley either deals drugs or
profits from the drug dealing of others. In fact, his campaign
appears painfully strapped for money. But what can Bradley promise
as a source of income for those who live off drug money? ¡
Bradley answers this way. “If your drug dealing becomes a
problem for the community they will come to this gentleman here,”
he motions to an old M.C. who had invited the Regent to the Boys’
and Girls’ club. The implication is that the man would then come
to Gator who would take action. “What I can do is stop you from
shooting this brother here.”
This election day started differently than the one six weeks
before. Though the Chicago Board of Elections had reported that‘
there were no complaints of gang intimidation of voters, the police
were out early, in numbers.
At 8 a.m. a squad of eight uniformed police in an unmarked van
sweep the projects. They pull up quickly behind selected
buildings, pile from the van and charge into the lobby. At 8:30
the squad enters the Boys’ and Girls’ club, prompting complaints
are intimidating voters. But there are no gang members
to be seen and few voters.
Five unmarked cars with two plainclothes officers in each
cruise up to two teenagers standing in front of 3737 State Street.
A sickly morning sun filters through the thick glass of the lobby.
“Who you votin’ for?” a black cop asks, without leaving his car
“Nobody,” Antonio, a 17 year old Bradley worker answers,
afraid he will be roughed up. But Antonio and his buddy, Nuke, are
not planning to run for cover. They are building captains and plan
to knock on every door and get out the vote for Bradley. After the
police leave, they hurry into the lobby where they stand peering up
through a crack to see if the elevator is descending. “I wanna
win. All this shit I did.” Antonio says. “Freezin’ my ass off.”
The boys start on the top floor hurrying up and down the
penned in walkways knocking on doors. Many people open up.
¡
A silky skinned young lady with a graceful neck opens up and
eyes Antonio. “I’m checkin’ to see if you votin’,” he tells her.
The girl’s head waves gently from side to side. She holds her
housecoat closed at the neck.
“What’s that you doin’?”
“Remindin’ you to vote for Gator Bradley.” Antonio sucks in
a deep breath. The girl considers the handsome young man for
several seconds. Then her face blooms into a smile. “I’m…..vote
“Ahh,” Antonio gasps, dancing away from the door. “They like
us here,” he chortles, trotting down the dark staircase with nimble
feet. “Except for Mrs. B. She went on TV and said we was stickin’
people up.”
Big Six, one of their buddies is out now too. “Get up and
vote,” he bellows like Paul Revere, his voice echoing down the
walkways. “Stop sleepin’ and get out and vote.”
But not enough people were listening. In the lowest regular
election turnout in Chicago election history, Bradley tookk a
beating at the polls, losing the runoff by three thousand votes.
“I thank the people for votin’,” Bradley tells a dozen
reporters who crowd the hallway outside his campaign office for his
concession speech. “This whole race was uphill. Thank you,
everyone who didn’t get violent. With sixteen and seventeen year
olds there is another race comin’ up in 1996. We will be in full
force, in full effect, on the street.”
Out of the lights, Mack is bitter. “We just didn’t have money
to make the deals they did.”
Near midnight over at the Boy’s and Girls’ Club a young man
with his tie swiveled so it hangs down his back and his new shirt
hanging out of his back pocket like a giant white handkerchief,
shoots baskets. A couple dozen of his friends mill around eyeing‘
the refreshments for the planned victory party.
Bradley strides in, takes one look at the dismal scene, and
leaves. Wali is standing by the door. “There’s a rule in poker,”
he says, “Let them try to beat you. That is what Dorothy did.
Waited for us to make the mistakes. It was like we were playing a
veteran and we didn’t know the fine points.” A moment later he
winces. “Makes me want to cry.”
Nearby, Life rocks back and forth, his arms folded across his
chest. There has been no grand beginning. “What am I gonna do?
What a black man does best, keep comin’ up in this world they call
hell.”
Eight weeks later it was summer in the Robert Taylor Homes and
fever hot. Conditions in the projects had been so bad for so long
that the Federal Government had just taken over the Chicago Housing
Authority. There had been plenty of speeches but no sign of change
yet. Hundreds of young men face the desultory day in the slim
shade of the buildings. Over in the Hole the basketball game flows
back and forth without pause. Life is still clinging to the 21st
Century VOTE program, pushing yet another voter registration
initiative, and trying to stay out of trouble. His status as a
convicted felon is making the difficult task of finding work near
impossible. This morning he walks over to the bedraggled mall near
his home to pick up chicken and ribs for the barbecue he is having
for the residents of his building.
Visitng Larry Hoover at Dixon
In the early afternoon Gator Bradley quits the South Side and
heads down the toll road to the Dixon Correctional facility to see‘
Larry Hoover.
For two hours, waves of farmland roll toward Dixon. Postcard
vistas, no farm animals, no growing crops, no human beings. There
seem to be no living things in the town of Dixon either. A road
off the highway loops past graceful homes, wide porches, easy
living. Nestled in a corner of Dixon, the medium security
Correctional Facility, once a mental institution, looks like a
college campus tucked behind double rows of razor ribbon. ¡
Larry Hoover is one of the few “C” series inmates, left in the
Illinois prison system, which means he was sentenced before the
indeterminate sentence laws were changed in ’78. The authorities
can keep him in jail indefinitely and it looks like they will. The
man convicted with Hoover of the 1972 murder has been out of jail
for years. Ex Chicago mayors, mayoral candidates and community
leaders have visited Hoover in prison, supported his applications
for parole. Still, he has never received one positive vote from
the parole board.
There are no partitions or looming guards in the wide visiting
room. Larry Hoover enters in his own clothes, a maroon ensemble
with matching alligator shoes, and crosses the room, nodding to
other inmates as he goes. His demeanor is shy, almost sweet. He
is about five foot ten with narrow shoulders and thick hands. His
sideburns are shaved to a point, as if he had too much time to
experiment with his appearance. He has a soft chin but his hair
glistens and his skin is so smooth it looks powdered. In the drab
surroundings he looks like a sultan.
When Hoover entered prison he was already co-leader of the
Gangster Disciples. Before long he had achieved the status of an
Ayatollah. “I do run the prisons,” he offers with a soft smile.
Hoover’s influence in the jails is so strong that when there is a
problem at a correctional institution across the state he is called
to the Warden’s office at Dixon to help solve the conflict.
Like a traditional politician, Hoover starts by listing his
accomplishments. “When I came into the Illinois prison system it
was daily practice to rape the young guys. They’d size them up on
the fish (orientation) line, and then at night you could hear them
screaming. I stopped all that. I saved them from being punks and
that is appreciated.” Hoover does not say how he stopped the
rapes. “If somebody wants to move up in my organization,” Hoover
continues, “he has to go to school. Guys don’t talk about what
prison they went to now they talk about what ‘university’.”
It is easy to see what the young inmates men see in Larry
Hoover. He is thoughtful and stern like the father they never had.
And funny. “Brother in here just became a Muslim,” he says. “Then
the Oklahoma City thing happened and the police thought the Muslims
did it, so my man changed his name back to Jeff, quick. Threw away
all his Muslim shit.”
The charge against Hoover is that he runs a violent drug gang.
His contention is that Growth and Development is a movement within
a wider organization. “Of course there are people in the
organization who sell drugs. People who support me who sell drugs.
And I do have some influence over them. But they don’t give me‘
their money. The police try to portray the G.D.’s as an octopus
that sucks money up to the top. It doesn’t work like that. The
drug dealers may listen to me on some matters. But I can’t tell
them to stop selling drugs, to stop feeding their families.”
Hoover sheds some light on how he influences activities on the
street from his position in jail. “Sooner or later the guys on the
street know they will probably come inside. Then they know they
will have to deal with me.”
In the middle of his talk Hoover rises to “walk the yard,” to get away from any listening devices in the visiting room. He has known for some time that there have been microphones concealed in the visitors’ passes. He and Bradley pace an enclosed grassy area. Hoover listens and nods, speaking every few minutes.
Hoover’s disciples in Chicago and their brothers in inner cities across the country are the lepers of our society. Hoover can touch them. But where will his guiding hand lead, and perhaps more important than the question of his character, can any leader bring this flock into the American family without the restructuring of a shrinking economy?
When Hoover returns he talks about the Black middle class.Sure they see themselves as apart from us. But they are not exempt in the long run. They are like the jews in Germany who believed that they would be spared when Hitler came to power. ¡ Larry Hoover is the picture of reason but he is at the rudder of a ship that floats on violence. Even if you accept the proposition that he is a reformed man trying to change things, he‘ is never far from the murder game.
Last year, a Gangster Disciple in the prison at Pontiac
refused to move out of his cell and was set upon by a squad of guards called to move him. In the melee the inmate’s cellmate was killed. It wasn’t long before a supervisor at the same jail was murdered, allegedly by Gangster Disciples. The finger pointed at Hoover. Informants were sent to record an admission that he had ordered the hit. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told the warden here. He has it on tape. If I was going to have somebody killed it would have been (Correction Commissioner) Lane.” The words are soft but gravestone cold.
“They may never let me out, he says slowly. “They locked up a whole generation and they’re locking up another right now,”Hoover continues. “Nothing is going to change unless the young people get involved. Chicago is the place where it can start. Because that’s where we have the organization.”
Back in Chicago over in the Robert Taylor Homes, Life is betting what slim chance he has left in this world that Larry Hoover is a visionary not an ordinary villain.
Haki Kweli Shakur ATC-NAPLA-NAIM 11-30-51ADM
Jericho Movement http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/hoover-larry
Militant blacks in Detroit founded the Republic of New Africa (RNA) in 1968—eight months after the devastating 1967 riot. RNA leaders demanded that the federal government give blacks five states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina—and pay billions in reparations to compensate for slavery. They were frequently seen as advocating that blacks use violence to get these demands if the government resisted. A similar claim was made for all the Black-majority counties and cities throughout the United States. Second, they demanded $400 billion in reparations for the injustices suffered by African Americans during the slavery and segregation periods. Third, they demanded a referendum of all African Americans in order to decide what should be done with their citizenry. Regarding the latter, it was claimed that African Americans were not given the choice to decide in regard to what they wanted to do after emancipation. These concessions would then form the basis of an independent Black nation.
On March 31, 1968 200 to 300 members of the RNA met at New Bethel Church to celebrate the first anniversary of their organization. The meeting was adjourning about midnight when Detroit police officers Michael Czapski and Richard Worobec saw a dozen or so apparently armed men in camaflogue along Linwood. They stopped to investigate, but Officer Czapski was instantly shot to death and Officer Worobec wounded but managed to call for back up. Twenty minutes later, 50 Detroit police officers attempted to enter New Bethel. The commanding officer claimed the police were fired upon as their tried to enter the church. Once they broke down the door, the police claim they came under rifle fire from the altar and sniper fire from the loft. These claims were disputed.
The police arrested 142 inside the church, found 9 rifles, three pistols and ammunition. Reverend Franklin instantly alerted African American who had risen to positions of power: State Senator James Del Rio and Recorders Court Judge George Crockett. Judge Crockett was not certain that the Detroit police would treat these prisoners well, so he went to the lockup, and by 6 AM, established a temporary court room where he began releasing those who were arrested, either on small bonds or on personal recognizance. By noon, Judge Crockett had released many—but not all—of those arrested, including some that had tested positive for nitrate burns. Judge Crockett also criticized police procedures and thus invalidated their right to hold those arrested at New Bethel.
The incident symbolzed Detroit’s racial polarization just a year and a half after the riots. The arrest of many armed RNA members and the shooting of police officers confirmed the fear of many that militant young black men in Detroit were well armed and ready to use violence to advance their own racial causes. And Judge Crockett’s immediate release of those arrested confirmed the belief of some whites that if blacks controlled the justice system, they would use it to exonerate blacks accused of crimes. Judge Crockett himself became a symbol of racial conflict as many whites signed petitions demanding his ouster, while many blacks defended his unusual role in this controversy. Some years later, Judge Crockett was elected to Congress where he served several terms. Two defendants were tried in the shootings of Officers Czapski and Worobec, but there were no convictions.
Reverend Franklin never apologized for the New Bethel incident. Indeed, he said that RNA would be welcome to meet at his church again, but he would prohibit guns. Given his political actions, it is not surprising to find that he was the target of investigations. In 1967, he was charged with a failure to pay federal income tax. He pled guilty. In 1969,when returning from Mexico, Reverend Franklin was arrested for possession of marijuana, but these charges were dropped. Befitting his prosperity, Reverend Franklin lived in a large and historically interesting home near his church in the 7400 block of LaSalle. In 1979, he apparently surprised robbers who were attempting to steal valuable windows. He was shot, went into a coma and died five years later.
New Afrikan/Black Are Being Out Organize NACO/NABCO – Haki Kweli Shakur August Third Collective NAPLA NAIM 11-29-51ADM
February 17, 1927 – September 11, 2009
Comandante, veteran of Moncada and the Granma landing,dies aged 82
From the early days of the revolution, Juan Almeida Bosque, became a symbol to Afro-Cubans of a change from Cuba’s discriminatory past.
A descendant of African slaves, Juan Almeida Bosque was born in a poor area of Havana on17 February 1927. Forced to take construction jobs as a child to help his family, he none the less managed to gain a place studying law at the University of Havana in his 20s..
It was here, in March 1952, that he met Fidel Castro, also studying to be an attorney, and joined the fight against the Batista dictatorship.
A year later, on July 26, 1953, Almeida was part of the first direct attack on the dictatorship. Together with the Castro brothers (Raul and Fidel), he and 160 others attacked the Moncada barracks in the easten city of Santiago. Although the attack failed; more than 60 were killed and many captured, tortured and jailed, it launched the revolutionary battle that was to triumph with the revolution in 1959.
For his part in the attack, Almeida, along with both Castro brothers, was in imprisoned in the notorious Modelo garrison on the Isla de la Juventud (see colour pages 5-7 for a full history of the Modelo) until all the Moncada rebels were amnestied in May 1955.
Regrouping in Mexico, Almeida was one of 80 revolutionaries who sailed to Cuba with the Castro brothers and ‘Che’Guevara in December 1956 on board a rickety motor boat, the Granma, to launch the revolution. He was also one of only a dozen who survived the rough, week-long crossing and the initial ambush and battles with Batista’s forces.
Soon after their landing, vastly outnumbered, a Batista officer shouted to them to give up. Almeida reportedly yelled to Che “Aqui no se rinde nadie!” [“Nobody here surrenders!”], a slogan that became one of the most famous and lasting of the revolution and can be seen on posters around Havana to this day.
For his bravery, Almeida became the only black commander of the revolutionaries who, as head of the Santiago Column of the Revolutionary Army, helped force Batista to flee the country on 1 January 1959, leaving Almeida, with Che Guevara and Castro,to enterHavana unopposed.
Shorty after this victory, Almeida was named a General of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba and wielded significant influence in the post revolutionary administration. In 1976 he was elected to the National Assembly of People’s Power, one of a series of important posts he occupied. In 1998, he was given the rare honorary title “Hero of the Republic of Cuba.”
Until he announced the scaling down of his political career owing to heart problems in 2003, he was one of the most visible members of the Cuban government, often appearing alongside the President at public events or diplomatic parties, and regularly representing Cuba at meetings abroad.
“He was a father of Cuba. Everyone liked and respected him,” said Luiz Vizcaino, a retired Havana resident commented on hearing of his death.
To younger Cubans, and in the Spanish-language music world, Almeida was best known as a composer of bolero songs – he wrote more than 300 of them – many of them love songs or ballads about his days as a guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra. Songs such as “Qué le pasa a esa mujer?” [“What’s going on with that woman?”] or “La Lupe” (about a girl called Lupe) – can regularly be heard on radio stations throughout Latin America or in Spain.
“I listened with pleasure to some of his songs,” noted Fidel Castro, “especially that one of impassioned emotion which, in response to the homeland’s call for ‘victory or death’, bids farewell to human dreams.”
A Cuban government statement tribute to his life said: “Almeida, who died last Friday from a heart and respiratory failure, has passed to history not only as a consummated guerrilla fighter, a just military and political leader, and great speaker, but also as a sensitive creator” who will “live on forever in the hearts and minds of his compatriots.”
A national day of mourning was declared on Sunday 13 September 2009 and all flags were flown at half-mast. Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz, accompanied by two of Almeida’s grandchildren, headed the homage at the Jose Marti Memorial in Havana’s Revolution Square of Havana. He was followed by other government and state leaders, all of them carrying a rose for the emblematic hero.
The line of members of the public who went to the square in Havana to pay tribute to Almeida was endless.
Likewise, the residents of the mountain town where the 3rd Eastern Front was founded and of which Almeida was the founder and leader, were shaken by the news of his death. Cuban and 26 of July Movement flags were hoisted at half-mast in offices, while in many homes the national emblem could be seen waving outside.
Meanwhile, in the Antonio Maceo Revolution Square in Santiago de Cuba city, thousands of people marched by a large portrait of the Commander of the Revolution accompanied by floral wreaths and a guard of honor.
At Almeida’s own request he will be buried in a mausoleum with guerilla fighters in the Sierra Maestra mountains where fought in during the revolution.
At the time of his death on September 11, Juan Almeida Bosque was one of only three surviving Commanders of the Revolution. The other two are the revolutionary veterans Guillermo Garcia, 81, and Ramiro Valdes, aged 77.
“I was a privileged witness to his exemplary conduct for more than half a century of heroic and victorious resistance, in the struggle against the internationalist missions and the resistance to the imperialist blockade,” Castro said after Almeida’s death. “Let us not say that Almeida has died! He is more alive today than ever!”
Cuba Solidarity Campaign tribute
Juan Almeida Bosque (1927-2009)
Hero of Cuba
On behalf of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign in the UK we would like to offer our deepest sympathy to the family and comrades of Juan Almeida Bosque – a true Hero of Cuba.
We recognise the vital part that Juan Almeida Bosque played in the Cuban Revolution from the early attacks on the Batista dictatorship, the assault on the Moncada Barracks and his leadership in the battles of the successful Revolution. As a Black commander in the rebel army he stands as an important symbol of the unity of the Cuban people. We also recognise his contribution to the rich culture of Cuba with the 300 songs he composed and the many books that he wrote.
Juan Almeida Bosque has left a lasting legacy that will continue to inspire all our efforts on behalf of the just cause that is Cuba.
scientific socialism is the combatant to eliminate capitalism – Haki Kweli Shakur
Where: Omenala Griot Museum 337 Dargan Place Atlanta Georg’s 30310 http://www.veronza.org
Speakers former Black Panther Party Members & Former Political Prisoners Sekou Odinga & Marshall Eddie Conway
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
#35316-136
U.S. Penitentiary – Atlanta
P.O. Box 150160
Atlanta, GA 30315
Veronza Bowers Jr. is an inmate at the Federal Correctional Facility in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a former member of the Black Panther Party incarcerated in federal prison for over 37 years making him one of the longest-held political prisoners in U.S. history.In the 37-plus years of his confinement, Veronza has become a “model “prisoner. He is an author, musician, a student of Asian healing arts and has a strong interest in Buddhist meditation as well as “hands-on” healing techniques which he practiced at the various facilities in which he was incarcerated. Veronza is also an honorary elder of the Lompoc Tribe of Five Feathers, a Native American spiritual and cultural group. He is a mentor and founder of the All-Faith Meditation Group, a non-denominational spiritual organization devoted to healing meditation using the traditional Japanese shakuhachi flute.
Why was Veronza sent to prison over 37 years ago?
Veronza was convicted in the murder of a U.S. Park Ranger on the word of two government informers, both of whom received reduced sentences for other crimes by the Federal prosecutor’s office. There were no eye-witnesses and no evidence independent of these informants to link him to the crime. At his trial, Veronza offered alibi testimony which was not credited by the jury. Nor was testimony of two relatives of the informants who insisted that they were lying. The informants had all charges against them in this case dropped and one was given $10,000 by the government according to the prosecutor’s post-sentencing report. Veronza has consistently proclaimed his innocence of the crime he never committed — even at the expense of having his appeals for parole denied — for which an admission of guilt and contrition is virtually required — he insists on maintaining his innocence.The Black Panther Party was targeted by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI in its infamous Cointelpro Operation which, during its years of operation from 1956 to 1971, surveilled, infiltrated, manipulated and tried to provoke criminal activities by entirely lawful civil rights and peace demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights to oppose government policies. Hoover referred to the BPP as “the greatest threat to the internal security of this country” and authorized surveillance of many black and antiwar leaders including Martin Luther King. Despite letters of support from prominent attorneys, former high-ranking representatives of regional commissions, prison officials and a member of the U.S. Congress, Veronza has continually been denied release due to intervention by the U.S. Parole Commission. A recent decision by the regional federal parole commission to grant his release was overturned by the National Commission. With the truth coming out daily about the high incidence of inmates who have been falsely convicted and imprisoned, exonerations of Death Row prisoners (156 to date), police and prosecutorial malfeasance and other failures of the criminal justice system, Veronza’s case deserves careful review.
How is it possible for a citizen of the USA to:
1. Serve his complete sentence under law;
2. Go thorough the entire parole process having his release recommended at every stage and at each hearing;
3. Have his release date rescinded four times at, literally, the very last minute;
4. Have the highest administrative parole body in the nation vote on and fail to overturn his petition for parole . . . and still be held in prison for 16 moths after this sentence expired?
June 21, 2005, was the day Veronza Bowers was to be released from federal prison on mandatory parole after more than 31 years of incarceration. This date was based on a vote of the five-member U.S. Parole Commission in Washington, D.C., the highest governing body in our nation’s parole system. We just learned that, once again, at the very last moment, Veronza’s release has been cancelled.This action was based on a petition filed by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales requesting that the National Appeals Board “reconsider” their decision granting him parole. The USPC has, thereby, “retarded” Veronza’s release (no pun intended) “for a period not to exceed 60 days”. This order for reconsideration by the Attorney General was made at the behest of a law enforcement group called the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). Our legal team strongly feels that this unprecedented action on the part of the USPC is totally illegal and based on no credible evidence whatsoever. It violates the Commission’s own guidelines and procedural regulations. The rule of law that should guide the Commission in this case has clearly been undermined by political pressure exerted at the highest levels of the current administration.The truth of the matter is that Veronza has served his full sentence under law plus 16 months of illegal detention. He has been a model prisoner with the highest possible Bureau of Prison rating and recommended for parole several times, only to have his release rescinded, literally, at the last minute. He received a very favorable review and recommendation for release based on rigorous psychological and personality testing administered by a highly-reputable independent agency. His petitions for parole have been strongly supported by a number of prison officials and administrators who worked closely with him over the years and can’t say enough about his role as a mentor and role model to younger inmates. His efforts to be released have also been supported in writing by a former member of the USPC, head of the NY Parole Commission and a member of the U.S. Congress. Over the last three decades, he has worked hard to improve himself in all ways possible—personally, socially and spiritually. Yet, he continues to languish in prison, be subjected to threats and intimidation, demeaned by the news media and falsely accused by the very group that claims to be the guardian of law and order in our society. Today is a sad day for America and for the spirit of democracy in our land.
#Santeria Fidel Castro into that Santeria African Spiritual Life : Santeria followers have believed their gods were on Fidel Castro’s side ever since a white dove landed on his shoulder during a victory speech in Havana after his 1959 revolution.
It is no big secret that for Fidel Castro to make it this age as leader of Communist country in the Americas he has to be pretty lucky or was he bless by the Santeria Gods. Fidel Castro has embrace the Afro-Cuban Community and the various Africa Countries and leaders through out the years but has he embrace there religion or has there religion embrace him.
Between the 16th and the 19th centuries over 1 million Africans were brought to Cuba as slaves – principally to work in the sugar fields. Most of the kidnapped were Yoruba from the central part of Africa in present day Benin and southwestern Nigeria and brought to Cuba. Torn from their homeland, they held on to their belief system despite many attempts by the Spanish colonial lords to repress it. Faced with pressure to give up their religion, the slaves merely adapted it to the Catholicism as it was practiced in Cuba. Each of the Yoruba gods was equated to one of the many Catholic saints creating a so-called syncretized religion, meaning that two differing belief systems were brought into harmony with each other. Rather than worship their gods openly, slaves would pray to Catholic saints (thus appearing very pious to the slave owner). Because the slaves had to hide their religion behind the Catholic saints, the name of their belief system became known as Santeria, which some now consider politically incorrect. For this reason it is also referred to as Regla Lucum� or Regla Ocha. There are other syncretized religions in different former slave countries such as Brazil. Even today it is not uncommon to meet Cubans who go to a Catholic church and also adhere to the customs of their African forebears.
So is Fidel Castro protected by Santeria? It is known big secret that a lot of Castro most die hard support are Afro-Cubans a lot of whom practice Santeria. Afro-Cubans have loyal support Castro Socialist Revolution. We the god with Castro when he attack Moncada Barracks and was not killed but jail and exile to Mexico where he form a guerilla army that reinvade Cuba December 1956 and overthrew Fulgencio Batista in 1959. He survive the Bay of Pigs invasion in April `15 1961. The Mariel Boat lift in the 1980th and countless plots of assissination by the CIA and exiles. Fidel Castro is also rumor to major Drug dealer in the Carribiean and It is know fact that various power drug dealer like his once good friend Manuel Norieaga pratice Santeria to power them from there eniemies. Some believe that Fidel Castro was a powerful Santeria practisenar, who could literally right the heart of his eniemies. It is also rumored in Cuba that Celia Sanchez, who as a was an iyalocha, a priestess devoted to Obatal introduce Fidel Castro into Santeria; However these are just a rumors.
Now wheather Castro ever believed or pratice Santeria is pure speculation; however there are Santerians, who are Afro-Cuban that believe in Fidel Castro and believe he is bless by the Santeria Saint and they offer as proof not only his long life and survival but the fact that white dove came and sat on his shoulder in speak he gave on day, which they say is proof in Santeria that the Gods or Saints are with him.
Haki Kweli Shakur August Third Collective NAPLA NAIM 11-27-51ADM
Maroon Woman, feisty and sensual with Oshun beauty; the fierce, blue Gulf waters wash daily over your shadow, as you mingle with fragrant palms and tropical peoples… Political Exile. Twenty years have passed since the blast of your Great Escape created havoc for the Empire; now safe in an African palenque: Afro-Cuba, child of Maceo and Marti, whose guerilla blood stains the Caribbean proletarian red. But red is equally spiritual, being Shango’s color and that of mystic Olokun. Both Yoruba orishas, African deities blessing the untamed, warrior-spirit. Sista-woman; the years have calmed and refined your spirit, deepened your eyes, broadened your smile, unleashed your regal beauty. Maturity becomes you. Blessed by Oya’s rainbow, we behold the flamingo embodied in the fledgling. A most captivating bird!
Of course, 666 and Its minions blockade and spew death- threats at the insurgent Isle. New Jersey’s mini-skirted Barbie doll threatens Fidel, even the Pope, demanding your recapture. You see, Oya’s rainbow-radiance spreads joy among our African captives; and even New Jersey stands in danger of creating young Assatas to come. So Barbie, the governor, masquerades as Reagan’s parrot, Bushs puppet, tongue-kissing Jesse Helms in a Kodak Moment, by demanding your head. But we, Thirty Million strong, Million Man and Woman marchers, say: “Hands off Assata, Republican witch! This Sista you won’t kill or turn into Oprah, going down on Uncle Sam.
She is ours; this Oya Woman, this Liberation Fighter,
this Warrior-queen, this child of Harriet Tubman,
is ours–the Black Nation’s Champion; and we will
collectively Burn Down Babylon, if she is harmed in anyway (you do remember Rodney King?)”…So, nights in Habana are rhythmic with Afro-Cubano accents,
and friendships diminish Time’s tyranny. O how
we wish your brilliant strategies could lead us, but
realize that only revolution will bring you home.
So bless us, Sista-woman; keep us in your heart, sing
victories at Bembes & strategy sessions, while we
“Carry the Tradition,” as militants over Babylon, chanting your name & your song, while we liberate this wretched land!
Before Tupac Shakur was born, his maternal ancestors resisted oppression alongside Native Americans. In the years to follow, Tupac’s life reflected the same resistence. Poverty, oppression, drug epidemic, and violation of civil rights is explored in the book, “Tupac Shakur: The Life and Times of an American Icon”, co-written by Fred L. Johnson III PhD. The relevance between Tupac Shakur and Native Americans is the social problems in inner city black communities and Indian reservation communities. Tupac’s internal message was to help his community overcome disparity.
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When he was born in 1971, Afeni first named him Lesane Parish Crooks. She then renamed him Tupac Amaru, who was an Incan Emperor around 1571 to 1572. Johnson points out that he was known for resisting Spanish colonialism and injustices (33). Tupac would revitalize this name and be influenced by Native American stories and his families involvement in fighting for civil rights.
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Afeni shared stories with Tupac about the Lumbee Indians in North Carolina. Tupac’s maternal ancestors were influenced to resist against oppression by the Lumbee Indians (Johnson 5). Stories like the Henry Lowery War in 1865, where Henry Lowery and the Lumbee Indians began a seven year campaign of guerilla war against the Confederacy. Another story was about how the Native Americans, Black Americans, and poor White Americans came together to disperse a rally by the Ku Klux Klan in Lumberton, North Carolina in 1958. This began Tupac’s education about the struggles in oppression and poverty.
Since 1976, Lowry’s legend has been presented every summer in the outdoor drama Strike At The Wind in Pembroke. Set during the critical Civil War and Reconstruction years, the play portrays Lowry as a cultural hero who flouts the South’s racialized power structure by fighting for his people’s self-determination and allying with the county’s downtrodden citizens, the blacks and poor whites.
Lowry War
The Lowry War is a notable event in North Carolina history. Led by Henry Berry Lowry (also spelled Henry Berry Lowrie), a Lumbee, whose father and brother were murdered by men of the Confederate Home Guard, a band of American Indian, White and African-American men waged a guerrilla war against the white establishment from 1864 to 1872. He and his gang attained a kind of mythic status.
The “free people of color” in eastern North Carolina were treated differently. In 1861 they were forced to work on Confederate fortifications at Fort Fisher, near Wilmington. Many fled into the forests and swamps to resist such enforced labor by the Confederate Army.
Henry Berry Lowry was one of twelve children in the family of Allen and Mary Lowry. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, the free people of color was viewed as a potential danger to the Confederacy, as it was believed some had earlier fomented slave rebellions. But they were also considered a source for forced labor for Confederate military projects. In Robeson County, the Confederate Home Guard accused some local free blacks of harboring escaped Union prisoners and Confederate deserters, hiding guns, and stealing meat from smokehouses. As elsewhere in the South during the Civil War, the Home Guard supported the Confederacy and maintained law and order at home while the war was being fought. Lowry killed neighbor James P. Barnes, who accused the Lowries of stealing food and harboring escaped Union prisoners of war, on December 21, 1864 and James Brantley “Brant” Harris on January 15, 1865 as a result of ongoing disputes with both men.
With Sherman’s army a few miles from Robeson, the Confederate Home Guard accused Henry Berry Lowry’s father, Allen, and brother William, of various crimes, including illegal possession of firearms. After a hastily prepared kangaroo court trial, Allen and William were convicted and executed on March 3, 1865. For nearly a decade, Henry Berry Lowry conducted raids in southern North Carolina, primarily in Robeson County and against upper-class whites. He became the most hunted outlaw in the state’s history. During the war, Henry Berry Lowry often flouted the authorities who hunted him for over eight years. He murdered the “presumed head” of the local Ku Klux Klan, John Taylor, after which Lowry and many others escaped into the surrounding swamps: a tactic that they would use over and over again and which would prove highly successful at helping them avoid capture.
As the war dragged on, food became scarce as more outliers (including escaped slaves, Confederate deserters, and Union prison escapees) fled to the sanctuary of the swamps. The guerrilla band decided to live off the wealthy class of people instead of the poor. The band raided plantations and distributed food to the poor in Pembroke, North Carolina which was known then as “Scuffletown” or “The Settlement”.
In 1872, Henry Berry Lowry disappeared without a trace. The reward on his head was never collected, and the legend of his actions grew to mythic proportions. In 1874, after the death of Steve Lowry at the hands of bounty hunters, the Lowry War ended. For present-day North Carolinians, Lowry is a controversial figure. He was thought by his defenders to be a hero, and by his critics to be a common criminal.
During the Lowry War, some Southern newspapers portrayed the Lowrys as “Radical Ku Klux,” sometimes in cahoots with the Union League, also known as the “Loyal League,” a Republican organization these papers attempt to portray as the Republican counterpart of the Klan. In an article about the Lowrys, the Wilmington Journal wrote at the time, “the perpetrators of these crimes are Radicals-members of the League—mostly black” An article appearing in Georgia Weekly Telegraph claims, “Lowery, the great chief of the African Ku Klux is the most Loyal man in the South.” (as in loyal to the Union) The Daily Arkansas Gazette describes the gang’s activities in July 1871:
“In portions of North Carolina, band of negro outlaws—real ku-klux—are murdering the people, robbing stores and houses, and openly defying the authorities. Lowry, their leader, is a well-known Lumbee Indian radical politician. He can be arrested by the Federal officers at any time they please, and yet he is suffered to go at large, and murder white men at his pleasure.”
Haki Kweli Shakur August Third Collective NAPLA NAIM 3-17-52ADM North Carolina Maroons
The Slave Trade
The Danish colonization of St. John was undertaken in 1718 for the purpose of establishing plantations where tropical products such as sugar, cotton, indigo and other crops could be cultivated. The most profitable of these crops was sugar.
Sugar production in the West Indies was an extremely lucrative affair. The sudden introduction of sugar to Europe created a great demand for this exotic new product. With this high demand and preciously small supply, the price of sugar was high, and the profit potential was enormous. Many of those involved in this new industry were able to accumulate great wealth and power. It has been said that the only present day business comparable to the sugar trade of the colonial days is drug trafficking.
European colonial powers battled fiercely over control of the new colonies. Pirates and privateers infested the seas in an orgy of murder and plunder. Worst of all was the development of slavery as an institution in the Americas. Slave labor was employed for the exploitation, settlement, and development of the new territories.
When the Spanish first invaded and colonized the New World, they attempted to use the indigenous population as a slave labor force. Disease brought by the Europeans, warfare, cruel treatment, and overwork all but wiped out this race within a short time.
When the Danes occupied St. Thomas in 1672 there were no indigenous inhabitants living there, nor were there any on St. John in 1718. Therefore, the possibility of obtaining slave labor from this source was not available to the Danes.
The Danish government and the government-supported and subsidized Danish West India Company tried to encourage young Danes to emigrate to St. Thomas to labor on the plantations. Very few responded. Prisoners were then brought over to work as indentured servants with the stipulation that they would receive their freedom after six years, though few would survive that long. Apart from this, indentured servitude was exactly the same as slavery. They lived, ate and worked with the slaves and were subject to the same arbitrary punishments. Their social position was of the lowest order and they were looked down upon by both Africans and Europeans. The prisoners viewed emigration to the colonies as a death sentence. Their desperation and discontent resulted in mutinies and resistance. In response, the Danes began to place more emphasis on the importation of slave labor from Africa.
The first African slaves were brought to Hispaniola in 1502, and slavery was not completely abolished until the early twentieth century. During this roughly four hundred year span, it has been estimated that as many as 12 million Africans were unwillingly transported to the Americas.
A form of slavery existed within Africa prior to the advent of European colonialism. Tribalism has been a major influence in African political history, and warfare between rival tribes was a common occurrence. Many of the Africans who were sold into slavery were prisoners captured in these tribal wars.
The institution of slavery that developed in the colonization of the Americas was, first and foremost, a business. It was characterized by the profit motive, greed, and lacked morality, compassion and human decency. The Europeans’ need for cheap labor created the demand. The existence of slaves acquired through the persistent warring of African nations provided the supply. Thus, a market and trade for human beings was established.
The captives were brought to the European forts or slave factories. The factors, or buyers, at the fort would buy the slaves using a barter system. The slaves were then chained and stored in warehouses called barrcoons until the slave ships arrived.
The Danes maintained such a fort at Accra on the Guinea Coast called Christianborg. The Danish West India and Guinea Company sent company ships bearing items such as rum, firearms, gunpowder, clothing and other goods, which were bartered for ivory, gold and slaves to the tribal leaders controlling the trade.
The voyage to the New World was known as the Middle Passage. Captives were confined into such small areas that it was impossible to stand or even sit. Inside the ship’s holds, it was dark, dank and stuffy. There was no proper ventilation or sanitary facilities. The ship’s officers and crew were made up of the prisoners, misfits and outcasts of Europe. Women were subjected to rapes and indignities. Disease, desperation and suicide claimed many lives before the ships even reached their final destinations in America or the West Indies.
Upon arrival the slaves were sold at public auction and then marched to the plantations for a period of “seasoning”. One third of these new arrivals from Africa, called bussals, died during the seasoning period.
Early Danish settlement
The Danish West India and Guinea Company was chartered in 1671 and given the right to govern and exploit Denmark’s first colony in the New World – St. Thomas. The company was granted a royal charter to St. John from the King of Denmark in 1717 and St. John was under company rule until King Frederick of Denmark terminated this agreement in 1755.
Twenty five settlers (eleven Dutch, nine Danes and five Frenchmen), sixteen enslaved Africans, and five Danish soldiers, under the command of Axel Dahl, sailed to St. John in the company of the governor of St. Thomas, Erik Bredal. They landed in Coral Bay on the east end of the island.
Seventeenth century Denmark had marginal resources and a relatively small population of approximately one half million people. Moreover, the Danes were reluctant to emigrate to the new colonies and Denmark lacked a sufficient population to effectively occupy their new territories. To compensate for this, foreigners were invited into the population of the colonies.
The largest and most influential of these foreigners to settle in St. Thomas, and later to settle on St. John, were Dutch. By 1721, of the 39 planters on St. John there were 25 Dutchmen and only 9 Danes. The Dutch, more than any other national group, influenced the culture of the Danish colonies, which prior to the acquisition of St. Croix in 1733, consisted only of St. Thomas and St. John. The most important language was Dutch and Dutch Creole became the “lingua franca” of the Danish islands.
By 1733 more than 1,000 slaves labored on 109 plantations on St. John. Twenty-one of these plantations were in the business of planting and processing sugar. The rest grew cotton and other crops. By the end of the century, however, the vast majority of the plantations were dedicated to sugar production, and there were more than 2,500 slaves on the island. On average, one slave was used for the cultivation of each acre of land.
African Background of the Rebellion
As early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, Accra on the Guinea Coast had become a center of economic power. The Accra tribe acted as the middleman in the exchange of slaves, gold and ivory from the interior for manufactured goods such as firearms, powder, lead, rum and cloth from the Europeans who operated out of fortifications on the coast.
The Danes entered the slave trade in 1657 by attacking the Swedes who were already established on the West Coast of Africa. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Danish West India and Guinea Company had consolidated their slave operation to the vicinity of Accra and traded with the Accra tribe.
All travel and transportation from the interior to the coast occurred along narrow forest paths. The Accras used another tribe, the Akwamu, whom the Danes called the Amina, to control the passage of merchants and merchandise along these trails. This was done so that all goods from the interior would have to pass through an Accra-dominated area north of the region’s capital, Great Accra. Thus, direct access to the Europeans was denied to the traders from the interior, and merchants were forced to have the Accras as middlemen. For this unwanted service, the Accras demanded a percentage of the profits of this lucrative trade.
As time went on, the Akwamu, who had been paying tribute to the Accras, became more powerful. They directly controlled the paths leading from the inland centers to the European commanded forts on the coast. Realizing their power, the Akwamu demanded a tribute in gold from the Accras in order to permit traders to pass through Akwamu territory. In the 1670s the Akwamus allied themselves with the Accras’ neighboring tribes, the Agaves to the east and the Agonas to the west. These alliances put further pressure on the Accras.
The Akwamus were excellent warriors. They developed an improved military strategy specific to the conditions imposed by the heavily forested environment. They also emphasized the use of missile weaponry, such as bows and arrows and flintlock rifles, which they obtained from the Europeans.
In 1677 the Akwamus attacked and conquered the Accras. Through a series of violent and bloody military campaigns, the Akwamus became the dominant tribe in the district of Accra, along the lower Gold Coast and the Upper Slave Coast.
Thousands were killed, and many prisoners were taken. The Accras, former allies and trading partners of the Danes, fled to the fort at Christianborg seeking protection. The commanders of the fort chose to remain neutral and did nothing to stop the slaughter and capture of the Accras.
The Akwamus were heavy-handed in dealing with the tribes they had conquered. They forcibly conscripted troops from the conquered tribes, demanded tributes and payments, levied excessive taxes, and resorted to the instigation of disputes and other forms of trickery and unfair tactics to justify the enslavement of peoples from the conquered tribes.
For example, I. Akwamu Wilks in The Rise of the Akwamu Empire, 1650-1710, wrote:
In every town (the Akwamu) took some wives, three or four according to the size of the town, and left them there to stay. Then every year they would travel from place to place, and make these wives eat fetish (That is, swear to tell the truth on pain of death from divine power) so that they would confess what men had had contact with them. These disclosures were made willingly, since the women would get part of the fines, and the gallants might be sold as slaves unless their friends ransomed them.
The Akwamu abuse of power eventually led to resistance and rebellion from the tyrannized peoples. When the Akwamu king died in 1725, a conflict arose over who would take power. This weakened the Akwamus, and the conquered peoples of the area attacked the Akwamu nation. By 1730 the Akwamu were defeated, their capital city destroyed, and their reigning king beheaded.
Once again the oppressed became the oppressors and thousands of Akwamu men and women were sold into slavery. Many of these Akwamus were sold to the Danes at the fort in Christianborg in the early part of the 1730s. They were then placed on ships bound for the slave market in St. Thomas. Many were sold to plantations on St. John.
From the company’s records:
Haabet Galley, Danish registry, Captain A.H. Hammer, came to St. Thomas, February 1731, to sell 21 men 29 women, 5 boys, total of 55 out of Guinea; Cost to company wholesale 70 rigsdalers, cost to planter 120 rigsdalers.
From the company’s records:
Laarburg Galley, Danish registry, Captain Lorenzo Jaeger (replaced by Captain Hammer) May 1733. It carried 443 captives out of Guinea of whom 242 survived (124 men, 64 women, 26, boys, 28 girls); 199 died of dysentery and two were sold to the Portuguese. The ship made an overall profit of 69.5% from the survivors; cost to company; 70 rigsdalers, cost to planters; 120-150 rigsdalers. (From MAPes MONDe Collection)
In 1733 at the time of the slave rebellion there were hundreds of Akwamu men and women among the slave population of St. John. Of the approximately 150 Africans who were involved in the rebellion, all were Akwamus. Africans of other ethnic backgrounds, some of whom had been sold into slavery by the Akwamus, did not support the rebellion. Some even joined the Europeans against the Akwamus.
The Akwamus on St. John did not see themselves as slaves, but rather as slave owners. Many were nobles, wealthy merchants or powerful warriors who were accustomed to large commands.
Information on the African background came from Sandra F. Greene’s research appearing in The Danish West Indian Slave Trade, by George F. Tyson and Arnold R. Highfield.
Causes of the rebellion Weakness of the Central Government and the Military
As previously mentioned, Denmark, a comparatively weak nation, began their colonization of the New World later than the other European colonial powers. St. Thomas and St. John were rocky, mountainous, and lacked a significant amount of rainfall. The Danes were able to colonize and settle these islands mainly because none of the other Europeans showed much interest in acquiring this territory.
Without a sufficient number of their own citizens to inhabit their new colonies, Denmark invited peoples of other nations to settle them. Thus, foreigners exerted a strong influence on government decisions.
The plantations were only marginally profitable, and the Danish West India Company lacked the motivation and the resources to provide a strong army for the defense of the islands. They relied instead on a citizen’s militia. On St. John this situation bordered on the absurd. Aside from the ineffective civil guard, the number of soldiers stationed on St. John at the time of the slave rebellion numbered six. Moreover, morale was low and the incidence of disease, alcoholism and mortality were high.
Absentee Ownership of Plantations
Many of St. John’s plantations were owned by men and women from St. Thomas who also had estates on that island. The St. Thomians usually hired overseers called Mesterknegte to manage their holdings on St. John. These overseers were not always honest and often failed to act in the best interests of the planters. (Out of sight, out of mind.) The overseers certainly did not give the interests of the slaves much attention.
Low Ratio of European to Africans on St. John
Partly because many of the plantation owners and their families lived in St. Thomas, and partly due to the nature of the plantation system itself, the ratio of European planters to African slaves on St. John became extremely low. The lack of a town or any alternative industries also contributed to this low ratio.
Drought, Starvation and Marooning
On St. John slaves were required to provide the labor necessary to grow the food they ate. They did this on their own plots of land, which were cultivated in their spare time. Because there was no supervision by the owners or overseers, slaves could use the time spent tending these grounds to talk freely among themselves and to make plans.
In 1725 and 1726 and again in 1733, St. John experienced prolonged droughts, and the provision grounds could not yield sufficient food; the slaves faced starvation.
In 1733 much of the land on St. John was not yet cleared and there were still large areas of thick bush and forest. The opportunities provided by this environment, combined with the skills the slaves developed from tending their provision grounds, made it possible for them to run away from the plantation. They were able to disappear into the bush and provide for themselves by tending small gardens, gathering and fishing. The fierce and warlike Akwamu (or Aminas as they were called by the Danes) also demanded the support of slaves still on the plantations.
By 1733 starvation, overwork, and harsh treatment had caused a significant number of slaves from the Amina tribe to maroon.
Slave Code of 1733
The drought of 1733 ended with a severe hurricane in July. This was followed by a plague of insects. Both plantation crops and provision grounds were devastated. Governor Philip Gardelin’s Code of 1733 was written primarily as a response to the problem of marooning. Almost half of the nineteen provisions included in the code provided punishments for various forms and aspects of maroonage.
If slaves ran away to another country, or even contemplated, conspired, or attempted to leave the country, the punishment was torture by red-hot pincers at three separate public locations, followed by execution.
Those running away or conspiring to run away from the plantation, but not involving escape from the Danish islands were to lose a leg. If their masters pardoned them, they were to receive 150 strokes and suffer the loss of an ear.
Punishments of varying severity such as the cutting off of a leg, branding or whipping were prescribed for different degrees of maroonage, such as maroonage lasting over six months, maroonage over two weeks, and failure to inform of plots to run away.
The outnumbered whites also felt it necessary to include in the code, punishments for failure to show proper respect and deference. Menacing gestures or verbal insults to whites could be punishable by hanging, preceded by three applications of glowing pincers. At the discretion of the insulted or menaced victim, the slave’s punishment could alternatively be the amputation of an arm. If a slave met a white person on the street, the slave would have to step aside.
It was prohibited for slaves to wear iron-tipped sticks or knives at their sides, although the carrying of machetes was allowed. The reason for this was that because the slaves were prohibited from owning weapons, they had developed the art of fighting with their walking sticks. This form of fighting reached the sophistication of the advanced martial arts practiced in other areas of the world. Machetes, on the other hand, were perceived as tools.
Theft of property by slaves was punishable by torture followed by hanging. Petty theft and possession of stolen property was punishable by branding on the forehead and up to 150 strokes.
Being out past curfew was punishable by whipping. Dancing, feasts, or funeral rites involving the use of “Negro instruments” as well as the practice of Obeah was prohibited and would be punished by whipping.
Conspiracy to poison, or the use of poison, was punishable by torture with hot pincers, being broken on the wheel and then burnt alive.
The preamble to the code expressed the philosophy that the slave was the property of the owner and had no rights.
The law was written in an effort to control the slaves through intimidation and terror and, thereby to prevent marooning. The passage of the law, however, produced the opposite effect. The slaves, faced with the impossible choice between starvation on one hand and mutilation and execution on the other, realized that their only way out was rebellion.
Rebellion
On November 23, 1733 slaves carrying bundles of wood were let into the fort at Coral Bay. Concealed in the wood were cane knives, which the rebels used to kill the half-asleep and surprised soldiers who were guarding the fort. One soldier, John Gabriel, escaped by hiding under his bed and running away when he had a chance. He was able to get to St. Thomas in a small boat and tell the story to Danish officials there. The rebels raised the flag and fired three cannon shots. This was the signal for slaves on the plantations to kill their masters and take control of the island.
The rebels proceeded to kill many of the whites in the Coral Bay area. The insurgents gained in number as they progressed from plantation to plantation. Some whites were spared, notably the company’s doctor, Cornelius Bödger, because of the good relationship he had with the Africans in treating their medical needs. Also spared were Dr. Bödger’s two stepsons. They were saved from death out of respect for the surgeon, and also to be made into servants for the new rebel leaders.
The stated aim of the rebels was to make St. John an Akwamu ruled state, governed under the Akwamu system. Africans of other tribal origins were to serve as slaves in the production of sugar and other crops.
Many of the small planters on the East End, who had few slaves or possessions, were able to escape to other islands in their family boats. Some of the whites from the western and southern parts of the island were warned by loyal slaves, and they were either able to escape to St. Thomas or to assemble with the other surviving planters at Durloe’s Plantation at Caneel Bay (then known as Klein Caneel Bay). The approach to the plantation was guarded in part by two cannons. Captain Jannis von Beverhaut and Lt. Charles assumed command. Women and children were sent to Henley Cay with the intention that they be picked up later and brought to St. Thomas.
Meanwhile, the rebels attacked Cinnamon Bay (then called Caneel Bay). John and Lieven Jansen and a small group of their slaves resisted the onslaught. The rebel force was overwhelming. Jansen’s loyal slaves fought a rear guard action and held off the advancing rebels with gunfire, thus allowing the Jansens to retreat to their waiting boat and escape to Durloe’s Plantation. Miraculously, the loyal slaves were also able to escape.
The rebels paused to loot the Jansen plantation before pressing onward to confront the white planters at Durloe’s. The attackers became disorganized when faced with the initial cannon and musket fire of the defenders, and the attack on Durloe’s plantation was repulsed.
Meanwhile in St. Thomas, Governor Philip Gardelin, under pressure from former Governor Moth, consented to send a small party of soldiers to St. John to relieve the besieged planters. More troops under the leadership of William Barrens, as well as a detachment consisting mainly of African slaves sent by the Danish West India Company and by St. Thomas planters, arrived on St. John soon afterwards. This well-armed and well-supplied army was able to recapture the fort and scatter the rebels who then took to hiding in the bush to fight a war of attrition.
To regain the status quo, the planters needed to wipe out the last vestiges of resistance. The remaining rebels could continue to survive by looting abandoned plantations and small farms and by living off the land where cattle now ran wild all over the island. The rebels would be a constant harassment to the orderly development and operation of any restored plantations. Furthermore, the Company and the St. Thomas planters feared that the St. John rebellion would inspire uprisings on St. Thomas and wanted to discourage slaves on that island from taking similar action.
The insurgents held their ground, fighting a guerrilla style war and disappearing into the bush when confronted with direct attack by the numerically superior troops led by the planters. This status quo continued for ten weeks.
The British were also concerned that the rebellion might spread to Tortola, and they decided to help the Danes by sending an English Man O’ War from Tortola to St. John. The warship was commanded by a Captain Tallard had a crew of sixty soldiers.
When the British ship landed on St. John, the rebels staged an ambush in which four of Tallard’s men were wounded. Tallard and his men, demoralized by this defeat, sailed back to Tortola.
Meanwhile, the owner of the plantation at Maho Bay, William Vessuup, had abandoned his plantation and fled to Tortola after being implicated in a murder. Maroon slaves had taken up residence at his plantation and had later used it as a headquarters for their troops in the rebellion.
In an attempt to regain favor with the Danes and be exonerated from the criminal charges against him, Vessuup offered a plan to trick the rebels. He was to lure the leaders aboard his ship with the promise of supplying them with badly needed guns and ammunition. He then planned to capture the rebel leaders and turn them over to the Danes. This attempt at treachery, however, proved to be unsuccessful.
In February of 1734 the St. John planters again solicited aid from the English, and shortly afterwards Captain John Maddox, a privateer, sailing from St. Christopher (St. Kitts) arrived on the ship Diamond with 50 volunteers. His motivation was personal gain. He arranged a contract with Danish officials that would have allowed him to keep all rebel slaves captured except for the 10 considered most dangerous. They were to be turned over to the Danes for punishment. For these 10 he demanded a payment of 20 pieces-of-eight each. On their first confrontation with the Africans, the forces of John Maddox suffered a loss of three killed (including one of his sons) and five wounded. Like his predecessor Captain Tollard, Captain Maddox and his men left St. John shortly after their defeat.
English Governor Mathews wrote: On St. John the Danes at present hardly have possession. Their negroes rose upon them about six months ago. At my first arrival I heard they had quelled their slaves, but it was not so, they have in a manner drove the Danes off, at least they dare not now attempt any more to reduce these Negroes, who have always beaten them, and in a manner are masters of that Island. The governor of St. Thomas, was even modest enough to desire I would send some of H. M. ships to reduce them…and I now learn a rash fellow from St. Christophers, in open defiance of my positive orders to the contrary, having made a compact with the Danish governor, went with his two sons and three or four and twenty more on this errand, that the negroes have killed one if not both his sons, and two or three more of his company, and beaten them off.
In early April of 1734 a group of about forty rebels attacked Durloe’s Plantation. This assault, like the previous one, was almost successful, but was finally repulsed by the defenders. The insurgents managed, though, to set fire to the defenders supply magazine.
Events in far away Europe were to deal a deathblow to the rebel cause. King Louis of France wanted to make his father-in-law, Stanislas Leszcynski the King of Poland. This would mean war with Poland, and France needed to know that Denmark would at least stay neutral. In addition to this, France was in need of money after having suffered severe financial losses in their Mississippi colony.
The Danes had been interested in the island of St. Croix for quite some time. Sensing an opportunity, the Danish West India Company offered the French 750,000 livres for St. Croix and sweetened the deal with the promise of Danish neutrality.
As a gesture of solidarity with their new friends, France offered Denmark help in subduing the slave rebellion on St. John. Monsieur de Champigny, the Governor of the French West Indies, sent Commander Chevalier de Longueville from Martinique to St. John with a force of two hundred soldiers. This included a free colored corps whose specialty was the tracking down, capturing and killing of runaway slaves, an activity they called maroon hunting.
The French detachment arrived on St. John on April 23, 1734 in two vessels, one commanded by Monsieur de Longueville and the other commanded by Monsieur Nadau. Danish Governor Gardelin dispatched a force of about 30 men under the command of Lt. Froling to offer any assistance necessary to the French soldiers. Gardelin also sent attorney Fries who was to mete out justice to captured rebels.
The French troops proceeded to relentlessly pursue the remaining rebels. A rebel encampment of twenty-six huts was found and destroyed. A young severely wounded slave named January was captured and led the soldiers to a point of land (Ram Head Point) where eleven rebels had committed suicide. A few weeks later eight slaves, two of whom were women, surrendered after their master promised them clemency.
From St. John Backtime, “The Raw Truth has Been Reported,” Commander Longueville, from a document discovered and in the Colonies section of the French National Archives by Aimery P. Caron and Arnold R. Highfield:
On Sunday the 16 (May 16, 1734), six Negroes and two negroe women surrendered at the appeal of their master who spared their lives. He then informed me of the matter. I ordered him to bring them to me, since they were identified as rebels. I have them put into chains. Three of them were burned at the stake on three different plantations on St. John. I had previously informed the governor while passing through St. Thomas that should I catch a few of the rebels, I would put most of them to death and send him the rest so that he could make an example of them. The following day I informed him of their capture. He sent a judge who passed sentence for the sake of formality; I sent him the three other rebels along with the two women and requested that he not have them executed until I be present. One was burned to death slowly, another was sawed in half and the third was impaled. The two Negroe women had their hands and heads cut off after all five had been tortured with hot pincers in the town.
One week later twenty-five rebels were found dead on an “outjutting point of land in an unsuspected place” identified later as near Brown Bay. Commander Longueville and his men left St. John a few days later on May 26, 1744 and sailed to St. Thomas.
Unbeknownst to Longueville at the time of this departure, still at large, but hiding in the bush, was one of the leaders of the rebellion and a small group of his followers. He was a former Akwamu noble who was named Prince by his master. Through an intermediary, a deal was arranged whereby Prince and his supporters would be forgiven and allowed to come back to work. Prince and fourteen others surrendered to a Sergeant Øttingen. Prince was summarily shot and killed. His head was cut off as a trophy and his followers were captured. Subsequently four of the followers died in jail in St. Thomas, six were tortured to death and four were sent to St. Croix to be worked to death.
Sergeant Øttingen was given a reward and was promoted to Lieutenant for his bravery. The soldiers under him were also honored and rewarded.
The Danish West India Company reported that their losses in this rebellion amounted to 7,905 Rigsbankdalers.
King june and Akwamu leadership of 1733 Rebellion… Akwamu chief, King June, a field slave and foreman on the Sødtmann estate, led the rebellion. Other leaders were Kanta, King Bolombo, Prince Aquashie, and Breffu. According to a report by French planter Pierre Pannet, the rebel leaders met regularly at night for some time to develop the plan. A group of rebels under the leadership of King June stayed at the fort to maintain control; another group took control of the estates in the Coral Bay area after hearing the signal shots from the fort’s cannon. The slaves killed many of the whites on these plantations. The rebel slaves moved along to the north shore of the island. In each area, they avoided widespread destruction of property since they intended to take over the estates and resume crop production for their own benefit.
1733 Akwamu People’s Rebel Against Danish Europeans
The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John in the Danish West Indies, (now St. John, United States Virgin Islands) started on November 23, 1733 when African slaves from Akwamu revolted against the owners and managers of the island’s plantations. The slave rebellion was one of the earliest and longest slave revolts in the Americas. The slaves captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of the island. The revolt ended in mid-1734 when troops sent from Martinique defeated the Akwamu.
When the Spanish first occupied the West Indies, they used the indigenous people as slave labor but disease, overworking, and war wiped out this source of labor. When the Danes claimed Saint John in 1718, there was no available source of labor on the island to work the plantations. Young Danish people could not be persuaded to emigrate to the West Indies in great enough number to provide a reliable source of labor. Attempts to use indentured servants from Danish prisons as plantation workers were not successful. Failure to procure plantation labor from other sources made importing slaves from Africa the main supply of labor on the Danish West Indies islands. Slave export on ships flying under the Danish flag totaled about 85,000 from 1660 to 1806.
The Danes embarked in the African slave trade in 1657, and by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Danish West India and Guinea Company had consolidated their slave operation to the vicinity of Accra on the Guinea coast. The Akwamu were a dominant tribe in the district of Accra and were known for being “heavy-handed in dealing with the tribes they had conquered.” After the Akwamu king died, rival tribes in the area attacked the weakened Akwamu nation, and by 1730 the Akwamu were defeated. In retaliation for years of oppression, many Akwamu people were sold into slavery to the Danes and brought to plantations in the West Indies, including estates on St. John. At the time of the 1733 slave rebellion on St. John, hundreds of Akwamu people were among the slave population on St. John. Approximately 150 Africans were involved in the insurrection, and all of them were Akwamus.
West Indies harborIn 1718 the Danish made claim of the island of St. John for the purpose of establishing plantations. One hundred nine plantations with more than 1,000 slaves existed on St. John by the time of the 1733 slave rebellion. Many of St. John’s plantations were owned by people from St. Thomas who had estates on that island and did not make their residence on St. John. Instead the absentee landowners hired overseers to manage their land on St. John. The population of African slaves on St. John greatly outnumbered the Europeans inhabitants with 1087 slaves and 206 whites.
The Danish West India Company did not provide a strong army for the defense of St. John. Besides the local militia, the number of soldiers stationed on St. John at the time of the slave revolt numbered at six.
MarooningIn 1733, in response to harsh living conditions from drought, a severe hurricane, and crop failure from insect infestation; slaves in the West Indies, including on St. John, left their plantations to maroon. In October, 1733, slaves from the Suhm estate on the eastern part of St. John, from the Company estate, and other plantations around the Coral Bay area went maroon. The Slave Code of 1733 was written to force slaves to be completely obedient to their owners. Penalties for disobedience were severe public punishment including whipping, amputation, or death by hanging. A large section of the code intended to prevent actual marooning and stop slaves from conspiring to set up independent communities.
Slave revoltThe Akwamus on St. John did not see themselves as slaves, since in their homeland many were nobles, wealthy merchants or other powerful members of their society; so marooning was a natural response to their intolerable living conditions.
The stated purpose of the 1733 slave insurrection was to make St. John an Akwamu-ruled nation. These new land owners planned to continue the production of sugar and other crops. The leader of the revolt was an Akwamu chief, King June, a field slave and foreman on the Sødtmann estate. Other leaders were Kanta, King Bolombo, Prince Aquashie, and Breffu. According to a report by a French planter, Pierre Pannet, the rebel leaders met regularly at night to develop the plan.
Events on November 23, 1733The 1733 slave insurrection started open acts of rebellion on November 23, 1733 at the Coral Bay plantation owned by Magistrate Johannes Sødtmann. An hour later, slaves were admitted into the fort at Coral Bay to deliver wood. They had hidden knives in the lots, which they used to kill most of the soldiers at the fort. One soldier, John Gabriel, escaped to St. Thomas and alerted the Danish officials. A group of rebels under the leadership of King June stayed at the fort to maintain control, another group took control of the estates in the Coral Bay area after hearing the signal shots from the fort’s cannon. The slaves killed many of the whites on these plantations. The rebel slaves then moved to the north shore of the island. They avoided widespread destruction of property since they intended to take possession of the estates and resume crop production.
Accounts of the rebel attacksAfter gaining control of the Suhm, Sødtmann, and Company estates, the rebels began to spread out over the rest of the island. The Akwamus attacked the Cinnamon Bay Plantation located on the central north shore. Landowners John and Lieven Jansen and a group of loyal slaves resisted the attack and held off the advancing rebels with gunfire. The Jansens were able to retreat to their waiting boat and escape to Durloe’s Plantation. The loyal Jansen slaves were also able to escape. The rebels looted the Jansen plantation and then moved on to confront the whites held up at Durloe’s plantations. The attack on Durloe’s plantation was repelled, and many of the planters and their families escaped to St. Thomas.
End of the rebellion and the aftermathTwo French ships arrived at St. John on April 23, 1734 with several hundred French and Swiss troops to try to take control from the rebels. With their firepower and troops, by mid-May they had restored planters’ rule of the island. The French ships returned to Martinique on June 1, leaving the local militia to track down the remaining rebels. The slave insurrection ended on August 25, 1734 when Sergeant Øttingen captured the remaining maroon rebels.
The loss of life and property from the insurrection caused many St. John landowners to move to St. Croix, a nearby island sold to the Danish by the French in 1733.
Franz Claasen, a loyal slave of the van Stell family, was deeded the Mary Point Estate for alerting the family to the rebellion and assisting in their escape to St. Thomas. Franz Claasen’s land deed was recorded August 20, 1738 by Jacob van Stell, making Claasen the first ‘Free Colored’ landowner on St. John.
Freedom 100 years laterThe slave trade ended in the Danish West Indies on January 1, 1803, but slavery continued on the islands. When the slaves in the British West Indies were freed in 1838, slaves on St. John began escaping to nearby Tortola and other British islands.[10] On May 24, 1840, eleven slaves from St. John stole a boat and escaped to Tortola during the night. The eight men (Charles Bryan, James Jacob, Adam [alias Cato], Big David, Henry Law, Paulus, John Curay), and three women (Kitty, Polly, and Katurah) were from the Annaberg plantation (one) and Leinster Bay (10) estates. Brother Schmitz, the local Moravian missionary, was sent to Tortola by the St. John police to persuade the slaves to return. After meeting with the Tortola officials and the runaway slaves, Schmitz returned to St. John to relay the slaves’ resolve to stay away because of abusive treatment by the overseers on the plantations. After the overseers were replaced, Charles Bryan, his wife Katurah, and James Jacobs returned to work at Leinster Bay. Kitty, Paulus, David, and Adam moved to St. Thomas. Henry Law, Petrus, and Polly remained on Tortola. John Curry relocated to Trinidad. None of runaway slaves were punished.
On July 3, 1848, 114 years after the slave insurrection, enslaved Africans of St. Croix had a non-violent, mass demonstration that forced the Governor-General to declare emancipation throughout the Danish West Indies.
****Kanta, King Bolombo, Prince Aquashie, and Breffu
