Panther Baby by Jamal Joseph Page A

“hell wagon,” which drove from Rikers Island to Manhattan Supreme Court escorted by two police cars. As we pulled up to the court building, I heard a crowd chanting, “Free the Panther 21. All power to the people.” I peeked through the grated window slit and saw a hundred or so Panthers standing in military formation in front of the building. Directly behind them were several hundred demonstrators—white, Latino, black—a rainbow of people pumping their fists and shouting. I knew that twenty-one of us had been indicted (although three or four eluded arrest on the morning of April 2), so this demonstration was for us. We were the Panther 21. I shouted “Power to the people!” through the vent in the window as the hell wagon sped by the demonstrators.
    Th e cops turned me over to court officers who led me to a courtroom. I saw Afeni, Lumumba, Dhoruba, and the rest of the incarcerated Panther 21. We greeted each other with clenched fists. We were flanked by William Kunstler, Gerald Lefcourt, and several other lawyers who had become part of our defense team. Th e court clerk read off the counts of the superseding indictment. More conspiracy charges and overt acts had been added. Th e lawyers asked that our bail be lowered. Th ey related stories of neglect, abuse, and torture that had been inflicted on members of the Panther 21. Many were being held in dirty isolation cells and denied visitors. Several had been attacked by guards. Lee Berry, twenty-four, a Vietnam vet who developed epilepsy from wounds received in combat, had experienced a series of seizures and had been denied medical treatment.
    Th e judge denied all motion for bail reduction as well as any change in prison treatment. At this point Lumumba called the judge a fascist and asked, “Why don’t you just sentence us right now and get it over with since we’re being railroaded.” Dhoruba and other Panthers shouted out Panther slogans and insults.
    Th e Panthers were unmatched in ability when it came to verbal assaults and kung fu dialogue. Signifying, sounding down, or playing the dozens was an oral and cultural tradition in the black community. Verbal sparring could break out at a party, on a street corner, or in the subway. Th e person who delivered the sharpest, funniest, and most degrading lines about their opponent’s looks, relations, or status won. “I’ll slap the taste out your mouth, you tree-jumping, welfare cheese-eating, nobody-wants-your-greasy-ass jackrabbit son of a bitch.” Th e Panthers combined the blunt-force gut shot of a dozens-style insult with a razor slash of revolutionary politics.
    So when presiding Judge John Murtagh, a white-haired conservative racist who liked to present himself as refined and scholarly, was called “a foul-breathed, lynching, grand-dragon-looking, fascist pig,” he was stunned. Defendants weren’t supposed to speak in court, especially not his court. Th ey were supposed to communicate through their lawyers, especially if they were poor black defendants who were facing hundreds of years in prison. Th ey were usually docile because they were genuinely afraid or because they were playing the role of “repentant” before the all-powerful white courts. But Murtagh now had a courtroom full of “uppity niggers” who felt nothing but contempt and rage for a system that denied them their rights and treated them like animals.
    Our radical attorneys were not much better. When Judge Murtagh would instruct them to quiet us down, they would press the case for lower bail and humane treatment, emphasizing that we (the Panthers) had a right to be outraged at our treatment. Over a chorus of “Power to the people,” “Death to the pigs,” “Get your motherfuckin’ hands off me,” Murtagh banged his gavel and we were escorted from the courtroom.
    Th e lawyers were able to convince Murtagh to allow us an attorney-client conference in the holding cell. Tempers were still running high when the guards opened the