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<font size=3>Bobby Hutton and Martin Luther King, Jr. -- Forty Years
On<br>
by Ron Jacobs <br><br>
April 4, 1968 was the day when Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in
Memphis, Tennessee. He had been working with the Memphis sanitation
workers in their struggle for better working conditions and a
union. The night before his assassination, he gave
<a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm">
his speech</a> that ended with the words "But I want you to know
tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And
I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not
fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the
Lord." The next day he was gunned down on the balcony of the
Lorraine Motel by either James Earl Ray and/or persons unknown.
Although I am one of those who sincerely doubts Ray's supposed role in
the murder, that is not the purpose of my writing. We will probably
never know for certain exactly who conspired to kill Dr. King. We
do know whose interests were served by his murder. Many of those
same elements of US political and economic society that were served by
King's murder continue to be responsible for much of what goes on in
those arenas to this day.<br><br>
No, my purpose writing today is to talk about another political murder
that occurred two days after Dr. King's. This murder happened
across the country in the city of Oakland, California and we know who the
murderers were. The murdered man (a young man of 17, in fact) was
Bobby Hutton and the murderers were members of the Oakland Police
Department. Bobby was the first person to join the Black Panther
Party after it was formed by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966.
In a rather bitter twist his murder was also the first murder by law
enforcement of a member of the Black Panther Party. By the time the
Party had disappeared from the political landscape, more than thirty
members had been killed by various law enforcement agencies. As I
write, the government continues its vendetta against former Party members
in its attempt to murder
<a href="http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080402__Mumia_Exception_s__ugly_head_again.html">
Mumia Abu Jamal</a> in Pennsylvania and in its prosecution of the San
<a href="http://www.freethesf8.org/">Francisco 8</a>, to name but two of
the better known cases involving party members that are still
ongoing. In addition, several former party members languish in
prisons around the country -- many for crimes they did not
commit.<br><br>
The story of Hutton's murder is essentially this. After Dr. King's
murder, dozens of cities and towns with large black populations across
the United States erupted in what can best be termed as a
rebellion. Police departments were quickly overwhelmed and National
Guard and regular Army troops were called in to enforce order and protect
property. One of the few such cities that experienced very little
civil unrest was Oakland, CA. Although the police would not admit
it, much of this was due to the role the Black Panther Party played in
keeping the lid on things, arguing with angry African-Americans intent on
raising hell that any type of insurrectionary activity would provide the
notoriously racist Oakland police with an excuse to kill as many black
folks as they wanted. The Panthers spent much of the first
forty-eight hours after King's murder diffusing potentially riotous
situations throughout the Oakland neighborhoods where they were respected
and known.<br><br>
In circumstances that remain contested to this day, Hutton was murdered
either after he left a basement where he and Eldridge Cleaver had hidden
following an armed confrontation between the police and some Panthers who
were pulled over by police in East Oakland or after he was taken into
custody. Either way, he was unarmed. As Cleaver told Henry
Louis Gates, Jr. in an interview that appears on the PBS show
<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/ecleaver.html">
<i>Frontline</a>, </i>he was told by one of the arresting officers who
was at the scene in Oakland on April 6, 1968: <br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>So I was pulling the trigger to blow your head off, and something
told me not to do it." I (Cleaver) said, "praise
the Lord." He said, "praise the Lord." He told
me, "I am no longer a police officer." He said, "I
have my own private security firm now." He said, "the
reason that they have not been rushing you (Cleaver) to court is because
of my testimony and the testimony of 13 other police officers who were
there that night who do not agree with what the police did in the way
they killed Bobby Hutton." He said, "they murdered Bobby
(Hutton). They murdered my prisoner."<br><br>
</dl>This information was relayed to Cleaver after he returned from exile
and was awaiting trial on charges related to that April 1968 night.
<br><br>
Other versions of that night claim that two carloads of Panthers were
ambushed by Oakland police. In the chaos that followed the ambush,
Cleaver and Hutton escaped and hid in a basement nearby. After a
period of time, Hutton and Cleaver surrendered and Hutton left the
building first, unarmed and without a shirt. He was then shot down
in cold blood. Either way the story is told, the fact remains that
Hutton was murdered by the police.<br><br>
The murders of King and Hutton within two days of each other convinced
many people living in the United States that forces within the US
government were intent on destroying the popular struggle against racism
and war by any means necessary. The historical evidence since that
bloody weekend forty years ago suggests that those forces were more
successful than not. Despite the current campaign by Barack Obama
for president, the vast majority of US residents of color are not faring
that much better than they were in 1968. Legal apartheid no longer
exists and attitudes towards race have progressed, but the economic facts
of much of non-white America are appallingly similar to what they were
forty years ago. Furthermore, the statistics regarding the
imprisonment of black and Latino men in the United States provide
concrete evidence that the mechanics of racial oppression still operate
in this country. The criminal justice system continues to be the
means by which the predominantly white and essentially racist power
structure maintains its control over those who are poor and whose skin is
darker in hue. Like I noted above, many of the same elements of US
political and economic society that were served by the murder of Dr. King
and the destruction of the Black Panther Party continue to be responsible
for much of what goes on in those arenas to this day. No matter how
one tries to portray the past forty years of this aspect of US history,
it is clear that we have not reached the promised land.<br>
<hr>
Ron Jacobs is author of
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=SD2TvqDh8EkC">The Way the Wind
Blew: A History of the Weather Underground</a></i> (republished by
Verso). His first novel,
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Short-Order-Frame-Ron-Jacobs/dp/0977459098">
Short Order Frame Up</a></i>, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be
reached at
<<a href="mailto:rjacobs3625@charter.net">rjacobs3625@charter.net</a>
>. <br><br>
<br><br>
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