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<font size="+3">A Remembrance of John and Bunchy</font></font></b><br>
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<div class="_3uhg"><a class="_2yug" target="_blank"
href="https://www.facebook.com/Ericka-Huggins-15875623977/">Ericka
Huggins</a><span class="_4_mg"> - </span><a
href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/ericka-huggins/a-remembrance-of-john-and-bunchy/10156388375853978/"
class="uiLinkSubtle">Thursday, January 17, 2019</a><br>
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<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">John Huggins, Jr and Alprentice
“Bunchy” Carter were both leading members of the Los Angeles
Chapter of the Black Panther Party, and they were new students
at UCLA. John was 23 and Bunchy was 26. I remember them every
day. And today is the day that, 50 years ago, on January 17,
1969, their lives ended on the campus of the University of
California at Los Angeles, in Campbell Hall. </div>
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<div class="_h2x"><img class="_h2z _297z _usd img"
src="https://scontent.fsjc1-3.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/p720x720/50326219_10156388395078978_4948726357140963328_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_ht=scontent.fsjc1-3.fna&oh=981dddf7c804f94a0e057b3a26ebf406&oe=5CD33F3C"
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<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">There are people I’ve met for the
first time, and feel that I’ve known them forever. John
Huggins and Bunchy Carter were two of these splendid people.<br>
<br>
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<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">In 1967 I met John. We were
students at Lincoln University, a Historical Black University
in Pennsylvania. We always bumped into each other, and each
time we stopped and talked. We spoke about the poverty around
the world and about the pervasive racism in the US—not just
the South, but also the North, the West, and the East. We
shared our dreams for a world without hate and war. I learned
that John came from New Haven, Connecticut. A natural leader,
John was an activist long before I met him, interested in
changing discrepancies in the treatment of poor and black
communities in Connecticut and beyond. </div>
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<div class="_h2x"><img class="_h2z _297z _usd img"
src="https://scontent.fsjc1-3.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/q83/p720x720/50330790_10156388396413978_6977147245338558464_o.jpg?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent.fsjc1-3.fna&oh=cffce1ddc24a5efbae63f8f5d1fb3945&oe=5CD0FA80"
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<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">John joined the US Navy after
high school. While he was on a ship, he heard about the
killing of four little girls, Addie Mae Collins, Denise
McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. They were killed
inside the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama
in 1963. Ku Klux Klan members opposed to school desegregation
bombed the church, destroying the lives of those sweet girls
and their families—and shaking up the lives of all of us who
knew. Hearing about the deaths of those children, John was so
hurt that he wanted to return to the states, and serve his
people, all people of color, at home. Our generation of young
people could no longer tolerate the ongoing violations of
civil and, HUMAN rights. So many of us were being called to
respond--and we showed up—all over the world.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">John was wise for his years, and
he was also self-assured. He was a perfect combination of
pride in himself, and heightened sensitivity. I believe he was
born that way. I’m sure that, this self-assuredness helped him
to survive life on a Navy ship. He once said to me, “I both
joined and left the Navy because I was tired of being told
where to be, what to learn, who to be, what to think.” After
we’d been together a little while our love, rooted in
friendship, made us inseparable. And, from the very beginning
of our short life together, John and I loved each other,
unconditionally.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">While on campus John and I read a
Ramparts Magazine article, about the Black Panther Party for
Self Defense, and the jailing of Huey P, Newton, co-founder
and leader of the party. We decided to join this organization.
The main purpose of the party was to empower communities of
color to reclaim the right to determine their destiny. John
and I left Lincoln together, and drove from Manhattan to LA in
time for the rally to “Free Huey” in the fall of 1967. We
joined the Black Panther Party within a month. John loved
people and cared for them directly. One day months later, as I
entered a moment of despair, feeling that I was not able to do
more to transform the hatred and cruelty in the world, John
quietly said to me, “Before you can make revolution in
society, you must first make revolution in yourself.” I was
immediately uplifted by his compassionate words.</div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">As soon as John and I joined the
party in November 1967, we heard again and again about
Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter. He was a gracious man, a natural
leader of the LA chapter of the Black Panther Party. The day
we met Bunchy I found in him the older brother I never had.
His respect for me as a woman and as a comrade was inspiring.
Bunchy moved through life with a sense of his own worth, his
value and heritage. In his presence I often felt my value and
worth. Often, when people asked his name, he would say,
looking proudly and directly into their eyes, “ I’m Bunchy.
Like a bunch of greens!” He was disarming.</div>
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<div class="_h2x"><img class="_h2z _297z _usd img"
src="https://scontent.fsjc1-3.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/p720x720/50652395_10156388393928978_3507940205732560896_o.jpg?_nc_cat=102&_nc_ht=scontent.fsjc1-3.fna&oh=e55157fff9de70aeae007b8362107f2e&oe=5D002FE4"
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<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">Bunchy was formally the leader of
the Slausons, a LA community institution. He became a Black
Panther Party member in prison. He educated himself there, and
then educated many of the Slausons, encouraging them to serve
the people, by joining the BPP. This is important. Bunchy knew
that those of us who live in conditions of structural poverty
and government sanctioned violence, cycle through
communities—lacking in housing, health care, food and
education—to the prisons. He knew that educating himself was
crucial. He knew that educating those incarcerated with him
was empowering and powerful. Bunchy knew that thousands of
young black and brown men and women live in these invisible
communities, hidden behind concrete and steel walls. <br>
<br>
Why not organize them?<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">Decades later I listened to
research, collected in the city of LA and presented in South
Central LA. One significant fact stood out to me: From the
mid-1900’s to the 1980’s, in LA, whenever social movements
were on the rise, gang activity decreased. Conversely when
gang activity is on rise, social movement decreases.</div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">Bunchy was eloquent, well read,
and fiercely astute. The professors who taught me at Lincoln
couldn’t hold a candle to Bunchy’s self-taught knowledge of
African History, the history of Africans in the US, and the
group fear we call racism. In political education classes
Bunchy let us know, some of us for the first time, that Africa
was a powerful and thriving civilization. The cultures of the
continent were beautiful before colonization, before the
Mid-Atlantic slave trade. He let us know that though our
African-American ancestors had been enslaved, but we were not
slaves. Many of us carried that focus with us into our party
work. I did.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">Both John and Bunchy were amazing
intellects. They did not, however, become students at UCLA
only to get a degree. They registered in 1968 with the
intention to uplift students of color, especially black and
brown students. They were there to support the hiring of more
black and brown faculty and staff, and to create community on
the very white UCLA campus of 1968. The BPP was serious about
organizing all of the segments of our communities, the working
poor, the unemployed and those considered “unemployable”.
Bunchy and John knew that people living in conditions of
poverty as well as the arts and the intelligentsia all have a
great role to play in the creation of a new world. Creative
thinkers and doers can give back to their communities. </div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">This was a small part of the work
that Bunchy and John were doing as party members. They
organized the LA chapter. Like me, they taught political
education classes. Both of them spoke at LA high schools, and
people on the streets of LA. They were the inspiration for the
community survival programs later created by the Black Panther
Party chapter, in Los Angeles. We knew that the government
forces at play stalked and jailed up standers like us. Is it
any wonder that that the FBI put a mark on Bunchy and John?
They were a powerful duo, threatening to those who fear
change.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">John and I lived in a house where
many people shared meals and good company. Bunchy visited
often, and, like a big brother, he always checked on me. I was
pregnant, and I worked for the party while carrying my
daughter, John’s daughter. I remember how kind Bunchy was
during that time. He strongly suggested that I rest. He made
sure that I had everything I needed.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">In December 1968 when our
beautiful daughter was born, John spent time with her, each
day, on a break in party work. I know that John was aware that
he could die. We didn’t have to say it aloud. The life we
lived, prompted me to wonder how I would live without the
precious friendship of Bunchy, and the safe haven that was
John.<br>
<br>
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<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">These incredibly big hearted men
will always live in our memories: for their easy laughter,
their kind words and brave ways, their wisdom in a challenge,
and their gentleness with a child or an elder. It doesn’t
matter how many years go by. John and Bunchy’s families will
love them always: their sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts,
uncles--and their children, grandchildren, countless friends
and comrades.<br>
<br>
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<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">John Huggins and Bunchy Carter
live in our hearts.<br>
<br>
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<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">One of the simple, true things
I’ve learned in my years on the planet is: Tell the people
seated in your heart that you love them, while they are alive.<br>
<br>
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<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">— ericka huggins, 1.17.19</div>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
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