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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-55192772">https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-55192772</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The Black Panther who hijacked a jet to Algeria and started again in France</h1></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div width="compact"><p><span><strong>By Chris Bockman</strong> - December 6, 2020<br>BBC News, Caen</span></p><div><p><span><span><img alt="Melvin McNair in November 2020" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/1838B/production/_115811299_97683774-abe6-468e-89b6-273f3acabe03.jpg" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="387" height="427"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Francois Decaens</span></p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="1px transparent line" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/4BEB/production/_112953491__108802839_624_transparent-nc.png" width="624" height="1"></span></span></p></div><div><p><b>It
was an unusual hijacking by a group of three men, two women and three
young children. They commandeered a Delta airliner, flew across the
Atlantic and the adults never set foot in the US again, four of them
making France their permanent home.</b></p></div><div><p>An
airport vehicle driven by a man in swimming trunks approached the Delta
Airlines DC-8 standing on the tarmac of Miami airport in the summer
heat. The vehicle's passenger - also wearing swimming trunks - stepped
out, carrying a heavy blue suitcase under his arm, and walked until he
was under the open door of the airliner's fuselage.</p></div><div><p>A rope dropped down, and the suitcase was hauled up. Inside was $1m.</p></div><div><p>The
men in trunks were FBI officers, whom the hijackers had insisted wear
no clothes to ensure that they weren't armed - though one later claimed
to be carrying a gun in his trunks anyway.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="FBI agent carrying suitcase next to Delta airline Flight 841" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/CA80/production/_115804815_287caba5-113b-482b-97ba-665797f36843.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="328"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>AP</span></p></div><div><p>Once
the money had been checked, the 86 passengers on the flight from
Detroit were released and the empty plane took off again, heading for
North Africa via Boston.</p></div><div><p>It
was 31 July 1972, and this was the second time in little over a month
that hijackers were trying to reach the Algerian headquarters of the
Black Panther Party - at that point the most powerful black power
movement in the US.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Short presentational grey line" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/72FB/production/_112953492__90021446_test_grey_line_new-nc.png" width="624" height="23"></span></span></p></div><div><p>Two
of the hijackers were Melvin McNair, 24, and his 26-year-old wife Jean.
When they had met at university in North Carolina seven years earlier,
no-one could have predicted they would end up being charged with air
piracy - an offence carrying a 20-year minimum sentence, and a maximum
of death.</p></div><div><p>McNair had grown
up in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he excelled in baseball - his
team became the state champions in the black league. White teams
wouldn't play black ones, that was just the way it was, he says.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Jean as a young woman" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/117E2/production/_115805617_jean2_mandj.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="296"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Melvin McNair</span></p></div><div><p>He
also played American football and his studies at North Carolina State
College were supported by a sports scholarship - until he took part in
riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. McNair
was instantly dropped from the football team, lost his scholarship, and
his studies came to an end. </p></div><div><p>But it was when he was drafted into the US Army the following year that he really discovered institutional racism, he says.</p></div><div><p>Stationed
in Berlin, he witnessed Ku Klux Klan-style cross burnings on US
military compounds, and some of his fellow black soldiers got beaten up
by white supremacists in the barracks.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Melvin McNair" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/C95E/production/_115805515_m_mandj.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="239"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Melvin McNair</span></p></div><div><p>"Racism
was not hidden, so we started discussing militant action. We started to
resist passively by refusing to salute officers, we wore black
armbands, grew our hair long and didn't stand up for the national
anthem," he says. "At the same time the Black Panthers movement back in
the US was looking to extend its reach internationally and came to
Berlin to talk to us and recruit us - and that's when I joined the
Panthers."</p></div><div><p>Jean had joined
McNair in Berlin and when, in 1970, he was told he would soon be sent to
fight in Vietnam, she was just about to give birth to their first
child. Later that year they flew back to the US, supposedly to find
somewhere for Jean and their son to live while Melvin was away. Instead
McNair deserted, and the couple went underground in Detroit, which was
at that time a hive of black militancy.</p></div><div><p>In
Detroit they ended up sharing a house with two other men on the run
from the law. One, George Wright, had been convicted of murder after a
botched robbery that left a petrol station owner dead, but McNair and
Jean were unaware of this - it wasn't considered appropriate to ask
questions about each other's past. When the other man, George Brown, was
shot by Detroit police, fortunately sustaining only minor injuries,
this intensified their determination to leave the US. </p></div><div><p>The
group's sights turned to Algeria, where the charismatic Black Panther
leader, Eldridge Cleaver, had been welcomed after getting into trouble
with the law in the US, and opened a branch of the party. But how were
they to get there? The men came up with a plan.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="The sign on the gate of the international section of the Black Panther Party, in Algiers" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/161B6/production/_115805509_blackpanthersign_getty.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="284"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Getty Images</span></p></div><div><p>In
the early 1970s hijackings were far more common than now. McNair says
they did their research by spending time at Detroit airport and asking
lots of questions. </p></div><div><p>"That
period of time was crazy, everything was crazy, everything was full of
madness but we studied hijacking and we looked at the weaknesses and the
strengths of that kind of operation," McNair says. "We had to pick a
plane that could do the whole route and cross the Atlantic. That's why
we chose the plane we did."</p></div><div><p>They
adopted disguises. George Wright dressed as a priest, George Brown as a
student, and McNair as a businessman. Travelling with them were Jean
and George Brown's girlfriend, Joyce Tillerson. By this stage Jean and
McNair had two children, while Brown and Tillerson had one.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Jean with her first child" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/7B3E/production/_115805513_jandj_mandj.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="237"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Melvin McNair</span></p><span>image caption</span>Jean McNair, with one of the couple's children</div><div><p>Somehow
they smuggled three small handguns on board. One story goes that they
were hidden inside hollowed-out Bibles, and that when the metal
detectors went off, security guards assumed it was because the women
were wearing jewellery. McNair's caginess about the details, even now,
suggests that there was more to it and that maybe they had help from an
airport employee. </p></div><div><p>Once
Delta Air Lines flight 841 from Detroit to Miami was airborne the
hijackers let the passengers eat their meal before springing into
action. </p></div><div><p>But even after making their demand for $1m and a flight to Algiers they tried not to frighten anyone.</p></div><div><p>"We
didn't want to create a sense of panic, remember we had three children
travelling with us too," McNair says. "We even tried to make the mood
lighter by playing a cassette of soul music including Stevie Wonder, The
Temptations and the Four Tops."</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Short presentational grey line" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/72FB/production/_112953492__90021446_test_grey_line_new-nc.png" width="624" height="23"></span></span></p></div><div><p>Once
they landed in Miami negotiations with the FBI began. At first the
police said they could only come up with half a million dollars, so the
hijackers said they would keep half of their hostages and take off.
George Wright, the hijacker dressed as a priest, also told the
negotiator he was ready to shoot a hostage.</p></div><div><p>When
the FBI backed down and agreed to provide the full sum, McNair says he
was the one who took the risk of appearing at the door and tugging the
ransom up to the plane.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Melvin McNair at the door of the Delta airlines DC8 on 31 July 1972" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/91E6/production/_115805373_opendoor976ap.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="240"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>AP</span></p></div><div><p>Some
passengers were disappointed they wouldn't be able to collect their
luggage until the plane came back from Algiers, but no shots were fired
during and no-one was physically injured. </p></div><div><p>If
everything seemed to be going to plan there was one important detail
they hadn't factored in. The pilot, Capt William May, had never flown
across the Atlantic before, so they had to fly first to Boston, where an
experienced navigator climbed aboard - also in swimming trunks.</p></div><div><p>The
rest of the trip passed peacefully. While the male hijackers went to
sleep, the two women watched over the crew and four stewardesses on the
overnight flight.</p></div><div><p>When they
arrived in Algiers, the plane was ringed by soldiers and an official
walked up the steps to the plane. His first words were, "Bienvenue chez
vous!" (Welcome to your home.)</p></div><div><p>McNair says the pilot was the real hero.</p></div><div><p>"When
we arrived in Algiers we offered to pay the pilot for his services but
he said, 'No thank you.' The pilot had persuaded the FBI and their
sharpshooters that everything was calm on board. As we left the airplane
we said, 'That's a job well done.' But afterwards we thought of how
many things could have gone wrong."</p></div><div><p>The
hijackers quickly realised that settling in Algeria was a strategic
blunder. Most of the dozen or so Black Panthers who had congregated
there were packing their bags or had already left, and relations between
the Algerian government and the US were warming up.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Eldridge Cleaver (right) in Algiers in c1970" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/5B9A/production/_115805432_cleaver_alg_getty_a.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="288"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Getty Images</span></p><span>image caption</span>Eldridge Cleaver (right) holding court in Algiers</div><div><p>The
hijackers were told to hand over the $1m, which was sent back to the US
- to the annoyance of the few Black Panthers remaining in Algiers, who
seemed much more interested in the money than in the hijackers
themselves.</p></div><div><p>Over the next
14 months they lived in constant fear while housed in a compound in a
suburb of Algiers - surrounded by strange and mysterious agents, some
Algerian, others foreign including, McNair believes, US Navy Seals.</p></div><div><p>McNair and Jean immediately realised they would have to send their children back to live with relatives in the US.</p></div><div><p>"Nothing
is enjoyable about living a clandestine life. You are living in
constant danger, you don't know what is going to come through the door,
you sleep with one eye open. You are trying to be discreet - there is a
lot of tension," says McNair. </p></div><div><p>"We
knew the Panthers were leaving and we would be left holding the bag.
They had outworn their stay - time had run out for the Panthers in
Algeria."</p></div><div><p>Once again McNair
and Jean fled, along with George Brown and Joyce Tillerson - this time
to Paris, via Geneva, using fake passports and the support of
international human rights groups. Arriving in Paris in autumn 1974,
they lived with French sympathisers and supported themselves by doing
odd jobs. Their cover story, if anyone asked, was that they had fled the
US to avoid being called up to fight in Vietnam. The greatest hardship
they endured was the separation from their children.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Jean with French bread and wine" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/7BA2/production/_115805613_jeanbread_mandj.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="427"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Melvin McNair</span></p></div><div><p>When
inevitably they were arrested by the French police in 1976, the US
tried to extradite them but the French court accepted the argument that
the case was political, and that it was American racism that should be
on trial. But they had to be tried for hijacking in a French court and
were held in pre-trial detention for two-and-a-half years.</p></div><div><p>After
the trial, the two women were released so that they could look after
their children. McNair received a five-year jail sentence for the
hijacking but it was reduced for good behaviour and for showing
willingness to learn French. George Brown was in jail for longer, McNair
says, because he didn't try to learn the language.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Melvin reunited with the family after his release from jail" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/542E/production/_115805512_familureunited.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="238"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Melvin McNair</span></p></div><div><p>McNair finally became a free man in May 1980 and the family was reunited again, after a break of eight years.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Short presentational grey line" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/72FB/production/_112953492__90021446_test_grey_line_new-nc.png" width="624" height="23"></span></span></p></div><div><p>McNair
retrained as a social worker and sports coach and along with his wife
Jean moved to the coastal town of Caen in Normandy in the early 1980s.
Since then he has worked for charities on impoverished housing estates
in a neighbourhood known as Grace de Dieu (Grace of God) on the
outskirts of the town, and taught hundreds of local kids how to play
baseball at the local club, Phenix Caen. </p></div><div><p>The
club's ground is even named after him and Jean, who also worked on
social equality issues. His message to the kids is simple: "What I went
through and what I learned from the experience is good, and I made it
through, which is good. So I can talk about it with kids at schools, and
certain kids who don't want to listen hear my story and that's a wake
up call to them - that they should do things differently, studying,
working hard and respecting each other."</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Melvin McNair showing a child how to play baseball in 2013" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/4F57/production/_115811302_75eb32e8-4703-48b5-9058-054cfff0954b.jpg" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="342" height="427"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Francois Decaens</span></p><span>image caption</span>Teaching baseball in Caen in 2013</div><div><p><span><span><img alt="1px transparent line" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/4BEB/production/_112953491__108802839_624_transparent-nc.png" width="624" height="1"></span></span></p></div><div><p>Jean
died a few years ago and Melvin, now 72, continues to work as a
mediator in the community. His role includes helping families understand
where they can turn if they are facing financial difficulties, and
trying to improve relations between kids on the estates and the local
police.</p></div><div><p>"The only thing that has changed is that I don't get paid any more and I'm too old to play baseball," he chuckles.</p></div><div><p>Two
of his three children are French. The oldest, Johari, returned to the
US and was shot dead in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1998, at the
age of 28. McNair says it appears he was in the wrong place at the wrong
time in a turf war over drugs and stood up to one of the gang leaders.</p></div><div><p>"Everything
I did was for him, and to protect him," he says, with tears running
down his face, in the 2012 documentary Melvin & Jean: An American
Story, directed by Maia Wechsler. "And then I lost him."</p></div><div><p>Both his son and wife are buried in Caen and he says he will be too.</p></div><div><p>Of
the other hijackers, Joyce Tillerson ended up working for the South
African embassy in Paris, and died of cancer in 2000. George Brown also
remained in Paris, and died five years ago. </p></div><div><p>The
fifth, George Wright, went his own way to Guinea-Bissau in West Africa
and then disappeared from the radar for decades, resurfacing in Portugal
with Portuguese citizenship, where he lives to this day despite US
efforts to extradite him.</p></div><div><p>The
pilot, William May, visited France for a happy reunion with the McNairs
in the documentary, Melvin & Jean. They shook hands and hugged each
other and bore no ill feelings. After the hijacking May went from
flying domestic flights for Delta to international flights - a step up.</p></div><div><p>McNair
says he misses family back home, but he knows that if he returned he
might be arrested, and he says he has no intention of going back to
jail.</p></div><div><p><span><span><img alt="Melvin McNair in November 2020" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/7667/production/_115811303_26786bd9-fd42-4066-a7ba-7abc14ca46d8.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="284"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>Francois Decaens</span></p></div><div><p>He
has admiration for the Black Lives Matter movement but worries when he
hears about black militia taking up arms and training, even if their
motive is purely defensive. He points to the Black Panthers, who had
legitimate concerns about racism, he argues, but by taking up arms gave
the US authorities a reason to wipe them out.</p></div><div><p>And as for the hijacking that transformed his life, does he regret it?</p></div><div><p>"I
always have regrets, in the sense that if you were more intelligent and
less naive you wouldn't have made the mistakes that you did. I regret
the racism that forced me into the desperate situation that forced me to
react in the way I did. I regret that it has forced me into exile away
from America and my family but I got a second chance to make positive
change in the community I am in now."</p></div><div><p><i>Chris Bockman is the author of Are you the foie gras correspondent? Another slow news day in south west France</i></p></div><div><p><i>Watch the trailer for Maia Wechsler's documentary </i><a href="http://melvinandjean.com/">Melvin & Jean: An American story</a></p></div><h2>You may also be interested in:</h2><div><p><span><span><img alt="Reg Spiers in London before his freight journey in 1964" src="https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/EB97/production/_115811306_4ee5a477-a3be-46ba-ab6c-ad20f863dca6.png" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="240"></span></span><span><span>image copyright</span>John McSorley</span></p></div><div><p>In
the mid-1960s, Australian athlete Reg Spiers found himself stranded in
London with no money to buy a plane ticket home. Desperate to get back
to Australia in time for his daughter's birthday, he decided to post
himself in a wooden crate.</p></div></div></div></div>
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