Radical Fairy Tales
M. Toole | Apr 10, 2014 | Comments 0
with Melvin Weatherman
Part XXVI Angela Davis
Once upon a time there were some less than happy panthers of the black persuasion. They, in an attempt to protect their charming Oakland neighborhoods from violence wrought by “genocidal, racist police fascists bastards” had been thrown in the slammer charged with everything from littering to treason.
And it came to pass that a political science professor at Cal Berkeley, named Angela, heard of their plight. Angela, who was about 359 degrees left of center herself, found out that the panthers, with names like George Jackson and Bobby Seal, were actually not criminals at all but political prisoners who were being abused while in custody. It appears that Eldridge Cleaver (no relation to Beaver) was in the can at that same time penning “Soul On Ice”, but we’re getting ahead of the story.
Although not particularly shocked by the goings on in at Soledad Prison, Angela was a bit surprised how obvious the police were in their attempts to clamp down on the panthers. It was common knowledge at many prisons that the panthers had been targeted by the cops for their subversive activities. They were being deprived of their constitutional rights. (Editor’s note: Now, some 30 years later that can be said for all Americans but then it was just a few or so we were led to believe). The lives of the panthers were in danger. Every day there were murders within the prison walls. Who would suspect the cops? She decided to act.
On March 14 she successfully smuggled 17 high-powered rifles, three hand grenades, a laptop rocket launcher, 2 coconut cream pies, a roll of ostentatious toilet paper and a copy of Tuesday’s New York Times into the prison. The place exploded. All right, so it wasn’t as impressive a strike as Attica but it was one of the first experiments of its kind and the prison population was new at this kind of thing. Unfortunately, her drastic steps lead to much more violence and the score has never been settled up to present day.
As the dust settled the authorities failed to prove one damn thing with regards to Angela’s participation in the attempted prison break. She currently teaches radical kindergarten in El Cerrito.
(Source: Bedtime Tales for Generation X by Mario Andretti and the Free Speech Movement)
Filed Under: Reflections on Disorder