Participants:

 

If you participated in the Southern Freedom Movement, and are listed in the Veterans Roll Call you can add your comments to this discussion by emailing them to webmaster@crmvet.org. If you are not listed, please add your name and information to the Roll Call.

[Alabama was notorious for using the so-called "literacy test" to deny Blacks the right to vote. In truth, the state's "education system" was so abysmal that many Blacks and poor whites were illiterate or semi-literate. But the white power structure made sure that illiterate whites were allowed to register and vote regardless.

Because so many illiterate whites were unable to read the names of the political parties or candidates on the ballot, Alabama law allowed each party to have a picture symbol, and all candidates were listed on the ballot in a column underneath their party's symbol. You could vote the straight party ticket by simply marking your "X" underneath the symbol without bothering to puzzle out the names or offices of the actual candidates. The symbol of the whites-only Democratic party was a rooster, so illiterate white voters were instructed to "Vote for the rooster."

Thus, when the Lowndes County Freedom Organization got their independent political party on the ballot, they had to chose a symbol. They chose a black panther.]

From: Lisa E. Brown
Sent: May 22, 2006
To: Gwen Patton
Subject: QUESTION

Hello,

My name is Lisa B. and I was part of the Stanford University group that, through Ms. Claire, spoke with you at the end of March. Our group was the Alternative Spring Break focused on the "Social Construction of Black Identity." I had a question. I am currently working on my senior research project and need your expertise. I am studying the organizing that was done by the Chicago Black Panther Party against the criminal justice system. For example, I know that Fred Hampton started a community control against the police project. Do you know any archivist in the Illinois area that would have archives on the Chicago Black Panthers?

Please let me know.

From: Gwen Patton
To: Lisa Brown & others
Sent: May 23, 2006
Subject: Illinois Black Panthers

I do not have any material in the archives re: the Illinois Panthers. I do have archival data on the Lowndes County Freedom Organization with the Black Panther as its symbol and info on the Oakland Panthers. However, I sharing your email with my movement colleagues who may be of help. Dr. Gwen Patton

From: Connie Curry
Sent: May 26, 2006
To: Bob Zellner
Subject: Illinois Black Panthers

Bob, do I have some recall that Dottie helped with black panther symbol in Lowndes County — does it fit in with [message above] from Gwen Patton?

Nothing from you this week. Connie

From: Bob Zellner
Sent: May 31, 2006
To: Connie Curry
Subject: Illinois Black Panthers

Connie,

I am sure I wrote about this already but if you haven't seen it, I'll have to do it again.

I worked in the research department with Minnis after returning to Atlanta from New Haven and Bob Cook's campaign. One day Forman told me to get a SNCC photographer and go with him to the Atlanta Zoo and take a picture of a black panther. "He is lazy so you may have to poke him to make him growl," Forman said. "Bob, you poke him and the photog can get a growl, maybe. See what you can do." We got several shots and returned to the office. Forman took the film into the dark room and came back with wet photos. He asked everybody in the office, "Who can draw?" Dottie said, "I went to art school, I'll take a shot at it. Forman, what kind of picture do you want?"

Forman said, "Make him growl and show some teeth." I don't know why we always referred to the panther as "he." He could have been a she, as far as we knew. Dottie produced the first rough drawing of the now famous Black Panther. Dottie drew it so it would reproduce well in black and white -- a panther with curled tail, bared teeth, and pronouunced whiskers, ears perked up. The symbol became smoother and more stylized with age. When I wrote about this for the book, Connie, I commented on the irony that Dottie, a white northern woman, drew the first black panther, and Cloud Weaver, an African American Harvard student drew the first symbol for the Southern Student Organizing Committee, which consisted of a rebel flag superimposed with the image of the SNCC black and white clasped hands.

This is not folk lore, but the truth as I remember it. I wonder if Dottie wrote about this event. There is, I realize, disagreement concerning these facts.

Love, BZ

From: Benjamin Greenberg
Sent: May 31, 2006
Subject: Illinois Black Panthers

To the specific question of the Black Cat/Black Panther in Lowndes County (as compared to Atlanta), Scott B. Smith, Jr told the story, as he recalls it, on the SNCC list four years ago; and was subsequently re-posted on other email lists.

---

 

Date: 15 Mar 2002
From: Scott B Smith Jr
Subject: [SNCC] Black Panther Logo

In Lowndes County were I worked with Stokeley the Lowndes Co Freedom Org was presented with two logo's one of a raised clench fist and a black cat (panther) for those voters who could not read or write a symbol of the org that would be placed on the ballot for the coming election those on the SNCC staff Bob Mants, Judy, myself( Scott B) Jimmy Rogers and Stokeley all agreed that the Black cat would be best.

The Back Cat had superstitious powers within the black&white communities and as Stokeley put it during a Mass meeting that a Black cat could always beat a white rooster (symbol of the ALA DEMOCRATIC party). The people in Lowndes Co all agreed and decided to use the logo.

It was the press who changed the reference from cat to panther mainly because of the size and attacking position of the cat.

This logo was taken to the bay area by Mark Comfort of ODAC in Oakland after the battle of Fort Deposit where we went in to that community armed when we received a valid report of a KKK attack on the black people that had voted.

That's where the statement came from about self defense from. When Mark & Terry Cannon told the story about what happened that night in Oakland, Huey and Bobby were present and started their own org. We used that logo all across the Black Belt counties that we worked in and the people responded like Panthers attacking the political structure like never before.

Very proud of the fact that I WAS THERE at the historical perod of time and the people there in Lowndes Co are a proud strong community that I'll never forget working with.

They caused the change in Ala that still exists today.This symbol was used in Oakland for the org known as the Black Panthers and across the U.S.

Scott B. SNCC staff Lowndes Co Ala.

P.S. Bob Mants is still working there and I have a respect for him that hasn't changed.

From: Charles Cobb
Date: 31 May 2006

The Lowndes County black panther was an exact copy (traced by Ruth Howard who first drew a dove for the newly-formed Lowndes County freedom organization) of the Clark College (now Clark — Atlanta University) panther, the mascot of its athletic teams. And that same panther made its way to California.

From: Margaret Herring
To: Charles Cobb
Date: 31 May 2006

That's the way I remember it too, Charlie. I remember Ruth working on it in the same office with Julian [Bond].

Margaret Herring
Wilmington, NC

From: Judy Richardson
Date: 01 Jun 2006
Subject: Lowndes Co. Panther logo

Folk:

Yeah, I agree with Charlie and Margaret. Also, as Ruth tells it, Stokely asked her to come up with a logo for the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (she was always an artist and was also working Lowndes and Wilcox). She came back with the dove and showed it to Jack Minnis who promptly said it needed to be a stronger image (can't remember his exact words). That's when, she said, she began looking around for another image, and happened to talk to a student at Clark College who mentioned that the college mascot was the panther. He brought her over to the college so she could do a tracing of it.

The only thing _I_ remember is that Stokely showed me (I was also working Lowndes & Wilcox) two images — the panther and the dove — and asked which one I prefered. I think I chose the panther, but don't remember for sure. I also assume Stokely showed those 2 choices to a number of folks.

I also know, from Dottie, that Forman asked her (also an artist) to draw a version of the panther.

I love oral histories!

judy

Date: 02 Jun 2006
From: Dorothy Zellner
Subject: My recollections about the Black Panther

This is my recollection:

I do dimly remember something about Stokely sending Bob Zellner to the zoo to take photographs, but Stokely never gave me a photograph to draw from. He knew that I had some art background because he went to Bronx High School of Science and I went to Music & Art High School — and these were sort of sister schools in New York.

I remember that he asked me to draw a panther and I told him no, I couldn't, that this was way out of the range of my abilities. Then he brought me a drawing and asked me if I could "fix it up" a little, because it was a line drawing and a big scraggly. So I remember that I evened out the lines, made the whiskers a bit more upstanding, if you will, and inked in the panther in so that it was entirely black.

I did not work from a photograph.

I did not make the original drawing.

I did not take part in any discussion in the Atlanta office about what the Lowndes County symbol was going to be and was never asked by anyone about preference between it and another possible symbol.

What I did was refine a drawing that was already made. Imagine my surprise to see this filled-in, black panther appear on television in the next few weeks, which I would date the winter or early spring of 1966, not to mention seeing it in a million other contexts in the 40 years since then.

In recent years I learned that Ruth Howard Chambers had made a drawing based on the college football symbol of one of the colleges in Atlanta, and it's altogether possible that it was her drawing that I worked on, but I'm not sure. If I was told who made the original drawing, it is lost in the mists of time by now.

I hope this adds to the completion of this historical puzzle. It's too bad we didn't heed what Forman always said, "Write it down, write it down!" We'd have a lot of precious contemporaneous evidence for this and other incidents that have been exaggerated over time.

Best to all,

DZ

From: Curtis J Austin
Date: ???
Subject: Lowndes Co. Panther logo.and other black panthers

I wonder if there are people on the list — or even off the list — who can speak to the place of the Panther in black culture and folk life outside of SNCC and Lowndes County — mention has already been made of it once but only in passing and then very vaguely. I'd like to hear more.

On another point, I wonder how many of those people from SNCC who went to Lowndes County had been in the MS Delta, especially the lower part of that region, and more specifically the Yazoo Mississippi Delta. I ask because during that time (1960-64) up until after Freedom Summer and the failure of the Democrats to recognize the MFDP, many SNCC people must have heard from the local people all the Panther lore from that area. Indeed, there were so many Panthers in that area that the feds have turned much of it into a wildlife preserve called Panther Swamp to keep people from killing them.

I grew up in Yazoo City hearing stories about Panther swamp that essentially said "don't go into the woods after dark because the Panthers will get you." Of course they were more detailed than that but what I do remember is hearing that these animals hve no interest in people per se but if you encroached upon their living space you were likely to find yourself dead. I'm just wondering if any of this knowledge factored into the choice of the Panther or if this is coincidental or if I'm makng something out of nothing because I'm from the area and my research interests mostly center around the radical movement and more specifically the Black Panther Party. Please help me understand.

Also, where did the people from Clark-Atlanta get the idea for the logo?

Finally, I'll add that I personally have been unable to get away from "the Panther," again due to my last 16 years of research on the BPP, this current discussion, and the fact that I live in an area now (Hattiesburg/Laurel) where there are still real Black Panthers — they literally only come out at night to hunt and the the local people here continue to tell stories about them coming up to their houses taking food, occasionally killing dogs and chickens, but for the most part just screaming and according to the people who tell these stories "like a woman in excrucuating pain." That would not be my description but many that I've spoken with agree on this analogy.

By the way, anyone on the list ever come face to face, even in a zoo, with a real black panther? If so, what was that experience like?

Thanks for your time and forgive me for rambling. Best to all and keep up the fight

CA

Date: 8 Jun 2006
From: howard romaine
Subject: Lowndes Co. Panther logo.and other black panthers

Dear Curtis Austin, I worked in SNCC's summer project, being the only one (other than Flukie) or maybe the only 'white guy' to come north to Mississippi, from Louisiana. The Southern University Black Panther, is the northern Baton Rouge 'mascot' matching the LSU Tiger, as I recollect. I wonder how many HBCU's have adopted the Panther, as their animal 'logo' for the very actual, or "folk myth" stories about the Panther, which you describe is the situation around Hattiesburg, where I may 'come back' to later this summer, ..and hope to connect then, if the moon and stars are right.

Howard M. Romaine

From: Heather Baum
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006
Subject: That Big Black Cat

Brothers and Sisters:

In case you don't know it — the image of the panther and the black cat made it all the way from Lowndes County to the far reaches of the North Country. Some of us brought the inspiration from Mississippi and Louisiana back to tenant and poor peoples organizing in our home communities. It soon became the symbol of resistance recognized by all. We put the jumping black cat on placards and t-shirts. This image hung in the windows of every single household in our neighborhood and in thousands of sympathetic homes and small businesses throughout our south Minneapolis community. .

The panther inspired some of the most successful community organizing in the North. I still have my t-shirt from our Tenants Union strikes in Minneapolis. The Tenants Union organized five rent strikes in my neighborhood and forced the landlord to negotiate with us. We were collecting thousands of striking renters dollars for court escrow in big plastic bags. We launched a legal demand for an environmental impact study of our landlord's plan for a Cabrini Green style development in our neighborhood and won in District Court. That put a stop to his plans. In the end we bankrupted the most virulent red lining developer in Minnesota. The neighborhood was successful in gaining control of his property and established one of the first community owned, affordable land trust housing projects in the country. All thanks to the power of that big black cat.

Heather Baum
St. Paul, MN

From: Cleveland Sellers

I have deliberately stayed out of these discussions because I believed that there were other veterans who could provide accurately the history and analysis of the Freedom Struggle: the strategy and tactics; the political and social milieu; the organizers and their roles; and the grassroot/local people (indigenous population ).

Often when we discuss POST1965 SNCC our discussion are made more difficult because we don't want to admit that a virture of SNCC, was it's ability to grow and change and change and grow. History has proven that the Black Power era was a benificial period for the true believers of self-determination and justice and People of Color.

I was in the Atlanta office, and served as Program Director. After Atlantic City, we felt betrayed and abandoned by the Democratic party and the New (March on Washington) Civil Rights, liberal, labor,church coalition. We were searching for a new organizing model to organize Black folk into an independent (Third Party) political organization.

The major lessons learned was that local and Black interest may be extremely different, from the interest of others, including even some who supported the cause. We also learned that the movement should broaden it's goals to include securing power. Empowerment and self-determination replaced the intergrationist goal. Race, class and gender is emerging as the prisim we use to examine the Movement's history, ideology, and tactics. This is a shift away from the exclusive narrow Race analysis.

Kwame decided to go and organize in Alabama along with the Selma SNCC field secretaries headed by Silas Norman. Jack Minnis(peace be unto him) found the law in the Alabama Codes Law that allowed for the organizing of an independant county political party. My job after a very long discussion of the project with Kwame, was to secure resources and personel. I also had to go through the process of making it a SNCC approved project. To help with the personnel issue, Kwame was able to recruit a number of former NAG members.

Gwen patton is correct when she talk about the local process for selecting the Black Panther. Kwame was a very good grassroot organizer and would use local people to choose the symbol to represent them. The Democratic Party of Alabama had a white rooster as it's symbol and this slogan "White Sypremacy For The Right".

John Hulett and John Jackson talks about THE meeting in Lowndes County where the Panther was selected, in an "Eyes On The Prize" interview. There are other references in Kwame's Black Power and Ready For Revolution, Jim Foreman's The Making of A Black Revolutionary and Sellers' The River of No Return. Let's not loose sight of the fact that the animal was Black and represented the poor and downtrodden in the Black belt.

Who then drew the panther that is the symbol of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. I recall Jennifer Lawson sketch of the Panther. I don't remember if it was a Clark University's mascot or not but I do remember that the black panther drawn by Jennifer had four wiskers beyond it's face but only three across it's face.

Emory Douglas, the brillant Panther illustrator, changed the panther design, but all of the original Black Panther Party materials (Newspaper, propaganda and etc.) used the Lowndes County panther symbol. Jennifer could solve the " who drew the panther symbol "if someone would ask her.

The other issues "The Changing SNCC," Self-determination, nationalism, Black Power, Vietnam, and class-struggle" are discussions that must continue to be held in house. SNCC was destroyed by external and internal forces, and it's own success. It is kind of fascinating that we were so young, determined, idealistic and smart, survived as long as we did and changed with the people, World history...Neither Black power, the Black Panthers, Nationalism, or John Lewis' defeat caused the organization's demise.

Date: 9 Jun 2006
From: Gwen Patton
Subject: Black Panther Symbol...

Thanks, Cleve. Though it is in Jim's Sammy Younge, Jr..

I, too, am somewhat reluctant to talk about how the Lowndes County Freedom Organization with the Black Panther as its symbol was born. I distinctly remember deep discussions on Tuskegee's campus about this development. Also, Sammy and Wendy went to Mississippi that summer and their report was that the MFDP concept would not work in Alabama. We were very much supportive of an independent thrust. We simply could not see nor should have the need to challenge the white democratic party with its white rooster as the mascot/slogan "the party of the whites (paraphrase)."

Moreover, SNCC was still strong as a grassroots organization which understood power under the leadership of Phil Hutchings in NYC. Foreman, and to some extent, was still able to raise money for staff, and we still did not demand much.

I was at the meeting in NYC when SNCC voted to dissolve itself as it recognized that it had fulfilled its mission. We then created/evolved into the progressive Black movements of the period, I will the National Association of Black Students (NABS), John Wilson and I with Nat'l Black Anti-War-Anti-Draft Union (NBAWADU), Mae Jackson, Fran Beal and I with SNCC Black Women's Liberation Commission, Foreman et al with the League of Black Rvolutionary Workers and the various sattelites i.e. FRUM, DRUM, etc, International Black Appeal and strong ties to African countries in the UB with our non-profit organizational status with the UN.

Gwen Patton

Date: 12 Jun 2006
From: Gwen Patton
Subject: Black Panther

[At the top of this page] is the Panther that is on the cover of SNCC's popular, political education booklet explaining the voting process and the duties of each office. We were not interested in electing state and US reps, etc. We were concerned with grassroots offices that had a direct impact on Black people, viz., the sheriff, coroner, bd of ed, tax accessor, etc. Were not even interested in mayors, etc.

Gwen Patton

Date: ???
From: George E. Davis

Winky, I'm with you, so I asked Jennifer. She said Courtland [Cox] contacted the Atlanta office on the need for a symbol and Ruth sent the Clark College Panther. Jennifer then made some posters to put up around Lowndes County.

At some point in the future I would like to talk about why ALABAMA.

I feel there were things that were done in Alabama that could't and didn't happen in other states. I feel a lot has to do with the folks of Aabama themselves. There was strong organization that all ready exsisted. The early Union Movement History has a lot to do with this. I am not sure but I think some of the first unions were in Mobile. (Side note: When the Nation of Islam was having their battle with the mob and the mob controlled dock unions the only port in this nation where they could bring in the Whiting Fish was Pritchet Alabama.) Montgomery and the role of the railroad and the Pullman Porters Union. The woman's voting league was key in the Montgomry Battle. In Selma I forget the name of that woman that was the go-to person, but she was invaluble to our work in Selma and Dallas county. The militant Black farmers and their organization in central Alabama. Birmingham and their Union activity. The state's NAACP, the role of the Socialist Party and of course Tuskegee (this is a whole chapter in it self).

You add to that mix of strong organization the whole Birmingham thing and you got something a little different. Birmingham was one of our first cities. I know about N.O, but the mines made the 'Ham different. Before the northern cities folks went to Birmingham. I have been around this country and best combination of Hustle and intellect that I met was Birmingham. Some of you know what I'm talking about. I always felt safer in Alabama, not because the Klan was less dangerous but because I felt Black folks were more Dangerous.

Sorry Winky for all the verbiage.

George E Davis

Date: June 14, 2006
From: Gwen Patton

I concur totally with you George. The political economy, i.e., Alabama was not a single crop state like Mississippi, which did not industrialize its ports as Alabama did, but a multi-faceted economy with the docks, the coal mines, the steel mines, as well as agricultural products. Black folks found themselves as workers, albeit expoited, in all venues and were strong union organizers on the docks and in the mills and mines. Visit and read our discussions of Alabama, SNCC and TIAL with Jean Wiley, Jimmy Rogers, Gwen Patton and others (Selma & the March to Montgomery, 2005 and The Movement in Alabama, 2003). Moreover, we did not only know how to run mimeograph machines and other technology of the period, we had direct access to this technology and more.

Gwen Patton

Date: June 15, 2006
From: Mario Marcel Salas

One thing to keep in mind is a little known secret. The Blacks that came from Angola, Africa were more rebellious than those from other parts. In Cuba there is a legend about this, and in Mexico there is a story of Yanga, an African slave from Angola who lead a revolt in Veracruz, Mexico.

I would bet that many descendents in Alabama are from Angola. Angola had a more organized society when slavers attacked. There are stories that slave masters generally did not want slaves from Angola because of their determination. Someone ought to to some research as to how many slaves in Alabame came from Angola. This might explain why blacks seemed or were more determined than other parts of the South — they had a history in memory of determination even though the origion of this determination was lost.

Mario Marcel Salas
San Antonio, Texas SNCC Veteran

Date: June 15, 2006
Curtis Austin

Perhaps this is true, but I find it highly unlikely since the history of rebellion is much more widespread than any of our textbooks or other extant sources have been willing to admit.

It is true that most of the larger Marroon settlements outside Jamaica, Cuba, Suriname, and Brazil, were located in North America near where Mobile and Moss Point, MS are currently located. Though when we look at the colonial record for the northern colonies, the rumors of rebellion in many cases were based on the fact that blacks and native americans had attempted such dastardly acts in the surrounding areas of where those rumors originated.

I suppose the point I am trying to make is that there is an inference here that people from less organized states are more docile — I beleive, without having the evidence at hand to shore it up, that ANYBODY faced with what Africans had to face during this period would find a way to rebel, no matter what their culture was prior to enslavement. After all Repression Breeds Resistance — otherwise the slavers and slave masters all over the planet would not have adopted the exact measures to maintain the status quo — they were not letting Africans off easy and not keeping an eye on people because they were not Angolans.

CA

Date: June 15, 2006
Howard Romaine

Friends, of course, Dr. King did his thing in Montgomery, and the bus strike was the largest mass movement since.. (before or during WWII..who knows) the movement, mass movement began there, then moved up to Greensboro, Nashville, Atlanta, and so forth...

To my way of thinking it was just a certain kind of battlefront that evolved, different from Mississippi, or Georgia, or Tennessee, but perhaps close enough to Metro Communications (or World Communications in Atlanta), and stupid and vicious in its whites to prompt a corresponding bravery, energy and determination in black folk...not to mention a couple of whites...

(really more, when you count Clifford & Mrs. Durr, and others)

Bob Zellner and Sam Shirah came out of there...

For me, I tend more toward theological and geographical And Heroic Personal explanations of events than 'racial' but, who knows...maybe I'm where I am because of my 'CAJUN DAD'..later,

Howard Romaine

Date: June 15, 2006
Mario Salas

Good Points. I don't know if less organized societies are more vunerable to oppression or not, but there may be an argument that some cultures because of historical and cultural reasons might be. It is a well know fact that the Aztecs were more vunerable to oppression initially because of their cultural belief that some God would come. They initially thought that the Spanish were the Gods fortold in prophesy. This is historical fact. I am only suggesting that culture might play a hand in acceptance of oppression. In ancient times meteors were considered Gods and those that possessed the fragments were by right supreme. If you accepted this belief then you would accept the power of those in possession of the meteor. Some people have gone willingly to the chopping block because of some cultural belief. To be sure, some did not accept it as well.

Date: June 16, 2006
Janet Heinritz-Canterbury

I worked in Wilcox County and we talked about a symbol for the party at mass meetings around the county. I recall that in Gee's Bend, a totally black community situated at the end of a road where most people owned their own land and there was little harassment from white folks, the people selected the Black Panther as the symbol. This contrasted with Alberta, in a white section of the county where people lived with constant harassment and intimidation from white folks, where the people had a mass meeting and first selected a white lamb as their symbol. They may have changed to the Black Panther later but initially they were convinced that they wanted a white lamb as their symbol.

Janet Heinritz-Canterbury

Date: June 16, 2006
Mario Marcel Salas

Repression breeds resistence and sometimes, unfortunately, acceptance of oppression, otherwise we would not have people who give up or become accomplices to oppression. To be sure, some Angolans gave up as did other people, but there seems to be a consistent theme of rebellion among them. Why? I do not know. I do know that in the case of the Aztecs, Spanish colonialism used the religion of their prophecy to initially enslave them even though they were a very well organized society. You made some good points but it only deepens the issue for both of us.

Date: June 16, 2006
George Davis

Speaking for myself, I am talking about not only the the spirit but the organizational structure. I do think you have a excellant point about the Native Americans. Point: (1) Who had a greater resistants then Osceola a Moskogie Creek. Remember he had a African wife that the slavers took. (2) The word Siminole means free man in Creek. It was this ban of Creek and runaway slaves that started what was called the Siminole wars. (3)The Creek major city state was in Mobile. When I wrote my piece the other day I was going to put in The Native American part. I feel that is also WHY ALABAMA.

Since I started this little side path let me try and be a little clear about what I am talking about. You mention Dr King did his thing in Montgomery. That is just my point, it was not King (and all praise be to him) he was the voice and the face but it was that organizational structure that already exsisted in Montgomery. Another point that I want to be clear about. First of all I have all the respect for what happen in 1955/56 in Montgomery but I start the modern Civil Rights Movement 2/1/60. Students radicalized the movement. The movement became student led.

George

June 16, 2006
Joanne Gavin

Curtis asks for encounters with felis pardis pantera (name and spelling from memory)

My mother (along with all the women in our famlly) has rapport with animals. Mom is now almost 93.

About 10-15 years ago I was visiting her in southern California and we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and to its Zoo. She had adventures both places. One evening towards closing time at the zoo she went on ahead of me and by the time I caught sight of her, in an otherwise human-free area, she she was beckoning to me to stay back and be quiet. She was sitting on a bench a little more than arm's reach from the bars at the edge of a black leopard's enclosure, apparently having a nice soundless coversation with what some call a "black panther", the latter lying right up against the bars and looking calmly at Mom.

We eventually had to bow to the place's closing time and leave. Mom didn't say what she and the cat had talked about. It would probably have lost something in translation, anyway.

In struggle,
Joanne

June 17, 2006
Gwen Patton

In our discussions re: the Black Panther, we always felt a philosophical attachment to the nature of the pather. Panthers are not aggressive, but they are fiercely defensive in protecting their families and turfs/homes.

Gwen Patton

Copyrights © belong to each email's author.

[Historic note: The 761st Tank Batallion was a segregated (Colored) unit that fought against the Nazis in France and Europe. Because of their unit patch, they were known as the "Black Panthers."

Many Black GIs who served in World War II and the Korean War became Freedom Movement leaders after they returned to civilian life. Among the veterans of the 761st was baseball legend Jackie Robinson who had been arrested outside a Louisiana army base while on active duty for refusing to go to the back of a segregated bus. Another 761st vet was A.Z. Young, a main leader of the courageously defiant movement in Bogalusa Louisiana.

It is possible (though unknown) that veterans of the 761st might have been active in Lowndes County. It's also possible that the 761st patch influenced the design of the Clark College logo.]

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