Black Panthers recall FBI’s COINTELPRO

Toussiant Losier

When Americans hear about torture, it is often described as a practice used in foreign countries run by ruthless dictators. Even the US government’s violations of the Geneva Conventions — in the interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, the detainee abuse of Abu Gharib or the Central Intelligence Agency’s policy of flying suspects abroad for “extraordinary rendition” — is something that seems to take place far from here.

Last Saturday at Roxbury Community College, three former members of the Black Panther Party, John Bowman, Hank Jones and Ray Boudreaux, brought home the reality of the government’s torture of its own citizens to over 50 activists and local residents at the “Stop Political Repression” event hosted by Jericho Boston, an organization fighting to free all political prisoners. All three spoke frankly and openly about their abuse by the New Orleans police after being arrested in 1973 along with ten other suspected “black militants.” These men and several others were held for days by authorities seeking information about the Black Panther Party’s activities.

These men had long suspected that the San Francisco Police Department and other authorities had targeted them. “We would get stopped in the streets,” explained Boudreaux. “They would take our newspapers. They would take us to jail two or three times a day. As long as we could afford to get out, we would be back in the community and they would put us back in jail. They would put dope in our pockets. They would put pistols in our pockets. This was the tactic of the COINTELPRO program.”

The FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) sought to investigate and disrupt domestic political organizations considered radical. Groups ranging from Dr. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference to the Puerto Rican Independence movement were targeted from 1956 to 1971. This program was later found to be illegal and unconstitutional by a congressional commission.

In 1968, then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as “the greatest threat to internal security in the country.” Soon after, the party became the primary focus of COINTELPRO activities. These activities included planting informants, spreading misinformation, placing illegal wiretaps, harassing activist through the legal system, raiding Panther offices and reportedly assassinating leaders, like Chicago’s Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969.

In front of a hushed crowd, John Bowman described how he and his comrades were blindfolded and tortured when the men failed to provide satisfactory answers. Beaten with blunt objects, covered with wool blankets soaked in boiling water, slammed into walls and stuck repeatedly with an electric cattle prod, all three men still bear the physical and psychological scars of their treatment.

Demonstrating how the police tortured them, Bowman offered that the government has graduated from the COINTELPRO program to the 2001 Patriot Act. “The purpose of us coming here is so that we can ensure our own dots are in order to organize on a more sophisticated level and begin to resist the process that is developing in front of our very eyes”

This concern about new tactics of government investigation of political activists is rooted in their recent experiences. In 1975, three of these men were indicted for the unsolved murder of a police officer. The case was dismissed when the extent of their abuse was revealed in court, but no one was ever held accountable for this torture. Thirty years later, the same police officers that had overseen their interrogation and torture in New Orleans knocked on their doors with more questions about the same unsolved murder.

In spite of the wounds that these unexpected visits reopened, these men refused to testify in a series of federal grand juries and were held in contempt of court for over two months. A grand jury is a special investigative trial where individuals are subpoenaed to present information rather than face prosecution. While those who testify cannot have their testimony used against them, there is no attorney for the defendant, no judge to advise the jury and no check on biased jurors. Those who resist and refuse to cooperate are usually held in contempt until the case is finished.

Bowman and others emphasized how government authorities are using grand juries more frequently to investigate and disrupt political organizations. Each member could be called to testify, each providing enough evidence to convict another, making this process an easy tool of political repression. “The power that the grand jury, and most particularly, the US attorney deliberating that jury, has is almost unlimited,” said Marta Rodriguez, a Puertorriquena activist. She presented non-cooperation with investigations and mobilizing community support as the only effective strategy against grand juries.

Since their release in October 2005, Bowman, Boudreaux, Jones and others have formed the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights to educate the public about their experiences. At the event, these men sat alongside activists from the animal liberation and earth liberation movements, which have been the targets of recent government investigation.

Danae Kelley, an animal liberationist, spoke about her refusal to cooperate in an unfocused investigation and served seventy-four days in custody. Andrew Stepanian who dealt with subpoenas for multiple grand juries in nine different states because of his participation in a campaign to shut down the Huntington Life Sciences animal testing laboratory, described how “little things, things people thought were harmless — e-mails, contact lists — brought more subpoenas and more grand juries.”

This event also featured performances by the musical group Presente! as well as a martial arts demonstrations. Following the panel discussion, several members of the audience thanked Bowman and his comrades for sharing their experiences.