Panther Baby Read Online Free Page B

out. One splintered the wood on the fence near my butt. Th is gave me the fear/adrenaline push I needed to flip over the fence, pick myself up off the ground, and scramble out of the alley.
    When I turned out on the street, I kept running, right past two other cops who tried to grab me, but I jerked away. Turning the corner, I almost collided with a group of twenty or so black men in leather coats and army fatigue jackets, wearing Afros and berets, standing on the corner in a military-like formation. “Stop running, young brother,” one of the men with a beard and tinted glasses said. “Don’t give these pigs an excuse to gun you down.” I doubled over, heaving, trying to catch my breath. I didn’t know this man, but his voice sounded like a life raft of confidence in a sea of chaos.
    Moments later two cops ran around the corner. Th ey stopped in their tracks when they saw the militant men. Th e men closed ranks around me. “What are you doing here?” one of the cops demanded. “Move aside.”
    Th e black man with the tinted glasses didn’t flinch. “We’re exercising our constitutional right to free assembly. Making sure no innocent people get killed out here tonight.”
    “We’re chasing looters,” the cop retorted.
    “No looters here. As you can see, we’re a disciplined community patrol.”
    “You have guns?” the cop asked, a tinge of fear in his voice.
    “ Th at’s what you said,” the man with tinted glasses replied. “I said we’re exercising our constitutional rights.” Th e cops took in the size and discipline of the group for a moment and walked away.
    By this time I’d caught my breath, but I was speechless from what I had just seen: black men standing down white cops. “Go straight home, young brother,” the man with the tinted glasses said. “ Th e pigs are looking for any excuse to murder black folks tonight.” With that, the black men walked on. I scooted down to the subway and rode home. When I entered the apartment, Noonie was sitting on the couch watching images of Dr. King on TV. Tears fell from her eyes. She didn’t even ask me where I had been, which was unusual since I was about two hours late getting home. I sat next to her and put my arm around her, and we watched the TV reports of the assassination and the riots.
    By July 1968 the country was still smoldering with the hot embers of social change, but in the hills of Camp Minisink, located in upstate New York, kids and teens from Harlem were just happy to enjoy campfires and swimming in a lake, miles away from the melting asphalt of their home. Camp Minisink was the oldest African American camp in New York State. I had a job there as a junior counselor. I was also part of one of Minisink’s youth organizations known as the Order of the Feather.
    Young men who wanted to join the Order of the Feather had to pledge six months before becoming “Feathermen,” earning the right to wear the coveted maroon and white varsity-style sweater of the organization. Th e fraternity was modeled after the Boy Scouts Order of the Arrow and after black college fraternities. Although we were young, becoming part of the organization was a tough, disciplined, and challenging rite-of-passage process.
    We “pledgees” had to wear white shirts and maroon bow ties as uniforms, march in a precision line, address all Feathermen as “sir” or “big brother,” and do push-ups and other forms of “creative punishment” when we failed at a task or bungled an assignment. We had to read black history books (or “Negro” history as many in the community still called it), turn in written assignments, bring in our report cards, and attend career and education workshops. Pledgees were not allowed to go to parties, have girlfriends, smoke, or drink.
    I took the pledgee oath in Minisink’s Harlem Community Center along with 150 other young men. By the time we got to camp for the last few weeks of the training process, there were only thirty-five of