The Black Panther Trials - In this historically significant work, African American Artist Vicent D. Smith functions as an Art Journalist/ Court Reporter as much as a
Artist. Here, he depicts, in complete unity, 21 Black Panther Protestors raising their fist of defiance at the White Judge. Smith's composition is about utter simplicity, where the Black Panther Protestors are symmetrically lined up in a confrontation with a Judge whose size is exaggerated in scale. Set against a stylized American Flag, the supercilious Judge gazes down as the protesters as their fists thrust up. Signed Vincent lower right. Titled Panter 21. Original metal frame. Tape on upper left edge of frame. 255 . Panther 21. Framed under plexi.
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From Wikipedia
In 1969-1971 there was a series of criminal prosecutions in New Haven, Connecticut, against various members and associates of the Black Panther Party.[1] The charges ranged from criminal conspiracy to first-degree murder. All charges stemmed from the murder of 19-year-old Alex Rackley in the early hours of May 21, 1969. The trials became a rallying-point for the American Left, and marked a decline in public support, even among the black community, for the Black Panther Party
On May 17, 1969, members of the Black Panther Party kidnapped fellow Panther Alex Rackley, who had fallen under suspicion of informing for the FBI. He was held captive at the New Haven Panther headquarters on Orchard Street, where he was tortured and interrogated until he confessed. His interrogation was tape recorded by the Panthers.[2] During that time, national party chairman Bobby Seale visited New Haven and spoke on the campus of Yale University for the Yale Black Ensemble Theater Company.[3] The prosecution alleged, but Seale denied, that after his speech, Seale briefly stopped by the headquarters where Rackley was being held captive and ordered that Rackley be executed. Early in the morning of May 21, three Panthers – Warren Kimbro, Lonnie McLucas, and George Sams, one of the Panthers who had come East from California to investigate the police infiltration of the New York Panther chapter, drove Rackley to the nearby town of Middlefield, Connecticut. Kimbro shot Rackley once in the head and McLucas shot him once in the chest. They dumped his corpse in a swamp, where it was discovered the next day. New Haven police immediately arrested eight New Haven area Black Panthers. Sams and two other Panthers from California were captured later.
Sams and Kimbro confessed to the murder, and agreed to testify against McLucas in exchange for a reduction in sentence. Sams also implicated Seale in the killing, telling his interrogators that while visiting the Panther headquarters on the night of his speech, Seale had directly ordered him to murder Rackley. In all, nine defendants were indicted on charges related to the case. In the heated political rhetoric of the day, these defendants were referred to as the "New Haven Nine", a deliberate allusion to other cause-celebre defendants like the "Chicago Seven".
The first trial was that of Lonnie McLucas, the only person who physically took part in the killing who refused to plead guilty. In fact, McLucas had confessed to shooting Rackley, but nonetheless chose to go to trial.
Jury selection began in May 1970. The case and trial were already a national cause célèbre among critics of the Nixon administration, and especially among those hostile to the actions of the FBI. Under the Bureau's then-secret "Counter-Intelligence Program" (COINTELPRO), FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had ordered his agents to disrupt, discredit, or otherwise neutralize radical groups like the Panthers. Hostility between groups organizing political dissent and the Bureau was, by the time of the trials, at a fever pitch. Hostility from the left was also directed at the two Panthers cooperating with the prosecutors. Sams in particular was accused of being an informant, and lying to implicate Seale for personal benefit.
In the days leading up to a rally on May Day 1970, thousands of supporters of the Panthers arrived in New Haven individually and in organized groups. They were housed and fed by community organizations and by sympathetic Yale students in their dormitory rooms. The Yale college dining halls provided basic meals for everyone. Protesters met daily en masse on the New Haven Green across the street from the Courthouse (and one hundred yards from Yale's main gate). On May Day there was a rally on the Green, featuring speakers including Jean Genet, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and John Froines (an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon). Teach-ins and other events were also held in the colleges themselves.
Towards midnight on May 1, two bombs exploded in Yale's Ingalls Rink, where a concert was being held in conjunction with the protests.[4] Although the rink was damaged, no one was injured, and no culprit was identified.[4]
Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin stated, "All of us conspired to bring on this tragedy by law enforcement agencies by their illegal acts against the Panthers, and the rest of us by our immoral silence in front of these acts," while Yale President Kingman Brewster Jr. issued the statement, "I personally want to say that I'm appalled and ashamed that things should have come to such a pass that I am skeptical of the ability of a Black revolutionary to receive a fair trial anywhere in the U.S." Brewster's generally sympathetic tone enraged many of the university's older, more conservative alumni, heightening tensions within the school community.
As tensions mounted, Yale officials sought to avoid deeper unrest and to deflect the real possibility of riots or violent student demonstrations. Sam Chauncey has been credited with winning tactical management on behalf of the administration to quell anxiety among law enforcement and New Haven's citizens, while Kurt Schmoke, a future Rhodes Scholar, mayor of Baltimore, MD and Dean of Howard University School of Law, has received kudos as undergraduate spokesman to the faculty during some of the protest's tensest moments. Ralph Dawson, a classmate of Schmoke's, figured prominently as moderator of the Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY).
In the end, compromises between the administration and the students - and, primarily, urgent calls for nonviolence from Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers themselves - quashed the possibility of violence. While Yale (and many other colleges) went "on strike" from May Day until the end of the term, like most schools it was not actually "shut down". Classes were made "voluntarily optional" for the time and students were graded "Pass/Fail" for the work done up to then.
Trial of McLucas
Black Panther trial sketch...
Category
1970s American Modern Art
MaterialsWatercolor, Pen, Pencil, Paper
