Algiers, Third World Capital: Freedom Fighters, Revolutionaries, Black Panthers by Elaine Mokhtefi

Author:Elaine Mokhtefi [Mokhtefi, Elaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Non-Fiction, History, Northern Africa, Africa, Algeria
ISBN: 9781788730013
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2018-06-04T14:00:00+00:00

The International Section immediately received the support of the East Coast Panthers and members throughout California, who had lost respect for “boss” Newton and his strong-arm tactics.

But Eldridge was far removed from the scene inside the United States and the wider destruction that had been wrought on left-wing activists and their organizations. After listening to the tape, I asked him, “Where does that leave you guys?” He was concerned about the split’s effect on relations with the Algerian government. “That’s of no worry, even if Huey tries to undermine you here,” I assured him. “The Algerians won’t get involved. It’s not their problem, it’s yours, Eldridge.”

That became clear very quickly. Don Cox was preparing to travel to Kuwait to represent the BPP at the Second International Symposium on Palestine when the Split occurred. Huey Newton called him immediately, wanting to know on whose side DC stood; they were old and tight comrades. “When I said I was opposed to him, he laughed in a high-pitched, excited manner and said he was going to ‘crush’ me.” A few days later, Robert “Spider” Webb, DC’s comrade and sidekick, was killed in Harlem. To quote DC, Huey “lashed out with megalomaniacal, perverted rage and ordered the assassination of Spider, just to hurt me, in order to avenge his injured, bloated ego.”2

Internecine warfare continued. The group in Algiers, informed after the fact, was powerless to stop it. The ignominious murder of Bill Seidler in Philadelphia on March 18, 1971, was, for DC and Barbara Easley, the Seidlers’ “adopted” daughter, an assassination. Seidler and his wife Miriam, an elderly Jewish couple, radicals whose clothing store and home had always been open to the Panthers, had served as relays for the distribution in the US of film tapes from Algiers. Miriam Seidler saw the assassin enter the shop and go directly to the rear where her husband was going over the books: “Put that thing down,” she heard Bill say. The assassin aimed, fired, and exited. The press reported that Bill Seidler was the victim of a “hold-up.” The investigation was summary. Miriam’s testimony went unheard.

In March, Cleaver made a last-ditch attempt to mend the fences separating Algiers and Huey Newton. He pleaded with Newton to come to Algiers. Newton replied: “If I come over there I will only come over to kill you, Eldridge.”

“Okay, brother. Come on over here and kill me.”

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