Real, Real Comrades: What 43+ Years of Prison Mean to Eddie Conway and Paul Coates
Sunday, 22 June 2014 00:00By Susie Day, Truthout | Interview
Paul Coates and Eddie Conway, as Eddie steps into the street - and freedom - March 4, 2014. (Photo: Susie Day)
Marshall Eddie Conway and Paul Coates talk about how they met in Baltimore's Black Panther Party and maintained solidarity and friendship for 43 years after Conway was framed, convicted and jailed for murder.
Marshall Eddie Conway was born in 1946, grew up in the low-income racial segregation of West Baltimore, and joined the US Army at 18. Paul Coates, "a little bit older," grew up in a similar neighborhood in West Philadelphia, also enlisting in the Army as a youth. Sometime in the late 1960s, they met in the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party. Although both men yearned for racial justice, neither could have known at the time the dimensions of injustice they were to face.
It's well known that J. Edgar Hoover directed his FBI to "disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize" African-American organizations and leaders in general. But the FBI unleashed its worst on the Black Panther Party, which, from its 1966 start in Oakland, California, Hoover saw as "the single greatest threat to the internal security of the country."[1] By 1968, when activists in Baltimore began to form a Panther chapter, there wasn't much that the feds didn't know about them or couldn't "neutralize." The FBI often worked with the local police force to do it.
So in 1970, when a Baltimore police officer was killed, it was important to indict a Panther, preferably a highly able, well-liked one. The state charged Eddie Conway - who unceasingly maintained his innocence - and, in 1971, convicted him of murder. Thus began over 43 years of work by activists, attorneys, family and friends to return Eddie Conway to the community he loves. This is where Paul Coates comes in.
For over four decades, Paul - founder of the Black Classic Press - never stopped working on Eddie's case, never stopped being Eddie's friend. On March 4, 2014, when Eddie Conway finally walked out of prison, Paul was there. Today, they still work together. In fact, for two men who've worried and suffered over so many years, they sure do laugh a lot. I know because I interviewed them recently at Paul's office in Baltimore. I started by asking them how they met.
Eddie Conway: Paul, you'll have to do this; you're mentally sharper than I am.
Paul Coates: That may be true, but I really don't remember. It would have been at Panther headquarters.
EC: What we probably started doing together was going out to the airport and picking up Panther Party newspapers. Because there was a delivery problem; the newspapers were getting lost and misplaced.
PC: The government was losing and misplacing them.
EC: It wasn't accidental. We were trying to resolve those kinds of problems so we could get the newspapers on the streets every week.
Susie Day for Truthout: Did you see a friendship forming at that point?
PC: Since I'm so magnetic, he may have seen a friendship forming. You can tell how rough this guy is (laughter).
I came to the party, must've been the fall of '69. I would do breakfast programs and stuff, but we really did not have many interactions, as I recall. Eddie was much more experienced in the party. He was a Panther; I was at best a community worker, so he was Big Stuff, you know?
You were already deputy minister of defense, Eddie?
EC: There was no such thing. Probably at the time, I was lieutenant of security. But people confuse those titles over the years, and just make up all kinds of stuff. Most states did not have a deputy minister of defense.
PC: People came and went so much; the titles were kind of meaningless. After Eddie went to jail, we had functionary titles, but only about two or three of those.
EC: Like, you're the lieutenant of communications because that's what you already do. You make the phone calls, you write the articles or deal with the PR, and that makes you a "lieutenant" in that area.
But you were Big Stuff in the Party?
EC: I don't think I was Big Stuff. Unlike Paul, I was kind of quiet. Seriously, I did a little traveling, but basically I was just a low-level organizer, is how I see it. I went places and interacted with people.
PC: But you'd been in the Panther Party for a while. I mean Big Stuff in that sense. He wasn't one of the ones that came and went. I recognized him as a Panther.
Did you finally join the Panthers formally, Paul?
PC: Not really. When I came, the Panther Party was closed (chuckling). Even though those idiots gave me an application to fill out. I filled it out, but the ranks of the Panther Party had been closed in what, '68?
EC: Yeah, because they didn't want any more people saying they were Panthers in the midst of a flood of government attacks.
PC: However, people became Panthers largely through their practice. George Jackson said in Blood in My Eye [2]: "You Don't Join Us; We Join You." So if people were acceptable, they were pulled in. But technically, from Oakland, they closed that stuff down.
This is actually how I became a Panther. It was after John Clark, who was in charge of the Baltimore chapter, was arrested, and Eddie and them all were in jail. I was still a community worker. I went to New York to report to the leadership there, and they basically said, "OK, John is gone. That means you're in charge."
I said, "I can't be in charge, I'm not a Panther." And they said, "Well, you're a Panther now." That was it. It wasn't a case of joining.
Paul Coates shows Eddie Conway his cell phone. (Photo: Laura Whitehorn)
Locked into a Cage
Eddie, how did your case change you?
EC: I had already spent a lot of time taking people in the community down to the Eastern District Court in Baltimore. We would set in the back and watch the proceedings during the course of a day. So I knew the criminal justice system wasn't working for us – was working, in fact, against us. By the time of my arrest, I understood that there was no justice in the system. Once I got locked into a cage, I had more time to study and analyze, but I don't think the case changed me that much. What changed was my ability to move around.
How did Eddie's case affect you, Paul?
PC: His case affected me immediately. There was the shooting that went down [3]. The two folks arrested were Jackie Powell and Jack Johnson. (To Eddie) Were you arrested the next night?
EC: Yeah, when I was at work.
PC: The next morning at 6 o'clock, I get a call from the defense captain. He said, "Eddie's been arrested; get your ass down here. We got TE to move."
EC: (Laughing) That's technical equipment. Which stands for weapons.
PC: Yeah. Now, this defense captain, I have to tell you, was certifiably crazy. I mean he said this over the phone. I'm the only one with a car, so I picked him up and a couple of other folks, and we went over to the house where the guns are.
There are no cops, no traffic - nothing around. We had to kick in the cellar window to get in the house, 'cause they hadn't brought the key. So we kick in the window, and we start taking guns out. On the third load of guns, the police are there. We're arrested. I get 15 attempted murder charges. I don't know if you know that -
EC: No, I did not know that.
PC: Yeah, 15 attempted murder charges. Because I was the last person out of the house
EC: With an armful of guns -
PC: No, I had one rifle. I come out and I'm surrounded by police shotguns. This was 1970, after Fred [Hampton] and them got killed [4]. So I'm scared shitless. I'm thinking, "They're going to take me out." They probably would have, but they had me surrounded. If they'd started shooting, they would have shot each other, too. So that's why I got 15 attempted murder charges, cause of all the cops.
At that time, I worked for United Airlines. That job was gone after I got arrested. So Eddie's arrest immediately changed my life. I went from a nice, middle-class, union man raising a family - to jail. That accelerated my politicization.
Did you get out on bail?
PC: Yeah. Then we did a demonstration of support around the jail, and we were arrested again.
How did your case resolve, Paul? Were you convicted of anything?
PC: No. They dropped all those charges. None of those guys that had the guns were convicted - the police just kept the guns. That was a classic case of draining the Panther bail fund. Classic case. No charges came out of that for anybody.
Half the Damn Time Making It Up
When did you and Eddie start working together politically?
PC: I think Eddie and I really began working together after that crazy defense captain was kidnapped.
EC: Yeah, bounty hunters kidnapped the defense captain and snatched him away to California.
PC: And the Baltimore police actually assisted them. They put a wall of police officers around him, and the bail bondsman steps in and says, "You're under arrest. I'm taking you back to California."
It's total bullshit. And the defense captain says, "Oh, they got me." (Big laughter from Eddie and Paul)
What was his California case?
EC: I have no idea, but he had jumped bail on it, and they used that to bust up the Panthers.
PC: Once they kidnapped the defense captain, I became the person in charge of Baltimore. At that point, we had to work together and depend on each other.
You became the point person for Eddie's case?
PC: Yeah. Eddie and I had to trust each other. I mean I'm communicating instructions half the time from California. The other half of the damn time, him and I are making it up. Because California was, for the largest part, nonresponsive. Just nonresponsive.
EC: I think they were overwhelmed.
PC: He's being kind.
EC: I might be. But there was stuff in New Haven going on at the time [5]. There was the Panther 21 case in New York [6]; stuff down in New Orleans [7]; Geronimo was being run to ground [8]; Huey was hiding up in the penthouse [9]. It was really a system overload. And when Des Moines blew up, it was just too much [10].
Was your object getting Eddie out, or did you see the trial as part of the revolution?
PC: We wanted Eddie out, but our thing at the time was pointing out contradictions in the system. We saw him coming out; the people rising up - there'd be revolution, you know what I mean?
Initially, there was a lawyer on the case, Nelson Kandel, who felt that Eddie could beat the criminal charges. But our instructions from California were that this is a political case, so they were going to send a political lawyer to try it. That's the shit we went for.
You were both behind that?
EC: Yeah. For one thing, it was clear that it was a political case. It was a frame-up. If we played by the regular rules, we were going to end up hanging - I mean literally, they were attempting to kill me. So we thought, "If we have to fight, at least let's fight with people whose political perspective we trust."
Go with the Political
PC: That's pretty much how we approached it. When Kandel wanted to deal with it as a criminal case, it was me that communicated with these Panthers in California, and it was me who brought back, "No, we're not going with Kandel. We're going to wait for political lawyers."
The Oakland Panthers called me to California. So I went, thinking that we were going to discuss the political prisoners. But they didn't give a shit about these guys in jail. In fact, they wouldn't even discuss it. That's the saddest - it's hard to say this. When I got to California, what I encountered - from the same person who put me in charge of the Baltimore chapter - was, "Coates, now we got your ass here, we're going to break you."
That's the kind of time they were on; they were focused on breaking my attachment to Baltimore, which was the people in jail. We still had at least three people inside, and we must have had about 15 people still under charges at that time. And nary a conversation. I reached a point where I said, "I don't know what's going to happen, but I got to go."
When did you two realize that you had a committed friendship?
PC: Probably after I got back from California - because they had expelled me from the party. When you're expelled, you can't have any contact with party people. So for Eddie to have contact with me would mean that he risked expulsion, you see? That was a choice he had to make. So I went to see him and I said that I was out of the party.
My commitment was to come back to Baltimore - because I clearly wasn't leaving him. I wasn't leaving any of them in jail. I think Eddie's and my long-term commitment began with deciding that we were cool - and basically fuck what they say. We began working immediately. Immediately.
Did the Oakland Panthers want you to enact some program?
PC: What Huey had come up with was this plan to politically take over Oakland. Bobby was going to run for mayor. It made no sense to me, and many other people, that you would close down the Panther Party and move the Panthers to Oakland. But it made sense to them because they were California-centric.
EC: And Chinese-centric. Where that came from is Mao, the Long March. Back to a liberated base area, you gain control of that area and then move back out strategically to the next area and the next. That was part of the Red Book and Huey's trip to China. Like, "We're under attack all over, let's do the Long March!" And the Long March was taking Paul and those people to California, taking other chapters back to California.
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