Black Panthers March Again!!!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009
At a little-known press conference in Mount Enterprise Tuesday evening, the leader of the New Black Panther Party announced that there will be a march and a rally in Henderson on Dec. 22 to demand an explanation of what caused the death of a black man who died while in the Rusk County Jail on Oct. 16.

According to past media reports, the Texas Rangers are leading up the investigation into the case of Gerald Johnson, 31, of Mount Enterprise, who was found Oct. 16 lying non-responsive on the floor of a holding cell due to a possible seizure. Johnson was arrested on drug charges and evading arrest earlier in July, according to the reports, and surrendered himself at the jail the afternoon of Oct. 16 to serve out his sentence. Family members present at the press conference said that hospital officials, not jail officials, called the deceased’s mother later that night to tell her that her son was dead.

African-American activist Quanell X of Houston leads the NBPP, which is identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “black separatist hate group,” and he issued an impassioned plea to the small group of about 15 of Johnson’s family and friends at the press conference to mobilize their community and bring a strong showing to the march, which was promised to be “peaceful.”

Standing next to Johnson’s mother, Cherry Johnson, who silently held a portrait of her dead son, Quanell X said he was contacted a couple of weeks ago by local residents who told him about Johnson’s unexplained death and other alleged instances of abuse towards black men at the county jail in Henderson.

“Until this family gets real information of what happened to Gerald Johnson, and other families get some serious answers, and until the Rusk County jail changes its behavior and how they treat black people, we should and must march,” Quanell X said. “How many young brothers have gone into that jail looking one way and come out looking like the elephant man? We want to know how many other brothers in that jail have complaints and how many families have complaints. Stand up for Gerald and other African-Americans who go into that jail and get the hell beat out of them and nobody cares.”

Quanell X and members of Johnson’s family said that investigators still have not contacted them with any information about the death, but only to say that Johnson’s brain was bleeding, and he may have suffered an injury to the back of his head. But upon hearing of Tuesday’s press conference, the family said that the justice of the peace informed them that the autopsy results would not be made public for an indefinite period of time.

The family said it doubts it was an aneurysm, and their suspicions are that Johnson may have been assaulted or “beat to death” while in jail, and authorities have not explained his death yet, and they believe that lack of action is because he was black.

“When you get trauma to your head, you get seizures,” Quanell X said. “When you get trauma to your head, you get blood on the brain. What we are saying is that if this was some affluent suburban white woman in this county, they would have come to her home, sat at her desk and explained everything to her.

“But they have not done that, because this is a poor black woman and they frankly just don’t give a damn,” he said.

Quanell X would not say how many people from Houston he plans to bring to the march next month, only that it will be “enough.” And while he expects some in the white community to be upset over the planned event, Quanell X said he is not expecting the Klu Klux Klan, who often counter-protest NBPP rallies, to show, but he said they will be ready for anything.

“(The KKK) likes to bully small town black people,” he said. “They like to bully a small segment of the African-American community. But they know, straight up, that you don’t bully the new Black Panthers.

“They know, straight up, we’ll pick a dancing partner, and we’ll dance,” he said, adding that if anyone brings German Shepherds, the NBPP will bring Pit Bulls.

During the press conference, Quanell X also issued the entirely African-American audience, save for journalists, a sermon-like speech, asking that black people stop referring to each other as “niggers” and stop blaming their woes on the “white man.” He warned that in 20 years, black people will be in the worst situation they’ve faced since slavery and may even go the way of Native Americans and fall out of American society. High unemployment numbers among adult blacks and substandard academic performances by many young blacks may spell doom for the race in this country, he said.

“As we rolled in, I saw a Confederate flag, and it was as big as day on someone’s house,” he said. “And I smiled, and I said to myself, ‘There’s no way that you could have that flying in someone’s yard or on the side of the house, a flag that size in a black community in Houston.’ I say, brothers and sisters, we’ll take that (flag) down and the house.”

Condemning what he views as open racism, Quanell X said the current situation is facilitated because of the perception that rural blacks “don’t have the backbone or the spine to stand up when one of your own has been murdered or killed or died under suspicious circumstances.’ You don’t open your mouth. I’m asking you, brothers — there’s got to be a new day in this city, and it is time. The new day starts with you.”

The Rusk County Sheriff’s Office was asked to comment on this story but declined, and no representatives of the department attended the conference.