Sylvester Bell And John Savage, two Black Panthers hailing from southeast San Diego, are the inspiration for a historic reconciliation between two civil rights groups.
San Diego police say they were both gunned down in 1969 as a result of a deadly rivalry between the US Organization and the Black Panther Party.
However, the two civil rights groups say FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s illegal surveillance program is partly to blame.
It’s called Cointelpro.
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The so-called “new left” included the Black Panther Party and went as far as to include Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1975, the church committee investigated Hoover and the FBI. Secret FBI memorandums between 1968-to-1970 show agents illegally used informants, and anonymous letters to escalate violence between the US Organization and the Black Panther Party.
“We weren’t really enemies. We were set up on with lies and propaganda by the federal government to destroy us,” said Henry Wallace, Chairman San Diego Original Black Panther Party.
We weren’t really enemies. We were set up on with lies and propaganda by the federal government to destroy us,
Henry Wallace, Chairman San Diego Original Black Panther Party.
Wallace remembers the 1969 murders of Bell and Savage.
John Savage was murdered along the sidewalk at 30th and Imperial just steps away from Black Panther headquarters. Three months later, just a mile away, Sylvester Bell was shot and killed while selling Black Panther newspapers at Otto Plaza on National Avenue.
They were two of 19 Black Panthers killed between 1968-1969. According to the Black Panther newspaper, at least 11 were shot and killed by police, and four were killed by members of the US Organization.
The Black Panther Party describes Sylvester Bell and John Savage as the unsung heroes of The Black Civil Rights Movement.
“I want them to know they were real-life modern-day patriots. They gave up their lives to try and help America live up to its full promise,” Wallace said.
More than 50 years later, the US Organization and the San Diego Black Panther Party settled a decades-long beef with a historic truce in Balboa Park.
Chairman Wallace spearheaded a reconciliation with Maulauna Karenga, Ph.D., the founder of the US Organization and founder of the Kwanzaa holiday.
“We were victims of the Cointelpro, a vicious FBI surveillance and suppression program that put us both on every list. Every list the panthers were on, US was on,” Dr. Karenga said.
Black Panther Party historian Billy X pushed back on the reconciliation. The Coronado High School Graduate moved to Oakland to join the Black Panther Party to work next to Huey P. Newton.
“The US organization has to make some acknowledgments. They have to make acknowledgments they were working with the police. They have blood on their hands,” Billy said.
Chairman Wallace and Dr. Maulana Karenga say the blame game needs to end.
Black History Month
“The murders of my comrades left me angry for years. The reconciliation was a tough pill to swallow, but it is necessary for me to move forward,” said Jeffrey Jennings, a local Black Panther whose face is immortalized at the Museum of African American History in Washington D.C.
The new generation of the San Diego Black Panther Party agrees.
“So, this is a very beautiful thing that happened that we could see in our lifetime and hopefully it’s an example of many more reconciliations to come,” Brother Koran, San Diego Black Panther Party.
In 1970, four men from the US Organization were convicted in the murders of Sylvester Bell and John Savage. And the 1975 congressional investigation into the FBI forever changed the game in the surveillance against American Civil Rights groups.
Chairman Wallace says he hopes to one day install legacy memorials to honor the lives of Sylvester Bell and John Savage. Meanwhile, Chairman Wallace and Dr. Maulana Karenga are working together on restorative justice programs in Southern California.
