BLACK MEN!–GERONIMO PRATT DIED AT PEACE IN AFRICA FINALLY LIVING IN BLACK FREEDOM IN TANZANIA!-FROM LA TIMES ATI NYTIMES NEWSPAPERS
from latimes.com
Elmer ‘Geronimo’ Pratt, a former Black Panther leader, dies in Tanzania
June 2, 2011 | 7:36 pm
Elmer G. “Geronimo” Pratt, a former Los Angeles Black Panther Party leader who spent 27 years in prison for a murder he says he did not commit and whose case became a symbol of racial injustice during the turbulent 1960s, has died. He was 63.
Pratt died at his home in a small village in Tanzania, where he had been living with his wife and child, according to Stuart Hanlon, a San Francisco attorney who helped overturn Pratt’s murder conviction. Hanlon said he was informed of the death by Pratt’s sister.
Pratt’s case became a cause celebre for elected officials, Amnesty International, clergy and celebrities who believed he was framed by the government because he was African American and a member of the Black Panthers.
“Geronimo was a powerful leader,” Hanlon told The Times. “For that reason he was targeted.”
Pratt was convicted in 1972 and sentenced to life in prison for the 1968 fatal shooting of Caroline Olsen and the serious wounding of her husband, Kenneth, in a robbery that netted $18. The case was overturned in 1997 by an Orange County Superior Court judge who ruled that prosecutors at Pratt’s murder trial had concealed evidence that could have led to his acquittal.
Elmer G. Pratt, a Black Panther leader who was imprisoned for 27 years for murder and whose marathon fight to prove he had been framed attracted support from civil rights groups and led to the overturning of his conviction, died on Thursday in a village in Tanzania, where he was living. He was 63.
Mr. Pratt, who was widely known by his Panther name, Geronimo ji-Jaga, had high blood pressure and other ailments, his longtime lawyer, Stuart Hanlon, said. Mr. Hanlon said he did not know the exact cause of death.
To his supporters — among them Amnesty International, the N.A.A.C.P. and the American Civil Liberties Union — Mr. Pratt came to symbolize a politically motivated attack on the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and other radical groups. But from the start, the grisly facts of the murder of a 27-year-old teacher dominated discussions of the case, including those of the parole board that denied parole to Mr. Pratt 16 times.
The teacher, Caroline Olsen, and her husband, Kenneth, were accosted by two young black men with guns on Dec. 18, 1968, in Santa Monica, Calif. They took $18 from Mrs. Olsen’s purse. “This ain’t enough,” one said, according to the police, and ordered the couple to “lie down and pray.”
Photo
Elmer Pratt, known as Geronimo, in court in California in 1997.Credit Haywood Galbreath/Associated Press
Shots were fired, hitting Mr. Olsen five times and his wife twice. Mrs. Olsen died 11 days later. Mr. Pratt was arrested.
The case against Mr. Pratt included evidence that both the pistol used as the murder weapon and the red-and-white GTO convertible used as the getaway car belonged to him. An informant wrote an eight-page letter asserting Mr. Pratt had bragged to him that he committed the murder.
Fellow Panthers did not support Mr. Pratt’s alibi that he was in Oakland, more than 300 miles away, at the time of the killing. A witness identified Mr. Pratt as one of two men who tried to rob a store shortly before the murder. And Mr. Olsen identified Mr. Pratt as the assailant.
Mr. Pratt was convicted of first-degree murder on July 28, 1972, and sentenced to life imprisonment a month later.
Information gradually surfaced that the jury had not known about when it reached its verdict. Mr. Olsen had identified someone else before he identified Mr. Pratt. Documents showed that the informant who said that Mr. Pratt had confessed to him had lied about himself. Wiretap evidence that might have supported Mr. Pratt’s alibi mysteriously vanished from F.B.I. files.
A public debate erupted over the extent to which Mr. Pratt and the Black Panthers had been singled out by law enforcement agencies. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the F.B.I., called the Panthers a threat to national security, and an F.B.I. report spoke of “neutralizing” Mr. Pratt. Others saw the Panthers and their leaders as a voice of black empowerment and as a service group that provided free breakfasts to the poor.
In an interview with The New York Times in 1997, John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League, said, “The Geronimo Pratt case is one of the most compelling and painful examples of a political assassination on an African-American activist.”
As Mr. Pratt languished in solitary confinement, his supporters shed light on his case by hanging a banner from the Statue of Liberty. His lawyers, led by Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. — famed for defending O.J. Simpson — assembled ammunition for an appeal.
In 1997 a California Superior Court judge, Everett W. Dickey, vacated Mr. Pratt’s conviction on the grounds that the government informant, Julius C. Butler, had lied about being one. Moreover, it was learned that the Los Angeles Police Department, the F.B.I. and prosecutors had not shared with the defense their knowledge that Mr. Butler was an informant.
A juror, Jeanne Rook Hamilton, told The Times: “If we had known about Butler’s background, there’s no way Pratt would have been convicted.”
California lost its appeal to nullify Judge Dickey’s decision in 1999, and the Los Angeles County district attorney ruled out a new trial. In 2000, Mr. Pratt received $4.5 million from the federal and local governments as settlement in a wrongful-imprisonment suit.
Mr. Pratt said he would have preferred to press the matter in a trial so he could air the government’s “evil scheme,” but decided to accept his lawyers’ advice and take the settlement.
Elmer Gerard Pratt, the name he rejected at 20 as that of a “dirty dog” slave master, was born on Sept. 13, 1947, in Morgan City, La. His father was in the scrap-metal business. Elmer liked to shoot rabbits and sell them. He was a high school quarterback, then joined the Army, serving two tours in Vietnam, earning two Purple Hearts and emerging a sergeant.
Mr. Pratt attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied political science and joined the Panthers. He rose to lead the Los Angeles branch. He moved to Tanzania because he had friends there and had always wanted to live in Africa.
He is survived by a daughter, three sons, two sisters and two brothers. He was godfather to the slain rapper Tupac Shakur.
A version of this article appears in print on June 4, 2011, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Elmer G. Pratt, 63, Jailed Panther Leader. Order Reprints|Today’s Paper|Subscribe
Ex-president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in his controversial biography ‘My Watch’ has named his 21 children, but didn’t list their mothers. Meanwhile, Encomium Weekly discloses the names of the mothers of Obasanjo’s children and other women that had romances with the two-time president of Nigeria. 1. Oluremi Obasanjo Obasanjo married with his first wife on June 22, 1963, at Camberwell Green Registry, South East London. Oluremi was only 21. She is the mother of six of the 21 children of the ex-president. They include Senator Iyabo Obasanjo, who was born on April 27, 1967; Busola Obasanjo, who was born on November 5, 1968; Olusegun Obasanjo, the first son, who was born on November 4, 1969; Olugbenga Obasanjo, who was born in 1971; Enitan Obasanjo, who was born on September 24, 1975 and Damilola Obasanjo, the last of the woman’s children who was born in 1982. 2. Stella Obasanjo The late former Nigeria’s First Lady died on Sunday, October 23, 2005, in Spain after an unsuccessful tummy tuck surgery. She had only a child, Olumuyiwa Obasanjo, who was born in 1977, for Obasanjo. 3. Gold Oruh An ex-director of Nigerian Television Authority met the ex-president as a reporter during the civil war in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.
Oruh had two children for him. They are Funke and Seun Obasanjo. READ ALSO: Buhari Will Not Probe Obasanjo’s Administration 4. Taiwo Obasanjo Taiwo is the twin sister of Kenny Martins, the politician and ex-chairman of Police Equipment Fund. Obasanjo had two children from her. One of them is Esther Olubunmi Obasanjo who got married in August 2010. Mrs. Obasanjo has since returned to her first name, Martins. The former president distanced from her since her secret romance with late Godwin Daboh became public knowledge. 5. Lynda Obasanjo Lynda was another woman who had children for Chief Obasanjo. She was said to have had two children for him before she was killed on February 14, 1987, in daylight by armed robbers. The names of her children are not known. 6. Mabel Okosode Obasanjo Another woman, who reportedly had children for the former Nigerian leader. 7. Titilayo Obasanjo Titilayo has a child or children for Obasanjo. 8. Adeboye Obasanjo According to Oluremi Obasanjo in her book, Bitter Sweet My Life with Obasanjo, she is a mother of two and a divorcee brought to the ex-general by one of his aunts who lives in Arigbajo, Ogun state, when she (Remi) was chased out of their Ikoyi (Lagos) matrimonial home for challenging his (Obasanjo) philandering. 9. Kofoworola Mojisola Obasanjo Kofoworola got married to Peter Kenneth Blackshire, a British Baptist minister in 2002, shares the same mother with Tunde Baiyewu, the British singer of Nigerian descent. Tunde Baiyewu’s mother lost her husband and moved to Nigeria with her two children. She met Obasanjo who was still an officer in the army. Their romance produced Kofo Obasanjo. 10. Bola Obasanjo Bola is currently living with Chief Obasanjo. She also has a child for him named Funsho Obasanjo. The woman was previously based in London, but had to move to Nigeria to be his resident wife. There are other women in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s life while they did not have children for him. Obasanjo’s Other Women Mowo Sofowora started dating former president as far back as 1973, when he was a Lt. Col. in the army. Oluremi Obasanjo mentioned Mowo Sofowora as one of the women who caused problems in her marriage. She was said to be older than Obasanjo.
Labo Salako, the wife of late Captain Salako, who died in 1972, at Argungu in a motor accident. READ ALSO: For Voting Jonathan, We Are All Guilty Salako was Obasanjo’s mate in London. After the death of her husband, she moved in with the Obasanjo’s at their Ikoyi (Lagos) residence on the advice of Obasanjo and the wife, Remi, complied with her husband. But before the wife knew what was going on, Labo was already having a boisterous affair with her husband. Lamide Adegbenro is the wife of Chief Niyi Adegbenro, the former Commissioner for Agriculture in Ogun State and a kinsman of Chief Obasanjo. Lamide Adegbenro, who should be in her 60s now was also mentioned by Mrs. Oluremi Obasanjo in her book as one of the many mistresses of her husband. Ex-vice-president Atiku Abubakar also mentioned her during his face-off with Obasanjo that she got a gift of a brand new Peugeot 607 and $110,000 that was paid into her NATWEST Bank, UK account in 2003, by Otunba Fasawe. Mrs. Alo, a former Vice Principal of Queens College, Yaba, Lagos, was also supposed to be a mistress of Chief Obasanjo. Alo is reportedly still very close to Chief Obasanjo as she is a member of the board of directors of Obasanjo’s school, The Bells.
It’s practically a full year since the public was reminded of Bill Cosby’s horrendous rape allegations via a comedy routine by Hannibal Burress. I’d say it’s a done deal that his sterling silver reputation is unsalvageable as it seems that every new month or so, one or two more accusers emerge to say that the puddin’ pop authority and respectable politics advocate raped them.
Recently, it’s been made abundantly clear how far the Cos has fallen as Ebony’s recent issue’s cover displays a shattered image of the cast of the beloved Cosby Show with a huge hole over Cosby’s face. The cover alone has caused quite a stir on and offline. Half the people support the cover, while the other half is disgusted by it as they still believe that Cosby is the innocent victim in all this. And the ones who are at fault, according to them, are the 50-plus…
OJO IBI MI 71th (MY 71th BIRTHDAY!) IN THE VILLAGE OF YORUBALAND,NIGERIA OOOO!
OJO IBI MI(MY 71ST BIRTHDAY IS COMING UP OCTOBER 31ST). I WILL DO A
YORUBA CULTURAL CELEBRATION FOR THE VILLAGERS TO SHOW THEM THAT
BIRTHDAY IS NO WHITE boys’ cake,drinks-WE WILL HAVE YORUBA TRADITIONAL
SNACKS/FOOD,LECTURES ON HOW YORUBA LANGUAGE GOT KILLED,HOW IT CAN NOW
BE SAVED ATI DEADLY EFFECTS OF BLEACHING KILLING YOU SLOWLY!THEN A
BEST YORUBA SPEAKERS CONTESTS FOR CHILDREN,WOMEN,THEN THE FINAL FOR
WHO EVER WINS! OFCOURSE YORUBA TRADITIONAL MUSIC-OMOWURA,BATA
MUSIC,ATI….! Alaroye will be given out as Ebun from its Display
table to choose from many back copies!
AAYEYE OJO IBI MI NI DEC.5,2015——WE HAD A “BEST YORUBA SSPEAKER CONTESTS FOR OMODE(CHILDREN) ATI ADULTS-10 ADULTS WON N500 EACH,OMODE N300 EACH! THIS IS ONE WAY SAVE YORUBA LANGUAGE-BRIBE YORUBAS TO SPEAK UNDILUTED YYORUBA WITH BEST YORUBA SPEAKER CONTESTS AT EVERY EVENT,ANNUAL MEETING,COMPANYS ALL SO THAT YORUBA WILL NNOT DIE!
Dreia Davis and her father Curtis White, enter their new home for the first time on Wednesday, September 23, 2015, in Detroit. The accessible-friendly furnished house and a lift van were donated to the family by Detroit Rescue Mission. (Photo: Salwan Georges / freep.com)
DETROIT – Dreia Davis couldn’t help but smile as as she gazed around her bedroom and clutched the key to her new home. “It’s so beautiful,” Davis said. “I’m so thankful. I feel fabulous.”
For Davis and her father, Curtis White, it has been a long journey since she was struck by a bullet from a passing car on Detroit’s east side and nearly killed on Aug. 5, 2009, when she was 13. She suffered two heart attacks and a stroke, and underwent numerous surgeries. White was told it was likely she would not survive.
But now, the devoted dad and teen finally have a happy ending…
BLACK-SKINNED WOMEN: QUEEN MOTHERS OF THE BLACK RACE AND ALL BEAUTY!
Why do I sing Praises of your Beautiful, Black, ebony,velvet skin,”Blacker than the sky at midnight”{1},your full mushroomed mouth, your beautiful broad nose, your generous “Congo hips” {2}and full-flowered backside? Because for too long many of the Black Race have abused, dishonored you, degraded and denied you your crown, Queen of Queens,Queen Mother of the Black Race, Black Beauty Supreme! From you all the beauty of the Black Race springs forth.In fact all the world’s beauty springs from you,Mother of all beauty of all the races of the world! Your Black midnight,licorice,dark black chocolate,beauty, is Blackness concentrated in your beautiful “Black-blueberry”{3} face!
First in the order of creation is always given respect by Afrikan tradition. The 1st wife, the 1st elder, the 1st kingdom, the 1st original inhabitants, of the earth-all are considered with honor. So it should be with Black Beauty-our darkest -skinned Sisters are the 1st Mothers of the Universe-Black as a color came before all the many tones of brown,red,yellow and white. But for too long our Dark-skinned Queens have not been given the respect and place of honor they deserve. IN FACT THE WHITE BOY HAS INTIATED the cycle of reversing the true order of things by turning upside down the pyramid of Beauty, and placing white-light on top and relegating the most beautiful Black-skinned Beauties to rock bottom!
So Black people have been taught well how to deny our most
beautiful one her crown, taught how to reject our Blackest, most Afrikan features, full lips and nose and mouth and woollest hair, for the weaker characteristics of the white race. Shame on Black people! When will we wake up to this Black Beauty concentrated, from whence all our lesser beauty comes. When will we give the crown of crowns,the throne of thrones, to the Blackest Queen of Queens?
Most of us who suffer from”mulatto-mentality” and “yellow fever”, as Fela, our great Nigerian Musician calls it, will go on and on about what about us lighter queens-aren’t we/they beautiful too, yet you/we should be aware that such queens have gotten all the play in the past and that even in Black Egypt one of the reasons for its downfall was the allowing the lighter ones of the race, to place themselves above the rest of us in the name of lightness and pride of light-closer/to/whiteness. So if we’re yellow,to light brown/red, then we should give respect where respect is due and not live off of the artificial white thrill of having “white features” as if it is an advantage. Where would you be without your BLACKEST great Grandmother? We should honor the Blackest part of ourselves, thus giving us true pride of Blackness, not verbal signifyin’ but real testifyin’ that BLACK is beautiful! If the Blackest, most Afrikan-featured Sister isn’t respected as the Supreme Beauty of the Race,the Black woman’s beauty is not really respected at all for what it really is(only in terms of how closer to white we look). We all reflect the strengths of this concentrated beauty in ourselves, all the manifestations of how Blackness can present itself are seen in our faces. Down to the milk-lightest of us, our Blackness is what dominates us whether physically or mentally. But the Mother is greater than the child and so the Blackest is greater than all the other tones of the Black Race. If we don’t respect our Blackest Queen, we don’t respect our True Black selves. We must have a Black value for BLACKNESS in features and skin tone. We must have a Black Standard of Beauty based on the Black-skinned woman. ALL PRAISES DUE TO OUR BLACK-SKINNED QUEEN-MOTHERS!
Sister Yeye Akilimali Funua Olade
1981,Lagos,Nigeria
BLACK NOTES: Let me give tribute to Brother Damu,House of Umoja(San Francisco) for{1}
{2}Brother O.O. Gabugan in the poem “Black Queen For a Day”,{3}Sister Sonia Sanchez in her poem “,Queens of the Universe”,for the quoted words used in the first part of this article.
GABOUREY SIDIBE IS A BIG BLACK SKINNED BEAUTY WHO HAS BROKEN THE IMITATION WHITE GIRL GLASS STANDARD OF BEAUTY!
Dreia Davis and her father Curtis White, enter their new home for the first time on Wednesday, September 23, 2015, in Detroit. The accessible-friendly furnished house and a lift van were donated to the family by Detroit Rescue Mission.
