Food for thought – excerpt from An Ethnic Profile Adam Rogers told me that Stokeley Carmichael would be at a Black Panther Party meeting held at the redevelopment agency building in Hunters Point and he wanted me to attend. I often had Robert and James Richards and Richard Mabrey come to meetings in Potrero Hills when I needed a larger gathering in that lily white community that was only blocks from government supported housing projects where O.J. grew up. I didn’t need them in Hunters Point, Alice Griffith or Sunnydale, because tams and leather jacket wearing teens had those communities frightened and whites crowded into police community relations meetings. I asked Adam if I should wear my police uniform, because I did not want to be fraudulent. He suggested that I come in what I wore in the community, so attendees knew I didn’t carry my service revolver. I was invited to the front of the room by guys who knew me, but before I could sit a guy from the audience yelled: “That guy is a pig!” Community workers I knew said: “Man, that’s Bill Delaney and you need to back off before you get your feelings hurt!” I waved them of and said I got this. I turned facing him and said: “Oh I am a pig, but you came to this meeting with your hair gassed to the bone. If you cut your hair you will find your scalp is white as your loud mouth. The term pig is from across the bay at Bezerkeley. If you come at me come with something black and original.” Stokeley laughed and asked The Hunters Point Crew, do you guys trust this dude? Adam was 6’4” 240 pounds of mean, San Quentin Thug and guys from Oakland knew about him. Later he was shot in the back, neck and shoulder, boarded a city bus and rode to San Francisco General. Media reported that he had been shot by members of the Black Panther Party, but I knew better. Adams was the first murder of 1976 and Jerry Collins one of his closest friend’s body was found near freeway 101 in San Mateo. Reports were that battery acid was shot into his veins and Clorox poured into his mouth. His son at 27 years old met the same fate as his dad, but not killed in the same manner. I remember when Adam and Pat married and he spent as much time at their home in Berkeley as he did in Southeast San Francisco. Adam couldn’t leave what made him the man he was and old folks taught: “If you live by the sword, you die by the sword!”
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 11:59:05 +0000
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