And Then There Were None

The Black Panthers have long maintained that law-enforcement authorities are out to cripple their movement by systematically uprooting their leadership. Last week two more Panther leaders were jailed: David Hilliard, the Panthers' "chief of staff," and Emory Douglas, "minister of culture." Whether by design or not, this means that every major leader of the four-year-old revolutionary organization is either in jail, in exile or dead.

Hilliard and Douglas, accompanied by French Author Jean Genet, were in New Haven, Conn., watching pretrial hearings for the trial of Chairman Bobby Seale and 13 other Panthers. They are charged with the torture slaying of another Panther. When Hilliard tried to talk to one of the defendants in the tense courtroom, officers moved in to quiet him. Douglas attempted to intervene, and the pair were grabbed and wrestled to the bench by state troopers and deputy sheriffs. Superior Court Judge Harold M. Mulvey promptly sentenced them to six months in jail for contempt of court.

Hilliard had been free on bail on charges that he had threatened the life of President Nixon at the antiwar Moratorium rally in San Francisco last November. Seale has already been sentenced to four years in prison for contempt during the conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven. Huey Newton, Panther cofounder, is in jail for manslaughter. Eldridge Cleaver is in fugitive exile in Algeria. Fred Hampton, Panther leader in Illinois, and Bobby Hutton, the national treasurer, died in gun fights with police. With Hilliard and Douglas locked up, Raymond Masai Hewitt and Don Cox now become the ranking Panthers still free.

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