Love of community
Black Panthers mark Kwanzaa with shopping trip for children
“Santa is coming!” 3-year-old P.J. Gardner said as his grandmother hung an African necklace around his neck.
“No, the Panthers are coming,” King Rick, leader of the Original Black Panthers of Milwaukee, said with a smile.
On Wednesday night, King Rick and the Black Panthers were sort-of Santas to a group of Milwaukee children who’ve lost parents to violence. They celebrated the third day of Kwanzaa by taking five families on a shopping spree, where the children picked out everything from African necklaces and oils to pirate ships and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Dinosaurs, sharks and clothes also were popular items.
The third day of Kwanzaa (celebrated Dec. 26 through Jan. 1) is dedicated to the principle of Ujima, or collective work and responsibility.
The Original Black Panthers of Milwaukee honored Ujima Wednesday by taking children from families who have lost parents to violence on a shopping trip. Each family was given $200 to spend on the children, as well as a gift basket.
“We wanted to show not only the community, but our children, how much we love, honor and respect them,” said King Rick, the group’s leader. “Because in African culture, and African history, the complete village is our family. And we wanted to get back to that concept where we provide, protect, honor, love and respect our women, our children and our community by any means necessary.”
This is the first year that the group is celebrating Kwanzaa with a shopping spree for children. It follows charity work the Black Panthers did before Thanksgiving, when they gave away coats, hats, gloves and turkeys to 50 families, King Rick said.
Wednesday’s shopping trip started at Pursenality, an African-Americanowned Sonya Shaw puts an African necklace around Jermariana Wright, 6, as a gift of the child’s choice at the Pursenality gift shop on Wednesday. P.J. Gardner, 3, also received an African necklace as a gift. He was with his grandmother, Shalonda Hammond. store on N. Teutonia Ave., then continued at Walmart in Brown Deer.
King Rick stressed that the group is “not a racist organization.”
“We don’t hate anyone because of their race, creed or color,” he said. “We just hate oppression, racism and injustice. Those are the things that we’re fighting for.”
King Rick, a 54-year-old retired teacher, cited Milwaukee’s longtime problems with racial inequality.
“It’s very difficult with things that are going on, and the negative stereotypes that are portrayed upon young African-American males, and AfricanAmerican males in general,” King Rick said. “We want to break that stereotype, because it’s not true.”
He said he’s been involved with the group since he was a Black Panther “cub” in Milwaukee in the early 1970s, and later became the bodyguard of Michael McGee Sr., the former alderman and leader of the Black Panther Militia.
King Rick said the Black Panthers picked the third day of Kwanzaa because “if our families are hurting in our community, then so are we.”
“If our brothers and sisters are hurting, so are we,” he said. “That’s why we picked this day of Ujima, collective work and responsibility.”
King Rick is a frequent — and outspoken — visitor to City Hall.
In September, he interrupted a Com-
mon Council meeting following the death of 23-year-old Sylville Smith, who was shot and killed by a police officer on Aug. 13, an incident that triggered two nights of violent unrest in the Sherman Park neighborhood.
“We demand justice. We demand peace. We demand that the social and economic conditions that plague our communities cease and stop now,” he shouted, flanked by other Black Panthers.
“If you don’t, we will make you change by any means necessary. Either you listen to us, or we will force you to listen to us. Milwaukee is suffering, and you aren’t doing anything about it.”
After walking out of the council chamber trailed by police officers that day, he said the group was putting politicians on notice. He warned of disturbances, economic boycotts, recall elections and “whatever it takes to make our community better.”
The Original Black Panthers of Milwaukee is separate from another group of Black Panthers who were in the news recently.
Earlier this month, a group known as the Revolutionary Black Panther Party marched through the Sherman Park neighborhood to protest the deaths of AfricanAmericans killed by law enforcement officers. Some were armed with guns during the march, which they called a “human rights tribunal.”