New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
This Panther keeps looking for solutions
“I’m constantly motivated,” he told me on a Thursday afternoon as we sat on that porch in New Haven.
Edwards, who proudly noted he will turn 83 next month (“I’m a longdistance runner”), asserted he is the only person still around who belonged to the New Haven chapter of the Black Panthers.
“I was the first and I am the last,” he said.
Before we looked back on that tumultuous time in history, Edwards pointed to the box of water bottles near his chair. “I always come out onto the porch with these. I also try to distribute condoms. I advise and counsel people who are out in the street with drugs and sex activity. I talk to them face-to-face, one-onone.”
He began carrying and handing out masks after the COVID-19 pandemic set in.
“My life’s dream has always been to be a health educator,” he said.
“And that’s what I am. I use myself as an example in public. It’s part of my ongoing life to be an example. Yale students see me and they raise their masks onto their faces. Incredibly, many of them don’t use masks and have no regard for social distancing. They’re sunbathing on Cross Campus, socializing. They’re running and walking without masks. I talked to a Yale professor about this and he told me: ‘George,
they think they’re immortal.’”
Edwards can’t prove these are Yale students he is seeing; it’s possible he is encountering some of the few graduate or foreign students who have remained in New Haven this summer. He is worried about the potential prospect of many more students arriving in August or September if in-person classes happen.
When asked for comment, Yale spokesperson Karen Peart emailed this statement: “Everyone in the Yale community is expected to follow the social distancing guidelines on our COVID-19 website.”
Edwards is concerned there could be a resurgence of the virus in Connecticut, as is now occurring in parts of the South and the West of the United States. He blames this on “the unmasking.”
“Some people think this phase of the pandemic has flattened. That’s what they’re hearing from the White House. It’s disheartening to see people not wearing masks. Look at the people on our public transportation buses. Most of them, I think, don’t have masks. And social distancing doesn’t exist on a crowded bus.”
In these days of “black lives matter” protests over police treatment of black people, Edwards, who uses a large wooden cane to get around, finds himself on the sideline. “Because of the pandemic I’m socially distancing myself. I observe from a distance. For one of the rallies on the (New Haven) Green I was across the street.”
When our talk turned to the Black Panthers and the famous May Day rally that virtually shut down New Haven in 1970, Edwards cited the continued relevance of the Panthers.
“Look at the original Black Panthers platform: an end to police brutality and murdering black people; free health clinics; free breakfasts for children,” he said.
Unfortunately, those efforts in the neighborhoods of New Haven and other cities could not be sustained as police and the FBI engaged in an often violent struggle with the Panthers and their leaders, including Bobby Seale.
Edwards has often talked about his role in the New Haven events. He has said that when Alex Rackley was being tortured by Panthers members in the Orchard Street basement of their headquarters because he was suspected of being a government informant, Edwards was ordered to join in beating Rackley. He said he refused, had a gun put to his head and was tied to a chair.
A few days later, several Panthers drove Rackley to Middlefield, shot him and dumped his body into a river. Edwards wasn’t there but he was charged with the murder, along with 13 other Panthers. Seale was also charged, leading to that May Day rally.
Seale was not convicted but Edwards pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of assaulting Rackley. He said a phony
“My life’s dream has always been to be a health educator. And that’s what I am. I use myself as an example in public.” George Edwards, an activist and former Black Panther who distributes masks, gloves and water bottles from his New Haven porch
witness had falsely implicated him. He spent 18 months in jail awaiting trial but was set free after entering his plea.
“There was a misconception of me by the Black Panthers because of my age,” Edwards told me. “They were young, in their 20s; I was in my 30s. I was painted as an informer, an infiltrator. Most of that came from government agencies.”
Those young Panthers might also have viewed Edwards with suspicion because he had served with the U.S. Air Force from 1955-61. He told me he left the military because he was appalled by its use of nuclear weapons.
I asked Edwards how he has survived for all these years. He smiled and said: “Hard work, discipline, learning, having mentors and heroes.”
He said those heroes included his father, “a World War I warrior;” the scientist and inventor George Washington Carver; the abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth; and “most vividly,” Frederick Douglass. “I was always captivated by his image,” Edwards said of the social reformer, writer and orator.
Edwards has two daughters but both of his sons have died. One of them, George Browne, was a veteran New Haven firefighter.
Edwards lives in a thirdfloor apartment. “I spend a lot of time inside, studying. I’m not isolated but I have to keep myself well. I do a tremendous amount of reading: history, philosophy, religion, political movements.”
“There are no barriers to learning,” he said. “There are no limits, no borders on your learning and giving something back. I love learning. I am a student.”
Edwards noted America and the world are “in a state of flux. It’s confounding to people. A young man told me ‘We’re headed to chaos.’ But I’m always looking for solutions.”