From the Bottom of the Heap

The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King

By Robert Mttrry King

PM Press

Copyright © 2012 Robert Hillary King
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60486-575-2

Contents

Acknowledgements,
Ruminations on From the Bottom ... by Mumia Abu-Jamal, M.A.,
Introduction by Terry A. Kupers, M.D., M.S.P.,
From the Bottom of the Heap,
Epilogue,
Whither South Africa: Journey to the Beloved Country by Marina,
Drummer,
Robert King Live at the Centre for the Study of Crime,,
Criminalisation and Social Exclusion, October 2011,
Shaka, or Checks and Balances,
What's in a Name: (Vulgarizing ... Vulgarity),
Appendices,
King Family Tree,
Anita Roddick: A Friend of Distinction,
A Poem for Alice (africa),
Malik Rahim and the Founding of Common Ground,
The Case of the Angola 3,

CHAPTER 1

WHEN I MET MY FATHER, HILLARY Wilkerson, for the first time I was thirteen years old. By that time, having lived an unsheltered lifestyle, I had already undergone the transition from man-child to man. But my maturity to actual manhood was to unfold more gradually. In the pages that follow, I share this unfolding with the reader.

Two young people: Male and female ... a dark night, desire to escape and explore the unknown. Hormones working overtime, helped by a nip from an hidden bottle. Nine months later (more or less), on Sunday, May 30, 1942, into this world came one Robert Hillary King — a.k.a. Robert King Wilkerson.

Hillary Wilkerson, my father — of whose seed I am the product — having experienced the joy of planting the seed, found that joy to be short-lived. In the typical fashion of many Black men of that era, he split. The responsibility for and to the product of his seed proved much more than he was willing and perhaps capable of enduring. He had to seek refuge. Hillary enlisted in the imperialist army of these United States. From there, he went on to plant seeds in other, foreign soils ...

Clara Mae King, my mother, who was very young when my older sister, Mary, was conceived — and not much older at my own conception — never developed a true sense of responsibility toward any of the three children she eventually brought into this world. Years later, Clara would tell me that at the time of Mary's birth — and mine — she felt we would fare better with her mother, Alice, than with her. My mother was very short, and her diminutive size seemed to have played a role in shaping her personality. Clara never revealed to me directly that she had hang-ups about her size, but when I came to know her years later, I could sense the insecurity that plagued her. She began drinking alcohol at a very early age, and it was alcohol that contributed to her early death at the age of forty-one.

The first-born of my mother was Mary, two years, three months and seven days my senior. Mary took after Clara in size, inheriting the gene that prevented her growth. She also began drinking heavily, and she too died young at the age of twenty-seven.

Ella Mae, my younger sister, was born a few years after me. I didn't have the pleasure of meeting her until I was twenty-three, at my mother's wake and funeral in 1966. And it was shortly thereafter that Mary died also ...

In retrospect, when I think of my mother Clara, I am grateful that in her attempt to shield and protect me from the savage forces that confronted her, she passed me on to her own mother, Alice. My grandmother's own standing, in many ways, was as bare as Clara's. But my grandmother did not view me (or my sister) as being a burden. And I can truthfully say that there were many other Black women of the same era who, while facing equally (or surpassing) bad odds as Clara, met the situation head on. Alice, whom I learned to call Mama, was one such woman.

At the time of my grandmother's acceptance of Mary and me, Ella wasn't born. When she was, she stayed in New Orleans. Though Mary and I were born in New Orleans, during our infancy, Clara had brought us both back to Gonzales, Louisiana, where Alice lived. Ella Mae never came to Gonzales. Shortly after her birth, Clara passed her off to another relative. However, had Clara brought Ella to Gonzales as she had done with her other two children, Mama would have also been responsible for Ella's childhood survival. That was the type of woman Mama was.

CHAPTER 2

I HAVE SOME VIVID MEMORIES OF THE WAY Gonzales was back then. There wasn't anything impressive about this small town and economic security was nearly non-existent, especially for Blacks. In order to feed her children, Mama worked the sugar cane fields, which was seasonal. I often heard her say, "I had to cut cane with ice on the stalks." They grew a lot of corn there also. The town's school was known by the simple name of "Smith's." I never knew the name of the school for whites. I remember Orice's Grocery, where Mama used to "deal" ("dealing" was synonymous with having established credit). Orice's memory is vivid because, whenever I went there with Mama, I was always treated to a "moonshine cookie," so called because of its size and shape. My great grandparents also lived in Gonzalez, as well as some of my great uncles and cousins.

Gonzalez's jailor, part-time handyman, and part-time janitor, was Black. According to Mama, the man who wore all of these titles was a distant cousin of ours. One day we stopped by the jail while this cousin was in the process of dining. The very first thing I noticed about him was that he had only one arm. He tried his damnedest to get me to join with him in his eats, offering me the same utensil he was eating from. I just stared at him. The truth is, I didn't want any of that food. And the reason was, in the corner was another Black man, behind what I then described as being a "lot of skinny iron." From behind this iron, the man watched us all, somber-like. Looking into his face, I immediately felt some kinship with him, more than with my cousin and I felt that the one-armed man was responsible for keeping the somber-looking man behind that skinny iron. The one arm, too, I found at that age to be monstrous. I disliked our cousin, and I was glad when we left.

When we had gone some distance, I asked Mama what that other man was doing at our cousin's house, and why was he behind all that skinny iron? She told me that it wasn't our cousin's house, but a jailhouse, that our cousin only worked there. And she told me that the man behind the bars (not skinny iron) must have done something bad to be there. She called him a "cornvick." I was only about four years old at the time, and my small mind went to work. It told me that since there were many cornfields around, a "cornvick" must live between the stalks and was considered "bad" for doing so.

I was glad we lived in a house. It was an old, decrepit house, just off of the highway. It was shabby, unpainted, and leaky; whenever it rained, that old house rained also. The summers weren't too bad, our house had lots of holes in it which served as air ducts. But the winters, even in Louisiana, were bitterly cold. At that time, Mama had nine living children of her own: Clara, my birth mother, was the eldest; Robert and Ruth were fraternal twins; Houston was next in eldest; Robert and Ruth were fraternal twins; Houston was next in line. Then there were George, Henry, William, Verna Mae, and James. By the time I made my fifth birthday, Clara, Robert, Ruth, Houston, George, and Henry (whom Mama had called her "first set of...