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in the rear.” At this point I was trying desperately to catch Yedwa’s attention. He was making things worse. Yedwa never looked my way. He kept a humble gaze on Noonie.
    Noonie nodded her head slowly, leaning back in her chair for a moment. She glanced up at the heavens as she checked in with the Lord. “You know my mind is pretty made up about this,” Noonie said. “Eddie doesn’t have a father and it’s really hard raising a teenage boy alone. But if you’re going to look after him like you said, and make sure that he does better in school, that when he comes in the house he obeys my rules, then he can come by the Panthers a couple of times a week.”
    I could barely believe what I was hearing. Yedwa had just moved a mountain and parted the Red Sea. Th is was unprecedented. From the time she started taking care of me when I was four to this very moment, Noonie never changed her mind about a punishment decision.
    Yedwa stayed for dinner. After home-baked apple pie and hot chocolate, he hugged Noonie like she was his grandmother. Noonie let me go outside to take out the trash and to chat with Yedwa. “ Th at was cool, brother,” I said admiringly, “the way you laid it down with Noonie was really something.”
    “Well, in case you didn’t realize it, I was dead serious. You need to do better in school and you need to stop worrying this woman or I’m gonna be getting in your ass. In the Panther Party we say that we are motivated by our undying love for the people. Isn’t your grandmother part of the people?” Yedwa turned and walked away. I watched him for a few minutes and headed back to our apartment. When I got inside I hugged Noonie and told her that I loved her. For the first time in many tumultuous adolescent months I really meant it.

5
    Busted with the Big Cats
    A pril 1, 1969. It was a Th ursday night and there was a big rally for the Harlem Five at a public school there. Th e Harlem Five was a group of five young black men who were community organizers in the Lincoln projects in the heart of Harlem. Hannibal, Sayid, Wallace, David, and Mustafa were college students and community counselors who preached black nationalism in the spirit of Malcolm X.
    Th ey worked with tenants organizing rent strikes, and they set up after-school programs where kids did homework and learned black history and the martial arts. Because of their efforts, gang violence and drug dealing was reduced to almost zero in the projects. But in 1968 they were arrested and jailed for conspiracy to declare war on the cops. Many people in the community felt they had been framed, and on that April Fool’s night the school auditorium was packed with their supporters. Th e Panthers had worked side by side with the Harlem Five on tenants’ rights issues, community safety patrols designed to protect the elderly, and efforts to get to get rid of drugs in the neighborhood. Members of the Harlem Tenants Council, the Republic of New Africa, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and the Black Student Union, along with parents, grandmothers, and neighbors from the projects, were all part of the standing-room-only crowd.
    Th at night’s gathering was more than a political rally—it was a cultural event. Th ere were African dancers, a jazz quartet, and a concert by the Last Poets, a group said by many to have invented rap. Th eir lyrics and poems performed over jazz riffs, bass licks, and African drum beats were both incendiary and highly entertaining. Th e men in the group, Felipe, Abiodun, Kain, and Yusef, were stars of the black movement.
    I had heard of the Last Poets, but this was my first time seeing them perform. Since I was sitting with the Black Panther contingent, I had a front-row seat.
    Th e Last Poets were awesome, and listening to their rap poems like “New York, New York” and “When the Revolution Comes” made me feel not only revolutionary but so damn cool. In between the acts, various speakers took the stage to talk about the