It has been my experience that because of institutional and individual racism

Chapter 30
Comrades
None of us thought we would live long in CCR. From the beginning, we
thought they moved us there to kill us. We had come to terms with that. But
we survived. A large part of my ability to stay true to revolutionary struggle
was the example that Herman and King set. I never had to question their
loyalty. Their actions spoke louder than words. One of my favorite sayings is
“The mouth can say anything but the ass is proof.” When you put your ass
behind what comes out of your mouth, that’s what counts. Herman and King
were never hypocritical, never saying one thing and doing something else.
They lived their lives putting their asses where their mouths were. Because of
that I trusted them. It took me years to really know them as individuals, and
in those years, gradually, grew very strong friendships and love.
Herman Wallace was raised in the 13th Ward of New Orleans, not far
from where I grew up. Since he was six years older than me I never knew
him on the street. Like all black men of my age in the South he became aware
of racism early. “Everything was segregated, from outhouse toilets to indoor
churches,” he once wrote. “You couldn’t look white men in the eye, you had
to have your head down when you walked around, all socially designed to
keep African Americans as an inferior people.” When he was eight years old
he started shoplifting food to help feed his eight siblings. He pulled a wagon
to the scrapyard in New Orleans when it was closed on Sundays to pick up all
the loose pieces of copper and aluminum he could find from the yard. The
following Saturday he pulled his wagon back to the scrapyard to sell those
pieces, using the money to help his siblings. He would later write that he did
his “ultimate best” to be there for his family. “I chopped the wood to keep the
house warm and for cooking,” he wrote. “I washed clothes on a scrubbing
board long before we got a washing machine. I ironed the family’s clothes,
plaited my sisters’ hair before we went to school.” On the street, he protected

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his sisters.
For a while he and his older siblings lived with his grandmother. She
taught him how to cook. There weren’t enough beds in her two rooms, so he
and his brother slept on the floor. Eventually, he wrote, “I could not
understand how my parents worked so hard and yet were so poor.” As a
teenager, he got into more petty crimes and spent time in the juvenile justice
system. “You would sit around and wait for visits on Sunday,” he said. “You
feel alone, heartbroken, like it’s you against the world.”
In January 1967, he was arrested on a bank robbery charge. The
following year he was convicted and received a 50-year sentence. In 1969, he
escaped to the roof of Orleans Parish Prison, jumped to the rooftop of the
building next door, and got to the street with several other inmates. He was
caught in Florida and brought back to the parish prison, where he was put in
the dungeon. His shoes had shrunk in the rain, so he took them off. Malik
Rahim, one of the New Orleans Black Panthers I’d met when I was on C-1 at
the parish prison, happened to be in the dungeon when they brought Herman
in. Seeing that Herman wasn’t wearing shoes Malik asked him what size he
wore. Herman told him and Malik took off his own shoes. “Hey, brother,
listen,” he said, handing Herman his shoes, “you can have mine. My
comrades won’t let me go without.” Malik walked away from him barefoot.
That was Herman’s introduction to the Black Panther Party. From the
Black Panthers, he found connection and purpose. He went on to join the