Assata: An Autobiography (17 page)

Kamau and i were acquitted in the bank robbery trial in the Southern District of New York on January 28, 1973, and on the following day i was returned to new jersey. When i arrived at the morristown jail, there was a clump of reporters and photographers standing around. Morristown looked just like smalltown, usa. The jail was an ugly building attached to the kourthouse. There were a few other women in the jail and i was kept away from them. The only time i saw them was when i was being taken to or from my cell. They all appeared to be white, although i found out later that one was Black. The guards were all women, as old as the hills, and they had been working at the jail for an eternity.

There was a television and a radio in the cell, and it had been so long since i had been able to watch the news on television or listen to a static-free radio station that i went crazy. And i had turned into a crochet fiend. My poor mother was the unfortunate recipient of my early "creations." Brave, devoted person that she was, she thought they were pure genius.

We learned there were few, if any, Black jurors on the panel for the new trial. The news was depressing. The panel was selected from the voting rolls, and, since candidates running for office seldom represent the interests of Black and poor people, Blacks and the poor don't vote. But failing to vote means they don't sit on juries. Any chance that we would receive something even remotely resembling a fair trial was slim. We decided to try to have the trial removed to federal court. The chance of the feds taking over was slim, but it was worth the try. If the trial was held in the federal kourt in Newark, at least we'd be assured of a few more Black jurors on the jury panel.

There were countless joint legal meetings, countless strategy sessions, and countless kourt appearances. My first look at the Morris County jury panel flung me into a terrible depression. There were only two or three Black jurors on each panel and they looked like extras in a soap opera. As a matter of fact, the whole jury panel looked like escapees from a soap opera. They dressed differently and had a whole different air about them than New York people. Morristown was supposed to be one of the ten richest counties in the country, and, looking at these people, i believed it. I could just see trying to explain to them what poor Black people in big cities go through. How could they understand someone becoming a Black revolutionary? They had so little to revolt against. They had bought the amerikan dream lock, stock, and barrel and seemed unaware that, for the majority of Black and Third World people, the amerikan dream is the amerikan nightmare.

Evelyn and i had resolved our differences and she was back on the case. She, Ray Brown, and Charles McKinney, Sundiata's lawyer, worked hard on the motion to remove the trial to federal kourt. But after a hearing, the federal judge remanded the case back to the state kourt. He hadn't even listened to our arguments. So we were right back where we had started: picking a jury in Morris County.

Jury selection droned on tediously. Sundiata and i kept our selves from falling asleep or from having nervous breakdowns by laughing and talking. Just seeing Sundiata every day was such a comfort to me. We made up all kinds of little games and jokes, especially guessing the answers jurors would give to the trial judge's questions. We got to be pretty good at it. We could look at a person and pretty much know what he was going to say. Some glared at us hatefully while they waited to be called, as if they couldn't wait to give their opinion that we were guilty. They were so sure of exactly what happened. They recited detail after detail from newspapers and TV.

"Where were you hiding that night on the turnpike?" i wanted to scream at them. "I didn't see you!"

Others gave us crooked smiles in the hope that we would think they sympathized with us and would leave them on the jury. But there was not one bigot in the kourtroom. None of them said they had any prejudice against Black people.

"Do you have any Black friends?" the judge asked.

"Of course." But when asked if they had ever invited a Black person to their homes or been to the home of a Black person, the answer was, invariably, no. On one panel, the judge asked everybody if they had ever called a Black person a nigger. They all said no, except for one woman, who said, "Well, when I was a child, we used to say 'Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, catch a nigger by the toe.' " After that, a whole bunch of them said the same thing. Sometimes their answers were so phony they were a joke. Except the joke was on us.

One day, a man being questioned told the judge what he had read about the case in newspapers and what he had heard on radio and TV. He tried to make it seem that he had just incidentally come across the news stories and that he had not really followed the case or paid much attention to it. Further, he denied having been affected by any of it.

"Have you ever read a book called Target Blue?"

Only a day or two before, the defense team had asked that that question be included in the voir dire. Robert Daley, who at one time was the public relations and publicity director for the New York City Police Department, had written the book Target Blue. An excerpt from the book was "coincidentally" printed in New York magazine on almost the exact day our trial was to begin. One or two chapters were about the Black Liberation Army. The book was a collection of sensationalism, groundless accusations, and outright lies. The few facts that were in those two chapters were distorted beyond recognition. I was referred to by name. Daley implied that i had been responsible for the deaths of numerous policemen. He called me the "soul" of the Black Liberation Army, the "mother hen" that "kept them fighting and kept them moving." According to the book, i had also robbed numerous banks and blown up a police car with a hand grenade during a police chase.

"Have you ever read Target Blue?" the judge asked.

"Er, er, yes.”

Immediately the defense team submitted requests to the judge that additional questions be asked.

"When did you read this book?”

"As a matter of fact, I'm reading it now." Not only had he been reading the book, but he had it upstairs in the jury room. Although the defense team asked for an investigation, the judge refused. It was obvious the man had brought the book to court to show to the other jurors and that they had discussed it. After a lot of arguments made by our lawyers, the judge agreed to dismiss that juror and others in the panel with whom he had been close.

One day i was informed that the nazi party was demonstrating outside the court, marching up and down, complete with swastikas, brown uniforms, and helmets. They carried "White power," "Save our police," and "Death penalty" placards. Other signs were printed with racist statements. Rumor spread that a cross had been burned in front of the home of one of our support ers. At the end of the day the nazis almost got into a fight with some of the few Black residents in Morristown.

A lot of people don't know it, but they've got more nazis and Ku Klux Klan in jersey than a little bit. Some of my friends call it "up South." Lou Myers, who was later one of my lawyers on this case, is from Mississippi. One day, in all earnestness, he told me he would rather try a case in Mississippi any day than try one in jersey.

I couldn't understand it. I was growing weaker and weaker. My energy seemed to have gone down the drain. All i wanted to do was sleep. I chided myself for trying to escape from reality instead of facing it. I had seen women in jail sleep their whole time away. I was afraid that was happening to me. I was so easily upset and reacted to everything in an exaggerated manner. My nerves were terrible. Every little thing affected me. All i did, all day, when there was no kourt, was sleep, eat, watch television, and listen to the radio. I was eating like food was going out of style. This also convinced me my nerves were going bad. I have seen people in prison gain twenty, thirty, forty, fifty pounds eating out of nerves and boredom. It gets to the point when all you have to look forward to is the meals. And that in itself is pitiful, because anyone who has ever been in prison knows how terrible the food is. Yet i was gulping that stuff down just like it was Mom's home cooking.

It wasn't until i sat down one day to do my exercises that i really suspected what could be wrong. I could barely get through ten sit-ups. Everything added up. I didn't dare hope, but, at the same time, down deep inside, i knew. As sure as i knew my own name, i knew that i was pregnant. But what was i to do next? I knew i had to see the doctor, but what in the world was i going to say? I had been in prison for eight months and it would really be weird to say, "Hey, i think i'm pregnant." I wanted to know for sure whether i was or not, but if i wasn't i didn't want the doctor to know my business. Because if i was, it would be only a matter of time before the whole world would know.

First thing the next morning, i saw the prison doctor. I told him all my symptoms, dropping hint after hint. He told me there was nothing to worry about, that i was just constipated.

As time wore on, it became harder and harder to wake up in the morning. When the guards came to wake me for kourt, i would simply roll over and continue sleeping. They did everything to get me out of bed. They called. They threatened. They banged on the bars and anything else they could think of.

"Just don't come in this cell," i would tell them, feeling evil as the day is long. "You come in here and you put your hands on me and i'ma take your head right offa your shoulders." They must have known i meant it because they kept their distance until i was awake. I didn't care what they thought or said as long as they didn't put their hands on me. I wanted them to leave me alone. All i wanted to do was sleep.

I walked into kourt whenever i got up, no matter what time it was. The judge would go on and on about my lateness and admonish my lawyers for not having me in kourt on time, but it was hopeless. I didn't care what the judge said, what the guards said, or what anybody said. All i wanted to do was sleep.

I told Sundiata and one or two of the lawyers that i thought i was pregnant. They looked at me blankly, puzzled, as if i had an overactive imagination. Each day i felt more and more weird. I felt fragile and sick. I went back to the prison doctor, dropping more and more hints. I repeated my symptoms. Queasy stomach, stomach getting bigger, sick in the mornings, sleep all the time, etc. But he still didn't get the message and kept telling me this stuff about an intestinal disorder. I didn't know what to do next.

One day i woke up and could hardly move. I was sick as a dog and dizzy to boot. I got up for a minute, then sank back down on the cot, holding onto it for dear life. They called the prison doctor. I repeated the symptoms again, and this time he ordered some tests. He asked for a urine specimen. I was sure he had sent for a pregnancy test. I waited a few days and heard nothing. Then the nurse came and asked me for more urine. I was certain this meant the pregnancy test was positive and they were retesting just to be sure. I gave her the urine sample and waited.

When the doctor called me to his office, i knew he was going to tell me i was pregnant. Instead, he was smug and acted really on the stupid side. He kept making snide little remarks and i could tell he was trying to make fun of me. I asked him what was wrong with me and he repeated the same old stuff about a bowel disorder. Then he asked me some questions about my sex life.

"Ask your momma about her sex life," i said and went out of his office, slamming the door. Later that day, Ray Brown and Evelyn came to see me. Ray was in a jovial mood, laughing his head off.

"Well, you've really done it this time. I don't know what we’re going to do with you. His honor is going to give you a strong reprimand for getting pregnant during his trial."

"You mean i'm really pregnant?”

"It was in the doctor's report to the judge. Didn't you know?"

"No," i told him. "I was just in that slimy bastard's office this morning and he told me that i had something wrong with my intestines."

"He's pulling your leg," Ray said. "They did two or three pregnancy tests on you and they all came back positive. You're pregnant, all right. I can't believe it."

Evelyn was in a state of shock. "It's something," she said. Then she looked into space for a long time. "It's something."

"Judge Bachman's having a fit," Ray said. "I hear the FBI is going to conduct an investigation to determine how you got pregnant. "

"Well, they better not try to come 'round me asking no questions," i told them. "I'll tell them that this baby was sent by the Black creator to liberate Black people. I'll tell 'em that this baby is the new Black messiah, conceived in a holy way, come to lead our people to freedom and justice and to create a new Black nation."

Sundiata and McKinney had joined us. Sundiata was elated. He couldn't get over it. He sat there grinning and slapping his knee. "I think it's beautiful," he kept saying. "I think it's absolutely beautiful." Everyone was in a jubilant mood. I was glad. I hadn't known how they would react.

"It's amazing," Evelyn said. "Out of all this misery a new life is conceived."

I was caught up in the mood, but i couldn't wait to get off alone in my cell to think about this. What had seemed like a remote dream was coming true. A baby. My mind was jumping and dancing.

I spent the next few days in a virtual daze. A joyous daze. A person was inside of me. Someone who was going to grow up to walk and talk, to love and laugh. To me it was the miracle of all miracles. And deeply spiritual. The odds against this baby being conceived were so great it boggled my mind. And yet it was happen ing. It seemed so right, so beautiful, in surroundings that were so ugly. I was filled with emotion. Already, i was deeply in love with this child. Already, i talked to it and worried about it and wondered how it was feeling and what it was thinking. I would lie in my cell wondering about his or her life, wondering what kind of life it would have. What kind of people it would love, what kind of values it would have, and what it would think of all the madness that would surround it. Sometimes i felt so helplessly protective, wondering when my baby would be called nigger for the first time, wondering when the full horror and degradation of being Black in amerika would descend on my baby. How many wolves hid behind the bushes to eat my child?