Biography
James Aaron was a member of the Black Panther Party in Houston, Texas. In July 1970 he was accused of assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon (an alleged shotgun) and convicted by an all-white jury that deliberated only five minutes — a prosecution The Black Panther described as a political frame-up aimed at halting his organizing. Freed on appeal bond for about a year, he began serving a two-year sentence after his appeal was denied, and the court converted an earlier ten-year probation into an actual ten-year prison term. He was moved from the Harris County Jail to the Harris County Rehabilitation Center after he refused, reportedly at gunpoint, to stop organizing among the inmates; his case was tied to that of fellow Texas organizer Fred Bell. Documented in The Black Panther (June 9, 1973).
