Michael Tabor
Biography
Michael “Cetewayo” Tabor was a member and leader of the Black Panther Party’s New York chapter, active in political education and community organizing in Harlem during the late 1960s. He became nationally known through his involvement in the high-profile case against the Panther 21, which was treated by supporters as a political prosecution targeting Black radical organizing.
Tabor was arrested in a pre-dawn raid by the New York City Police Department on April 2, 1969, and was charged by Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan in a sweeping conspiracy case alleging plans to bomb public sites and attack police. The trial began in October 1970; during the proceedings, Tabor jumped bail and went into exile amid reported threats connected to an internal dispute involving national party leader Huey P. Newton. In May 1971, the jury acquitted all defendants; Tabor was acquitted in absentia and remained outside the United States thereafter.
Black Panther Party member and one of the 'Panther 21' (New York 21), arrested in 1969 on charges of conspiring to bomb New York sites; The Black Panther Vol. 17 no.21 (1977) recounts that the defendants spent months jailed on $100,000 bail before the trial defendants were acquitted of all counts in 1971. [Source: The Black Panther (Black Panther Party newspaper), v17 no.21; digitized at marxists.org — https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/black-panther/index.htm]
Harlem Black Panther Party member, Panther 21 defendant and author of the influential 1970 pamphlet Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide. While free on bail during the Panther 21 trial in early 1971, he jumped bail with co-defendant Richard Moore amid the BPP's east-west split and fled to Algeria. He later settled in Zambia, where he lived until his death in 2010.
