Norma Gist

Norma Gist was a thirty-year-old Black mother of two in Idabel, Oklahoma, whose prosecution grew out of an incident in which she criticized a white school principal, Wilfred Conant, for the brutal beating of her ten-year-old son, Sol. On April 12, 1971, after what The Black Panther called a "quickie, non-peer jury trial," she was convicted and sentenced to ten years in the state prison, then released two days later on a $10,000 appeal bond. On November 15, 1971 Idabel and Oklahoma state police seized her from her home and, on November 17, took her to McAlester prison; the state had also cut off her welfare in an effort to force her into submission. Documented in The Black Panther (November 29, 1971).