Biography
Teddy "Jah" Heath joined the Black Panther Party in 1968 and was associated with the Black Liberation Army. Arrested on May 2, 1973, he was convicted in connection with the kidnapping of a drug dealer — an action he framed as part of the BLA's effort to drive the drug trade out of Black communities, in which no one was hurt. He served 28 years and died in prison in 2001.
Teddy Jah Heath was a member of the Black Panthers and the BLA when he kidnapped a local drug dealer (and soon let him out without any injuries) in order to fight the drug trade in Black communities. The all-white jury found him guilty and he was given a life sentence (for a kidnapping in which no one was injured; this was in the midst of hysteria around black nationalism at the time). He spent thirty years in prison before he died of cancer. The 1946 birth year that appears in some movement materials is an error: he was born September 16, 1943, and died of cancer in prison on January 21, 2001, twenty-eight years into his sentence and two years after the parole board turned him down.
