This is part 7 of a 10-part series on the first tenant movement in Memphis. Read part 6 here.
The instability that Black radicals were experiencing in Memphis wasn’t unique, of course.
Black leftist groups around the country were dealing with the same thing — including, famously, the Black Panther Party. As BPP chapters across the country “launched purges and membership freezes to combat infiltration from COINTELPRO,” the group’s national leadership was looking for ways to keep their work going. In 1969, the Panthers hosted a national conference in Oakland, California, calling for a United Front Against Fascism.
The UFAF conference announced a new set of key issues for the Panthers, centered on a few major demands: community control of police forces, freedom for political prisoners and the right to armed self-defense against state violence. It also announced a new set of organizations to carry out this program: National Committees to Combat Fascism.
Each NCCF would serve as a kind of satellite branch for the Panthers, taking on its normal work in cities where they didn’t have a strong foothold. With the Invaders’ collapse unfolding, Memphis was a perfect candidate for this new phase of Panther organizing.
It was another Invaders splinter group that picked up that mantle. Ex-Invaders Maurice Lewis and Melvin Smith had originally put their efforts toward starting a People’s Revolutionary Party, which failed to gain a large following. This may have given them an incentive to affiliate with a nationwide group like the BPP, which had more resources, a clear leadership structure and a nationwide network of organizers.
By the fall of 1970, Memphis’ NCCF chapter was up and running. They carried out “survival programs,” sold copies of the Black Panther Party Newspaper and supported local campaigns to free Angela Davis and create memorials for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Many of them could be spotted around town in berets and military jackets, in line with the Panthers’ and Invaders’ most recognizable looks.
A free breakfast program took place in General Assembly Church of the First Born, at 1316 Kennedy St. in South Memphis. The NCCF’s headquarters sat around the corner in an apartment at 1299 Kentucky St. Still, its members claimed both sides of Poplar: a number of them had connections in Hyde Park, Douglass and the industrial neighborhoods of Smokey City and New Chicago.
Many of them were also new to the city’s political scene. A man in his early 20s named Willie Edward Shipp — who sported large, thick-rimmed glasses — oversaw the free breakfast program but hid his identity whenever the group spoke publicly. “We all speak for each other, and we have no stars in this organization,” he told reporters who stopped by two weeks before Christmas in 1970. “Therefore, my name is not important.”
When asked about the chapter’s size and leadership, Shipp replied, “Those who know don’t say, and those who don’t know do say.” Kay Pittman-Black, the Press-Scimitar’s go-to reporter for local radicalism, estimated the group’s membership at around 50; Calvin Taylor, a former Invader who was working as a reporter for The Commercial Appeal, suggested it was between 15 and 30.
If you never knew there was a militant response from Black folks fighting for their lives in Memphis slums and projects, think again. Read the whole series here.
With the Invaders’ collapse still fresh, this vagueness was an important strategy for protecting the group — which quickly grabbed the attention of local and federal law enforcement. Ernest Withers, the famed civil rights photographer, befriended several Panthers as a paid FBI informant, relaying extensive details about members’ lives and political activities. COINTELPRO then fed information to reporters like Pittman-Black, whose coverage was partly designed to undermine and discredit the city’s radicals.
In the popular narrative of Black protest and political struggle in Memphis, the NCCF has become a footnote. But over a chilly weekend in January 1971 — shortly after their interview with Pittman-Black — the group hit a turning point when it began to organize a small group of tenants, rattling the city in the process.
Justin A. Davis is a freelance journalist, music critic and former grassroots organizer. He’s covered politics, pop culture and history for outlets like Scalawag magazine, Waging Nonviolence, Post-Trash and Science for the People. He lives in Memphis.
To share this history, Davis used these resources for research:
Harland Bartholomew & Associates, “Land Use Plan for the Kansas Street Urban Renewal Area” (1972)
The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service
The Commercial Appeal Archives
Jet Magazine Archives
Caitlin Lee and Clark Randall, “Inside the St. Louis Rent Strike of 1969,” Belt Magazine (2019)
Memphis Housing Authority Annual Reports
Memphis Housing Authority, Memphis Housing: Quarter Century of Progress (circa 1960)
The Memphis Press-Scimitar Archives
Akira Drake Rodriguez, “Diverging Space for Deviants: The Politics of Atlanta’s Public Housing” (2021)
John I. Stewart, Jr., “Racial Discrimination in Public Housing: Rights and Remedies,” The University of Chicago Law Review (1974)
University of Memphis Libraries & Rhodes College Digital Archive, Sanitation Strike Tapes (1968-1973)
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