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    ‘There was no place for me in American society’: an ex-Black Panther cub speaks out

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    Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week, Guardian Documentaries has released a short film about the life and legacy of the Black Panthers with a focus on the group’s children. It was released alongside a Long Read by Ed Pilkington in the US on the wider group. I spoke to one of those cubs in the film, Ericka Abram, about her childhood within the activist community in the 1970s, and how her life was shaped by the experience. But first, the weekly roundup.‘I lived in a protected Panther bubble’View image in fullscreenThe first thing I notice about Ericka is that she is deliberate in her articulation and her responses are meticulously considered. She is also warm and quick-witted, with a flair for a killer line. She will not argue with people online about Donald Trump, she says, because it’s a waste of time to engage with a “bot, a baby or a bigot”.Ericka is the daughter of Elaine Brown, a former chair of the Black Panther party, and Raymond Hewitt, one of its leaders. She spent her early years in Oakland, California, and the Black Panther party she grew up in was not only a political organisation, but also a social one. The cubs lived in dormitories and had their own school. At weekends, they could return to a home where adult members of the party lived together and played an equal role in their care – “comrade moms” is how she describes the women she lived with.Ericka had no idea her childhood was anything out of the ordinary. Even though reporters showed up at their schools, and she had seen her mother and Huey Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panthers, on television, she did not have a sense of how outsiders perceived the party. I ask her if she was aware of the risks involved for her family and the wider network. “It just felt like family,” she says. Despite this, she shares a chilling story about her mother’s bodyguard stopping a seven-year-old Ericka from opening the door of their house and rebuking her, because he was the first person who should walk out, in case someone shoots.The full picture did not start to become clear until she was in high school, years after her mother left the party and took Ericka with her. She recalls someone once telling her: “Your mother is the only woman in US history to lead a paramilitary organisation.” Ericka says it was “strange” to hear her mum being described like that.She recalls a community that was deeply activist but also, perhaps counterintuitively, apolitical. Ericka tells me it often shocks people that she not only had no insights on the internal politics of the Black Panthers, but she had almost no idea what the party actually was. “The Black Panther party and the reasons it existed were unknown to me. [This is] because I wasn’t suffering racism or sexism; I lived in a protected Panther bubble.” The group participated in boycotts with farmworkers, who successfully secured better working conditions and union rights, and Ericka “hated” that party members couldn’t eat grapes and things she thought were delicious. But the boycotts were explained to her in such a way that she grasped that there were overlords who needed to be forced to play fair. She says from an early age she understood capitalism as synonymous with greed.View image in fullscreenLeaving that bubble was a sharp adjustment. When Ericka was eight her mother left the party and moved to Los Angeles, and the experience of attending a non-Black Panther school for the first time was full of conflict. “I had fights frequently – arguments with my teachers – most of it was about injustice. One teacher put me out of class because I said Australia was founded by prisoners and bigots or something like that. I was in seventh grade.” Another time she was ejected from class for sitting quietly during the pledge of allegiance. “I might not have understood the values that were raising me, but as soon as I was removed from them I needed them most,” she says.I ask how she adjusted to living in the mainstream. Her answer is unequivocal: “There was no place for me in American society.” That might have led to her finding refuge in drugs, says Ericka, who started using cocaine when she was 15. “I was trying to medicate a pain I didn’t understand. And living a life I hadn’t any intention of living.” As a child, she had assumed she would one day become a Black Panther. When that life did not come to pass, a profound sense of effacement took hold. “I developed this idea that unless I die for the people, my life was worthless,” she says. Growing up in an organisation with such a clear purpose raised the hurdle so high that one may as well not try to scale it. That’s what comes “from being raised by people who knew what they were willing to die for”, she says.I suggest that she is describing a sort of nihilism and erasure. Well, yes, is her answer. Ericka has always believed that individuals do not matter. “We were raised to believe we were precious – but we were precious for a purpose. I went to school with a kid called Bullet. I mean, there’s no pressure there.” Ericka says at times she felt she did not live up to expectations. As a teenager “I felt I had failed my mother,” she admits casually. I stop her. Why? “Because when we left [the Black Panther party] there was nothing to protect us from America. I thought I could protect her but I didn’t understand what that meant.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWith such a legacy, I wonder if she harbours any resentment towards her mother, or indeed that generation of Black Panther parents, for not preparing their children for life outside the party? “No,” she says, before I finish the question. “I didn’t feel resentment. But I remember I was about to start my sophomore year when Huey Newton was killed. I felt so alone. And I realised that I wasn’t mourning his death but that, even at the age of 19, some part of me thought that as long as he was alive, someone would still come and tell me what to do.” As she holds back tears, there is such plaintiveness and loss in her voice. For a moment, she is again that 19-year-old faced with figuring life out on her own.And it feels as if she has. Ericka’s sense of failure has been replaced by an understanding that what the Black Panthers signed up to was something exceptional. She refuses to call herself a cub, because a cub grows up to be a Panther. And she is not that. “They really did promise their lives to an ideal,” she says.The values she grew up with are serving her well during a tumultuous time in US political history. “I know that I see the world in a unique way,” Ericka says when I ask how the Black Panthers shaped her life. She understands now that the difference between “activists and revolutionaries is what you are willing to risk” – and that without solidarity, nothing can be achieved. The Black Panthers were not just seeking racial equality but interconnection between all who are suffering the depredations of state and capital. There is in Ericka a clear understanding that what it takes to stabilise politics in a country roiled by a second Trump administration is a combination of empathy but also resolve – action guided by love.The Black Panther Cubs: When the Revolution Doesn’t Come is out now. For more on this story read Ed Pilkington’s in-depth essay, here. And for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the Guardian’s latest films as they release, sign up here to the Guardian Documentaries newsletter.To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here. More

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      The Long Wave: Why Trump’s USAid freeze endangers millions

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      Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. I have been following Donald Trump’s suspension of the US Agency for International Development. USAid is the world’s single biggest aid donor, and the decision to halt its work has sent shockwaves around the world. This week, I trace the effects of its potential demise on the Black diaspora. But first, the weekly roundup.Weekly roundupView image in fullscreenFresh calls for DRC ceasefire | A summit of leaders from across Africa, including Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in DRC. The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group has seized swathes of territory in eastern DRC, leaving thousands dead or displaced.Altadena seeks justice for LA fire victims | A memorial service at the First African Methodist Episcopal church in Pasadena, led by the Rev Al Sharpton, has highlighted the Eaton wildfire’s disproportionate impact on Altadena’s Black residents in a rally for justice and equality.Liverpool waterfront’s role in slavery | Canning Dock in Liverpool, England, where ships trafficking enslaved Africans to the Caribbean were fitted out and repaired, is opening to the public so lesser-told aspects of its history can be explored. This project, alongside other redevelopment programmes, aims to shed light on the waterfront’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.Overtourism fears for Bo-Kaap | Residents of the picturesque, candy-coloured Bo-Kaap district in Cape Town, South Africa, are grappling with the impacts of tourism. Many have expressed frustration about road traffic, crowds blocking streets for photos and rising gentrification.Black hair animation makes waves | Researchers at Yale University and the University of California, Santa Cruz, have developed algorithms to capture the true form of afro-textured hair in animation and computer graphics. The development marks a huge step for the portrayal of Black characters in animated films, cartoons and video games.In depth: What is USAid and why has it been suspended?View image in fullscreenThe significance and reach of USAid’s operations came very close to home when I realised that even in the war-stricken cities of my birthplace, Sudan, USAid was providing support to soup kitchens crucial to the survival of cut-off civilian populations. The freezing of USAid’s work has severely compromised these life-saving efforts, as well as that of US-funded facilities caring for malnourished babies. In the capital, Khartoum, two-thirds of Sudan’s soup kitchens closed in the first week after the aid suspension.On Donald Trump’s first day in office, he announced a 90-day pause in the organisation’s operations because they were part of a “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy … not aligned with American interests”. USAid was established by John F Kennedy in 1961 as an independent agency of the US government. It grew to have a large remit, providing everything from humanitarian assistance to disaster relief. But it also plays a role in education, promoting democratic participation and governance, and supporting the health ministries of the countries it operates in. The range of its programmes and the number of locations in which it is active is staggering.The USAid budget was more than $40bn in the 2023 fiscal year. The suspension, which looks like a permanent dismantling, is embroiled in legal disputes. A federal judge has blocked the decision to put thousands of USAid workers on administrative leave, on the grounds that the Trump administration does not have the authority to abolish an agency established by congressional legislation. As the process unfolds, the work of the agency has been halted overnight, with severe repercussions.Sub-Saharan AfricaView image in fullscreenCountries in sub-Saharan Africa account for more than a third of US foreign assistance spending. In addition to famine relief and medical and humanitarian support in conflict areas such as Sudan, USAid assists health ministries and, most urgently, a large sexual health and HIV prevention programme. Approximately 40,000 healthcare workers in Kenya partly financed by USAid are likely to lose their jobs. The impacts on treatment available to patients, pregnant women and disease treatment are almost too vast to estimate.What is unfolding in South Africa – where patients have showed up for treatment and medication to find that clinics were closed – offers a small insight into what could happen next to people at the sharpest end of medical emergencies. The country is in the grip of one of the world’s largest HIV/Aids epidemics, constituting a quarter of cases worldwide.Latin AmericaView image in fullscreenUSAid’s work focuses on the challenges most prominent in any given location. In Latin America, support for those displaced by guerrilla violence, integration of migrants and the prevention of sexual exploitation have relied heavily on US foreign assistance. Almost 8 million Venezuelans have left the country in the past decade, fleeing economic crises and settling in neighbouring countries. About 3 million of them are in Colombia, the largest recipient of US foreign aid in South America. Last year, USAid funded the feeding and nutrition of a large number of refugees in Colombia, partnering with the UN World Food Programme and extending almost $50m in relief. Abandoning such vulnerable populations not only deprives them of food, but leaves them prone to exploitation and abuse by the sort of criminal gangs that prey on the displaced and hungry.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe ramifications of the suspension extend to the preservation of precious and fragile ecosystems. In Brazil, USAid forged the Partnership for the Conservation of Amazon Biodiversity, an agreement that supports Indigenous people and rural communities, and in doing so protects the Amazon and helps combat the climate emergency. The loss of that support affects not just these communities and those employed by such foreign assistance programmes, but the environmental health of the planet.The CaribbeanView image in fullscreenIn the Caribbean, USAid projects are diverse and embedded in civil society, environmental protection and future proofing younger generations. In Jamaica, among the programmes that have halted is the Youth Empower Activity, which is targeted at the most at-risk people. It helps them access education, professional training and improve job prospects, with a view to increasing household income and promoting national development. Thousands of Jamaicans are enrolled in the scheme – but now a total of $54m of US funding is under threat in the country, according to government estimates.The suspension could also interrupt a USAid-funded, Caribbean-wide project to bolster food security by increasing fruit and vegetable farming, scholarships for degrees in agriculture and support for small farmers. The shutdown came days after the launch of a programme to reduce the risks to marine and coastal biodiversity – an attempt to ameliorate an environmental crisis affecting the region’s coral reefs and biodiversity. Beyond the impact on individuals, small business owners, and the environment, there is, as with all such stoppages, the loss of livelihoods of people employed by these schemes.Soft power lostView image in fullscreenDespite the large sums deployed, USAid, and US foreign assistance in general, is perceived to also benefit the United States. Although it cannot be quantified in exact numbers, supporters say such assistance contributes to the US’s soft power abroad. That soft power is twofold: the first is in a sort of preventive measure, whereby aid helps to stabilise poorer countries and pre-empt deepening crises that could compromise the US’s global security agenda. The second is that aid is seen as a bulwark to the influence of countries such as Russia and China, both of which are particularly active in Africa, for example. In maintaining a presence on the ground across the world, and strong alliances with governments and civil society organisations, the US promotes a foreign policy that aims to curtail the ability of its adversaries to create their own alliances and political footholds.Aid model under scrutinyView image in fullscreenThe speed of the suspension, and how it has plunged so many around the world into hunger and uncertainty, raises questions about the wisdom of depending so profoundly on a country that has proven to be so unreliable. Ken Opalo, a specialist in development and the author of An Africanist Perspective on Substack, wrote: “The cuts are a painful reminder that aid dependence isn’t a viable development strategy.” If the USAid suspension remains, that viable development strategy, or the stepping in of alternative funders, will not materialise overnight. In the meantime, millions of people wait to learn if their sudden change in circumstances will become permanent, subject to a huge constitutional battle thousands of miles away.

      To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here. More