Zebra murders
Encyclopedia
The "Zebra" murders were a string of racially motivated murders that took place in San Francisco, California
, from October 1973 to April 1974.
During 1973 and 1974, fourteen execution style murders and eight assaults occurred in San Francisco, whose police named the case "Zebra" after the special police radio band they assigned for the investigation. Like the black and white animal of the same name, all twenty-two crimes in the six-month spree involved white victims and black suspects.
. Quita was fondled by two men and then nearly decapitated by a third with a machete
. One of the men who had fondled Quita then similarly hacked Richard and left him for dead, but he survived.
Ten days later, on October 29, Frances Rose, 28, was repeatedly shot by a man who blocked her car's path and demanded a ride, as she was driving up to the entrance gate of the University of California
Extension.
On November 9, a 26-year-old gas company clerk, Robert Stoeckmann, was assaulted by another man but was able to take the gun away and fire back. The attacker, Leroy Doctor, was later arrested and convicted of assault with a deadly weapon.
Saleem "Sammy" Erekat, a 53-year-old Jordan
ian Arab
Muslim
, was bound and shot execution-style in the restroom of his grocery store on November 25.
On December 11, Paul Dancik, a 26-year-old artist, was shot three times in the chest by a man as he was preparing to make a telephone call at a pay phone.
Two days later, on the evening of December 13, future San Francisco mayor Art Agnos, then a member of the California Commission on Aging, was attending a meeting in Potrero Hill
. Agnos, 35, was in the largely black neighborhood to discuss building a government-funded health clinic in the area. After the meeting ended, Agnos was talking to two women curbside when a man shot him twice in the back. Agnos barely survived the attack.
During the same evening, Marietta DiGirolamo, 31, was walking along Divisadero Street when she was shoved into a doorway by a man and shot twice in the chest, and when the shots spun her around, once in the back. She died.
On December 20, "Angela Roselli" (not her real name), a 20-year-old college student, was shot three times near her apartment by one of two men. She survived, although one bullet nicked her spine.
An 81-year-old janitor, Ilario Bertuccio, was shot that same evening while walking on his way home from work in the Bay View district. He died almost instantly after four shots to the shoulder and chest.
On December 22, two more victims died within six minutes of each other. Neal Moynihan, 19, was killed while walking near Civic Center
while doing his Christmas
shopping. A man had walked in front of him and shot him in the face, neck, and heart. The killer (or perhaps a different killer, per authors Cohen and Sanders) then chased down 50-year-old Mildred Hosler as she was heading to her bus stop, and also shot her four times.
The killings stopped for five weeks, then resumed on January 28, 1974, with five more shootings. Tana Smith, 32, was shot while walking to a fabric store. Vincent Wollin, 69, was shot while walking home. John Bambic, 84, was shot while collecting discarded bottles and cans. Jane Holly, a 45 year old housewife, was gunned down while doing her laundry in a laundromat, and Roxanne McMillian, 23, was shot while carrying items from her car to a new apartment she and her husband had rented.
Only one of the victims, Roxanne McMillian, survived, although she would use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. (A sixth victim that night whom authors Cohen and Sanders tie to the killers, Thomas Bates, a hitchhiker who survived being shot three times near Emeryville, had earlier been mentioned by author Howard, but not counted by him in that night's totals.)
The police were baffled by the lack of motive in the killings. Brutality and an apparent lack of remorse on the part of the gunmen marked the attacks.
Based on what was initially known about the killings, there was a common pattern. In a hit-and-run shooting, the gunman would walk up to his victim, shoot the victim repeatedly at close range, and flee on foot. Another link to the shootings was the killers' preference for a .32 caliber pistol
, based on the slugs recovered from the victims and the shell casings found at the crime scenes.
As a result, a special task force was formed to try to solve and stop the murders, led by Detective
s Gus Coreris and John Fotinos (1925-2006). San Francisco Police Chief Donald Scott assigned the "Z" police radio frequency for their exclusive use. Since the letter "Z" is known in common phonetic
use as "Zebra
," the group became known as the Zebra task force, and the murders became known as the Zebra murders.
cadets were walking toward the Mayfair Market just two blocks away from the Salvation Army School for Officers' Training Center when a black man who was following them overtook them, wheeled around, fired four shots at them, and fled. Thomas Rainwater, 19, died; Linda Story, 21, survived. Two police officers were on the scene within 15 seconds, and although a manhunt was initiated in an effort to find the killer, it proved to be futile. They suspected that the Zebra killers had struck again, as the shell casings found on the sidewalk were found to be from a .32 caliber gun.
On Easter Sunday, 13 days after the Rainwater-Story shootings, two more people, Ward Anderson, a merchant seaman, and Terry White, a 15-year-old student, were both shot and wounded as they stood at a bus stop at the corner of Fillmore and Hayes Streets; their attacker was a black man who approached the corner on foot and then fled after firing.
On the evening of April 16, 23-year-old Nelson "Nick" T. Shields IV, heir to a wealthy Du Pont executive, accompanied a friend to a house on Vernon Street in the Ingleside district to pick up a rug. Shields had opened the back of the station wagon and was making room in the cargo area for the rug when he was shot repeatedly. A witness later testified that she saw a black man rushing up Vernon Street at the time of the shooting. The police again suspected that it was another Zebra murder, due to the shell casings found at the scene matching a .32 caliber.
The city also took a beating economically as tourists stayed away. Streets were deserted at night even at North Beach, a neighborhood known to have a seven-nights-a-week nightlife.
Police decided to take drastic measures. Inspector Gus Coreris dictated generic suspect descriptions with the best known characteristics of the killers to SFPD sketch artist Hobart “Hoby" Nelson, who drew two sketches, based on them. The sketches were then distributed to the media and to SFPD officers, none of whom knew the sketches were generic.
In an unprecedented move, San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto
and Police Chief Donald Scott announced that police officers would begin stopping and questioning "large numbers of black citizens" who resembled the description of the killer: a black man with a short Afro
and a narrow chin. Once stopped, checked and cleared, each citizen received a specially printed Zebra Check card from the officer(s) that they could show to police if stopped again. Over 500 men were stopped by the first weekend the program was in operation.
This action by the police provoked vocal and widespread criticism from the African-American community. Dr. Washington Garner, the first African-American member of the Police Commission, called for blacks to be understanding of the exceptional circumstances. The policy faced internal criticism, with the Officers For Justice group led by NOI associate Jesse Byrd viewing it as racist and unproductive. Acting on a lawsuit sponsored by the NAACP and the ACLU, U.S. District Judge Alfonso J. Zirpoli ruled that the widespread profiling
of African-Americans was unconstitutional, and the operation was suspended.
. Harris claimed to be one of the persons featured in the police sketches, and also provided specific details regarding several of the attacks that the cops never had released to the public. Harris denied that he had committed any killings, but said that he had been present at many of them.
Harris revealed the existence of the group to the police, and told them of a homicide which did not make the papers; it was that of a homeless man whom they had kidnapped from Ghirardelli Square
. They had brought the man to Black Self-Help Moving's warehouse, gagged and tied him up, and while he was still conscious, took turns hacking away his limbs. Harris told the detectives that they had dumped the body into the bay
. He told his story in such detail that the police were convinced of its veracity, especially since the police had, on the previous December 24, recovered the bound and badly butchered torso of a male, missing its hands, feet and head, that had washed up in the city's Ocean Beach
district at the foot of Pacheco Street.
Harris provided the police with names, dates, addresses and details - enough information to issue arrest warrant
s against the suspects. Harris subsequently sought, and received, immunity for his help in breaking the Zebra case, as well as new identities for himself, his girlfriend, and her child.
On May 1, simultaneous raids during the pre-dawn hours were made, resulting in the arrests of Larry Craig Green and J.C.X. Simon in an apartment building at 844 Grove Street. More suspects were arrested at Black Self-Help Moving & Storage's facility. No one offered resistance when arrested.
Of the seven arrested that day, four had to be released for lack of evidence.
Mayor Alioto announced the news of the raids and announced that the killings were perpetrated by the Death Angels. Black Muslim leader John Muhammad, the minister of Mosque #26 in San Francisco, denied the allegations of a Black Muslim conspiracy to kill whites. The Nation of Islam paid for attorneys for all of the perpetrators convicted, bar Jessie Lee Cooks, who admitted his crimes and pled guilty.
However, there was enough evidence to prove the case against the "Death Angels." The trial started on March 3, 1975. Efforts by the defense to discredit Harris were to no avail, as he spilled all of the grisly details over 12 days of testimony. In addition, the Zebra team presented evidence of a .32 caliber Beretta
automatic pistol that was recovered from the backyard of a home near the scene of the last murder. They were able to demonstrate the chain of ownership of the gun to one of the workers at Black Self-Help. They also showed that it was used in many of the murders.
Based on the testimony of 108 witnesses (including Harris), 8,000 pages totaling 3.5 million words worth of transcripts, and culminating in what was then the longest criminal trial in California history, Larry Green, J.C.X. Simon, Manuel Moore and Jessie Lee Cooks were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder after an 18-hour deliberation by the jury in 1976. Each was sentenced to life imprisonment.
. Sanders and Cohen's book contextualizes the killings and the investigation within the framework of race relations in San Francisco at the time -- and particularly within the inner politics of the SFPD.
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, from October 1973 to April 1974.
During 1973 and 1974, fourteen execution style murders and eight assaults occurred in San Francisco, whose police named the case "Zebra" after the special police radio band they assigned for the investigation. Like the black and white animal of the same name, all twenty-two crimes in the six-month spree involved white victims and black suspects.
The first wave of murders
On October 19, 1973, Richard Hague, 30, and his wife, Quita, 28, were kidnapped by a group of men and forced into a white van as they took an after-dinner stroll near their home on Telegraph HillTelegraph Hill, San Francisco
Telegraph Hill refers to a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills."-Location:...
. Quita was fondled by two men and then nearly decapitated by a third with a machete
Machete
The machete is a large cleaver-like cutting tool. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the English language, an equivalent term is matchet, though it is less commonly known...
. One of the men who had fondled Quita then similarly hacked Richard and left him for dead, but he survived.
Ten days later, on October 29, Frances Rose, 28, was repeatedly shot by a man who blocked her car's path and demanded a ride, as she was driving up to the entrance gate of the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
Extension.
On November 9, a 26-year-old gas company clerk, Robert Stoeckmann, was assaulted by another man but was able to take the gun away and fire back. The attacker, Leroy Doctor, was later arrested and convicted of assault with a deadly weapon.
Saleem "Sammy" Erekat, a 53-year-old Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ian Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
, was bound and shot execution-style in the restroom of his grocery store on November 25.
On December 11, Paul Dancik, a 26-year-old artist, was shot three times in the chest by a man as he was preparing to make a telephone call at a pay phone.
Two days later, on the evening of December 13, future San Francisco mayor Art Agnos, then a member of the California Commission on Aging, was attending a meeting in Potrero Hill
Potrero Hill, San Francisco, California
Potrero Hill is a hilly neighborhood in San Francisco, California.-Location:Potrero Hill is located on the eastern side of the city, east of the Mission District and south of SOMA and the newly designated district . It is roughly bordered by 16th Street to the north, Potrero Avenue and U.S...
. Agnos, 35, was in the largely black neighborhood to discuss building a government-funded health clinic in the area. After the meeting ended, Agnos was talking to two women curbside when a man shot him twice in the back. Agnos barely survived the attack.
During the same evening, Marietta DiGirolamo, 31, was walking along Divisadero Street when she was shoved into a doorway by a man and shot twice in the chest, and when the shots spun her around, once in the back. She died.
On December 20, "Angela Roselli" (not her real name), a 20-year-old college student, was shot three times near her apartment by one of two men. She survived, although one bullet nicked her spine.
An 81-year-old janitor, Ilario Bertuccio, was shot that same evening while walking on his way home from work in the Bay View district. He died almost instantly after four shots to the shoulder and chest.
On December 22, two more victims died within six minutes of each other. Neal Moynihan, 19, was killed while walking near Civic Center
Civic center
A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building...
while doing his Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
shopping. A man had walked in front of him and shot him in the face, neck, and heart. The killer (or perhaps a different killer, per authors Cohen and Sanders) then chased down 50-year-old Mildred Hosler as she was heading to her bus stop, and also shot her four times.
The killings stopped for five weeks, then resumed on January 28, 1974, with five more shootings. Tana Smith, 32, was shot while walking to a fabric store. Vincent Wollin, 69, was shot while walking home. John Bambic, 84, was shot while collecting discarded bottles and cans. Jane Holly, a 45 year old housewife, was gunned down while doing her laundry in a laundromat, and Roxanne McMillian, 23, was shot while carrying items from her car to a new apartment she and her husband had rented.
Only one of the victims, Roxanne McMillian, survived, although she would use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. (A sixth victim that night whom authors Cohen and Sanders tie to the killers, Thomas Bates, a hitchhiker who survived being shot three times near Emeryville, had earlier been mentioned by author Howard, but not counted by him in that night's totals.)
Reaction to the first wave of murders
The murders caused widespread panic in San Francisco. People attempted to find "safety in numbers" whenever they would go out or, as much as possible, avoid going out at night. In reaction, an increased police presence was ordered throughout the city.The police were baffled by the lack of motive in the killings. Brutality and an apparent lack of remorse on the part of the gunmen marked the attacks.
Based on what was initially known about the killings, there was a common pattern. In a hit-and-run shooting, the gunman would walk up to his victim, shoot the victim repeatedly at close range, and flee on foot. Another link to the shootings was the killers' preference for a .32 caliber pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
, based on the slugs recovered from the victims and the shell casings found at the crime scenes.
As a result, a special task force was formed to try to solve and stop the murders, led by Detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
s Gus Coreris and John Fotinos (1925-2006). San Francisco Police Chief Donald Scott assigned the "Z" police radio frequency for their exclusive use. Since the letter "Z" is known in common phonetic
Spelling alphabet
A spelling alphabet, radio alphabet, or telephone alphabet is a set of words which are used to stand for the letters of an alphabet. Each word in the spelling alphabet typically replaces the name of the letter with which it starts...
use as "Zebra
Zebra
Zebras are several species of African equids united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds...
," the group became known as the Zebra task force, and the murders became known as the Zebra murders.
The killings resume - Wave #2
On April 1, 1974, two Salvation ArmySalvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
cadets were walking toward the Mayfair Market just two blocks away from the Salvation Army School for Officers' Training Center when a black man who was following them overtook them, wheeled around, fired four shots at them, and fled. Thomas Rainwater, 19, died; Linda Story, 21, survived. Two police officers were on the scene within 15 seconds, and although a manhunt was initiated in an effort to find the killer, it proved to be futile. They suspected that the Zebra killers had struck again, as the shell casings found on the sidewalk were found to be from a .32 caliber gun.
On Easter Sunday, 13 days after the Rainwater-Story shootings, two more people, Ward Anderson, a merchant seaman, and Terry White, a 15-year-old student, were both shot and wounded as they stood at a bus stop at the corner of Fillmore and Hayes Streets; their attacker was a black man who approached the corner on foot and then fled after firing.
On the evening of April 16, 23-year-old Nelson "Nick" T. Shields IV, heir to a wealthy Du Pont executive, accompanied a friend to a house on Vernon Street in the Ingleside district to pick up a rug. Shields had opened the back of the station wagon and was making room in the cargo area for the rug when he was shot repeatedly. A witness later testified that she saw a black man rushing up Vernon Street at the time of the shooting. The police again suspected that it was another Zebra murder, due to the shell casings found at the scene matching a .32 caliber.
Reaction to the second wave
Once again the new wave of murders brought the city to a state of shock as people took the same precautions as they had when the first wave took place.The city also took a beating economically as tourists stayed away. Streets were deserted at night even at North Beach, a neighborhood known to have a seven-nights-a-week nightlife.
Police decided to take drastic measures. Inspector Gus Coreris dictated generic suspect descriptions with the best known characteristics of the killers to SFPD sketch artist Hobart “Hoby" Nelson, who drew two sketches, based on them. The sketches were then distributed to the media and to SFPD officers, none of whom knew the sketches were generic.
In an unprecedented move, San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto
Joseph Alioto
Joseph Lawrence Alioto was the 36th mayor of San Francisco, California, from 1968 to 1976.-Biography:...
and Police Chief Donald Scott announced that police officers would begin stopping and questioning "large numbers of black citizens" who resembled the description of the killer: a black man with a short Afro
Afro
Afro, sometimes shortened to fro and also known as a "natural", is a hairstyle worn naturally by people with lengthy kinky hair texture or specifically styled in such a fashion by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair...
and a narrow chin. Once stopped, checked and cleared, each citizen received a specially printed Zebra Check card from the officer(s) that they could show to police if stopped again. Over 500 men were stopped by the first weekend the program was in operation.
This action by the police provoked vocal and widespread criticism from the African-American community. Dr. Washington Garner, the first African-American member of the Police Commission, called for blacks to be understanding of the exceptional circumstances. The policy faced internal criticism, with the Officers For Justice group led by NOI associate Jesse Byrd viewing it as racist and unproductive. Acting on a lawsuit sponsored by the NAACP and the ACLU, U.S. District Judge Alfonso J. Zirpoli ruled that the widespread profiling
Racial profiling
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement...
of African-Americans was unconstitutional, and the operation was suspended.
Arrest and conviction
With the offer of a $30,000 reward came a break in the Zebra case. Anthony Harris, an employee at the Black Self-Help Moving and Storage, called police and subsequently agreed to meet with Zebra case detectives at a bank parking lot in OaklandOakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
. Harris claimed to be one of the persons featured in the police sketches, and also provided specific details regarding several of the attacks that the cops never had released to the public. Harris denied that he had committed any killings, but said that he had been present at many of them.
Harris revealed the existence of the group to the police, and told them of a homicide which did not make the papers; it was that of a homeless man whom they had kidnapped from Ghirardelli Square
Ghirardelli Square
Ghirardelli Square is a landmark with shops and restaurants in the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco, California, USA. A portion of the area is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Pioneer Woolen Mills and D. Ghirardelli Company....
. They had brought the man to Black Self-Help Moving's warehouse, gagged and tied him up, and while he was still conscious, took turns hacking away his limbs. Harris told the detectives that they had dumped the body into the bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
. He told his story in such detail that the police were convinced of its veracity, especially since the police had, on the previous December 24, recovered the bound and badly butchered torso of a male, missing its hands, feet and head, that had washed up in the city's Ocean Beach
Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California
Ocean Beach is a beach that runs along the west coast of San Francisco, California, United States, at the Pacific Ocean. It is adjacent to Golden Gate Park, the Richmond District and the Sunset District. The Great Highway runs alongside the beach, and Cliff House and the site of the former Sutro...
district at the foot of Pacheco Street.
Harris provided the police with names, dates, addresses and details - enough information to issue arrest warrant
Arrest warrant
An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by and on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual.-Canada:Arrest warrants are issued by a judge or justice of the peace under the Criminal Code of Canada....
s against the suspects. Harris subsequently sought, and received, immunity for his help in breaking the Zebra case, as well as new identities for himself, his girlfriend, and her child.
On May 1, simultaneous raids during the pre-dawn hours were made, resulting in the arrests of Larry Craig Green and J.C.X. Simon in an apartment building at 844 Grove Street. More suspects were arrested at Black Self-Help Moving & Storage's facility. No one offered resistance when arrested.
Of the seven arrested that day, four had to be released for lack of evidence.
Mayor Alioto announced the news of the raids and announced that the killings were perpetrated by the Death Angels. Black Muslim leader John Muhammad, the minister of Mosque #26 in San Francisco, denied the allegations of a Black Muslim conspiracy to kill whites. The Nation of Islam paid for attorneys for all of the perpetrators convicted, bar Jessie Lee Cooks, who admitted his crimes and pled guilty.
However, there was enough evidence to prove the case against the "Death Angels." The trial started on March 3, 1975. Efforts by the defense to discredit Harris were to no avail, as he spilled all of the grisly details over 12 days of testimony. In addition, the Zebra team presented evidence of a .32 caliber Beretta
Beretta
Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta is an Italian firearms manufacturer. Their firearms are used worldwide for a variety of civilian, law enforcement, and military purposes. It is also known for manufacturing shooting clothes and accessories. Beretta is the oldest active firearms manufacturer in the...
automatic pistol that was recovered from the backyard of a home near the scene of the last murder. They were able to demonstrate the chain of ownership of the gun to one of the workers at Black Self-Help. They also showed that it was used in many of the murders.
Based on the testimony of 108 witnesses (including Harris), 8,000 pages totaling 3.5 million words worth of transcripts, and culminating in what was then the longest criminal trial in California history, Larry Green, J.C.X. Simon, Manuel Moore and Jessie Lee Cooks were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder after an 18-hour deliberation by the jury in 1976. Each was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Books
Two books on the subject have been published, Zebra (1979), by Clark Howard, which is out of print though is available here, and The Zebra Murders: A Season of Killing, Racial Madness, and Civil Rights (2006) by Prentice Earl Sanders and Bennett Cohen. Howard's book is a true crime novel based on trial transcripts, interviews with those involved, and other sources. Sanders, who would become San Francisco's first black police chief, took part in the investigation while working as a homicide detective for the San Francisco Police DepartmentSan Francisco Police Department
The San Francisco Police Department, also known as the SFPD and San Francisco Department Of Police, is the police department of the City and County of San Francisco, California...
. Sanders and Cohen's book contextualizes the killings and the investigation within the framework of race relations in San Francisco at the time -- and particularly within the inner politics of the SFPD.
See also
- Nation of IslamNation of IslamThe Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...
- Yahweh ben YahwehYahweh ben YahwehYahweh ben Yahweh was the adopted name of Hulon Mitchell, Jr. , founder and leader of the Nation of Yahweh, a black supremacist new religious movement founded in 1979....
- Mark EssexMark EssexMark James Robert Essex killed 9 people, including 5 police officers, and wounded 13 others in New Orleans on December 31, 1972 and January 7, 1973.-Background:Mark James Robert Essex was born in Emporia, Kansas...
- Your Black Muslim BakeryYour Black Muslim BakeryYour Black Muslim Bakery was a bakery opened by Yusuf Bey in 1968 in Santa Barbara, California, and relocated to Oakland in 1971. A power broker at the center of a local community, it was held out as a model of African American economic self-sufficiency. However, it was later linked to widespread...
- San Francisco Police DepartmentSan Francisco Police DepartmentThe San Francisco Police Department, also known as the SFPD and San Francisco Department Of Police, is the police department of the City and County of San Francisco, California...