![]() ![]() Paul Coates, one of the leaders of the Baltimore chapter who now runs his own publishing company, Black Classic Press, says, "Infiltration came from many segments of the government. He does say the agency would not have been involved in domestic matter like infiltrating the Panthers. Steve McAnallen, a spokesman for the NSA, said he could neither confirm nor deny that Warren Hart was an NSA employee. "They wanted the chapter like that - disorganized," Conway says. They accused Warren Hart, who opened Baltimore's Panther office, of working for the National Security Agency. He also became active in civil rights causes, joining the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality.Ĭonway and other Panther members came to believe the chapter had been organized by a government infiltrator. He got married (he's now separated) and went to work as a technician at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Instead of staying in the Army, Conway returned to Baltimore in September of 1967. One front-page photo showed a National Guardsman pointing a gun at a small group of black people, including a woman who reminded Conway of his mother. Conway was planning to extend his tour of duty and go to Vietnam when he read accounts of a riot in Newark, N.J. Riots were erupting, and demonstrators were taking to the street. It was the mid-'60s, and America was in the midst of the civil rights era. "That movie made me pay attention to what was going on in America," Conway says. He remembers seeing a documentary on the life of Malcom X. The year the Black Panther Party was founded Conway was doing a tour of duty in Europe. At 18, he joined the Army, where he would undergo a political awakening. He had a brush with the law as a juvenile, when he was convicted of destroying property. ![]()
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