Connie Matthews

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Connie Matthews
Black Power Movement
Spouse(s)Michael Tabor
(m. c. 1970)

Constance Evadine Matthews (August 3, 1943 - 1993),[1] better known as Connie Matthews, was an organizer, a part of the Black Panther Party between 1968 and 1971. A resident of Denmark, she helped co-ordinate the Black Panthers with left-wing political groups based in Europe.

Black Panther Party Organizer

Matthews was born in

International Folk Music Council in Copenhagen, Denmark, 1967–1969.[4]
She first became involved with the Panthers in 1968.

In May 1969, Matthews was officially designated by the Panthers as their "International Coordinator", and was "authorised to mobilise to carry out demonstrations of support, raise funds, and inform the peoples of Scandinavia about poor black and oppressed peoples' revolutionary struggle from the Panthers' vanguard position".

Huey Newton released from prison. The tour was considered a success and Matthews was commended by the Panthers' central committee for her work, leading her to become more involved with the party.[6]
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Matthews continued to build a base of support for the Panthers in Europe.[5] Matthews was also responsible for recruiting French Intellectual Jean Genet, persuading him to travel to the United States for an extended tour where he took part in the "Free Huey" campaign.[7]

In February 1970 Matthews was a part of a tour of the

commonwealth nation, and having studied in London, Matthews was capable of speaking in a British manner, if not a British accent. However, during the tour, she spoke in a style more in line with the way the American Black Panthers spoke. Speaking to British Black Panthers, She was also critical of the direction they were going, telling them that they needed to work with non-black liberals and socialists instead of dividing into "sixteen organisations which won't work with white people". Between the use of American vernacular and stiff criticism, some of the British audience came away from the speech feeling stung. Derek Humphry, a journalist reporting on the speech for The Sunday Times, ran with the headline "Sister Connie Matthews swears at British Black Panthers", summarising how the speech was received.[8]

Matthews also began to also make visits to the

Jewish Telegraph Agency accused Matthews of labelling the Judge a "Zionist", and of thinking of all Jews as Zionists.[9] Huey Newton would directly respond to the controversy, asking Jewish publications such as the magazine Jewish Currents to reprint statement he had made in September 1969 in the Black Panther newspaper, where he explicitly stated the official policy of the party was not anti-Semitic. Newton also referred to the controversy within the Black Panther paper itself in a late April 1970 edition in which he referred to Matthews comments as "made in anger" (at how the trial was being run)[10]

Michael Tabor and Algeria

Matthews eventually rose through the Panther ranks to become the personal secretary of party leader Huey Newton. Writer

T.J. English claims in order to protect Matthews from being deported from the US, he ordered Black Panther member Michael Tabor to marry Connie. English further suggests that this plan backfired on Newton, who was in a sexual relationship with Matthews at the time, as the relationship between Tabor and Matthews blossomed from sham-marriage into genuine love.[11]

In 1969, Tabor and 12 other members of the Black Panthers were charged for allegedly plotting to kill police officers and to plant bombs in New York City commercial and public buildings, in what came to be known as the

Barbara Easley Cox, Pete O'Neal and his wife Charlotte Hill O'Neal and Sekou Odinga
to name a few.

In time, this faction, dubbed "The International Section of the Black Panther Party" by the Panthers, came to be considered to be in a feud with the main branch of the Black Panthers in America who remained under the leadership of Huey Newton and to a lesser degree,

FBI, who unleashed the full force of their COINTELPRO
project on them.

The Algerian-based panthers all eventually went their separate ways and in 1972 Tabor and Matthews immigrated to Zambia.[12] Matthews eventually returned to her homeland of Jamaica, where she died of cancer in 1993.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Evans Asbury, Edith (10 February 1971). "Newton Denounces 2 Missing Panthers". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  2. ^ Spencer, Robyn C. (October 16, 2011). "Conny Matthews" (PDF). The Black Panther. No. Special Commemorative Issue. p. 5. Retrieved 3 May 2019 – via It's About Time BBP.
  3. ^
    ISBN 9781788730020
    .
  4. ^ "History of the governance of IFMC and ICTM".
  5. ^
    ISBN 9780691152462
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 9780520293281
    .
  7. ^ Abugo Ongiri, Amy. "Prisoner Of Love: Affiliation,Sexuality, and the Black Panther Party" (PDF). Retrieved 29 April 2019. Thus on 4 April 1969 when Black Panther Connie Mathews approached Jean Genet, one of the leading European intellectuals of his time, for support. Genet identified so deeply with the Panthers' cause that he left Paris almost immediately for a fundraising tour of the United States.'
  8. ^ Dyer-Johnson, Omara S. "The Transatlantic Black Panthers:Language and Representation in Britain and the United States". academia.edu. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  9. ^ "Black Panthers Charge 'jewish-zionist-racist' Left Responsible for Party's Decline". 4 May 1970. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  10. ^ "The Black Panthers, Jews, and Israel" (PDF). February 1971. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 July 2019. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  11. ISBN 978-0061824586
    .
  12. ^ Hevesi, Dennis (23 October 2010). "Michael Tabor, Black Panther Who Fled to Algeria, Dies at 63". Mr. Tabor and his first wife, Connie Mathews, who had been the party's international coordinator, moved to Zambia in 1972.
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