Mar 28, 2019 - Sale 2503

Sale 2503 - Lot 144

Unsold
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(BLACK PANTHERS.) Dramatic file on an American military deserter trying to gain asylum with Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria. 31 items, including a Letter Signed from Eldridge Cleaver, 16 Autograph Letters Signed from Magnus Mitchell to Bruce Beyer, 9 retained carbon letters from Beyer, and 5 versions of Mitchell's Algerian Visa application; water damage or moderate dampstaining along one edge of all items. Vp, February to July 1971
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Magnus "Mitch" Mitchell Jr. (born 1947) was an African-American military deserter from New Jersey who fled to Sweden in 1969. Serving a criminal sentence in the city of Göteborg and facing a deportation order back to a long sentence in America, he sought to join the community of exiled Black Panthers then operating in Algeria under the leadership of Eldridge Cleaver. He sought the assistance of The Center, an organization of expatriate American war opponents in Stockholm funded by the United States Council of Churches. Offered here is Mitchell's correspondence file with The Center.
The earliest document in this file is a letter to Mitchell signed by Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria, 23 February 1971, and cc'd to Bruce Beyer of The Center: "We have received your letter and would be very anxious to have you join us in Algeria to work with us. The area of liberating political prisoners and especially the work of organizing deserters such as yourself is key to our program. The procedure to follow is to write to the Algerian embassy in Stockholm stating your position and your desire to come to Algeria in order to work with the Black Panther Party Intercommunal Section." This promising beginning is followed by numerous letters between Beyer and Mitchell, attempting to thread this bureaucratic needle. Mitchell's first letter on 1 March is enthusiastic, and he concludes "I shall begin to learn to speak Arabic and French these last two months . . . while waiting here to start my new life in a new country." On 23 March, he sent a round of paperwork and added "I have read Soul on Ice before, but I felt that I needed to read it again," signing off with the Panther slogan "All Power to the People."
On 3 April, Mitchell complained about Swedish prison life, "bored as hell from the type of life that I'm living through in this mad house among these mad pigs. . . . They are all a bunch of motherfuckers from the judge that sent me here, down to the lowest ranking pig that works here. . . . I hope that Eldridge can get things together with the Algerians before my time is ending here, for sure I don't intend to be sent back to Amerika to sit in another and harder pen." Beyer followed up on 14 June after failing to get any help from the Panthers: "I am getting pissed off at their lack of cooperation concerning your upcoming deportation. . . . Cleaver has told me twice that he is going to send someone up here to rap with me concerning this matter, but no one has shown up." Mitchell's final letter on 30 June was desperate: "It's only a few more days left for me to be here. . . . I would like for you to call Cleaver once again and rap with him about it." The file ends with a letter from Beyer on 6 July: "This is going to be a hard letter to write. . . . I talked with Cleaver about two days ago, I must say that I don't think that he was of much help." He gives Mitchell the name of a New York lawyer to help after his deportation, and closes "Know that the world's people are on your side, and that their goal is to liberate all our brothers and sisters. All power to the people." We don't know what became of Mitchell, but without an Algerian visa he presumably was deported back to America. A heartbreaking story which offers a unique perspective on the Panther community in exile.