Posted on 12/14/2006 9:27:27 AM PST by Brian Mosely
In 1968, Lorenzo Ervin was a Black Panther in trouble with the law. He says he’d been arrested, beaten up by the cops and charged with “arming the youth [for] this so-called riot” in downtown Chattanooga after Martin Luther King’s death. He felt he had to leave the country but knew it wouldn’t be easy.
“When you’re a wanted man,” he says, “you don’t go with your passport and just get on a plane.”
The now gray-haired Ervin pauses, casts his eyes downward and folds his hands. “I, um, I…” he starts. “I hijacked a plane to Cuba.”
After taking over the plane with a .44 and a hand grenade, Ervin lived on the lam in Castro’s Cuba and later in Soviet bloc countries, until his arrest in Prague by U.S. authorities. He served 15 years in a federal penitentiary. This remarkable journey would eventually lead him to a job with one of Nashville’s most prominent progressive activist coalitions.
When the Nashville Peace and Justice Center (NPJC) hired Ervin last June, the organization’s leaders were thrilled with his platinum anti-establishment credentials. “I thought we’d be sitting around talking about Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers,” says NPJC board member Jane Hussein.
But the honeymoon was short-lived. Oddly enough, Ervin’s felony wasn’t a hiring deterrent to NPJC. But that he wasn’t proficient in Microsoft Office and had embellished his résumé—those were deal killers.
A mere six months into his position, the center fired Ervin last week, saying that he was essentially incompetent and had misrepresented himself on his job application. In response, Ervin has charged that one of Nashville’s most liberal institutions is a “racist clique” and a “progressive plantation.” He says he plans to sue the center for $1 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at nashvillescene.com ...
"pigment-deficient liberals "
ROFL!
That one got me too!!
Sounds like this group is stuck in a 1960s time warp.
Ervin, you magnificent meathead!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.