William Lee Brent, 75; Black Panther hijacked plane to Cuba

In 1968, William Lee Brent, an ex-convict, attended a Black Panther Party rally in Oakland and walked away possessing a new and unshakeable world view.

From that day forward, Brent viewed himself as a foot soldier in a war against racial and economic oppression. In the Black Panther Party, to which he pledged allegiance, he rose to the rank of captain and served as bodyguard for prominent party member Eldridge Cleaver. The Panthers offered a free breakfast program for children, protected the elderly from street crime and demanded fair treatment of African Americans and others.

The irony of Brent’s life was that he was deeply committed to a cause many viewed as just, yet engaged in acts that many also considered criminal. Brent was with other party members in 1969 when he robbed a gas station and then shot and wounded two police officers. After his arrest and release on bail, he stepped onto a Boeing 707 in Oakland, pulled out a .38-caliber revolver and ordered pilots to take him to Cuba.

He spent the rest of his life in exile on the Communist island.

Brent died of bronchial pneumonia on Nov. 4 at a hospital in Havana, said Steve Wasserman, his friend and editor of his autobiography, “Long Time Gone: A Black Panther’s True-Life Story of His Hijacking and Twenty-Five Years in Cuba.” He was 75.

Decades after the hijacking, he remained convinced that his actions were warranted.

“I considered myself a foot soldier out there with the troops, where I could make a contribution to the black liberation movement,” he told a New York Times reporter in 1996. “I was at war, as strange as that may sound to some people now, with an enemy, which was the United States government, and the skyjacking was a continuation of that struggle.”

Before joining the Panthers, Brent’s life was devoid of direction. Born in Franklin, La., on Nov. 10, 1930, Brent and his family eventually settled in Oakland. At the age of 17 Brent enlisted in the Army using a fake birth certificate. Eight months later the ruse was uncovered and he was discharged.

As an adult, Brent worked as a short-order cook and a dishwasher and served time in prison for robbery. He was 37 when he heard the Panthers speak at a rally and “the audacity of these young Blacks so excited me and stirred emotions I thought had died years ago,” he wrote.

They framed the world for Brent and inspired him. When white people asked him what he and others in the party wanted, he had a simple answer.

“I always told them we wanted the same things they did ... honorable, rewarding work; a decent place to live; adequate health care and education for all black people; justice in the courts; non-brutal police who didn’t abuse their power; and a government respectful of all people regardless of race or creed.”

Brent conducted the hijacking of New York-bound TWA Flight 154 alone, and none of the 76 passengers was injured.

In Cuba, Brent was not greeted with open arms; authorities sent him to prison. Rumors circulated that Brent was a government agent.

For 22 months Brent served hard time in a Cuban prison. Those were difficult times too for his sister, Elouise Rawlins, who lived in Oakland; Brent was her only sibling.

“I hated to think that it was possible I would never see him again

When Brent was released from prison he worked in sugar cane fields, on a pig farm, as a radio disc jockey and as a high school teacher. He earned a degree in Spanish literature and married writer Jane McManus, a fellow radical. He sometimes met with visiting foreigners and journalists, including Wasserman.

“I always knew whatever else might be said about Bill Brent, you could always rely on him to tell you the truth, and he would tell you the truth, no matter how painful, about the reality of the Cuban revolution,” said Wasserman, former book editor of The Times.

It took years to persuade Brent to write his autobiography, but when he did, it was an extraordinary experience for both men, Wasserman said.

“It was really very moving,” Wasserman said. “I have to say he was a changed man by having imposed a narrative coherence on what was an often tormented and embittered life.”

The Washington Post called the autobiography “honest and sometimes as exciting as a thriller.”

The book brought Brent media attention, including producers from a major television network’s news magazine. Plans for the segment were nixed, but not before the crew filmed Brent in Cuba, then visited Rawlins and her family in Oakland.

Nieces and nephews gathered around a TV to watch video of the uncle they had never met. Then the producer filmed the family speaking to Brent. One tearful message came from a great-niece.

“She told him she wished she could have met him in person; that she believed that he was truly trying to improve things for black people and that she was proud of him,” Rawlins said.

Later, back in Cuba, Brent watched.

“He broke down and wept,” Wasserman said. “It was as if his life, through all the pain and exile, counted for something.”

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jocelyn.stewart@latimes.com