Little mentioned. Tip-toed around by all. Better watch what you say....
Though when you think about it, the question of race permeates this case from top to bottom.
Maybe it was baked in, from the beginning:
--Helter Skelter, Vince Bugliosi, pg555
"Father: unknown. He is alleged to have been a colored cook by the name of Scott, with whom the boy's mother had been promiscuous at the time of pregnancy."
--Or start with the Helter Skelter Theory itself. The apocalyptic race war, black vs white. It would kick off when the black militants/panthers/muslims went to the rich whites living in the hills, and slaughtering them. The pissed-off white people would then go down to the black ghetto and slaughter all the unaware Uncle Toms, while the black muslims were in hiding. After the mass murder of the blacks, the muslims would come forth and cry "Look what you done to my brothers!" Causing the whites to erupt in civil war, whites against whites, until they had slaughtered each other. Whereupon the black muslims would emerge, kill all the remaining whites, and then emerge victorious in the racial war. Except Charlie and Family were hiding out in the Bottomless Pit for 40 years, after which the blacks would recognize his racial superiority and hand power back over to whitey.
Jess Bravin's Squeaky: the life and times of Lynette Alice Fromme
people.virginia.edu/~sfr/enam481/groupd/BIO.HTM
...the Black Muslim movement particularly interested Manson during his incarceration.
In fact, the whole idea of an apocalyptic race war came straight to Charlie from the Black Muslims.
Box 46 vol32 Watkins pg13
"..Charlie said it, that the Negro would--was going to clean up the mess that the white man made, which would be this entire society."
-----------------
--And then there's the evidence that the killers deliberately sought to cast blame on the Black Panthers at the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca crime scenes:
www.mansonblog.com/search/label/Mary%20Brunner
When Bobby was stopped by the highway patrol in San Luis Obispo, he told the officer that he had bought the (Hinman)car from a "negro" for $200. Later on, during the interrogation, he then said that "negroes" had attacked Gary.
Box14 vol3087 Caballero testimony pg22of73
"She(Atkins) told me that Charlie Manson had wanted to bring Helter Skelter, and it wasn't happening fast enough, and the use of the word "pigs" was for the purpose of making them think that there were Negroes committing the crimes, because the Panthers and people like that are the ones that used the name "pig" to mean the establishment, and this was the whole purpose of it."
Box 21 vol8020 pg17of298
Kay: "...he(Watson) told Dr. Frank and Dr. Saurez that black people were supposed to be blamed for these murders."
----------------
You wouldn't know about it from reading Bugs' book, but blacks were in fact prime suspects from the outset:
--Coroner, by Thomas T. Noguchi and Joseph DiMona, c. 1983
pg129
..a word had been scrawled in blood: "Pig."
"What do you think that means?" I (Coroner Noguchi) asked the lieutenant.*
"I don't know," he said. "The blacks call the cops 'pig'--but none of the victims were cops."
*Probably LAPD Lt. Robert Helder
pg131
Criminals heavily into drug traffic were often black, and "pig," a word they might have used, had been scrawled in blood on the front door of the house.
pg139
The word "PIG" at the Tate house might have been written by a black drug dealer, as the LAPD believed.
Restless Souls by Brie Tate c.2012 pg73
PJ Tate: "Many speculated that the word PIG left in blood at Sharon's house was a calling card from the revolutionary party the Black Panthers."
Interview with Roman Polanski:
www.cielodrive.com/archive/a-tragic-trip-to-the-house-on-the-hill/
He heard the Hollywood gossip: that the killers were devil-worshippers, that it was a Mau-Mau type slaughter.
Knock Wood by Candice Bergen, c.1984 pg202
Los Angeles was in shock. ... Speculation spread about the mysterious murders and who the killers might be. Were they drug dealers or black militants?
dated August 14th, 1969
www.cielodrive.com/archive/add-guard-units-in-area-of-murders/
The series of sadistic murders has spawned a flurry of rumors in the greater Hollywood area as to “who done it.” These rumors, ranging from “black militants on a white blood-letting spree” to “the Mafia,” ....
--------------------
The black militant theory was initially reported in the media. For a short period of time anyway before it disappeared.
'The Sharon Tate Murders' by Peter Maas
From The Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1970 Edition
"One of the first police theories was that black-power militants, out to terrorize the white community, were responsible for the killings."
The Family, pg350
While they were at the ranch near Olancha(2nd week of Aug), Tex went into town and returned with a paper that accused "Mau Mau devil worshippers" of the (TLB)murders.
www.cielodrive.com/stephanie-schram-statement-12-04-69.php
STEPHANIE SCHRAM: "...the news said something about these people being Mau Mau type people."
-------------------
--Did the Black Panthers visit the Spahn Ranch? Why did Bugliosi ignore this episode in HS?
--And then there's the evidence that the killers deliberately sought to cast blame on the Black Panthers at the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca crime scenes:
www.mansonblog.com/search/label/Mary%20Brunner
When Bobby was stopped by the highway patrol in San Luis Obispo, he told the officer that he had bought the (Hinman)car from a "negro" for $200. Later on, during the interrogation, he then said that "negroes" had attacked Gary.
Box14 vol3087 Caballero testimony pg22of73
"She(Atkins) told me that Charlie Manson had wanted to bring Helter Skelter, and it wasn't happening fast enough, and the use of the word "pigs" was for the purpose of making them think that there were Negroes committing the crimes, because the Panthers and people like that are the ones that used the name "pig" to mean the establishment, and this was the whole purpose of it."
Box 21 vol8020 pg17of298
Kay: "...he(Watson) told Dr. Frank and Dr. Saurez that black people were supposed to be blamed for these murders."
----------------
You wouldn't know about it from reading Bugs' book, but blacks were in fact prime suspects from the outset:
--Coroner, by Thomas T. Noguchi and Joseph DiMona, c. 1983
pg129
..a word had been scrawled in blood: "Pig."
"What do you think that means?" I (Coroner Noguchi) asked the lieutenant.*
"I don't know," he said. "The blacks call the cops 'pig'--but none of the victims were cops."
*Probably LAPD Lt. Robert Helder
pg131
Criminals heavily into drug traffic were often black, and "pig," a word they might have used, had been scrawled in blood on the front door of the house.
pg139
The word "PIG" at the Tate house might have been written by a black drug dealer, as the LAPD believed.
Restless Souls by Brie Tate c.2012 pg73
PJ Tate: "Many speculated that the word PIG left in blood at Sharon's house was a calling card from the revolutionary party the Black Panthers."
Interview with Roman Polanski:
www.cielodrive.com/archive/a-tragic-trip-to-the-house-on-the-hill/
He heard the Hollywood gossip: that the killers were devil-worshippers, that it was a Mau-Mau type slaughter.
Knock Wood by Candice Bergen, c.1984 pg202
Los Angeles was in shock. ... Speculation spread about the mysterious murders and who the killers might be. Were they drug dealers or black militants?
dated August 14th, 1969
www.cielodrive.com/archive/add-guard-units-in-area-of-murders/
The series of sadistic murders has spawned a flurry of rumors in the greater Hollywood area as to “who done it.” These rumors, ranging from “black militants on a white blood-letting spree” to “the Mafia,” ....
--------------------
The black militant theory was initially reported in the media. For a short period of time anyway before it disappeared.
'The Sharon Tate Murders' by Peter Maas
From The Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1970 Edition
"One of the first police theories was that black-power militants, out to terrorize the white community, were responsible for the killings."
The Family, pg350
While they were at the ranch near Olancha(2nd week of Aug), Tex went into town and returned with a paper that accused "Mau Mau devil worshippers" of the (TLB)murders.
www.cielodrive.com/stephanie-schram-statement-12-04-69.php
STEPHANIE SCHRAM: "...the news said something about these people being Mau Mau type people."
-------------------
--Did the Black Panthers visit the Spahn Ranch? Why did Bugliosi ignore this episode in HS?
Gleason Documents
www.mansonblog.com/.../the-gleason-report-august... pg2of7
Officer Leigh stated he heard that the Black Panthers were at the ranch recently, probably July 26, 1969, and reportedly took pictures of the entire area.
Knox Documents
wvw.mansonblog.com/First-Spahn-Raid.pdf pg3of12
Judy Green..at Green Acres Ranch... north of Spahn Ranch off Iverson Lane, ...stated she had been threatened by numerous negro militants regarding burning her out because she reported them to the Fire Department... This observation occurred approximately July 19, 1969.
www.facebook.com/groups/1588416148120066/?notif_id=1618370352326809¬if_t=group_invited_to_group&ref=notif (comment by Paul Hart)
"... police ..visited Spahn Ranch on July 29, 1969 (just a little over a week before the TLB killings). Manson told the cops that he was expecting an attack by the Black Panthers because black men had already come to the ranch to start trouble. He also said the ranch had become an armed camp in preparation for an attack by the Panthers."
www.mansonblog.com/2017_11_06_archive.html
Diane Lake: “... I witnessed a very angry-looking African American man confronting Charlie one day. This was not something that happened often, and I later heard that Charlie assumed he was a member of the Black Panthers. ..."
murdersofaugust69.freeforums.net/thread/1040/life-charles-manson-chapter-18
PAUL WATKINS, My Life With Charles Manson - Chapter 18
"Last week some black dudes come here looking for Charlie… he says he’s going to cut them up.” "
(about July 25th or 26th of 1969)
[Keep in mind that just a day after the alleged visit by the BPs to Spahn, BB is marking the walls of the Hinman murder scene with the bloody pawprint, with the specific intention of casting blame on the Panthers.]
Or did Spahn Ranch visit the Black Panthers?
--www.cielodrive.com/updates/leslie-van-houten-interviewed-by-marvin-part/
16:00 minute mark
MISS VAN HOUTEN: Well, it seemed like after we knew what was going to come down we tried talking to leaders, you know, black leaders, and we saw that they were stalling.
And it was almost as though we had to make the first move for it to continue to develop, to get bigger so that it would happen the because the black man loves us so much that he would be our slave and do everything we said, let us beat him and mistreat him for so many years that he almost doesn’t want to do what he has to do, but he sees that he has to do it.
And so it was up to us to start it.
Others:
--xdell.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html
Ed Butler, propagated an op-ed piece in August 1969 titled “Did Hate Kill Tate,” in which he blamed the deaths on the Black Panthers for the crimes. ...Butler had previously recorded Lee Oswald’s declaration for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, an organization in which he was the only member. ...
Mae(Brussell) ... believed that in the months before the public had a face to go with the murders, speculation such as Butler’s tried to condition the public to accept the arrest and conviction of innocent blacks... .
--murdersofaugust69.freeforums.net/thread/385/
preston-guillory-deputy-sheriff
"My contention is this--the reason Manson was left on the street was because our department thought that he was going to attack the Black Panthers. We were getting intelligence briefings that Manson was anti-black and he had supposedly killed a Black Panther, the body of which could not be found, and the department thought that he was going to launch an attack on the Black Panthers."
-- Box 12b pg137of358
Nov 30, 1969 news magazine article by C.Robert Jennings
"A private investigator noticed a Tom Bradley sticker on Miss Folger's Firebird and brayed: "It's typical of the modus operandi of black militants." "
[What would a 'private investigator' be doing amongst all the reporters standing outside the front gate of Cielo? Was this guy some kind of shill, to plant the seeds for a "blame the Panthers" theory?]
--In LAPD Lt. Deemer's list of Family associates, compiled in Nov. '69, Bernard Crow(e) "Member of the Black Panthers" is listed.
Bugliosi touched on the subject, but then quickly dismisses the possibility:
Helter Skelter, pg93
Most(of the phoned-in tips) had come in following the release of Garretson, the callers blaming the murders on everyone from the Black Power movement to the Polish Secret Service, their sources imagination, hearsay, even Sharon herself--returned during a seance.
[In other words, if you thought the black militants might be involved, that was no better than saying you got your info from a 'seance.'
I would dearly like to have heard recordings of those phoned-in tips!]
The most puzzling reaction to the murders came from the black community themselves:
By the time the main TLB trial commenced in the summer of 1970, everybody knew that the killers wanted to blame the murders on black militants, to further Charlie's goal of an all-out race war. Now logically, this should have been a great propaganda coup for the black militant side, as they should have pointed out--long and loud--that this was just another example of how the white man was trying to blame the black people for his own crimes.
But instead there was total silence from the black community. Absolutely nothing from the news archives of black newspapers, nothing in any books, no statements or quotes at the time from any Black Panther, Black Muslim, or any black politicians, black ministers, or other civil rights leaders(and remains true to this day, as far as I can tell). Contrast this with a visible black protest presence at Van Houten's retrial seven years later:
The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult by Karlene Faith c.2001 pg102 At LVH's second trial--1977
During the testimony about Helter Skelter and the portended race war, many people of African heritage showed up. Some would wince whenever the prosecutor would use the word nigger in reference to Manson's racism.
So why the silence during the TLB trial? Did somebody on high order that the link by downplayed? To ease racial tensions? Or to prevent anybody from pulling on that thread too much, out of fear a deeper connection would be discovered?
Can someone explain this?
July 21st, 1970 news article
www.cielodrive.com/archive/tate-case-jury-complete-defense-calls-it-tragedy/
Hughes disputed that Manson was anti-black, saying that while he served as Manson’s attorney the defendant was “always well liked by blacks at the county jail and, in fact, the Muslim prisoners protected him.”
