Thursday 16 June is a very historical date for Ponsonby if not the whole of Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland).
The PPP was not a gang as many assume today, but a very active revolutionary organisation linked to the United States Black Panther Party with its shared 10 point platform/programme.
Only a handful of members still reside in Ponsonby/Grey Lynn with co-founding chairman Will ‘Ilolahia returning last October to an apartment in Freemans Bay. “We always knew urban renewal means brown removal. I’m just wanting to counter that trend,” says Will as he Alec and Vince survey the site for a proposed plaque to commemorate the PPP’s 45th anniversary.
Will used to live on Lincoln Street.
Rev Alec Toleafoa now lives in Grey Lynn with Panther partner Dr Melani Anae, an Auckland Senior University lecturer, but in the 1970s he resided in O’Neill Street.
Alec declared, “Ponsonby then had a sense of community. We were connected by a shared experience. “Generally everyone knew the people in their neighbourhood as a kind of extension of their own family. That sense of community was needed to meet the issues of the time, racism being the most conspicuous.
“A daily in-your-face experience for most of us. Ponsonby is a very different community now. We don’t pride ourselves on our achievements or think racism ended back in the 70s and 80s. Like rust, racism never sleeps.”
“Vince Tuisamoa is in Westmere busy these days taking his mokos (grandkids) to rugby league practise at his old Richmond Rovers club in Grey Lynn. Vince says, “What was done then is now raising its ugly head again... The only difference is they use ‘P.C’. to confuse.”
Ponsonby needs to celebrate its past achievements with some acknowledgment of its very diverse and colourful immigrant heritage. Its present middle class suburbia, migrants and wealthy class may require an additonal time of tenure to leave some memorbilia like what the Panther can now do 45 years later.
The achievements of the PPP are now studied at schools and universities. Most books on Ponsonby feature their escapades, whether it’s ending the infamous Dawn Raids of the mid 1970s or protype homework centres now a regular feature nationwide.
Perhaps the Panther’s historical achievements and its commemorative plans to mark its 45th Anniversary will bring back the soul some say Ponsonby needs... Or do its new migrants just want to have their privacy and not share the wealth of experiences it accomodates?
Join the Panthers on Thursday 16 June when they unveil their commemorative plaque. (TAKAFLY BROWN)
For updates contact Ronald on M: 027 360 1911, email polypanther6@gmail.com or check out www.facebook.com/waiataartists.trust?fref=tsa