Biography
Michael Harris was a member of the Des Moines, Iowa chapter of the Black Panther Party. According to The Black Panther newspaper (May 19, 1969), while he was on parole the authorities moved to revoke it — citing parole violations such as traveling out of Polk County — and charged him with the arson of the Jewett Lumber Co., a charge the Party said rested only on the proximity of another member's car. The paper reported he sat in the county jail awaiting transfer to the state reformatory and ran a "Free Michael Harris" campaign that framed the parole revocation as political repression, likening it to Eldridge Cleaver's. Congressional testimony on October 8, 1970 separately identifies Harris as the Des Moines deputy chairman and describes his return to imprisonment after parole revocation. Counsel explained that twenty-five years was the original armed-robbery sentence, rather than a newly established completed period served. This corroborates the parole-revocation context, but does not independently establish the arson charge, its disposition, an exact prison admission or release, or total actual custody.
Clive Lisbon De Patten’s October 8, 1970 sworn testimony identifies Michael Harris as the Des Moines Black Panther deputy chairman and reports that he was then imprisoned following a parole violation. Counsel clarified that the reported twenty-five-year term was Harris’s original armed-robbery sentence; it is not a twenty-five-year actual-service total or proof of a new twenty-five-year sentence. This independently corroborates Harris’s parole-revocation imprisonment, while the arson allegation and its outcome remain separately attributed to the Party newspaper. No new ordinary-offense case, exact admission or discharge, or custody counter is added.
House Internal Security Committee, Black Panther Party hearings, Part 4, PDF pages 85–86.
Photograph: Michael (Mike) Harris is the person on the left in the captioned image of the bombed Des Moines Black Panther headquarters. The caption names Charles Smith on the right and credits William Kesler, Des Moines Register, April 28, 1969. This portrait is cropped from the original embedded image pixels reproduced in The Annals of Iowa, Winter 2010, printed page 76; no face reconstruction or enlargement was applied.
