William Lee Brent | |
|---|---|
 Brent in his home in Havana (May 1996) | |
| Born | William Lee Brent 1931 |
| Died | November 4, 2006 (aged 75) |
William Lee "Bill" Brent (1931 – November 4, 2006) was an American member of theBlack Panther Party anddefector, best known for hijacking a passenger jet and diverting it toCuba in 1969, where he spent the last 37 years of his life inexile.[1]
William Lee Brent was born in 1931, inFranklin,Louisiana, and when he was 13 his family moved toOakland,California. Brent was selling drugs and committing petty crimes by the time he was injunior high school, and at age 17 he enlisted in theU.S. Army by using a fake birth certificate. He was discharged from the army after only eight months, later serving time injuvenile hall for stealing a bicycle. In 1955, he was convicted ofarmed robbery andauto theft, for which he spent seven years inSan Quentin State Prison. On April 21, 1964, Brent married Gloria L. Harness, age 30, in Oakland.
In November 1968, Brent and two accomplices in a van marked "Black Panther Black Community News Service" allegedly robbed a gas station inSan Francisco'sBayview district of $80.[2] Police caught up to them on Seventh Street near the Hall of Justice, prompting ashootout, where one of the officers, Lieutenant Dermott Creedon, was critically wounded. When Brent was arrested and identified as thetriggerman,Eldridge Cleaver kicked him out of the Black Panther Party, accusing him of "banditry".[3]
After his arrest, Brent was released onbail, and on June 17, 1969, he stepped ontoTrans World Airlines Flight 154 from Oakland toNew York City. Brent held a.38 Caliberrevolver to the pilot's head, and ordered him to fly toCuba instead.[4]
Brent spent 22 months in an immigration jail in Cuba when he arrived, and after his release he earned aSpanish literature degree from theUniversity of Havana, and taught English at various junior and senior high schools. He never became a Cuban citizen, but remarried to travel writer Jane McManus (c. 1920–2005) whom he had met in Cuba. In a 1996 interview with theAssociated Press, Brent said he missed theUnited States and the African-American community, but he was unwilling to return to possibly facelife imprisonment forair piracy andkidnapping. Around 1996,Times Books published his memoirs,Long Time Gone (ISBN 0-595-00288-9), and for several years prior to his death Brent was working on a book about discrimination against Black people in Cuba.[5]
Brent died frompneumonia on November 4, 2006, at age 75, while still living in Cuba.[6]
Another fugitive from a similar hijacking several years earlier, William Lee Brent, also died recently. He is buried in an unmarked grave in the pauper's portion of Colón Cemetery, where eight coffins are stacked atop one another and then topped with concrete. Mr. Brent, who was 75, holds position No. 5.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
