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Feature image: Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald. Photo: Freedom4chip.org. Used with permission.
After 51 long years persisting in the corrupt California prison system, former Black Panther Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald passed away on March 29 at the age of 71. The cause of death has not been disclosed. Fitzgerald joined the Southern California Chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1969 as a youth recently released from the California Youth Authority. At the time of his death, he was the longest-held political prisoner from the Black Panther Party after his capture by the California Highway Patrol.
Fitzgerald was born on April 11, 1949, and grew up in the Watts/Willowbrook area of Los Angeles. His mother was a domestic worker from Louisiana who taught him the skills of gardening, knitting and crocheting. His father was a worker with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, originally from Oklahoma.