Donald Lee Cox, member of the Black Panther Party, is dead at 74.
 
Born in Appleton, Missouri, in 1936, Cox moved to San Francisco in the late 1960s where he became field marshal for the Oakland-based Black Panther Party. As field marshal, Cox traveled the country establishing new branches and was a member of Panther central committee, which also included leaders Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver.
 
At the New York apartment of Leonard Bernstein in 1970, Cox represented the Panther’s at a fundraiser for the legal defense of twenty-one Panther members accused of plotting to kill police officers. According to the New York Times, the fundraiser was notable because of “its clash of cultures.” One attendee recalled: “There they were, the Black Panthers from the ghetto and the black and white liberals from the middle, upper-middle and upper classes studying one another cautiously over the expensive furnishings, the elaborate flower arrangements, the cocktails and the silver trays of canapés.”
 
Following the fundraiser, Cox was indicted for the murder of Eugene Anderson, a Panther turned informant, in Baltimore. Cox claimed his innocence and fled to Algeria and then France. He remained in exile for the remainder of his life.