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     Nine years later: a Black panel on racism and civil rights since the
    assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Part 2 of 2)
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They have it here we have a very dim us trouble case of an individual who's highly competent and certainly an individual who should be supported in every way possible not only by the end of placing another organization like in the voice of people or other individuals. Yes believe in the struggle of civil rights and equality for all people consigned I would think that there was no better purpose that could be served and for us to rally around this cause and how have you stopped unjustly that man wrote this question yesterday and I think that. It would be helpful to define what you mean by the statement that universe to California is racist and stupid because it's a very large in St. John's not people whose professed ideals to me don't equal now to be racist and I think it's important to define it not only for me. For four whites who may be listening in the audience and perhaps have gotten some of the or forgotten some of the definitions that came
out during your time for young blacks who may be listening and who for whom the civil rights movement you know even their history does not exist in history because you find in meeting people so many young people and you know many people for that matter if you really have no idea disagree with me let me just try to take a moment trying to find what I mean by racist I mean by racist and institution and I'm referring to the University of California. I don't have and that's just of higher education. The most prominent institution of higher education and California that has not sought to involve blacks and not only the decision making processes but also and I thought development processes that have taken place at the academic level. I'm speaking from the university from the board of regents to the child stars chancellor's office. The instructors and all the way down the student body level and I'm so I'm saying that they have not sought to address those issues which would involve blacks and other minorities and that
decision making process were not thought about the process which is very critical because as Harry pointed out earlier. It's institutions such as this that define reality for fall for the American public and left with nothing input coming from blacks and other minorities. And that definition of reality. And certainly we're going to be left out. Our sensitivities the sensitivities of the people who are so-called the developments the developers ideas concepts of reality certainly will not embody the feelings of blacks and other minorities. And as far as the student body is concerned I would say that traditionally blacks have been kind of excluded from admission to the University of California by some means or another and it was only they were it was only recently in recent years I'm speaking of since the development of so-called triangle of action programs or approaches special admissions programs such as getting back to Baku here that blacks have been able to attend the University of California on any kind of less
than minimal level certainly have blacks who come. I've written to you know traditionally we've had black both male and female and other minorities as well who have attended the University of California but they have been and I mean miniscule numbers. What we're trying to say is that because the University of California is here and California because the University of California is supported by taxpayers money and California and because the universe of California is so instrumental in setting forth the the policies defining the realities of the society as it exists in California as well as throughout the nation that we believe and we believe sincerely to the point that we are about to put our lives on the line if necessary that blacks and other minorities should be involved and I decision and those decision making processes. And I was I thought about it.
Thank you I want to say this We're asking her just to give an example and just get some some information as Howard has said to the radio audience. What percentage of us to the enrollment now comprises blacks. Number one and then second and third worst to another percentage in the what's the number of faculty members professors and what percentage of that number comprises blacks and other minorities and their What's 1 percent of the tenured faculty do you know that information. Yes. At the University of California Berkeley there are 13 tenured faculty members out of some elite. Fourteen hundred and eight tenured faculty members overall to 13 blacks in the University of California system out of nine campuses having literally thousands of chain your faculty members. There are only fifty seven tenured but seven. At the University of California at Berkeley the
black student enrollment has dropped from over a thousand. In 1971 72 academic year down to seven hundred and thirty three as of February 19th seven to seven. It has dropped by over half. In fact during that period of time the number of black faculty members tenured and untenured accounts to 22 out of forty eight hundred at the University of California at Berkeley. We feel that this reflects a racist tendency. You know at the University of California Berkeley in fact between January of 1996 and January of 1977 six blacks came up for promotion tenure and none of them got it. Overall the statistics indicate that 16 percent in excess of 60 percent of all whites who come up for tenure are promotion. Get it. Only 23 percent of the blacks who come up for
2010 you know a promotion get it. You say we feel that this isn't this is one of the this is one of the foundations upon which actually is that a decision regarding me in a Department of Sociology was racist and political. It was political because there was a demonstrably reaction against my own outspokenness and the character of my own personal politics. It was racist because at the end its core the foundation of reasons behind the denial of tenure and what this denial indicated was not only political but it was racial. You see for example let's get down to a specific point. Although I have not been tokes exactly and precisely the grounds upon which I was denied tenure I have heard only a number of occasions that it had to do with what I published not that I had not published not that I had not published a tremendous volume but they did not like what I published.
Look what is going on here in his part of the of the recess. Yes it's a huge it's like the Shadow game. You can take your hands and cast a shadow on a wall that looks like a fox or donkey or an elephant. But when you look at the act itself you're still dealing with hands. That's right you see up until it comes down to the 10 year who is going to permanently be there to influence the definitions of reality and what kinds of precedents and legitimation Zocor going to be established as a result of granting tenure to particular people. That is when you cut through the. Oh yeah and get down to what you were dealing with a real dunk you know what you're dealing with a shadow game who for your dealing with the real elephant of well you're dealing with a set of hands. OK the argument that I have published in the wrong place is a racist argument of course and because there are signs that there is no sex there is no legitimate constituency aside from the elitist lily white constituency that we determine to be the appropriate constituency. Well who qualifies the qualified as a qualified judge. That's what somebody in Berkeley praises somebody off and somebody at Harvard somebody praises somebody early and
they're going to get a little snobbish gentleman because they don't think that we're the best. Then that has to be the test best Johnno and anybody who doesn't publish that is not legitimate but I know I have a bias constituency that only reads black sport and Sports Illustrated and have a magazine. I'm talking about things that aren't directly related to their interest and therefore as a black scholar regardless of the price to me individually in this situation I have an obligation to try to publish and to have time to reach that constituency maybe some of my wife's colleagues don't feel any constituency or any obligation to address that. It's The Truth Seeker but I do I think that's an aspect of what we struggle for in the sixties. And so to say yes we have black scholars on campus but began to constrain them to abide by all of the old strict rules and constraints in terms of output and performance and so forth is not to deal with black scholars it is to bring black scholars in and change them into black and Mossadeq something exactly to address some of you know
just a kind of a constituency. And so we say that this is racist. We say that competence and qualification and all this kind of thing is not something that is absolute and most certainly not something that can be defined by a handful of people who themselves are in great need. Oh review and monitoring. And so what we're saying is that that is a racist thing that until just a plain black sky was on a campus is not to display all of the degenerate a degenerate the situation that one has to revise the whole situation. Constituents disqualifications who has a right to say what and so forth. This is why we say it's a racist situation at UC Berkeley. Yes yes yes he is yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. That they have ever said has to leave now and that's of leave going to him that we thank you and then before him these are like I make this point to them. It's only tangentially related to the point that you've been making
but I happen to have gone to a funeral of a black physician here last week and I got to the funeral way and sitting in the back of the church I was somehow rather vividly remind reminded of a statistic that I had passed on the statistics is that 50 percent of all black doctors are 50 years of age or older. And in terms of the back a decision an entrance into medical schools and entrance into whatever schools I knew about four or five doctors there and they were all well over 50. Our kids are not getting into any of the schools but clearly in this profession the medical profession the legal profession UC Berkeley and I don't have it is that this and that. But when we're not getting it. So the question I raised to you Howard earlier and you don't have an answer and I don't pretend to have an
answer either. Is that at some point it seems to me that that we that we need we need to meet and we need to decide on some course of action rather than trusting because we have trusted for too long I think and our our reward. We have not met with any wards. And I think that the point that you make is it's quite accurate in fact the statistics indicate that between 971 976 the number the proportion of black doctors in the society dropped from seven point two to six point eight. What this indicates is that even though there may be more black doctors there are more doctors generally and the evil the much more important statistic is that the number of black people is outracing the number increase the number of black doctors at such a rate that we're going to find it very very difficult to maintain
adequate health care in the black community. And so what we're really talking about here again with my own struggle at the University of California Berkeley and I say my own struggle only because it appears to be centrally focused on me it is really a struggle that involves It is always growing right that's right. Generally it's right is that we're not talking about getting a tenured position and U.C. Berkeley. We're not talking about keeping the school open for a relative handful of elites to escape the black community and move into the hills in the suburbs where we're really talking about who is going to live and who's going to bat there was saying I'm not going to survive. If you think and I think that this is what we have you know the fundamental struggle I think we all understand. I think that most misunderstand that. But how do you answer the poor and the critics who through the action say that what's required is not a black doctor or a Jewish doctor I should become a doctor a good doctor. I don't see where being black or Jewish or anything else necessarily
places constraints upon how good a doctor is one becomes one thing is going to certain is that the not the worst of all for the black community is the fact that we cannot afford the worst that of all for the black community. Is the doctor who is not there because he did not have the opportunity to get the training. And so I don't think that it's necessarily an issue of race but race is a social and political reality in this culture we have to understand that if black people do not prove that the overwhelming majority of medical services of legal services and so forth for black people we're going to be in very very deep trouble. We already are in deep trouble. Precisely because of that reason. For example I think that it's tragic that after you got into that initial scrape he was. And of having to go to the hospital which is where he was apprehended I think that it's tragic that there was not some black doctor who could have at least patched the man
up before he was shackled to a bed and this kind of thing I'm sighing and not just an extreme kind of situation but the situation where black people are simply dying for lack of care. I don't think that being a black doctor. Is going to generating black doctors is necessarily the be all and end all of the health care problem in a community. But we have to understand that if we can at least make claims own black doctors we can at least make claims own black doctors their despair their dispensing a lot more than health care skills and these medical schools they're put dispensing a whole lot of idiology where people are placing a private well above public health in the same sense that in the law schools they're putting judgeships before justice. And so you have people sending folks to the death panels in this thing because they want to be attorney general because they want to be governor or any other kind of oh demented selfish reason. I'm saying that we have to began to. Turn out
black doctors who place a greater value on Public Health who see the necessities of dealing in the black community with health as the primary primary goal. But again I mean we'll take whatever doctors we can find. But if there are no black doctors I would say that we're in particularly bad shape. That's a tragic situation. Yes yes yes. I appreciate I appreciate that. Thank you very much that there was. We have another person who has just joined us. Well our story comes to us as a community activist from the San Francisco area. And he certainly Thanks again Doctor able to be in touch with you and your struggle is our struggle. Willis really has just joined us and he's a community activist and organizer. And will this come from a from a very experienced line of all the zation. He certainly has. He has has charted his commendations for himself. But beyond that Wilma thank you very much for
joining the brownies to get here. I know I know you must have I heard about it but thank you very much. And I know PPF aide thanks you but neither would you like to give a Joe thought too about the assassination of Dr. King. We've been getting in some struggles in the black community and also talking with us and your thoughts about Dr. King on King rather on the verse or his assassination. Tonight marks the ninth year. Would you still around a lorry Motel in Memphis to see and there was a sense they were right. I'd be happy to do Dr. King got assassinated on a day when I was in Cleveland. I had just gotten through making a presentation to a fairly broad cross-section of the black community on some new approaches to economic development and black communities where we were really nailing down the point that black communities who are poor because we were unemployed we were poor because of some rather fundamental economic reasons as to how the money comes in and how it goes on
today. And it was really a shock to. Be told that day that. Day that we were rejoicing in the reception that the ideas were receiving. And that Dr. King was killed. I wanted to try and put Dr. King's importance and his life works into a kind of power context of looking at power as the thing that breaks up into three categories for this purpose where we can talk about coercive power and where one says in essence that whether one is a child or one adult do as I say or I will spank you if it's a child or I will break your arm if it's in a gang situation or I will kill you all. And that was in fact in a way the situation with Dr. King. Or on a national level or international level you tell countries do as I say I will bomb you into
oblivion which was the case in Vietnam. I think those are examples of how people who have access to power use the dimension of course of power as a means of doing what they think is important making decisions for themselves and other people. Blacks have very little access to the full use of coercive power in this country. Another dimension of the power thing has to do with the notion of a no Murtha policy. And given the fact that the elite in this country are the inheritors of previous empires and we live in a world where a very small number of people control you know almost well and all the way from a child being told I will cut off your allowance if you are not a good boy or a good girl to millions of us being intimidated by paychecks where our politics are totally dictated by the extent to which we think our paycheck might jeopardize some situation
our own existence and what have you that that also is an example of the use of a normative power. It goes to bribes it goes to co-opting people by offering them various kinds of economic rewards. It also goes to the question of being able to control the entire institutional fabric of a society by a very small number of people controlling the means of producing wealth and. What that whole thing's about. The point that I would make without it is that again blacks in this country have very little access to the exercise of the use of rumor to power to get things done to change the nature of our existence in this country. The third category Apollo and I think it's the one that Dr. King operated and has do with the notion of normative pollo where your power really derives from your ability to convey sort of clear thoughts and the degree to which one is able to relate to that body of
ideas and become energized and move in concert. What you going to fact express as a reasonable way to go about what ought to be done is a very powerful instrument and it is in fact the one. That blacks in this country have the most access to and I think it was in that arena that Dr. King worked and I think. It almost goes without saying that it was because Dr. King became so effective at the exercise of normative pollo that he began to have very serious impact on those who exercised coercive power and renumerated policy and that he was beginning to get blacks to understand the relationship between our misery and situation in this country and the war in Vietnam. All during that existence there were many of us who were aware of it very sensitive about it. We're very committed to doing something about changing that. But by and large the mass of blacks in this country really weren't a part of the war movement as such the anti Vietnam movement.
Dr. King began to get people to understanding the connections between a monopoly capital the war in Vietnam the various struggles that the black community had gone through. And I think when that began to get on a track where it was going to energize the black community and move it to be a very decisive factor in national and international politics in this country alone something as important as the Vietnam War. Someone decided that Dr. King had to go and I think that's very very important thing to understand that he operated in an arena that many blacks and had access to many blacks become quite proficient at. And he in fact was was I was a genius in terms of exercising that kind of ability and I think it's it is not locked up that way and I felt it important to try and put the body of all the contributions that he made in the context of Paul Bew of I want to get into the COINTELPRO how it is good and
just for job man it was saying that we started earlier about calling Intel pro documents on the dock again. We read about the about who was paranoid fanaticism Oh well that little of glory was about Dr. King and some of the most inhumane kinds of things that took place. Would you comment on that please begin with you and go over there with the other people who want to go do that. To to comment on director whose attitude towards Dr. King. We we know that. And director from his earliest days in the bureau of investigation before it was the FBI was good vehemently rabidly anti commies and he
was the instigator of the primary and on scene doing the home raids and had his eye his zeal to crush any form of proletarian struggle and never abated during his entire lifetime of up and down. It seems that in this context he never saw Dr. King as a leader a demagogue social protest movement. And he for whatever reasons at an all time seem to have been hell bent as it were on painting Dr. King as a as a red as a communist witch and one time I believe had some sway on the way and we started to queue a move and seeing people who were removed from the staff too. Permit to prevent you know your
seeming appearance of. I mean to be influenced by by by leftists. But then you get into the director's brilliancy because you seem to had it you know it no curiosity about prying into people's bedrooms and about their sex lives. And when it came to the black movement his brewing and see he is here with his anti-communism as it were seemed to combine so that he was fiercely anti black and that he would recognize the black movement as being a movement with potential. Drive us in the direction of socializing the country and the documents which I've seen from go until Bruno shows that no stone was not done to her no measure was not m
utilized in his willingness to crush the black in racial struggle and that's a context in which I see his relationship to tonight. Generally I think we have to look at the yeah the history just really have a Cointelpro program that was started in 1967 by the FBI for the you know for the sole purpose of mistimed acting in defense disrupting the black what they called the Black Power movement in this country at the time was that the tar baby always figured that was the beginning of time a moderation right. And 1067 was was when COINTELPRO was initiated. And of course one of its goals was to preserve was as the documents have come out to tell us was to prevent the rise of a Black Messiah in this country. Initially Dr. King was considered the black messiah that the FBI set out to destroy to discredit I and to destroy his character. But after his
assassination the documents. Point out the harassment was due to a human being Newton who is a was the leader of the Black Panther Party and there were I believe two hundred and ninety 295 COINTELPRO actions they claimed COINTELPRO no longer exist but as to something you know we don't really know but they claim it doesn't exist and when they say that during its existence they were two hundred and ninety five actions that were initiated against the black movement in this country. Well two hundred thirty three of those you know word were directed against the Black Panther Party. And I would imagine the other 60 or so were probably initiated against Dr. King because of his influence so we can see a direct relationship between the mass murder against Dr King and after he was killed. That harassment moved you know against his own party and of course as a result of a lot of evidence that has come out some of the evidence that came out in the Church hearings.
On December 1st of last year our party found a 100 million dollar lawsuit against the FBI the CIA the IRS and other federal agencies you know and we are prepared to prove that the highest echelons of his government. Clandon carried out the assassination of many of our party members systematically had tried to murder and discredit you would be Newton tried to disrupt the newspaper. Have you no want to disrupt people out to disrupt the funds that I think contribute to our party and this whole you know the whole initial COINTELPRO effort I was cleared of the power structure I consider it a black movement in this country. As that brother as we said to be a very significant about them with it and to to socialize in the country and therefore that's why I call myself it was started to destroy it. Yes I'm remembering that we already have other to my position.
Yes go on I can say something about this Nic we don't really know when we go into a pro-style to begin with unions and we probably will never know until we have access to all the records of the era. But after you know any team sixty five the end of 1965 beginning in 1966 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee became the first civil rights organization within the United States to take a position on the war in Viet Nam and issued in its statement that statement became the source in June. Do you know bounce exclusion from majority House represent Yes yes the following. The issuance of a statement every male leader in the organization of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Had difficulties with the draft and there were and there were a
succession of draft struggles because they had suddenly been called up. They had failed to keep the address current. All the nit picking things that they would do to one but yet lead to not to impress me. But they systematically went after them leadership Snick had. Three organizations that were support organizations one was a soldier in a motor fleet which at one time down 230 a motor vehicles with two way radio ID otherwise the student voice that published many of the student Snick publications and held a copyright interest to write most of it said in a rare and artistic works and the other was resurgent Education Research Institute Inc which was a research I'm an educational arm for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and those three young musicians were all nonprofit organization and each of the arias aces was placed on Arias hipness especially less all four of the
organizations including snippets out there became a period of. Tremendous involvement with the Yarra I swear there was an attempt to to levy for back taxes and seizing property of the organization. I think that the so called Cointelpro program was really a broad based program representing the face of the government of the United States and with with sanction from the National Security Council as well as from the president himself. That is one organization that has done a lot of research I will be putting out of a book sorely about Dr. King's assassination that the Citizens Research and investigating committee which is based in Los Angeles I've dined Fried who is very active in that group and they've done a lot of work around his assassination I have A's a number of you know key questions and they will be publishing a book shortly about that.
I haven't any words to people who referred to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as keen as Luther King although I think that his eminence in our life as American people and I were require I would deference. Yes you're referring to a yes answer to a question you'd been asked differently. My mood could be different and I had few more free time to discuss this and no thank you I would if I asked like I like what I think I'm kind of touching on the significance of his of his struggle as well as his movement. I totally to thole civil rights movement all along I don't know Hollister too and I know what we've been discussing but I think we're sort of mattering as I see it with a side face that I mentioned that sample mentation phase which. Which I would consider where we are now as far as King is concerned I think as far as Dr. King is concerned I think his his his involvement in the struggle
certainly was to raise the consciousness of the conscious level of the American public as well as the world public to the kind of deprivation and that kind of oppression the kind of inhumane treatment that was being opposed against black people and other minority people and the society you know I think it did that very effectively. I far as how that affects where we are now I would think and going back to some of the other discussions that were so well the comments that were made that affects us now and that the conscious level is at least raised so that now that wait. So now we have reached a certain plateau as far as conscious life as current far as a. Conscious level raising is going so we can go on about doing the other things that have to be done. I think also as far as legislation is concerned. Cain was instrumental in bringing about at least some remedies to the to the black struggle as far as getting certain legislation of being instrumental in getting certain legislation on the
books. But as far as where we are now I think we're. At the point of not only monitoring but the point of implementation. I think a lot of the retrogression that we've expressed in the last few years has been because we have not been consciously monitoring and assisting him to the point of good getting back into the street and sort of reviving the conscious level of the American public ness. And I would think that the impact that he's had on the black struggle certainly has been tremendous. And certainly continuing and I think it's not enough to. To rely upon what came good during his lifetime. We have to take a stroll beyond that and that will be to implement a lot of the ideas that Dr. King felt were nicer in order to realize his dream. We have to push it to push the struggle too when you fall into a corner. Yeah I'd like to say to that caller end to listeners that that in my
judgment Dr. King's struggle was not designed to affect the lives of only black people. The Cole inquiry about how has it affected the lives of black people. I don't think that the future of the struggle the civil rights struggle is one that states so live the province of black people. I think that's a struggle that's that's common to many people in this country and I think it's a mistake to take solace if you are non black in this and define it as something that that that has to be carried on by black people because only black people are affected by it. Racism and the oppression of capitalism. You know it's just as I think the non-black person who is under justly taxed in this country is is just as oppressed designing them. I don't I don't see the civil rights struggle in the US or any
place in the world being a black issue. And I I I take offense to that suggestion however it's implied. That you're spread out you know in terms of looking at the future we have to realize to build on what everyone else has said that we're talking about poor oppressed people gaining what they do not have presently. And that's power I think that sometimes people who want to oppress people because we've had leaders like Dr. King and Malcolm X and you know. We have Huey Newton So we tend to look at one person as being the leader of this person's going to carry as to what where where the point we need to go. But people themselves are going to have to be the thrust of you know the struggle are we can't look to any one person to lead us is that it's going to be the people who are oppressed people uniting together that are going to have to change the conditions in which we live. And one of the things that we're going to have to do is to gain control of the institutions that are in our
communities we don't have to be told now. But it's going to take it's a said looking beyond this question of the civil rights movement it's a it's a people struggle is the struggle for human rights all point to oppressed people. I think that you know that's what we have to deal with in the future I guess repeat words I think of you. If you don't understand what capitalism is about. That if tomorrow there were no black people in this country all of a sudden in fact there would be black people in this country. That is that that capitalism is a system which depends on a group of people that it can oppress and it happens to be black people and a whole lot of white people who don't understand that they're being oppressed. But that's what capitalism trots thrives on. And if you just remove the skin color tomorrow the color and all
those who think that they're making it maybe a whole lot of black people in this country even though their skins won't be black. I know I identify as the anything socialist any more than identify as a capitalist. I could hardly call myself a capitalist. I'm a victim of capitalism yes. And when I have some notions about the kind of society I'd like to be part of in it perhaps does border closely to what you describe as socialism comes closer to that. And that's capitalism. I certainly am feel some exhaustion from that. The my experiences with capitalism and perhaps I'd like to try something different. I'm not sure I'd define it for myself in terms of a label. OK everybody else with the ideology of the Black Panther Party is that of a revolutionary into communalism which we simply are talking about redistributing the wealth of the world among you know poor and oppressed people of
the world. We see that the United States is the. Is the CI 5 is amazingly enough capitalistic power in this world and by that is able to oppress. You know poor people other people of color throughout the world. So we believe that once we change the system in the United States which we would YOU know which is really the belly of the monster we are in the belly of the master the United States. Once we change the system here in the United States we will have a direct effect upon the rest of the world that the United States oppressed. Thank you. Well that's a comment Howard. I don't believe you have any value in the question myself. What is your personal question about one's personal social and political beliefs. And it's not really a broad based social question. What I'm suspicious of people who say Declare Yourself very generous as to
what you really are. OK Joe. No I would agree with Howard. What the color seems to be asking for is something that I think nobody has pretended. That's to place a label on my personal beliefs we've simply been discussing criticizing and giving so my little approaches to evaluating a system which will let me. Yes maybe that caller can certainly look in the books of most of us on the telephone book and the Radisson a lot of our personal beliefs and we certainly can give him much more information than we would believe. We care as individuals I believe that's our privilege to give tonight. We certainly have a lot of questions I have on golden. I'm simply talking about Yvonne golden come ready bango there's a lot of questions she would like to raise to slow the system and I think we are doing it in the we would certainly do here than not and in many ways I think it has to be done
and many ways that there are many struggles one front and of course that that's precisely what we're trying to convey at this time. Well anybody else like to make just make believe any conclusions I believe I stopped you how the very start which is like your solutions now as well. I didn't want to conclude I wanted to simply say you know I'm not. I don't despair. I wish the situation were different now than it is but I'm not I don't feel that I had to visit or think me to be despairing about one of the things that I think that one has to do at least for myself that I've done I've done is that I have to draw a distinction between myself and history that my life is not history itself and that the history of the changes social institutions and societies is a rather protracted affair
as I see the situation there has to be changed. It's change of a fundamental order in which capitalism is displaced perhaps by some new and different system that no one has a dicky lated yet perhaps by want it had been taken there by social thinkers and yet ma it's another one. Yes. Now I just wish you knew that that would occur is not enough. I see it occurring because I think that the conditions are becoming more and more ripe every day or is occurring because there is a general lowering of the level of the living standard of living of all the American people not just black people in the United States. There has been a pronounced reduction of the ability of this country to oppress. We see this very dramatically units retreat from B and now we see a dramatic Reagan's inability to go into southern Africa and waged a struggle and we see dramatically in this hemisphere where Cuba has been able to
to to break out. I will be able to break out of the boycott I stablish relationships of trade and cultural exchange with all of the nations within this hemisphere. So we see the aggressive coercive power in the United States being systematically reduced. Here it is becoming apparent that capitalism has long ago reached a point of diminishing returns where now the more it produces the less is given back and the more destruction of this political this economic apparatus causes to the environment to the people in every way you look at the good that it produces does not match offset the bad that it produces for example the high technology that the country has produced displaces millions and millions of people.
For example if people who were working in say Data Processing maybe 5 or 10 years ago are now being displaced or have already been displaced by computers where 65 or 70 people are doing the work that once a hundred seventy or 200 people there. So I think there has to be changed. And what will be the instrument of change will be the black liberation struggle. The third world liberation struggle along with what some people call the First World liberation struggle and wellbeing. Coalition of poor whites and blacks and there were people who were women. All right call it what you ask people you know we came from we can feel expect continuity and something will emerge and I suppose that what the question place has been the focus of the question place upon us is that what role we play individually in that struggle would be sort of agent of change agents bringing about this broad base going to look at it as a OK everybody else just this once what I would
say that I'm in the city of Oakland I think that we definitely have We're getting ready to have an election on April 19th in which we have a candidate judged by Wilson who is running for. Mayor of where we expect to be elected as the first black mayor of Oakland a man who is addressing the needs of you know a broad base of people in the city of Oakland who have been disenfranchised by the power structure. So I think right here in our own area we can see that there is there is there is hope. Now all of us working together can change the institutions that will trust us. I said no one said thanks to the panel and I know KPFA can skill and will certainly said say it and they should said as loudly as possible that they certainly appreciate you coming over and helping along as this discussion was more than a discussion around Dr. King's assassination for Tara discussion of course but it was also an aid in the marathon KPFA aid in sustaining its
It's it's so radio station it's radio production and so I'm sure that they appreciate that we appreciate having the panel all of us coming over. That includes me also. And we certainly welcome to go we'll say to the radio is that the struggle continues to continuity the struggle the struggle continues and all the powers have been very articulate in their in their message of our what we think what's what this happens as the assassination of Martin Luther King. The ramifications of the implications around his death and of course where we will go as a working class people and we are certainly but we certainly stated in no uncertain terms. And how are the very articulate very articulate and well they untap Al and identify and prove this to the country of the United States of America and the impact it's had on the oppressed people in this in this country. So we will say the radio audience has been a pledger and discussed of US aid to the KPFA as they have with certain enjoyed it and we know you're
appreciated and to continuity.
Program
Nine years later: a Black panel on racism and civil rights since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Part 2 of 2)
Producing Organization
KPFA (Radio station : Berkeley, Calif.)
Contributing Organization
Pacifica Radio Archives (North Hollywood, California)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/28-bc3st7f50p
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Description
Description
Large panel discussion on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. King Jr.'s impact upon the Civil Rights movement, South Africa, the Vietnam War and the Black community, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Affirmative Action programs, the Bakke decision, capitalism, socialism, COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), U.S. police forces, economics in the Black community, President Carter, racism at the University of California, the firing of Dr. Harry Edwards, and the future of struggle in the United States. Yvonne Golden moderates the panel. Panel members in the second hour include JoNina Abron, Gloria Davis, Dr. Harry Edwards, Enola Maxwell, Joe Hall, Joel Mitchell, Howard Moore, and Will Ursery. Part 2 of 2.
Broadcast Date
1977-04-04
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Social Issues
Race and Ethnicity
Public Affairs
Subjects
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968; African Americans--Civil rights--History
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:48:12
Embed Code
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Credits
Producing Organization: KPFA (Radio station : Berkeley, Calif.)
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Pacifica Radio Archives
Identifier: 22513_D01 (Pacifica Radio Archives)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Pacifica Radio Archives
Identifier: PRA_AAPP_AZ0074B_Nine_years_later_MLK_part_2 (Filename)
Format: audio/vnd.wave
Generation: Master
Duration: 0:48:07
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Citations
Chicago: “ Nine years later: a Black panel on racism and civil rights since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Part 2 of 2) ,” 1977-04-04, Pacifica Radio Archives, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-28-bc3st7f50p.
MLA: “ Nine years later: a Black panel on racism and civil rights since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Part 2 of 2) .” 1977-04-04. Pacifica Radio Archives, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-28-bc3st7f50p>.
APA: Nine years later: a Black panel on racism and civil rights since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Part 2 of 2) . Boston, MA: Pacifica Radio Archives, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-28-bc3st7f50p