Black Journal; 19

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . will explore the feelings of the black community in connection with the slaying of two black panthers in Chicago. I played a song which is called Roberta and I feel very humble when I do because it was written for me but on top of that I think that it describes without words exactly the way I feel that I must appear to people as a musician and as a performer.

I feel that this music relates to me in part as a person because of the way it flows but not completely because I and my music are not a continuous outgoing thing but a nourished by the response that I get from people. Roberta Flak, there's a sister who's been playing pianos and she was born. She taught English in music in the Washington DC public schools. The soulful personal quality of her music was also present in her teaching. Roberta refused to succumb to the impersonal system of education in Washington

schools which he feels more often separates rather than unites us which instead of building pride in our children more often destroys them. Like other black artists of the 60s Roberta Flak expresses her feeling for her people in a way that draws us all closer together to her music. And I don't blame you much, I don't blame you much but wanting to be free. I just wanted you to know that I love you better than your own candid from the very start.

It's my own fault, it's my own fault what happens to my heart. I've always known you go and do, do what you gotta do my own sweet love, though it may be. I'll never kiss those sweetness again. Hey, that no mind, by that battle dream of yours. Come on back and see me when you can. Sometimes we find we have nothing to give but love which is a poem which I give for the black

revolution. Nikki Giovanni. Hi, how are you? Nice to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. You know I'm sure that the this era of the 60s is influenced your writing. You think this is true of other black artists now or was it true of those in the 50s influenced by blackness? The 50s weren't no because that was our integration period but the 60s definitely the 60s came in on black power as it were and it's going out on slave ship. That's not a good way to go is it? Oh yeah. What are some of the things that make black writing what it is as opposed to what you say the black writers didn't do in the 50s. What makes it this black thing? In the 50s we were trying to explain a way being colored you know explain a way colored greens or pig feet on you know fat black women and things like that we were trying to be twiggy and but now I think that we're a little more relaxed. We're a little more able to explain our own

reality. How about the you know you hear a lot of people talking about cultural revolution Leroy Jones ran to ring in others. Do you think there's any particular person or any particular saying in this particular time it started the so-called cultural revolution? I guess you'd have to give Leroy credit if you want to deal with cultural revolution. Cultural revolution has nothing to do with freedom or liberation you see. It's revolutionary hair is revolutionary our shay is revolutionary that has nothing to do with freedom you see. So I fail to see the value of cultural revolution you need a political revolution so that you can have black culture. Well now as a writer now then you feel that you're an influence to this type of thinking that you're just speaking of this political revolution and when you write then what you're saying is a forerunner of what many times happens. So you're sort of a prophet. Would you say that? I would hate to think of myself as being a prophet. Prophets die they are always the prophets and saints. But don't we be young. However they do it sooner it seems that you've rarely found an old prophet. I think that

what we're trying to do or what I'm trying to do am I writing is to bring out a reality. I'm what they call a personal poet and I try to bring out the personality of my life you know that my family was a good family you know because they're black people and black people are good people and from that goodness we can create the revolution so that the revolution isn't a reaction to whiteness but a forward thrust of blackness. Well how about the language because I noticed that in the most black writings there is a change in the use of the language and many times black writers are accused of using words that well like you know and I'm asking a few other things you know talking right. Well they would call it profound but I mean do you terminally when you use this as profound as you think in that vein? No I think that like J. Edgar Hoover is a profanity or Lyndon Johnson and I think that when you're talking about EMF you're talking about EMF you simply tell him the truth you know Carolyn Rogers poem. I mean that's what it is you know so you're talking

about telling the truth people create profanities because of their own needs because they're trying to stop your language because your language is telling the truth your language is the truthful language so they make it profane it's generally profound I think that. Well this follows another thing because I'm in a school where I would like to see young people black young people create basically their own black language for better communication if the if we're moving into one era of a black revolutionary thing and we have to have means of communications and we find many times that words that we learn in white racist institutions block or stop us from communicating because we get hung up on the words you know like they define all our words like black power that he finds they define soul. That's a profane word right yeah what what you're talking about is not creating a language but using and legitimatizing the language that we have there's an article in red book this month Tony K's article on black children and had a little girl they couldn't read so they wrote it in

was the night before Christmas and and all through the house not a creature was turned not even no mouse and they were running down black language and and using that she explains it and I think that the kid reads when he sees a language that he understands you know when you see like a Dick and Jane they won't even play with you why are you going to read about him you know and you wouldn't want to play with Dick and Jane our spot the thing that you're trying to do is to use what people already have and we're talking about legitimateizing that we're not talking about necessarily I mean I'm not talking about creating a language I'm talking about saying that my language is where the usage of that language is communicating among the black people there I think we get back to doing that ourselves because I think we're losing communications because we're trying to be something we ain't you know we're trying when we communicate with each other though it's very funny how we just fall into double negatives black people use double negatives all the time it's very natural so that what we're trying to say or what I'm trying to say like as a teacher and a poet is that we use the language that we use you know and that that's the language that we write they

had an Italian Renaissance you know they called it a Renaissance and it was really just an Italian thing where we're Dante and then we're in the vernacular what we're doing the same thing we're talking about a black vernacular that's what we're talking about how about coming out of the white ages rather than the dark 70s how about the 70s what do you foresee for that I see a great future Leroy says that 70s are the period of reconstruction I think that we've gotten away from the reaction you know like I won't ever rewrite black judgment or Darwin Lee won't have to rewrite don't cry screen you see because that's been done or Roy won't write black magic poetry anymore we'll be talking about some other things like like ourselves and it's hard to when you look at poets like Mae Jackson fantastic poet I mean a fan cannot poet with you because that's where it is it's about that it's not about a black judgment anymore it's about can I put can you and I get together can can lure Nikki do a thing you see Nikki before we leave you do one more time oh be glad to this is Nikki Rosa it's about us childhood remembrances are always a drag if

you're black you always remember things like living in wood long with no inside toilet and if you become famous or something they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself or how good the water felt when you got your bath from one of those big tubs that folk in Chicago barbecue is and somehow when you talk about home it never gets across how much you understood their feelings as the whole family attended meetings about hollydale and even though you remember your biographers never understand your father's pain as he sells his stock and another dream goes and though you're poor it isn't poverty that concerns you and though they fought a lot it isn't your father's drinking that makes any difference but only that everybody is together and you and your sister have happy birthdays and very good Christmases and I really hope no white person ever has calls to write about me because they never understand black love is black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the

while I was quite happy right on I said I love the life and a lot of love I'm hanging on you know the whole imagination that it feels like we're always in love in a rock try to make it me but compare to what no good love I hate that you are love let's sing in love try to make it real but compare to can you I'm probably gonna love this song and sing no one gives me the same vibe

I'm a rhyme, I'm a reaper If you have one doubt They call the tree I'm a sad witch You can fail at all Without one doubt Try to make it be What compared to what? No good now I'm a champagne And i'm a I'm a I'm a

I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a Just a Just a Just a Just Just a Just a Just a Just a Just a Just a Just a Oh, young Kita, he tried to make it real. But compared to one, now he's a mommy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, I love the life, I'm out of love. I'm paying off, I'm put in a shirt. The position is on the full vacation. And up, the whole animation, and it looks like we always end up. It ain't rough trying to make it real. But compared to one, now. Not unlike other periods in our history,

the 60s has been a decade of much pain for black America. We've survived 40 decades of frustration in our efforts towards freedom. And we still survive. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote. And a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. All this will not be finished in the first 100 days.

Nor will it be finished in the first 1000 days. Nor in the life of this administration. Nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. I hope that this morning was not mad. I did once. I did once. I did once. But what you and I need to do is learn to forget our differences. You don't catch hell cause you're a Methodist or a Baptist. You don't catch hell because you're a Democrat or a Republican. You don't catch hell because you're a Mason or an L. And you sure don't catch hell cause you're an American. Because if you was an American, you wouldn't catch no hell. You don't catch hell cause you're a Black man. You catch hell. All of us catch hell for the same reason. Our day will come.

And we'll have everything. We'll share the joy. Falling in love can bring. No one can tell me that I'm too young to know. I love you. Because I have a dream. My four little children, one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. We will be able to speed up that day with all of God's children. Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual.

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at man. And so, my fellow, America, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism.

We see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don't see any American dream. We've experienced only the American nightmare. I want to be the president who helped to in war among the brothers of the Christians. There are three turns that black people in this country should learn at free. One is white supremacy, one is neo-colonialism, and one is black power. I'm here to tell you in case you don't know it.

You've got a new generation of black people in this country who don't care anything, what's so clever about us. Young generation don't want to hear anything about the odds are against us. What do we care about? You know what I'm talking about. I worry about long years for one more month.

You had a nerve to put me up. We must recognize as responsible citizens and as responsible government officials that the Negroes in this country cannot be expected indefinitely to tolerate the injustices which flow from official and private racial discrimination in the United States. The troubles we see now, agitation and bloodshed will not compare to what we will face a decade from now unless real progress is made. And then I got into Memphis and some began to say the threats that talk about the threats that were out, what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now.

We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now because I've been to the mountain top. And I don't mind. Like anybody I would like to live a long life, longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know the night that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing, in a man, my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. From nowhere, through a caravan, around the camp of our life. A lovely woman in motion with hair as a darkness night. And I, it's well, I love to have a cat in the dog. And him the tide, me with love. She was a gypsy woman. She wanted gypsy woman. Revolution is an Asia. Revolution is an Africa. And the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you think he'll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is? You don't know what a revolution is.

If you did, you wouldn't use that word. Something that great revolution is going on in our world today. It's sweeping away on all order, bringing in the being of New York. We see it in Asia. And Africa, as we listen from afar to the deep rumblings of this content. We're going to develop the coalition all the way across this country. And we're going to organize Black Panther Party all the way across this country. family, family and family. You know she's waiting just so And just for painting, for thing that you never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never. Wow, she's there waiting, and without them trying.

The only way we're going to solve it, we've got to hear names. We've got to work together in unity and harmony, and black nationalism is the key. How are we going to overcome the tendency to be at each other's throats that always exist in our neighborhood? And the reason this tendency exists, the strategy of the white man has always been divided and conquered. He keeps us divided in order to conquer us. He tells you, I'm for separation and you for integration and keep us fighting with each other. No, I'm not for separation and you're not for integration. What you and I are for is freedom. Thank you.

Thank you. In three years, nearly 300 members of the Black Panther Party have been killed, wounded, imprisoned, or forced into exile by various police departments across the country.

Since March 1968, 18 Panthers have met death by the police. The Minister of Defense, Huey Newton, is imprisoned. The Chairman, Bobby Seale, is imprisoned. The Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver, is an exile in Africa. The Chief of Staff, David Hilliard, has been arrested and released on $30,000 bail. These are the top four national offices of the Black Panther Party. But three weeks ago, many in Black America were not listening when the Panthers spoke of political assassination. Fair of their militancy, mistrust of their politics and confusion over their rhetoric, have created hostility or apathy among conservative and moderate blacks. But the brutal slangs in Chicago on December 4 of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark under circumstances which, even the least sympathetic to Panther ideology, would best describe as suspicious, has finally gotten the message through to all of Black America.

This tragedy has united the Black community. It's always a search and destroy mission that everybody is not killed as in prison. It all equipment whether it be weapons, office equipment, food for our breakfast programs, or medical supplies for our free health clinics is destroyed. Our newspapers are destroyed, our records and files are seized. So it's not much different than what's perpetrated against if we hadn't these people. This door here, we have taken it out now for evidence. But they said to sister five to this door with a shotgun. If she's five to the door with a shotgun, you can look on the walls and see some effects of a shotgun blast there. You can look at this walls step off motor, man. You can look at this wall here. They spray it this wall with 30 caliber machine gun fire. And they spray it to say there was a bed in this corner here. They shot people who were on the bare sleeve.

You can see blood down on the wall from where they hit the people who were on the bare sleeve and there was blood on the matches before we took them out. So you go back and look over here at this wall here and we got 40 fat caliber slugs out of that wall there. It was one of a series of raids and murders and flip it against our party. Since the party's inception in October of 1966, a new level of sophistication was reached by both city and state pigs and Chicago under the coordination and direction of the justice department. They kicked in the doors that Fred's pared the front and the back door at the same time and opened fire. Since that time, the press has made a lot of statements. The police department has made a lot of statements that haven't gelled.

They produce pictures that have shown bullet holes that turn out to be nail holes. There's a lot of evidence that could be presented that we don't want to present at this time because it would seriously hamper the defense of the victims of that massacre that did survive because they are now charged with attempted murder. Here today to discuss this on Black Journal, our Lincoln Lynch, the Executive Vice President of the New York Coalition, Renant Robinson, President of the Afro-American's Policeman League in Chicago, Dr. Charles Hamilton, Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, James Finney, Assistant Consul of the NAACP Legal Fund, and Mysai Hewitt, the Minister of Education for the Black Panther Party. Mr. Finney being an Assistant Consul with the NAACP Legal Fund and looking at it from, let's say, from your perspective and from the information you've gathered. What position does the NAACP Legal Fund take in this particular area?

Well, the Legal Defense Fund joined with some other organizations to try and, in fact, we have put together a private commission. I think that was born out of a sense that there is something wrong with what's happening to the Panthers. It seems to me that in the recent months there's been an accelerated occurrence of incidents all over the country. And we're saying, in effect, that their politics aside, whether we may agree or disagree with them on whatever level, that there seems to be a serious breakdown of law and of justice. Well, does this seem to you or anyone else that this could smack of some kind of a national conspiracy against the Black Panther Party? I think there is a growing suspicion that this is a coordinated program to destroy the Black Panthers. Blue, I think that it really goes beyond, for my standpoint, beyond a suspicion. I think, if proof were needed, the coordination and the nationwide pattern

of harassment against the Panthers seemed all part of the same mistake. And the fact that these raids always take place before dawn, somewhat smacks to me of the type of situation which exists in a police state. And I would venture to say that America is essentially a police state at the present time, not only with respect to the Panthers, but with respect to any Black person. Because I'm quite sure that no one would ask Roy Wilkins, whether he was a member of the Panther Party before opening fire. And we've seen instances of this in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. And I think that America is, in fact, on the verge of becoming a fascist, Nazi-type state at the present time, certainly as far back as I can sound. Well, I think also that that raises the larger question,

which I think should be central in any discussion and procedure on this point. I would hate to see any investigation, singling itself, or focusing itself exclusively on the police tactics in relation to the Panthers. Because that will only get at the particulars of what happened in West Side of Chicago, what happened that morning in Los Angeles. And it will not get at what it seems to me to be a very crucial point, the whole power relationship between, say, the police and those who control the police in the Black community. So I would be very, very, how shall I say, insistent to the extent that I could, that we not simply focus on the tactics of a police at that particular time. I think there's much more that can be looked into it for that reason. If I just might extend my comments, minute loop, I'm very leery about any investigation by

duly so-called duly constituted authorities, like the FBI, let us say, or what have you. Because I think that this is simply an agency investigating itself in a real sense. And I think that it will mislead people into thinking that something is going to come out of this when the outset it could. Well, how about, how about a few points from a policeman in Oxford's immigrant, especially in Chicago, because I understand that there were five Negro quote, policemen in on the raid. And what is the position of the Afro Policemen's League when you look at this and you know that this is being perpetrated on our brothers and sisters right in our own communities? Well, as far as we're concerned, this sort of thing happens all the time and has been happening all the time. It's unfortunate that this particular case involved two leaders, but as far as we're concerned, it happens every day. We hate to see black people become just purely crisis-orientated where because it was Mark Clark and because it was Fred Hampton that there was a ground swell.

But the next day when a guy was shot and killed by the police for nothing, nobody said it wasn't, it didn't even hit the papers. I think the danger here is many folks. As far as policemen, we've been crying out, crying out, crying out, and we're credible witnesses because we're part of it that the murder has been going on unchallenged and unpunished. The apathy of the citizens, both black and white has allowed it to go on. One thing I'd like to interject is that we have had discussions with brothers and most of the national liberation fronts in the African continent, Asia and Latin America. And they see that our struggle is a part and parcel of a struggle of oppressed non-whites and colonized people all over the world. They know that our struggle here is very key struggle because we are in the belly of the whale.

So we are in battle on Babylon. And we've understood on our part that it's not China or it's not Russia, it's not Angola. So the struggle has to be waged very differently here. I think that there are two things that should be evident. One is that if you look at the last concerted effort against a large black group, it was the Muslims. And they, all of a sudden, were a threat and the Justice Department and the FBI and everybody went into them. But there was a marked difference. And that was in leadership and it was in organization. And it was in the fact that Mohammed didn't give the government a stick to beat his members with. And what I mean by that is that the Panthers are a group that are on the Vanguard. And they have made it known what they intend to do and how they intend to do it. And that was enough rationale for the larger white community to say whatever happens to the Panthers is fat,

which meant that they lost any protection from black citizens as well as any white citizens, except for friends' groups, which won't put their life on the land like the Panthers would do. And I think that if a group is going to survive, we've got to realize it's not going to be a five year ballot. It's a long protracted struggle. And if you're going to do something, then you have to do it. You can't stand up under the street light in front of the police station and say, we're going to stick up the bank. I think that you can go about doing what you have to do, but I think you have to be conservative with your troops. I don't think that Kamakaziism is a way of making the struggle last. I don't think that in the absence of troops and leaders, and in the Panthers, the leaders are being shipped off, they're being jailed, they're being murdered, they're being exiled. Without them, the organization is drifting.

And I think it's also hurting their recruitment and hurting the entire struggle. Each group has to have its own base and do what it has to do, but I don't think you have to set up a suicide type rationale. Well, what do you think I'm going to say? Well, I guess on the point of view of a police officer, no matter how good or how bad, it might seem like a suicide type rationale, but it needs to be understood where the Black Panther Party is coming from. The Black Panther Party comes from the people that we would discuss, whether or not they know what's happening to them. The Black Panther Party is a product of these people that our strength is, the strength of these people, our weaknesses, the weaknesses of these people. And that we had to know that something was happening because point number seven of our 10 point platforming program says that we want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people. And not only Black people all across the country relate to it, but also Mexican-Americans, Chinese-Americans,

poor whites, our program has been copied by other ethnic groups all across this country. And when you see the background of the leadership, not just the leadership, but the older members of the Black Panther Party, you'll find that most of them, like Fred Hampton, had a background in the NAACP, Bob Rush, came from SNCC. I came from CORE, Eldish Cleaver from the nation of Islam was mostly minister at San Quentin. A bunch of Carter was mostly minister at San Quentin. John Huggins, who went down with Bunchy in January at UCLA, was activists in the student movement in Pennsylvania. Long before the party came into existence at Bobby and Huey were in the Black student unions, the Afro-American student unions in the beginning at the birth at Merritt College in 63. So this is the whole background of where this party is coming from and the brothers and sisters in the party didn't just get interested in the well-being of Black people in October of 1966.

As a race, we are the champions of nonviolence. I agree. I think you brought out a good point though. I agree with you. What I'm saying though is that you had champions from all other groups who had reached the limit that their group would take them and decided that they were more activists and wanted to do something else in the party was formed. I'm saying good, but the leadership was not protected because it didn't have a burden of base to keep from getting killed. I mean, keep from getting killed because of an announced program. But I'm saying that the Black Panther Party is announcing things that your 10-point program coincides with a lot of other programs. I mean, a lot of other people have them. Some of your points are identical with the Muslims, for example, some of them are identical. What we're saying, we were founded on that police brutality and the murders and the killings. So I'm saying there's no clash there. But we need an organization to be able to exist. And with a concerted effort by the government, mainly because they've got something to shoot at,

they're able to destroy it. What produced the Black Panther Party? What do you think? Well, like I said before, I think what produced the Black Panther Party is that the leadership felt that they could no longer go as far as they could with their present organizations that they wanted to take a more active role. The same thing that you're produced at NAACP, Corps, and Snake America. America produced one Black Panther unit. America has produced hundreds and thousands of more. America will continue to produce Black Panthers as long as she is racist, imperialist, capitalist, fascist, and oppressive. But how do we have a program that leads us to a conclusion, a program that will allow us to make some advance? What I'm trying to- You went for a job with some longevity? No, I'm not looking for a job. I'm saying that if you're trying to reach freedom and you're trying to get away from oppression that we must formulate a plan and be leading logically from one point to another. One thing that the Panthers are saying over and over is that there's a need for protection of Black people. And nobody's doing the job properly.

So I'm saying that Black police feel that Black police who belong to the league feel that we have to do the job. We feel also that law enforcement, as a concept, has failed in the United States. Because law enforcement has proved that it's inhumane, that it's brutal, and that it murders those who disagree politically with the strategy of the nation. I think that it's not necessary for there to be a one-to-one situation with people, especially in the Black community. In other words, there'd be an overabundance of police overly armed and not yet serving the public. And Black communities, you have more police than you have in white communities, and yet there's less protection. And yet the crime rate is higher, and yet there are many other problems. I'm sorry to get you on. I think we're going to have to wrap this up, so if anyone likes to sort of summarize this whole thing. Well, I'd like to just ask a question. I think it's very crucial. So in one sense, you're suggesting that one way, perhaps in some places, to overcome first

brutal police tactics, and secondly, to achieve what might be a long-term goal of community control might well be for an organization like the African-American Patrolman's League, wherever it exists, and in your terms, it exists legitimately to link up with various groupings in the Black communities. That link up with community as a whole, mainly because you have to have a positive suggestion after you tell people what has happened. After they found out about the murders, the next question is, what can we do? And if you can't answer that, you're bleeding. Well, at this point, then, we are left in many instances with the Black Panther Party taking this position, at which you're talking about. In fact, in their saying, the Black community needs protection, and they try to protect it, but in trying to protect it, they do not have a conglomeration of groups with their thing. The Panthers are calling for community control. Community control. And I'm suggesting that here also, as a group that doesn't belong to the Panthers,

has a peculiar relationship to the police. It is the police, in some instances. It seems to me that it'd be very useful for those kinds of groupings to begin. That's the only real protection for the Black Panther Party or anybody in the Black community. It's community control of the police. The investigations of people call for is up to them, but in some instances, it may be like high-end Jesse James as a bank guard. And that won't protect the goodies. And the first step to community control is that you have to have more Blacks right away on the job. You see, you'll never be able to sensitize white officers to what we're talking about. There's an opportunity for you to change a Black officer, even though he might be as a saying goes oil, because he's got to come back to the community when he takes it. He has to live in the community. But you see, I think it's a bad thing when we have people who say, let's sensitize the police and leave it like it is. I think we need more Black officers right away, and we also need more officers in the higher structure. We have command function.

And I think then we can do one thing. Stop the killings. First. You see, we have to deal with the immediate thing, and that's life. I hate to see him die. I hate to see the talent that's there die. I would love to see them do what they're doing in a different fashion. Of course, you cannot stop the dying all the time. If you're a threat, you might get killed. But I hate to see them sacrifice when I think that their leadership under some sort of a program to politically educate Blacks, especially young Blacks, could do a lot more for the long-range struggle. Because if they came in and wiped them all out, it might take 25 years to create that many new leaders again. I'm sorry, we have to break off here. Those things happen. Thank Lincoln Lynch, Robinson, Dr. Charles Hamilton, James Finney, and the S.I. Hewitt. Painters, why do you always paint white virgins? Don't you know they're a beautiful black angels

and heaven also? Painters, paint beautiful black angels? MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC I used to wonder who I'd be. When I was a little girl in Indianapolis sitting on doctor's

porches with post-dawn pre-dabs wondering what my on-drag made a church Sunday. I was meaningless and I wondered if life would give me a chance to me. I found a new life in the withdrawal from all things, not like my image. When I was a teenager I used to sit on front footsteps conversing the gym teacher's son with embryonic eyes about the essential essence of the universe, recognizing the basic powerlessness of me. But then I went to college where I learned that just because everything I was was unreal I could be real and not just real through withdrawal into emotional crosshairs or colored bourgeois intellectual

pretensions but from involvement with things approaching reality I could possibly have a life. So catatonic emotions and time wasting sex games were replaced with functioning commitments to logic and necessity and the gray area was slowly darkened into a black thing. For a while progress was made along with a certain degree of happiness because I wrote a book and found a love and organized a theater and even gave some lessons, some lectures on black history and began to believe all good people could get together and win without bloodshed. Then Hamish Girl was killed and LaMoumbert was killed and the M was killed and Kennedy was killed and Malcolm was killed and Evers was killed and Swarnert Cheney and Goodman were killed and Louisiana was killed and Stokely fled the country and LaRoy was arrested and rap was arrested and for large Thompson and Cooper were killed and King was killed and Kennedy was killed and sometimes I wonder why I didn't become

a debutant. Sitting on Dr.'s porches, going to church all the time, wondering is my eye to make up on straight or withdrawn, discoursing on the stars and the moon instead of a real black person who must now feel and inflict pain. To be lost here Eddie. They all will be their stay, they'll lose Negroes.

They'll be their last, they'll be their last, they'll be their last, they'll be their last last. The 60s was the decade in which the message came through loud and clear, either unite or perish. And a lot of us have been dead or asleep psychologically, culturally, economically and politically. But the 60s has been waking up time. Marcus Garvey said it, wake up, up mighty race, you can accomplish what you will. I'm Lou Hums. And Bill Greaves, we'll see you next year. We'll see you next year.

We'll see you next year. We'll see you next year. We'll see you next year. We'll see you next year. We'll see you next year.

We'll see you next year. We'll see you next year. We'll see you next year. This is N-E-T, the public television network.

We'll see you next year.