NET Journal; 284; Staggerlee: A Conversation with Bobby Seale

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The program contains some strong language and expressions, not usually heard on television . like almost, and it's about an inch in depth, you know, about five inches in diameter, the bowl part of it and, uh, so that's what you have to do.

That and bread, you eat that usually every day? I don't eat it all, but I throw it in the toilet. What I do is that I have a commissary here where if you have money on the books, you know, people leave you money, where you can buy cigarettes, where you can also buy a milk, I buy a quarter milk, I have a cold, and you have a cold now? Yeah, I have a cold, and, uh, well, it's going to well a bit, but they have little cartons of orange juice you can buy, so I want that vitamin C, you know, to kept buying, so I buy a couple of those and a quarter milk, and then they have, uh, you can buy some candy, you know, and your cigarettes, and then they have some crackers, and the rich crackers, and she's kind of something that they don't sell out there on the market, I guess much, and they let us, they've sent them up here, and, uh, I bought a box of those, you know, and, uh, sometimes I'll eat them level out, there's peanuts, they have little package fires and package of peanuts, and, um, well, I eat that soup, I generally throw it in

the toilet, the soup and bread, I eat the crackers, you know, I'm studying the soup and bread, I eat the, uh, crackers and drinks and milk, sometimes, uh, I might take two or three spoons of the soup, and they have some green salads, and sometimes they chop up, throw on the plate, and, uh, if it's, if it's got any kind of, uh, dressing on it, I eat it, if it don't, I throw out your own, I throw it away. Like if you really had your choice of what you would eat, you know, if you really in there, you know, like last time he said, he wanted some, you know, some soul food, and if you would, you know, and you went into this whole thing and described it well, you know, would you eat if you could have some of the, well, I'm a cook, I can cook, see. So what would you cook? Well, I cook, if I was out of jail, I like to, I've been in jail now about six months, I like to go home and, uh, get my wife and we'll go down to, uh, the co-op market somewhere, and, uh, we'll buy, uh, some cube steaks, you know what I mean?

Uh-huh. Some nice little thick cube steaks, you know, and, uh, bell peppers, onions, and all this other stuff, you know, and I'd go home, I'd do the cooking more than I could, man, we'd cook together. Did you do most of the cooking? No, I don't do most of the cooking. I would do the cooking more. I really want to eat something, and I want to eat, you know, the way I want it cooked, when she, she can cook, she's learning how to cook, when she first met her, she could cook with spaghetti, you see. So, uh, I do fit the spaghetti to cooking now, she's learning how to cook, you know, buy me, helping her teach you how to cook, you know. Why I had to learn how to cook when I was in LA when I was living by myself, see? And, uh, why I didn't know how to cook, what I could, you see, because I really didn't have no money, I was hung up one time and just broke, you know. But, uh, what I cook is, uh, I take me some cube steaks, flower them down, see them and saw them down, pepper them down, and, uh, then I douse them in, uh, some flower, and I put them in a pan of hot grease, you know, about four of them, and, uh, as they brown

on one side, I flip them over, then I cut up a whole onion, slice rings, onion rings of onions, and I cut up some rings of bell pepper, you know, and then, uh, drop a lid on top of it, you know, and lower the flat fire down, you know, let it go slow. And, uh, meanwhile, the, uh, ham ends are bacon ends, are already boiling, have already been boiling at least, you know, 30 minutes, you know, on high fire, and I drop, uh, some of you, some fresh shell black eyed peas in there, but a frozen black eyed peas, which I prefer, you know. Actually, I didn't put them on before I dropped the meat in, you know, because, well, I'm a doodish, but, uh, I got these black eyed peas going, you know, with a little bell pep in there, you know, and, uh, I would, uh, season the down righteous, you know, black pep and all that stuff. I like highly seasoned stuff, you know. Then I got this pan of rice roney cook and say, I've got this three full slabs of butter

in the bottom of this pan, it's just melting, and I throw this rice roney at it brown over, you know, and boom, throw all this stuff in, and I take three tomatoes, four, I want tomato, you know, after the rice steams up inside, you know, I put the water in, put the herbs and all that stuff, this beef rice roney, you see. And after it comes up, I take a tomato on top of the rice, stir it up, and then let it steam a little bit, and I take a tomato, and slice it all up, and put the slices all over the top of the, uh, the, uh, rice, and put the lid back on it, you know, and then it just sits there, you know, and really find that that juice is from the tomatoes simmered down into the rice, you see, and, uh, I have some cornbread, you know, and, uh, I like a tall, cold glass of milk, you see, and, uh, when I cornbread it's hot, and the rice roney is hot, you know, and everything is cooking. What I do, I take the meat out of the pan, and I put four, five tablespoons of flour in

the amount of, uh, grease, you know, and the juices and seeped out of the meat, you know, into that, you know, it's kind of cooked, too, you know, and you let the flour brown, you see. And then that's when I go to my thing, you know, I give me, uh, half a bottle of steak sauce, you know, and dump it in there, some hot sauce, and dump it in there, and some peppers out of the jar, and dump it in there, a little more seasoning sauce, salt it down, and taste it, you know, you have to taste your food, you see, taste good, boom, and check, all the meat is put it back in the pan, you see, cut up a few more onions, a few more bell peppers, you see, tomato, maybe, you know, boom, and put the, uh, lid back on there, and just let it simmer there, you know, I mean, for about 20 minutes, everything is nice and hot, and that's what I have, some cornbread, with butter in between it, some black eyed peas, the ham in, the bacon in, or whatever you got in there, or ham-hawk, you have to boil it a little earlier, you know, and then you get it done, you know, and I grease, man. I like to get down to it, that's, that's what it's meant to me, country brown, so it's cube sticks, mother down, and country brown, country brown gravy, black eyed peas, and

rice and running, with all the gravy I'm going to put on it, you know, with all the, way I got a season, just the way I like it, and the tall glass of milk, and, uh, I can see, well, you threw you a simple way after all that, you know, I like to eat, you know, one time, a long time ago, somebody asked me, whatever I'd rather have, I was down all the sand at the time, when I was trying to make it ten years ago, and he asked me what I'd rather have, what I'd rather have a cat-a-lack, or what I'd rather have a, a refrigerate full of food, you know, and you know, you think about this, you know, I like to eat, you know, when I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of these things, you know, we'd get a piece of steak, uh, it was a little bit of piece of steak, and it was far and far between, you know, and Mama would hustle up a skinny chicken for Sunday, you see, and daddy, he's around working here and that, but, uh, we didn't get much meat, we used a lot of greens, black eyed peas and cornbread, you know, yeah, I raised that right out there, and Berkley

quarter-nieces, those together over there, and, okay, I lived with that, never the busy day, can't wait. You see, I'm going to tell my own knife, and, uh, what's the, uh, Harrison, yeah, I lived on six in Harrison, and they probably, two of their place down. Yeah, I know they told our old place down, that's why we raised that back, and, uh, see, I mean, my mom is to bring ends and stuff, and I think about people who hungry, you know, and, uh, I think about people, I think that's why Berkley's the children's where it's at, man, you know, because in the morning, like you eat grits, I mean, I like, I eat Berkley's, you know what I mean? I want three or four slices of that, some thick bacon, you know what I mean? I don't like it a little dainty thin bacon, but I eat it, you know, it's sweet and it's good, you know, but, uh, some grits, and some butter, you know what I mean? Some hot biscuits, and some jelly, and some syrup, one way or the other, you know what I mean? And, uh, that's the way it's at, and I think every little kid in the country should have it, you know? Sausage if he won't have, uh, ham, slabs, and grits, and butter, and jelly, biscuits, you know, we make toasts with the place in the butter, this is where I was raised

at, you put the butter on the, uh, bread, you know? I don't dig toaster bread, toaster, you know, we put, you know, they take the toast and they put it in a little toaster, you know? Or I think the way we do it, and I wouldn't wear our raise, because we didn't have no toasters, so we had to put it under the flame in the oven, you know? And we still do it, we like it that way, we're so used to, tasting spats of butter on top of the bread, and sliding in the oven, you dig? And then it toasts with rice, and the nice little highlight, and the toast is nice, and the butter melts down, and you come in as nice and hot, you know what I mean? And I hated modern, you know? And reason I hated modern, even when I was a kid, I knew it was a fake, you see? And, uh, it wasn't real butter, you see what I mean? And I kind of adopted this from my dad, and he didn't want nobody as modern, he wanted real butter, and my mother likes real butter, you know? And come up on a farm when it was young, too, you know? And, uh, butter, man, on that rice and scramble eggs, those sunny side up eggs, just take me some pile of rice with all the butter, and I won't, and two, three sunny side up eggs on top of that, and some smoked sausages or

some bacon. What about in the jails? You ever talk about this food? Oh, man, I talked about this one night, man, the cats told me to be quiet. I got to talk one time and describe it in a meal, you know? I was hollering down the block to some other brothers that I told me, Lossie at the, and Lossie at the end of brothers, and they get to describe and stuff, you know? And they just tell me how they make chili, I make chili, too, you know? Roast beef, all that stuff. Stew, love the cooked stew. Like, when we in the Panther Party, you know, Panther houses? Dropper over the Panther House? I saw it in my house up at the top of the Panther headquarters office, you know? Got a kitchen back there. That's where I was at. I mean, you know, you grease, you know, really? And so I tell the brothers, say it's some chili, you know? Everybody gets together and we eat food is life, man, you know? And I relate to things, you know, like that. What about Lossie after you? This shower cell is kind of like next to my cell, but it's to my left, I really can't see in the shower. But as they come and you're ready to go in, they say, power, Bobby, you know? What's happening, brother? I said, right on, you know? Vince Duramos, you know,

we will win. And we'll be talking about a lot of things, man. We talk about the fact that we've got to raise defense funds and things like that, you know? And the fact that the people struggle out there, the streets of what's happening, you know? And we've got to organize the people and let the people organize around the programs and unify around these programs, you know? Breakfast for children for your clinic family. I think the prisoners in there understand, you know, the most of them are most of them here to what you're talking about. I think a lot of them are not motivated. I think a lot of them just don't know really. They know some kind of way, but they're not able to articulate how it's really the power structure. You know, the average is greedy businessmen and the demagogical power. They're not here. How do you know this? How do I know? How do I know? Make yourself evident. It makes itself evident that you can distinguish between two different kinds of prisoners, you know? You can distinguish between a kind of prisoner who has some political thinking. How do you do that? When you first come into the sub-life, when you

walk on there, how do you know which prisoners have a political consciousness and which are the other ones? Some of them, a lot of them, I asked me. Brother, what's going on? They just don't know. They know me. They didn't hurt about me. They heard about the party. They heard about Huey and all of us, you know, contributing together. And they decide to ask you, you know, what's going on? You see? It's a lot of them. Do they yell it down the halls or do they? Well, they might pass by the cell or they wait and come out this little gate to come out and see the lawyer. They might be there about two, three minutes, you know? I'll wrap to them, you know, stuff like that. They ask me questions. Then there's brothers that know a lot of what's happening, you know? And he comes right on in. You know, he'd be talking about what Regan did and what you think about that. He just, you know, relating his knowledge, like, you know, and he's talking about the fact that the budget for a welfare in the state is lower than the budget for a prison, you know? These brothers know it. He's casting on all this? Yeah, man. He's casting a lot of some cast notice stuff,

man. It's, you know, and it's very important stuff, Regan, you know, indirectly and indirectly, man. However, all the rejects, man, he's cast a hit. How the rejects only adult authority? They're cast a reject, man. Mad dog, maddener, ex-policeman, ex-DAs, you know? They kind of rejects, you know what I mean? And they run the prison system, man. They're rejects or where? Rejects in terms of not being the best educated to run the prisons or not being the best educated in society, you see, man? Last time he was talking about what it was like in the whole. And that was sort of graphic and we missed it. Would you go over that religion in all the way you told it, you know? All your questions and everything about what it was like in when you were in all. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're young and I'm smoking. I don't cigarette. Anybody got cigarettes or two? Don't, uh, quit. Yeah. Yeah, go here. Okay. Just like one thing right here. I got a match. Well, I was putting a hole. Well, I have to

start it. You see, this, um, this, uh, guard gave me a let me have the Black Panther Party paper after Gary had requested, you know, you know, to let me have it. And, uh, I took the paper and Gary told a guard that he wanted me to read over three or four articles because they're gonna really, he wanted me to make some notes on them and stuff like that and some of my statements and everything. He said because, uh, he felt it in some of the couple of fifty cases that the DA was going to try to turn the meeting up around so he wanted to get him down that, you know? And, uh, I took the paper, guard let me have it. It was one night when my lawyer came up to see me. And, uh, the next day or two days later, I think, um, I was in visiting. And so I come back from visiting. Visiting was over for that Sunday. That's what it was. And the cat told me, he says, uh, still, you ain't supposed

to have it at Black Panther Party paper now. I said, wait a minute, man. I say, uh, it's another guard, you know? I say, you just investigate. I say, one of the guys let me have the paper, you know, that's contraband. I said, oh, man, wait a minute. I say, if the guard gave it to me, I said, he gave it to me. I have to request my lawyer to make some notes for some legal matters, you know? That don't make no difference. And I said, wait a minute. You're supposed to investigate, you know what I mean? And what you're doing to Jet Magazine, I said, what Jet Magazine? You know, so we found a Jet Magazine. I said, no, I see you ain't found a Jet Magazine. He said, we got it. I say, look, man, I saw all these cats just running around. They're going to visits and stuff like this. Yeah, I said, the cats probably threw the Jet Magazine because they always given me something. They're always throwing something, you know? And he says, well, I said, well, man, I say, that's one thing. I say, but as far as the paper go, he said, well, you're going to get your visit taken. I said, no, wait a minute, man. I said, you got to investigate. And he says, no, he says, we don't have to do nothing. I said, well, if you don't investigate, I said, that means you violate my rights by taking my visits away. I said, so if you don't investigate, you have a bunch of low life to scurvy, repabated pigs. I say, and I don't

go for it. And that's the way I feel about it. And so, well, you can't call us a pig. We'll take the visits away from you for next week and next week. Just for that, I said, pig, a thousand times, pigs, a million times, as long as you violate my constitution right, or my rights for my visit any kind of human rights. I got, I said, just because you want to investigate, I said, you can solve the stuff. I said, I can see the pig until you do. And so, they didn't like it. And I kept starting to argue with me talking. I had some cups in there. There's an extra cup in my cell, you see? And the cat with the food wagons, they feed you in your cell. He went around out on D block, on A block. He come in on D block. He happened to went around out on A block instead of coming back out and picking up my cup. You see, I'm outside of the lock up for D block. You see, I'm in an isolated cell away from everybody, you see? Well, you're down with these cups and you say, this cup here in your cell, what you're going to do right? Something for your lawyer. I like to

do this, dude. I say, look, man, I say, how can you be so stupid to ask such an unintelligible question as that as to be supposedly writing something for a lawyer without a damn cup? I said, now, how can you be that stupid, man? I said, I'm more intelligent than that. I said, I want you to investigate about whether or not I got contraband in my cell or not because that's also good. I said, here you come, I said, I'm stupid, unintelligible. I said, that's just the way you pig's think. You know what I mean? I said, you don't want to believe me. I said, but if you go check it out, you'll find out that the cat actually hit me as a black kind of party paper. And so, boom, the next morning, many come to take me to the hole. And so, it looks up there, 10 of them there, crowd it all around for me. I say, you're moving cells. I say, moving cells? I say, oh, I say, okay. Let me get my property. Oh, no, that's all right, dude. I say, wait a minute. I say, if I'm moving cells, I say I want my envelopes and my property and my candy and my cigarettes and everything and my legal stuff here. So, I'll start picking it up. No, no, no, no, so there's one

that, ah, I'll take care of that. I say, no, I say in other words, I say, you're taking me to the hole, ain't you? I say, that's what you're doing, talking about moving cells. I say, I'm still taking my property. So, I snatch my property up. And I say, I'm definitely taking my legal stuff. So, I come out and say, I said, let's go walk down around here and we're going down there. We got down there and so they say, all right, give us all your stuff. I say, you don't get my legal stuff. I say, you don't get none of my legal papers. I say, cost by constitution right. I say, I got it right. Any person accused of hell and jail got a right to keep all things related to his legal defense with him. I say, you know that. You can't have that, you know, I say, yeah, I'm going to keep it. I say, the only way you're going to get it for me is take it for me. I say, because I'm keeping my legal stuff. So, I say, you can have all this other stuff. I say, you can put that away. I say, my legal papers are going to keep with me. So, I say, let's go to the hole. So, I start to walk into the hole. And so they all jump to me. They all kind of say, excuse me, they jumped in front of me. You know what I mean? And so, you got to give me, I say, you know, I don't give you my legal papers. I got a right to have my legal papers.

I start to walk towards the hole again. And all of them cast grabbed me simultaneously. Legs, hands and everything. And right around the neck of thought, children, put me to the ground. We were wrestling that for a while. And then this cat started hitting me in the testes. It's one cat who talked about, don't worry about your stuff. You know, let's just go, you know, when you get prepared to put me in the hole. And man, I was passing out. You know, the cat was choking me, man. And he hit me four times, man. I remember the last time I was just going on out, you know. That pissed me off. You know, and I had the TV interview and he was standing back out there listening. And I saw him listening. I said, I don't know if they showed him TV. I say, but they say they put me in the hole for calling him a pig. I say, well, the punk, the bastard who put me in the hole and hit me in the balls and the testes. I say, I still consider him a low life that's scaring repabating pig. I don't know if they put that on TV or not. But that's the way I felt about it. And that's exactly what he is. That's what he is. This is bad. Or the sheriff's

department, you see. And I got his badge, nothing, and everything. You say, the fool, you know, and I just wanted to print it in the papers of all the people in the community and know who the pig is, you know. But anyway, they put me in this hole. I woke up, well, I woke up, I woke up. The hole is a seven by seven. No, a seven by five. By five feet wide and seven feet long. There's just a box. There's no bed in there. You have no blankets in there. You have no toilet. You don't even have a toilet in there. Oh, he got as a hole in the floor. It's a box. Well, he strangled me into my down. So, you know, I'm still a horse now from that very strange, I'm thinking about soon. Well, after I was choked, and I just woke up, I was in the hole, you know, and they threw some, oh, you don't have nothing on, you don't have no underwear on, no socks, no shoes. And they give you a shirt, but the shirt is raggedy. It's stuff they got in there. They got your clothes with holes in them. But a lot of kids name in the hole got raggedy stuff on in here, you know. But I woke up in the hole. So, I throw it, man, I was a horse. And you know, what shocked me the most when

I came to, I couldn't utter a word. That's how bad they'd choked me. And I already had a tons of lives, probably, and say, and they'd choked me. They wouldn't let me go see, I'm going to get a doctor, you know, to go through my throat, Dr. Phyme, I'm a private doctor, or Dr. Carlton Goodling, one of the two of them. But they wouldn't let me go see. But anyway, these cats were sitting there, and I was, they were standing there in the front of the house. I couldn't utter a word. I started, I tried to say something. And that shocked me. I thought I wasn't going to be able to speak no more, man. I blew my mind, pissed me off, I told my bad. And finally, after about 10 minutes and I was at, and one of the cats came back and asked me, did I want some water? I said, yeah, I want some water, you know. And I got some water in my throat. And then I was real, real horse like, you know, so on, so on, so on. But that's how my throat was the first day. And it's well

up. And I started running at a temperature, you know, at town's line of stuff. And everything. So how did you go to the, to the bathroom? Well, we see, well, in the whole, man, this is the, you know, that whole is, it's, it's, it's, it's declared unconstitution about United States Supreme Court, but they still use it. They lie and say they don't, but they do. They always put in catching the whole, always brutalizing and beating them, you know, like the other night. Well, you know, the cat, Raymond Scott. We heard a Raymond Scott. He's supposed to kill all of them. People's accused of it at least. Oh, down the morning. The black cat, yeah, man. She had a rotten man when he black cats in here. He's black guys. He tried to go in on Raymond Scott, man. And brutalized the cat, messing with him, you know. And then, man, he wouldn't call a bunch of other guards, man. And when they jumped on him, man, by 9 out of 10, I beat the cat, man. Beat him on conscious. And there's jail. Now, the man, he's a, he's a good friend of Charles Gary's too, who killed his three daughters. They don't bother him, say. Nobody bothers him, you know. He's a friend

of Charles Gary's? Yeah, he, well, he's been, you know, all the lawyers in town, you know, all the people in the government around here, you know, he's a clerk to kill his three children. You know, we got to see needs of mental help, you know. And so, you know, what they'll do? They will probably send Raymond Scott, who probably needs some mental help to the gas chamber, but the white man, you see the man, they'll send him to a mental institution. You see what I'm talking about? Well, anyway, back to the whole, man. The whole has got a hole in the floor. It's just a flat hole, you know, you know, you flow, and it's just a hole. And one of the thing about, they had the things stopped up. They don't flow, you can't flush it from inside, you flush this flushed from outside by somebody else. The thing was stopped up. So I was in there about a half an hour or so, and it flushed, but it was stopped up in a, a defecation and urinal, urinal, and toilet paper and crap, come all back up in the floor, and I'm standing in two inches of water now, with defecation

and everything, you know. So I just blew porthole, you know, got thick glass on it, you know, you can see through it like so. So I'm watching and see if it gets somebody passing over once I try to bang on this door, but it's almost soundproof, you know, people can hear you kind of banging on it, but not much. Tell you to do this damn thing, it stopped up in here, you know, and you know, and it's all over the part. And the cats' nudity would stop that thing to it, you know, and not to lay that night, man, when a shift had changed, you see them ain't one of the guards, they got some human sense. And back, they'd given me some food in a plate, and through the little porthole, we see what the water recedes, flushes up and it sits there for an hour, you know, it takes an hour for it to recede back down and they flush it back up. So where were you all the time, you know? Every while I went ahead, yeah, it's in the middle of the crap, you know, until the stuff receded and I could sit back on the floor possibly, you know, I couldn't stand up all that time, you know? Yeah. And, you hang it up on the bars and stuff, there's no bars, there's a box, there's a box, there's no hole, there's a door, a big,

thick door, a big, thick steel door, you know, and there's a cold floor, you have to sleep on the cold floor, you know, I don't bed, you know, it's not a, it's a seven, seven feet long, five feet wide box. So what did you, what did you do to keep yourself fit or to keep yourself sane when you're in there? Oh, and the hole, you see, this is where you beat the cat. See, when you're revolutionary, you don't, you know, they can't break your spirit that way, you see what I mean? The real thing is you understand the psychology of the cops. They are the ones who really couldn't stand to be in there. That's why they create that kind of thing. You see what I mean? They are the ones who really couldn't stand to be in there. After they come back around and pick up a thing, I wouldn't hand me a plate back out to poor hole, you see, and they open the door and I'm over here in the corner, you know, and my plate is sitting there and all this water, defecation and crap, all over the floor. I look and I say, no, I say this, I say this, I say this, this, this, this

you can't hold, you know, and so they come on out of there, so they clean it up and unflushed the thing and got the thing all clean up. But it's their minds that they're scared of that hole. You see, they're the ones who could never take it. You see, but Huey one time was telling me about how he figured they'd psych out. When he was in jail a long time ago, way before the party started, it put him in the hole because he let a strike in jail for better food, you know? And what they did is they stuck you in the hole and they give you a cup of green marsh and mess, you know? And a two piece of bread or something, twice a day. And so when it first come around there, he would say, I'm not going to eat this crap, you know? Because I was striking up still for better food in the first place. What I'd look like eating this crap, you can't sit not here in the first place. So he would threw it back out for two days, here we would need. But so happened to shift change and a night shift can't change. And the cat who came on night should happen to be a brother

who knew me and he would very well, you know? Like Mary College, you know? And this cat, so he would down it as he was in Hungary. Well, he didn't even ask him where he was in Hungary. What it was, he just went and got some Bologna and cheese sandwiches, you know? And brought him down and gave him a huge night. And every night he'd come on. So the next day, way he would figure out these cats psyched was that they would come down there and blew their minds. When he would come down, they'd come down and the next day with the green marsh, he would be doing push-ups, you know? And you know how this cat would do that for 10 days, and then blew these cats minds, you know? How could he do it? You know, it's just impossible, you know? Well, you were reversed to understand what they're thinking. The first thing is a basic fear. It's impossible to survive and hold. You suppose to break your spirits, you know what I mean? But you don't do that, see? And once you understand that their psychology, deep down inside, they can say everything they want to say, but them cops really get it at hold. That's why they create something that they fear. You see the main, which makes them hate.

It's a base of hate and false fears that they have. So they create the most judgmental things. That's the base of hate. You see how you can describe their hate, you see? So how did you whip a psycho in there, when they came back? Well, on me, I just did my push-ups and didn't pay attention to him, you know? But, you know, they came around and you were doing push-ups? Yeah, I did push-ups, you know? Or after they cleaned that hole out, I wouldn't eat that food not long with that crap was in there. I had that food back out there, and the last time I did that last night, I went ahead and the next day, after they mopped the thing up and cleaned it out that night, and got the thing on the stopper stuff, you know? I don't eat my food, you know? But over here, they didn't feed you the green marshes and stuff, you know? But anyway, I did my push-ups. And when they come back, they come back. I never reacted to that. Look at that. Oh, what they really reacted to is I got out of the hole because so much pressure was coming down on them, up there on this jail, putting me in the hole in the first place, you know? I come to find out the cat who gave me the newspaper, admitted. Oh, yeah, I gave the man an newspaper.

Didn't they look like a bunch of fools for putting me in the hole in the first place, you see? Because they found out I was telling the truth. What about here we looping the autobiography? Is it finished now and you understand? You wrote some of them? Well, it's not a autobiography now. It's kind of like a big biography of the Black Panther Parts, like the story of the Black Panther Party. Did you write part of that here? Well, I finished the latter part of it here in terms of Chicago. It's kind of a history of the whole Black Panther Party. Oh, you heard about the Chicago Party? Everything is in the Chicago trial that went on. And the real detailed things that people don't know what happened, you know? Why, and how, when I got hit in the testes in the courtroom, how the newsmen, the marshes almost threw me on top of the newsmen while I was gagging the chair, see how they tried to jam things down my mouth, how I almost passed out in blood circulation, all that. Just numerous things and how things led up to what they did, what Hoffman did, what Hoffman Raction was, how did you remember, cried? What about them? These things all in this new book.

So I have to read them. It's the whole history of the Black Panther Party. So I first started writing a book. I said a lot of it into the table quarter and then they transcribe it. And I go over it. Did you have a few drinks or? No. Oh, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, when I was first doing the book, it was way over here and the elders were still here and we started off. You see, we was doing a biography here, but it's transforming to the story of the Black Panther Party, the genius of Huey P. Newton, you know, the Black Panther Party, the genius of Huey P. Newton. So you got the whole history of the Black Panther Party from its very beginning. He made years back before Huey and I are, when he and I first met each other and how this stuff developed and all the other organizations we were in, beginning to evolve with and how we quit him and how we resigned from him. Let me ask you this. I want to ask this. When you first ran into Huey Newton, what was it about him that made the two of you come together and eventually formed with him? When you first saw him, what about him? Will you attract it to him? Or did you beat him up the front? The brother had a human quality of being able to make, see, the definition of intelligence is to be able to,

the root word definition of intelligence, to be able to make a human communication. How did you see that, though? And that's what I saw in here because he was, he was making a human communication to me about the evils and the social evils. But how did you see that when you first laid eyes on him? Where did you see him? For the man and people who articulated and make it so clear, a brother, I call him the brother, the nigger, the black man. You see the main, this cat is something else. You saw the main, he's a revolutionary. What's your first bump into Huey? Ed married college in the front of a rally. It wasn't a rally. He just happened to be blowing the three brothers and about 200 people crowded around after a rally and was listening to Huey running down. And people was just interested. I happen to walk up, and I'm just a member of the crowd. I happen to kick off trying to go to Mary College to give me an education. I wanted to be engineer, but turn out that I got his interested in black history and anthropology and social science. By me, Huey. So you ran into Huey, and what did you see? I saw a brother who could run it down,

but articulate to you. He could give you facts to back up on him. He understood he could give you. Have you seen him before? Never seen him in my life before. I just saw a brother. Cat, I relate to people who make human communication and tell us their communication with people. That's all I guess. So you went up to him and you started talking to him. I asked him some questions. I always felt you should ask people questions. And I asked him some questions. You know, I asked him, I said, we're not all that stuff to NACP doing, really helping us, and he bloated away. He said, huh? He said, because all that money they use in the way, to make some law, there's already laws in the book that should be enforced. He cited all of the 13th, 14th, 15th members, and all these kind of things should be enforced by rights and our Constitution right, you see. And he said, we have to exercise those laws. And he talked about cooperatives and what black people need nowadays. They need cooperatives, housing, marketing, what have you. And the workers, unity, and black people moving to our high level, and the cat.

Well, this was before, this was after a year and sort of got themselves together. I understand who you had gone through quite a few changes. It was a ditty-bop and out on the street. And just sort of shit with those little stories out here. Did you know him then? I hear it was a cat who was interested in life. You know, one day I seen he would come walking down the street back footed. Sure, why this cat been? I'd been knowing him a while, you know? I said, when you been, he said, I've been down to Los Angeles, down south. I said, what'd you mean? I said, man, what'd you know, a raggedy t-shirt on? He says, got caught in the rain. I've been, I hit tags on freight trains, and I split. And he was living in the world for a while. You know, he can't read a lot of him in ways. He left all the philosophical points of view. He could, he learned how to read by a memorizing poetry. He didn't know how to read, so he used poetry. And by focusing on poetry to understand words and stuff, he understand the meaning.

He's, you know, poetry gives a lot of in depth about life and society. And when he's learned how to read, that's very key to it. I, that's my analysis of the man's understanding. He went to a lot of poetry to learn how to read. His brother used to help him understand the words. And when he put all the words and the sentence and statements together, he would read, he would read real fast like a lot of people. He reads very normally, but he can get more out of one sentence than average others can get out of a whole paragraph. That's the way I see it, you know? Well, a lot of black leaders and black people before him. It seemed like we're all going through a lot of changes. Malcolm X was with Pam and the Huston, all these people. Who were you before? You were Bob Cill, Chairman. Another brother in the community, man. I went to service. I got kicked out of the military service because I got an argument with a white criminal who thought he was God, who tried to mess over me in my drums. And I was a drummer. And my father told me to be a carpenter. I'm a gentleman aircraft, sheet mode mechanic.

Let's see, what are the trays that I got? I'm a general machine operator. I know all kinds of magniflux and non-destructive testing for machine parts. I used to work at Kaiser Aerospace and electronics. And all the Jim and I parts, but the Jim and I missed a lot of Jim and I parts of Jim and I missed and I did a lot of non-destructive testing for those. I learned that trade. My comedian, I used to do, be a comedian. OK. Punchline comedian, you know? I always was a kid, man. You know, that I mean, I had a poverty life. But the group of cats I was running around was always able to tell jokes and make everybody happy. But it ain't like that no more. You don't make people happy by just telling jokes, you know? What about this nightclub? You used to be telling jokes and nightclubs. Yeah, I used to tell jokes. It was a club called the Brass Rail and a couple of the places. And I got invited to some big parties. As the people seen me in the Reno Club and stuff. Around here. And they rent some big hall and some kind of big reception party, you know? I got invited to number those to be the comedian for the night. But it wasn't the money.

You know, racial jokes and stuff. Or just jokes off the top of them. Like, good gracious. A lot of jokes have clean jokes without saying cuss words, you know, but stuff like this here and a few of them racial jokes. But it wasn't like Dick Gregory. I mean, you know, they make a hero out of the year. They make a, they always make the black man look bad some time. One time I got on the kick while I was trying to ridicule the white man, some, you know, like Chester, you know, Chester come ride in the town one day. But make it no clothes on whatsoever, you know what I mean? And jumps off the horse and Mr. Dylan comes out there, grabs the rain and the horse all upset. Asked him what the heck he'd come ride in the town like to say with no clothes on. Chester, don't you have any better sense in that? Where are you, Mr. Dylan? I'll tell you a minute. Miss Kitty was out in the woods. Mr. Dylan looks at me. He's just a minute, Mr. Dylan. Just a minute. I was out in the woods and Miss Kitty and Miss Kitty told me to take off all my clothes. And Mr. Dylan, I took off all my clothes. He said, not just a minute. Just you come ride in the town and the horse with no clothes on. Mr. Dylan, I'm trying to tell you where you'll please let me tell you.

And he looks at him and he says, now, Mr. Dylan, I took all my clothes like Miss Kitty told me to. And Mr. Dylan, when I turned around, Miss Kitty had taken off all her clothes. and here I am, Mr. Dylan. So that's the kind of stuff. You don't worked all night, stuff. You know, and you create stuff, you know, and now I'm carrying on. That kind of stuff, so it was having had, you know, I try to show that the black man would know the person's supposed to do the joke. I'll try to turn the jokes around. I can just tell, create some jokes, but you can't tell jokes about the revolution, revolution is real. And you can't tell jokes about life all the time, because life is real, you gotta solve it. You know, I don't tell jokes much anymore. That's not around a few cats, I might tell a few jokes, you know. Like you could say, this is a joke, but it's real. Like, when I got into the server, I got kicked out of the military service after three years and 11 months in it. You see what I mean? A top honor man in my tech school class, and all this kind of crap, you know. I've always went to the inn. I didn't get graduated from high school. I went to three days of work graduation,

they kicked me out, and I had to go back and get my high school diploma, you know, those kind of things. As always, Jam, I've said, try to shove me over here, and I want to go over here at old counselors, and all that kind of crap. You know, you live in the ghetto, and you just normal. Well, when I got kicked out of the service, they gave me a discharge. Here's your bad conduct, discharge seal. You won't be able to get a job when you get outside. I say, it wouldn't have no jobs out there if I'd come in here, you know. And it's funny, but it's true. You see the man, and so you live life, and you learn that you have to solve things, and it's not a joke, and things are real, you know. So they kicked me out of the service, so what? You know, I served them fools and trained 25 dudes, you know. Five-level aircraft sheetmen on mechanics, you know. And I know I've gotten my skills, and I'm a top dressed man, you know. But you say, I's a bragging, but I use my skills for all around. I use my skills for serving the people now, you know. And the things I learned from Huey, and the party,

and everything, those are the most valuable experiences I've had as a person. I know Huey, the most valuable elders, and all the party members, you know. And I give a lot of credit to all those brothers and sisters who've stuck with the party. And where have a death may surprise us, you know what I mean? We hope that another pickup, you know, the Chicago machine guns and the futures was going to have to happen when fascism comes. But we want to implement these programs. Well, while we're on death, I know being a black panther and being in this, you know. Well, you don't worry about death. You don't worry about death. I know, but when you wake up in the morning, Huey says, Huey says, you can only die one time, so why die a thousand times? You see? No, but how do you really relate to that? When you wake up in the morning, you know that maybe you might be dead like Fred Hampton, or you might not be here, because of what you stand for now. What, how do you, what kind of changes do you go through? Do you just toss it out of your mind? Or what, how do you think about this?

Not no change. And the black panther party, you don't, you don't go through that. It's like, if you were by death, you can't accomplish nothing. I know, but what do you go through? I'm not saying you worry, buddy, but how do you face death? Well, I face death a couple of times, while you're in a life, you know, situations happen. Well, I almost got killed a number of times. Everything can get hit by a car, to get almost blown away with a shotgun, you know? But mistaken identity, you know. And death comes, you know, death is imminent. And like he always says, you only die one time. So, why in the world, why in heck die a thousand times? Well, you don't worry about it. You know, you live and you fight and you struggle back. You don't want to die. Don't get the wrong idea. Stupid report taught my black panthers might have suicidal tendencies, you know? Stupid. The thing is, we don't want to die. We don't want genocide. We don't want to keep living in the wretched together. We don't want cops brutalized and murdered and shooting our people down.

We don't want this here. So you stop. So you stand up like a man. And I'm not trying to say that everything you do in terms of fighting and killing this noble is not. I relate to sexual activity is more noble to me between a man and a woman that's the most noble thing in the world to me, because that relates to life of human beings produced. You see the man? And whether you get pregnant or not, the very sexual activity is the most noble thing. But the well-to-do kids learn to relate to the military. Do you like what you have to think about that? What about jail? I imagine you have a very active sex life when you're coming up, you know? See? Well, you know, my wife know that in my younger days, I used to chase a lot of chicks. And all the chicks over Mary Carter, they remember they used to know I used to try to abuse the chase. And he would use to chase them too. They'd breath on the black chaser chicks, man. Well, you know, and that's part of life in them sisters. It's beautiful, especially when they chase the brothers. And you grow up and you get married.

There's no such thing as no biological child, a person as a human being, you know? And you don't want to see them in jail. How do you relate to sex when you're in jail? You can't have sex when you're in jail. Oh, you know more. You ever resold an ass? Yeah. Well, you know, you begin to understand where racism and male chauvinism is related. The witch who was put to the stake, was put to the stake because of some sexual activity. What about you and Jill? Well, you analyze society. See, what's the struggle all about? I say, I don't want to go home. I say, I want to eat some food. I want to have some peace and tranquillity. I don't want no cop breaking in my dough in the morning at 3 o'clock, because the Supreme Court had really said, one or no more. Jane got no right breaking in nobody's home at 3 o'clock in the morning. Because that's because they have a passion's police state. And if I decide, you know, I want to go study or something like that, and if I want to make love to my woman, that's where it's at. That's that's that. See, elders say, what kind of society you want to live in? They asked elders one day, what kind of society you want to live in one day?

And this is what you really do. You analyze society when you're in jail if you're a political prisoner. You analyze what's happening. You know, you begin to see things like it. You see what I mean? You begin to see cops, man, who look like punks. You see what I mean? You look at them. You say, he's cast, look at them. Messed in my eyes up, you know? And you desire to be home. Eldridge told his cat when he said, what kind of society when he said, I like to live in a society one day where there are no more oppressive social obstacles to the extent where a man and a woman can relate to you, relate to each other on the basis of natural attraction. Now, you talk about eliminating the economic problems in justice and in evils, political injustices and evils, social injustices and evils and stuff. Think about a black man and a black woman trying to get along and start to fight on each other over a $10 bill. Of course, he ain't got a job or he leaves his woman. That's not a man and a woman relate to each other. You see? You have to get rid of the class society, you see?

And this is very important. This is what you analyze, what you know. Well, as it stands now, looking back on your life and being in the black panther party, because I'm talking to you today, if you consider yourself a success in life, how you mean a success. I'm not even going to say what I mean by success. I think I'm a human being. I have an understanding of things going on. I'm learning more. I don't know all. But I have a deepened, a good insight from the work with the party, relating to the brother minister to fence UEP Newton, and tell us what he projects in a broad perspective. I think that I don't consider a jail, quote unquote, a success, but I don't, I know I'm not here because of anything I've done wrong in society. I know I'm here because of something I'm doing right against the average's ruling class

who perpetuates racism who's been doing wrong against people. Black, brown, yellow, red, white, poor, press, people. I know that. The fact that I'm in jail tells me and lets me know that we on the right track for liberation, for freedom, for a society that makes them sense, a socialist system of some kind that, well, the people have some power. If I go home and relax, that's what I want to do one day. You know what I mean? I want to relax. That will be when I get a success. When we all, the people have success. It won't be me alone. It won't be he or you alone. You remember the Thalman that was here last night? Time was running the tape recorder. He wanted to know what you felt about these rumors about the concentration camps, the detention centers that are being heated up from black people. Oh, rumors?

People know what's happening, man. I think what people have to get hit to, get to brown people, red people, yellow people, the black people, the poor white people, and all the progressive liberals and everything. I think what I have to get hit to, the fact that fascism dons new clothes, you know what I mean? They don't necessarily have to build a little concentration camps out in hills all together. Because when I saw that Salt Lake City County jail, it goes on the ground, baby. You dig? All of them tears going on the ground. And I see these long halls, man, all these empty sales, man. Empty tanks, you know? I see little stuff in the side of the walls, you know what I say? I'm going to get a shoot gas out of this little hole here, these little holes here. I see right now. But they might build a concentration camps right in the city. Tell me to see if we don't have no concentration camps, even if they're driving to people, say. They get the detention laws and all this kind of stuff, man. It's like they know one that they didn't witness Bargo South Africa, you know what I mean? These avaricious ruling class, man.

Them cats, avaricious demagogic ruling class. The demagogic power, they are doing something. And I don't look at it as no rumors. They still, the county jail, the farms and stuff like to see that they're building now. All these just the county jail, man, those are the laws make a concentration camp out of them. See a law can make a concentration camp out of any jail in prison in the world. Really work can make a concentration camp out of them. It's just a bunch of cops saying we got legal to thought it or do so and so on and doing it. That's your concentration camp. When they start talking about detention, that's your concentration camp. So it's no rumor. Let's question I want to ask you about when the expedition thing comes up, and we won't be here to enemy. It was an Alec Rackley case, you know. And I just want your statement on that. Did you kill Alec Rackley? Oh, maybe no one did kill Bargo, Alec Rackley. Did you kill Alec Rackley? What did you order him to be killed? No, brother. You know better than that.

You know I didn't do that. You want to do that for the TV? Tell the people, no, man, I'm not brother. You ain't nobody killed Bargo, Alec Rackley, man. The cops. No way to kill him but the cops. Pigs, or races, or something. But they're going to extradite me. And I'm hit to a reagan. He's Heptom, and we want to relax. We want to live. But we know we've got a fight for it. We know that the people got a struggle for it, you see. And what we're doing is the people struggle. They try to destroy the party. We say they won't never destroy the party. As long as they have a black man, they never destroy the ideology of a black man's party. As long as that's human beings and the faces there's no one to relax. And we're, again, to realize that the average is demagoguering class to lead with all their fastest pigs and militias and forces. And people realize that they want to relax.

They're going to realize they're going to have to move against this vicious force and struggle against it. It's a class struggle and not a race struggle. And the party has made some beautiful inroads in the United people who have been able to work with people with not black racists, people know that. We can work with them. Number of groups of people have worked in coalitions. The United Fronting is fascism. And some of the people have been telling me the party's the most effective organization is it ever came along. And the power structure wants to destroy it. They don't want us around because we don't really show the people how to build a society and work with them to make a society and build a real government where people can relax, live, survive, you know. And all I got to say is power to the people. Because that's where it's at. It means government, other people by the people, for the people in modern and temporary times, you see. And that means something.

That means something to me. Because I want my little house. That's all I want. Little house. And my wife treat her and relate to her intellectually and equally. And my children, little Malik and Krumas Tagli, see my little boy. And how many kids do you have? I got one. Malik, Krumas Tagli, you see. Staggly? Well, I've named him Staggly after the brother of the bloc. The brother of the bloc. But Staggly's got political conscious, Malcolm X. Malik is after Malcolm. Political conscience of the brother from the bloc. Staggly is Malcolm X. Staggly is Malcolm X before he became politically conscience. Living in a hoolim world, that's what it had to youth is going to grow up to be if we don't get a change to society. And it's the social conditions that's going to cause them to be there. So I named my son Malik and Krumas Taggly, see him.

Right on, a beautiful name, right? His name after the brother of the bloc, all his brothers and sisters of the bloc. The Staggly's, you see. And then he's named to Kwame and Krumu, who's a black statesman. And Malik is one of Malcolm X's other name. Malcolm X's other name was El Hajim Malik Shibaz. And I named him Malik after Malcolm X, who was a politically conscious brother, you see. And in the book, you find out he had a lot of Staggly qualities. But he was so politically conscious. Conscious of revolutionary struggle and cladest struggle. Very despised, I suspect that brother. I guess I lived a little bit of Staggly's life, too, you know, here and there. But that's where it's at. You moved your stuff up from a lower level to the higher level, you know. And one time a brother else was on the block. He was a Staggly. Staggly shot Billy back in the 20s. Billy the lion, you know.

Staggly had a sawed off shotgun and a model-afe forward, and owed money on that. His woman kicked him out into coal. Of course, you say this blue love was growing old. Staggly took a walk down on a ramparts street. Dying there were all the bad son of a gun, it's me. By the bucket of blood. You know, the main drag, you got a ramp, yes, from Louisiana, you know. Ramparts street in the bucket of blood. Yeah, this is what Staggly's history is. Staggly's all the shootouts that went on between gamilins and cats fighting over women and stuff. The black women. But this got to stop this criminal to your own people. But it's caused the people to divide it in the mile of social conditions as they say. Staggly shot Billy, you know. Shot that poor boy day. Two black brothers fighting each other. Billy the lion was bad too. Staggly walked into this barn just to get a bite to eat. And he wound up with a glass of muddy water and a piece of rotten meat. He asked the bartender, did he know who he was? And the bartender said, I heard you cross the way.

He said, but I stare bad son of a gun three times a day. Everybody's bad. You see the man? But he would say, oh, oh, organize. Put our strength together. The concepts and political concepts of Malcolm X saw the social news. She digs that struggle to thin ourselves when unjustly attacked. We got a right to it for human beings, you know, unity. So he was talking about it. See, so Staggly, man, it's what a spirited revolution is. You know, the mothers have staggly activities, lump in proletarian activities, the lump in proletariat. And New York, when they played a number, was trying to hit a little money, just trying to get a little money to get to take years and good education. Go to church. You see? But the mothers do that. Scrubbing Miss Anne's kitchen, you know? My mother did it for 30 years. I hated it. And she wouldn't quit work. Me and my son, some brother of a long time,

we'll go take nine years to go talk. My mom and y'all are quit working. Let us take care. She said, no, I'm not going to burn you kids now with me. Finally, she had to quit work. Had operation, had to go to the Alameda County Hospital. Have operation, so she wouldn't die. Now, my mother scrubbed kitchen of a long time. And she used to bring heels, bread, home, bus, deeds, something else. That's life. All of those young Staggly's, a lot of them. Millions of them. You know what I mean? The poor press black America. The sisters too, they need to be treated equal. I don't mean the sisters trying to dominate no brothers. I'm talking about human equality, you know? And I mean that brother little boy Staggly, because that's what his name is. You see? I don't know. Well, my mind is going through them tainted.

I feel just like committing a crime. And every time you see me going through them, I want that out of my mind, yeah. This is N-E-T, National Educational Television.