Eyes on the Prize II; Interview with Bobby Seale

We're back in 1967, what were some of the things going on in the Black community in Oakland at the time that the Panther Party was founded, just set the stage for us. We had a problem with actually police brutality that had been sparking numerous riots in 1966, even prior to that in 1965, the Watts riots, at Vicious Acts of Police brutality. Hugh P. Newton and I were working with the North Open Neighborhood Service and under the City Government, and Stokeley Carmichael. Okay, back in October 1966, set the context in Oakland for the founding of the Black Panther Party. What was going on?

Black Panther Party 1966, when Hugh and I founded that organization, that particular year numerous acts of police brutality had sparked a lot of spontaneous riots, something that Hugh and I were against, the spontaneous riots. Even a year earlier in 1965 in Watts, 65 people were killed, 200 wounded, 5,000 arrested, and Hugh and I began to try to figure out how could we organize 5,000 youthful Black folks into some kind of political, electoral power movement. Stokeley Carmichael was on the scene with Black Power. We were questioning Hugh and I about the need for a functional definition of power, and we came up with this, that power is the ability to define phenomena that in turn make it act in a desired manner, or the phenomena of racism, structured in the City Council at that time. Hugh and I are working with the North Open Neighborhood Service and under the advisory board, we've got 5,000 signatures for them to go to the City Council to get the City Council

to try to set up a Polish review board to deal with complaints of Polish brutality, while the City Council ignored them. So that phenomena was that the City Council was just a racist structure which could care less about the 48% Black and Chicano people who lived in the City of Oakland. So there we are trying to figure out what to do. We finally concluded through those months that we had to start a new organization, and we sit down and begin to write out this 10-point platform and program in the North Open Neighborhood Service and in North Oakland, California, in the community where Hugh and I live. And we wrote out this program, we want power to determine our own destiny and our own Black community, alluding to the need to reorganize political, electoral power, full employment, decent housing, decent education to talk about our true selves, not to have to fight and Vietnam, immediate end to Polish brutality and murder of Black people was point number 7. The right to have juries of our peers and the courts would have you.

We summed it up, we wanted land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And in the tail end, we stuck in two famous paragraphs. When in the course a human event becomes necessary for one people to separate themselves from the political bondage, that was the emphasis, the political bondage, which I've connected with another. And to assume among the powers of the Earth to separate an equal station, to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, I mean this was the kind of summarization we gave to our meeting. And we summarized that 10-point platform program, flipped a coin to see who would be chairman, our one chairman, and we created the Black Panther Party. Okay. How did you come up with the symbol of the name Black Panther? How did you come up with the name Black Panther? Actually, we had written the 10-point platform and program of the organization, but yet didn't have a name. A couple of days later, Hugh P. Newton and I was trying to figure out why it was that on a Lounds County Freedom organization, it was Lounds County, Mississippi, a pamphlet we had.

Why did they have this charging Black Panther as a logo? And Hughie come up with some notion that if you drive a Panther into a corner, if it can't go left and it can't go right, then we'll tend to come out of that corner to wipe out a stop, it's aggressive. And I said, that's just like Black people. All the civil rights people are getting brutalized across this country for exercising the first amendment of the Constitution, which is the law of the land that can't go left. Other people have tried to patrol the police with law books and tape record as they've been brutalized that can't go right. Even the young whites who are protesting, I say, who's a support of the Black people, can't go left, can't go right, I say, we just like the Black Panthers. And in effect, Hugh P. Newton and I named our organization the Black Panther Party, but at first it was the Black Panther Party for self-defense. Later we dropped a self-defense aspect because we didn't want to be classified as a paramilitary organization. Now there were other Black Panther parties that had sprung up around that time. What was your relationship to those other Black Panther parties? The only other group that sprung up about two or three weeks after we had started was the Northern California branch of the Black Panther Party over San Francisco.

I had worked with those particular groups previously in the organization called Revolutionary Action Movement, but I couldn't get along with them. I guess I had a view that they had a misunderstanding about what Revolution was about. In effect, we attempted to work together because they came to us. We were very prominent in the community there for about three months, patrolling police. People really liked what we were doing. The Northern California operation came over and says, we want you to help us escort Sister Betty Shepard from the airport when she arrives for a rally that would be held in Hunters Point, one of the riot areas that people were trying to cool down and organize politically. We said, sure, we love to work with you guys. But what in effect happened there is that in this group, we said we had 20 guns and then they said they had 20 and we found they only had five. So we supplied only 10 or 12 or something like that. And then we found that after we did all this escorting and then later had a Mexican-type

standoff with the police, while this other group, the Revolutionary Action Group's group of the Black Panther Party, had split the scene. And we didn't know why. We found that later on that the guns were unloaded. And we thought and felt that they were jeopardizing the whole situation by not letting us know that. Okay. Let's go back to the police patrols. What went through your mind? Were you afraid of anything? Just put yourself back in that time. You're out there patrolling a police arrest. Just describe the incident and what were you feeling as you'd go through that? First, when you did it with patrol and police, when we decided to even do that at first, at first, I mean, first we had to accept the fact that we made it kill or go to jail. But we were also sensitive to the fact that peaceful demonstrators were being brutalized all across this country, that their rights were being violated. And when we decided to do that, you have to remember, we were dealing with clear-cut fine points of the law that as long as the weapon was not concealed, so we felt secure there that we weren't violating the law.

We studied all the gun laws. We knew them very well. And when you walk up suddenly, you know, when we started patroling the police, six or seven of us, and I think we had one sister, she was packing a pistol and I had a pistol and we had a shotgun in our uniforms and we had our ten-point platformer program copies of that tape record and law books. And I remember one of these first events when we got out of the car. We saw policemen making an arrest of some kind, about 20 or 30 people in the community standing to the side watching and the black folks, one of them says, hey, who are these people? Hey, man, he's got a gun. Hey, man, I'm gonna move out of here. He got a gun and stuff like that. And so here it says, no brothers and sisters, it's not necessary to leave. This is a new organization. The Black Panther Party. We here to observe these police in the community. Make sure there's not going to be any more police brutality. And little Bobby Hutton passed out some of the ten-point platforms of the program, which I have applications to join. And it came down to some point where the policeman says, what are you doing with those guns?

And he says, well, we got out with different ourselves and to observe you and the police. You have no right to observe me. And Huey with all his law study, because he's in a lot of night law school at the time. California State Supreme Court ruling states that everyone has a right to observe a police officer carrying out his duties, along with his standard reason, but this is a way and a reason, but this was constituted in that particular California Supreme Court ruling as 8 to 10 feet. I'm standing approximately 22 feet from you. I will observe you, carry out your duty, whether you like it or not. And the black community saying, well, go ahead on and tell it. Well, I mean, what you're doing here is that you have a nervousness about it at first a bit, but with the community's reaction, which is really what your objective is, it gives you a good feeling that you're right. The guns are loaded. They're not pointing at anyone because we also know California penal code. You can't even play around and point a load of weapons at anyone because it constitutes assault with a daily weapon. So really, I begin to feel secure with our posture, particularly with the people around,

the black community who stayed around to watch this and to see the police back down. And after we learned, after a few couple of months that these police were trying to figure out where they could catch us illegally, I mean, we studied a law much more clearly to finally, we was clearly right. Ultimately, they made a law against us to stop us from carrying guns. That's how illegal we were. Okay. Now, the decision to go to Sacramento was it conceived as a media event, and you might tell why you went up to Sacramento, and did you see it as a media event? Well, we had only hit the press three or four times, so for our print media. And what we had heard is that the police department had went to a local congressman to get a bill written. And he would hit the newspaper, so he would call me up and say, we have to go to Sacramento. It was conceived as a media event that the press is always at the California State Capitol. So we got up there and read a statement in opposition to what the California legislature was doing with respect to us trying to exercise our right to deal with police brutality in our black community.

Then, of course, the press would carry it in our side, we carry it in, of course, hopefully we could get more people to join the Black Panther Party. But in effect, well, even when we arrive, this is what the real, we arrive there. All these black men and women, 24 males and 6 females, with guns, and Ron Reagan, then the governor was on the line with 200 future leaders of America, 12 and 13 and 14-year-old kids. And these kids started leaving his session on the line and coming to see us. And these young white kids thought we were a gun club. You know, hey, neat 30-yard six you got there. Well, the media followed these kids because they were there and asked, aren't you the Black Panther's yes? And I began to read a statement and, of course, the press let us inside, and I was trying to get to the spectator's section, but we wound up on the floor of the California State Legislature, while they're dealing with the bill. We're just going to throw that. We just throw that. Okay, that's a rollout or a camera roll. 36-5. Martin? Okay, you're just saying you were branded as invading. Okay.

Now, talking about, good. The Black Panther Party, me in particular, and the group that was with me, we were branded as homeloms invading the Capitol. In fact, after I read the message once, I went to go inside to the spectator's section. So, when we got in the hall, you have to imagine there's a hundred press people, cameras, still cameras, print media people, backing up, and I'm saying, where is the spectator's section? And the press in this way, Bobby, in effect, they led me on the wrong floor, and we wound up down on the floor, some party members got ahead of me with shotguns, pistol, and one up on the actual floor of the California State legislature. And the press is not even supposed to go in there, and they follow the men taking pitches of passes with guns on the floor. I had to get the party members out of this. Come on, win the wrong place. Because I was related to the spectator's section. So we come out, and not until we left the Capitol, two blocks away when we stopped in a service station to get gas and whatever, did we all get busted. Because of the effect, what we did at the Capitol was not only then later we would charge

with disturbing the piece of this, and which was a misdemeanor, and I wound up doing six months in jail for. Okay. I'm trying to put the panthers in some sort of line of other struggles for Black freedom. Where did the philosophy of the panthers come from? How were you influenced by Malcolm X, who took that Martin and the Elijah Muhammad? Hugh and I had been involved for some time, often on, studying Black history, what have you, what Malcolm had done, where Martin Luther King had come from. I was highly influenced by Martin Luther King at first, and then later Malcolm X. Largely, the Black Path of Party come out of a lot of readings, Hugh and I putting scrutiny to everything going on in the United States of America. We must have subscribed to 27 different periodicals, off-beat periodicals, like the liberate of freedom ways, what have you. Even some periodicals out of Africa. But we had read and digested France's phenomenon's wretched of the earth. I mean, we knew Lorone Binance before the Malay flower. I knew about the 250 slavery votes that included Gabriel Procent, Nat Turner and Denmark Visi.

I mean, Frederick Douglass, everything, the nation of Islam, what had happened to the 1930s, what have you, and so on. And there we were with all this knowledge about our history, our struggle against racism. And when we started the Black Path of Party, it was more or less based on where Malcolm was coming from, where our struggle was, an argument about the civil rights movement not learning to own property. And then Stokeley Carmichael in 1965, 1966, talked about Black power. And we thought we needed a functional definition of just the word power alone. And we felt that if we define the phenomena of a city government framework or institution of government as races in terms of the institutional racism that we understood from studying that history, then it's a hard time. We made that institutionalized political function actually a desired manner. And how do we go about that? So we had to organize political electoral power, we thought.

So this is where we were coming from. Did Malcolm have a particular influence on the Panthers? A particular influence in the sense that Malcolm X had a particular influence on the Panthers in the sense that earlier he had stated that if the civil rights people down on South, who exercised the first amendment of the Constitution, that's what he alluded to, are going to be violated by races than every Black man who has a shotgun in his home has a right to defend himself. Even the deacon for defense in this context had an influence there. Even as we read the history of Robert Williams also had an influence there. So you can see this has been rolling since 59 in terms of how we see the history, even with respect to the slavery votes historically. So it comes to a point that if the civil rights people who are peacefully protesting, if their rights are going to be violated, then we're going to have to move to a higher level and take the position that we have a right to defend ourselves based on the Constitution of the United States. The Marxist philosophy, the Maoist influence, was it there from the beginning?

No. The Marxist type philosophy had no real influence on us creating the Black Panther Party. It was later that we found a way to make money by selling the little red book, the thoughts of Mao Saiton. We saw this book for three or four weeks before we even opened up to read it because we would take it up to the white students in the University of California, we'd buy it for 20 cents and sell it for a buck. Get your rent book, the thoughts of Chairman Mao Saiton, one dollar, I mean people hand over a fist so we'd run out, go pay our rent, buy a few extra shotguns, pay our phone bill, go get more books, come back. We even went to a big anti-war rally with 35,000 people then, sold 2,000, 3,000 books that day. We left our guns at home. We went to sell books because we needed funds, financial support. And one day after all of this selling of this book, we sit down and start reading this book. And one point of that is, do not steal not even a needle and a piece of thread from the people. We thought that was great. We started reading all these points. And then we didn't incorporate some of the aspects that Mao talked about in this little

red book. Later we picked up the four works of Mao Saiton, we began to read that. And then we began to look at Marxist-Leninist materials. But we never was what you called doctrinare socialists. In fact, we didn't get along too well with many of the hardcore doctrinare type socialists. Were black folks in the community were able to understand your Marxist perspective, the Maoist perspective that came into the party? Yeah, but you see, what we did is we inculcated it in a way that we were saying it from the black kind of a hardest point of view in analysis. Did you say, again, to make sure you say that Maoist perspective or whatever? It wasn't a Maoist perspective that we had so much. We used some of the principles that were applicable to our situation in the USA in terms of the organizing principles, what have you. We were more or less, we believe in a sort of cooperative socialism. And we didn't accept, per se, a sort of a state-controlled command economy type concept. So the way we did it, we pulled from what we thought was valuable to us.

And yes, brothers and sisters begin to accept that. I mean, you would have to imagine a brother who has been taught how to read in the black path of party, standing up and telling another brother, own dope, brother, you're acting in an unprinciple manner, you know what I mean? That practices the criteria of the truth and things like to see it. So this is one of the things to have grassroots brothers and sisters citing principle posture, taking a principle posture and trying to educate the community and kind of in their tip to raise the conscience of the black community. Okay. Could you talk about community control, how that became a policy and a program for the Panther Party? Could it be with the police and the community control? Well, community control was in a vague way from the initial point of, that was all related to the functional definition of power. But we initiated a program where we got some research teams, a University of California and some other places and put together a real referendum to the ballot for community control

of police, really to decentralize the police and have five commissioners duly elected by the people, a form of more participatory democracy here. And we finally did get it on the ballot in the city of Berkeley. It lost by one percentage point. But that was one aspect along with selling the Black Panther Party newspaper and dealing with a lot of other problems in the community. That was one of the key political electoral aspects in 1968 that we attempted to initiate. Okay. What did the Panther Party begin to start moving on a national front that become a national organization effectively? Effectively as a national organization, the Black Panther Party began to move. Well originally, you have to understand that when I did the California, when I went to California State Capitol, that caused us first to have international notoriety. But in terms of an organizational level, the Black Panther Party really spread from prior to the murder of the assassination of Brother Martin Luther King.

We only had about 700 members and six or seven chapters in branches, largely on the West Coast. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, our organization grew from 700 to 5000 members plus. And with the assassination of Robert Kinney later that year, the young white radicals readily coalesced with us at our direction. They couldn't direct us, they coalesced with us. So it was whoever in the power stretch who murdered Martin Luther King caused a lot of people who cited Martin Luther King to say, the heck with it, let's join the Panthers. And they in effect tagged us as the vanguard of the revolution. Okay. Could you talk about the breakfast programs in the development of the survival programs? How do they begin? Young man standing out in front of the Black Panther Party office that saw papers at my Climbers High School or Black Schools said something about the fact that some teachers were trying to get free lunches for high school students. And I said, what about the little kids they need to eat too?

So I initiated with the Central Committee that we wanted a free breakfast for children program. Elginch Cleaver called it a Sissy program. I said, who's the greatest revolutionary in the world to you, Elginch Cleaver? He says, Miles St. Thomas. I said, when you read the material, it says, always served the people. But mine and Huey's concept related to that was that the recipients of the program in effect become educated to understand that they have to organize an opposition to the racist power structure. But the breakfast programs initiated in Reverend Neal's Church in West Oakland, California, spread it around this country to a point where we were feeding over a couple hundred thousand kids, free breakfast, later Willie Brown and some other state legislators in California move and got a bill through even with a override for five million dollars to all the schools in the poor and working class communities for free breakfast for children. And how did you see these programs, did you see them as being and ended up themselves or were they part of a revolutionary policy? They were part of a revolutionary policy.

Some people like to say they were reformed programs because there's no a reformed program comes from the power structure who's repressing it. This is a people's revolutionary program which educates the people that they have to be in opposition and oppose the power structure. That is the revolutionary character of the program. The program to us makes a statement even if the power structure incorporates it in its system. It makes a statement that we're saying from the community, that's what you should have been doing in the first term place. So that's how I attitude. That was how I attitude about that. Okay. What was you in Newton's particular gift, why did you work with him, I mean, in forming a party, what was Newton's particular gift? His, he was basic genius as we used to call it, was his ability, starting from a theoretical point of view to show how we could move to heighten the contradiction as a means one to educate the people or to capture their imagination.

I mean, the very idea of patrolling the police was really grounded in a theory that he we had, that if the idiot Kluclec clans could stand on the capital steps and get publicity, then we could do the same thing. Only our publicity would be about trying to raise the conscious of black people to understand that we have to take a posture and get the destruction of racism. So raising the contradictions to a higher level was key to how Huey thought and understood and analyzed the situation. Okay. Once again, you, you might explain what you mean by contradictions, once again, what was you in Newton's particular gift? Huey Newton's basic genius as we used to call it, was his ability to deal with the contradiction and raise the contradiction. In a sense, I would say that Huey's Newton's genius was a, let's say it likes to say it. Huey was able to take the pass of party and take the very concept of civil disobedience and put it on the cutting edge while at the same time holding a legal posture.

In other words, you distinguish civil disobedience from criminality. Well, the power structure would say, y'all criminals, but we know that a civil disobedient stands out loud on the corner and states what he or she is opposed to, was a criminalist covert. So Huey put it on the cutting edge without becoming criminal and put it on the cutting edge to make the issue sharp enough to make even the white races realize that they have to pay attention to what's going on here. That was Huey Newton's genius. Okay. We're going to move ahead a little bit. Now, the alliance was SNCC, the student unbiased, non-biased and coordinating committee. How did that come about? Huey was arrested and charged with first degree murder in Oakland, California. We had scheduled a birthday rally for Huey and he held it and I left and went to Washington, D.C., the visits to Stokeley to see what he'd come to the rally.

He agreed to come to the rally. We go so after that James Foreman came out and started rapping with us and lost Andrews and later came up and explained to us that seemingly SNCC was getting ready to fall apart because of the white students who tended to dominate the decision-making policy. And later after that we heard that the United States government was getting ready to draft Stokeley to go fight and be it now. Well, Andrew and I put our heads together and we wrote up a draft notice for Stokeley. I went to the front steps of the San Francisco Police Department, had a press conference and read the draft notice that Stokeley Carmichael was here by draft it into the Black Panther Party and he will not fight in the race and imperialistic power structures war and be it now. Stokeley in effect accepted. Rap Brown came to the Huey pre-Newten birthday rally, James Foreman and others and we asked Rap Brown would he accept the draft also. So Rap Brown came to the minister justice who Stokeley Carmichael became the Arab prime

minister and James Foreman himself from SNCC became the minister of education. Was there a history of relations between SNCC and the Panther Party? No, there was not a history of relations. I mean whenever Stokeley came to the San Francisco from Bay Area in 65 and 66 before the party started, Huey and I would always go to those rallies to hear him speak at the time but in terms of having a direct hard core relation or being a member of his organ and those like the organ and his friend, no we were not. Did you think of a alliance between SNCC and the Panthers with Lyos? Well I don't know, it happened that it didn't last. I mean Stokeley wound up in 1969 in Scandinavia speaking around the world representing the party and representing the black people struggling in America in general, that's where we told him to do it, you free will. But while we had developed a lot of alliances, working coalitions may I say, with the white left in America Stokeley began to criticize that and we told him he was wrong, that no white

people run our organization, that all those people in the working coalition functions and caters to this underneath, we need, based on the fact that they attribute against racism, if we need this kind of support, this kind of support, give it to us, if you don't give it to support, get out of our way. But that spurred a situation that when I got back in the early 1969, that we quietly kicked Stokeley out of the Black Panther Party and told him he wasn't a member anymore. We didn't want a whole lot of press at that time about it because it's enough having a bunch of racist media trying to destroy what you represent by saying they've split the split that kind of stuff. But what was your hope when SNCC and the Panthers joined together, what was the greatest hope? Initially, I guess what we really looked at was that we had a larger, well first, here was two organizations that could somewhat merge its leadership. The notoriety of the spokesman, rap Brown, Stokeley Carf Michael, Bobby Ciel, Elders Cleaver,

Huey was in jail as a political prisoner, what have you, and that it would spur a broader ability to organize that black community, political electoral power unity and give this revolutionary character that the Black Panther Party needed. At that time, this was back in off the SNCC for a second. Did you believe that a revolution was starting and what were the signs if you did? Oh yeah, there was there, the revolution was there. I mean, when you started getting shootouts and vows in 2016, your Black Panther Party members were also getting killed, particularly in the year 1969, yes, it was already going on before the Black Panther Party started. I mean... Did you just rephrase, I'm actually going to say the revolution is there, okay? Did you believe that the revolution was starting, what were the signs? Yes, the revolution was already going on. I mean, the signs was not only the spontaneous rights that had occurred through the latter

part of the 60s, but the civil rights movement, the fact that the racist power structure all across this country was attacking peaceful demonstrators, and now here we had moved after several years to a position of defending ourselves, people like Malcolm X who had preceded us. Now here we were attempted to implement some aspects of where he was coming from. It was a battle, it was a struggle, and I think we rooted ourselves in in the sense that we began to get millions of Black people to really look at where we were coming from in our stand against the power structure. Now a lot of people call a revolution a confrontation, really what you and I meant by a revolution was a need to revolve more political power and economic power back into the hands of the people. That's really what revolution is. Those intermediate confrontations evolved because the racist power structure do not want us to exercise our democratic human rights to organize our people in opposition to their

structure racism. Okay. Can you talk a little bit about your coalitions with white radical organizations? When did that begin and what were some of those working coalitions? One of the first working coalitions we had was with the anti-JRF movement they had. So you have to understand something. Hugh Pinin and I was in and about around these guys many times away before the party started and sometimes after. Now we would sometimes be around the University of California and we would be arguing with them. You don't know what police brutality is and I would make jokes. You guys need a course, police brutality 101 before you understand what you mean. What do you mean? You need to get brutalized by some police so you understand what's happening in the Black community. And then I used to say maybe you need an advanced course, police brutality 405. And once these guys got brutalized out there in front of the induction center in Oakland California that's an un-interested, police brutality 105. Back.

Mark, do you sound more, read to Mark? Okay. Why did you begin, why did the panthers begin their coalitions with white radical organizations? I guess mainly because we saw a resource, which, I guess we began most of our coalitions with the young white radical because of resource, but initially it was the young white radicals who sort of identified with Hugh Pinin and Jail after the vicious police brutality upon the draft resistors and that initiated the coalition. What in effect happened though was we, when they wanted to call us, we demanded of them that they support us and that you don't run our organizations. And from there it became with the Peace and Freedom Party who wanted to get on the ballot.

We thought there was a nice thing to do and now third party factors. So we let them into black community to register in the Peace and Freedom Party. Well, third of the people wound up registering black, fifth party anyway. And as we looked at it and as we saw the anti-war protests and the young whites who did really get out in the streets to demonstrate against destruction, racism, we saw that as a resource and that another aspect of our analysis was that we were talking about power to the people. We made a new analysis of what nationalism was about black nationalism, that whatever black unity we had it was really sort of a catalyst to help humanize the world. And we were that catalyst here in Afro-America, Africa, that's what it was about. And that the world was composed of more than just black folks, you know. So the coalition aspect to us being what one defined as a minority in the United States of America.

If the white community showed some split, then we should sign with that aspect of the group that seemed to be our actors, friends to us. Okay. We should have rolled out. So rolled out in 3067, camera roll, 3067. Okay. Okay. Okay. Take us back to, you know, Ben Shabazz arrives. You know, your outdoors, your indoors, you're waiting for it to arrive. You know, what did you hope to achieve by meeting her? The whole Black Panther Party contingent. We all arrived at the airport. U.S. is lying everybody up. Some policemen in plain clothes come out. What do you do with these guns? U.S. said that's irrelevant. There's none of your business. Some more policemen come out. He says, where are you going? Uses. We're going in the airport. The police says, you can't go in the airport line with guns like this. He said, this place of comedy is over 200 people in any place of comedy. It's over 200 people.

We excise our Constitution rights and guns are not illegal. Be quiet. Bobby, let's go. I started forward. Hup! We start marching. We walked into the airport. Walked all the way to the gate. Waiting for sister Ben Shabazz. She got, we surrounded her. We came out. Police are walking everywhere. People with their eyes all bugged out. What are these guys doing with these guns? We come out. We get into the car. And we take off. We go to Randparts Magazine for Eldridge Cleaver to interview sister Ben Shabazz. The police came up. Because there's two paths that stand out in front of Randparts. Several more police came up. Then some police came up and little Bobby Hutton was cussing this policeman out. Telling him, you ain't coming in here. You ain't got no warrant. Because the brothers begin to know a little law, etc. And as we came out, sister Ben Shabazz says, you did not want any cameras. And so when we came out, Huey came out. So Huey had a magazine. He put it up in front of this Channel 7 camera. And the guy knocked it down. Huey put it back up. And then the guy hit Huey. And then Huey turned around. Popped the camera man. And then turned around. He said, police officer, rest this man. He assaulted me.

And Huey is telling the police to arrest this white reporter with the, etc. He assaulted me. Then the police come around and start grabbing the guns. He said, spread. Don't turn on your back on these backs. You know, MFs. And the next thing you know, we spread. I put my hand on my gun. The police says, don't put your hand on your gun. We spread it. And we backed up. A real Mexican standoff. The other guys with the other group were gone. Which sister Ben Shabazz. She'd been gone. And we got in our cars. And we split and left. And then we found the other guys. The five. And didn't even have that guns loaded. Okay. Once again, the symbol, the name black panther. How did that come about in? We were about to announce County Alabama. I'm not saying that because it's not correct. The lounge kind of freedom argument. Okay. How did you come up with the name black panther for the black panther party? He would be doing it. I had received a pamphlet from the lounge kind of freedom organization from down south. And they had a logo of a picture of a charging black panther. I asked Huey, why would they have a charging black panther?

Later, he came up with the point that if you push a panther into a corner, if you can't go left and you can't go right, then we'll tend to come out of that corner to wipe out its aggressor, whoever had pushed it into the corner. And the analogy was, that's what black people have been pushed. Peaceful demonstrators exercised the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States. And then bull corners and racists brutalizing them. They couldn't go left. Couldn't go right with the petition we had for community police review boards. They ignored that to the city government. So in effect, you and I decided to name the black panther party, the black panther party for self-defense. We later dropped the defense because we didn't want to be tagged as a paramilitary organization. Okay, I want to go to some Fred Hampton questions now. What are your personal recollections? What personal recollections do you have of Fred Hampton as a party leader? My old personal recollections of Fred Hampton as a party leader was the time when I went to Chicago to see firsthand what brother Fred Hampton and Bobby Rush had organized. It blew my mind.

Fred Hampton's charismatic ability to teach and rap to young brothers and sisters have a thousand young brothers and sisters in the church outside. Powered to the people. Powered to the people. Powered to the people. And to even find out that Fred Hampton had previously been in AACP and here he was, you know, had all these breakfast programs, the health clinics rolling and everything. And to speak. And I remember later telling party members that if anything ever happened to me because I know sooner or later these races don't want to kill me, that since Fred Hampton has deputy chairman under me with the Illinois State Chapter of the Black Panther Party, then he will become the chairman of our national organization. Please make sure you always consider him. I was telling members of the Central Committee that. And Fred Hampton was just one of those young brothers who could articulate, bring home, capture the feeling of young people and break it down. He could break, I was good at breaking all these theory down so the average person would understand. But Fred Hampton, he was twice as good as I was. What support was Hampton Bobby Russian, the Chicago Panther Party, to you, in organizing on your behalf during your trial in Chicago?

The Chicago Chapter of the Black Panther Party, the Illinois State Chapter of the Black Panther Party, is automatically, I mean, you know, this back up cut. Cut, cut. Okay, how were Fred Hampton Bobby Rush and the Illinois State Chapter able to organize on your behalf during your trial in Chicago? That was Bobby Rush, Fred Hampton, the Illinois State Chapter of the Black Panther Party. That was automatic, you know, that you organized. And I'm the chairman of the National Organization of Black Panther Party, the Oranumus rallies that Fred Hampton and Bobby Rush put together. I mean, right outside the courtroom, you know, free Bobby, et cetera. Could you just refer to your trial? Okay, once again. How did Fred Hampton and Bobby Rush and the Illinois State Chapter organize on your behalf during your trial in Chicago? That was automatic, that Illinois State Chapter of the Black Panther Party

would organize. They automatically organize rallies, what have you, et cetera, in relation to that particular trial. The Chicago 8 conspiracy trial. The one in which I was changed shackling gag. I mean, they had numerous rallies right outside the courtroom, marches, what have you, et cetera, to bring attention, of course, to the fact that I was being railroaded and judge you as often as courtroom. Okay. The police in the FBI raided the Chicago Panther headquarters several times in 1969. At some point, they broke in and knocked it down. Could you just tell that story about the time that they just tore the place apart and what you advised them to do and what the community did in response to what happened afterwards? In 1969, practically every branch and chapter of the Black Panther Party throughout the United States was attacked not less than once and as much as five times, particularly in Chicago. There was, yeah, I'm going to goofing up here. The police raided the Panther headquarters in Chicago in 1969,

several times. Just talk us through what happened and what you advised the Panthers to do after that office was raided. The Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party was attacked several times. In one particular time, I remember they raided the Black Panther Party office and they had a short shootout. And of course, we had a rule that we would take an arrest. So somehow another, you know, it was noted, so they took the arrest. But what the police did is they went in like Elliott Ness with sludge hammers. I mean, I'll press all of our IBM typewriters. They'd been donated by the white radicals, our newspapers. I mean, our memographed papers by the caseload and then set the whole building on fire. This is what the FBI and the Chicago police did. Now, the idea of the part of the police was to psych the community out. They call me up the next day. I says, is the office open? Well, no, the police boarded the place up. I say, open it back up. You got the lease to the place. What? I says, open it up. Take all that boarding down.

Paint that place. And the Black Panther Party members start working for a couple of days. The next thing, you know, the community start bringing wood, paint, and everything. And open the Black Panther Party office right back up. And of course, this was an attempt to terrorize us out of existence at the same time. If they, if we would close down, it would leave the Black community saying, well, they stopped them. How were your suspicions and fears of the FBI and other federal and local police forces changing in those years? And the 68 and 69, how were you becoming more aware and more suspicious of them? Actually, to the year 69, we had a big purge in the Black Panther Party. Because we had grown by early 69 to 78,000 Black people in the Black Panther Party. And we had too many provocative agents in too many incidents and things were happening. You know, like a $42 service station robbery in the Black Panther Party newspaper truck with bold, black one-foot letters that says the Black Panther Black Community News Service for 42 bucks. And I'm bringing in $25,000 a year to the Black Panther Party every penny going into the treasure of the Black Panther Party.

What do we need with 42 bucks? You see, so this was a lot of provocative agent activity that was going on that in effect was an attempt on the part of the FBI to make us look bad in the eyes of not only the public, but the Black community in particular. So we were very leery and we began to kick people out. Even if people fool around and wouldn't pass some leaflets out, kick them out. We got too many people in the organization. We didn't know what was happening. Sometimes you would have some people pass out leaflets and you find a stack of them in a trash can. So that kind of stuff. And who was in this area? So kick that person out of the party. Get a rid of it. We were too big. In fact, I think we reduced by the end of that year, we reduced our membership by 50%. And were you more suspicious of the police as well? We were infiltrated by the FBI, police, provocative agents. I mean, it's documented fact through Coentel Pro's operation through our Freedom Information Act. In fact, I mean, they're showing that the FBI had set up for the National Guard Army in Chicago to be ripped off and then blamed on us.

I mean, it was all set up using provocative agents by the FBI to do that. You know, I mean, John Huggins and Al Pringles Munchy Carter had been shot, killed, and murdered in UCLA. And nowadays, we find and trace all this information back to provocative agent activity orchestrated by what the FBI. Okay. Describe how you learned about Fred Hampton had been murdered in your personal reaction. I had been brought back to Oakland, San Francisco. I had been brought back from Chicago conspiracy trial, back to Oakland to wait, extradition, and was in jail decent of the fourth. And I picked up the newspaper that morning, I could get it. It also rolled out in 3068, about 3069 times called 1410.

Mark it. Okay. Describe how you learned about Fred Hampton's murder and what was your personal reaction? I was sitting in San Francisco County, jail, that morning, and read the newspapers that Fred Hampton and Mark Clark had been killed and murdered. That morning, over the next few days, I found out a few more facts of the situation. And to hear and understand that State's attorney had her hand with a specially police group had entered the house at 5am in the morning and shot the place up. And to under hear that, the bedroom, the wall, this way to the bedroom, and the wall, this way to the bedroom had hundreds of rounds shot in at bed level. I mean, and then hear that Fred Hampton had been shot in the head. And Mark Clark, of course, killed upon that entry at 5am in the morning. To me, it was a culminating point.

I had worried about too many of us getting killed earlier, but it was a culminating point. The only real relief that came out of that was a couple months later. When Roy Wilkins of the NAACP created a commission to investigate the FBI's concerted attempt to smash the Black Panther Party, which really is a pivot point in which caused a decline in attacks upon Black Panther Party members' offices and homes. OK, just going back a little bit. At one point, Fred Hampton had rejected the weather underground. What was the talk in the Central Committee of the Panther Party and it made it the same? It wasn't Fred Hampton who rejected the weather underground. It was me. I gave Fred Hampton direct orders not to participate with the weather underground. Eldritch Cleveland wanted him to participate. Eldritch Cleveland was trying to run the Black Panther Party from Algiers. I said, don't participate in it because all you're doing is setting yourself up.

I said to Black Panther, I said to their young whites, I'm not opposed to their activity, but do not bring Black people out of the Black community to run with the white young underground in the White community. It don't work, brother. All they're going to do is corner you and they're going to kill the blacks before they kill the whites. I gave him direct orders not to participate in opposition to Eldritch Cleveland attempting to give Fred Hampton direct orders to participate and Fred Hampton followed my directives. OK, they're going to the Gary Convention now. You made a point in your speech at the Gary Convention and you're saying, I won't call my brother's pig, it's not Gary Indiana. What are your most vivid recollections of going to a major national black political convention in the city with a black mayor and with a black chief of police? Well, I thought that was positive to the extent that previously to that African American policemen's league and the Chicago police department basically supported us. Most people don't know that there were quite a few policemen here and there who understood who were getting that when we talked about structured racism inside the police department.

Most people don't know that when you and I around the time we first started the Black Panther Party, well a black policeman was a friend of ours who recruited with the police department. We didn't want to destroy the police department. What we wanted to do was run it. That's why we ran for Mayor Rokland in a fresh place so we reorder it and redirect it and make sure it serves the real basic designs and needs of the people. So when we had a black mayor, a black police chief, et cetera, that was like a sign of things beginning to change, you know, to control those agencies of government was important in terms of when you start talking about power or black power. Specifically, let's talk about Gary. Let's see, I don't know that much about Gary. I just made that statement as a sign of direction of change that was coming. I don't know much about Gary. I knew that we had a black mayor. I thought that was great. The black mayor could be elected. The fact that we had some policemen there and a black police chief, that was important. Now on the other end of the fact, what if that black policeman chief later had turned out to be a vicious, vicious, I don't call him a vicious black pig.

You see what I mean? So, I mean, I can distinguish between the color you are and the content of your character. You see what I mean? It was like a hopeful, decent character that may hopefully evolve. Okay. What was your message to the convention and Gary, and how did you feel about how do you feel you were seeing? I wasn't allowed to participate in the convention. I was taking in some entertainment thing to speak to some people for 20 minutes, which I always thought was absurd in the first place. Being one, an organization as the black Panther Party, which was entrenched and rooted into this overall struggle. So, for whatever reason, whoever organized that convention, they obviously didn't want a leading representative of the black Panther Party to participate in the convention. Okay. A major theme of Gary was unity without uniformity. Do you recall a sense of unity or was the conventions marked by risks and differences in your environment? I don't even know nothing about the convention. I flew in one afternoon, I got in at four or five o'clock. I spoke that night and later went to a hotel called a plane the next day.

I don't even know what those guys was pulling. They didn't want us in it. That's what it was. For whatever silly reason, I don't know. You talked about the Panther's effectiveness and organizing programs and the Panthers in Chicago are their effectiveness there. What expectations did the national leaders of the Panthers have for Hampton in 1969? Okay. How did the Central Committee work in terms of coordinating the branches with the Central Committee? Largely, the Central Committee evolved to a point that we may have had 10 or 12 different members. They were mostly initially composed of people who ran chapters in other states. Many times like we may not get to Fred Hampton or Bobby Rush in Chicago, but if the Central Committee, if we had a quorum for it, if we had a majority of three-quarter votes for a particular policy, this is all right.

We're going to have to create breakfast for children programs. The Central Committee agreed called Democratic Centralism and the majority of the votes. Then we give directives to chapters and branches that they had to set up a pre-breathless program, a set-up for preventative medical health care clinic, beginning maybe with sickle cell neem metessing in a local church that may allow the use of that church. It was a lot of directives given. We had minister of defense, chairman, minister of education, minister of information, and so on. In each chapter, we had deputy chairman, deputy minister of defense, deputy minister of education, and so on. Each branch, you know what I mean? It was like directives, minister of education, and so on. But each chapter and branch, so that they take care of their basic functions, based on the directives they got from the Central Committee of the Black Panther Party. Thank you.

Okay. But we're just going to switch to... ... with Sam Bowler. Yeah, Markie. Okay, Bowler. How are you contacting about coming to America? Actually, Huey... I'm sorry, I was making a move on the side. Okay, now. Can you start again? I'm sorry. I already contacted about coming to America. Huey Newton was first asked to be a member of that committee dealing with Atatica. And the Central Committee voted that maybe I should go. And via Bill Constra, I think it was, who originally had called. Was there real initial contact there, I think? I'm not going to say, I forget exactly how they... What's the West Constra? Huh? Constra. Markie. Team B. Markie. How are you contacting about coming to America? Actually, Bill Constra contacted the Black Panther Party. Originally, the request from the prisoners was for Huey.

The Central Committee decided that I would go. When we arrived at Atatica, at first, they wouldn't even let me in the prison the very first day. I mean, these guards came off and pointed shotguns at the front windshield and the rear windshield. And then finally, Constra was called out. And then they refused to let me in. We left. The grounds was on the highway headed back to Buffalo, New York. Here comes some state truth with stopping us. You know, warden Oswald, I want you to come back. Okay, but when we go back, they let us in. I see the committee for a short period there. And they're trying to somewhat talk to me about the need to get these prisoners to drop the last three negotiating points. We go into the prison. When I get into the prison, I make a speech to the prisoners. And power to the people, prisoners' power, et cetera, to this effect. Then when we finish with the speech, there's a lot of other committee members with us, you know, the negotiating committee.

And by two, there's a couple of the brothers calling us as Bobby, because we pull you over here and talk with you. So they pull me down to the other end of the table, away from everybody else, away from any cameras. And this is what they explain. They wanted me to see if it was possible that if we could get a helicopter, a sizeable helicopter, to come in over the wall, real fast, let the 9 or 10 prisoners who want to get out and then take them out of the country. And then they would drop the last three negotiating points. And this is what, and this is you, they heard. These prisoners heard that we had a black United Airlines pilot. I mean, who threw him on a full-time job with the United Airlines? And he did work with us because he was an editor part-time of the Black Panther Party newspaper. And I said, hey, I don't know. I said when I see where your brothers are coming from, because that would be a real revolutionary act. I really identified with that.

It could be pulled this off. And then when it means I'm going to have to leave, man, in the morning or something to get back to Oakland, because I've got to talk to the center committee. I can't talk on the phones or whatever. So it's right. So next morning, so I leave the prison. Next morning, I try to get really good back in the prison, but they won't let me back in Oswald, Warden Oswald will not let me back in. I leave and catch a plane, 12 noon or something. I wind up in California. We two, three hours behind in difference in time. What have you? I have a meeting. Charles Gary, our lawyer, Charles Gary. He's the chief counsel for all cases of the Black Panther Party comes over. I tell him what the situation is. We deducted as impossible to even get anybody. And even my white radical friends or anybody with such short notice, even to consider whether or not they would take the chance of getting killed to fly over with a helicopter. I said, well, I'm going to have to go back. I said, you know, so that night, Sunday night, room out, fluid. 30, 69. That was good. One was due to my ass. For Team B, market?

Okay, let's start from this question. What was it like when you got to Attica when you found him and you got to the prison? What was the atmosphere like? How were you treated? When me and my other Black Panther Party Minus arrives there, we was really surrounded with shotguns. You know, a couple of guards in front, a couple of policemen, a state policeman in the rear. Shotguns pointed directly at the window. I mean, actually they pointed when they found out I was Bobby Seale. That's when they did it. Okay. And what we were trying to say to somebody, well, the lawyer, he said, this is Bobby Seale. And so he got a hold of Council and Council came out. And that's when they took the shotguns away. And then the word was out that Commissioner Oswald did not want me in the prison. It would not let me in. And the news had covered that event, you know, that I was leaving. And the prisoners saw over the television inside the prison that I was not allowed in. And something happened.

So I had split, you know, we was halfway back to Buffalo, ten miles from the prison. And the state trooper car comes along and stops us and says Commissioner Oswald would like for you to come back to prison. He will let you in. Let's go. Okay. Now, you went inside and you met the other observers and missionized Oswald. And they presented 28 points, too. What was your reaction to the 28 points? Well, they were basically 28 points. And to me, they were the demands of the prisoners. You know, of course, my point was I need to get inside the prison to talk to the prisoners about the 28 points. A couple of the people both said that we got to get into compromise on these last three points. I think Commissioner Oswald made the sickle. We cannot negotiate on these last three points. So we went inside. When I went inside, the prison finally, when we got passable, there's massive amount of firepower and idiot guards making a statement, you know what I mean. Yeah, we're blowy ass away or something like this, what have you, et cetera.

If anything happens, you get it, too. I was saying that to me and my other party members was with us. Finally, when we got to where the prisoners were, well, the leaders of the negotiating the prisoners' aspect had me speak. I spoke. We sit down and we start talking. And then three of the brothers pulled me to the side at the other end of the table where no cameras or nobody was at. And start wrapping to me about, we need a helicopter in here. If we can get a helicopter in here and get to 8 or 9 or 10, whoever it was, they want it out. Who could leave the country and go into exile. Then at that point, they would negotiate on the, they would drop the other three points that are what we're not negotiating on. Which involves some prisoners leaving the country as exile. One of those points, one of those last three points that we're not negotiable. So in effect, I couldn't, in other words, I just couldn't make a decision that I was going to bring a helicopter. I told him I had to go back to Oakland, California.

I had to talk to the central community about how I'm partying to do this. So the next morning, which was Sunday, I came back to the prison in the tips to go in again. Commissioner Oswald would not let me in. What happened next morning after the Saturday night when you went to the yard? Next morning, I came back to the prison and I got inside. I went into the negotiating committee's room. I told him to tell him I want to get in. Commissioner Oswald came out and said, are you going to tell him they have to drop the last three points? I said, Commissioner Oswald, I can't do that at this time. He said, if you can't tell him to do that, then you can't go into prison. So I left, caught a plane a couple of hours later, flew to San Francisco. Immediately, he had a new opinion on the members of the central committee.

And Charles Gary, our lawyer, come. Because we got to make this private between... Charles Gary is all about lawyers, right? So if anything, come up about conspiracy. Well, this is between our lawyers and us and what legal ground we have. And I explained to him that they wanted a helicopter to fly in over the wall to let the prisoners, nine to ten prisoners get out. And then, because they'd heard we had a United Airlines black United Airlines pilot who was a member of the Black Panther Party, who edited our paper. Newspaper part time sometimes. And they thought maybe we could get a pilot for a helicopter. But here, if you're new to nine, the rest of it, it was too short of a pivot time. It was too short notice. Even if we could have gotten one of our white radical revolutionary friends, it was too short of a notice to even put it all together. And the best thing I could do is go back and try to get with the negotiating committee to try to see what we can do now. The problem with me is I wasn't able to say for the prisoners that you're going to drop those last three points.

I couldn't do that. But that Monday morning, when I arrived back in Buffalo, coming from the airport, when the local lawyers had picked us up, dropped us off the hotel. We threw our bags in the door, shut the door, got back in the car. Live on radio is suddenly, as we're driving a couple of miles from Buffalo, the prison and the prisoners are being attacked. I mean, this is what's going on. We hear this live on radio. We drive a few miles and say, they've attacked the prison. I mean, this is live. The next day, I was still there in Buffalo. The New York Times has printed that Bobby Seale had went in that last Saturday night and told the prisoners to cut the throats of the guards. Which, of course, the coroner later confirmed that not one of the prisoners, which I never did tell the prisoners that, because I would have... Mark? I want you to pick up from after you went after you left the prison,

you went back to Oakland. What happened when you went back to Oakland? When I got back to Oakland, we had such a committee meeting, Charles Gary came over. We discussed the fact that it was impossible to get a helicopter or a pilot to fly into over the prison wall, and that the best thing for me to do is go back, so Charles Gary decided to go back with me. And that's, in effect, basically, what happened. When you got back, you heard about... You were in the car and you heard on the radio if they had attacked you. Retaken via the yard. Well, we had arrived. We picked up his airport the next Monday morning, early that Monday morning. We went to a motel through our bags in the door, jumped in the car, headed to the prison after a couple of miles on the road. There was a live broadcast of what was going on at the prison. And suddenly, the live broadcast began to say they've attacked the prison. They're attacking that, and you could actually hear the gunfire

in the background over the live broadcast of the car radio. And I've always continued that I was not the right person to be one of the key negotiating members concerning Attica, because she needed a person more like Martin Luther King, or even Malcolm Maxx, probably could handle it better than me, because I had a real dedication to political revolutionary activity, even at that time. You know, having 26-year Black Panther Party members killed by vicious racists in this country, of course, we killed 14 of them too, and then it taxed on us. But it got into a point that I could, I considered the idea of if it was possible to bring a helicopter in on the wall as a peer revolutionary act against the penal legal system that's part and parcel of the racist power restriction America. To me, that was like really getting into the mitigated of criticising the penal legal system in America. Because if you really got down to a real reform in the prison system of America, you would have to question the whole exploitation that goes on with capitalism in America.

What was the atmosphere like in America as you were in there? What was going on? What was the tension? What was the feelings like in there? When I got into the prison yard and then announced that Brother Bobby Seale is here on the microphone as I was walking in, right on. These brothers were like overwhelmed. It was like, it was victory. We got Bobby Seale in here, the political revolutionary, they probably heard so much about. That's what was going on. I mean, it was a prepared, warm welcoming, you know, in the sense that, hey, Brother Bobby is here. I mean, there's been movies and stuff that misplaced my role there, you know. Okay, I mean, not just what's happening with the witness, but the guards and all that too. Oh, that's before we get to the yard. You have to go down this long haul. Tell me about that. Okay, finally, Commissioner Oswald said we could go

so then we're walking through the halls, and finally, we get to a certain section that, I mean, they have police guards lined up piggyback, so to speak. 20 on this side, 20 on this side. Then there's an upper-level catwalk where there's 10 or 15 up there. They got machine guns. I'm talking about righteous machine guns, shot guns. And so we have to stop when we walk through this section here. And these racist guards talking about, yeah, you guys, you're going to get it too. If anything happens, I'm going to make sure somebody, I'm going to make sure I blow him away, I'm going to make sure I get his ass or something like this effect, you know. So that's this racist atmosphere. And this is the cut-off point between out here and when you get ready to go down to this long quarter, before you go down this long quarter where the prisoners are in control. Okay, so this is where we have to walk through this situation. So, you know, vicious racism.

Three back to team C. Okay, what were your expectations when you went to the Gary, the National Black Political Convention in Gary? And what did you find when you got there? I was invited to speak at the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana. And I thought that I would give some kind of speech to the convention itself, you know, with respect to us, the Black Panther Party, who are heavy political organizers around America. And when I arrived there, Jesse Jackson met me and at some locations they told us to show at, he brought in Isaac Hayes. Isaac Hayes met me. I write what Isaac Hayes for a while. And then later I was asked to come out to speak and I realized that I was speaking following some entertainment event and so I spoke for 10 or 15 minutes.

And then when we finish, I asked Jesse if I remember correctly, I thought I was supposed to speak at the political convention, whether we're dealing with hammering out ideological and political goal objectives. He says, no, you were scheduled to speak here at this event. I says, oh, later Isaac Hayes went on at this location that I was at, which to me at that point I realized that I had been pulled in on was being ostracized from the real convention floor delegates and most of the people I was speaking to were dressed for an entertainment night situation, you know. What do you think you weren't asked to speak on the floor? I don't know, maybe it had to do with the prominence of the Black Panther Party and maybe it had to do with... Did you just repress the question? What was the question again? Why weren't you asked to speak on the convention floor? The reason that maybe I wasn't asked to speak on the convention floor

may have been had to do with our own prominence, maybe it had to do with a group of people who didn't necessarily may have thought that we may have took some kind of leadership role in the National Black Political Convention. We were heavily critical of cultural nationalism being a part of leading what we thought should have been political revolutionary activity. That may have been a reason, you know, I couldn't. But in one context, I felt slighted. I thought it was underhanded on the part of whoever organized the convention, which in effect, so that could contribute it to a lot of things that went down in the 60s and the early 70s. On the one hand, here we have law enforcement agencies doing everything they can to keep us from getting together. Okay, we just wrote that. I think we got it.