Black Journal; What Happened to the Black Revolution?

This program was made possible by a grant from Pepsi Cola company that people wanted and wanted was I think revolution aptly describes what we were about. It doesn't describe what we did but it describes will be tried in the evolutionary and persistent struggle of blacks for full equality began with the importation of Africans to America and has symbolically lived on in the Frederick Douglass's Harriet Tubman's and going to candies of American history. But it took a new turn in the 60s for the first time black power was placed in the context of overt confrontation or as many would come to call it

the black revolution. Larry Coleman a former college student of mine would later write as a lawyer quote The revolution has come as suddenly as a late spring tornado in the Midwest coming without warning. It left without notice leaving in its wake a disparate aggregation in quest of direction and of quote somewhere along the line the civil rights movement had lost its direction. And after Martin Luther King. Its leadership substituting rhetoric for substance the Charlatans the pimps and the agent provocateurs to fill the void after the revolution. Pete Larry wrote yesterday's flaming oratory became today's cliches. Thank you. And at the end of the program you should know various interpretations of the word revolution. Why the

civil rights movement lost its momentum. How black leaders feel about violence and you should know where their black leaders think their success was due to the riots in the 60s. We started out in the 50s looking for civil rights and suddenly someone threw a rock then a Molotov cocktail and we were told we were in a revolution. Then we started talking like we were but little else. Like a new dance craze literally All Blacks were into the rhetoric of the 60s. But some more intensely than others. It started with negro becoming black then civil rights became struggle. Racism became oppression. And finally the quote movement petered out as a class struggle. In fact the motion was acted out in an intellectual vacuum. The rhetoric of land changing hands redistribution of wealth and collective responsibility soon gave way to do your own thing and what's in it for me. Media's role was significant. It created and perpetuated the so called black revolution that even convinced blacks that they were conducting a revolution. Example. Black people really never bought Eldridge Cleaver as a leader someone

who tried to convince himself and others that rape would make the world a better place. But the media love the mileage they got out of his hysterics. His fair value fighting whites and resulted in ratings. We never really had a revolution in the 60s not in its classic sense anyway. It was mostly ideological war a social movement with sporadic and unorganized assaults on physical property. Julian Bond talks about this. Do you feel that the term revolution is really appropriate for what was going on in the 60s among blacks it was appropriate for what was building. Revolution does not have to be the final act itself and I think we were building a revolution and it didn't have to have been a revolution with the gun in the sand and the hammer and sickle in the other room or a bomb ready to explode didn't have to have barricades and shots exchanged. I think we were building a revolution but we inched up the hill toward it and we stopped. And we've been sliding slowly back downward ever since but we've been running so hard to keep in the same place that we haven't realized the slide has begun. But I think

revolution after we described what we were about it doesn't describe what we did but it describes will be tried. But when you say revolution you know that country is up in the minds of people. Violent acts you know I think this would have been essentially a nonviolent revolution and by that I don't mean black people being beaten up by white people and not resisting but essentially a political revolution an economic revolution. Had we continue. From let's say the late sixties to today with the same kind of political organizing and education that we thought we were doing and had we been able to institutionalize it not just in the rural south but throughout Black America. And had we gotten the white students with whom we had worked very closely to do in their community what they had done very well in our community then I think we'd be on the edge of a real economic and political revolution in this country if you say we would have had a revolution. What were we having. We were having the beginning steps we were having the ferment we were having the building of discontented cadres in society we were having the

training sessions for people who would spend the next 20 or so years building political and economic power in this country we were having almost consciousness raising sessions without calling them that as we tried this and it didn't work and we tried that and it didn't work or we succeeded here but the success wasn't what we thought it would be. We were building toward a revolutionary thing. Whites have become convinced that blacks were unappreciative and reacted with Law and Order as a response to black demands the legitimate needs of poor blacks got lost. Roger Wilkins explains. What do you essentially see as. Well let me rephrase the question. What do you think happened to the black revolution. It be quite by clash. Enshrined as policy by the Nixon administration. People were tired of white people. They thought that my God we've made all this effort in the in the 60s. They've gotten a lot.

And there were black success models. There were the politicians there were the entertainers there were the black superstar athletes. And so people could look at the statistics they could look at the few sprinkling of superstars and beyond that glittering facade they could not see the poverty the generations of kids growing up never knowing either parent to have worked in the country was anxious. You'll remember back it was a big newspaper and media fad about discovering the new black middle class about five years ago that flowed from this and that emphasis on the new black middle class a new black affluence diverted attention from the real job to be done which was to get the poorest class of blacks economic opportunities. Black Journal conducted an opinion poll on the subject of the black revolution. We created two samples and compared the opinions of Anthony's 100 most influential black Americans with another

100 black leaders not only have an example our results are based on those responding when asked do you feel that black America was actually involved in a revolution during the 60s. 68 percent of the ebony sample said yes and the black Journal sample also perceive the 60s in a revolutionary context by an 82 to 18 percent majority. What came to be known as the black revolution grew out of the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s I am you know I need to do is learn to forget our differences. You don't catch hell cause you're a Methodist or Baptist you don't catch hell because you're a Democrat or Republican you don't catch hell because you're a Mason on the hill and you sure don't care chill cause you're an American Cause if you were an American you wouldn't get your hair you can't you're going to if you're a black man. You can kiss the scenery. Have a Dream. My little children will one day live in a

nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream where all my children men and white men turn prowls Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and say no no way. The only spirit. Thank god I'm not here yet and ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country. When our eyes today look around the America we see America through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism we see America

through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of American if we don't see any American dream. We've experienced only the American nightmare the white man feels that the negro can never live with him because it's the white man who is stopping integration I'm not the one who is stopping negroes minigame grating with whites. I'm not the one who keeps negroes from integrating white schools. And so don't put the burden of proof on me. It is the white man himself who is guilty and who's guilty. Prove that the negro in the white man can't live side by side. I do think that that black American within a very few years will

build up his own political party. The politics of this world is made by the white man. You don't have any yourself. The white man makes all of the things they need teach the people. Lol Zappala takes in which he has planned and devised himself and there is so much crookedness in the white man's politics that you cannot win with peace. What politics people never wanted and wanted. I'm

here to tell you in case you don't know that a new generation of black people in this country we don't care anything about your own generation don't want to hear anything about hurricanes. What do we care about. I want to ask were you surprised when the nonviolent movement of the 60s turned violent. The ebony group said no by 92 percent and an almost identical percentage of black Journal sample agree when asked do you feel the term riots used in the 60s was and is appropriate. Sixty three percent of the ebony sample answered No. And 72 percent of the black Journal sample agreed also. Emphasizing the transition of black power in a violent context to black power in a political context the ebony sample unanimously said yes and the black Journal group agreed on 87 to 13 percent majority.

We think wrongly so will that marches are no good and some marches are no good. But the physical kinds of protests the demonstration the sit in and the picket line those are techniques that go back to the beginning of the labor movement in this country and will go forward I think for another hundred years as long as there are people and in need they're going to express with their bodies what's wrong with them. And I think we have wrongly learned from the 1960s that marches don't work anymore. The anti-war movement in this country collapsed because it believed that it could march around the Pentagon three times in the war would end and they did it in the war didn't and they said Well to hell with this I'm not going to do it anymore and so they dissipated and split away. I think we've wrongly learned that physical movements are doomed to failure and that's not true. Martin Luther King's philosophy was nonviolent confrontation but he's in came violently. What happened to me from my brother. What I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead but it really don't matter with me

now because I've been to the mountain top to at Oamaru all I can about it I would like to live a long life long. Heaven has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will and he's allowing me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seeing the promised land. I may not get there with you but I want you to know knowing that there are people. The punishment for moving on securing a symbol for the loss of a man that had taken us from black man with enlightenment tingling. We knew people who

had the power to stand up in front of white people in the power to confront the confront to confront jails to confront all of this. Leadership is not the way I mean we'll never get it. Nobody never did anything and you know that you think that if you have to sit down to get something you'll never get it so the best way to get it is to get up and go get it if that's what you want to be really want. And even if every black person in America got to go quietly I still don't believe this would be the answer because I don't believe that we could win. And number two I'm not at all convinced that this is the way to effect a meaningful lasting change. The effect that I'm most aware of in the assassination of Dr. King was in the final and total rejection on the part of the establishment. Black people

approaching the establishment on its own terms it was proven and made very clear to black people that this is something that would not work that the reward of Dr. King's very gracious and Noble and Western Christian approach to solving black people's problems was rejected finally next week like Journal examines how attitudes nonverbal behavior racial prejudices affect communications interpersonal and interracial between blacks and whites. Revolution. I want to write revolutions about I've read about the bloody revolution. Examples of the Russian Revolution. How can you

say there were different views about revolution by the leaders of the 60s revolution is in Asia. Revolution is a network of the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you think you'll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is you don't know what the revolution is. If you do go I want to go to New York. We are in Africa. We listen. This is going to develop a Corniche in this country.

I think the Panthers very much like we in Snick did not build the kind of community base that they had to build to come into a community of black community and to call the owner of the neighborhood barbecue stand an avaricious capitalist is just misunderstand the way black communities work to denigrate the black minister who can stand some denigration. But to denigrate him just out of hand as many of the Panthers did when they hit a community first thing is to immediately alienate yourself from all of that congregation from all the people who shop at that barbecue stand from all of the people who depend on the said they want to be near. So the combination of official harassment and destruct. And then I think sort of the build and destructiveness destroyed the Panthers and it ultimately destroyed all of these groups who hadn't established a base strong enough

to sustain them. Although we can't call it a revolution in the classic sense a lot of young people got hurt in the name of one most notable for self-destruction was the Black Panthers. One day in 1967 a group of DNA finding itself as the Black Panthers armed to the teeth with shotguns and rifles marched into the California General Assembly to demonstrate what they called their need to defend themselves and provided a sensation hungry media with all the evidence it needed that a revolution was really taking place. Death to the pigs. Power to the sniper became standard rhetoric for a group that Jag or Hoover would be Wrone Asli identify as the single greatest threat to our national security. And I am sure they are and the Black Panthers first made national news just a year ago when they enter the state capitol in Sacramento armed with rifles and pistols. They were there they said to demonstrate opposition to the proposed legislation that would outlaw all the carrying a loaded weapon at me. You know I am I

am I am not a and or an undertaker I am. In the year following this incident there were a series of armed confrontations between the Oakland police and the Panthers. The police maintain the Panthers have provoked these incidents. The Panthers claim the police are trying to liquidate their leadership and destroy the party. Oakland Police Chief Gainer there have been many people in this city who have maligned this police department who had to resign Marlin sentimentality or other reasons sympathize with the Black Panthers and the peace and freedom movement and what really what real evidence is there to cause people to be so sick as to do that aligning. Take a look at this more than are justified. Chuck that has been put out by we I mean they tried it even if I won. We tried to murder a policeman and what do they say on this piece of paper. A black man who dedicated his

life to defending the black community from racist oppression was murdered in cold blood by local police. Rejected US allies in US attempts to create Regulus Black Panther Party poses a real threat to the peace and tranquility of the city of Oakland. The panzers have a different version of their rule. Huey Newton Panzer leader will soon be on trial for his life. We asked him about the origins of the party and their concept of sounds distance. We use the Black Panther assassin as a symbol. Because of the nature of the plant managers strike anyone but when he has a sale a bone to the back of the first person the aggressor continues then you're striking out in a whine about his aggressor thoroughly wholly absolutely and completely. The irony is I like to call her a secondary rather than third party because we see very little difference as far as black people are concerned between a Republican or Democratic Party here in the

United States. We've us a colonized people. So we're in a situation of a mother country and a colony and the politics of the mother country as nad answers the needs of the black subjects in the colony. So therefore this is the black political party and it's a Vanguard Group for the freedom of black people. Originally I'm sorry you called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The name has been changed to the Black Panther Party because many people misunderstood it. The scope of. Since the power structure of the establishment then and received tours and every area in the political area so therefore we felt it necessary to bring a political party to defend and promote the general interests of black

people. Continuing the fine stand against the police they seek support by running candidates on the right organized Peace and Freedom Party ticket and are publishing their own newspaper. Bobby Seale Hansard term paper did you know black people program here just a few. Every black man you know to write a black community. So which i like I'm a free human being and he will get the education people. The true nature of this decade in America's education it teaches us our true history and our role in the presentation to be exempt Motors or freedom from religion. The man needed a policeman John murdered

black people basically want education gold in just no way we don't have what we do. White people want to help. There's only just so control the black people. We do rich white people what they can do and what they have to do. When it racism we have to. I'm sure I was with you as to what happened to the panther biggies of this quote revolution. He Newton jumped bail and is supposedly in Cuba working on a sugar plantation. Bobby Seale unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Oakland California hitting hard against crime. Recently

he wrote President Carter asking for a job in the new administration. Eldridge Cleaver turned from fugitive to pornographic fashion designer then to the stars and stripes and patriotism and now he alleges to having been born again for Jesus. He once wanted to overthrow the American nightmare. Now he's promoting the American dream once called the minister of information for the Black Panthers. Many now label him opportunist. Fifty seven percent of the Lebanese sample said no when asked do you feel that Eldridge Cleaver is sincere about his conversion to patriotism and Christianity. But the black Journal sample was split 50 50. The question Do you feel that your success is related to the alleged riots of the 60s. I was given a no by 54 percent of the ebony sample but 80 percent of the black journals sample feel the opposite. To the question Are you optimistic about a future for blacks in America and he said yes by 91 percent and the black Journal sample agreed by 65 to 35 percent majority.

There were more universal principles involved in what was called the black revolution than one would suspect. More than we were led to believe. The media saw it as a freak show with star billing going to publicity starved men and women. But for whatever its failings were and they were legion it called for a time when no one would want for the basic necessities. Black leaders now work in various capacities to bring about a time when all men and women will be FREE WILL BE equal. A time when no one will want for the basic necessities. A case in point Detroit which suffers tremendously from its image as a crime infested city has under a black mayor and a black police chief reduced crime substantially. Statistics from October 1976 through February 1977 as compared with the same period a year before. Documents a significant reduction in crime on home sides are down twenty six point five percent robberies down thirty six point seven percent and rates have been reduced by twelve point seven percent. The city leadership has adopted an anti-crime slogan called one will get you to this new anti-crime policy abolish use plea bargaining and any crime

committed with a gun results in an automatic two year jail sentence. No pleas to a lesser charge are allowed. This tough anti-crime program in Detroit is typical of the new thrust of black leaders around the country. The black revolution of the 60s has embraced a common regard for mankind's dreams and aspirations. In the 70s blacks started all fighting white people and ended up fighting in justice. I am the proceeding program was made possible by a grant from Pepsi Cola Company

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