sixties - Blogs - TheBlackList Pub
2024-03-29T08:13:18Z
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A Discussion with Elder Mukasa Ricks on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/a-discussion-with-elder-mukasa-ricks-on-the-student-nonviol
2016-03-11T15:30:00.000Z
2016-03-11T15:30:00.000Z
Dr. Kinaya C. Sokoya
https://www.theblacklist.net/members/DrKinayaCSokoya
<div><p align="center" style="text-align:left;">In April 1960, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, then led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., established the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Ella Baker, at the suggestion of Dr. King, was the primary organizer (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 2013). This student movement was one of a few Black Power organizations that changed its philosophy from being a civil rights organization, embracing the strategy of non-violence, to a Black Power organization that embraced the strategy of self-defense. The change in philosophy resulted from the violence student activists experienced during voter registration drives in the South. From 1960-1966, the group was a civil rights organization. From 1966-1971, it was a Black power organization.</p><p>Also in April 1960, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference held a conference at Shaw University to organize students (SNCC, 2013). One hundred and twenty six students who were activists at sit-in counters in 12 southern states and student activists from 19 northern colleges attended the conference. The establishment of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was an outcome of the conference. The late Marion Barry (“Mayor for Life” in the District of Columbia) was elected its first chair. From 1960 to 1966, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee were active in the civil rights movement. It participated in sit-ins, freedom rides, voter registration drives, the 1963 March on Washington, and formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the then all White state Democratic Party.</p><p> In 1965, a crisis in philosophy (civil rights v. Black power) caused the organization to split into two factions and White members were expelled from the organization (SNCC, 2013). The transformation of SNCC from civil rights to Black power was reflected in its leadership:</p><p> <i>Civil Rights era:</i></p><div style="margin-left:2em;"><ul><li>Marion Barry, first Chairman, 1960-1961</li></ul></div><div style="margin-left:2em;"><ul><li>Charles McDrew, second Chairman, 1961-1963</li></ul></div><div style="margin-left:2em;"><ul><li>John Lewis, third Chairman, 1963-1966</li></ul></div><p><i> </i><i>Black Power era:</i></p><div style="margin-left:2em;"><ul><li>Stokely Carmichael, fourth Chairman, 1966-1967</li></ul></div><div style="margin-left:2em;"><ul><li>H. Rap Brown, fifth Chairman, 1967-1969.</li></ul></div><p>The cry for “Black Power” with a raised fist originated from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1966 in Greenwood, Mississippi. Although Carmichael popularized the term, it was actually Mukasa (aka Willie Ricks), another member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who cried “Black Power” while SNCC was completing a march from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. Previously, James Meredith had organized the march to encourage voter registration. During the march, Meredith was shot by a sniper and hospitalized. Black activists showed up the next day to complete the march. During the march, Mukasa cried “Black Power.” When queried about the meaning of Black Power, Carmichael responded,</p><p> “We have to do what every group in the country did – we’ve got to take over the community where we outnumber people so we can have decent jobs” (History Learning Site, 2013, p. 2).</p><p>The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was instrumental in establishing the Black Panther Party. In 1964, the organization helped form the Lowndes County (Alabama) Freedom Organization, which was the original Black Panther Party. In 1967, Stokely Carmichael left SNCC to join the Black Panther Party in California. H. Rap Brown, who, in 1969, changed the name of the organization to the Student National Coordinating Committee, succeeded him (SNCC, 2013). In 1969, Brown also resigned and joined the Black Panther Party as its Minister of Justice. When the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee changed its philosophy from civil rights to Black power, the government placed it under surveillance as part of its COINTELPRO initiative. In 1967, the Department of Defense stated:</p><p> “SNCC can no longer be considered a civil rights group. It has become a racist organization with Black supremacy ideals and an expressed hatred for Whites. It employs violent and militant measures that may be defined as extreme when compared to those of more moderate groups” (SNCC, 2013, p. 6).</p><p>Because of a loss of funding and COINTELPRO, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee closed its doors in 1971.</p><p style="text-align:center;"><b> </b><b>Interview with Mukasa Ricks, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Pioneer</b></p><p><i>1. What are your memories of the Black Power Movement during this period?</i></p><p>In Detroit and Newark, where those cities were burned, the cry was “Black Power” and with Black Power, we integrated “Black is Beautiful” in the texture of our hair, our noses, our lips, and our skin. And, it pointed us towards our history in Africa and to a philosophy of nationalism. We began to be guided by theories of Malcolm X, Garvey, Nkrumah, and Seku Toure. We then began to look to revolutionaries throughout the world including Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse-tung, and others.</p><p>We had to defeat the civil rights leaders on the question of Black Power. We had to fight them. They condemned us - SNCC. They joined with the government against us. We stuck with Black Power and the masses of people endorsed Black Power through the rebellions that took place, the new movement, and the rise of the Nationalist Movement. SNCC was endorsed by other groups in the world - African groups - that were seeking independence, fighting against some form of colonialism and imperialism worldwide. Different groups inside Africa and in the Caribbean endorsed Black Power. So, Black Power became a theory that the masses could relate to and we were able to relate it to all aspects of our struggle and our liberation.</p><p><i>2. Please share any information you have on the goals and plans emanating from</i> <i>Black Power Conference of 1967 that took place in Newark, New Jersey.</i></p><p>I was in a car going to that conference – me, Ralph Silverstone, and some other SNCC people. When the car got halfway, we stopped and I got out of the car and told them I'd see them later. I took another path.</p><p><i>3</i>. <i>Were you active with any organizations and, if so, what organization(s), in what capacity, and for what period of time?</i></p><p>I joined SNCC in 1961 or 1962, from the founding of SNCC to the very end of SNCC. I was just one of the soldiers but I was a key organizer for SNCC and was a spokesman for SNCC in the field. I had the title of “Reverend Rick” and I was on the podium with Dr. King and all the rest of those so-called leaders. Anyway, I was the one that challenged them. I was a motivator and agitator for SNCC as well as an organizer. I was probably the strongest youth organizer that SNCC had.</p><p><i>4. What global events influenced the formation and activities of your organization?</i></p><p>We merged our activities with different international struggles that were happening. In the early 60s, we supported the Mau Mau movement in Kenya, the revolution that took place in Kenya. We met with Kenya’s Oginga Odinga when he came to Atlanta and we realized that our movements were linked. Early on we sent people to Africa, to Guinea, and to other places. We always had a link with them and we also had different relationships and support from networks like Cuba.</p><p><i>5. What were the strengths and challenges of the organization?</i></p><p>The strength of SNCC was it was an organization rooted in the people and it was an organization that organized the people. It was organizing organizations that gave us strength. The other organizations - civil rights organizations - mobilized and we organized. We helped create all kinds of organizations and groups that were grassroots and we maintained good relationships with the people. SNCC was an organizing organization while Dr. King was a mobilizer. We created local leadership. We saw ourselves as organizers not leaders.</p><p>We had many challenges. As a matter of fact, challenging the system, being in the forefront of the movement, taking the leadership from all the other civil rights groups, and being a youthful organization; that was, I guess, a great challenge. They would say that the things that we did, we were the youth of the movement, were too dangerous. We took the struggle into Mississippi and into other areas. We went on the freedom rides and participated in the sit-ins. We took more of a militant position. SNCC became a vanguard of the civil rights movement where we found ourselves being the leaders and being the ones that forced or motivated the other civil rights organizations to come our way. SNCC was the organization that went into Mississippi. We went alone and then others came, but we were the ones that organized the state of Mississippi. SNCC led King and the so-called Civil Rights Movement.</p><p>I was not part of RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement), but I knew the people in the organization. I don't know what RAM had but SNCC had the organization, the territory, and the people. RAM tried to relate to SNCC in different ways but SNCC was the vanguard organization out there that most groups tried to identify with.</p><p><i>6. What were the accomplishments of the organization?</i></p><p>We took our people to another level. We fought many, many battles. We struggled throughout the South and brought organizations to another level of consciousness. We were able to link our movement with movements throughout the world and we challenged America and its system of oppression, Apartheid, and segregation. We broke their back and we broke the back of the Democratic and Republican parties that were oppressing us and keeping us from voting and participating. We challenged the American government in Mississippi on the general oppression we found, the rebellions in the South, and the rebellions in the 60s. We shook the foundation of this country and made them change all of their policies toward African people. I think the rebellion shook this country to its foundation forcing them to pass laws that would open doors, like ending segregation and things that were closed to us, that we couldn't get in. We forced them to open those doors. By forcing them to open their doors, they couldn't discriminate against us on the job and in other areas. They were so frustrated that the government was forced to pass laws saying they could not discriminate. Anybody who got federal money had to have a certain percentage of people of African descent on those jobs and wherever the federal money was, there had been some Black representatives. We forced them to appoint Black officials and elect Black people. SNCC opened those doors. SNCC was the one that started registering people to vote and open the doors. SNCC ran the first Blacks for offices, helped form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and those kinds of things. SNCC was able to open the doors to a lot of things and we don't even know the effect of our activities because SNCC was influenced by and linked up with Africa. The African independence movement began to identify with SNCC and the different governments in Africa began to say to America as we exposed them, "How can you call yourselves our friend and treat Black people in America the way you do?” We embarrassed America on the international level and at different points we began to reach out to African governments. At some point, we joined our movement with the liberation movements in Africa and began to fight imperialism on the international level. It was SNCC that really took on South Africa. SNCC people demonstrated in 1963. In 1965, SNCC went to the UN, broke in, and beat up the South African staff. We beat up the ambassadors. I went to jail over that in New York and in DC for fighting against Apartheid. SNCC opened the gates to begin to educate people and link the African movement with our SNCC movement and let people know what was going on in South Africa.</p><p><i>7. What do you know about COINTELPRO?</i></p><p>We all had problems in Mississippi with COINTELPRO because they were attacking us and doing all kinds of things to undermine our movement and our organizations. They attacked different members of our families. I know my family was attacked. They attempted to assassinate different members of my family. We lived through that so COINTELPRO was nothing but despised. It tried to undermine our movement. I've always been under the gaze of COINTELPRO and other elements of the FBI and CIA from my inception inside the movement.</p><p><i>8. What is the current status of the organization?</i></p><p>SNCC closed in 1969. We come together every now and then. We just had a big gathering in North Carolina for the 50th anniversary of the movement. We come together mostly, a few of us, White and Black SNCC people, who were involved in thousands of different movements and different phases that moved us forward toward humanity. SNCC people were involved in all kinds of things. Some people were involved in being revolutionary and linking with revolutionary movements around the world from North Korea to all the liberation movements in Africa, to Kwame Nkrumah, Seku Toure, Maoism, and Marxism. So the movement continued and different SNCC people took different paths.</p><p><i>9. How did the activities of your organization affect colleges and universities on campuses and in the community?</i></p><p>Well, during and after the Black Power Movement, after SNCC had organized the first Black Panther Party and after we began to talk about Black Power, it linked our people to countries all over the world. It also linked our people to students. We had a student brigade that organized students throughout the country. SNCC was made up of students so we always had a relationship with students. 1966 was when we made the cry for Black Power. In 1967, we had a conference on Black Power. This conference on Black Power was after the Detroit rebellions, where the cry for Black Power spread. Every household was divided on the question of Black Power. Where some people were against Black Power, you had somebody in that household that supported Black Power. So, Black Power became a very intense debate in the African community. In 1967, Fisk University had what was called the Black Power Conference. Fisk was the first school to go up in rebellion - Fisk and Tennessee State - they were the first schools to have rebellions. There were shootings and all that. They were blamed SNCC and Carmichael. One of the things we did was organize students on campuses and encourage them to organize organizations like Black student unions. SNCC went out to the White schools and began to encourage them (students) to organize Black student unions.</p><p><i>10. Did your organization’s activities affect the development of Black student organizations (BSUs) and, if so, how?</i></p><p>We influenced BSUs (Black student unions). We encouraged students to get organized on White campuses. We encouraged them to demand Black books and include Blackness in the schools, which became Black Studies. So when they (students) were on White campuses, they could relate to the Movement. That was one of our purposes for doing that.</p><p>Regarding Fisk University: The students had endorsed Black Power. They were one of the first groups to endorse Black Power. They had a Black Power conference. While we were having the conference, the police shot a Black man in the neighborhood. When they shot the man in the back of the head right down the street from the school, the students got involved in it in some kind of way and we took the students to the streets. Then, we began to challenge the police by throwing bricks, bottles, firebombs and other things. And, before you know it, the city was in rebellion and it was coming from the campus at Fisk University. So now you had a rebellion on your hands at Fisk and Tennessee State. They blamed SNCC for that rebellion. They began to terrorize and shoot students and stuff like that. On many campuses; including Black ones like Texas Southern, Orangeburg (the Orangeburg massacre), and other Black schools; we began to demand Blackness and set up Black Power chapters at all the Black schools; and, we asked the kids at the White schools to do the same thing. In doing so, they began to demand more from the schools and put together Black Studies programs and all those things.</p><p><i>11. Did your organization’s activities affect the development of Black studies departments at higher education institutions and, if so, how?</i></p><p> The Black Studies program came out of the Black Power Movement. We began to encourage students to demand Black Studies programs. In some cases, like Cornell, students took up guns and took over administration buildings. All across the country, our children began to threaten to take over administration buildings and when they did that, most of the schools were so frightened. A couple of administration buildings were burned down. In fact, some members of the administration were kidnapped and held (hostage) and the students demanded different kinds of things like Black Studies and African Studies. We wanted the White schools to build a school where they taught something that related to us. So, all of that became the Black Studies program.</p><p><i>12. Are you aware of any activities, programs, or benefits to higher education</i> <i>resulting from the efforts of your organization or other organizations in the Black Power Movement during the period from 1960 – 1980? Do they still exist today?</i></p><p>Most of the students did not have any Black books, Black films, weren’t able to attend Black lectures, or any of that. As a matter of fact, most schools taught history and left Africa completely out. I met a man at the University of Georgia one time. I was talking about Africa and he said, “I'm getting ready to write my dissertation for my PhD in history and I have never studied one word about Africa.” Most schools, White schools and what have you, studied history and sociology and left Africa completely out. So, we affected the whole system by making them add Africa, see us as human beings, and see Africa as something that had made some kind of contribution to the world. That's why we forced them to put millions and millions of dollars into Black Studies programs all over the country. So, all of these Black Studies degrees and Black Studies departments were established. Because they had Black faculty and Black Studies, they began to add us into other studies, like psychology and sociology. As a matter of fact, we brought civilization to this country where White people could sit in the same room with us and we could sit in the same room with them on an equal level.</p><p>On the response of HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), they were scared to death of it - the administrators were. But, the students overtook the administrations and forced the issue. They tried to keep us out. As a matter of fact, Black administrators at colleges and Black high schools did everything in their power to keep us off their campuses. But, the students took over and forced them to let us on campuses. It went through the students. They were mostly college students. Anytime we went to a high school it was still mostly high school students. It wasn't the administration. It was the students. Every now and then, you had a professor that would invite us and be on our side. But, the administration as a whole, most of them were under the tutoring of the State and those kinds of people. Once we got African Studies departments in there, the FBI went to them and told them who to give jobs to. They gave people jobs who didn't relate to us. One of the things they were supposed to do was keep Ralph, Stokely, SNCC, me and Black Power people off of the campuses. The Black Studies departments did everything they could to keep us off campuses. They began to work with the system to keep us off. Now they talk about Black Power and SNCC and all that and they don't invite me. I don't get invited anywhere.</p><p>Black Nationalism grew out of the rebellions and it linked us with Africa. We began to point toward Africa and began to have relationships with Africa, Kwame Nkrumah, Seku Toure, and Lumumba - all kinds of worldviews. We created all kinds of world studies. When you look at it from the point of view of SNCC, all these groups attached their shit to us - women’s organizations, women's rights - they began to attach their shit. And now, gay rights; they attached their shit to us. So a whole lot of people benefited from SNCC and what our movement was doing. As a matter of fact, they began to put international studies and all that kind of stuff on the campuses. That was a benefit from us because we created the opportunities by demanding Black studies on campuses. Women studies - there were no women studies on campuses until we picked up guns and demanded Black studies, African studies. Now you got women studies, gay studies and all those other studies.</p><p><i>13. Are there other persons you feel would provide helpful information on this topic?</i></p><p>I have to think about it.</p><p><i>14. I am collecting information on the sequence of events leading to the development of the first Black student union and the first Black studies department at San Francisco State University. Are there experiences at other college or universities that you feel would be informative?</i></p><p>Look up the Orangeburg massacre and Texas Southern University for the rebellion at Texas Southern in 1967. Look up Jackson State University on the rebellion in 1966 or 1967. There were a lot of schools. We had Black school rebellions, fights, and killings all over. We also had street rebellions like in Detroit and Newark and other places.</p><p> Epilogue: Baba Mukasa is still active and lives in the Atlanta metropolitan area. He describes himself as an African, a soldier, and a revolutionary. He is available for speaking engagements.</p><p></p><p>© Sokoya Enterprises</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p></div>
Whatever Happened to the Chad School: An Independent Black School Known for its Educational Excellence?
https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/whatever-happened-to-the-chad-school-an-independent-black-school
2015-12-13T18:01:28.000Z
2015-12-13T18:01:28.000Z
Dr. Kinaya C. Sokoya
https://www.theblacklist.net/members/DrKinayaCSokoya
<div><p>This blog is part of a series of articles to recognize unsung heroes who were active in the Black Power Movement. The Chad School was an independent Black educational institution in Newark, New Jersey that was established and supported by the Black Youth Organization. Following is a summary of the founding organization and an interview with former administrator, Babatu Y. Olubayo.</p><p><strong>Summary</strong> <b>of the Black Youth Organization (BYO) </b></p><p>The Black Youth Organization was established by college students in 1967 as an outcome of a summer tutoring and mentoring project in Newark, New Jersey. College students provided tutorial services for high school students in reading and mathematics. The students who provided the services found their mentees in great need academically. This experience was the impetus for establishing an organization called the Black Youth Organization with a primary mission of developing and operating an independent Black school. In the fall of 1968, the group opened the school with an initial enrollment of 70 children. They named the school after Chad, a country in Africa, because Chad is physically located in the heart of Africa.</p><p>Representatives from the Black Youth Organization attended a Black Power Conference held in Newark, New Jersey in 1967. After listening to the discussion at the meeting, they determined that the activities planned would lead to the death, injury, and/or imprisonment of a number of activists. Based on this assessment, they decided to work underground as an organization and focus their time and energy strictly on education. The Black Youth Organization had two divisions: the Chad School and a shadow group called the House of August. The Black Youth Organization was a coed group; however, the House of August was an all-male group. The purposes of the House of August were to protect the faculty and students of the Chad School, and develop and implement economic projects to provide funding for the school. Because the House of August division functioned primarily underground, there is little information on this group in the literature. Consequently, most of the information provided in this summary is based on the experience of the researcher, who was a teacher and parent at the school, and the testimony from a former leader of the Black Youth Organization.</p><p>The Black Youth Organization had a president, secretary, and board of directors. Leon Moore was president of the Black Youth Organization and the administrator of Chad School. Economic projects that were developed and operated by the House of August included a music store located in Liberia, Africa; an African art store in the United States; a printing press called Pyramid Press; and, a construction company called the August Construction Company. The printing press produced African-centered curriculum materials for the school and provided printing services for the public. The construction company renovated houses.</p><p>The Chad School was an African-centered tuition-based school that offered classes for African American children from three to 12 years of age. To teach at the Chad School, applicants had to successfully complete a high school equivalency examination and attend rigorous teacher training classes conducted by Mr. Moore, who was considered the sage of the organization. Throughout its existence, the school was recognized for its educational excellence. Students that graduated from Chad went on to be top performers at area high schools and most attended and received degrees from higher education institutions. Because of Chad’s reputation, over the years, annual enrollment grew to 400 students.</p><p>The Chad School, as an institution, embraced and reflected the philosophy of Black Power. All of its students, teachers, and board members were African American. To ensure non-interference from the government, the Black Youth Organization refused to pursue or accept government grants for the school. In the early 2000s, the organization decided to allow White people to join its board of directors. The new board of directors attempted to change the cultural nationalist focus of the school and its policy on accepting grants. Staff and volunteers who had worked at the school since its formation objected to the changes. They organized another board of directors that was comprised of African Americans who had a history of being active and supportive of the school. A power struggle ensued between the two boards. This struggle exacerbated operation and funding problems. The school closed in 2005.</p><p><b>Interview with Babatu Y. Olubayo, Former Assistant Principal of the Chad School</b></p><p><i>1. What are your memories of the Black Power Movement during 1960 to 1980? </i></p><p>My memories, went roughly back from 1960 to 1980, I thought it was a period for advancement, for a segment of our population, of our group of people. There were opportunities created in housing, education, employment opportunities, and , to a certain extent, there was minor upward mobility for people in terms of the job marketing opening up, the housing situation expanding to allow people more access, and educational opportunities to further skills in order to remain competitive in this American environment. </p><p><i>KCS: What role did the Black Power Movement play in this era of advancement that you describe? </i></p><p>Well, if you take the Black Panthers as an example. They were able to bring together two different segments of the Black community. The Panthers themselves, who were viewed basically as roughians, tough people, or ex-felons if not felons, were able to initiate a breakfast program centered around our kids that was basically administered and handled through churches and other pillars of the Black community. I think Reagan recognized that, and subsequently the free breakfast program was established. I think that the militancy also allowed for employment opportunities. The union movements were beginning to pick up a little steam around the country, particularly in terms of Black participation. There was a bit of Black involvement in the union leadership, which had not happened since the thirties, and that allowed people to, again, to have greater access to certain economic opportunities that didn't exist prior to the Black Power Movement. </p><p>It (the Black Power Movement) certainly impacted schools. There was an increase in terms of people's consciousness. They were more willing to stick together over issues and things. I also think it fundamentally assisted the general Civil Rights Movement itself because it drew attention, stark attention, to the conditions of Black people in this country. </p><p><i>2. Do you know about the Black Power Conference in 1967 that took place in Newark? </i></p><p>Yes.</p><p><i>KCS: Do you know any or could you share any information you have on what came out of that conference in terms of the goals and plans?</i></p><p>Well, generally, the goals and plans of the meeting were to participate on a grander scale in American life, politically, socially, certainly financially. Different factions or groups had their own ideas and methodologies for achieving those ends. </p><p><i>KCS: So, there wasn't one set of goals or plans that came out of the meeting itself?</i></p><p>There were certain goals. As a participant, the organization that I represented and was aligned with at that point in time, decided to take a different path because the forces to be and the factions that were involved in meeting those objectives. We decided not participate in the general political, specifically the political, effort. Instead, we chose to concentrate on an area that we thought that we could be successful in, which was education. </p><p><i>3. Could you tell me a little bit about your membership in the Black Youth Organization? What capacity or role you played, and for what period of time? If there were any other groups that you belonged to, please share that information too.</i></p><p>During that period, I was involved in several different types of organizations. I was very supportive, active, and became a minor member of the Newark Black Panther Party primarily because they had aligned themselves with creating employment and economic opportunities for Black folks through a project we had with the Ford Motor Company in Mahwah New Jersey. We also were affiliated with the Dodge Revolutionary Unit Movement out of Detroit, because, at that point in time, the Black auto workers were attempting to not only get jobs, but also to be eligible or able to participate and or be involved in managerial positions. At that time, I was an active member of a group at Western Electric. We formed what was known as the Western Electric Revolutionary Union Movement (WER), which we aligned with the Ford Motor Company and others.</p><p><i>KCS: The union movement. Can I ask, before you go into details, did this group have anything to do with the Revolutionary Action Movement Group? Or was it a different organization? </i></p><p>The Revolutionary Action Movement? No, it was a different organization. I guess you could say it was part of the Ford and Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement. There were union movements where Black people just began to have a say, and if not a say, they formed their own unions to advocate for clearer positions or demands than what the conventional unions offered at that time. For example, with the auto workers (United Auto workers Union) were under serving their Black membership. Western Electric was represented by two mainstream unions, which was the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and CWA, the Workers of America. I can't think of what the C stands for right now, but anyway they certainly didn't represent Black people's interest, so we formed our own union.</p><p><i>KCS: What about the Black Youth Organization?</i></p><p>The Black Youth Organization was a response to social conditions in this country, which was quite simply that Black youth were being misguided, misdirected in a general sense and specific senses, based upon the resources that they had available to them in their neighborhoods and communities. They were certainly underserved by the school systems. The Black Youth Organization was a spontaneous reaction to fill a void. We came together initially as a recreational athletic organization that primarily taught self-defense to young Black people at the YMCA. At that time, there were widespread discussions taking place on Black anything because of the Black Power Movement. There was a lot of Black rhetoric, a lot of Black information, being circulated. What we discovered was that our kids, the students or children who were involved in our program, just simply couldn't read and write. So, we did some testing, devised programs, created a curriculum, and began an experimental program.</p><p><i>KCS: You call it an experimental program?</i></p><p>That was how we initially started. Once the experiment was over, which was six to eight weeks, we decided the results warranted us forming an organization and providing a school. In order to do that, we needed to have an organizational structure. And because we didn’t have the proper structure, we decided to pursue forming a 501c(3) under the name known as the Black Youth Organization. It was designed to promote educational, religious, social and civic efforts within the federal 501c(3) regulations. </p><p><i>4. What global events influenced the formation and activities of the Black Youth Organization?</i></p><p>At that point in time, there was a series of things going on, both nationally and internationally or globally. In the United States, we, Black people were engaged in what was known as the Civil Rights struggle, where people were looking to the government to ensure that they had basic rights as citizens in this country, whether they were voting rights, housing rights, employment rights, access to whatever the country is supposed to provide, education, health, etc. There were health movements going on at that same time. We were active on a lot of different fronts. </p><p>At the same time, our brothers in Africa and throughout the Caribbean were involved in a certain level of liberation. Between the 1960s and the early '70s, 30 - 40 countries in Africa became free from colonial rule. That certainly impacted the Civil Rights struggles of Black people in the United States. Those global influences, particularly the emergence of independent African states, influenced us to feel that we needed to acquire skills that would allow us to assist in building nations both here and abroad. </p><p><i>5. What were the strengths of the Black Youth Organization, and what were its challenges? </i></p><p>The strength of the Black Youth Organization was that it became a self-motivating entity. There was a period of time when there was a lot of enthusiasm and hope for Black people in general, and we were working with young people. Young people were the target of a lot of the social and civil rights activities that took place during the sixties. It was certainly the student movement that was in the forefront of the civil rights organizations, and it was also young people who were involved in the early expressions of many Black Power organizations. All of these grew out of student movements. It was students that had the intellectual capacity to analyze their situations and choose particular solutions for solving what they thought were pressing problems. The Black Youth Organization felt the same way, because of the various levels of control in this society. One of the most effective ways that we could impact our people would be to attempt to create structures that would impact the mind, impact how we thought, what we were taught, impact our thinking, and allow us to embrace an ideology. Simply put, our ideology was a very simple one. <i>We are an African people.</i> As an African people, we felt that it was our obligation to acquire the skills necessary to have an attitude and skills that would allow us to, again, develop African nations, no matter where they were, and our general Black communities. </p><p><i>KCS: When the Black Youth Organization was developing, where were the students? You all were students, right? </i></p><p>Yes.</p><p><i>KCS: Where did they come from?</i></p><p>They came from all over.</p><p><i>KCS: I mean, how did you come together?</i></p><p>The initial group was a small group at the YMCA in Newark, New Jersey. Once we put together that first group, and they were all local students, we began to interact with other Black youth groups around the country, because at that time there were a number of Black student organizations that were emerging on various college campuses. Specifically, there were actually two tracks. There was Black student organizations that existed on traditional American college campuses, basically White college campuses, and then there was the movement that expanded from Black organizations to Black student organizations, particularly in communities that were involved in historically Black colleges. For example, all of the local people (students) came from Howard University. They also came from Orangeburg State University and traditional Black colleges. Students joined these organizations to assist with civil rights and voting legislation.</p><p><i>6. What were the accomplishments of the Black Youth Organization?</i></p><p>Primarily our main effort was to establish and operate a school. We felt that we could effectively develop the minds of our young by having our own school, with minimal interaction with the larger society or the greater White educational institutions. We felt, using critical systems analysis, that they didn't serve our needs. We looked at models from the past. We went back in history as far as we could and examined all great schools of learning. We examined the attitudes of people who were enlisted and converted into supporting causes. At one point in time, for example, in the United States, there might have been almost a hundred medical schools that served Black people, particularly after reconstruction. But, there was an assault on Black education, just like what occurred with the Black codes during the reconstruction period. The greater population just chose to oppress people. Everyone knows the story of Virginia. I think it was Prince Edwards County that, rather than integrate its schools back in the fifties; chose just to shut down the public school system. We decided that one of the best and most effective ways for us to improve the condition of our people and children in general was to run our own schools. By that, we designed our own curriculum. We did not use White models. We just used information, and we chose four disciplines - mathematics, science, history, and language arts - to be the avenues for us to essentially excel. </p><p><i>7. What do you know about COINTELPRO relative to the Black Youth Organization?</i></p><p>Many organizations during the sixties were under the scrutiny of COINTELPRO. COINTEL was primarily the people who persecuted George Jackson, the Panthers, and the US Organization in California. There was not a single organization that COINTEL did not at least attempt to infiltrate or monitor. The Black Youth Organization was certainly one of them during those days and times, because we had relationships with other schools. There was a high period for what we liked to call African-centered educational institutions during the sixties, and they were scattered around the country. Quite naturally, we came under the investigative eye of COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO was an effort of the government that primarily attempted to destroy Black unity and Black movement towards whatever their purpose may have been, whether it was healthcare, education, etc. Their objective was to simply disintegrate, to destroy, any Black organization, and they certainly attempted to destroy the Black Youth Organization. We had instances of people who were what we used to call provocateurs back in the day. We had provocateurs just about on every level of community engagement. </p><p>As a member of the Black Youth Organization, for example, not only were my personal efforts centered on education, but at the same time, I was also concerned about urban renewal in the city of Newark. If I wasn't involved with the Black Youth Organization, I might have been involved in housing efforts. The same disruptive patterns would occur, no matter what effort the community was engaged in. It was the FBI, COINTELPRO.</p><p><i>KCS: Let’s deal with this in separate streams.</i></p><p>Okay.</p><p><i>8. I know the school is closed now. What is the current status of the Black Youth Organization?</i></p><p>In 2013?</p><p><i>KCS: Yes.</i></p><p>In 2013, the original Black Youth Organization had dissolved. The Black Youth Organization dissolved years ago. I think there is an offshoot, because the Black Youth Organization started the school, which was known as the Chad School, which was really one of the most successful divisions (of the organization). With the demise of the Chad School, a foundation was formed. Its sole purpose is to, I guess, offer scholarship opportunities to Black youth or assistance in some sort of way. Maybe they do mentoring. I'm not sure of that. I know that the original organization died some time ago. </p><p><i>KCS: The organization died before the school?</i></p><p>Absolutely.</p><p><i>KCS: When did the organization die?</i></p><p>I couldn't tell you when the organization died. The organization itself had a series of rules and regulations. One of them was a posture that it would not allow the government or any foundations to have anything to do with Chad School’s operation. So, they did not receive funding from them. It was the premise that no one could tell the organization what to do with its resources, with its funding. I think that once the organization decided to accept funding from government sources, they lost their identity. They lost their direction, and subsequently the demise began.</p><p><i>KCS: That was the Chad School?</i></p><p>That was the Chad School, the School being a division of the Black Youth Organization. I don't know the legality of that. I know that the Black Youth Organization probably exists on paper as an entity, but as a functioning organization, as far as being involved in the community, I don't think so. </p><p><i>KCS: Do you think that BYO’s demise was tied to some event, like Leon Moore moving South because of illness? </i></p><p>No, I think primarily what occurred was the Black Youth Organization chose certain directions when we were involved in Africa. We saw Africa as being a critical point for the organization. We felt that we needed to develop businesses and have a presence in Africa. We needed to migrate back home. </p><p>Several events took place on the continent. Our base was in Liberia. I think that the assassination of Steve Talbot had a lot to do with us. The organization left Liberia and I left the organization at that point in time. I left prior to that, maybe not too long before that, but right about the time that Liberia began to disintegrate because of Sergeant …coming into power, I think that set the organization itself into disarray. A lot of the people who were members of the original Black Youth Organization decided to move on and it just disintegrated. It never replaced itself.</p><p><i>9. How did the activities of the Black Youth Organization affect colleges and universities? On campuses and in the community?</i></p><p> Because of our successes locally, we got a lot of exposure, particularly in academic circles. We were on many, many radio programs and television programs. In fact, I remember one time we did a program in New York for one of the local Black programs and we received letters and phone calls from people all around the country that wanted to come and work with the Chad School. People from traditional Black universities, or people just out in the community felt that they wanted to make a contribution. </p><p><i>KCS: Did this include students and professors?</i></p><p>Absolutely.</p><p><i>KCS: From colleges and universities?</i></p><p>Yes, we had people who were highly skilled. We started our own teacher-training program of course. We took both people who had attitude and skills. The primary thing with us was attitude. If you had the proper attitude, you could be taught the skills. You could be given a body of information and taught to pass that on to your students. That's what we did. We also had people there who had degrees in the sciences, in math, or whatever. At one point, it was about fifty-fifty. We had people who had a tremendous number of skills that were easily transferable. </p><p><i>10. Did your organization's activities affect the development of the Black student organizations on campuses, and if so how?</i></p><p>We went on the lecture circuit. We interacted with Black student organizations and we spoke about our cause. We spoke about our methodology and our goals and objectives. That to a degree may have impacted students. Because we were part of a larger organization, which was the Federation of Pan African Educational Institutions, and they in turn had some impact on Black students in their local communities. To a degree, which I can't measure, but I can say that we were influential with people who really wanted to use the tools of education as a weapon. There were two organizations. There was also the Council of Independent Black Institutions, CIBI. CIBI was the second one and the Federation of Pan African Educational Institutions was the first group of alternative educational systems across the country. We went from California to Florida to Boston. There were various degrees of success and independence within the member institutions.</p><p><i>KCS: Was this only for people who were going to be teachers in the independent Black schools, or could anyone attend?</i></p><p>These organizations promoted developing strategies for the survival of the independent educational institutions and students were encouraged to participate, to volunteer, to do whatever, to make whatever contribution they felt would assist with their longevity, with their existence. </p><p><i>11. Did the organization's activities affect the development of any Black studies departments at higher education institutions? If they did, how?</i></p><p>I can't quantitatively or qualitatively answer that question. We chose to be an organization that tended to build a structure from within, and part of that was because of COINTELPRO. Because we knew that destructive forces were attempting to alter whatever successes we could manufacture ourselves, we tended to build internally. We recruited students from wherever they chose to come, whether it was Cornell or other schools. We had students come from Cornell. In fact, they were the guys that took over Cornell University. It was an armed takeover.</p><p><i>KCS: Was that Cornell West and his group?</i></p><p>Yes, a couple of them became members of the Black Youth Organization, at least the school and did quite well for a while. </p><p><i>12. Are you aware of any activities, programs, or benefits that higher education institutions experienced on campuses resulting from the efforts of either the Black Youth Organization or other organizations in the Black Power Movement during that period, 1960 to 1980?</i></p><p>I would say that the Black Youth Organization's role was miniscule compared to the role of organizations like SNCC and the Panthers. They had a tremendous impact on Black student organizations, particularly Black student organizations that were in White institutions. Blacks were beginning to have access to the Rutgers of the world, the Ohio States, and the UCLA's. So these organizations were able to take advantage of the degree of intellectual curiosity and inquisitiveness at that time. A lot of young people became actively involved in other aspects of the struggle and they used their thirst for knowledge and information. They used the energy that grew out of the Civil Rights Movement to press for Black demands, not only on the campus, but in their respective communities.</p><p><i>KCS: Do any of these organizations exist today?</i></p><p>No, because I think that the organizations became co-opted. </p><p><i>KCS: All of them?</i></p><p>I wouldn't say all of them. I would say a great deal of them, because they tended to, at least in my opinion, to have lost their direction. For example, during that same sixties period, there was tremendous community unity expressed in various ways, particularly in urban centers and rural areas in this country. In addition to COINTELPRO, there were other ways that Black efforts were undermined. For example, for people who were in the forefront of community involvement or Black liberation, organizations were formed to co-op Black efforts, like the Black Affairs Council from Philadelphia, which became a funding conduit or organization that selected people in the Black community who would receive funding for whatever purposes. If you had a project centered on community health, then that particular group was the group that decided who would get the money. It took the leadership out of the community and put the leadership on those boards. Subsequently, those boards then decided who they would empower in the Black communities. The Episcopal Church did the same thing. It became a question of the steam actually being taken out of the sails of the Black community, and low and behold the next thing you know, you had some serious integration.</p><p><i>13. Are there any people that you feel would provide some really helpful information to me on this topic? Anybody you'd recommend?</i></p><p>Right here in this town (Washington, DC), I would suggest Tom Porter. I also suggest Tony Rather. Dr. Jared is at Morgan State University and he has a program called Dixon Bell. They mix music that I like. They can be contacted either at Morgan State or WPFW. They can give you insights into tremendous resources and identify people who are still active. </p><p><i>14. I'm collecting information on the sequence of events leading to the development of the first Black student union and the first Black studies department at San Francisco State University. Are there experiences that you know of at other colleges and universities that you feel would also be informative?</i></p><p>When you talk about San Francisco State, the first person that I think of is Danny Glover, who was instrumental in things like that. He has been consistent throughout his whole life. I think other people who came out of that experience are people like Sonya Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni because they were all part of Rutgers in New Jersey. </p><p>I wouldn't know where to begin to find these folks. For example, at Rutgers, there was a guy named Sam Sanderson if I'm not mistaken. He was more involved with the students, the Black student movement there. There are just so many people because that was a very rich period, but I can't remember because of my own posture at that point in time. </p><p><i>Epilogue</i>: I had the honor of working at the Chad School for one year as a teacher of three year old children. My daughter attended the school for two years. It was an exhilarating experience. Staff there was truly a family. It was a safe zone and an enriching experience for the students. Knowledge was power. The only reason I left was recruitment to work at the New Ark School. The closing of the school is truly a significant loss for the children and families of northern New Jersey. </p><p>© Sokoya Enterprises</p><p> </p></div>
Interview with Dr. Ahmad Rahman on the Original Black Panther Party
https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/interview-with-dr-ahmad-rahman-on-the-original-black-panther
2015-11-14T14:25:26.000Z
2015-11-14T14:25:26.000Z
Dr. Kinaya C. Sokoya
https://www.theblacklist.net/members/DrKinayaCSokoya
<div><p align="center" style="text-align:left;">I recently saw a documentary of the Black Panther Party that aired at the E Street Cinema in Washington, DC. It was the most compelling and <u>accurate</u> portrayal of the organization that I have seen. Many have sought to demonize the young Black activists and their efforts have gone largely unrecognized. The documentary is a collection of news clips and interviews with authentic voices. It puts to rest the contention that the Black Panther Party was a terrorist organization and/or a hate group. It was part of a greater movement which reflected the conditions of the times. Following is a summary of the organization and an interview with one of its activists: Dr. Ahmad Rahman. This article is part two of a series of articles on African American organizations which were part of the Black Power Movement.</p><p><b>Summary of the Organization</b></p><p>The Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) was not one organization but a coalition of organizations that grew out of local circumstances (Williams, 1998). The Lowndes County Freedom Organization, which was an Alabama-based group that used violence to retaliate against the barbarity perpetrated against Black people by the Ku Klux Klan, was the original Black Panther Party. It was organized by members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and local residents following a freedom ride for a voter registration campaign. In 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the national office of the Panther Party in Oakland, California. Between 1966 and 1982, there were more than 32 chapters and 100 affiliates across the United States and abroad (Austin, 2006). The chapters differed based on cultural and regional influences. These differences were reflected in their ideology, methodology, and activities; however, the network of organizations (chapters, affiliates) ideologically embraced Marxism and advocated for the needs of the “lumpen proletariat” (the masses of people) (Williams, 1998, p. 65).</p><p>The Black Panthers recruited many of its members from colleges and universities. To expand their membership, leaders of the Black Panther Party gave presentations on college and university campuses. In Illinois, for example, the Chicago Police Department files listed the following higher education institutions as campuses where there was Panther Party activity: Chicago State University, Crane Junior College (now Malcolm X College), Illinois Institute of Technology, Northeastern Illinois University, Northwestern University, Roosevelt University, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Wilbert Wright Junior College, and Woodrow Wilson Junior College (now Kennedy-King College). In 1968, African American college students in Chicago organized students at college campuses across Illinois and formed the Congress of Black College Students (Williams, 1998).</p><p>In some states, activist groups were formed at higher education institutions and the activism of students flowed from the colleges to high schools. In Illinois, however, student activism began in the high schools and expanded to college and university campuses. The primary focus of college students was changing the curriculum while the advocacy efforts of high school students focused on community control of public schools. Support flowed both ways. University students helped high school students advocate for community control and high school students helped college students advocate for curriculum change.</p><p>The national office of the Black Panther Party network was located in Oakland, California. A majority of the chapters across the country replicated the operational structure of the national office. A collective called the Central Committee led the organization. The Committee was comprised of six people called ministers, three field lieutenants, and a chair. In some chapters, ministers were called deputy ministers; however, the responsibilities of their positions were the same. There was a Minister of Information, Minister of Communication, Minister of Defense, Minister of Culture, Minister of Labor, and Minister of Finance. Each minister was in charge of a cadre. Huey P. Newton was the National Chairman.</p><p>The overall mission of the Black Panther Party was to defend the Black community from police oppression and brutality. In 1971, after an initial focus on self-defense and arms, the organization decided to de-emphasize the military aspects of the Party and focus on the development and implementation of survival programs, community organizing, coalition-building, and electoral politics. The survival programs included a free breakfast program for public school children, medical research health clinics, a public awareness campaign on sickle cell anemia, free food for low-income families, free busing to prisons, free childcare centers, free clothing, a free ambulance service, and an emergency heating program. </p><p>The Party networked with diverse groups to combat racism. Some of the groups had White members and/or White leadership. The names of some of the organizations were Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican Young Lords (Austin, 2006). The governments of North Viet Nam, China, Palestine, and Algeria also supported the Black Panther Party. Relative to electoral politics, a number of Panther Party members ran for elected office, several successfully (e.g. Bobby Rush, Bobby Seale). Some of the former members of the Party continue to serve as elected officials.</p><p>In 1968, then Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, proclaimed that the Black Panther Party was the most dangerous group in America and began a public and covert campaign to destroy the organization. This initiative, which was established to destroy dissident groups, was called the “Counter Intelligence Program” (COINTELPRO) (Williams, 1998, p. 173). The activities of the Black Panther Party were monitored by law enforcement agencies across the country. In Chicago, the Red Squad (the intelligence arm of the Chicago Police Department), the FBI, and local media joined forces to discredit the Illinois Black Panther Party. During its existence, the Black Panther Party was the target of 223 out of 295 Black nationalist COINTELPRO activities (Stanford, 1986, p. 189). According to Williams (1998),</p><p> “The FBI’s secret war against the Panthers exhausted all of COINTELPRO’s methods, including a media offensive, silencing the Panther newspaper, attacking the free breakfast for children program, preventing coalitions, neutralizing Panther supporters, exacerbating intergroup/intraparty tensions, infiltrating the organization, sponsoring raids and pretext arrests, encouraging malicious prosecutions, and even assassinating Panthers” (p. 173). </p><p>The word “assassinating” referred to the case of the late Fred Hampton, who was Chair of the Illinois Black Panther Party. In 1969, police killed Hampton during a raid of his apartment. The Hampton family subsequently filed a wrongful death suit against law officials and, in 1978, the court found the FBI, Cook County government, and the city of Chicago guilty of abuse of power and misconduct (Williams, 1998, pp. 215-216). In 1983, the Hampton family was awarded a $1.85 million settlement.</p><p> The Black Panther Party officially closed in 1982. The legacy of the Black Panther Party can be summarized into three areas – survival programs, formation of the original Rainbow Coalition, and the martyrdom of Fred Hampton. The most popular of the survival programs was the free breakfast program for schoolchildren. This program, which was adopted and institutionalized by public school systems across the country, continues today. Government also replicated the Panther Party’s community health centers. The Panther Party established the original Rainbow Coalition predating Jesse Jackson’s organization. The coalition is recognized as being responsible for the election of the first Black mayor (Harold Washington) in Chicago. The name, Fred Hampton, continues to be a catalyst for community organizing and development in Illinois.</p><p><b>Interview</b></p><p><i>1. What are your memories of the Black Power Movement during the 1960s and 1970s?</i></p><p>I have very strong memories of the Black Power Movement in that in 1963, three or four girls were bound and killed in Birmingham, Alabama. I remember very clearly that Martin Luther King said that, “No matter what they do, we’re going to keep on loving them.” I remember my friends and I, I was about 12 years old at the time, had just witnessed something disgusting. We said, “You know, keep on loving them?” They killed those four little girls that very Sunday I had been in my family’s Baptist Church. I was the same age as those girls that’d been killed and I identified with them. I just thought Dr. King’s response was so weak. So, when my mother’s friend said that she saw a man named Malcolm X speak at the Nation of Islam Temple in Chicago and heard him said that Black people should get their own army and should go down South and protect our churches and people from being abused by the Klan and these racists... when I heard my mother’s friend say that she had heard this man Malcolm X say that we should get our own army, I said right then that whenever that army started, I want to be in their army. I didn’t care if they just let me stir grits or carry water, I want to be in that army. They’re protecting Black people from the Klan and having our little kids blown up. So that was the first time I realized that there was a different way of thinking than Martin Luther King’s way. Because the whole media focused on Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and nobody else got any play. Every magazine rejected Malcolm X and the other way of thinking never got any respect from them. So we didn’t think there was anything else. Really, there was but one Civil Rights Movement. We didn’t know there was another way. So when Stokely Carmichael in 1966 shouted “Black Power,” it resonated with those of us who were young in Chicago, and, I believe, in the North in general. When I was in the Panther Party, I got a chance to go to the West Coast, New York, Detroit, and Chicago. Young African-Americans, for the most part in the North, were knocked down with the Dr. King stuff. We respected him, but letting White people spit on you and kick you and you just keep singing and talking about you going to keep loving them and all that; most of the young people and teenagers in the North, we just were disgusted by that. We didn’t support him. So, when Stokely Carmichael said, “Black Power,” and we heard about Malcolm X as 15 and 16-year olds, that is what we identified with. That was my first encounter with the Black Power Movement.</p><p><i>2. Please share any information you have on the goals and the plans emanating from the Black Power Conference in 1967 that took place in North New Jersey. Were you aware of that one?</i></p><p>Yes, I’m aware of it. There was also one in New York.</p><p><i>KCS: Did you attend?</i></p><p>No, I didn’t but I know people who did attend it. My understanding of the goals of Black Power, in general, were for us to have community control, first of all, of our economics, of our education, and of self-defense. Those three things to me were keys - economics, controlling education, and self-defense - because those were the three things that we actually lost when we were enslaved and never really regained. Others control our economics. Others control our education systems. Others control our defending ourselves. What is called “Second Amendment manhood” by Whites - that they had the right to own guns to protect themselves from being lynched and killed - we didn’t have those rights. If we asserted those rights, then we were called Black hate mongers and ex-extremists. If I got a gun to protect myself from you, I’m an extremist, right? But if you have guns, you're a man. You’re a Minute Man. You’re carrying on the traditions of the Patriots. You see? The Black Power Movement overcame that paradigm, where we felt guilty to assert ourselves. They were the key things - to assert our own economics, to assert our own history, to assert our own defense of our own community, and to assert control of ourselves; not others. We overcame that guilt. I’ll never forget when we pressed for Black education in schools and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) denounced the effort as separatist. Almost all the pressure of the movement on college campuses that happened at that time, in ’68 to ’69 with Cornell, Columbia, and Northwestern, to get Black professors to teach Black history was denounced by the non-violent Civil Rights Movement as separatist. You know, that connected us with Black extremism. Never-mind they have a Judaic Studies Department. You know, what I’m saying? They have a Department of Russian History, a Department of Chinese Languages, and all that. We asked for African-American studies and we were separatists and hate-mongers. You see? The Black Power Movement overcame that. I really appreciated that whole spirit. They came out of 1967. In ’67, there was a number of of Black Power conferences. That was the big one. But there were Black Power conferences taking place all over the country. Brothers and sisters getting together saying, “Hold on. We’re done with this.” In Detroit, you had the Republic of New Africa and the Black Panther Party. We had the Revolutionary Action Movement and other groups coming together, and saying, “This is a new day.”</p><p><i>3. Were you active with any organizations, and if so, what organizations, in what capacity and for what period of time? </i></p><p>I started out as a teenager in 1967 and ’68 with an organization in Chicago called the Malcolm X Black Hands Society. I was just a teenager then. This was around ’67. And then the Republic of New Africa came. That was around ’68. But one of the things about the Republic of New Africa is their philosophy was five states in the south that Black people had built as slaves should be ours. We should have an independent state - an independent country; and, that Blacks, we, should go back down south. I used to go down south and visit my family every summer and I know my family, who migrated up north, wasn’t moving back down there. I knew that the only way we were going to get that land from those rednecks in Mississippi was by revolution. Just because you got justice on your side doesn’t mean they’d give you anything. So when the Black Panther Party started talking about a revolution - a socialist revolution - overcoming, overthrowing capitalism and imperialism, I also identified with that. That was in ’69. I was in the Panther Party in ’69, roughly to around ’72.</p><p><i>KCS: Three years?</i></p><p>Yes, three years.</p><p><i>KCS: Was it the one in Michigan?</i></p><p>It was. It started in Chicago. In Detroit, the Detroit Panther Party. Everybody knows about Fred Hampton in Chicago. The leader who founded the Panther Party in Detroit, Michael Baynham, was found shot in the head before Fred Hampton was killed. What happened was he was in a building and there were Panthers in the building. They heard the gunshot and ran downstairs. He was dead, a bullet in his head, and the door was open. Somebody heard footsteps. Somebody was getting away. The office in Oakland didn’t say who killed him. They felt there was an infiltrator in the party. There was and I found out later who it was. But, they didn’t know who the infiltrator was. So they (the police) said, “We’re going to place you all under the authority of Chicago.” It was in that capacity that some people in Jackson, Michigan started a chapter, the Black Panther Party of Jackson, Michigan. I got commissioned in Chicago to go to Jackson, Michigan to help set up the chapter of the Black Panther Party. We didn’t know about the FBI’s infiltration and the program called COINTELPRO. We didn’t know any of that stuff then.</p><p><i>KCS: We’re going to discuss COINTELPRO in more detail.</i></p><p>Okay. All right. Well, I’ll tell you how I got from Jackson to Detroit.</p><p>Jackson, Michigan already had an organization called the Black Messengers who wanted to become members of the Black Panther Party. We trained them, then they became members of the Black Panther Party. One of them, who was the leader of that organization, had given orders for guys to rob the Western Union; and as soon as they committed the robberies, they went to jail. The police were waiting for them at home. Now, when I got there, this stuff was already happening, and I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know who was who. All I knew was these guys went to jail and nobody’s telling who gave them the order to rob the place because that’s like snitching. You don’t tell anybody that. I couldn’t put this together, that this guy gave these people these orders, that they committed this crime, and they immediately got locked up with the police waiting at their homes. The same guy, a member of a big Black Baptist church, the biggest Black Baptist church in Jackson, Michigan, gave them (members) an order to go paint “Fuck Jesus” on the wall in big, bold letters - so big and bright that when they tried to paint over them, you could still see them. That totally alienated the community against us - totally alienated the community. We tried to organize the community with breakfast programs. There was a Catholic priest, who wanted to work with us. After that, we couldn't get anybody to work with us. I said, “We've got to go to Detroit, and we’ll let this calm down here. We’ll go to Detroit and we’ll all work in Detroit.” I said, “This is ruined.” I don’t know if this guy is the same one who gave the orders - if he is the same one who was an FBI infiltrator. That was the kind of stuff that the FBI was doing to destroy the (Panther) Party. That was a successful distraction, a successful counter-operation. People don’t know the kind of stuff that the FBI did. That’s what they did.</p><p><i>4. What global events influenced the formation and activities of the Black Panther Party?</i></p><p>At that time, there were liberation movements going on. The main one was the anti-Vietnam War Movement. We all opposed America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Our leaders went to Vietnam. Eldridge Cleaver went to North Vietnam with Jane Fonda and broadcasted to the troops to let them know we have solidarity with the so-called Viet Cong. And, Eldridge, I remember, repeated to them what Mohammed Ali said. Mohammed Ali was the most outstanding example of Black manhood that we had. Mohammad Ali stepped up and refused to go into the military and said, “No Viet Cong has ever called me nigger.” He was speaking for all of us.</p><p><i>KCS: Was that when Eldridge went to Viet Nam with Jane Fonda?</i></p><p>Yes, that was when the Jane Fonda thing blew up in the media. She was put on a Black list. While Vietnam was going on, there were liberation movements going on in Africa - Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau. There had been a liberation movement that was successful in Algeria. Che Guevara was in Bolivia trying to get them to liberate themselves. There were movements in Brazil and socialist national revolutionary movements all over the world. We were aligned with the Revolutionary Communist Movement at that time.</p><p><i>KCS: Was that different from what Nyerere promoted or are you talking just about </i><i>communism?</i></p><p>Well, we wanted it (the Party) to be like the Communist Party of the United States that Angela Davis was a member of. Their basic philosophy was that the working class would have to overthrow the bourgeoisie, the upper class, and there would be a socialist revolution. But, we did not believe that the White workers were going to unite with Black workers or they would do anything because they gained so much from capitalism and racism that they identified with the bourgeoisie. They didn’t identify with Black workers. So we did not think that the Communist Party’s philosophy would work for us. We believed that, with community control, for the purpose of us controlling our own community and fighting back against police brutality and racism, we had to organize what was called the Lumpen - the brothers on the street, the brothers in the hood. So that was a different philosophy, but we all believed that socialism was a better system than capitalism. That’s what linked Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara and Emil Cabral. What linked us all was the common belief in a socialist transformation.</p><p><i>5. What do you consider the strengths and the challenges of the Panther Party?</i></p><p>The strength of the Panther Party was we were young, energetic, dedicated, and somewhat fearless. The challenges and weaknesses were our leadership did not foresee the opposition that we had and, they did not know how to counter it. J. Edgar Hoover said in 1970 or ’69, “The Black Panther Party is the number one internal threat to the security of United States.” We’re all 17 and 18 years old. I said, "You guys, I don’t know about that. Us?" It was unbelievable. But he was serious. Now, White radicals had blown up the capital and had planted bombs in the US Capital. White radicals had blown up and started killing people. There were 500,000 soldiers in Vietnam. A 100,000 soldiers had come back to America crazy as loons, shooting dope and killing people, but we were the number one threat to the security of United States. When J. Edgar Hoover said that, he put a tag on all of us. At that point, Huey, who embodied the leaders of the movement, should have said, "Step back." We needed some kind of counter-espionage, counter-intelligence program. Because in any liberation movement, you are going to be infiltrated. We should have infiltrated other liberation movements too. We were all using a book called the <i>Mini-manual of the Urban Guerilla</i> written by Carlos Marighella. You can read the whole thing online. Look it up - The <i>Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerilla</i>. The police tried to infiltrate the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The IRA had their members join the police. Their members also infiltrated the FBI. We should have been on that level. We should have had our members become prison guards, police officers, and the FBI because the battle for the destruction of the Panther Party was on a physical level, was on a counter-intelligence versus intelligence level. It was a spy game. They had played this game for 50 years and had destroyed so many organizations.</p><p>I went to the FBI headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., and read the COINTELPRO files in the reading room of the FBI. All the techniques used against the Panther Party were used against Marcus Garvey’s Movement (UNIA). The first Black person ever hired by the FBI was hired to infiltrate the UNIA. The letter is in the files. He wrote to Hoover and said, “We can’t get anything on this guy.” Hoover replied, “Keep on, we’ll get something.” That exchange in the FBI’s file, that Garvey was the first Black person ever spied on by the FBI. The federal government pressed charges against him. They infiltrated Garvey’s organization. All that stuff about White fraud, Garvey didn’t even deal with paperwork. His underlings dealt with that, but because he was in-charge, the federal government was able to prosecute him (Garvey) for that. You can see it in the FBI files. J. Edgar Hoover plotted that stuff from the very beginning. So Hoover did the same thing to the Panther Party. Huey and Bobby didn’t have the smarts to recognize the battle so that we could win and counter that stuff. And that was one of the real shortcomings because people got killed. People I know got caught and a number were killed. I’m lucky to be alive myself. Oh, you don’t know. I spent 21 years in prison. I’m a former inmate. I have a PhD. I’m a professor and was director of all of kinds of studies. I spent 21 years in prison because Huey and the Panthers could not counter the FBI’s program to destroy it.</p><p><i>6. What were the accomplishments of the organization?</i></p><p>I think the accomplishments of the Black Power Movement in general, and the Panther Party being just part of it, was pride. To be Black was so shameful when we were kids. So, you blow off the Black thing. I remember, we would go to parties and everybody wanted to dance with the light-skinned girls. The Black-skinned girls couldn’t get a dance. Just the fact that we now have pride in ourselves... Franz Fanon said, “Sometimes people must fight back even if they can’t win. They must fight back just for their own self-respect.” The fact was we fought back. And I think that time (the 60s) affected our development as human beings. The fact that we made the police reform themselves. At a certain time, I remember in Chicago, they talked to my dad, calling him “boy.” They called my mother “girl.” Some brother named Spurgeon Jake Winters, who I went to high school with, was in the Panther Party. Now 10 days before Fred Hampton was killed, nobody knows it, Spurgeon Jake Winter transported Black Panther Party guns from one building to another. The police came and attacked the Black Panthers with guns. They wanted to kill us anyway so we might as well fight because they were going to kill us. He knew he was dead so he shot it out. He killed three of them and wounded seven before they withered him with bullets. After that, the police started dealing differently in Chicago. It was "sir" and "ma’am". It wasn't “boy” and “girl” once they saw that we would fight them. The Panther Party led that movement. It wasn’t just us. The brothers in the hood said, “Wait a minute. We ain’t taking this ass kicking no more,” and they started fighting back with their fists or whatever. Once they saw that we would fight back, they changed their behavior. Huey Newton said, “Nobody knew we could make them back down.” They had the image of power and strength. In Chicago, they would ride around on big horses. They had tough looking leather jackets with big old guns and they were burley, big, old bullies really...Polish and Irish guys. They treated like us punks. I remember they’d just beat us and treat us like punks. Everybody was full of fear of them. Now we are full of fear of each other because we are in gangs. We're even shooting each other with no problem. But then, when we saw the police we would run like rabbits. We didn’t know we could make them back down because of our history of slavery. Their image was one of total power and we were powerless. Somebody had to risk his life first to show us that we could make them back down and that was Huey P. Newton. He had some serious problems later. I and my other brothers who dealt with the guns in the Panther party always respected Huey because he was the first one to show us that we could make them back down. Now the thing about it is, we got a little reckless. Then I, I don’t know if I told you about the incident. You saw the picture of me and Huey right?</p><p><i>KCS: Yes.</i></p><p>Huey was speaking at an urban mission. Every cop in the world was lined up in front of this theatre and there were four of us who were Huey’s bodyguards. We had to scout the situation to make sure there were no bombs and there were no snipers. Before Huey came, all of these cops were there because they thought we were going to riot because Huey was speaking. There were mainly White students from the University of Michigan at the mission. But, I had two guns. I had a 9 millimeter gun and a 38. One of the other brothers had a shotgun, a sawed off shotgun, which is illegal. He had it strapped to his arm under a big coat and a pistol. Others had different guns. There were four of us. This brother named Larry, he said, “Cover me.” And I said, “What do you mean cover you?” He said, “Just cover me.” I say, “Okay.” I didn’t know what he was going to do. All these cops were lined up. He walked up to them, opened up his coat, and put his hand on his shotgun as if he was going to draw. He didn’t draw. I. thought, “Oh my God. Negro, what?” So I put my hands on my guns. I had two guns. I was ready to come out and the thing is none of them (the police) would budge. They wouldn’t even flinch. They didn’t want us to think they were moving because the first one who moved was going to die. Now they didn’t kill us. They had more guns than us but not one of them wanted to be the first one to die. They didn’t touch their guns. Having that shotgun was a federal crime. You couldn’t have a sawed off shotgun. He had a double barrel shotgun and they were scared. They turned all kinds of colors of red and green. That was because of Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party. The slave master would back down. We didn’t know that. And the fact is, it was after the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement they began to integrate police departments around the country. When brothers started shooting them in Detroit, the White cops did not want to drive in the Black community without a Black cop in their car. The same White cops who didn’t want to integrate before, now they wanted to integrate the police department. So it was not marching and singing or whistle blowing that integrated these police departments in the Northern cities. It was the fact that Black people were shooting these cops. They just killed that boy in Brooklyn. You see that the other day?</p><p><i>KCS: Yes.</i></p><p>Yes. That’s stuff is big news now. That stuff happened everyday back then. And nobody did anything about it. Now it happens like once a year and it’s a big blow up. Back then it was every day and nobody paid any attention to it. It was justifiable homicide. If you look at the Black Panther Party platform on the issue of education, it said that we must control our own people’s education...that those who do not treat you right will not treat you right. The fact is the movement taught Blacks to educate ourselves and the community, and to control our education.</p><p>Our free breakfast program for children shamed the US government. There were no free breakfast and no free lunch programs in any public schools. It shamed the US government into doing what they do now so that my little boy can go to school and have a free lunch if he wants it. He doesn’t want to eat that stuff. He wants us to fix his lunch. But for the kids whose families don’t have the money to fix their lunch, they get free lunch and free breakfast in these schools now. And I think that was one of the great things that have benefited our children because you know a hungry child can’t run, right?</p><p><i>7. What do you know about COINTELPRO?</i></p><p>I know a lot about COINTELPRO. As a matter of fact I’m going to send you an essay that I wrote that was published about Detroit. It’s called <i>The Rise and Fall of the Black Panther Party in Detroit</i>. It deals essentially with COINTELPRO and some of the stuff, for example, in Detroit. The main thing that the FBI wanted to stop was our newspaper, the Black Panther newspaper. I understood later that it was not our guns that were the number one threat. It was our ideas. And, one of the main problems, particularly why they killed Fred Hampton, is that he was trying to make the gangs stop killing each other and turn their aggression and attention against the government. The FBI saw that as one of the most dangerous things to the security in the United States. Think if the Cripps and Bloods with all those guns became revolutionary and start free breakfast for children programs, started acting like Panthers, started fighting back against the police, and started trying to change the government. This is the vision that the Panther Party had but J Edgar Hoover was seeing ahead of us. And he said, “That must never, ever happen.” And that was the most dangerous thing, the real danger that the ideas would spread. The Black Panther newspaper was the vehicle for spreading these ideas. Hoover made sure that Sam Napier, who started the Black Panther newspaper, was shot, killed, and set on fire in New York. I worked with that brother in San Francisco. Beautiful brother. Always smiling. He was shot, killed, and set on fire in New York. I’ve got the FBI files where J Edgar Hoover gave an order to do two things: stop the free breakfast program and stop the newspaper. The agents in Detroit came up with an idea for our newspapers that arrived at the Detroit airport. They said, “We have this foul smelling spray that smells like the worst smelling species. We’re going to spray it on them.” I remember going to the airport to pick our newspapers, like 10,000 newspapers, and they all smell like that urine just like the whole plane had peed on the newspapers. I said, “How can they smell like pee?” Evidently, for the airport, the foul smelling stuff was too potent so they wanted them to spray them with stuff that smelled like urine. They (the papers) were ruined. This was the kind of stuff that the FBI did. In addition to painting those words on the church. Just undermining us in every way they could including misdirecting us saying, “Okay. We need to rob a bank for the revolution.” You go rob the bank and as soon as you come to the bank the police are waiting on you. You’ll be in prison for the next 10 to15 years. That was the kind of stuff that they did to through infiltration.</p><p><i>8. What is the status of the organization today? Is it gone altogether?</i></p><p>Oh, it’s gone. Now, there’s like a loose association and we have a reunion every five years. But, it has no any affiliation with the organization called the New Black Panther Party because they frankly do not have an ideology similar to the Black Panther Party. There’s a conflict between the New Black Panthers and the brothers in the original Black Panther Party. Some brothers in the Party tried to sue them or stop them using our name because of some of their bizarre behavior. It’s bizarre. Let me give you an example. The leader was a guy name Khalid Muhammad, who passed away. He died. After Bush’s first election when he stole the election in Florida, he had his inauguration in D.C. I lived in D.C. at the time. I was going to the Capitol to a demonstration where he was going to take the oath for office and drive down the street to the White House. I went down to demonstrate against him. There were hundreds of thousands of people from all over. People come from as far as Hawaii. They were so pissed off that he stole this election. And we were all there - White, Black, thin, thick, everybody. There were actually more people around opposing Bush than were applauding him. All of us formed this chain then here comes the so-called New Black Panthers. And the White boys said, “Oh, right on. Here comes the Black Panthers.” So we were all facing the street and Bush’s motorcade was coming our way. The New Black Panthers got in front of us with a bullhorn and one of them said, “Just because that White racist Jew was standing next to you doesn’t mean he’s your brother or your friend,” and started attacking Jews. And, I experienced contradiction for a moment. Do you understand what I’m saying? Every race was there. What did the Jews have to do with this stuff? You see? That was just the most bizarre behavior and inappropriate really. What did Jews have to do with this? We were all together against Bush. But those are the kind of divisive tactics that the FBI used. I never trusted that method. One of the guys there from the New Black Panther Party recognized me, “Oh, we’ve got a real Black Panther here…blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” They asked me to come to a meeting. They were having a meeting the next day. Khalid Muhammad was going to speak at their meeting. I went to the meeting, me and this other brother. He said, “Let’s go to the meeting.” Okay, we’re going to the meeting. It must about a hundred or so people in the meeting. Khalid Muhammad got up and said, “I want you to go in that White man’s house and. …I never trusted any of them after that - none of them. That’s the new Black Panther Party</p><p><i>KCS: Where are they based?</i></p><p>They’re in a number of different places. In DC. There’s a guy named Malik Shabazz. There’s another man in Detroit named Malik Zulu Shabazz. I don’t know where they’re based. I just don’t trust any of them.</p><p><i>9. How did the activities of your organization, of the Panther Party affect colleges and universities on campuses and in the community?</i></p><p>I think, at the time, it helped influence the movement for Blacks toward Black Studies. Not just the Black Panther Party, but look at the Black Panther Party as part of the Black Power Movement and this movement for Black Studies on campus. If you look at the movement that took place on Howard University’s campus, where you got E. Franklin Frazier and all of them arguing against Black Studies. “You see, you got to assimilate. You don’t need Black Studies.” You got Amiri Baraka and all of them running around on campus. I remember, Amiri Baraka got so tired of Blacks were putting on airs at Howard University. One day, he and his partners got big watermelons and just sat right down and ate their watermelon with no forks. It sounds amazonic, but that was the movement. And there were students like Huey. Huey was a college student as well as Bobby Seale. Stokely Carmichael was a graduate of Howard University. There was this whole movement on these campuses for Black Studies, for Black identity, for Black pride, for hiring Black Professors on White college campuses, for establishing Black Studies Departments, and African Studies Departments, All of that was part of the Black Power Movement on campus. They had Black Power in the community and the Black Power Movement was in the military. One Black soldier said when Dr. King was in Vietnam, he asked the captain if they could have the Blacks attend so they can see Dr. King. The captain told him, “Hell, no.” The captain and his other good old boys that night strung up confetti with a flag and had a party to celebrate the assassination of Dr. King. Somebody threw a hand grenade in there, killed the captain, and blew up some others. The guy who had asked for a memorial was arrested him for the killing. Since hand grenades don’t leave any fingerprints, they couldn’t prove it. But, they locked him up for nine months and he didn’t get an honorary discharge from the military. That was the Black Power Movement in the military. There was a strong Black Power Movement in the military, particularly in Vietnam, among brothers who opposed that war.</p><p><i>10. You mentioned Black students. How else did the Panther Party and the Black Power Movement affect campuses? What about the development of Black student unions?</i></p><p>I think the development of Black Student Unions was influenced by the Black Power Movement. It was the students who organized other Black organizations, for example, the National Council of Black Lawyers. Now there is the Black Bar Association, the official one, but the National Council for Black Lawyers were the legal wing of the Black Power Movement. They became the main lawyers defending Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, and members of the Black Panther Party. They still exist as a matter of fact. They are strong, still a strong organization. The Black student unions were the Black college and high school wings of the Black Power Movement. So, we don’t, we see organizations in the Black Power Movement quite often as the Black Panther Party. We don’t see that members of the Black Panther Party were college students and in high schools and were organizing and helping to organize Black student unions, or were influencing young people who are there to do it.</p><p><i>11. Did the Panther Party affect the development of the Black Studies Departments at higher education institutions? And if so, how?</i></p><p>I just think that the Black Panther Party was part of the Black Power Movement in general. Even if there wasn’t a chapter of the Black Panther Party on campus, quite often the people would identify as being a Black Panther. I’ve met many people who said, “I identified myself as a Panther.” By being a college student and identifying yourself as a Black Panther, what did you do? College campuses did not have a chapter of the Black Panther Party. But Black students identified with the Panthers anyway. So what did they do? Well, they started a Black student union. They demanded establishment of a Black Studies department. They demanded in your high school that students get books that are relevant to the Black experience. When I went to K-12, I never had a Black book except for one in the fourth grade and that was “Little Black Sambo.” There was a White teacher from North Carolina who used to call us “Darkies,” and she made us read “Little Black Sambo.” So, there was a movement in high schools. We needed education that was relevant to us. Young people who felt like they were Panthers in spirit began to effect these changes on college campuses and in high schools. </p><p><i>12. Are you aware of any activities, programs, or benefits to higher education resulting from the activities of your organizations or other organizations in the Black Power Movement?</i></p><p>I think that the ongoing benefit is the fact that we successfully got Black Studies departments established. The fact is the non-violent Civil Rights Movement opposed the movement for advocating for Black/African Studies departments because they said it was Black separatism. Roy Wilkins gave a speech against it. I remember Roy wrote about it saying, “I have a red, black, and green thing. The flag that represents me is the red, white, and blue.” This is what I witnessed at the NAACP. So, there was a clear dichotomy in the Civil Rights Movement where those who were fighting for racial integration felt that they could not at the same time fight for racial integration and fight for Black Studies Departments. They felt that we should integrate our history into American history. They did not see that if we did that, then it’s going to always be at the back of the bus of American history. It was the Black Power Movement that pushed that. And, unfortunately, on most of these campuses where you have Black Studies Departments, they have selected leadership who don’t appreciate that their jobs were created by the Black Power Movement. I was on a campus that dealt with the history of Black Studies. The chair of the department got up and gave a speech thanking the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King for the fact that they had a Black Studies department. I remember when the battle was started for an African American and African Studies Department at that university, it was students with the big Afros and all that who were protesting and sitting there. They had never crossed paths with Dr. King. But, they have assigned people to those positions, who don’t have the philosophy of those who fought to get those studies there.</p><p><i>KCS: Do they have the knowledge?</i></p><p>Like I said, this person who spoke didn’t have the knowledge about things like the history of Black Studies and, in this particular situation, African Studies. Quite often the professors hired don’t come to college campuses with a historical knowledge. They don’t know our history. </p><p><i>13. Are there other persons you feel would be helpful and will provide information on this topic that I need to talk with?</i></p><p>Are you talking about the Black Panther Party or the Black Power Movement?</p><p><i>KCS: The Black Power Movement.</i></p><p>Black Power. Yes, well, I know one sister was at that meeting in ’67. As a matter of fact, Stokely and Rap, elected her to represent SNCC. Her name is Gloria House. You know her? Gloria House. She’s a professor at my university now. And there’s this book about women and SNCC. I think it’s <i>Hands on the Fleet of Flowers,</i> something like that. She has a chapter in that book. She would be a good person to interview. She was at the Black Panther conference and was elected by Stokely and Rap to represent SNCC at the Black Panther Party.</p><p><i>14. I’m collecting information on the sequence of the events leading to the development of the first Black Student Union and the first Black Studies Department at San Francisco State University. Are there experiences at other colleges that you feel would be informative as well?</i></p><p>Yes, Northwestern. What’s that brother’s name? Bracey? I think it’s John Bracey. He’s in Massachusetts now. He was part of that at Northwestern. There’s a great book out now called, the <i>Revolution on Campus</i> by Martha Biondi, B-I-O-N-D-I. You can go to her website, see the bibliography and see the people she interviewed. Look up her name, Martha Biondi. She’s a professor at Northwestern. That’s a great book.</p><p><i>Comparison of Black Student Union and Black Panther Party Platforms</i></p><table border="1" cellspacing="0" width="630"><tbody><tr><td width="306" valign="top"><p align="center"><b>Black student union (February1969)</b></p></td><td width="324" valign="top"><p align="center"><b>Black panther party (October1966)</b></p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top" style="text-align:left;">1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our school.</td><td width="324" valign="top" style="text-align:left;"><p>1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community.</p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top">2. We want full enrollment in the schools for our people.</td><td width="324" valign="top"><p>2. We want full employment for our people. </p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top">3. We want an end to the robbery of the White man of our Black community.</td><td width="324" valign="top"><p>3. We want an end to the robbery of the White man of our Black Community.</p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top">4. We want decent educational facilities, fit for the use of students.</td><td width="324" valign="top"><p>4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.</p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top">5. We want an education for our people that teach us how to survive in the present day society.</td><td width="324" valign="top"><p>5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society. </p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top">6. We want racist teachers to be excluded and restricted from all public schools.</td><td width="324" valign="top"><p>6. We want all black men to be exempt from military service.</p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top">7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people. We want all police and special agents to be excluded and restricted from school premises.</td><td width="324" valign="top"><p>7. We want an immediate end to <b>police brutality</b> and <b>murder</b> of black people.</p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top">8. We want all students that have been exempt, expelled, or suspended from school to be reinstated.</td><td width="324" valign="top"><p>8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county, and city prisons, and jails.</p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top">9. We want all students when brought to trial to be tried in student court by a jury of their peer group or students of their school.</td><td width="324" valign="top"><p>9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities as defined by the Constitution of the United States.</p></td></tr><tr><td width="306" valign="top">10. We want power, enrollment, equipment, education, teachers, justice, and peace.</td><td width="324" valign="top"><p>10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace. And, as our major political objective, a United Nations supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the Black colony in which only Black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for the purpose of determining the will of Black people as to their national destiny. </p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align:left;">Note: From <i>Up against the wall: Violence in the making and unmaking of the Black panther party</i> (p. 353), by C. J. Austin, , 2006, Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press and <i>Mutiny does happen lightly: The literature of the American resistance to the Vietnam war</i>(pp. 1-3),by G. L. Heath, 1976, Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.</p><p>© Sokoya Enterprises</p><p></p></div>