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Rebels with a Cause: The Black Panther Party and Socialism in Practice · The Real News Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you all this.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: We know that at this junction right now, where we're
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: staying at right now, the contradiction that exists between the
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: leadership or the lack of leadership in this country, because
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: this was you know, when we come into space saying
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: like we're saying socialist socialism, we define it, and we
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: making an analysis and we're using it our analysis Bernie Sander, Franko. Roosevelt,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: except Obama. Let's move it the nerdive, Let's move the
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: new to Like, how do y'all look at the Black
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Panther parties perspective in terms of socialism and how they
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: was trying to implement their ideas along them lines. What's
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: the lesson we can take away from that to help
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: people understand that?
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Well, I could just say from my research in a
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: little bit from organizing and chema.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: Correct me right, check me if I'm wrong. I think
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: there were different parties like after.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: You know, after the assassination in Chicago with Hampton and
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Mark Clark, with Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and sixty nine,
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: and then their attempts to do additional assassinations a week later,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: I think December eleventh in Southern California. Geronimo Pratt had
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: fortified you know, the house, so there was exchange of fire,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: but nobody was killed. Impeaches I can't remember her full name,
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: but Kim can.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: When I think of that kind of his history, right, I.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Understand that it's it's not going to be replicated whatever
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: we end up doing as older people or younger people,
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: you know, fifty years later, but there's a continuous line.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry if I'm sounding too abstract, but what I
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: see in what happened decades ago when I study it,
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: when I work with my students look at it, when
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: we look at the documentaries, the films, I see a spirit.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: And I know people usually don't talk about spirit and
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: we talk about material struggle, but there's also a spiritual
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: aspect to liberation movements, and I think the youth have
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: that embodied in them.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: As well as we have it.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: It doesn't come out with the same kind of narrative,
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: but it's going in the same kind of trajectory. I
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: think that becomes a source that allows us to say,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: we need to keep jobs, to keep family, whatever, fat.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: But we do not need to pimp ourselves out in
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: terms of politics, and we don't have to lie.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: About the reality.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: So it doesn't matter if you get a black man
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: or black woman as president, whatever, It's still an imperial
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: project and it's going to continue to decimate countries and
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: peoples around the globe and people inside the US. And
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: I believe when we agree to that and we understand
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: that agape. This is I'm a former seminary here. When
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: we think of agape, which is a form of love,
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: which is about sacrifice for the greater good, I think
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: our capacity to resist just increases. I think what diminishes
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: our capacity is that we have different pods of activists
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: and radicals and abolitionists, and sometimes people want to hold on.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: To their brand and their identity rather than.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: To let it go and to merge ty and try
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: to create something that takes us somewhere beyond just circling
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: around the camp.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know if that was too abstract.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Nah, No, that was that was very astute.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: And it's a good observation because when we look at
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: and I want to go back to what you say,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: like it's more than one party. My perspective about that
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: is I'm in the space of that. We didn't understand
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: the repression we didn't understand and our opposition and respond
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: to who we were the most fierce party in the country.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: We ain't understand the respond that we were gonna get
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: and now understanding respond and being adjustments and then we
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: making an adjustments as we go along. And the adjustments
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: is being like made in respond to like, oh misinformation, disinformation,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: you know, like you.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Talk about Geronimo, you know he did all that time
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: in prison.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Why because somebody wouldn't come forth and say, you know,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: because the misinformation and disinformation we had we killing each
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: other from one coach to the next coach. Why because misinformation.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Now we're going from a position of now we're going
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: from a position of organizing people to like trying to survive.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I'm not idealistic about I don't have that idea. I'm
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: looking at the reality. Eddie Conway did close to forty
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: something years in prison, and nobody.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Came and gave him no, no money.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of conrads that was went to
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: prison and didn't get to support they supposed to got.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: That being said, our respondibility to respond to the repression
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: got us put us in a position where we went
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: from being on the offense in terms of organizing to
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: now being on defense, then from being on defensive to.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Like just trying to survive, trying to live.
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: I think there was a party. I think it was
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: I would say from sixty seven until the mayoral candidacy
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: where they shut down all the branches and brought them there.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: I think that's where you stopped talking about one party.
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: I think it was a party. I know it's popular
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: to say there was many different parties. There was one party,
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: was a revolutionary party, had communists, socialist trends to it,
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: believed in armed self defense, believed in revolution, and you
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: just go back to Uie Newton's on Revolution Executive Mandate
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: number one, two three, et cetera, et cetera. So I
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: think there was a party. I think there was a consistency.
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: I think what and I want to say this, while
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: the youth got no clue what the party was about,
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: but love it, they got the essence and the essence
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: of what they like is that the party were no punks,
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: they were no sellouts. You got what you got was true.
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: It may have been made mistakes, but it was true struggle.
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: And it wasn't that they didn't have no alternative agendas.
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: And I think that's what the youth see and what
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: the party represents to them. They ain't got no clue
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: about all your socialism, communist revolution versus this. You know.
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: They grew up thinking they was free because of Obahman stuff,
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: you know. But what they do see was the party
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: was uncompromising and that's the essence of what they see
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: that and that's a good thing. But I do think
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: that there was a party message. There was a party,
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: and it was a revolutionary party, and I agree with you.
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: It takes its place in the historical continuing a Black
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: liberation along with Nat Turner and what have you.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Edie wrote a book called the Greatest Thread Ever, But
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: who would say the greatest say the most fearful thing.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Two things of the party that he wanted to completely
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: get rid of free breakfast program and the back panther
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: party paper. He was systematic and trying to get rid
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: of both of those Injos because they had root in
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: the community.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And the.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Free breakfast program sick of sale, Nemia tests, all those institutions.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Those institutions was like started. Party members would go there
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: and set it up for ultimate they were They would wait,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: they would phase themselves out when somebody in the community
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: stepped up to start taking responsibility, and we would just
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: provide the services and resources.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: But the whole goal was the whole goal was.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: For the people to turn it over to the community
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: exactly they saw did the community, and then we would
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: be in a position like it would provide security or help.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: What can be what can some of the lessons that
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: the young people can take from the party going forward?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: If you was if they was to ask you some
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: if they were to ask you that question, what could
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: What? What can I take away? What can I take What's.
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: About your start organizing? I'm telling you when you start organizing,
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: develop your underground, you develop your railroad first. No matter
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: what happens, that that is going to be the ultimate
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: thing they're gonna come after you, and that you need
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: to organize and structure yourself in a way where there
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: is a railroad and that we could operate outside of
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: that is that is ultimately you know, we say, oh,
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: the party, you know, the party had disinformation and stuff.
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: You know what, the system did their job. We was
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: revolutionaries and they came after us, which is what they're
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: supposed to do. And we're the ones that have to come.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: My thing is that their ability to pay us off.
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: But we need for them to understand now because just
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: two years ago they thought everything was rosy. You need
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: to understand that you start out with developing the railroad first,
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: that you developed stuff in the manner in which you
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: know that it's not always going to be hunky dory
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: all up front, and that you make sure that you
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: understand that when you're developing the most simplest things like
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: the free breakfast program, like the free clinics and stuff.
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: We got to understand the nature of this system. You know,
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: I don't want to get all gloom and doing, but
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: that is something that I've been dealing with for the
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: last sixty years in terms of what the system. The
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: system did, what they supposted, and they're nastier now.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say to the youth, that's their question, right,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: what we say to the youth. So it's almost like
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: I'm talking to my students, like one. Check out a
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: number of the documentaries All Power to the People, Black
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Panther Party and Beyond by Leelu Lee. I was introduced
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: to that by Kim Holder when they came to Boulder
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: to a conference in nineteen ninety seven or something, and
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: it's important. It's online, and I don't think a lot
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: of people know about it, but you could see the party,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: its evolution and also the contradictions within it. Then there's
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: another film, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, which
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: is not a documentary.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Samon Greenley, yeap.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: You got it, and.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: It's it's an interesting film, I think for young people
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: who were like, I'm a military brat, right, so I
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: grew up and I was in order to see.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: Handling stuff.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Some people want to be pacifist, and that's fine. So
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: the understanding for me is the revolutionary is really based
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: in the heart, and that you like what you've talked about,
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: the food programs, the sickle cell anemia, the healthcare, knocking
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: on people's door, providing housing, like I know from Kim
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: talking like their sister was being harassed in Hell's Kitchen
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: decades ago when he was in the party by the
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Hell's Angel, and Kim, being in the party, came to
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: apartment and slept on her floor to give protection. She
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be harassed or kicked out of her apartment by
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: some racist people on motorcycles. Like those expressions of love
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: and commitment builds of movement. But there's a cautionary no,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: because you know, referenced Geronimo, like Hue was brilliant. And
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: there's a book out one Newton that's coming out in
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: a couple of months. And again, I never sacrificed or
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: wasn't old enough for whatever the reasons right for not
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: being there, But they're the contradictions sometimes of leaders who
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: lose their way and we have to have the capacity
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: to pull them back. Geronimo did twenty seven years the
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: same as Nelson Mandela. People cheered Nelson Mandela. They don't
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: remember what happened to Geronimo, how he was framed, how
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: he was at a meeting in northern California Anthers. FBI
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: set him up, and Hue told people not to acknowledge
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: the person who went rogue with Kathleen Cleaver, and so
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: she ends up being one of the with Stuart Hanlin
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: and Johnny Cochrane, part of that legal team to get
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Geronimo out.
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: And I only met him once.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: But people have suffered a lot, and people have given
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: a lot, but what they've left is a legacy for
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: us to study. Whether you're young, middle aged, or old
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: and I don't think the Panthers were ever defeated, and
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: I think that's why there's so so many people focus
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: on them. The last thing, which is more a question
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: from what little I looked at, there was an organization
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: that identified young people as Panthers and then they were
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: told to stand down and they became black Lions. I
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: would hope that the party has the fluidity to embrace
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: everyone who's sincere about and I don't know these people.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: They're based in Fila. I'm not in La, but I
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: would say that to the candor that we have to
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: deal with our contradictions. Despite the predatory violence of the
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: state and people trying to buy out movements, we still.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Have our inner.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Mental emotional registers that have to be calmed down. And
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: so then I think of care protests, movement, marinage war resistance.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: That's the whole thing I've been thinking about for a decade,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: about the captive maternal which is ungendered. And I see
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: you both as captive maternals that you care, and I
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: think that that foundation of care will push us through
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: into liberatory struggle.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about how do we get young people to
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: understand how to like coalition build in terms of because
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: like the party when they came into existence, they was
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: big on coalition building. They was big on network and
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: it was big on any element that was anti staffman
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: or was protests and conditions. They network with them and
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: build and build a relationship with them in order to
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: like change the conditions that our communities found themselves in.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: How do we how do we get young people don't
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: understand that part of the parties organizing strategy.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: I think one thing I can only come from it
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: from a negative perspective, unfortunately, But I think one thing
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: that needs to stop. People tend to define their ideology
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: by criticizing other people, and I think that needs to stop.
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: And what we need to start to do at the
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: beginning is we need to start to develop some basic principles,
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: uh that we will, that we accept and that we followed,
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: that we live by, and that that allows us then
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: to determine how we can go with somebody else. Right now,
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: we seem to be uh, you said this one thing
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: five years ago, you ain't no good blah blah blah.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Believe you.
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: You know, you know, it's like I show how bad
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: I am by showing that, you know, as opposed to
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: let's establish what we actually believe. Okay, some basic principles, uh,
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: and then some basic principles of operation how we can
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: interact with each other and move forward. Why do we
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: expect us to get along? Nobody gets along in this society.
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: So why it because we happen to be movement people
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: we get along. So we got to start basically on
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: what are the basic principles, and then we could so
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: then we don't be one ups on people.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: We need to articulate. We already did a ten point program, right,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: but we need to articulate for this generation, this century.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: What is emotional intelligence?
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, we know little.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: Bobby Hutton, I mean elders thought it was a good
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: idea to do something right, and you lose people or
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: people get disappeared. There's a way in which even when
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: we struggle at our best. And again I was not
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: in the party, but I know Kim from talking to
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: you for thirty years a little bit about what you
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: were saying.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: Right, there's a way in all.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Political struggles, when you're being hunted by the state and
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: you're being infiltrated, there has to be a level of
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: integrity or a set of ethics that's not just from
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: the party. It has to emanate from ourselves as a community.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: And that is how like we all get to make mistakes,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: and we all.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: Get to like, I gotta step this one out. I'm
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: not brave enough. Whatever.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: Okay, come back next week and we'll try again. But
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure that we've articulated beyond the ten point program.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: What are the ethics of emotional intelligence and a commitment
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: and a gopy. And I know for some people that
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: seems very abstract, but I think that's the core that
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: keeps us alive and from cross shooting each other literally
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: and figuratively.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And to your point, we do this because we
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: love it, you know. We love our people.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: We love the fact that we're in a position and
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: try to do something to gain our freedom and our liberation.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I was, I was. I was in Oakland, and UH
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: had the opportunity. I told Henry Douglas Minister called to
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Black Panther Party when I came back because we was
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: doing some things, and I told him when I come back,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: I wanted him to take me around Oakland and talk
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: about the party and some of the early things they did.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: And he's a good storyteller as far as.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned, and he did. He took me around with.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: The thing that I left he left me with was
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: how simplistic the party was in terms of organized, how simplicity.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: He said, every library in Oakland, wherever they had something,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: party members was there and participating. And any space they
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: could get they would be there. An the park they
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: would be at they would do organized they would play baseball, basketball,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: you know, they always was doing something in the community.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And I think that to your point, Kim, that uh,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: we have to like stop talking about what we don't
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: have in common and start talking about what we do
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: have in common and find that commonality and then find
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: that commonality. You know, that's just what we do. I'm
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: gonna get I'm gonna give you one more example, then
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you all this. Y'all had last word
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Dominic Khon where Eddie's wife. We was doing some organized
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: in the neighborhood. So we were in the neighborhood we
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: in is high drug area with a lot of kids there.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: So we down there doing some organized we're doing and
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: we don't have no space. So they said, well, we
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: gotta get us a space. So we took a house,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: a house that was abandoned that was Liverpool. We took it,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: did all the research on it, found it was city property,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: took it and then held a press com say like
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: this is this house. We take it for the community.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: And when Eddie got out, that's what that was. Out
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: became our base operation. We did everything in that neighborhood.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: We in the Eddie and up meeting with some guys
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: and they talking like they you know, serious about organized
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: and so Eddie looked out the window was seeing some
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: band houses. Just go take some houses and do just
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: that simple. And I think that we lose sight on
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: like the simplicity of things that we could be doing.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: But y'all got the last word. What y'all want to
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: say on about just subject matter.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: I want to say thank you for inviting us to
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: this conversation and for all the works that you're.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: Doing and all you've contributed.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: And I was just thinking of a book, right the
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: importance of books, which we know, like many people insight
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: and people were in the party studied books, they read,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: they taught eat themselves, they taught each other. And so
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: it was a book. It was a women, black women's
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: led book. Launch in the Federal Government building or something
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: on one twenty fifth Street in Harlem, and they went
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: there because it was a Sada's memoir and it's the
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: first time I heard of her book was just coming out.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: And then when I went to teach at you Mass,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: someone mentioned to Kim, who got his degree from there,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: that I was teaching this book A Sada, her autobiography,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: right and class, and that's how we met, you know,
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: That's how the conversation started. So I think the word
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: is with us, it's yeah, you got it.
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: And even if you're what you're doing, and she.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Took and to the system became yes.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I picked up on that look and became flesh.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: And that's what you're doing. Now you're doing it with audio,
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: but it's still the worst.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's how I got to be in her kitchen
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: and hear say things. I've been in keep it several times,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: but always like the collective, we're all sitting, we're tourists
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: and something like that. But because they were both in
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: the party in Harlem, that's when you get these these
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: This is when you learn. And I learned a lot
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: and I've learned a lot from the party and a
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: lot from how you've cared and loved and fought, and
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: so I'm grateful and thank you again.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: You work with Eddie and you was in the joint
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: So that's one perspective. And Eddie was a good wit
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: with coalitions. Do not follow the party when it comes
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: to coalitions. Party was vanguard. We bossed everybody around and
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: half the coalitions that we talk about we made up. Yeah, okay,
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: I'm just saying a party especially if you were black.
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: If you were something else, we would deal with you.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: But if you were black, how come you had a path?
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: You say, if you were Latina, okay, we could work
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: with you. You was white, okay, if you was this,
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: But if you're black, how come you aint a path.
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: The only blacks that we respected outside was with students.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: But I understand that prison was different. And I know
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: Eddie Conway is a good coalition builder. But so you're
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: getting the good side of the party.