Latest / The Real News Podcast / New community museum honors the legacy of Eddie Conway and the Black Panthers

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New community museum honors the legacy of Eddie Conway and the Black Panthers · The Real News Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So we're here at Eddie Conway's front porch, which is,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: we call it People's Museum. I'm here with Dominique Conway,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the wife of Eddie Conway. Tell our audience what Eddie
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Conway meant to you, or who was Eddie Conway to you?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: That's really, that's hard to sum up, to be quite honest.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Eddie was so many things to me and so many
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: other people, but Eddie was, quite honestly, he was my hero.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: as he was to many other people. He was a
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Black Panther. He was somebody who also served 44 years
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: in the Maryland prison system, um, and didn't allow that
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: time to break him. During that time, Eddie worked with
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: hundreds of men in the prison system, many of whom
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: have come out and done their own programming and continue
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: to do really great things in the community. So he was, uh,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: At the end of the day, Eddie was just a man,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: you know, but he loved people. He loved humanity and
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: he exuded that. He loved nature. He loved animals. He
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: exuded that pretty much in everything that he did. And
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I wanted to capture some of that. I wanted to
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: capture his legacy. I feel like it's very important for us.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: To own our narratives and to give those proper narratives
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: because it's easy for many people to just see Eddie
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the icon. I want them to see Eddie the man.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Talk about how this came about in your mind and
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: how it became a vision for people to see.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't even planning to come back to Baltimore.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: You know this, right? But I don't know. I woke
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: up one day, I saw this house online and thought
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: about all the things we've talked about, what we want
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: to do. And it was the perfect place. Also, I
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: think at that time, I felt like, you know, we
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: need to do something to really preserve his legacy. I
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: have a lot of documents, a lot of papers, a
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: lot of things that need to be archived. And I'm like,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: we need to do that. It would be easy to say, oh,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Maybe they should go to a university, but I think
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: we need our own people's archives. We need our own
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: spaces where we not only celebrate and remember, but we
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: tell accurate histories of resistance, of Black liberation in particular,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: but not even limited to that, the experience of indigenous people,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: the experience of Latino people. We need to be able
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: to own our narratives. and share those stories with youth,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: with people in the community. One of the young men
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: who's going to perform today, he's doing spoken word. You know,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: we've been telling him, hey, this is your space. Host
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: spoken word events here. So we're looking to get people
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: in to just do what they want to do. We
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: have like a small theater group that meets here at times,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: you know, and just comes together to do storytelling. So
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: we're just opening the space up and wanting the community
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: to come in.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: So this is real news. So let me give you
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: some real events. Mr. Conway, I call him Mr. Conway.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: He didn't like that. He didn't like that. From day one,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: we met inside a prison. I was doing youth work
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: and he was doing outreach work inside the institution. And
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: someone had a good idea for us to come together.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: And right off the tap, when I met him, immediately
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: we connect. Immediately, he was everything that I read about,
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: everything everyone told me about. real charismatic, real intelligent, and planning.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: And our first encounter was straight away about the people.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: And day one, we established a curriculum called Friend of Friends,
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: which was a grassroots program inside the institution that developed
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: outside here to where we are today.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: And you spoke, you said that Eddie was instrumental in
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: helping people who were constantly in prison. And that's where
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I met Eddie at, and to a point. And you
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: talked to some other brothers today to resonate this point.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Eddie was responsible for a lot of us getting political education.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And when you look at The time that he came
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: into the Maryland prison system, what was going on in
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: this country, a lot of people was resisting the establishment
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and society, and they was putting him in prison. When
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Eddie came in the prison system, he didn't come in
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the prison system, oh, I'm Eddie Conway, I'm here to change,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I'm the Nat Turner of the Maryland prison system. No,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: he came in, I'm trying to get out of prison.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: But the conditions made him be who he is. he
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: responded to the conditions. Conditions were so horrendous that he
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: started educating. And one thing he said in his book,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Quarantail Pro, the greatest threat ever, he say, agitate, educate, organize.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: This was he saying that this was a model that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: he want people to understand how they look at things.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: So I'm an example of like the impact that Eddie
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: had on people. When I got out, it was no
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: brainer for me to fall in ranks, to become a
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: part of this process. This house right here, if I
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: got out tomorrow, I would be here. If I got
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: out a year from tomorrow, I would be here. Wherever
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: we are in this space, wherever Eddie or Dominique is
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: doing something, we in that space. So that's what Eddie
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: pretty much, like Dominique said, it's hard to sum up
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: for Eddie, but we try to get people to understand
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that Eddie was a human being and a man. And
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: our hero, Always got different views on, but at the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: end of the day, Eddie was a person that loved
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: our people and did everything humanly possible to get our
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: people to understand their right to self-determination.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: I was working in the library. He comes up to
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: get science fiction books like Star Trek and stuff like that.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: It's like, that's nothing revolutionary. He says it is. These
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: are the things that's going to come. This is information
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: that was redone, replayed, and put into a book. He said,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: it's a lot of information inside fiction. And it's the
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: history wrapped up in fiction.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: So let me first start off by saying, friend of
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: a friend. You know, when I first learned about Friend
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: of a Friend and I asked where the name came from,
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: I was taught that the name came from the times
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: of slavery and the Underground Railroad where Harriet Tubman. You know,
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: people just couldn't go knock on anybody's door because the
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: Underground Railroad was a group of people or a system
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: of people that helped people along the road. on the
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: way to freedom. So when people would knock on the door,
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: they just couldn't say anything random. So when they were asked,
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: who was it? You would say a friend of a friend.
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: And that's how we knew that the people were official.
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: That was the secret code. So when we say a
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: friend of a friend, we speaking about family. We speaking
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: about unity. We speaking about a safety net, a safety
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: system where we could come to and be whole as
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: family and put ideas together, think tanks, so to speak.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: Eddie Conway was like a mentor and a father to me.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: I came into Maryland Penitentiary at the age of 22
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: years old. Stayed in prison for 28 years. And during
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: that time, Eddie Conway gravitated to me and pulled me
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: in tight and gave me some things that I could
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: actually make better decisions with. And ever since then, He
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: had me under his wings.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: So our experiences have always been from four different institutions.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: Me and Eddie Conway had a different relationship. You know,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I think everybody will say the same thing, had a
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: different relationship. Him and I shared a mutual common ground
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: about young individuals and the growth and development of young
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: guys in prison as well as society. So our relationship
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: was trying to build that gap between prison and society, right?
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: And everything that he represent was about the community.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So we was doing libation in Gilmore Projects in honor
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of Eddie and our ancestors. And a guy rolled up
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: that was on a bicycle. And he was a little
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: kid when they first moved down to Gilmore. And Dominique said, man,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: he was a pain. And this is what he said.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: He rolled up, he seen her, Miss Dominique. And I said,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: this is what I said. I said, what she mean?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: He said, no, Miss Dominique was good. So this is
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: an example. This guy just came out, you know, he's
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: still in the neighborhood, but his memories of what we
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: was doing in Gilmore Projects is memories of us recognizing
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: him and saying, you got worth. So what do you
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: want to do with your worth? We're here to help
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: you maximize on your worth.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: So from that, I paid a lot of close attention
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: to Eddie and he showed me a During that time,
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: I was already a member of the black guerrilla family
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: and field marshal. So I had a real good rapport
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: inside the prison with every organization, every gang. And Eddie
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: gave me a way to construct a unified effort of prisoners.
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: to keep down the trouble, the violence, keep down a
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: lot of the unnecessary stuff that goes, take place in
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: prison with a lot of our youth. So, when I
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: got released, well, he got released first. And I was
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: a facilitator in the program in which he created him
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: and Miss Dominique, a friend of a friend. I was
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: a facilitator. And it was from the facilitation that. Led
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: me to college, from college, out here in the street
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: into college, and to running my own business. If it
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: wasn't for Eddie, man, I'd probably still be in prison
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: acting crazy. So I loved him for that, and he
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: guided me all the way until his last breath. So
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: I respect it. And here I am doing the work
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: that he taught me to do.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: Man, so mr. Conway was He was one of a
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: kind he was exceptional right there is such a blessing
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: when you could learn from people who experience a historical
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: times who lived through the movement you know to be
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: able to garner that wisdom to be able to be
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: blessed with that type of information you know I know
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: that I was totally blessed right you know it's sad
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: to say but you know I found my best leaders
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: inside a prison and Mr. Conway was definitely one of
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: the best of them you know I learned a lot
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: from Mr. Conway he was a leader a He was
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: a man. He was moral. He was principled. He was
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: exceptional in his walk. He was consistent. You know, he
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: had values. He had knowledge to distill whenever you asked.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: He was ready to give a blessing. You know, he
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: was always strong. He always stayed ten toes down. So
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: nothing but mad love and much respect for Mr. Conway,
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: a living legend to you. Well, he's passed, but he's
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: still a living legend. His spirit lives.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: On through all of us. He was genuine in how
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: he approached and how he did things and how he organized.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: How he was able to organize people was one of
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: the things that stuck out a lot about Mr. Conway, right?
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: How he was able to organize. Me, myself, I was
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: still in prison when we lost Eddie, so I didn't
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: get an opportunity to work with him while he was
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: out there, but I was still working beside him. while
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: I was still in conservation because he still kept his
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: hands inside the institutions.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: While he was flying throughout the country, building up, you
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: know what I mean, the communities, I still was inside
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: holding it down for him and his name. You know
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: what I mean? Along with his wife, you know, Dominique.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: But I would like to say our experiences and where
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: he left a lasting impression on me about how we
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: should build, how we view education, and how we view
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: our community and the young people just growing up in it, right?
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: And that last impression he left, man, is really profound,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: if I could say the least. You know, he imparted
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: a lot of information on me and a lot of history.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: You know, that's one of the things I will say
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: as well, that know your history, so it won't repeat itself.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: But if it does repeat itself, it repeats itself in
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: a proper way. So that's some of the things that
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: I would like to say he imparted on myself personally,
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: It's history and how to deal with the people based
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: upon that. You know what I'm saying?
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but I miss him.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: I really do miss him. I wish he was here
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: now to view some of the things that, you know,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: all of us collectively as a group Because we was all,
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: we was a family. And now that we all out
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: here together and we building together, we missing our hierarchy.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: We really missing our hierarchy out here. Even though the
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: sister here, she holding down on his presence, we holding
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: down on his presence. But we can feel the emptiness
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: of his not being here, although we do feel like
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: he's here with us.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I You know, right now in particular, obviously I miss
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Eddie every day. That's personal. That's love. But politically, I
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: miss Eddie because he has such a keen analysis about
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: everything and just the information he would provide about what's
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: happening in the present. But also because he had that history.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: He had that history of being part of The resistance
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: being part of a movement that was the vanguard of
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: the revolution at the time. You know, he had so
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: much information, but I think it is critical. So many
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: people are passing away. Ward Churchill, for example, was a giant. OK,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Ward is gone. So it's it's really more important. I think,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: now than ever for us to be engaging and working
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: in multigenerational ways, which is really a very traditional way
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: of working in, say, Black, Indigenous, and Latino communities. We
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: have to really return to that and not see young
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: people as a separate group. Age is real, but generation
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: is a social construct, too. So we have to break
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: that down and really engage, like I said, in a
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: more multigenerational way.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: And when we look at all revolutionaries, Malcolm was young. Huey, Bobby,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: little Bobby Hunt, they was young. These were young people
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: that had big ideas and got together and organized their
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: thinking around changing social conditions. And I'm with Dominique on that.
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: So, of course, I got to acknowledge and honor Ms.
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: Dominique Conway as well. You know, the matriarch, you know,
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: who is our Harriet Tubman in these days and time.
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: You know, who is one of my teachers. You know,
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: I've learned from a lot of women, but I would
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: say that, you know, Ms.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Ms.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: Conway, Ms. D, taught me a lot just about self
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: and acknowledging and having race pride, right? And being a
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: linchpin and a leader and what it takes and means
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: to be a leader. So, you know, I couldn't go
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: through this brief interview without saying, you know, thank God
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: for Ms. D because Ms. D was an angel in
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: my life and still continue to be. So, you know,
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: much respect to her, Eddie, first lady. And, you know,
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: thank you for having me.