WEBVTT - Part Two: The Bastards Who Killed the Black Panthers 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the only podcast on 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:09.119 the Internet that you are listening to right now presumably, 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.879 and if it's you're listening to a multiple podcast at once, 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:17.360 I'm concerned. Yeah, no way, but it's not impossible. It's 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.400 no way you're retaining anything. You're missing a lot. Yes, um, 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.360 And this is a podcast about the worst people in 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:26.120 all of history. And we're doing a bit of an 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:28.560 odd duck of an episode because we're focusing a lot 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.240 on on some folks who I think are are pretty 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:35.640 cool dudes. Um. But last episode was to build up, uh, 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.839 to the bastards who tried to destroy them. So this 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.040 is an episode about how the FBI and law enforcement 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.239 tried to take down the Black Panther Party. Uh. My 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.800 guest for part two, as with part one, is prop propaganda, 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:54.960 hip hop artist and podcast yourself. What'saw y'all. I'm just 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.640 glad to be here, just smiling so much, I don't know, 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.800 glad to have you here. Um. We've been really happy 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.480 to have your perspective and excited to get into the 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.679 rest of this. So um. We talked about the Moford 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.039 Act in the last episode, which which stopped the Black 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.880 Panthers from carrying loaded weapons in the state of California. UM, 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.400 but did not stop the Black Panthers from loving themselves 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.240 some firearms, weapons training, stockpiling. They remained a big part 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:24.360 of what they did. Uh. And I found an archive 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.440 of magazines published by the Black Panther Community News Service, 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.560 which was like they're essentially their media network. Um. And 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:35.440 one issue from nineteen sixty nine included this cartoon UM 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.479 which Sophie can show you and I guess I can 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:41.240 describe it. You can describe if you'd like, Let prop 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:48.320 describe it. Yes, So this is from the Black Panther yeahtop, Yeah, 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.480 the magazine that they ran, magazine. So it's like it's 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.280 very familiar with their style of animation, but it's like 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.680 thick animation style of illustrations, like thick, like out black 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:03.480 out lined characters like that are just kind of shaded 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:11.320 in grays UM and uh, yellow or orange letters in 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.880 blue letters. It's like a black family. Um, I think 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.280 that's a child, but the child looks like an adult 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.080 up the animation style and it's kind of like a 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.280 cartoon or like a like a comic strip. But the 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.320 brothers got a good throw both the brothers got a 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.760 good throw and the sisters got a nice little hair 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:33.520 wrap on. Yeah, am I supposed to say? What? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.720 What's what's going on in the cartoon? It says, so 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.640 Dad's got his hand on the shoulders a little homie, 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.520 and he says, son, what do you want for Christmas? 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:48.239 And I can't really make out what read what the 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.040 sun says he wants for Christmas? A machine gun, a shotgun, 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.079 a box of hand grenades, a box of dynamite, and 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:02.079 I think a box of handguns is the nineteen sixty 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:06.320 nine um. And then there's some stuff written around the 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.520 edges of the cartoon UM, including off the pig, blow 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:15.240 oink oink away and snipe the hawks um in w 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:19.360 a yeah really intense yes on his way to like 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:24.080 the f the police song, Yeah yeah. And violence against 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.359 the police was a constant refrain in Black Panther periodicals, 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.519 and it was usually framed as necessary self defense against 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.520 an oppressive and violent force. UM. And there is this 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.440 kind of unavoidably gleeful tone and some of the discussions 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.080 against violence against law enforcement, which I think is really 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.640 uncomfortable for a lot of particularly kind of middle of 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:45.360 the road centrist political UM people to to to deal 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:52.280 with um to to like accept but uh, there's there's 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:57.040 a reason for this, Yeah, yeah, there And and that's 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:59.240 what this episode is about, is like why there was 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.760 so much paranoia and hatred of the police, not just 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.200 as sort of like the violence against black people by 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.920 law enforcement, but specifically because the Panthers knew the police 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.880 were targeting them. Um and as the sixties turned into seventies, 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.720 an increasing amount of their anti law enforcement rhetoric focused 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.680 on the Federal Bureau of Investigations. UM and I found 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:22.040 a really interesting website, black Power in American History. It 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.600 appears to be a graduate student project from UNC at 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.119 Chapel Hill, and they analyzed piles of old Black Panther 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.000 magazines and noted they would claim that if the Black 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.799 Panthers did not join or follow a particular course of action, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.279 disaster will result. An example of this was seen in 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.159 the article published on January nine, ninety one, when it 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.719 read when a pig is caught dirty snoop and shows 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.120 you his badge and begs for mercy, mercy him to 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.440 death with the butt of your gun towards the bottom. 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:47.880 It also reads kill the pigs before they kill you. 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.240 The pigs here are referring to undercover FBI agents that 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.279 were sent to infiltrate the party and cause internal unrest. 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.600 And again, this is really uncomfortable rhetoric for a lot 0:04:57.640 --> 0:04:59.839 of folks to read. But it wasn't It wasn't just 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:04.359 bawned from bloodthirstiness. The FBI and the police were engaged 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.159 in an active battle to destroy the Black Panthers and 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:09.840 to murder many of their leaders in this period of time, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.840 and a lot of folks would have just called them conspiratorial. Um, 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.000 would have said that they were sort of making stuff 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.440 up because they're paranoid. Um. All of these fears were 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.960 proved valid by documentation that later came out, which we'll 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.240 get to at the end of this episode. There's a 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:29.560 a good tie into like modern time, especially like you know, 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:34.440 the community that spawned the hip hop music that most 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.080 of us kind of consider golden age, Like these were 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.440 our dads, you know, our moms. Like so even just 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.160 like you know, eight song from n w A for 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.480 the Police, like this isn't just it's hard. It's hard 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.680 if you're not here, like to understand that, like you know, 0:05:54.880 --> 0:06:00.240 Iced Teas Cop killer. It's like, Okay, you you think 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:08.000 that this is uh like a honorable like officer position, 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:09.880 that that job is a job of person that carries 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.240 prestige and honor. It's like that is not our experience 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:18.200 with the police, like your experiences. This is another gang, right, 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.200 It's just the law protects them, you know. So you 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.880 have this attitude towards him. There's another song, but I 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.560 feel like you're your taste in hip hop. Would know 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:30.480 if I'd say, Jay Dilla, you know what I'm saying, 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.040 so like you liken more of the obscure or doom 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:34.760 tree stuff. I've been listening. I've been listening to you 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.719 know what I'm saying. Uh and uh you know. Um, 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:39.880 So you take somebody like J. J. Diller, who has 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.120 also has a song called the Police, and it's it's 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.200 the ideas, Like the backstory with that song was like 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:49.560 there was this false tip that he was engaged in 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.640 some criminal activity and the police raided his mom's basement, 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.240 you know, destroyed all these things. It's like destroyed hard 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.400 drive stuff. Like this guy's like recording albums for you know, 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.640 uh child call quest, Like he's recording albums for for 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.200 busta rhymes like all these like main major level Like 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.720 he's like you guys asked Pharrell, Timberland, all these like 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.200 you know, producers, they're all like we got our swing 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.960 from Jay Dilla, you know, and like and Dilla. So 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.160 Dilla wrote this song. This guy, this guy like he 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.240 just rated my and so he made that song that day, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.840 like after the police just rated his mom's basement and 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.920 destroyed just volumes and volumes of music that none of 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.520 us will never get now, you know what I'm saying. Um, 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:35.200 So the attitude is like you're your bullies. You're not 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.440 policing us, you are bullies, you know. So it's it's 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:41.480 hard not to respond that way. But so if you 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.320 understand as a long statement, but if you understand, like 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.840 our relationship with law and for and I say this 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.600 as somebody who's like my brothers is a highway patrol officer, 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:52.840 you know what I'm saying, Like, so we have law 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:59.640 enforcement in our family, you know, but the institution since 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:01.760 this day, Like so it's like this is coursing through 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.680 our veins. Our grandparents are great grandparents, our fathers, you 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:06.920 know what I'm saying, Like, this is our relationship with 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.440 the police, sorry, that's just is so triggering. No, just 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.400 and just as as a way to kind of make 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:14.360 that point just into the modern era, because we're talking 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.320 about decades ago and most of this episode. Um. I've 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:19.800 had a two thousand fifteen article in the Washington Post 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.120 about civil asset forfeitures, which is what happens when police 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:28.480 take your stuff with no recourse versus burglary. In two uh, 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.200 police civil asset forfeitures total more than five billion dollars 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.760 worth of property. Police took five billion dollars worth of 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:39.360 property with no recourse really from people. Burglaries accounted for 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.880 less than four billion dollars worth of theft. So when 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.360 you're making that comparison between police and the burglars, there's 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.080 some numbers you can throw out there that are very compelling. Um. Yeah, 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.800 that's that's probably enough for now. Um. So. In nineteen 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:58.000 fifty six, the FBI launched its co Intel pro operation 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:00.640 UM co Intel pro usual. We see it written in 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.720 all caps as one one where it's an acronym. Initially 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.760 aimed at targeting communist organizers in the United States, it 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.200 was later expanded to strike at groups like the KKK, 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.640 but thanks in large part to jer Hoover. In the 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.160 late nineteen sixties, the FBI co intel pro operations focused 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:20.000 increasingly and primarily on the Black Panthers. This was a 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.160 sophisticated and complex operation. Hoover himself wrote, one of our 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.080 primary aims and counterintelligence as it concerns the b PP, 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.440 is to keep the group isolated from the moderate black 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.040 and white community which may support it. And I'm gonna 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.240 quote again from the book Black Against Empire here, the 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.320 federal agents sought to create factionalism among the party leaders 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.800 and between the Panthers and other black political organizations. FBI 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.760 operatives forged documents and paid provocateurs to promote violent conflicts 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.679 between Black Panther leaders as well as between the Party 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:52.280 and other Black nationalist organizations, and congratulated themselves when these 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.319 conflicts yielded the killing of Panthers, and co intel pro 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.119 sought to lead the party into unsupportable actions, creating opposition 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:01.040 to the bp P on the part of the majority 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.920 of the residents of the ghetto areas. For example, agent 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.520 provocateurs on the government payroll supplied explosives to Panther members 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:09.640 and sought to incite them to blow up public buildings 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.000 and they promoted kangaroo courts, encouraging panther members to torture 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:18.480 inspected informants. Yeah. Yeah, so like that's it's so like 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.839 that's so like, you know, illuminating, because it's like you're 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:23.680 in the room. It's like you're in a room with 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.120 like rational people and somebody else from the back you 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.120 should just punch them in the pot. You're just like, 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.840 who said that? Right? And then everybody goes you see 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.600 what they're about. They're about punching in the butt, Like, well, 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:36.520 who first of all, who punches in the butt? Number one? 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.760 You know what I'm saying. But then but just them 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.880 planting these people to push them into places that make 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:47.360 other people uncomfortable, and then that becomes the narrative. Yeah, 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:52.360 it's clearly so effective. Yeah, it was very effective and 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.280 very um insidious. Um. And we'll get into the numbers 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:57.880 a little bit later how much they spent on this, 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.480 but um For in a specific exam uple of how 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.640 this process worked, I think we need to turn to 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.600 nineteen sixty eight, when J. Edgar Hoover sent a memorandum 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.600 to fourteen FBI field offices noting that a state of 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.320 gang warfare existed between a group called the US Organization, 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.760 a black nationalist group, and the Panthers now US as 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:18.840 a complicated Organization UM. Their founder, among other things, is 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.280 the guy who created Quanza UM and I we're not 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.040 going to do them justice in this episode. For today's purposes. 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.040 What's important to know is that US and the Panthers 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.559 had a lot of disagreements on how to achieve black liberation, 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.320 and it competed aggressively for new recruits UM through a 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:36.400 network of informants. The FBI learned this, and Hoover noted 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.319 that they'd seen evidence that there had been threats of 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.400 murder between some members. He took notice of this and 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.960 ordered what he called imaginative and hard hitting counter intelligence 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.800 measures aimed at crippling the BPP. In order to fully capitalize, 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.920 in his words, on the rivalry and exploit all avenues 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:55.600 of creating further dissension, The FBA ordered its informants and 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.079 US to tell members when the BPP planned to have events, 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.120 so that US could also show up and both in 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.560 organizations would wind up in conflict. They did whatever they 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.600 could to stoke hatred between both groups, including having their 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.360 paid informant spread rumors about either side to the other group, 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.600 like rumors about like them being there being hits planned 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:18.959 and murders plan raising the temperature that was the goal. UM. 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.200 And this all came to a boil. UM at an 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:26.800 event your father was at January nineteen sixty nine, UM, 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.880 when al Prentice Carter and John Huggins were gunned down 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.920 by US members on the u c l A campus. Yeah, 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:39.559 it's just it's like junior high all over again, only 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:44.640 with like murder, yeah mixed in, you know. Yeah, it's 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.319 so sad man. Yeah, Pops was at that anyway, continue Sorry. 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.040 The Black Panther seemed to instinctively know what was going on. 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.240 UM and their magazines declared the murders of political killing. 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.120 They pointed out that US received government funding and had 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.160 a working relationship with the police. They also note that 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.120 seventeen Panthers were arrested in the immediate wake of the murders, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:04.880 while it took much longer for the law to get 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:09.240 take action against the actual killers, who were members of US. UM. Now, 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.520 only some of the FBI's co intel profacory has been 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.040 declassified at this point, so we'll never know the exact 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.600 extent to which the Bureau planned all this. There are 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:19.839 allegations that what happened at u c A was an 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.360 ordered hit. Others will argue that the FBI definitely intended 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.200 for there to be murders, but they weren't trying to 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.360 stoke specific murders. So they wanted to raise the temperature 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:30.240 to where murders were inevitable, but they weren't saying, on 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.000 this date, kill these people. There's also allegations that they 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.280 were in fact saying, on this date, kill these people. 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:41.120 Um was like yeah, they had a list this who 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.920 you're supposed to die, you know, yeah, yeah, And we 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.320 can verify that they absolutely specifically intended to stoke violence. 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:51.520 That they wrote, we want to make these people kill 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.600 each other like that like that that that we know, 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.679 um to a point of certainty. Um. Whatever the truth 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:02.160 about how specific they were about the violence they wanted, Um, 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:05.560 the violence like happened and it was very much stoked 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.440 by the FBI. And on May nineteen sixty nine, Black 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.720 panther John Savage was killed by US members. Sylvester Bell 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:15.480 was murdered in August. Now, most of the information behind 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:17.240 all this didn't come out until a series of court 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:19.960 battles in the late nineteen seventies, so particularly like white 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.400 people reading about this at the time would have just said, oh, 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.040 these these black liberation groups are also violent, look at 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.040 what they're doing to each other, ignoring the fact that 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:31.760 it was their FBI and was stoking all this. Yeah. Um, 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:33.600 and I found a really good New York Times article 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.320 from nineteen seventy six, Um, when this started to come out, 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.800 that goes into detail about everything here, and it notes 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.840 that the Bureau, working with the Chicago Police Department, also 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.400 sought to create violent divisions between the Panthers and the 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.240 black Stone Rangers, which are now a much more complicated organization. 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.360 At that point, we're a street gang in Chicago. Quote. 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.520 For example, a fake note was sent to the leader 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:55.920 of the street gang, Jeff Ford, telling him the Panthers 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.280 hostility towards his group, saying they're supposed to be a 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.320 hit out for you. In noting that that this meant 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.880 there was probably a contract to kill someone, the Chicago 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.320 FBI office set in a memorandum to headquarters that the 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.320 letter may intensify the degree of animosity between the two 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.120 groups and occasion for it to take retaliatory action, which 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.880 could disrupt the b PP or lead to reprisals against 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.920 their leadership. So the FBI sends this fake letter about 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.720 a hit and note specifically we're hope, like we think 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:22.800 this is going to make them angrier at each other 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:27.000 and might stoke violence, and that's our goal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.520 it's just it's just like, can we just like okay, 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:36.440 acknowledge that, like we you can't make this stuff up. No, 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:40.560 you can't make this stuff up. You know. One thing 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:42.920 that's really frustrating about this is that it, um it's 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:46.440 spread so far even outside of among the entire left 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:48.400 wing activist community. It's spent a lot of time in 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:51.880 that community, um for my work, and there are constant 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:54.520 modern fears about co intel pro stuff even among like 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:58.160 white activist group primarily white activist groups, um of FBI 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.840 informants and stuff like. You find this this fear among 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.200 a lot of members of anti fascist street groups right 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:05.640 now that there's agent provocateurs and maybe there are like 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:07.960 it's happened, like that's the thing, it's like they did it. 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:12.440 There is precedence, yes, yeah, yeah, there's really no limit 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.440 to what you might be worried. The FBI will do 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.400 to your activist group because this ship happened. Um yeah, 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.720 Now I'm gonna quote again from that New York Times article. 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.280 The report portraits of campaign in which the Bureau used 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.680 a legion of informers, sometimes as provocateurs, and close cooperation 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.640 with local police anti radical squads to so confusion, fear, 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.880 and dissension among the Panthers. Cartoons attacking them purportedly from 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.800 rival groups were distributed to aggravate antagonisms. Stories were planted 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:39.960 with newspaper and television outlets to put the Panthers and 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.640 their supporters in a bad light. Bogus messages were sent 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.560 to cause rifts between the party and its white leftist supporters. 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.800 This was a comprehensive campaign. Imagine this and like the 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.680 Internet age just be like just trolls attacking your comments 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:59.040 section for the purpose of m hmm. Yeah. It'll maybe 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:05.280 thirty years, yeah, yeah, we it'll probably be a few 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.040 years before the extent to which that stuff is going 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.159 on comes out now. And you know what, to be 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:12.240 entirely honest, it's possible that none of it now was 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.399 the FBI. That it's all for example, government like private 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:19.920 corporations contracted by government agencies or whatever like, who knows. Yeah, 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.880 the FBI's Cointal Probe campaign seriously disrupted the Black Panthers, 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:25.879 but it did not stop them from expanding. Throughout the 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.240 late sixties and early nineteen seventies, the organization was under 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.439 constant stress, though, and this was not helped by the 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.400 fact that, for some strange reason, its leaders kept getting 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.120 imprisoned and assassinated. I wonder why all of a sudden 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.320 started kid making crimes. They just they just went off 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.720 the rails. Yeah. I think we'll start on this subject 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.439 by talking about what happened to Huey P. Newton on 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.119 October seven, nineteen sixty seven, who we walked down to 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.080 his girlfriend's house on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. It was 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:56.919 a Friday night. They were going to party, but she 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.160 wound up feeling sick and instead lent in her card 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:00.920 to take out on the town own. He had a 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:02.720 drink at the bar and then went to a church 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.159 social where he danced until around two am. Then he 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.040 drove to a party, which he left it around four am. 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.720 That early morning, October Officer John Frey of the Oakland 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.120 Police was sitting in his squad car. He saw hue 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.240 drive past and recognized his plates. We don't know precisely 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.320 if the Bureau had local cops keeping tabs on Huey, 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.200 if this was an FBI directed operation, or if the 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:24.960 Oakland cops on their own. We're just wanting to funk 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.720 with Huey. Either is entirely possible, but without any apparent cause. 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.399 John Frey made one of the last mistakes of his life. 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.879 He pulled Huey p Newton over. Here's how SF Weekly 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:38.879 describes what happened next. Officer Herbert C. Hines rolled up 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.199 on the scene shortly after Frey had radioed for backup. 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.120 The officers told Newton to get out of the bug 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.200 and marched him to the back of Haines's patrol car. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.120 Newton and Frey started scuffling on the trunk of Haines's car. 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.600 A gun went off. Haines was hit in the right forearm. 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.240 Heines fired back, hitting Newton in the gut. More shots 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.399 were fired. Haines was shot three times and survived. Newton 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.280 took that bullet to the gut and fled the scene 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:00.480 with McKinney, which is a friend he was with. Freight 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:02.399 was shot five times and died. He had been on 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:03.919 the force for a little over a year and had 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:05.920 a three year old daughter. He was only twenty three, 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:07.640 but all of the men involved in the melee were 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:12.080 well under thirty. Now we don't know what actually happened. 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:14.600 Newton claims to have blacked out after being shot, which 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.160 is totally reasonable, and speculates that the cops shot each 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.560 other and all of the recovered bullets came from police revolvers. 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.119 Speculation on what went down ranges from Huey grabbing a 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.960 cops gun and shooting them both, to him resisting when 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.280 the cops started beating him and then them shooting each 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.639 other in error, to an attempted assassination of Huey by 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:35.480 the Oakland p DE gone horribly wrong. I don't know 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.600 what exactly went down, but I do think additional context 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.440 on Officer James Frey is useful here, and I'm gonna 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.800 quote from Black Against Empire. Frey had been implicated in 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.680 numerous incidents of racism. H Bruce Bison, an English teacher 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:50.600 who invited Frey to speak about police work to his 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.199 class at Clayton Valley High School, reported that Frey had 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:55.960 told the class that inwards in the neighborhood he patrolled 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.920 were a lot of bad types, and the trial eventually 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.879 held to adjudicate the nts of that early morning. Alfred Dunning, 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.000 an accountant for Prudential Life Insurance, testified that Frey had 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:08.000 racially harassed him during a traffic accident, and when Dunning 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.840 complained that Frey was acting like the Gestapo, Frey loosened 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.240 his holster, put his hand on his gun and said 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.159 I am the Gestapo, and ordered done into the police car. 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:27.080 The best. Yeah, that's the quiet part. Yes. Earlier on 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.280 the evening that Huey Newton and Gene McKinney drove to 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.560 get soul food on Seventh Street, Frey had intervened in 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.240 a dispute between a black grocery clerk named Daniel King 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:36.360 and a white man without pants on, who claimed King 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.239 had stolen his pants. According to King, Fray called him 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:41.320 an inward and held his arms so the white man 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:44.600 could beat him. So this is the guy who winds 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:50.800 up in this. I don't have trouble believing um that 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.200 it was self defense. It's also entirely possible that both 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.960 of them fucked up, or that both of them were 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.879 trying to kill Hue and shot each other. Um, who 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:04.440 knows any scenario works, yeah, um, But obviously Huey P. 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.600 Newton gets charged with murder um as a result of 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.840 of of the shooting death of Officer James Freight Um, 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:13.119 and in prison, hue became a living martyr to the 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.520 Black Panthers. There was a rally on his twenty six 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.560 birthday February sevent nineteen sixty eight, that brought more than 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.879 six thousand people to the Oakland Arena. H Rap Brown 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.960 and Black Power activist told the crowd the only thing 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.480 that is going to free Huey Newton is gunpowder, and 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.760 this actually wound up being inaccurate. Hue received his day 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.840 in court, which revealed, among other things, that Frey had 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:37.879