WEBVTT - Part One: The Bastards Who Killed the Black Panthers 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:06.360 What's accepted that this is the best introduction schema I'm 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.600 going to put together and I should just roll with it. 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:14.200 My Robert Evans me, Uh, pooh, boy, that was rough. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.160 That didn't go well. Um. This is Behind the Bastards, 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:22.640 a podcast about terrible people. UM and today Uh, my 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:30.240 guest is uh rap artist musician propaganda. Say West West, 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.200 how you doing man? Man, I'm honored to be here. 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:36.760 You know, I'm toning down my fandom. This is Zoe. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.320 You know. Well, I've been listening ever since you started 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:41.920 following me on Twitter and listen to your music a 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.239 number of times and I like it a lot, particularly 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.800 Board of Education. I think that's probably my my favorite 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.280 one of years that I've heard so far. UM And 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.600 I thought you'd be a good a good guest for 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.320 this episode, especially since you have some like family history 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.600 with the subject we're talking about. UM. Before we're gonna 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.000 do you want to introduce yourself differently than I introduced you. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:04.520 I think it was great? Yeah? No, I um yeah, 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:07.240 hip hop artists. UH do a pod A couple of 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.479 pods now, UM once called hood politics, which maybe we'll 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.680 talk about that later. But uh and UM one with 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.440 my wife called the Red Couch and I yeah, I 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:20.920 do wrapping poetry for a living in l A native 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:30.240 two daughters and a cat. Now frustratingly anyway, I love cats. Yeah, 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:35.480 well you can have ours. Yeah, do you want to 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.319 should I call you for this episode? Should you want 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.840 to go by propaganda? Should I call you? Jason? It's 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:47.119 mostly has been shortened to prop that's but in the consensus. Yeah, 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:51.000 I'm trying to be cod with that. Yeah. All right. UM, 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:55.360 so today we're gonna talk about, um, the Black Panthers 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.600 and specifically the bastards who killed the Black panthers. Um. Yeah, 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:01.480 and that's going to involve a lot of talk about 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.280 what the black panthers did, what they believed, um, which 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.360 I is one of a subject I find really fascinating. Um. 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:10.679 And this was a frustrating episode to write, in part 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.160 because there's so much that I had to leave out 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.280 just because you know, this is an eleven thousand words script. 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.040 You can only you can only get in so much. Um. 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:21.800 This is going to be one we have a number 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.240 of episodes like this where like people will hit me 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:25.640 up after it, why didn't you bring up this? Why 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:27.720 didn't you bring up that? And it's like, yeah, that's 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:30.240 one of the when you can cover something as complex 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.959 as the Panthers, You're you're going to leave stuff out 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.000 just because we have about two hours two and a half, 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:41.480 you know. Um, but yeah, you have some family history, yes, 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:43.000 and I thought it might be good to go into 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.519 that first. Yeah. Yeah. So my father was a member 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.600 of the you know, South the like I guess they 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:51.399 call it South erely now, but it was we called 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.480 it South Central, um chapter of the Black Panther Party, 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:57.919 uh in the sixties or at the end of the 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.560 six And my father Vietnam war Vett. Essentially as a 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.040 matter of fact, when we say we're gonna do this, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:05.800 I like I called him to make sure I had 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.399 my storyline right and back straight. I don't want to 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.840 get up here and embarrass myself, you know. Um. But yeah, 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.360 so he essentially landed from Vietnam back in Los Angeles 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.520 and almost made a bee line of like forty one 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.040 and Central and enjoined the joined the Black Panther Party 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.320 and um yeah, so he was a part of the 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:29.680 sort of after school tutoring part program. He also um 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.920 was like basically they all took turns as far as 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.240 like the which I'm I'm we're gonna get to like 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.280 the policing the streets. So he was just you know, 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.600 standing behind as like, you know, interactions with the police 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:42.120 were there because you know, police brutality was such a 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.120 big deal. So he was a part of that. Um 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.240 he was at the u c L a event that 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.680 got shot up. He was, yes, and the he said 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:51.560 it was the span of time he was at was 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.200 by the time that like FBI got involved, so his 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.840 office got bombed, you know, he was at shootings. Yeah. 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.840 So and at that point my grandmother was like, baby, 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.520 you can't do this some more associated she kind of 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:06.840 pulled the card on him. But you know, but yeah, 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.160 he's he stayed involved in Uh yeah. So I've been 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:13.120 hearing bits and pieces of those stories as he like 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.040 unpacks his trauma, you know what I'm saying. Um, And 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.120 I just grew up without with those stories in my life, 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.640 you know, and paintings of African princesses and kings on 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:27.240 our way, had no Disney in my house at a 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.960 picture of Mark Martin and Malcolm and Marcus Garvey like 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.640 lining our walls and Geronimo Pratt and just I had 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.080 that in my house. Yeah, you know, that's that's that's 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.720 fascinating perspective to have had in a fascinating like way 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.320 to learn about this. But like for me, like obviously 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.920 it's like a white kid who grew up in um 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:48.599 a pretty mixed suburb, but a suburb that didn't have 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.200 a very a huge black population. Um, I learned almost 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.159 nothing about the Black Panthers. I guess a lot of 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.440 our listeners are kind of in that the boat where 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.560 like there's about three things you know about them. Obviously, 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:02.280 they were a alexivil rights organization. They did that thing 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.240 where they put their fists in the air, and some 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.200 of them carried guns, and there's pictures of them carryings. 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:08.919 And I think when I got out of high school, 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.280 that's about all I knew about the Black Panthers, right, Like, 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.919 there wasn't really anything else UM I was aware of. 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:16.800 I think I caught the name Huey P. Newton for 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:18.560 the first time in the lyrics of some hip hop 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.520 songs like and, and didn't really know who he was. UM. 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.280 So for the longest time, I had no real understanding 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:27.280 about the organization, and I think they kind of blended 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:29.680 into the general wallpaper of the civil rights movement for 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.880 me until I started reading about them specifically. And I've 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:35.880 come to the conclusion and I say this a lot 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.840 um that it's like an unforgivable failing of our education system, 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.839 that this isn't a bigger part of like standard American history. Absolutely, 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.440 and like so I know you'll get into, but the 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.440 importance I know my father did put on and the 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:58.760 party put on of like knowing the Constitution, knowing the 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.640 billow Rights. Like I felt like I was so well 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:06.119 versed in American civics because my father was a panther, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.240 you know what I'm saying, And which was funny because 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.000 I was like, I just didn't understand that. I thought 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.240 every house was like this because it was just this 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:14.240 was normal for me. So when then you'd bring up 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.560 I'm like, well, you know, the fourteenth a moment say YadA, YadA, YadA, 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.520 you know, seventh graders and kids are like what you know, 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.320 It's just I just knew this because that's how that's 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:25.120 what you learned as a panther. Like you need to 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.960 know your rights, man, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's critical. 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.840 Yeah yeah, um so uh we' we yeah, I think 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.800 we've we've introduced this well enough, I'm gonna start get 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.840 into the episode at uh, not the beginning, but I 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:42.040 guess a beginning um. On February seventeenth, nineteen forty two. 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.640 Hughey P. Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana, the youngest 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:51.040 child of Walter and Armilia Newton's seven children. His dad, Walter, 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.160 was I would say, pretty badass guy. He worked two 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.560 jobs his entire life. He served as the minister for 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.240 the Bethel Baptist Church in Monroe on Sundays, and Walter 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.240 was very infamous in his community for not taking any 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.400 ship from white folks. Um. And there's a story about 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.360 him getting into an argument with one of his employers, 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.000 a young white guy who yells at him that he 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:13.200 whips colored men for arguing with him, and Walter shot 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:16.360 back that nobody. Basically, nobody whips me unless they're a 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.760 better man than me, unless they can beat me up. 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.040 And this guy, this guy backs down, proving that he 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:28.240 was not um. Yeah. Yeah, basically, if you want to 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:29.760 whip me like you gotta you gotta be able to 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:34.240 kick my ass like you want to try that. Yeah. Now, 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.760 in the nineteen forties in Louisiana, saying that sort of 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.160 thing could get you murdered as a black guy. But 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.080 Walter had a strange and somewhat unique ability um to 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.120 stand up to white folks in his community without being killed. 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.600 And hue later theorized that this is because his dad 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.520 was mixed race. His father's father, he was grandpa was 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:53.960 a white man who had raped his mother. Um, and 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.440 Walter's neighbors knew his white family and didn't want to 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.080 shed part white blood. This was Huey's theorist. White's ad 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:04.080 was able to do this. Um, there is there is 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.520 something to be said that, like unless you're in like 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:10.360 communities of color, just how colorism does like in a 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.040 lot of ways police, how we treat each other and 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:14.880 how we see you other. So, yeah, someone that's a 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.440 little more fair skin we would say like they would 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:19.960 say passing, like he passes as something else. So like 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.400 a few things you can get away with, you know. Um, 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.280 And at least in the psyche of you know, a 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:32.600 person of color like myself who's not light skinning. Yeah. 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.319 In when he was a toddler, the Newton family moved 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.880 to Oakland, California. UM. Now, Walter always managed to bring 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.480 in a very stable income. The family was still very poor, 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:44.599 but like they weren't ever sort of like starving or 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.000 anything like that. Um. Their most common meal was kush, 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.600 which is I guess a fried cornbread dish, which they 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.400 often ate for every meal of the day. Um. Heh. 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.120 We grew up watching his father work eighty hour weeks 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.360 and still constantly be like stressed out over bills. Um. 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.480 And this was like really had a big impact on 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.440 him growing up, this kind of constant economic anxiety. UM. 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.080 He didn't have an easy adolescence. School was difficult for him, 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.240 and he seems to have had I think we probably 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.480 would would have today have diagnosed him with a learning 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.120 disability because he was incredibly intelligent. He just I think 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.040 teachers had a difficulty reaching him, is how I would 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.480 It seems like what was going on. By the time 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:22.720 he was in eleventh grade, he was still illiterate, and 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.360 his teachers assumed that he was just not intelligent. UM. 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.640 And this was obviously not the case, because Huey's hobby 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:31.360 outside of school was memorizing poetry with his brother. UM. 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:33.280 But it was not until his high school counselor told 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.280 him that he was too dumb for college that Hui P. 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.680 Newton decided he had to prove them all wrong. So 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.560 for two straight years he studied like a madman, teaching 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.120 himself to read and write, and eventually to graduate high 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.640 school UM. In nineteen fifty nine, he enrolled at Merritt College, 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.440 where he joined the Afro American Association and became well 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.240 known for his debate skills. All thought that he might 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:54.280 not be college material fell out the window as he 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.080 began a meteoric path of scholastic excellence and he would 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.679 eventually receive a PhD. Um. Yeah, this seems to me 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:02.000 to be a clear case of a kid that maybe 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.280 just had like his teachers didn't know how to reach him, 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.040 but like he was, he was brilliant. Um. So do 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.560 you know it's funny because it's like I thought about 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.720 the my credibility I'm putting on danger here by you 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.560 saying stuff that I didn't know Joe saying and being like, 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:18.840 oh wow, I didn't I didn't know that, you know, 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.200 and it's kind of already started. I was like, I didn't, 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.000 I didn't know you couldn't read till you till eleventh 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.160 grade because I've only known him as like you said, 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.320 the sports ur you know, that was able to articulate 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.559 the feelings and the sentiment of lack America in that time. 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.439 That's crazy. I didn't know that well. And I think 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.040 one of the one of the reasons it's important is 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.080 that from a very early age he gets this lesson 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.040 that like the system clearly failed him because he didn't 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:43.920 know how to treat him properly, and he had to 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:48.640 build a system for himself to elevate himself. Um. And obviously, 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:50.480 like I didn't know any of this until I read 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:51.960 a couple of weeks ago. I read a book, a 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.160 really good book called Black Against Empire by Joshua Bloom 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.480 and Waldo Martin. Um. That's a really fascinating history of 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:02.400 the Black Panther Party. UM. And I it's it's very readable, 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.560 I would say, compulsively readable. It's a really good history. UM. 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.640 And it's like one of the major sources of this episode. Um. 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:12.199 It's very comprehensive and detailed. And I didn't know almost 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.280 any of this stuff until I read it. So yeah, 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.160 I hugely recommend that. Yeah. And I'm gonna actually I'm 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:19.559 gonna I'm gonna read a quote from it now discussing 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:23.480 what set Hughey P. Newton apart from his academic colleagues quote, 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:25.920 he had a side that most of the budding intellectuals 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.520 around him lacked. He knew the street. He could understand 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:30.959 and relate to the plight of the swelling ranks of unemployed, 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.360 the brothers on the block, in his words, who lived 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:36.400 outside the law. Newton street knowledge helped put him through 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.760 college is he covered his bills through theft and fraud. 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.120 But when Newton was caught, he used his book knowledge 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.280 to study the law and defend himself in court and 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:48.240 pressing the jury and defeating several misdemeanor charges. So I mean, 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.600 I'm I'm on board with this guy. Yeah, it's that 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.800 dual consciousness that w boys talk about, Like you just 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.160 your street knowledge and your book knowledge. Is like you 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:02.839 got them both rock and you're unfathable. You know. It's 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:04.719 this thing that you brought up earlier, where like it's 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.640 so important and this is like something the Panthers always 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:09.640 emphasized to under have an understanding of the law in 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:15.800 your rights. Yeah yeah, in a nineteen I'm sorry, no, no, no, no, 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.600 I was gonna say, yeah, I firmly believe this, Like 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:20.760 and and like I said, like we're we were built 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.760 an entire show around it. That like, especially when it 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.280 comes to like politics, specifically geopolitics, Like I have this understood. 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.880 Like my belief is, like if you came from any 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.480 sort of like neighborhood environment, I don't care if it's 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:39.240 like rural Oklahoma or you know, inner city Detroit. If 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.679 you come from a city and you had to navigate 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.440 you know, tribes in the city, you understand geopolitics. You 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:48.319 just don't. You ain't got the language for it, you 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.160 know what I'm saying. So so being able to use 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.320 your own what we would call like hood antennas to 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:58.120 figure out what's happening in you know, dominant culture world. 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.000 Like if you have a grasp on both of those, dude, 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:05.080 you're under you're undefeatable. Yeah. That that does make me, 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.120 like I think maybe one of the major issues we 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.520 have diplomatically and like the international stage is that number one, 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:13.720 so many of our diplomats are guys who like donated money, 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.840 rich kids who donated get the job. But like also 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.040 nobody who I do feel like somebody with that sort 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.680 of street experience would do a better job, for example, 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.240 of doing diplomacy in a place like Baghdad, because you 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.000 just have a deeper understanding of like, yeah, kind of 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:33.160 the interpersonal relationships necessary to make if you had to 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.560 convince a bully to not give you a swirlie, if 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.160 you had to, if you went through that, you know 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.959 how to come to a negotiation table. You know what 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.120 I'm saying, especially especially like if your bagh dad, you 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:49.280 know what I'm saying, and the bully is you know 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:51.439 the G six you know what I'm saying, or you 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:53.720 know what I'm saying. Bullies America, It's like, well, I 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.600 know how to deal with bullies. So here, here's here's 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:57.640 how I think we can handle this. You know what 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:02.679 I mean? Yeah? Now. Um. In nineteen sixty two, Hue P. 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.600 Newton met a guy named Bobby Seal at a protest 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.559 opposing the U. S blockade of Cuba. Um Now. Bobby 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:10.960 had been born in nineteen thirty six, about five years 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.440 before Hughie, and while Hughie was the youngest of seven, 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.200 Bobby was the oldest child of three. He'd grown up 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.800 in Oakland, where both his mother and father worked. Bobby's 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.680 dad was profoundly abusive, and Bobby grew up kind of 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.000 accepting that random violence from authority was a regular fact 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.080 of life, which again would have you know, be obviously 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.800 influential in his worldview as he grew up. Now, obviously, 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:33.880 when people go through that, there's a number of different 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:35.680 ways they react to it, and I think Bobby is 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.280 sort of dealt with it in the healthiest way you can. UM, 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.040 and became sort of obsessed with fighting bullies wherever he 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.360 found them. UM. At one point when he was a 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.960 little kid, he saw another child shove his sister out 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.360 of a swing. Bobby pushed that kid out of the 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:50.960 swing and declared that now everyone had on the playground 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:56.600 had a right to use the swing. Um. Justice. Yeah. 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:58.680 So Bobby joined the Air Force as a young man, 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:00.200 both to get out of the house and so he 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.680 could learn how to use firearms. UM. He was given 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.840 a dishonorable discharge three years in when he hunted down 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.120 a man who stole from him and beat that guy 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.800 very badly with a pipe. UM. You can read the 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.640 story in Bobby's biography, Seize the Time The Story of 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.080 the Black Panther Party, which is available for free online. 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.600 I'll have a link to it. UM. Personally, I think 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.400 the dude that he attacked had it coming. Um. Bobby 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.400 bounced around for a long time after this, getting whatever 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.240 jobs he could for a few months at a time 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.400 before they found out about his dishonorable discharge. By nineteen 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.640 sixty two, he was down and out in California, and 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.040 he took the refuge taken by all such men in 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:40.720 that situation. He became a stand up comedian. I didn't 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.960 know this about his back story, yeah, he later wrote. 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.360 He later wrote this that year I worked as a 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.520 comedian in two or three clubs around Oakland and at 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:52.840 private parties. I think comedians know a hell of a lot. 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:57.760 They know a lot of things that are oppressive and wrong. Um, yeah, yeah, 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:02.280 I like that that attitude. Huey and Bobby Seal met 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:04.520 at that protest against the blockade of Cuba, and they 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.720 were both members of the Afro American Association together. The 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.440 leader of that group, Donald Warden, was a confusing man 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.160 who really liked castro but was also a major believer 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:17.359 in the power of black capitalism to fix societal injustice. Um. 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.320 He was a bitter critic of mainstream civil rights organizations. 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.160 Hui P. Newton was initially enthralled by Donald's ideology, but 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.600 he grew frustrated when, over the course of months it 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.480 became clear that that this like talk was basically all 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.440 that he felt Donald was good for. UM. He also 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.120 grew critical of Donald's focus on black capitalism, which he 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.200 didn't think would do a very good job of liberating 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.520 black people from the hole that he felt capitalism had 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:41.720 dug for them. And again, Huey's this guy growing up 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.120 with all this economic anxiety. Not a pro capitalism dude. 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.880 I mean we're still debating this, yeah, you know, in 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.760 community and UM. During this episode, I think we're going 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.080 to discuss at length a group of people who were 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.080 distinctly on the fringes of the civil rights movement and 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.600 often very critical of the men and women in like 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.520 kind of mainstream civil rights movement who worked to alleviate 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:06.239 American racism through more traditional legal means. UM, and I 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.119 feel like we should pause right now to talk a 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.360 little bit about what legally and acceptably working towards equality 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:13.320 looked like in this period, because I think we get 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.359 a sanitize at least I think as a white kid, 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.840 I got a very sanitized version of the civil rights movement. 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:24.439 You got, you got nice MLK yeah, well yeah and 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:31.280 socialist mL and his couch mL k um. But even 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.080 more to the point where we're going to talk about now, 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:35.159 what I think I got a sanitized version of more 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.960 than anything, was the sanitized version of how white people 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.840 reacted to mlka um and how people like lb J 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:44.640 reacted to MLK. And so we're gonna talk a little 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:48.400 about now that now. So then as now, most black 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.080 people in America voted Democrat um. But this should not 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.480 lead people to believe that the Democratic Party at the 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.880 time embraced black people is like equal comrades. Um. They 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.840 were just moderately less racist than the Republicans, and not 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.240 always moderately less racist than the Republicans. Some state Democratic parties, 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.480 including the one in Mississippi, banned black people from membership. 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.720 Members of that state's Democratic Party regularly beat and even 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.560 murdered black people who tried to register to vote. So 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.960 black Mississippians developed their own party, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.000 which focused on registering black people to vote. Three of 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.000 the party's activists were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in nineteen 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.120 sixty four, which is the year that the Civil Rights 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:30.600 Act gets signed into law by President Johnson. Um So 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:32.439 Johnson at the time was again, you know, the man 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:34.879 who signed the Civil Rights Act. In the law, um 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.720 played a what I would describe as a profoundly cynical 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.800 and gross game of political brinksmanship with the Mississippi Freedom 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.640 Democratic Party, and he kind of yielded to the civil 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.240 rights movement and a couple of areas, but also tried 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.399 to maintain the Democratic Party's Southern dominance by throwing bones 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.239 to the racists in the Democratic Party. And in doing so, 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.640 he was engaging in like a proud tradition that goes 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.560 back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, because during the Great Depression, 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.760 FDR successfully won the black vote for the first time 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.280 for did the Democratic Party by involving black people in 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.680 the New Deal and giving them access to social programs 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.320 and even appointing several black men as advisers. But he 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.640 kept southern racist Democrats on board by refusing to take 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.840 any action against segregation. Um So, lb J was kind 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.800 of engaging in what at that point was a decades's 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:25.000 old tradition within the Democratic Party. UM yeah, yeah, And 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.840 and again these are still the conversations we're having, you 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:34.040 know to this day, like uh we yeah, I'm my 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:38.479 thought here, like yeah, there's the idea of like, um, 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.000 I know you're only helping me because it's expedient for you, right. 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.879 And then you have which you'll see in the in 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.000 the Black Panther Party, to like these two two two 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.880 sides of this coin of like the like like yeah, 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:54.520 like the Marcus Garvey's of the world that are like 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.240 they're never gonna treat us fairly. We will never get 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.240 a shake here. It's never gonna work. Let's just sleeve right. 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.320 And then you have the other side that says like no, 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:08.959 like my grandparents, my ancestors, like built the built the damnation, 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:10.600 Like you know what I'm saying, that's our blood in 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:12.600 this soil, Like we we picked this. You know why 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.159 you were superpower because you ain't pay the workers, you 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.760 know what I'm saying. So like that's why you were superpossed. 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:19.760 So so it's like, no, I'm just as much American 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:21.560 as you are. You gonna include me in your documents, 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:23.480