WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How The Black Panther Party Worked 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.880 Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's s 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:07.120 Y s K Selects, I've chosen how the Black Panther 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.319 Party worked, and I think you probably know why I did. 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:13.720 I know a lot of people listen to stuff you 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.840 should Know as an escape from the rest of the world, 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.239 from the terrible nous of news and politics and all 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.279 of that stuff. And we get that, and we're actually 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:28.479 grateful that we can provide that kind of distraction for 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:34.000 people under normal circumstances. But these aren't normal circumstances, and 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.159 right now is not a time to be distracted, and 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.639 it's definitely not a time to be silent. And so 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:43.560 I hope that you will listen to this episode about 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.840 the history of the struggle for civil rights and human 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.960 rights that black people in America have had to undertake, 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.040 and then it helps you understand better the struggle that's 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.960 going on in America right now. And I know that 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.200 a lot of people who listen to stuff you should 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.600 Know don't necessar fairly agree with us politically. That's fine, 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.400 we get that, that's wonderful too, But we don't have 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:11.840 to agree politically to agree that human rights matter for everybody, 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.160 and right now every single one of us, every single 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.560 one of you listening to my voice right this moment, 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.720 has a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.200 about it, to stand up and to use your voice 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:30.160 to help other people be treated equally and make this 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.520 country a better place. You can't argue with that. More 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:39.000 people having more human rights can only make America a 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.600 better place. Just being a Stuff you Should Know listener 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.600 means that you love to learn. Well, now is a really, 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.240 really good time to learn about what life has been 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.840 like all of these years for people of color in America. 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:57.640 And I hope you will. I hope you'll open your 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.480 hearts and your minds to all the people who are 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.560 trying to teach us right now. Thanks for listening, and 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:10.120 thanks for listening. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:18.920 production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.760 welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.840 W Chuck Bryant. It's just the two of us, no 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.680 producer today. We're producer free, just the two of us. 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.560 We can make it if we try, and let's try. Chuck. 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.000 You and I right, I think we're both pretty excited 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.400 about this one. Yeah, this, This is gonna be a 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.320 good one. I love my history, as do you sure, 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:48.000 especially contemporary history, and especially history that I didn't get 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:52.120 taught in high school. I don't remember learning much about 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:59.160 the Black Panthers in high school. None. So Charles, Uh, 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:01.600 you didn't know much about the Black Panthers. I didn't 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.960 either a little bit. Yeah, I would guess we were 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.400 probably in about the same the same boat, you know, 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.160 I went to college. Yeah, I don't recall learning much 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.079 in college about them either, but I guess, I mean 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:16.960 I knew a little bit here, there's some of the highlights. 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.960 But it was it was in researching that I realized, 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.640 like just how much if you if you don't actually 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:27.359 go research it, just how how completely wrong a lot 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.160 of this stuff is, And not just in detail, but 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.280 in like overall tone, you know, like you get the 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:37.440 idea that, um, the Black Panthers were, um, nothing but 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.040 like racist terrorists who basically wanted to kill all whites 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:45.040 and take over the White House. No, no, not really. 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.760 And and after further digging, it turns out that a 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.680 lot of that image that that most people have today 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.560 who don't really know much about the Black Panthers, um 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:59.560 that idea comes from a misinformation and smear campaign carried 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.200 out very purposefully by the FBI back in the sixties 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:08.800 and seventies. Yes, by boy, I mean, let's just call 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:13.560 him divisive at at the risk of smearing someone. But 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.800 has there ever been a more divisive individual in this country? 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:22.320 Perhaps well, who knows now, but j Edgar Hoover. Yeah, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.600 I mean, my god, FBI director for life. I don't. 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:27.800 I mean, I want to say, we should do a 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.080 podcast on him, but it would definitely be a two 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.839 parter because he worked for a hundred and eighty seven years. 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.839 Well that we I should say, that smear campaign. And 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.000 there was a lot of other stuff to that campaign 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.760 as well, beyond just smearing um. But it had a 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:46.640 name coin tel Pro counter intelligence program and um that 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.560 in and of itself deserves its own one or two 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.679 parter episode two. Yeah. I mean, at one point jed 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.000 Ger Hoover came out in the news and said that 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.560 the Black Panther Party was the single greatest threat to 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.200 the United States of America. Uh right, And this was 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:07.159 during the Vietnam War. Uh, I mean it for the uninformed, Uh, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.200 Like you said, people you know thought all right? Well, 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.120 and it was not. Coincidentally, from that point forward is 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.960 when the cops really were like, all right, we can 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.200 we truly don't have to even respect civil liberties. Liberties 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.479 at this point, we can go in and shoot people 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:27.320 in their sleep, right exactly. And what's crazy, Chuck is 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.720 when he said that it was less than three years 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.880 after the Black Panther Party was formed. Yeah, so let's 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.279 go back to the beginning. Actually, we'll go back before 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:38.800 even um, the founding of the Black Panthers, just to 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:44.039 provide some context. Right, So this is the roughly the 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.280 tail end of the Jim Crow era, right right before 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:52.159 right at the New Deal era. And um, if you 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.960 were black in America, your experience, whether it was in 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.719 the South where it was just even more openly in 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:05.599 eartly hostile um, or in the cities of the North, 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:11.520 you were probably um just statistically speaking, it was likely 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:16.080 that you were poor, that you um probably had routine 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.240 especially if you were a black man, especially a black 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.640 man under a certain age, that you were routinely mistreated, harassed, beaten, 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:30.039 or possibly murdered by police. Um. And there was a 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.040 tremendous amount of racial tension as a result. Right, Yeah, 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:36.160 not just up north. I mean we're talking pretty much 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.359 any major city, right, and but especially in the South 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.520 and the South. Actually, there was a guy whose name 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.800 was Robert Williams, and he was an n double a 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.159 CP leader in North Carolina, and he wrote a book 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.760 back in I think nineteen sixty five, and he called 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:58.000 it Negroes with Guns and advocated blacks arming themselves and 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:02.279 carrying out violence in self defense, uh, in the face 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:07.159 of this um racial mistreatment. Right. And he Williams actually 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.560 kind of codified or enshrined into book form this idea 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.520 that was pretty predominant among Southern blacks. It was like, look, 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:19.320 this this is stuff is real, and we need to 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.040 defend ourselves. And that idea spread a little bit to 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:27.360 the cities here there, and um, it germinated in the 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.080 minds of a couple of guys, a couple of college 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:36.000 kids in Oakland named Bobby Seal and um Hughey Newton, Yes, uh, 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.320 and they officially formed it was called the Black Panther 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.560 Party for Self Defense. Initially it was eventually truncated, uh 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:49.000 in Oakland in nine and there well, well you know, 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.440 we'll go through there because they had like sort of 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.880 a roller coaster ride of as far as what they 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.120 did as a group and as a party, but um, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.920 initially kind of the whole whole thing was self defense. 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:06.640 We need to defend ourselves against police brutality, right, And 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.760 this non violent civil rights movement is is great. We 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.600 love Martin Luther King Jr. And what he's doing, but 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.360 it's going too slowly and in the meantime, we're getting 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:19.160 beaten and killed in the streets by law enforcement. So 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:21.600 we need to do something. We need to be proactive 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.520 and do something about that, right exactly. Robert Williams may 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.760 have written the book, but that the the the guys 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.400 who formed the Black Panthers, Seal and Newton, they one 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.800 of the first UM black rights group to advocate militancy, 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.600 although again you have to point out like they advocated 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.640 um violence and self defense, not aggression, right, yeah, which 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.200 is why they specifically chose UM the Black Panther as 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.480 their Uh, I guess you'd say mascot, but as their 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.720 name mascot makes it sound like a baseball game or something. 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.960 But uh, there's a quote here from Bobby Seal, co founder, 0:08:58.000 --> 0:08:59.679 and he said that Hughey Newton said, you know, the 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:01.960 nature or a panther. I looked it up. If you 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.240 push it into a corner, that panther is going to 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:06.400 try and move left or right to get you to 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:08.320 get out of the way. But if you keep pushing 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.120 back into that corner, sooner or later, that panther is 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.320 going to come out of that corner and try and 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:17.520 wipe out who keeps oppressing in that corner. And that 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.520 was sort of the idea, like, hey, listen, we're trying 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.280 to sidestep, we're trying to do the right thing, but 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.439 if you keep coming at us, then we're going to 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:29.040 defend ourselves. Yeah, exactly. And and again they were the 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:30.560 first people to come up with this, and they looked 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.040 around and kind of surveyed the black rights movements that 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.040 were around. There were um and they kind of said, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.040 this one works a little bit, but um, that part 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.240 of it doesn't work, or this this one we we 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:43.839 don't agree with, but it's a nice sentiment. Like the 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.959 MLK nonviolent UM civil rights movement, they like you said, 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.240 they said, this isn't working. It's not happening fast enough 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.080 for it's not happening at all. UM. And some other 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.560 groups and people like Stokely Car Michael and H. Ratt Brown, 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.000 who were the heads of the Non Violent Student Coordinating Committee, 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.880 were some of the first Black leaders to to publicly 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:07.320 break with mlk's non violent theory and say, no, we 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:11.120 need to meet violence with violence. Um. Malcolm X was 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.240 another one, and Malcolm X probably had the biggest influence 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:19.319 on the Black Panther ideology than anybody else. He advocated 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:26.000 black militancy that included violence. He advocated um black self 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:32.240 sufficiency and dignity, but he didn't necessarily say, um, you 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.600 you were only going to advance with the helps of 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.920 other blacks. We need to exclude whites or other um 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.439 races from our struggle. And the Black Panthers is specifically 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.080 Huey Newton and Bobby Seal really identified with that, and 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:47.959 that was actually that became one of the hallmarks of 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.200 the Black Panthers that they were willing to work with 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.959 other like minded groups regardless of race. So that's a 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:55.560 that was kind of a big one that I wasn't 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.520 aware of that I learned from this um And then 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.240 the other aspect of Malcolm X that really formed like 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:06.760 one of the foundation keystones of the Black Panther ideology 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.319 is that it wasn't race that was the problem, It 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.880 was um class. They were basically avowed Marxists right that 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.640 the central, the the central issue that created the struggle 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:24.240 UM was was class was capitalism, and that the white 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.160 establishment and the police and the government were keepers of 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.800 the capitalist structure, and that same capitalist structure was keeping 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.040 the black pants, the black people in America down, and 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:38.280 so to get to to rise up, to become self sufficient, 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.040 to get that chance that they needed to grow and 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.240 advance themselves, they had to get rid of the capitalist 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:49.600 structure itself. Yeah, they were very much into the socialist ideal, 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.240 and um one of the first things they did was 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:57.840 they realized they needed sort of a foundation on which 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.960 to build upon, something easily adjustable, that people could could 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:04.640 look at and could read and understand what they're all about. 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.240 So very smartly, early on they came up with a 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.199 very specific what they call their tin point program, what 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.520 we want and what we believe, and uh, they wrote 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:16.200 this out. We're going to read them in a second, 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.440 but they wrote them out and then immediately printed them 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.400 on a thousand sheets of paper, and uh set up 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.160 an office and started passing these things around. This office 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:28.679 was in Oakland, which is where you know, I think 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.040 we already said where they founded and um, you know, 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.520 they basically quit their jobs. Every member of the Black 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.520 Panther Party was a full time I guess you could 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:42.400 say employee, but full time worker. Yeah. Remember, And um 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.559 they gathered their paychecks, the few guys at the very 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.679 beginning and rented an old shop storefront base and started 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:53.960 handing out this ten point program. Yeah they did. And um, 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:56.440 you want to go over the program first, Yeah, we 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.200 might as well just go ahead and read all ten Uh, 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:03.640 so everybody knows what we're talking about, right. Uh. Number one, 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:07.040 we want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:09.680 of our black community. We believe that black people will 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.439 not be free until we are able to determine our destiny. Yep. 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.520 Number two, we want full employment for our people. We 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.840 believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.600 give every man employment or guaranteed income. We believe that 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.679 if the white American businessmen will not give full employment, 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:29.920 then the means of production should be taken from the 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.520 business men and placed in the community so that the 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.320 people of the community can organize and employ all of 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.560 its people and give it a high standard of living. 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.160 Uh number three, we want an end to the robbery 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.640 by the white man of our black community. We believe 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.720 that this racist government has robbed us and now we 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.600 are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres. In two mules. 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.680 Number four, we want decent housing fit for shelter of 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.440 human beings. We believe that if white landlords will not 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.199 give decent housing to our black community, then the housing 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.240 and the land should be made into cooperatives of their 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.360 community with government aid, can build and make decent housing 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.719 for its people. Yeah, and this that was a big one. 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.280 And as you'll see, a lot of what they were 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:14.320 after was just like the ability to live in a 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:16.720 neighborhood where you could have a decent school and a 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.120 decent place to live and a chance at work. Like 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.720 it wasn't some radical thing that they were after, you know, 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.920 they just wanted the same opportunities basically. Yeah. And I 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.400 mean I said earlier that if if you were living 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:31.880 and you were black and living in America in the sixties, 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.560 the chances are you were poor. Of all black people, 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:38.840 all black people in the United States were living below 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:43.280 the poverty line in nineteen sixty six of the poor 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.680 living in metropolitan areas were black, and in nineteen sixty eight, 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:52.600 two thirds of the black population lived in ghettos. So yeah, like, 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.400 of course, it makes sense that their agenda is we 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:59.200 wanted to just get to get to basic normal and 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:03.360 then we'll go from air alright. Number five, We want 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.840 education for our people that exposes the true nature of 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.320 this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:15.000 our true history and our role in present day society. 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.600 H Uh. Number six, we want all black men to 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.560 be exempt from military service. This is a big one. 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:23.240 We believe that black people should not be forced to 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.160 fight in the military service to defend a racist government 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.920 that does not protect us. We will not fight and 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.200 kill other people of color in the world who, like 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.400 black people, are being victimized by the white, racist government 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.400 of America. Yeah, and you know later on in there, 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.600 during the Vietnam War, they actually, uh, some of them 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.400 travel to Vietnam and um kind of found a common 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:50.840 ground with the North Vietnamese. Right, It's very interesting. Uh, 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.560 is it my turn? It is? Number seven. We want 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.760 an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people. 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.120 Pretty much speaks for itself. Yeah, but part of that 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.280 was that they they they point out that the Second 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:08.280 Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed the right to bear arms, 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.480 and that's gonna be a big, big part of the 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:15.760 Black Panther Party. They were they're credited historically as being 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.240 basically the ones who pointed to the Second Amendment and said, hey, 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.240 we were advocates of gun rights. Yeah, well, we'll get 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.040 to all that. It gets pretty juicy. Number eight, we 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.440 want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.520 and city prisons and jails. They it says that they 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.200 believe that all black people should be released from prison 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.880 because they have not received a fair and impartial trial. 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.440 Number nine, we want all black people, when brought to trial, 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.160 to be tried in court by a jury of their 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:48.000 peer group or people from their black communities, as defined 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.760 by the Constitution of the United States. Number ten, we 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:57.040 want land, bred, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace. And 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.560 as our major political objective a United Nations. You provised 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.840 plebiscite to be held throughout the Black colony in which 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:07.080 only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.880 the purpose of determining the will of black people as 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:14.280 to their national destiny. They're basically saying, we believe that 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.959 black should have the power to separate from the United 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.560 States from the white establishment and form their own self 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:28.920 sufficient and um respected, self governing body basically right. So 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.959 they took these uh tin this tin Point program. They 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.960 founded a newspaper called The Black Panther and they sold 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.040 that for cents. Uh. It got to be a very 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.840 popular newspaper. Um had a really wide circulation, and it 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.560 wasn't just uh, you know, black communities that there were. 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.440 There were all kinds of people reading this a newspaper 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.359 and it kind of aside from donations and stuff from 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.760 various groups, it really kind of funded the organization was 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.119 to sale this paper and every single issue I believe 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.400 featured this tin Point program on the inside I'd cover 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:06.600 and uh quick shout out to the artwork of Emery Douglas. Uh, 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.879 if you've ever I saw this great documentary called The 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.760 Black Panthers Vanguard of a Revolution. Yeah, I watched that too. 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.359 And this artwork from this you know, artist and graphic 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.800 designer Emery Douglas that was kind of the hallmark of 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.480 the paper was just gorgeous stuff. And um, I think 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.600 he's one of those has sort of not been lost 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.320 to history. But you know, I had never heard of 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.120 him before. I think he did it cover for one 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.160 of the editions of Native Sun because I was looking 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.320 at I was like, that looks really familiar. That's where 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.480 I saw it before. It's really good stuff. Yeah, So, Chuck, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.080 they we've got the ten Point Plan, uh, and the 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.600 original headquarters in Oakland, and all of a sudden, the 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:53.240 Panthers starts spreading like wildfire, like their ideas because the 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:57.120 experience was so similar as far as poverty and being 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.520 harassed and brutalized by police and just Joe really being 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.199 held down by the white establishment. Since that experience was 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.680 so similar throughout all the all the major cities and 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.080 even smaller cities in the United States, the Black Panther 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.959 Party spread pretty quick and eventually they had something like 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.040 five thousand members. And remember that doesn't sound that much 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.000 like that many people, but like you said, to be 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.359 a member, you were committed to the Black Panther Party 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:25.879 seven you had to quit your job, you had to 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.960 quit school, and your your life was the Black Panther Party. 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.359 So the fact that they had five thousand people doing 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:35.000 that around the country is pretty nuts. But they had many, 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.520 many more supporters, and the Black Panther newspaper eventually grew 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.640 to a circulation of about two fifty thousand. It's amazing, 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.760 it really is. And UM, well, I guess we'll we'll 0:19:45.800 --> 0:20:17.719 get back to their history after this. Sorry, alright, So, uh, 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.120 if you want to start, if you want to start 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.840 anything that you want to grow and be noticed, then 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:25.840 it sounds kind of silly to talk about, but you 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:30.160 need to be good at branding. And uh, I don't 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.919 know that they specifically thought about it as branding initially, 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.679 but they quickly realized that the media really ate this 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:43.440 stuff up. When these black men in in leather, black 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:48.600 leather car coats and black turtlenecks and black berets donning shotguns, 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:55.359 uh with the you know, the ammunition draped around their shoulder. Uh, 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:57.480 the press ate it up. It was it was a 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.679 cool look, and young black men wanted to look like this. Um. 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.560 Black women started growing out their afros. It was all 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:07.800 kind of sort of tied into the Black is Beautiful 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.919 movement um, which was sort of just the notion of 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:16.480 embrace your blackness, don't try to fit in and look 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:18.680 you know, don't straighten your hair, don't try and look 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:23.280 like white people like where you're hiki uh, grow your 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:25.520 afro out, be proud of who you are as a 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.800 black person. Embrace your roots. And the Black Panther Party 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.520 was really tied into this and it became a really 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.600 big part of their branding and recruitment. Yeah, if you 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.480 were hip at this time, like you were definitely hip 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.440 to the Black Panther look, even if you hadn't adopted 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.399 it yourself, you were like, there's a cool cat walking 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:49.960 down the street with a bandalier bullets in the shock. Right. So, Um, 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.600 the Panthers they had the look, they had the offices, now, 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:56.600 they had the newspaper. And one of the first things 0:21:56.600 --> 0:22:00.280 they started doing even before they really started to but 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:05.199 those first Panther members Um Hueie Newton, Bobby Seal, and 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:10.520 then a guy named Um Bobby Hutton was their first recruit. Um. 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:12.640 One of the first things they started doing was patrolling 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:17.240 the neighborhoods of Oakland and looking for police who had 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:23.000 stopped um black motorists. Right, it's almost like a a 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:28.160 guardian angels that protected citizens from cops, right exactly. That's 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:29.600 a really good way to put it right. So they 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:34.040 would stand there, um at a reasonable distance and just 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:39.480 openly and obviously observe the traffic stop, and they would shout, 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:42.360 you know, at the cop anytime he started to violate 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:46.680 the civil rights of the black driver. UM. And they 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:51.679 were armed. They were holding shotguns, oftentimes not necessarily pointed 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:54.120 at the cops. But in that UM in that documentary 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:57.040 we mentioned, they would talk about how like the they 0:22:57.040 --> 0:22:59.440 would kind of bring it is, move it from side 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.320 to side, kind of shifting position, and as it did 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.760 it slowly was aimed for a moment at the cop, 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:08.240 and the cops got the point like, yeah, I get it. 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.320 You have a loaded shotgun and it's right there and 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:14.880 you could shoot me. And some of the first um, 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:19.280 some of the first traffic stop monitoring that happened just 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:22.480 scared the Bejesus out of the cops. They had never 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:25.159 experienced anything like this before. All of a sudden, there 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:28.359 were a group of young black men standing there in 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:32.439 black berets and shades at night, holding shotguns trained on 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:36.200 them from time to time, and UM, the cops actually 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:40.080 responded and exactly the way the black panthers did. They 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:43.760 were much more hesitant to um brutalize or violate the 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:45.960 civil rights of the drivers, and a lot of times 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:49.040 they just get in their cars and leave, especially if 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:52.520 they were on patrol alone. So that was one of 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:57.480 the huge early foundational hallmarks of of UM the Black 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:01.960 Panther Party, that they were, oh the leap and armoredly 0:24:02.440 --> 0:24:07.199 protecting their UM fellow blacks from police brutality. That was 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:10.600