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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, just want to let you know that this

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Speaker 1: episode features a couple of little technical glitches that we

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Speaker 1: didn't find very noticeable. But we loved this episode so

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Speaker 1: much we didn't want to try and recapture Lightning in

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Speaker 1: a bottle by re recording it. Right, try not to

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Speaker 1: pay attention. Okay, yeah, I don't think it's a big deal.

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Speaker 1: But um, if you've noticed a couple of little hiccups

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Speaker 1: here and there, that's what's going on. I just want

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Speaker 1: to let you know. Welcome to stuff you should know

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Speaker 1: from how stuff works dot com. Hey, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.

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Speaker 1: It's just the two of us, no producer today. We're

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Speaker 1: producer free, just the two of us. We can make

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Speaker 1: it if we try. Let's try, Chuck, you and I right,

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Speaker 1: I think we're both pretty excited about this one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this this is gonna be a good one. I love

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Speaker 1: my history, as do you sure, especially contemporary history, and

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Speaker 1: especially history that I didn't get taught in high school.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember learning much about the Black Panthers in

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Speaker 1: high school. None. So Charles, Uh, you didn't know much

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Speaker 1: about the Black Panthers. I didn't either a little bit. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would guess we were probably in about the same

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Speaker 1: the same boat. You know, I went to college. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't recall learning much in college about them either,

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Speaker 1: but I guess, I mean I knew a little bit here,

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Speaker 1: there's some of the highlights. But it was it was

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Speaker 1: in researching that I realized, like, just how much if

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Speaker 1: you if you don't actually go research it, just how

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Speaker 1: how completely wrong a lot of this stuff is, And

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Speaker 1: not just in detail, but in like overall tone, you know,

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Speaker 1: like you get the idea that, um, the Black Panthers were, um,

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Speaker 1: nothing but like racist terrorists who basically wanted to kill

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Speaker 1: all whites and take over the Ye House. No, no,

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Speaker 1: not really. And and after further digging, it turns out

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Speaker 1: that a lot of that image that that most people

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Speaker 1: have today who don't really know much about the Black Panthers, um,

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Speaker 1: that idea comes from a misinformation and smear campaign carried

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Speaker 1: out very purposefully by the FBI back in the sixties

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Speaker 1: and seventies. Yes, by boy, I mean, let's just call

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Speaker 1: him divisive at the risk of smearing someone, But has

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Speaker 1: there ever been a more divisive individual in this country?

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Speaker 1: Perhaps well, who knows now, but j Edgar Hoover, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, my god, FBI director for life. I don't.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I want to say, we should do a

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Speaker 1: podcast on him, but it would definitely be a two

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Speaker 1: parter because he worked for a hundred and eighty seven years.

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Speaker 1: Well that we I should say, that smear campaign, and

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of other stuff to that campaign as

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Speaker 1: well beyond just smearing. Um. But it had a name

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Speaker 1: coin tell Pro counter intelligence program and um that in

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Speaker 1: and of itself deserves its own one or two part

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Speaker 1: episode two. Yeah, I mean, at one point jed Ger

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Speaker 1: Hoover came out in the news and said that the

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Speaker 1: Black Panther Party was the single greatest threat to the

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Speaker 1: United States of America. And this was during the Vietnam War. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I mean it for the uninformed. Uh, Like you said,

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Speaker 1: people you know thought all right, well, and it was

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Speaker 1: not coincidentally from that point forward is when the cops

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Speaker 1: really were like, all right, we can we truly don't

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Speaker 1: have to even respect civile liberties. Liberties at this point,

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Speaker 1: we can go in and shoot people in their sleep,

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Speaker 1: right exactly. And what's crazy, Chuck is when he said

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Speaker 1: that it was less than three years after the Black

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Speaker 1: Panther Party was formed. Yeah, so let's go back to

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Speaker 1: the beginning. Actually, we'll go back before even um, the

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Speaker 1: founding of the Black Panthers, just to provide some context. Right,

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Speaker 1: So this is the roughly the tail end of the

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Speaker 1: Jim Crow era, right right before right at the New

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Speaker 1: Deal era. And um, if you were black in America,

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Speaker 1: your experience, whether it was in the South where it

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Speaker 1: was just even more openly and overtly hostile, um, or

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Speaker 1: in the cities of the North, you were probably um.

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Speaker 1: Just statistically speaking, it was likely that you were poor,

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Speaker 1: that you um probably had routine especially if you were

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Speaker 1: a black man, especially a black man under a certain age,

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Speaker 1: that you were routinely mistreated, harassed, beaten, or possibly murdered

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Speaker 1: by police. Um. And there was a tremendous amount of

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Speaker 1: racial tension as a result. Right, Yeah, not just up north,

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Speaker 1: I mean we're talking pretty much any major city, right,

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Speaker 1: and but especially in the South and the South. Actually,

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Speaker 1: there was a guy whose name was Robert Williams, and

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Speaker 1: he was n double a CP leader in North Carolina,

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Speaker 1: and he wrote a book back in I think nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty five, and he called it negroes with guns and

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Speaker 1: advocated blacks arming themselves and carrying out violence in self defense. Uh,

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Speaker 1: in the face of this um racial mistreatment. Right. And

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Speaker 1: he Williams actually kind of codified or enshrined into book

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Speaker 1: form this idea that was pretty predominant among Southern blacks.

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Speaker 1: It was like, look, this this is stuff is real,

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Speaker 1: and we need to defend ourselves. And that idea spread

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Speaker 1: a little bit to the cities here and there, and

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Speaker 1: um it germinated in the minds of a couple of guys,

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Speaker 1: a couple of college kids in Oakland named Bobby Seal

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Speaker 1: and um Hughey Newton. Yes, uh, and they officially formed

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Speaker 1: it was called the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

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Speaker 1: Initially it was eventually trunk cated uh in Oakland in

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Speaker 1: nineteen six and there well, well you know we'll go

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Speaker 1: through there, uh, because they had boy sort of a

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Speaker 1: roller coaster ride of as far as what they did

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Speaker 1: as a group and as a party. But um, initially

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Speaker 1: kind of the whole thing was self defense. We need

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Speaker 1: to defend ourselves against police brutality. And this non violent

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Speaker 1: civil rights movement is is great. We love Martin Luther

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Speaker 1: King Jr. And what he's doing. But it's going too slowly,

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Speaker 1: and in the meantime, we're getting beaten and killed in

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Speaker 1: the streets by law enforcement. So we need to do something.

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Speaker 1: We need to be proactive and do something about that,

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Speaker 1: right exactly. Robert Williams may have written the book, but

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Speaker 1: that the the the guys who formed the Black Panthers,

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Speaker 1: Seal and Newton. They were of the first UM black

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Speaker 1: rights group to advocate militancy, although again you have to

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Speaker 1: point out like they advocated UM violence and self defense,

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Speaker 1: not aggression, right, yeah, which is why they specifically chose

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Speaker 1: UM the Black Panther as their uh. I guess you

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Speaker 1: say mascot, but as their name mascot makes it sound

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Speaker 1: like a baseball game or something. But there's a quote

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Speaker 1: here from Bobby Seal, co founder, and he said that

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Speaker 1: Hughey Newton said, you know the nature of a panther.

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Speaker 1: I looked it up. If you push it into a corner,

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Speaker 1: that panther is going to try and move left or

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Speaker 1: right to get you to get out of the way.

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Speaker 1: But if you keep pushing back into that corner, sooner

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Speaker 1: or later, that panther is going to come out of

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Speaker 1: that corner. And try and wipe out who keeps oppressing

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Speaker 1: in that corner. And that was sort of the idea, like, hey, listen,

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Speaker 1: we're we're trying to sidestep, we're trying to do the

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Speaker 1: right thing, but if you keep coming at us, then

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Speaker 1: we're going to defend ourselves. Yeah, exactly. And and again

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Speaker 1: they were the first people to come up with this,

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Speaker 1: And they looked around and kind of surveyed the black

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Speaker 1: rights movements that were around. There were um and they

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Speaker 1: kind of said, this one works a little bit, but um,

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Speaker 1: that part of it doesn't work, or this this one

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Speaker 1: we we don't agree with, but it's a nice sentiment.

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Speaker 1: Like the MLK non violent UM civil rights movement, they

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Speaker 1: like you said, they said, this isn't working. It's not

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Speaker 1: happening fast enough for it's not happening at all. UM.

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Speaker 1: And some other groups and people like Stokely Car Michael

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Speaker 1: and h Rat Brown, who were the heads of the

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Speaker 1: Non Violent Student Coordinating Committee, were some of the first

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Speaker 1: black leaders to to publicly break with mlk's non violent

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Speaker 1: theory and say no, we need to meet violence with violence. UM.

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Speaker 1: Malcolm X was another one, and Malcolm X probably had

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Speaker 1: the biggest influence on the Black Panther ideology than anybody else.

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Speaker 1: He advocated black militancy that included violence. He advocated um

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Speaker 1: black self sufficiency and dignity, but he didn't necessarily say, um,

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Speaker 1: you you were only gonna advance with the helps of

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Speaker 1: other blacks. We need to exclude whites or other um

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Speaker 1: races from our struggle. And the Black Panthers is specifically

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Speaker 1: Huey Newton and Bobby Seal really identified with that, and

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Speaker 1: that was actually that became one of the hallmarks of

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Speaker 1: the Black Panthers that they were willing to work with

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Speaker 1: other like minded groups regardless of race. So that's a

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Speaker 1: that was kind of a big one that I wasn't

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Speaker 1: aware of that I learned from this um And then

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Speaker 1: the the other aspect of Malcolm X that really formed

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Speaker 1: like one of the foundation keystones of the Black Panther

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Speaker 1: ideology is that it wasn't race that was the problem,

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Speaker 1: It was um class. They were basically avowed Marxists right

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Speaker 1: that the central the the central issue that created the

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Speaker 1: struggle UM was was class was capitalism, and that the

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Speaker 1: white establishment and the police and the government were keepers

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Speaker 1: of the capitalist structure, and that same capitalist structure was

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Speaker 1: keeping the black pants, the black people in America down,

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Speaker 1: and so to get to to rise up, to become

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Speaker 1: self sufficient, to get that chance that they needed to

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Speaker 1: grow and advance themselves, they had to get rid of

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Speaker 1: the capitalist structure itself. Yeah, they were very much into

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Speaker 1: the socialist ideal. And um, one of the first things

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Speaker 1: they did was they realized they needed sort of a

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Speaker 1: foundation on which is to build upon something easily digestible

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Speaker 1: that people could could look at and could read and

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Speaker 1: understand what they're all about. So very smartly, early on

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Speaker 1: they came up with a very specific what they call

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Speaker 1: their ten point program what we want and what we believe,

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Speaker 1: and uh, they wrote this out. We're gonna read them

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Speaker 1: in a second, but they wrote them out and then

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Speaker 1: immediately printed them on a thousand sheets of paper, and uh,

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Speaker 1: set up an office and started passing these things around.

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Speaker 1: This office was in Oakland, which is where you know,

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Speaker 1: I think we already said where they founded and um,

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Speaker 1: you know, they basically quit their jobs. Every member of

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Speaker 1: the Black Panther Party was a full time I guess

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Speaker 1: you could say employee, but full time worker. Yeah. Remember,

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Speaker 1: and um, they gather their paychecks. The few guys at

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Speaker 1: the very beginning and rented an old shop storefront base

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Speaker 1: and started handing out this ten point program. Yeah they did.

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Speaker 1: And um, you want to go over the program first, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we might as well just go ahead and read all

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Speaker 1: ten Uh, so everybody knows what we're talking about, right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Number one, we want freedom. We want power to determine

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Speaker 1: the destiny of our black community. We believe that black

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Speaker 1: people will not be free until we are able to

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Speaker 1: determine our destiny. Yep. Number two, we want full employment

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Speaker 1: for people. We believe that the federal government is responsible

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Speaker 1: and obligated to give every man employment or guaranteed income.

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Speaker 1: We believe that if the white American businessmen will not

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Speaker 1: give full employment, then the means of production should be

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Speaker 1: taken from the business men and placed in the community

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Speaker 1: so that the people of the community can organize and

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Speaker 1: employ all of its people and give it a high

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Speaker 1: standard of living. Uh. Number three, we want an end

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Speaker 1: to the robbery by the white man of our black community.

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Speaker 1: We believe that this racist government has robbed us and

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Speaker 1: now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres

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Speaker 1: and two mules. Number four, we want decent housing fit

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Speaker 1: for shelter of human beings. We believe that if white

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Speaker 1: landlords will not give decent housing to our black community,

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Speaker 1: then the housing and the land should be made into

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Speaker 1: cooperatives so their community, with government aid, can build and

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Speaker 1: make decent housing for its people. Yeah, and this that

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Speaker 1: was a big one. And as you'll see, a lot

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Speaker 1: of what they were after was just like the ability

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Speaker 1: to live in a neighborhood where you could have a

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Speaker 1: decent school and a decent place to live and a

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Speaker 1: chance at work. Like it wasn't some radical thing that

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Speaker 1: they were after, you know, they just wanted the same

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Speaker 1: opportunities basically. Yeah. And I mean I said earlier that

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Speaker 1: if if you were living and you were black and

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Speaker 1: living in America in the sixties, the chances are you

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Speaker 1: were poor. Of all black people, all black people in

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Speaker 1: the United States were living below the poverty line. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, seventy scent of the poor living in

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Speaker 1: metropolitan areas were black, and in nineteen sixty eight, two

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Speaker 1: thirds of the black population lived in ghettos. So yeah, like,

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Speaker 1: of course it makes sense that their agenda is we

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Speaker 1: want to just get to get to basic normal and

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Speaker 1: then we'll go from there. All right. Number five, we

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Speaker 1: want education for our people that exposes the true nature

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Speaker 1: of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches

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Speaker 1: us our true history and our role in present day society. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Number six, we want all black men to be exempt

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Speaker 1: from military service. This is a big one. We believe

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Speaker 1: that black people should not be forced to fight in

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Speaker 1: the military service to defend a racist government that does

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Speaker 1: not protect us. We will not fight and kill other

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Speaker 1: people of color in the world, who, like black people,

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Speaker 1: are being victimized by the white, racist government of America. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And you know later on in there, during the Vietnam War,

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Speaker 1: they actually, uh, some of them travel to Vietnam. Um

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Speaker 1: and um kind of found a common ground with the

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Speaker 1: North Vietnamese. Right, It's very interesting. Uh, is it my turn?

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Speaker 1: It is? Number seven. We want an immediate end to

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Speaker 1: police brutality and murder of black people. Uh. Pretty much

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Speaker 1: speaks for itself. Yea. Um. But part of that was

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Speaker 1: that they they they point out that the Second Amendment

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Speaker 1: to the Constitution guaranteed the right to bear arms, and

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Speaker 1: that's gonna be a big, big part of the Black

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Speaker 1: Panther Party. They were they're credited historically as being basically

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Speaker 1: the ones who pointed to the Second Amendment and said, hey,

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Speaker 1: we were advocates of gun rights. Yeah, what we'll get

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Speaker 1: to all that, It gets pretty juicy. Number eight, we

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Speaker 1: want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county,

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Speaker 1: and city prisons and jails. They it says that they

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Speaker 1: believe that all black people should be released from prison

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Speaker 1: because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

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Speaker 1: Number nine, we want all black people, when brought to trial,

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Speaker 1: to be tried in core by a jury of their

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Speaker 1: peer group or people from their black communities, as defined

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Speaker 1: by the Constitution of the United States. Number ten, we

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Speaker 1: want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace, And

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Speaker 1: as our major political objective, a United Nations supervised plebiscite

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Speaker 1: to be held throughout the Black colony in which only

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Speaker 1: black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for the

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Speaker 1: purpose of determining the will of Black people as to

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Speaker 1: their national destiny. They're basically saying, we believe that black

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Speaker 1: should have the power to separate from the United States

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Speaker 1: from the white establishment and form their own self sufficient

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Speaker 1: and um respected, self governing body. Basically, so they took

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Speaker 1: these UH ten, this ten point program. They founded a

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Speaker 1: newspaper called The Black Panther and they sold that for

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Speaker 1: twenty five cents. Uh. It got to be a very

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Speaker 1: popular newspaper. UM had a really wide circulation. And it

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Speaker 1: wasn't just uh, you know, black communities that there were.

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Speaker 1: There were all kinds of people reading this a newspaper

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Speaker 1: and it kind of aside from donations and stuff from

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Speaker 1: various groups, it really kind of funded the organization was

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Speaker 1: to sale this paper and every single issue I believe

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Speaker 1: featured this ten point program on the inside cover. And uh,

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Speaker 1: quick shout out to the artwork of Emery Douglas. Uh,

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Speaker 1: if you've ever I saw this great documentary called The

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Speaker 1: Black Panthers Vanguard of a Revolution too, and this artwork

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Speaker 1: from this you know artist and graphic designer Emery Douglas

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Speaker 1: that was kind of the hallmark of the paper. Was

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Speaker 1: just gorgeous stuff. And um, I think he's one of

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Speaker 1: those has sort of not been lost to history. But

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Speaker 1: you know, I had never heard of him before. I

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Speaker 1: think he didn't cover for one of the editions of

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Speaker 1: Native Sun because I was looking at I was like,

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Speaker 1: that looks really familiar. Yeah, that's where I saw it before.

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Speaker 1: It's really good stuff. So chuck, they we've got the

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Speaker 1: ten point Plan, uh, and the original headquarters in Oakland,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, the Panthers start spreading like wildfire,

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Speaker 1: like their ideas, because the experience was so similar as

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Speaker 1: far as poverty and being harassed and brutalized by police

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Speaker 1: and just generally being held down by the white establishment.

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Speaker 1: Since that experience was so similar throughout all the all

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Speaker 1: the major cities and even smaller cities in the United States,

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Speaker 1: the Black Panther Party spread pretty quick and eventually they

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Speaker 1: had something like five thousand members. And remember that doesn't

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Speaker 1: sound that much like that many people, but like you said,

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Speaker 1: to be a member, you were committed to the Black

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Speaker 1: Panther Party. Seven You had to quit your job, you

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Speaker 1: had to quit school, and your your life was the

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Speaker 1: Black Panther Party. So the fact that they had five

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Speaker 1: thousand people doing that around the country is pretty nuts.

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Speaker 1: But they had many, many more supporters, and the Black

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Speaker 1: Panther newspaper eventually grew to a circulation of about two

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand. It's amazing, it really is. And um, well,

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Speaker 1: I guess we'll we'll get back to their history after this, alright, So, uh,

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Speaker 1: if you want to start. If you want to start

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Speaker 1: anything that you want to grow and be noticed, then

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Speaker 1: it sounds kind of silly to talk about, but you

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Speaker 1: need to be good at branding. And Uh, I don't

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Speaker 1: know that they specifically thought about it as branding initially,

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Speaker 1: but they quickly realized that the media really ate this

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Speaker 1: stuff up. When these black men in in leather, black

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Speaker 1: leather car coats and black turtlenecks and black berets donning shotguns,

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Speaker 1: uh with the you know, the ammunition draped around their shoulder. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the press ate it up. It was it was a

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Speaker 1: cool look, and young black men wanted to look like this. Um.

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Speaker 1: Black women started growing out their afros. It was all

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Speaker 1: kind of sort of tied into the Black is Beautiful

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Speaker 1: movement UM, which was sort of just the notion of

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Speaker 1: embrace your blackness. Don't try to fit in and look

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Speaker 1: you know, don't straighten your hair, don't try and look

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Speaker 1: like white people like where you're hiki. Uh, grow your

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Speaker 1: afro out, be proud of who you are as a

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Speaker 1: black person, Embrace your roots. And the Black Panther Party

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Speaker 1: was really tied into this and it became a really

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Speaker 1: big part of their branding. And recruitment. Yeah, if you

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Speaker 1: were hip at this time, like you were definitely hip

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Speaker 1: to the Black Panther look, even if you hadn't adopted

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Speaker 1: it yourself. You were like, there's a cool cat walking

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Speaker 1: down the street with a bandalier of bullets and a

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Speaker 1: shock right. So, Um, the Panthers they had the look,

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Speaker 1: they had the offices, now, they had the newspaper. And

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Speaker 1: one of the first things they started doing, even before

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Speaker 1: they really started to spread. But those first Panther members,

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Speaker 1: Um Hueie Newton, Bobby Seal, and then a guy named

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Speaker 1: Um Bobby Hutton was their first recruit. Um. One of

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Speaker 1: the first things they started doing was patrolling the neighborhoods

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Speaker 1: of Oakland and looking for police who had stopped um

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Speaker 1: black motorists. Right. It's almost like a a guardian angels

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Speaker 1: that protected citizens from cops, right exactly. That's a really

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Speaker 1: good way to put it, right. So they would stand there,

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Speaker 1: um at a reasonable distance and just openly and obviously

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Speaker 1: observed the traffic stop and they would shout, you know,

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Speaker 1: at the cop anytime he started to violate civil rights

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Speaker 1: of the black driver. Um. And they were armed. They

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Speaker 1: were holding shotguns oftentimes not necessarily pointed at the cops.

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Speaker 1: But in that UM in that documentary we mentioned, they

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Speaker 1: would talk about how like the they would kind of

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Speaker 1: bring it is, move it from side to side. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of shifting position, and as it did it slowly

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Speaker 1: was aimed for a moment at the cop, and the

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Speaker 1: cops got the point like, yeah, I get it. You

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Speaker 1: have a loaded shotgun and it's right there and you

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Speaker 1: could shoot me. And some of the first UM, some

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Speaker 1: of the first traffic stop monitoring that happened just scared

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Speaker 1: the Bejesus out of the cops. They had never experienced

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Speaker 1: anything like this before. All of a sudden, there were

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Speaker 1: a group of young black men standing there in black

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Speaker 1: berets and shades at night, holding shotguns trained on them

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Speaker 1: from time to time, and UM, the cops actually responded

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Speaker 1: and exactly the way the Black Panthers did. They were

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Speaker 1: much more hesitant to um brutalized or violate the civil

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Speaker 1: rights of the drivers, and a lot of times they

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Speaker 1: just get in their cars and leave, especially if they

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Speaker 1: were on patrol alone. Yeah, So that was one of

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Speaker 1: the huge early foundational hallmarks of of UM the Black

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Speaker 1: Panther Party, that they were openly and armoredly protecting their

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Speaker 1: um fellow blacks from police brutality. That was that was

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Speaker 1: one of their major roles. Yeah, and uh, the reason

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Speaker 1: that they were allowed to have these guns is because

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Speaker 1: one of their one of their leaders, Eldridge Cleaver, Um

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Speaker 1: found in the California law books that I mean, they

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Speaker 1: call it a loophole, but it wasn't really a loophole.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of right there in black and white as

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Speaker 1: you are allowed to carry a gun in public, on

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Speaker 1: public property as long as it's not concealed open carry law.

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Speaker 1: And so they were like, all right, well we have

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Speaker 1: these guns. It says right here we're allowed to. They

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Speaker 1: would carry a gun in one hand a lot of

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Speaker 1: times and then this californ on your legal handbook in

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Speaker 1: the other, and they knew it by heart. They could

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Speaker 1: quote exactly the code. Uh. And then you know, obviously

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Speaker 1: the cops caught on the word, got around what was

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Speaker 1: going on, and it developed all the way to the

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Speaker 1: California in General Assembly. And when you see this documentary,

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Speaker 1: it's it's amazing, man, these these black the Black Panther

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Speaker 1: Party marches through the building onto the floor of the

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Speaker 1: California General Assembly wielding shotguns, loaded shotguns, and you know,

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Speaker 1: you see all the all the obviously the white legislature

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Speaker 1: just sitting there like what in the world is going on?

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Speaker 1: Including Ronald Reagan. Well, yeah, he was the governor, right,

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Speaker 1: And so Ronald Reagan was the governor at the time,

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Speaker 1: and he is in that documentary quoted as saying, like

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Speaker 1: anybody who thinks, you know, carrying open loaded guns in

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Speaker 1: public is okay, is out of his mind. And ultimately

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Speaker 1: signed a anti open carry law that closed that loophole,

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Speaker 1: the Milford Act. So Reagan signed some um gun control legislation,

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Speaker 1: big gun control legislation, and occur those patrols by the

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Speaker 1: Black Panthers. Yeah, and I so obviously you here, all right,

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Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan does this? You think where's the n r A.

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Speaker 1: And so I looked up, I was like, all right,

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Speaker 1: what was just the climate at the time. Apparently in

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Speaker 1: the late sixties n r A. It wasn't until the

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Speaker 1: late seventies, nineteen seventies seven, when a guy named Harlan

410
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Speaker 1: Carter took over the n r A is when they

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Speaker 1: really stepped it up with the Second Amendment rights. They

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Speaker 1: was really a more strict version of the Second Amendment,

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Speaker 1: and uh so the n r A was silent, and

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Speaker 1: obviously Reagan, being very tough on guns, he had a

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Speaker 1: I guess you could call it a conversion in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties as well. Uh and then he and the

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Speaker 1: n r A teamed up together and started saying things like, well, no,

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Speaker 1: it's it's okay, you can totally have guns. Right. This

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Speaker 1: also happened to coincide with the breakup of the Black

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Speaker 1: Panther Party. Yeah, when the when the n r A

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Speaker 1: and Reagan changed their stance on gun rights. Um. One

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Speaker 1: thing you said was that it was Eldridge Cleaver who

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Speaker 1: noticed loophole. It was Hughey Newton. He was the one

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Speaker 1: who who like really had that mind for law. Eldridge

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Speaker 1: Cleaver was much more the militant revolutionary and he was

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Speaker 1: already a bit of a darling in the intellectual circles

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Speaker 1: for a book of essays he'd written in prison called

428
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: Soul on Ice. And so he joined the Black Panther

429
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 1: Party pretty early on as their Minister of Information, in

430
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: large part their official spokesman UM. And he brought an

431
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:40,880
Speaker 1: air of real credibility and legitimacy and got a lot

432
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: of um left leaning intellectuals and um, you know, entertainment

433
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:49,159
Speaker 1: types like Brando was a big one who was in

434
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 1: favor of the party and supporter. But they they really

435
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:55,160
Speaker 1: started to pay attention to the Black Panthers when Eldridge

436
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:59,160
Speaker 1: Clever joined. Yeah, and his wife, Kathleen Cleaver was also

437
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:01,879
Speaker 1: one of the Uh, well we might as well go

438
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: ahead and talk about women in the Black Panther Party. Uh,

439
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,639
Speaker 1: you know, like most organizations at the time, that it was,

440
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: um it was sort of from the top down down,

441
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:19,120
Speaker 1: a male driven organization. And uh, they did have Kathleen

442
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 1: Cleaverer and they had Elaine Brown who was also sort

443
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: of one of the higher ups. But it was still

444
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: and even they admitted it was still somewhat of a

445
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: chauvinistic organization and most of the women were uh, didn't

446
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 1: make it past what they called the rank and file,

447
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 1: um sort of operating the nuts and bolts, secretarial secretarial

448
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: work and um, just kind of making the thing go.

449
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 1: So it was, you know, on one hand, they did

450
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: give women some positions of power, but never kind of

451
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: at the top. Well, now there were I mean, like

452
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: you said, you name two of the big, big exceptions

453
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 1: that rule, but they were big exceptions like um keith

454
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:02,719
Speaker 1: In Cleaver was the first woman who was a member

455
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 1: of the decision making body, and Elaine Brown took over

456
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: as chair party chair, like the top official after Hughey

457
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: Newton Um split for Cuba in nineteen three. But like

458
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 1: you said, most of the women in the Black Panther

459
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 1: Party were ranked and file. But it doesn't mean that

460
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:24,120
Speaker 1: gender roles were totally rigid in the party. Like, for example,

461
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 1: you would just as often or frequently see women out

462
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: armed doing um patrols of the neighborhood while men were

463
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: the ones responsible for some of them survival programs, the

464
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: community programs that we'll talk about. Yeah, well, Brown said

465
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: they tried that and had minor successes, was there, right, Yeah,

466
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: And the documentary she said that was sort of what

467
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: she tried to do is reverse some of the roles.

468
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 1: And she said there was still kind of largely a

469
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,200
Speaker 1: sexist attitude and which was a problem within the organization

470
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 1: because you can't be that true community organization if you

471
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: have that oppression going on within your own group in

472
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 1: a gender sense. Yeah, and especially if you know women

473
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: are the ones who are doing a lot of the

474
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: actual work, like something like fIF of panther membership was female,

475
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: yeah at one point. So yeah, you gotta respect that

476
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 1: people who are actually doing the work, or else you

477
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: got an arrogance problem at the top. Yeah, and we

478
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:25,400
Speaker 1: should mention too that Kathleen Cleaver is a professor right

479
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta at our own Emory University. Uh what

480
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: law professor? Yeah, yeah, she wanted to get a law

481
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: degree from Yale and uh after years of living in exile,

482
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: which we'll get to. All right, So you mentioned the

483
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: survival programs, and um, if you don't know what that is,

484
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: you might be saying, like, what in the world is

485
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 1: Josh talking about. They had their police brutality program, so

486
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 1: that's kind of what made the news, was patrolling the

487
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: streets with these guns, keeping the cops in check. And

488
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: by the way, we should mention that they're the ones

489
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: who came up with the term pigs as a drug

490
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: story term for police officers. Yeah from there. It first

491
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: appeared in their newspaper and it caught them pretty quick. Yeah,

492
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: so that was that was kind of what they made

493
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 1: the news for it first. But um, I think especially

494
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: Huey Newton realized early on that they can make a

495
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: real difference in the community if they get these social

496
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: programs going that, you know, they're not being taken care of.

497
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: Their schools are bad. These kids don't have access to

498
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: like good food even and they they read that, you know,

499
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: science scientifically speaking, that a good breakfast is has a

500
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 1: big impact on how a child learns throughout the day.

501
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: So they started this breakfast program where they would give

502
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I think at one point they were feeding

503
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: like twenty thousand children free breakfasts around the country every day,

504
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 1: every day, every morning. Twenty thousand children around the country

505
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: who otherwise would have gone to school hungry and stayed

506
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 1: hungry the whole day eight breakfast because the Black Panther

507
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: Party fed them every day, every school day around the country.

508
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: That's insane. Yeah. They started medical clinics, free clinics called

509
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: the People's Free Medical Center. Uh. They offered vaccines, testing

510
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: for diseases, uh, treated basic illnesses, cancer screenings, basically the

511
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: social services that white America fully enjoyed, or I should

512
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 1: say white America of a certain class fully enjoyed. And

513
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: UM started offering up these programs, which kind of became

514
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: one of the hallmarks of the party. Yeah, they weren't

515
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: just this militant group trying to you know, keep cops

516
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: in check any longer. No. No, then that was a huge, huge, um.

517
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 1: I mean that was as big, if not bigger than

518
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: their Their militant objectives is serving the community through these

519
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: survival programs to right. And they funded these programs largely

520
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 1: through donations, um, which they would go out and solicit

521
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: from the community around the City's right. And apparently if

522
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: you at least didn't give something, if you were like, no,

523
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 1: I'm not giving you a dime, the Panthers would um

524
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: would out you in their news paper and call for

525
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: a boycott of your business that, you know, saying like

526
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: these guys care so little that they won't even chip

527
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: in a dollar for kids to have a free breakfast. UM.

528
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: So they had like a real they had a pretty

529
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: serious organization going by this time that was directed again

530
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: not just that patrolling police and fighting police brutality, but

531
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: also at serving the community. Yeah. One of the cool

532
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: things they did was they started the Oakland Community School. Yeah.

533
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: That was Elaine Brown, Yeah, and it was kind of

534
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: her passion project, and it was it was pretty much

535
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 1: free to students and they had, um, they had small classes,

536
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: they taught poetry, They taught foreign language, uh, and current events.

537
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: They taught yoga, like all these things that the black

538
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: community had never you know, had access to. Black history

539
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: is obviously a big part of it. They had my

540
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 1: Angelou and Rosa Parks and other civil rights leaders come

541
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: in and speak at the school and it operated for

542
00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 1: nine nine years from seventy to eighty two. And uh,

543
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: Kathine Cleaver has this one great story that she told

544
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: on CNN about one young man who came to join

545
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: the party because you know, he wanted to get a

546
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: gun and be on the patrol. They handed him a

547
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: stack of books and he looked at him and said,

548
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to army, and they said

549
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 1: back to him, I just did pretty good. Yeah, she

550
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: dropped the mic right after that. She absolutely did. But that,

551
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 1: I mean that directly relates to UM. I think point

552
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: number five on the ten point Agenda, where it says

553
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: that they want education for people that UM that teaches

554
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: them about themselves, that gives them a knowledge of self.

555
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: It said that UM, if a man doesn't have knowledge

556
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: of himself in his position in society, in the world,

557
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: that he has little chance to relate to anything else,

558
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: which is exceptionally true. So you've got all these programs.

559
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: I think they had like sixty five programs what they

560
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: called survival programs in in place. Um. And it wasn't

561
00:32:55,720 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 1: until apparently these programs, uh, we're starting to really roll

562
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 1: and get the attention of and support of a lot

563
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: of people outside of the communities. Even that the FBI,

564
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: led by Jager Hoover, gave its full attention to the

565
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: Black Panthers and they set about trying to destroy the

566
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: Black Panther Party. Well, yeah, I mean Hoover, ironically, these

567
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 1: social programs are what scared him the most because he

568
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: knew that that's how you're going to get white liberals

569
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: on board on this cause, which is exactly what happened.

570
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 1: I mean, like you said, they weren't. They didn't shun

571
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: the help of the white man by any means. They

572
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: like went arm in arm with these uh white lefties. Uh.

573
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: Basically watch the documentaries. It looks like today they're you know,

574
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: these college dudes with beards, they look like modern hipsters

575
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: and uh worked arm in arm and at one point

576
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 1: they even got together who was the Appalachian group, the

577
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: Young Patriots. Yeah, it's just like you see this video

578
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: of these black militants like giving handshakes and hugs to

579
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: these Appalachian white Appalachian I mean rural white people who

580
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 1: all seemed like they were like, we have the same

581
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: problems and we can just get together. And it was

582
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: just just crazy, especially in today's climate all these years

583
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 1: later to see that happening back then. Yeah. They, I mean,

584
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: they they were in favor of anybody regardless as long

585
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: as they shared, you know, kind of the same sentiments

586
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 1: or the same struggle. Um. In nineteen seventy, Hugh Newton

587
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 1: became the first black leader to ever publicly support gays

588
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: and lesbians. Yeah. That was a huge deal too. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. Well,

589
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: I mean the point was, like, you know, the problem

590
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: wasn't race, The problem was this class struggle, and you know,

591
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 1: everybody of a certain socioeconomic status or who was a

592
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 1: worker was being held back, you know. So, Um, you

593
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 1: were saying Hoover was worried about those social programs. Um.

594
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:00,799
Speaker 1: There's a quote from a letter that he wrote to

595
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: an FBI agent who objected to targeting the survival programs

596
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: as part of cointel pro Hoover said, you state, the

597
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 1: Bureau should not interfere in programs such as the Breakfast

598
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: for Children because many prominent humanitarians, both white and black,

599
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 1: are interested in the program, as well as churches which

600
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: are actively supporting it. You obviously have missed the point.

601
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 1: And his point was that you don't leave those programs

602
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 1: alone because they have support outside the community. You target

603
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,879
Speaker 1: them because they have support outside of the community. That

604
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 1: that was the real threat, way more than black men

605
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: patrolling the streets with shotguns. That was a problem for

606
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 1: local law enforcement, and the FBI was worried about it.

607
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,279
Speaker 1: But more of the point, they saw that as such

608
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: a a uh flash point, a potential flash point that

609
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:57,439
Speaker 1: they could get the police to shoot and kill armed

610
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 1: black men on the street with with impunity. Yeah, they

611
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 1: that they could deal with. That is what they understood

612
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,279
Speaker 1: was meeting violence with violence. What they didn't know how

613
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 1: to deal with, aside from completely subverting it and sabotaging it,

614
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: was generating goodwill throughout the community through these social programs.

615
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 1: So that was the real threat to Hoover in his eyes. Amazing.

616
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: So at this point, Um, the party at the top

617
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 1: had gotten a little uh, the foundation had gotten a

618
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:30,359
Speaker 1: little loose um due to a couple of things going

619
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: back in time a little bit. A few years before, um,

620
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,760
Speaker 1: Huey Newton was arrested and convicted of killing a police officer,

621
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:42,240
Speaker 1: which um it. On one hand, it sort of um

622
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: removed one of the one of the pieces of the foundation,

623
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:47,920
Speaker 1: which made a little bit weaker at the top. On

624
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 1: the other hand, it really got people around this free

625
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:56,360
Speaker 1: Huey Newton campaign. Yeah that was Cleaver's phrase, Yeah, free Huey.

626
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,320
Speaker 1: And again the white liberals got on board and it

627
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: kind of swept the nation that basically Huey Newton was

628
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 1: involved in a shootout with the cops and was they

629
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:10,320
Speaker 1: thought wrongfully imprisoned and kind of railroaded through the system.

630
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: And um so in one since it sort of galvanized

631
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: the movement. In another, anytime one of the leaders is

632
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: is operating out of jail, then that's that's not good.

633
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: And he wasn't the only one. Um. Actually, I think

634
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 1: all three of the original Bobby Seal was in and

635
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:29,399
Speaker 1: out of jail a couple of times, and I think

636
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 1: by this point to Clever had fled the country to

637
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:35,839
Speaker 1: avoid jail and ended up in Algeria. He did so

638
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: back in UM as part of a patrol. Clever and

639
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 1: Bobby Hutton, who was the first recruit of the Black

640
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 1: Panthers and by this time was the treasure of the

641
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 1: Oakland Chapter. Um. They were part of a patrol that

642
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: ended up. Um was pulled over by two cops and

643
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: those two cops ended up dead and everybody in the

644
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,279
Speaker 1: car fled, and Um, Hutton and Clever fled to a

645
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 1: basement where they got in a shootout for ninety minutes

646
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: with police, and the police threw in tear gas and

647
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,320
Speaker 1: Um the tear gas, I guess exploded and caught the

648
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: basement on fire. So Um Eldridge, Clever, and Bobby Hutton

649
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 1: decided that they were going to surrender, so they came

650
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 1: out with their hands up. Um unarmed, and the cops

651
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: surrounded him and shot Hutton in the head, just executed

652
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 1: him right there on the sidewalk, and Clever Um was

653
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:33,799
Speaker 1: taken to jail. He made bail, and right when he

654
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: made bell he's like split. He went to Cuba because

655
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 1: Fidel Castro was a long time and big supporter of

656
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 1: the Black Panther Party. There's apparently still one of them.

657
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: Um uh A Mada Shakur I believe, who is living

658
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,919
Speaker 1: still in exile in Cuba today. Um, who's a Black

659
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: Panther H But Eldridge Clever, I guess didn't like the climate,

660
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:03,360
Speaker 1: ended up with Kathleen Leaver in Algeria and formed the

661
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 1: UH the International Chapter of the Black Panther Party, and

662
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: that's where they would receive dignitaries from like the North

663
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 1: Vietnamese government or from Cuba or any kind of left

664
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 1: leaning revolutionary group would come meet them there. And that

665
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:25,839
Speaker 1: was enormous because all like basically no other black liberation

666
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:31,720
Speaker 1: or black rights movement group had genuine, legitimate international support.

667
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: The Black Panthers did, and in the eyes of the world,

668
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:38,839
Speaker 1: that boosted their credibility just through the roof. All right.

669
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: So there's a bit of a UH I don't want

670
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 1: to say power vacuum, but slight leadership vacuum because of

671
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: the various UH top original founders being away from Oakland,

672
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: either in jail or Algeria or in and out of jail,

673
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: and UH it could have potentially been filled by a

674
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: young man out of Chicago named Fred Hampton. And we

675
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: will get back to Fred's story right after this. All right.

676
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 1: So Fred Hampton, UM, by all accounts from this documentary

677
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: in my research seemed like he could have been the

678
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 1: Bobby Kennedy of the Black Panther Party. He was vivacious,

679
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 1: he was a great speaker. He was uh you know,

680
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: he would he would give these speeches and uh just

681
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 1: galvanized people. He had a great personality and um, he

682
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: was really getting kind of the move went back on

683
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: track again in a big, big way. Uh, when he

684
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 1: was pretty much I'm letting un say pretty much when

685
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: he was uh politically assassinated by the FBI in Chicago

686
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 1: Police department. Yeah, he was executed for sure. Um, so

687
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: what was the Yeah, December four is when the raid

688
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: went down. So it's something like four am sometime in

689
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:31,800
Speaker 1: the wee hours. The cops kicked in the door of

690
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:34,440
Speaker 1: Fred Hampton's house or the house where he was staying,

691
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: and um, ninety bullets I think I saw ninety also

692
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: saw a hundred ninety bullets were shot fired from the

693
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: Chicago Police Department, and one bullet was shot by the

694
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:51,359
Speaker 1: Black Panthers. And that bullet was shot when the bodyguard

695
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: to Fred Hampton, his name was Mark Clark, was shot

696
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: and killed and dropped the shotgun he was holding in

697
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: it went off. Yeah, Um, and we should mention too.

698
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:04,760
Speaker 1: This was one of many, many what they called raids

699
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: UM after hoover Is issued that edict that they were

700
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,839
Speaker 1: the the largest uh and I'm sure there was an

701
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: internal memo as well which we don't know about. But

702
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 1: when he issued that edict that they were the most

703
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: threatening group to the United States democracy, it was pretty

704
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: much open season and they carried out these raids all

705
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 1: over the country where essentially cops would just kick indoors,

706
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 1: guns blazing, shoot first asked, don't even ask questions. Yeah,

707
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: but this one was a little more, even even worse.

708
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: It was even more pronounced because this was targeted this, yes, exactly,

709
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: and it was targeted specifically for Fred Hampton, and it

710
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 1: kind of falls in line with this part of cointel

711
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 1: Pro or coin tel pro. This one of the foundations

712
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 1: of coin tel pro was that it sought to prevent

713
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 1: the rise of a black messiah that could um consolidate

714
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: the masses, and that was Fred Hampton. Well, he definitely

715
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: fell in that. So was MLK, so was Malcolm X.

716
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: Basically any black leader that was assassinated definitely fell within

717
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:10,040
Speaker 1: that so and Fred Hampton did as well for sure.

718
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 1: So he was assassinated. UM not by the FBI, but

719
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 1: by the Chicago p D. But the Chicago p D

720
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:19,840
Speaker 1: were able to carry out a targeted raid because the

721
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 1: FBI had supplied them with a map drawn by one

722
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 1: of their informants of the apartment Fred Hampton was staying in. Yeah,

723
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 1: and it was under the guise of they have a

724
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 1: stash of guns in there, which they did have a

725
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 1: stash of guns and ammunition in there, and that was

726
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 1: the excuse they used to go in and shoot him

727
00:43:37,080 --> 00:43:40,359
Speaker 1: in bed while he slept. Yeah. And if you are

728
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: questioning whether this was actually an attempt on Fred Fred

729
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 1: Hampton's life, those ninety bullets that were fired, most of

730
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: them went into Fred Hampton. Uh. And three people who

731
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: were sleeping in the same bed as Hampton where he

732
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 1: was shot and killed. Um, we're not hit by bullets

733
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, including his eight and a half month

734
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 1: pregnant girlfriend yea, who they grabbed by the hair and

735
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 1: threw into the other room. Uh, tore her robe open,

736
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 1: and UM. You know, the story of the cops was

737
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: was they knocked on the door, were denied entry. Uh.

738
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 1: Then they opened the door and there was a woman

739
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:19,320
Speaker 1: aiming a shotgun at them. Um. Later on ballistics tests.

740
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: They did everything and basically figured out that was sham.

741
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: All the bullets were found ballistically to have gone into

742
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 1: the apartment, none going out of the apartment through the walls.

743
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:34,359
Speaker 1: And you know, in this documentary they interview a few

744
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: of the people that were in there and they were

745
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: just like it was mass murder. They basically just came

746
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 1: in and shot the place up. Uh. They they examined

747
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 1: the angle of the wound that showed that Hampton was

748
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:48,839
Speaker 1: lying on his back in bed from somebody standing above him.

749
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:54,320
Speaker 1: And in nineteen seventy a coroner's jury ruled the deaths justifiable.

750
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: Everyone got away with it, but the city eventually and

751
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: the federal judge approved one point eight five million dollars settlement.

752
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:05,399
Speaker 1: But that wasn't until the nineties. Yeah, thirteen years later.

753
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: But the FBI, apparently the agent who was handling the

754
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: informant who produced the map was so pleased with the

755
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 1: results that after the after the raid that resulted in

756
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: Hampton's execution, um he I guess male jager Hoover with

757
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:25,360
Speaker 1: a request for an extra three dollars because he wanted

758
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:30,440
Speaker 1: to give the informant a bonus. One of the bigger

759
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: black eyes on American history for sure. One of the

760
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: other black eyes on the Chicago p D at this

761
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 1: time was the one of these raids was on the

762
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 1: Breakfast for Children program where the supplies for breakfast were burned,

763
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: like the place was set on fire by the cops. So,

764
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 1: I mean, the Black Panthers are at like open war

765
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 1: with with the FBI and with the police department. To

766
00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:00,919
Speaker 1: the late sixties were crazy, you know, in large part

767
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: because of this. Yeah, I mean, for sure. Uh, there

768
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 1: was another big shootout and this is all sort of

769
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:08,759
Speaker 1: coming to a head. If it feels that way, that's

770
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on. Um. In nineteen nine, there was

771
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: another big shootout and this was major and I think

772
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: it was in Los Angeles, wasn't it. Yeah it was.

773
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: It was the first time a swat team was ever used. Yeah,

774
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: they employed the swat team, which was invented by the

775
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:26,879
Speaker 1: l A p D and two hundred l A Police. Uh.

776
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: And I think it was like six or eight Black

777
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: Panther Party members were involved in a full on, you know,

778
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 1: hour long gun battle just right there in the streets.

779
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: So things are coming to a head. The sort of

780
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 1: the secret plan here by Hoover is working, which is

781
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 1: he wants to fracture the party from within, and so

782
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 1: seeds of discontent and discord. So they had been through

783
00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 1: the years planting informants in the Black Panther Party, uh,

784
00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 1: in the party and they knew it the Black pant

785
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 1: Thurst did so a lot of distrust, you know, when

786
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: you know, like who can you trust? A lot of

787
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 1: this this distrust happens even among you know, the higher

788
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: ups that were formerly like a pretty strong union, right,

789
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:16,760
Speaker 1: And that happened for sure with the case of Eldridge

790
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: Clever and Huey Newton. When Huey Newton got out of jail,

791
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 1: he was eventually freed, and uh, it was a big deal,

792
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:25,360
Speaker 1: and they thought this was going to be sort of

793
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 1: the the rebirth of the Black Panther Party, uh, in

794
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 1: the wake of the death of Fred Hampton. But he

795
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 1: came out of jail, and he and Clever sort of

796
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:38,440
Speaker 1: had different Uh, they always sort of had different priorities.

797
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: But they managed to come together. But they were truly

798
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: fractured at this point. Yeah, they were. Um Newton and

799
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: Clever were like openly criticizing one another with Clever still

800
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 1: in exile. But Clever had the entire New York chapter

801
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 1: dedicated to him. Uh. And years prior, the Black Panthers

802
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 1: had formed what was called the Black Liberation Army, but

803
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: it was a army of defense until ninety one, UM,

804
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 1: when I believe he was still in absentia. But Uh,

805
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:13,759
Speaker 1: Eldridge Cleaver said, Hey, we're gonna take this from defensive

806
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:17,439
Speaker 1: to offensive and basically create a new terrorist group out

807
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: of the Black Liberation Army. And they started a campaign

808
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:24,720
Speaker 1: of violence against UM cops where they would ambush cops

809
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 1: and just kill him. There wasn't any retaliation for police brutality. Um,

810
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: it wasn't self defense, like they were ambushing and killing cops.

811
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 1: And it happened in cities around the country. And the

812
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: fracture between the Black Panthers itself was so deep that

813
00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 1: Cleaver's faction and Newton's faction were assassinating one another. They

814
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 1: were taking out each other's people. UM. So it was

815
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:51,800
Speaker 1: a big deal. And the Black Liberation Army officially split

816
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 1: from the Black Panthers in nineteen seventy one. And of course,

817
00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:56,880
Speaker 1: at this point, Herbert Hoover sitting back in his chair

818
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:00,720
Speaker 1: like choking on his cigar from laughter, this is exactly

819
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 1: what he wanted, was this in fighting and Um, So

820
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 1: Newton gets out of jail, he's, uh, he's trying to

821
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: get the social programs going again, but he also is uh,

822
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 1: becomes addicted to drugs and by all accounts is sort

823
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 1: of losing his mind and it's become power hungry and

824
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: um his sort of lost the original calling that he

825
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:28,640
Speaker 1: had and has gotten sort of drunk with power and

826
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:31,719
Speaker 1: was not functioning mentally like he should have been due

827
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:34,319
Speaker 1: to the drugs. Right. So it was it was his

828
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,480
Speaker 1: big sort of the big beginning of the flame out, yeah,

829
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:42,760
Speaker 1: for himself and the party. Yeah, for sure, his his downfall. Definitely.

830
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:46,719
Speaker 1: It didn't exactly mirror the party, but you know, it

831
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: was it was a herald of one. You know, one

832
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: of the founders was totally losing his his marbles because

833
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 1: he was addicted to heroin and cocaine, you know, and

834
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:00,879
Speaker 1: he actually had a very sad end. He died during

835
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:03,479
Speaker 1: a drug deal on the street in nineteen eighty nine

836
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 1: in Oakland. Um, but he said that he was committing

837
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 1: revolutionary suicide by being addicted to drugs and basically killing

838
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 1: himself that way. Um, some of the other ones had

839
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: not quite as tragic, but strange ends like Eldridge Clever.

840
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 1: Right when he returned from Algeria with Kathleen Cleaver, um

841
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,440
Speaker 1: he became I think both of them might have become

842
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 1: born again Christians, and um Eldridge Clever eventually became a

843
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: registered Republican. I did not see that coming. Did not either,

844
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:39,359
Speaker 1: and I'm sure a lot of people didn't. Right. And then,

845
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:42,920
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned that internal violence with one another, Right,

846
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 1: there was a big turning point um as far as

847
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 1: public sympathy went um in nineteen sixty nine, I think maybe, yeah,

848
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:55,880
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, there was a guy named Alex Rackley

849
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 1: who was a member of the New York Chapter, and

850
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 1: he was suspected to be an FBI informant. And it's still,

851
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 1: after all these years, never come to light whether he

852
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:10,799
Speaker 1: was or not. But the Panthers had the idea that

853
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 1: he was, so they took him to the New Haven

854
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 1: Chapter where he was tortured. They tied him up to

855
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:20,120
Speaker 1: a bed and poured boiling water on his body for days,

856
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: and then eventually I guess he confessed. Although if you

857
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 1: ever listened to a torture episode torture, yeah, you can

858
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 1: get a false confession pretty easy if you torture somebody. Um.

859
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 1: They took him out to the woods and shot him

860
00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 1: in the head and chest and and left him. And

861
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: when he when his body was discovered, Bobby Seal had

862
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 1: been in New Haven speaking at Yale like just hours

863
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 1: before the guy was killed. So he got charged with

864
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: the murder. And this is one of the founders of

865
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 1: the Black Panther Party on trial for murder. And during

866
00:51:55,719 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: this trial, um, which he was acquitted, but he the

867
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:04,359
Speaker 1: a lot of the in fighting came out. And the

868
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:06,400
Speaker 1: Panthers had managed to keep it out of the public

869
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:08,920
Speaker 1: eye and under wraps for for you know, up to

870
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: this point. Now it came out in the trial. So

871
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 1: people realized that there was a lot of um schisms

872
00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: and fractures within the leadership itself. They lost a lot

873
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 1: of public sympathy when they found out that they would

874
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: carry out you know, extra judicial justice on their own members. Um.

875
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: And it just it was, it was a big thing.

876
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 1: It was a big turning point for the party as

877
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: far as the public was concerned. Yeah. And and like

878
00:52:37,160 --> 00:52:39,400
Speaker 1: I said, they were sort of the two factions with

879
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 1: with Clever and Newton. Some people went with clever, some

880
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: people went with Newton. A lot of people left the

881
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 1: Black Panther Party period at this point because they either

882
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 1: didn't know who to give their allegiance to or they

883
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:56,120
Speaker 1: just felt betrayed by this fracture and the party wasn't

884
00:52:56,160 --> 00:52:58,920
Speaker 1: what they thought it was. So the numbers are declining.

885
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 1: It's it's definitely and sort of free fall at this point,

886
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 1: and uh, Bobby Seal decides, here's what we need to do.

887
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 1: We need to close down as many chapters as we

888
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 1: can and and pull the resources and the money and

889
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:16,719
Speaker 1: bring everyone out here to Oakland because I'm gonna run

890
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 1: from mayor and we need to go all in on

891
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:23,920
Speaker 1: this legit push for political candidacy because I think I

892
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:26,360
Speaker 1: can win. So they literally called up people on the

893
00:53:26,400 --> 00:53:28,760
Speaker 1: East coast and the Baltimore office and New York offices

894
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 1: and said, shut him down. Come out here to California,

895
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 1: and we need to go all in on not only

896
00:53:34,200 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 1: running for mayor, but on a massive voter registration campaign

897
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 1: to register you know, people in in urban communities to vote.

898
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 1: So I think in the end they got like fifty

899
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:46,960
Speaker 1: thou new people registered to vote, and out of eight

900
00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 1: or nine candidates, he finished close enough in second to

901
00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 1: get a runoff. He got like the vote, yeah, but

902
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:59,160
Speaker 1: ultimately lost in a runoff in a narrow runoff and

903
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 1: did not when um, which sort of was one of

904
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:06,640
Speaker 1: the final nails in the coffin for the party because

905
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:09,520
Speaker 1: they had committed so many resources to try and get

906
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:13,040
Speaker 1: behind Bobby Seal's run for mayor. And he incidentally still

907
00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:15,520
Speaker 1: lives in the Bay Area and is very much still

908
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:19,800
Speaker 1: an activist. Yeah, Bobby Seal is. Yeah. He was also

909
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:22,640
Speaker 1: did you ever see that UM documentary on the Chicago

910
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: Eight It was like animated. No, it's very good, but

911
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:29,080
Speaker 1: he was one of the Chicago Eight and Steal. He

912
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:32,439
Speaker 1: actually went to prison. This is before mayoral run Um,

913
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: but he did like four years or at least was

914
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:39,840
Speaker 1: sentenced to four years strictly for um contempt of court

915
00:54:40,239 --> 00:54:43,040
Speaker 1: because he he um rejected that he was getting a

916
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:45,560
Speaker 1: fair trial because I don't think there was a single

917
00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:48,799
Speaker 1: black person on the jury Um, and he rejected that

918
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 1: he was being tried by a jury of his peers,

919
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,680
Speaker 1: and he kept protesting in the middle of court and

920
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:57,719
Speaker 1: eventually at one point the judge had him gagged. But

921
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 1: he got like four years for that, Yeah, gagged as

922
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:05,160
Speaker 1: in literally chained to his seat with tape over his mouth. Yes,

923
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:11,240
Speaker 1: and uh, you know that that set off all sorts

924
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 1: of protests in the streets. People wanted that judge removed.

925
00:55:14,120 --> 00:55:16,040
Speaker 1: I thought that was that not during the Panther twenty

926
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:17,840
Speaker 1: one trial. Was that the other one in Chicago? That

927
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: was the Chicago eight trial? Um? And that was that

928
00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 1: was a different trial. Also where um, did you ever

929
00:55:24,640 --> 00:55:28,160
Speaker 1: hear the urban legend that Hillary Clinton got Bobby Seal

930
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 1: out of off a murder charges? That was that came

931
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 1: out of that Alex Rackley trial where he was on

932
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:38,960
Speaker 1: trial for murder and he he was acquitted. Um. And

933
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: Hillary Rodham Clinton was nowhere near the actual trial as

934
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 1: his attorney. She apparently um was a law student at

935
00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:49,960
Speaker 1: Yale still and was coordinating with the A c l

936
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:53,080
Speaker 1: U to monitor of the trial. So she she was

937
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 1: there but apparently had nothing to do with the defense.

938
00:55:57,560 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: But that was a an urban legend came out of

939
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 1: the two thousand senatorial campaign. Well, the Panther twenty one

940
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:07,319
Speaker 1: I mentioned, um just quickly. That was in New York,

941
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:09,719
Speaker 1: the New York Chapter twenty one. Leaders of the Black

942
00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:13,640
Speaker 1: Panther Party were rounded up and arrested on conspiracy charges.

943
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:15,239
Speaker 1: And this is a really big deal because the New

944
00:56:15,280 --> 00:56:17,840
Speaker 1: York chapter was uh, one of the biggest ones in

945
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:20,960
Speaker 1: the country after Oakland, and people got involved and tried

946
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:24,360
Speaker 1: to raise money, like celebrities got involved and and donated money,

947
00:56:24,480 --> 00:56:26,279
Speaker 1: and it at one point, I don't know if it

948
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:29,239
Speaker 1: still is, but it was the longest criminal proceeding in

949
00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:31,919
Speaker 1: New York State history. It was a thirteen month trial

950
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:34,640
Speaker 1: by jury and they're all found not guilty and released,

951
00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:38,319
Speaker 1: So that all of them were found not guilty. Huh. Yeah,

952
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:41,719
Speaker 1: the Panther one. Uh And that's you know, jumping back

953
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:43,480
Speaker 1: in time a little bit. I just wanted to mention that,

954
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:48,880
Speaker 1: so there's a distinct legacy beyond just the look or

955
00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:51,279
Speaker 1: the image or black power and black power. We should

956
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:55,640
Speaker 1: also say, um, I think it was Stokely Carmichael who

957
00:56:55,760 --> 00:56:57,799
Speaker 1: either coined that phrase or at least was the first

958
00:56:57,840 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: to really kind of pick it up and run with it.

959
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:04,520
Speaker 1: Um and Stokely carmichaels Nons Non Violent Student Coordinating Committee.

960
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:07,960
Speaker 1: They got together with the Black Panthers early on. But

961
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: if you I mean just in the popular culture, the

962
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:13,719
Speaker 1: Black Panthers live on. But there's even more of a

963
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:18,720
Speaker 1: legacy as well. UM. Before he died, Eldredge Clever gave

964
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: an interview I think back in and he said that

965
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:27,800
Speaker 1: Um he basically blamed the gang violence that plagued inner

966
00:57:27,840 --> 00:57:31,160
Speaker 1: cities in the eighties. He traced that directly to the

967
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 1: death of the Black Panthers. He said that as it

968
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 1: was the U. S. Government chopped off the head of

969
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 1: the Black liberation movement and left the body. They're armed.

970
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 1: That's why all these young bloods are out there now.

971
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:47,480
Speaker 1: They've got the rhetoric, but are without the political direction,

972
00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:52,000
Speaker 1: and they've got the guns. So he basically traces that

973
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 1: directly to the Black Panthers being taken down. Yeah, actually

974
00:57:58,240 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 1: I do. So we were talking about how you know

975
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 1: there there's a legacy. There's not just a legacy the

976
00:58:03,720 --> 00:58:08,160
Speaker 1: Black Panthers is a legacy of um uh brutality against

977
00:58:08,160 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 1: black people that apparently is at least as bad, if

978
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:15,800
Speaker 1: not worse today than it has been Chuck. So the

979
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 1: UM Tuskegee University in Alabama has records of all the

980
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:24,480
Speaker 1: lynchings that took place in the Jim Crow era eighteen

981
00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:28,080
Speaker 1: ninety and nineteen sixty five and two thousand nine hundred

982
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:31,720
Speaker 1: and eleven Black Americans were lynched during those years, and

983
00:58:31,760 --> 00:58:34,680
Speaker 1: the worst year of the Jim Crow era was eighteen

984
00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 1: ninety two, and a hundred and sixty one people were lynched.

985
00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 1: In two thousand and fifteen, two hundred and fifty eight

986
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 1: black people were killed by police in the United States.

987
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:51,000
Speaker 1: So not a lot has changed, and it's possible that

988
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:54,280
Speaker 1: it's gotten worse. But if you look to the Black

989
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 1: Lives Matter movement, they have chosen the way of King

990
00:58:58,400 --> 00:59:01,480
Speaker 1: uh And and preaching non viole rhetoric for social change

991
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:06,560
Speaker 1: rather than the Black Panther rhetoric of militancy and violent

992
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:09,160
Speaker 1: self defense. Yeah. I think a bit of the Black

993
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: Panther Party spirit, though, is alive in the Black Lives

994
00:59:12,080 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 1: Matter movement for sure. Yeah, for sure. So uh yeah,

995
00:59:15,800 --> 00:59:19,240
Speaker 1: that's all I've got. That's all I've got. Good one. Yeah,

996
00:59:19,280 --> 00:59:21,840
Speaker 1: I thought said to you, man, um, do you ever

997
00:59:21,880 --> 00:59:25,160
Speaker 1: see the movie I was the one with like Mario

998
00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:27,640
Speaker 1: Van Peebles. Yeah he made it, he did, he wouldn't

999
00:59:27,680 --> 00:59:30,720
Speaker 1: in I don't think. Okay, no, I didn't. I heard

1000
00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:33,120
Speaker 1: it was not good. Yeah, I want to see Malcolm X.

1001
00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:36,680
Speaker 1: I've never seen that one. Oh, that's great. Is it. Yeah, yeah,

1002
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:39,640
Speaker 1: Spike Lea's movie. Sure, yeah, really good. Okay, I'll check

1003
00:59:39,680 --> 00:59:44,960
Speaker 1: that out. Yeah, the Um the Panther movie was. I

1004
00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 1: just read a few reviews today and apparently the setup

1005
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:50,280
Speaker 1: is pretty good with some of the history, but then

1006
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:54,160
Speaker 1: it kind of goes off the rails and like and

1007
00:59:54,200 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: not just goes off the rails like bad movie, but

1008
00:59:56,160 --> 01:00:00,480
Speaker 1: bad movie and not historically accurate or honoring like they

1009
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 1: keep subject matter dance seemed to keep breaking down. Uh,

1010
01:00:06,040 --> 01:00:08,280
Speaker 1: but I do think that I was like, man, why

1011
01:00:08,320 --> 01:00:11,880
Speaker 1: hasn't there been a movie made about Fred Hampton? Yeah,

1012
01:00:11,880 --> 01:00:16,120
Speaker 1: he sounds like he's a a pretty inspiring figure. Yeah,

1013
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:18,120
Speaker 1: seeing some of those speeches like he he had it

1014
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:22,080
Speaker 1: going on. He said his one big quote was, uh,

1015
01:00:22,160 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 1: we're not gonna fight fire with fire, We're gonna fight

1016
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 1: fire with water. Thought that was a good one. Yeah,

1017
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 1: that's a great one. That's Black Messiah talk right there exactly.

1018
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about the Black Panthers,

1019
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:35,439
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of stuff you can do. You can

1020
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:37,760
Speaker 1: go on to the site at how stuff works dot

1021
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:40,960
Speaker 1: com and search those terms. You can go watch Black

1022
01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:44,880
Speaker 1: Panthers Vancuard of Revolution. You can watch Black Power mix

1023
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:47,280
Speaker 1: tape that has a lot to do with the black panthers.

1024
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it yet, though, of you know, you

1025
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:51,960
Speaker 1: can go to Emory University, I bet and get in

1026
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:55,280
Speaker 1: touch with Kathleen Cleaver and maybe offered to buy her coffee. Yep,

1027
01:00:55,480 --> 01:00:58,560
Speaker 1: there's uh some just a lot of really good articles

1028
01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 1: out there. Uh that it just searched black panthers in

1029
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:03,960
Speaker 1: it'll there's a lot of eye opening history that you

1030
01:01:04,000 --> 01:01:06,880
Speaker 1: didn't learn in school. And since I said you didn't

1031
01:01:06,920 --> 01:01:12,000
Speaker 1: learn in school, it's time for a listener mail. I'm

1032
01:01:12,040 --> 01:01:18,680
Speaker 1: gonna call this addendum to rubber trade from the elastics episode. Hey, guys,

1033
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:20,439
Speaker 1: just listen to the one on elastics. It was fun

1034
01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:23,280
Speaker 1: and informative as usual, but I wanted to call attention

1035
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:26,000
Speaker 1: to a small important omission. You were discussing the rubber

1036
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:28,560
Speaker 1: trade in Latin American and you only mentioned Brazil, although

1037
01:01:28,600 --> 01:01:30,919
Speaker 1: it was indeed the largest exporter of rubber in the area.

1038
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:34,920
Speaker 1: That Amazon Basin and the Putumayo River Valley region in

1039
01:01:34,960 --> 01:01:37,840
Speaker 1: Peru and Colombia were also important sites for the production

1040
01:01:37,880 --> 01:01:40,840
Speaker 1: of rubber trees. Sadly, when you combine global demand with

1041
01:01:40,880 --> 01:01:44,440
Speaker 1: a natural product, the result is usually some form of exploitation.

1042
01:01:44,840 --> 01:01:46,880
Speaker 1: In the case of rubber, it came to a horrible

1043
01:01:46,920 --> 01:01:50,800
Speaker 1: extreme with the Peruvian Amazon Rubber Company, or as it

1044
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:54,360
Speaker 1: was known in Spanish, the Casa Arana name for Julio

1045
01:01:54,520 --> 01:01:58,640
Speaker 1: cesar Arana, Peruvian businessman that set up shop in the region,

1046
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:03,000
Speaker 1: enslaved towards or to mutilated indigenous populations to the brink

1047
01:02:03,040 --> 01:02:07,080
Speaker 1: of extinction in the pursuit of rubber. His crimes were

1048
01:02:07,080 --> 01:02:10,160
Speaker 1: documented and made public in nineteen thirteen, but his business

1049
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:13,640
Speaker 1: and atrocities only stopped when rubber production moved to Asia

1050
01:02:13,680 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 1: and he couldn't compete. Uh. This whole rubber bonanza's chronicled

1051
01:02:17,040 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 1: and the excellent Colombian novel The Whirlwind by J. E. Rivera. Today,

1052
01:02:22,560 --> 01:02:25,400
Speaker 1: the offices of the company, the Casa Adana or Aroana House,

1053
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:29,240
Speaker 1: are being converted into a historic site. Remembers of local

1054
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:31,840
Speaker 1: tribes can gather and remember those atrocities in their own way,

1055
01:02:32,200 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 1: telling your own stories and their own words. Uh. This

1056
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:38,240
Speaker 1: is one of those poorly documented, poorly discussed examples of

1057
01:02:38,280 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 1: genocide as a result of trade. At least in Columbia,

1058
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:45,360
Speaker 1: every kind of economic bonanza is somehow tied to one

1059
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 1: massacre or another. So that's the downer I wanted to share.

1060
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:55,320
Speaker 1: Who is that best from Bogato Santiago. Santiago is the

1061
01:02:55,320 --> 01:02:57,520
Speaker 1: person who wrote it in Yes, thanks a lot for

1062
01:02:57,600 --> 01:03:00,520
Speaker 1: writing that, Santiago. We appreciate it. Yep, it's a good one.

1063
01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:02,880
Speaker 1: And then this has been like an eye opening history

1064
01:03:03,000 --> 01:03:06,240
Speaker 1: lesson through and through. Huh. Absolutely, if you want to

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