WEBVTT - The Black Panther Party 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:02.240 Hey, everyone, just want to let you know that this 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:06.800 episode features a couple of little technical glitches that we 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:11.280 didn't find very noticeable. But we loved this episode so 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:13.680 much we didn't want to try and recapture Lightning in 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.640 a bottle by re recording it. Right, try not to 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:18.800 pay attention. Okay, yeah, I don't think it's a big deal. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:22.000 But um, if you've noticed a couple of little hiccups 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.360 here and there, that's what's going on. I just want 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.920 to let you know. Welcome to stuff you should know 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:36.960 from how stuff works dot com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.400 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.640 It's just the two of us, no producer today. We're 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.320 producer free, just the two of us. We can make 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:51.800 it if we try. Let's try, Chuck, you and I right, 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.840 I think we're both pretty excited about this one. Yeah, 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:57.800 this this is gonna be a good one. I love 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.840 my history, as do you sure, especially contemporary history, and 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:06.720 especially history that I didn't get taught in high school. 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.960 I don't remember learning much about the Black Panthers in 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:17.560 high school. None. So Charles, Uh, you didn't know much 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.880 about the Black Panthers. I didn't either a little bit. Yeah, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.679 I would guess we were probably in about the same 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.400 the same boat. You know, I went to college. Yeah, 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.319 I don't recall learning much in college about them either, 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.280 but I guess, I mean I knew a little bit here, 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:35.959 there's some of the highlights. But it was it was 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.959 in researching that I realized, like, just how much if 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.920 you if you don't actually go research it, just how 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.480 how completely wrong a lot of this stuff is, And 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.080 not just in detail, but in like overall tone, you know, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.440 like you get the idea that, um, the Black Panthers were, um, 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.000 nothing but like racist terrorists who basically wanted to kill 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:02.000 all whites and take over the Ye House. No, no, 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.080 not really. And and after further digging, it turns out 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.720 that a lot of that image that that most people 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.359 have today who don't really know much about the Black Panthers, um, 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:17.160 that idea comes from a misinformation and smear campaign carried 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.760 out very purposefully by the FBI back in the sixties 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:26.359 and seventies. Yes, by boy, I mean, let's just call 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:31.520 him divisive at the risk of smearing someone, But has 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.120 there ever been a more divisive individual in this country? 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.880 Perhaps well, who knows now, but j Edgar Hoover, Yeah, 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:44.160 I mean, my god, FBI director for life. I don't. 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:45.360 I mean, I want to say, we should do a 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.639 podcast on him, but it would definitely be a two 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.400 parter because he worked for a hundred and eighty seven years. 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:54.400 Well that we I should say, that smear campaign, and 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:56.680 there's a lot of other stuff to that campaign as 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.600 well beyond just smearing. Um. But it had a name 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:04.440 coin tell Pro counter intelligence program and um that in 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.359 and of itself deserves its own one or two part 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.400 episode two. Yeah, I mean, at one point jed Ger 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:12.679 Hoover came out in the news and said that the 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.280 Black Panther Party was the single greatest threat to the 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:21.200 United States of America. And this was during the Vietnam War. Uh, 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:25.320 I mean it for the uninformed. Uh, Like you said, 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.920 people you know thought all right, well, and it was 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.400 not coincidentally from that point forward is when the cops 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.640 really were like, all right, we can we truly don't 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.320 have to even respect civile liberties. Liberties at this point, 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:41.640 we can go in and shoot people in their sleep, 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.480 right exactly. And what's crazy, Chuck is when he said 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.440 that it was less than three years after the Black 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:51.880 Panther Party was formed. Yeah, so let's go back to 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.920 the beginning. Actually, we'll go back before even um, the 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.920 founding of the Black Panthers, just to provide some context. Right, 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:02.480 So this is the roughly the tail end of the 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.119 Jim Crow era, right right before right at the New 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:10.960 Deal era. And um, if you were black in America, 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.560 your experience, whether it was in the South where it 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:20.680 was just even more openly and overtly hostile, um, or 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:26.440 in the cities of the North, you were probably um. 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.200 Just statistically speaking, it was likely that you were poor, 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.480 that you um probably had routine especially if you were 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.960 a black man, especially a black man under a certain age, 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.680 that you were routinely mistreated, harassed, beaten, or possibly murdered 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:48.680 by police. Um. And there was a tremendous amount of 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.440 racial tension as a result. Right, Yeah, not just up north, 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.120 I mean we're talking pretty much any major city, right, 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.400 and but especially in the South and the South. Actually, 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.800 there was a guy whose name was Robert Williams, and 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.360 he was n double a CP leader in North Carolina, 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:08.320 and he wrote a book back in I think nineteen 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.320 sixty five, and he called it negroes with guns and 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:19.240 advocated blacks arming themselves and carrying out violence in self defense. Uh, 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:23.359 in the face of this um racial mistreatment. Right. And 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:27.760 he Williams actually kind of codified or enshrined into book 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.360 form this idea that was pretty predominant among Southern blacks. 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.960 It was like, look, this this is stuff is real, 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.960 and we need to defend ourselves. And that idea spread 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.240 a little bit to the cities here and there, and 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:46.799 um it germinated in the minds of a couple of guys, 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.119 a couple of college kids in Oakland named Bobby Seal 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:55.000 and um Hughey Newton. Yes, uh, and they officially formed 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.120 it was called the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.920 Initially it was eventually trunk cated uh in Oakland in 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:06.920 nineteen six and there well, well you know we'll go 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.080 through there, uh, because they had boy sort of a 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:13.600 roller coaster ride of as far as what they did 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.320 as a group and as a party. But um, initially 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.039 kind of the whole thing was self defense. We need 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:25.039 to defend ourselves against police brutality. And this non violent 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.320 civil rights movement is is great. We love Martin Luther 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.360 King Jr. And what he's doing. But it's going too slowly, 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.039 and in the meantime, we're getting beaten and killed in 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:38.120 the streets by law enforcement. So we need to do something. 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.200 We need to be proactive and do something about that, 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.000 right exactly. Robert Williams may have written the book, but 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.120 that the the the guys who formed the Black Panthers, 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:50.679 Seal and Newton. They were of the first UM black 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.599 rights group to advocate militancy, although again you have to 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.000 point out like they advocated UM violence and self defense, 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.800 not aggression, right, yeah, which is why they specifically chose 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.599 UM the Black Panther as their uh. I guess you 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.119 say mascot, but as their name mascot makes it sound 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:13.400 like a baseball game or something. But there's a quote 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.200 here from Bobby Seal, co founder, and he said that 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:18.119 Hughey Newton said, you know the nature of a panther. 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.640 I looked it up. If you push it into a corner, 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:22.840 that panther is going to try and move left or 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:24.800 right to get you to get out of the way. 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.080 But if you keep pushing back into that corner, sooner 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.480 or later, that panther is going to come out of 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.120 that corner. And try and wipe out who keeps oppressing 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:37.400 in that corner. And that was sort of the idea, like, hey, listen, 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:39.360 we're we're trying to sidestep, we're trying to do the 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:41.600 right thing, but if you keep coming at us, then 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:45.920 we're going to defend ourselves. Yeah, exactly. And and again 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:47.640 they were the first people to come up with this, 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.480 And they looked around and kind of surveyed the black 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.000 rights movements that were around. There were um and they 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.000 kind of said, this one works a little bit, but um, 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.360 that part of it doesn't work, or this this one 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.040 we we don't agree with, but it's a nice sentiment. 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.920 Like the MLK non violent UM civil rights movement, they 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:06.920 like you said, they said, this isn't working. It's not 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.000 happening fast enough for it's not happening at all. UM. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.160 And some other groups and people like Stokely Car Michael 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.480 and h Rat Brown, who were the heads of the 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.640 Non Violent Student Coordinating Committee, were some of the first 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.960 black leaders to to publicly break with mlk's non violent 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:27.880 theory and say no, we need to meet violence with violence. UM. 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.680 Malcolm X was another one, and Malcolm X probably had 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:35.360 the biggest influence on the Black Panther ideology than anybody else. 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:42.720 He advocated black militancy that included violence. He advocated um 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:49.040 black self sufficiency and dignity, but he didn't necessarily say, um, 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.160 you you were only gonna advance with the helps of 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.520 other blacks. We need to exclude whites or other um 0:08:55.679 --> 0:09:00.000 races from our struggle. And the Black Panthers is specifically 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.640 Huey Newton and Bobby Seal really identified with that, and 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:05.560 that was actually that became one of the hallmarks of 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.760 the Black Panthers that they were willing to work with 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.520 other like minded groups regardless of race. So that's a 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.120 that was kind of a big one that I wasn't 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.080 aware of that I learned from this um And then 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.679 the the other aspect of Malcolm X that really formed 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:23.000 like one of the foundation keystones of the Black Panther 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:27.680 ideology is that it wasn't race that was the problem, 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.920 It was um class. They were basically avowed Marxists right 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.680 that the central the the central issue that created the 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:41.480 struggle UM was was class was capitalism, and that the 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.559 white establishment and the police and the government were keepers 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:48.040 of the capitalist structure, and that same capitalist structure was 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.079 keeping the black pants, the black people in America down, 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.120 and so to get to to rise up, to become 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.160 self sufficient, to get that chance that they needed to 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.920 grow and advance themselves, they had to get rid of 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:06.040 the capitalist structure itself. Yeah, they were very much into 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.840 the socialist ideal. And um, one of the first things 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.319 they did was they realized they needed sort of a 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:18.080 foundation on which is to build upon something easily digestible 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:20.880 that people could could look at and could read and 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.080 understand what they're all about. So very smartly, early on 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.480 they came up with a very specific what they call 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:30.040 their ten point program what we want and what we believe, 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.200 and uh, they wrote this out. We're gonna read them 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:34.920 in a second, but they wrote them out and then 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.520 immediately printed them on a thousand sheets of paper, and uh, 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.160 set up an office and started passing these things around. 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.040 This office was in Oakland, which is where you know, 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.320 I think we already said where they founded and um, 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.840 you know, they basically quit their jobs. Every member of 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.839 the Black Panther Party was a full time I guess 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.160 you could say employee, but full time worker. Yeah. Remember, 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.800 and um, they gather their paychecks. The few guys at 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.400 the very beginning and rented an old shop storefront base 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.200 and started handing out this ten point program. Yeah they did. 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.920 And um, you want to go over the program first, Yeah, 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:15.439 we might as well just go ahead and read all 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:20.560 ten Uh, so everybody knows what we're talking about, right. Uh. 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.920 Number one, we want freedom. We want power to determine 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.720 the destiny of our black community. We believe that black 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.120 people will not be free until we are able to 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.880 determine our destiny. Yep. Number two, we want full employment 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.280 for people. We believe that the federal government is responsible 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.160 and obligated to give every man employment or guaranteed income. 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.160 We believe that if the white American businessmen will not 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.920 give full employment, then the means of production should be 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.520 taken from the business men and placed in the community 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:51.959 so that the people of the community can organize and 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.280 employ all of its people and give it a high 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.040 standard of living. Uh. Number three, we want an end 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.559 to the robbery by the white man of our black community. 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.679 We believe that this racist government has robbed us and 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.240 now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.600 and two mules. Number four, we want decent housing fit 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:12.160 for shelter of human beings. We believe that if white 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.840 landlords will not give decent housing to our black community, 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:16.960 then the housing and the land should be made into 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.080 cooperatives so their community, with government aid, can build and 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.640 make decent housing for its people. Yeah, and this that 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:25.600 was a big one. And as you'll see, a lot 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:31.400 of what they were after was just like the ability 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:33.320 to live in a neighborhood where you could have a 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.840 decent school and a decent place to live and a 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.960 chance at work. Like it wasn't some radical thing that 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:42.440 they were after, you know, they just wanted the same 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.720 opportunities basically. Yeah. And I mean I said earlier that 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:47.960 if if you were living and you were black and 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.200 living in America in the sixties, the chances are you 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:55.040 were poor. Of all black people, all black people in 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:57.199 the United States were living below the poverty line. In 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:01.320 nineteen sixty six, seventy scent of the poor living in 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:05.640 metropolitan areas were black, and in nineteen sixty eight, two 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.160 thirds of the black population lived in ghettos. So yeah, like, 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.960 of course it makes sense that their agenda is we 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.760 want to just get to get to basic normal and 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.679 then we'll go from there. All right. Number five, we 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.439 want education for our people that exposes the true nature 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.640 of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:32.960 us our true history and our role in present day society. Uh. 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.680 Number six, we want all black men to be exempt 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.040 from military service. This is a big one. We believe 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.079 that black people should not be forced to fight in 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.120 the military service to defend a racist government that does 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.000 not protect us. We will not fight and kill other 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:49.520 people of color in the world, who, like black people, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:53.600 are being victimized by the white, racist government of America. Yeah. 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.600 And you know later on in there, during the Vietnam War, 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:00.320 they actually, uh, some of them travel to Vietnam. Um 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.040 and um kind of found a common ground with the 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:09.120 North Vietnamese. Right, It's very interesting. Uh, is it my turn? 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.000 It is? Number seven. We want an immediate end to 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.640 police brutality and murder of black people. Uh. Pretty much 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.880 speaks for itself. Yea. Um. But part of that was 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.320 that they they they point out that the Second Amendment 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:26.000 to the Constitution guaranteed the right to bear arms, and 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.320 that's gonna be a big, big part of the Black 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.840 Panther Party. They were they're credited historically as being basically 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.800 the ones who pointed to the Second Amendment and said, hey, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.800 we were advocates of gun rights. Yeah, what we'll get 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.600 to all that, It gets pretty juicy. Number eight, we 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.000 want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county, 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.120 and city prisons and jails. They it says that they 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.760 believe that all black people should be released from prison 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.440 because they have not received a fair and impartial trial. 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.000 Number nine, we want all black people, when brought to trial, 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.720 to be tried in core by a jury of their 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.560 peer group or people from their black communities, as defined 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.320 by the Constitution of the United States. Number ten, we 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:14.560 want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace, And 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.840 as our major political objective, a United Nations supervised plebiscite 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:21.720 to be held throughout the Black colony in which only 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.800 black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for the 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.520 purpose of determining the will of Black people as to 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:32.160 their national destiny. They're basically saying, we believe that black 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.920 should have the power to separate from the United States 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.680 from the white establishment and form their own self sufficient 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:47.080 and um respected, self governing body. Basically, so they took 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.960 these UH ten, this ten point program. They founded a 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.800 newspaper called The Black Panther and they sold that for 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.640 twenty five cents. Uh. It got to be a very 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.480 popular newspaper. UM had a really wide circulation. And it 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.120 wasn't just uh, you know, black communities that there were. 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.000 There were all kinds of people reading this a newspaper 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.920 and it kind of aside from donations and stuff from 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.320 various groups, it really kind of funded the organization was 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.680 to sale this paper and every single issue I believe 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:19.560 featured this ten point program on the inside cover. And uh, 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.200 quick shout out to the artwork of Emery Douglas. Uh, 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.440 if you've ever I saw this great documentary called The 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:30.520 Black Panthers Vanguard of a Revolution too, and this artwork 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.040 from this you know artist and graphic designer Emery Douglas 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:35.920 that was kind of the hallmark of the paper. Was 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.480 just gorgeous stuff. And um, I think he's one of 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.880 those has sort of not been lost to history. But 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.600 you know, I had never heard of him before. I 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.960 think he didn't cover for one of the editions of 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:52.080 Native Sun because I was looking at I was like, 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.680 that looks really familiar. Yeah, that's where I saw it before. 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.760 It's really good stuff. So chuck, they we've got the 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:05.360 ten point Plan, uh, and the original headquarters in Oakland, 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.680 and all of a sudden, the Panthers start spreading like wildfire, 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:13.080 like their ideas, because the experience was so similar as 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.480 far as poverty and being harassed and brutalized by police 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:20.320 and just generally being held down by the white establishment. 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.800 Since that experience was so similar throughout all the all 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.080 the major cities and even smaller cities in the United States, 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.320 the Black Panther Party spread pretty quick and eventually they 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.960 had something like five thousand members. And remember that doesn't 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.119 sound that much like that many people, but like you said, 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.040 to be a member, you were committed to the Black 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:43.240 Panther Party. Seven You had to quit your job, you 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.320 had to quit school, and your your life was the 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:48.840 Black Panther Party. So the fact that they had five 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.679 thousand people doing that around the country is pretty nuts. 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.560 But they had many, many more supporters, and the Black 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.359 Panther newspaper eventually grew to a circulation of about two 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:02.640 fifty thousand. It's amazing, it really is. And um, well, 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:35.280 I guess we'll we'll get back to their history after this, alright, So, uh, 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.680 if you want to start. If you want to start 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:41.400 anything that you want to grow and be noticed, then 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.439 it sounds kind of silly to talk about, but you 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.760 need to be good at branding. And Uh, I don't 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:51.480 know that they specifically thought about it as branding initially, 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.240 but they quickly realized that the media really ate this 0:18:55.280 --> 0:19:01.040 stuff up. When these black men in in leather, black 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:06.160 leather car coats and black turtlenecks and black berets donning shotguns, 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:13.040 uh with the you know, the ammunition draped around their shoulder. Uh, 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.040 the press ate it up. It was it was a 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:19.960 cool look, and young black men wanted to look like this. Um. 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.119 Black women started growing out their afros. It was all 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.400 kind of sort of tied into the Black is Beautiful 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.480 movement UM, which was sort of just the notion of 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:34.040 embrace your blackness. Don't try to fit in and look 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:36.280 you know, don't straighten your hair, don't try and look 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.840 like white people like where you're hiki. Uh, grow your 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.080 afro out, be proud of who you are as a 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.399 black person, Embrace your roots. And the Black Panther Party 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:50.080 was really tied into this and it became a really 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.159 big part of their branding. And recruitment. Yeah, if you 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.080 were hip at this time, like you were definitely hip 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.000 to the Black Panther look, even if you hadn't adopted 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.960 it yourself. You were like, there's a cool cat walking 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.560 down the street with a bandalier of bullets and a 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:09.840 shock right. So, Um, the Panthers they had the look, 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.000 they had the offices, now, they had the newspaper. And 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.399 one of the first things they started doing, even before 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.440 they really started to spread. But those first Panther members, 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:24.119 Um Hueie Newton, Bobby Seal, and then a guy named 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.359 Um Bobby Hutton was their first recruit. Um. One of 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.439 the first things they started doing was patrolling the neighborhoods 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:36.040 of Oakland and looking for police who had stopped um 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:41.919 black motorists. Right. It's almost like a a guardian angels 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.960 that protected citizens from cops, right exactly. That's a really 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:47.920 good way to put it, right. So they would stand there, 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:53.800 um at a reasonable distance and just openly and obviously 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.320 observed the traffic stop and they would shout, you know, 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.640 at the cop anytime he started to violate civil rights 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:05.280 of the black driver. Um. And they were armed. They 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:09.919 were holding shotguns oftentimes not necessarily pointed at the cops. 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.679 But in that UM in that documentary we mentioned, they 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.159 would talk about how like the they would kind of 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.040 bring it is, move it from side to side. It's 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:20.600 kind of shifting position, and as it did it slowly 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:23.560 was aimed for a moment at the cop, and the 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:25.919 cops got the point like, yeah, I get it. You 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.040 have a loaded shotgun and it's right there and you 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.639 could shoot me. And some of the first UM, some 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:37.800 of the first traffic stop monitoring that happened just scared 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:40.639 the Bejesus out of the cops. They had never experienced 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:42.840 anything like this before. All of a sudden, there were 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.240 a group of young black men standing there in black 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:50.679 berets and shades at night, holding shotguns trained on them 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:54.920 from time to time, and UM, the cops actually responded 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.880 and exactly the way the Black Panthers did. They were 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.560 much more hesitant to um brutalized or violate the civil 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:03.639 rights of the drivers, and a lot of times they 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.760 just get in their cars and leave, especially if they 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:10.080 were on patrol alone. Yeah, So that was one of 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:15.040 the huge early foundational hallmarks of of UM the Black 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:21.320 Panther Party, that they were openly and armoredly protecting their 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:25.240 um fellow blacks from police brutality. That was that was 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.720 one of their major roles. Yeah, and uh, the reason 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.080 that they were allowed to have these guns is because 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.840 one of their one of their leaders, Eldridge Cleaver, Um 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:41.639 found in the California law books that I mean, they 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:43.479 call it a loophole, but it wasn't really a loophole. 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:45.000 It's kind of right there in black and white as 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.520 you are allowed to carry a gun in public, on 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:52.640 public property as long as it's not concealed open carry law. 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:54.359 And so they were like, all right, well we have 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:56.600 these guns. It says right here we're allowed to. They 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:58.359 would carry a gun in one hand a lot of 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:01.040 times and then this californ on your legal handbook in 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:03.160 the other, and they knew it by heart. They could 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.960 quote exactly the code. Uh. And then you know, obviously 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:08.680 the cops caught on the word, got around what was 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:13.800 going on, and it developed all the way to the 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.400 California in General Assembly. And when you see this documentary, 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.760 it's it's amazing, man, these these black the Black Panther 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:25.679 Party marches through the building onto the floor of the 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:31.040 California General Assembly wielding shotguns, loaded shotguns, and you know, 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:33.480 you see all the all the obviously the white legislature 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:36.200 just sitting there like what in the world is going on? 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:39.680 Including Ronald Reagan. Well, yeah, he was the governor, right, 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:41.880 And so Ronald Reagan was the governor at the time, 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:44.880 and he is in that documentary quoted as saying, like 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:50.399 anybody who thinks, you know, carrying open loaded guns in 0:23:50.560 --> 0:23:53.960 public is okay, is out of his mind. And ultimately 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:58.320