Fallen Exiled Black Panther Comrade
BPP Field Marshall, Donald "DC" Cox
April 16, 1936 - February 19, 2011
In Memory Of Our Recently Fallen Exiled Black Panther Comrade,
Field Marshall "DC" ; The Safiya Bukhari-Ablbert Nuh Washington
Foundation Celebrate's Black History Month & Pays Tribute To This True
Warrior For The People With The Following March 31, 1992 Interview Conducted
By Our Late Black Panther/BLA Political Prisoner Sistah Safiyah
Bukhari. "DC" Was 74 Years Old At His Passing.
Long
Live The Revolutionary Spirit Of Field Marshall "DC"
All Power To The People
Bro. Sadiki "Shep" Ojore Olugbala
Safiya-Nuh Foundation/NYS-BPP
_______________________________________________________________________________________
An Interview with Donald Cox, former Field Marshall, Black Panther
Party
By Safiya Bukhari
Q: Would you tell us a little about your background, and why you
joined the BPP?
A: Well, i was born and grew up in Missouri and all those
cornfields and whatnot. So, i
was really just a
‘country nigga’, you know? Not intellectual, not knowing anything, really.
i
arrived in California 17
years old in ’53. Of course, like all Black people who grew up in the
United States at that
time, i was aware of the oppression of Black folks and all of the lynchings
that We were hearing
about every now & then at that time.
After the Supreme Court
decision in ’54, i was sitting at the table with an uncle &
aunt that i was living
with. And he was saying that was a very historical decision that We were
witnessing. Of course,
at the time i wasn’t capable of understanding the implications of what
that meant.
Soon after, Little Rock
& all those events began. Now, out there in California i wasn’t
feeling directly touched
personally, but feeling touched as a Black person in America. And
really understanding
that that was part of me too. But it didn’t go much further than that.
Then you have incidents
such as the Emmett Till lynching – i felt very sensitive about
that because We
weren’t very far different in age. Then there were the Montgomery Bus
Boycotts and then the
Freedom Rides - all these things going on – it just looked to me like things
were really really
beginning to move, but
in the south. And then the Church bombings and the civil rights demonstrations
that began. i had a
little problem dealing
with the philosophy of non-violence. i just at that time couldn’t imagine myself
being spit on or abused
physically without doing
anything.
So, for me personally at
that time, i wasn’t attracted to dealing with any non-violent actions.
Although the fever of
the Civil Rights
movement actually arrived there in San Francisco. And with all the bombings
& brutality of the
demonstrations and such,
that finally i reached the point i wanted to do something. So i joined the
group that seemed to me
like to be the most
militant thing in San Francisco, which was CORE, the Congress of Racial
Equality. And We began to
prepare & make
demonstrations against real estate agents that discriminated against Blacks and
whatnot. First, We would
send a Black person in
to ask for a particular place that was for rent or for sale. Naturally, they
would be refused and then a
white member of the
organization would go in and naturally, it would be available to them. So, We
began to boycott & picket
those places. And the
cadillac dealer, where in San Francisco at that time, 75% of all the El
Doradoes that were sold were
bought by Blacks, but
there were no Black salesmen. So, finally with those demonstrations We began to
get some token
advances. But i noticed
right away, even with my lack of political maturity, that whenever – like at
the cadillac place –
whenever finally they
broke down & started giving jobs to people, it was always jobs for people
in the community that was
already kinda well off
in the sense that they were – bourgie! In other words, it wasn’t the people
that were really down & out
that were benefiting
from the advances. So, i really didn’t understand too much politically what
was going on but i just didn’t
feel satisfied; so i
just started leaning back. That was around ’63.
After the Civil Rights
March on Washington and - the thing that really broke my back, two weeks later
– the
response in Birmingham
when those 4 little Black girls were killed in Sunday School [during] that
church bombing. That just
blew my mind. i just
felt a total impotence. i felt impotent & frustrated; wanted to do
something, but not knowing anything.
Really, i wasn’t an
intellectual, i hadn’t done any reading, i didn’t even know what revolution
meant at that time.
But anyhow on my job, i
worked my way up, & finally i became the boss. As soon as i became the
manager where i
worked (the owner owned
several corporations, We were only one), i had meetings with him once a week to
go over the
books. The rest of the
time i was on my own. So once i got to be the boss, director of the place, i
knew i was gonna correct all
the injustices my
co-workers & i had been working with all these years. To get them raises
everybody deserved & whatnot.
But as soon as i started
talking about that, he starts talkin’ ‘bout, “Whoa, whoa; hold up! Keep
the prices down, pay the
minimum amount of wages
& charge the maximum for the products.”
So, through this process
on my job, i became conscious & aware that it was the system that was
wrong. But like i
said, not having done
any reading, not knowing what revolution was about, i didn’t know what to do
about it. But i
understood fundamentally
through my work, that it was the system that was all wrong.
And by that time, ’65
had rolled around, i was hearing Malcolm X & people on the street corner
like Don Warden in
Oakland at the time,
talking about ‘Black’ & all that and all the things that i had never
heard of before. And, it sure made
sense to me, so i used
to go down to the park every weekend to hear him talk. Then the mosque opened
up there in San
Francisco so i used to
go down there every once in a while to hear what they were saying, go by the
restaurant. And this
Black consciousness
slowly began to take root in my head, but still i didn’t know what to do.
Well, finally the Long
Hot Summer started. Seeing Watts going up in flames on television; that really
stirred up
some positive emotions:
“Finally, finally! niggas are striking out!” It was based strictly on
emotion, not based on any kind of
political analysis or
understanding really what all those implications were. But i felt good seeing
people striking out.
Then the next year, a
policeman killed a young Black on Hunters Point, who was only about 11 years
old, he shot
him in the back. So the
youth up there started going out on riot too, and it finally spread into my
neighborhood there in
fillmore. Well, i was
going to work everyday in my shirt & tie, a halfway bourgie nigga at the
time. So, i wasn’t really
participating, but i was
just out on my stoop watching the little youngbloods running through the
neighborhood gettin’ away
from the policemen.
And then i began to hear
about a group over in Oakland, called the Black Panthers. With guns – i
didn’t know
anything about ‘em,
didn’t know what they were talking about, but the word started going around a
bit. And finally there was
an article in the San
Francisco Examiner – at the time they showed a picture of Huey Newton
standing up there with a gun.
That was mind blowing,
seeing that. So, i started asking around, but nobody knew anything about ‘em,
didn’t know what
they was. Finally, one
day i walked in to the job and somebody gave me a copy of the San Francisco
Chronicle and there on
the front page was a
photograph of all them niggas at the state capitol with guns! Well, i didn’t
know what i was gon’ do, but
i wanted to find them
dudes with them guns! ‘Cause to me, with all the violence that Blacks had
been suffering from all this
time, the idea of
standing up and saying “We don’t want no more of that. If you shoot at us,
We gon’ shoot back” – that
appealed to me. But i
still didn’t know anybody.
Finally i ran across a
couple of youngbloods that knew one person that was there in San Francisco that
was part of
the Panther party –
that was Emory Douglass. So We found somebody that knew him to get him to come
and talk to us and
whatnot. We started
buying the Panther paper and studying that. It so happened that the first issue
We got our hands on, there
was an essay by Huey Newton
talking about the correct handling of a revolution.
For us there in San
Francisco, not knowing anybody, not really being into it, We didn’t feel
worthy of being in their
company! We put them in
such high esteem; so We worked, started trying to organize and learn a little
bit amongst ourselves
about what was going on.
By that time, Newark was breaking out, Detroit – We felt like the revolution
was on, and We were
behind time, so We were
working to catch up. We wasn’t going over there to meet with those people in
Oakland, ‘til We felt
like We deserved to be
in their company! But in the meantime, through our relationship with Emory, We
got Huey to come
talk to our group. And
We really held him in high esteem and everything because of all the stuff they
were doing in the street,
you know facing off the
pigs with the guns & whatnot. So it was a little funny meeting him, and
seeing that little prettyboy
with that little
high-pitched voice. He didn’t fit the image of this bad nigga We had. And he
talked so intellectual that We
didn’t half understand
stuff he was saying, but still that didn’t change anything. But he saw how We
was organized amongst
ourselves with our guns
and giving training courses to people on how to use them & whatnot. So, at
that time there in the
summer of ’67, he
started asking us to deal with anything that came up there in San Francisco
where people wanted Panthers.
At that time there
wasn’t the Panther Party as it became known; over there in Oakland, you could
get maybe a handful of
people together that
called themselves Panthers, nothing more.
So, some people in
Hunters Point asked him to come over & talk to them, so he called us &
told us to go deal with
it. So We went over
& rapped; took our guns, showed people a few basic things, how to break
‘em down, and talking about
safety rules & all
like that. And, We started doing that all around the different Black
communities. San Francisco was small,
but the Black ghettoes
were all divided up – there was no one central one – they were divided up
into about five: there was
Hunters Point, Fillmore,
and a couple more i can’t recall the names of. So, We started going around to
one of these
neighborhoods every
weekend with our guns, giving demonstrations & whatnot.
Finally, We reached a
point where a few of us felt like, “Ok, talkin’ is enough, We gotta get
down to business”.
About three of us, We
found each other, and We planned a little operation. It was successful. And,
not having any
propaganda machinery
around, We chose the anniversary of the date that the policeman had killed that
young dude up on
Hunters Point the year
before. So, if the people didn’t really make the connection, at least the
pigs knew what it was about.
So We did our first
action on that anniversary, September 27, 1967.
Well, it was successful,
so then We felt like, “Now, We can go over there and talk to them people in
Oakland. So,
the next day We went
straight to Oakland. We went to Huey’s house and David Hilliard was there and
a couple of other
people, but they were
laying back, they weren’t talking much. We went to the restaurant, just
sitting down talking. Naturally,
We let him know what We
had done and he had seen the news and he knew about it. But to my surprise, he
asked me “well, u
know don’t you think
that it’s better; rather than start moving’, isn’t it better to work
first to get the means to get organized
and to get to moving?”
Well, i didn’t expect that kind of a question, so all i could think of to say
was “as far as We’re
concerned, you got to
use what you got to get what you need.” But anyhow, that was the beginning of
our relationship with
the Black Panther Party.
That was in September of 1967.
Q: How old were you then?
A: 31
Q: How did you become the field marshal of the BPP?
A: Well, We didn’t stop there. That was in September 27th, when
We did that first action. Then, Huey went down & got
wounded & arrested.
That was in October, and We had decided that, like the Panthers there in
Oakland, We wouldn’t accept
that anymore. We
wouldn’t let them move with impunity on people that We considered our
leaders. So, We planned an
action to retaliate for
that. It was also a successful action. Because of the things that We were doing
there in San Francisco,
one night a car came
with Bobby Seale, David Hilliard, and i think George Murray. They came down to
the neighborhood
where We hung out, and
Bobby said he wanted us to join the Party, and he wanted to make me a member of
the central
committee. So, i said
“Well, We as a group, We don’t have any hierarchical structures; every time
there’s something that
needs to be done, the
one that knows the most about it does it. He’s the one that tells us how to
deal with it, so i’ll have to talk
to everybody and let u
know.” Well, We got our heads together right then & there, and everybody
said, “deal with it”. So i
told him, “Ok”.
That’s when our formal alliance began with the Party.
Because of my background
with arms - i’m from Missouri, one meal a year coming from hunting, i had my
first
rifle when i was 8! So
when the thing started i had an arsenal at the house. So, being able to train
people, and knowing all the
gun laws – them people
didn’t even know that you could legally go down and buy all these guns &
whatnot – i started
dealing with that. So i
didn’t have a title yet.
Then they had a meeting
to get a little bit better organized, around the time We were going to have the
rally for
Huey’s birthday in
1968. That’s when Stokely, Rob Brown, James Forman, and all those people came
out. And the merger
with the Panthers &
SNCC went down. Now, as far as SNCC was concerned, they needed to get some more
legitimacy
because We had taken the
thing to a higher level than them; for us, the Panthers, We needed to get ahold
of a national
network, so that served
our interests on that level. So We had a meeting and We defined more precisely
the central committee
at that time, which was
naturally Huey, Eldridge, Bobby, David, Kathleen, George Murray, Emory
Douglass, Masai Hewitt
& myself. At that
time, i received the title of Field Marshall. But because i was still going to
work in my tie & suits &
whatnot during the day
and doing those other activities at night, i said that to continue to be
effective, i don’t want that to be
known publicly. So, if
you find any of those old Panther newspapers you’ll see that in the
beginning, every time you saw
field marshal, it was
written ‘underground’.
Q: What were some of your responsibilities as field marshal?
A: Well frankly, it was strictly on a military level; procuring
guns, and teaching people how to use them. And, because
a lot of people are
still out there today, i don’t want to go into any more details like that.
But, it was strictly on a military
level.
To buy handguns in
California, you had to go through the police and wait two weeks, & get a
report. So, because
almost everybody had
been busted and didn’t have a right to handguns, i used to go to Nevada &
buy them. Because there,
you could buy ‘em over
the counter like cigarettes. So, i’d collect money & go there and come
back with trunkloads of guns.
That worked alright
until Bunchy Carter’s brother got caught in an ambush in Los Angeles, Arthur
was his name; he was the
one who introduced that
phrase, “Right On” in the party. All the time, Arthur was sayin’ “right
on, right on!”, and everybody
picked up on that. But
anyhow, he got killed; he got a full blast from a twelve-gauge shotgun, but
before he died, he offed the
two people that ambushed
him, and the pistol that he had was one of those that i had been buying. So,
when they traced it,
and saw the store
records of all the guns that i had been buying, they made scary headlines there
in the Bay Area, talking
about Panthers
stockpiling guns. And there was even a Black congressman in the State Assembly
that was a bootlicker at the
time - i don’t know
how he evolved – his name was Mervyn Dymally. He stood up in the
congressional house and read into
the record all the
numbers of all the guns that i had bought, as if it was a crime for Black
people to arm themselves to defend
themselves against all
that police violence. So, my activities at that time really were dealing with
things on a military level.
Q: We often hear of the BPP referred to as a paramilitary
organization; is this a correct description and if it is a
correct description, what
was it’s structure & chain of command?
A: You see, in the beginning, because of all the police violence
when Huey & Bobby & Lil’ Bobby took to the streets
with their guns, they
concentrated on point #7: ending police brutality & whatnot, in the
community. The program had ten
points, but that was the
priority for us because of all the violence that was going on. So, that gave it
more of a military
appearance; and the fact
that the gun laws in California permitted us - it was legal for us to be out
there with those guns like
that. That gave us an
image of being a little bit more adventurous than We really were. We’d go in
the police station with our
guns and it was legal,
and they couldn’t do anything about it. But, when they started working on
that gun law, to stop you
walking around with the
gun loaded, that’s when the Panthers went to the capitol with the guns in
California. So, in that
sense, it was because of
the military situation of all the repression & violence against Black
people. The chain of command of
the Panther Party and
the titles more or less, were like a military organization. Or, like a lot of
revolutionary governments in
the world: Huey -
minister of defense, i was the field marshal, David Hilliard was the chief of
staff; but also, there was a
minister of culture:
Emory Douglass, minister of education: George Murray, communications secretary:
Kathleen Cleaver,
minister of information:
Eldridge Cleaver.
So, in the beginning,
emphasis was placed on point #7, with the police patrols and all like that. In
practice, even
though the organization
was not a paramilitary organization, in fact, it really had that appearance –
initially.
But then, after Huey had
gotten busted, the few of us that were there in the Bay Area got together the
next day and
We know that with one
policeman dead and another wounded, they’re gonna try to put Huey in the gas
chamber. We don’t
know what to do, but We
gotta do something to keep them from sending Huey to the gas chamber.
Immediately, the Huey
Newton Defense Committee
was created, and Eldridge Cleaver (despite what he became later) went to work.
And that - the
pressure group to keep
them from sending Huey to the gas chamber - became the Black Panther Party as
it became known
around the world.
We started organizing,
trying to get as many Blacks together as possible. Getting guns; it wasn’t a
real welldisciplined
organization at the
time, ‘cause some people started doing all kinds of crazy stuff – cheap,
nickel & dime
robberies, intimidating
people & whatnot, but still it was growing like wildfire.
By April, when they
assassinated Martin Luther King, and those 150 cities burned overnight, our
level was a little
bit higher at that
point; We kept people from going out and just doing spontaneous things, but
there were still a few little
things that went down.
We more or less managed to keep things under control.
But, Eldridge Cleaver
felt the need to move, and he really didn’t have any military experience, you
see; he was the
minister of information.
So, he just gathered up a whole bunch of people and everybody was armed and
they went out in the
streets, riding around
in cars. i don’t know the details, all i know is some police cars showed up.
Shooting started, niggas was
runnin’ in all
different directions, and Eldridge and Little Bobby got cornered off into a
house. We all know that history –
they stayed in there for
about an hour, hour and a half with all that teargas & everything – they
couldn’t get ‘em out, because
Lil’ Bobby had a M-14,
and there was a little alleyway, they were on the ground floor. To get to them,
anybody that comes in
that little alleyway,
they gonna get blown away; so finally, they just set the house on fire. At that
point, well they had to give
it up – they had to
come on out. But Eldridge, knowing how the pigs was, he stripped down naked.
See, he had been
wounded in the foot, he
told Lil’ Bobby to do the same thing, but Bobby only took off his shirt. So,
with all that gas, for an
hour and a half with no
gas mask, you can imagine the shape they were in; plus Eldridge being wounded.
So they went
stumbling out of there,
and Eldridge being wounded on the foot, he fell and Lil’ Bobby stumbling, and
one of those racist
police yelled, “He’s
got a gun!”, and they opened fire on him. i don’t know how many times he
was shot, maybe fifty times;
it was really terrible.
It was just out-and-out murder, as everybody knows. And the house looked like
swiss cheese, all the
bullet holes that were
in it, it was one of those old wooden houses where bullets was just goin’
right through it. Since they
was down on the ground
floor in the house, they really hadn’t gotten touched. But they blew Lil’
Bobby away outside.
Q: You left the U.S. and went into exile in 1970. Can you tell
us what the conditions were in the streets and
within the Black Panther
Party at this time?
A: Ah, things had really evolved by that time! More or less, the
struggle had left the streets and gone into the courts.
Because frankly, after
the campaign to free Huey finally reached the trial and they didn’t send Huey
to the gas chamber, and
Charles Garry (who was
the lawyer) said that he would be out in two years. All of a sudden, you got
all this machinery that’s
moving across the
country for the sole purpose of freeing Huey & keeping him from going to
the gas chamber, and We didn’t
know what to do with it!
We were passed by the events, because people just overnight was moving all
across the country in
the name of the Black
Panther.
So, We decided to go
into retreat, and started going into political education trying to find a tool
to help us deal with
organizing all of that.
And i’ve never known to this day where it came from, but the first thing that
came out for us to study
was “The Foundations
of Leninism”, by Josef Stalin. And as far as i’m concerned, that was the
beginning of the end, because
that was the book that
was used to turn the emphasis from the struggle to the party. Instead of the
struggle for the liberation
of Black people becoming
the most important thing, it was the party that became the most important
thing. Then the
democratic centralism,
and all that marxist-leninist paraphernalia that most of the organizations
calling themselves
communist was based on.
But the so-called central committee, and i’m gonna tell the truth, was David
Hilliard at that time.
Because Eldridge had
already had to go into exile in December, Huey was in jail, and Bobby had
charges against him. But
they were making
decisions by themselves. We didn’t really have those central committee
meetings, with the democratic
centralism where things
were voted and then passed on down. Personally, myself, i didn’t know what to
do, i was going
along with that,
‘cause i felt that the party was the only means to deal with that situation
at that time.
But slowly, in April,
that’s when the New York 21 got busted, and i made a trip back there with
david hilliard and
whatnot. i saw that the
party had just fallen apart. Because of the repression back there, david
hilliard wanted out; he wanted
to get back to oakland
the next day after We dealt with what had to be dealt with. But, i saw what the
situation was like, and i
decided to stay there
and try to re-organize and get the party put back together. The bust had just
gone down in New Haven;
that’s why We had met
there in New York. The party in New Haven didn’t even exist anymore. So, i
stayed, and they got on
the first thing
smokin’. Robert Bey was so scared, he sat up in the house all night with a
pistol in his hand until it was time to
go to the airport to
catch the plane. They wanted to get out of New York, as far as they were
concerned, it was too dangerous.
So, they went back to
California, and i stayed in New York.
So, i started moving to
get the party re-organized. The fascism conference was coming up in Oakland,
and We were
working, organizing
people around that, and using that as an mobilizing tool. So, the party started
coming back together there
on the east coast.
Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, and then finally We got enough cadre where
i could take people from
different chapters, and
We went to New Haven, printed up some leaflets and passed them out, held a
rally and opened up a
new party overnight.
Because those people up there had been abandoned. It was necessary to work and
start getting attention
to their case &
getting them out. We just took people from all over & put Doug Miranda in
charge, and they started with that.
Now how things evolved,
structurally, i don’t really know, because finally the police figured out a
way to get rid of
me & cut my wings. i
had gotten busted in Richmond CA back in the summer of ’68 because they had a
riot, and i had gone
over there to observe.
Now actually, i never moved without my guns, you know. So, the curfew was at 9
o’clock, and they
had been watching me all
day, the California Highway Patrol. So, when it was time for curfew, me & a
couple of other dudes
were gonna go into the
house; as soon as We got to the house they came from everywhere and vamped on
me, and actually
they found my piece. So
i got busted for having a gun and then they put charges on me being an ex-felon
in possession of a
firearm. That was
another felony. i had been busted when i worked for the post office because i
ripped off a little money from
the mail. i had gotten
probation for that, but anything dealing with the post office at that time was
a federal charge. It wasn’t
considered a
misdemeanor, so i was considered an ex-felon, even though i had only got
probation – it was very minor,
something like $50, but
that was on the record. So they used that as a technicality, to vamp on me
there in New York, being
an ex-felon in
possession of a firearm to test some new law they had made there in congress. i
was confined, i couldn’t move
anymore around the
country. Because i was living in New York at the time, i could only go to New
York but the charges
were put in California,
so i had to go to there for court. i could only go to New York &
California. So, when i went back to
California for the court
trial, that gave David Hilliard & his clique a chance to take over back on
the east coast. Because by
then, things were
organized, you see. In the beginning, they was afraid to even go there, but by
then with things being
organized, they sent
their people in to take over.
i’m going to trial and
whatnot, things were dragging out, but then the Baltimore case came down. They
had found a
police informer, the
police had sent him in to the party, but he showed his hand two or three days
after he had gotten there.
They dealt with him.
But, because i was responsible for the east coast at the time, when they came
out with the list of the
people they were gonna
vamp on, my name was at the top of the list. i received the word on April 16,
1970 which was my
34th birthday, so i got
hat. i disappeared that day. Now, i stayed there, not knowing really when
things were going to go
down, but i went
underground immediately. But two weeks later around the 31st of April, they
started kicking down doors
looking for me, so it
was at that time that i split.
i had already been
working trying to get people to go to Algiers to help out to set up the
international section. Sekou
Odinga and Larry Mack
had been underground for sometime, over a year, and they needed breathing room
because there was
no underground apparatus
at that time. So instead of taking people off the street that We needed for
street work, it was
decided that Sekou &
Larry would go there. My thing came down in the meantime, so We all went there;
Sekou, Larry &
myself. Now, We didn’t
have no travel arrangements at that time, We weren’t proficient in producing
false papers at that
time, so Sekou &
Larry had to take a plane. They landed in Cuba; it took us a couple of months
to get them there. It was a
coincidence; they took
the plane the same day i left the states. i arrived in Algiers on the 5th, and
they arrived in Cuba about
the same time. i think
it took Eldridge & i almost two months to get them out of there. It was
almost July before We got them
to Algiers.
But anyhow, We all
finally got together, but in the meantime, the government had given us an
embassy. The
revolutionaries in
Vietnam became a provisional government, so they gave them a normal
governmental embassy, and they
gave us their old
embassy that they had when they were the National Liberation Front.
In the meantime,
Eldridge was leading a delegation of anti-imperialist forces to Korea, so he
left. Sekou, Larry,
myself, Bill Stephens,
& Connie Matthews were left there in Algiers, and We remodeled the villa to
create an embassy with
plaques out front and
everything. Fortunately, We were able to get it together just in time for their
return. They came back on
Friday, September 13th,
and We had the official opening on the 15th on September of the International
Section of the Black
Panther Party.
So my exile was really a
continuation of work. i didn’t feel like i was losing anything because as far
as i was
concerned personally i
was at war – it didn’t matter if i was in or out – work was gonna
continue.
Q: What kinds of thoughts were going through your mind when you
made the decision to leave the United
States?
A: The only thing, frankly, that i was thinking about was keeping
them from catching up on me. i wasn’t gonna give
them a day for anything.
My whole thing was to get away from their grasp; they was kickin’ in doors
all over the place. So, it
was funny, you know,
because i went into disguise and i had to go into the federal building to get a
passport. Now, they’re
out there kicking down
doors, the passport office is on one floor and the FBI was on the next floor
and i’m right in there
gettin’ my false
passport! i managed to get it within 24 hours, and i got hat. My only thing was
to get away from them.
Now, i’m gonna tell
you also, i felt a little relief, because the Panther situation internally, had
become untenable
with David Hilliard and
his clique. i didn’t agree with the way they were taking things. The old
emphasis of armed defense &
whatnot was just totally
squashed, and they were not wanting to deal with anything anymore that would
attract attention of
the police, and as far
as i was concerned that was not what the Panthers represented. i wanted to
resign; i had written a letter
of resignation for Huey,
but i hadn’t given it to him yet. Sister Barbara had the copy, and when that
thing came down on me,
frankly i was relieved.
Because that allowed me to get out of there without being branded a traitor or
renegade as they would
have done in that
newspaper as they did with anybody that didn’t agree with them. So i was able
to get out of that hell there
without them smearing me
across the country with that newspaper saying i was a renegade & whatnot
and that allowed me to
continue to work
outside, so really on one level, it was a relief for me.
Q: Did you know what to expect, and did you know where you were
going?
A: Oh yeah, i knew i was going to Algiers. What to expect? No,
‘cause i was full of illusions. After all the times i had
seen the film, “Battle
of Algiers”, i thought i was going to a revolutionary country, where
everybody was revolutionary &
whatnot. So, really it
was a contradiction, ‘cause when i got there and started seeing graffiti
written on the walls and seeing
the name ‘Elvis’, i
didn’t really understand what that was really all about! But, the atmosphere
was very good, because the
OAU had a liberation
committee where they supported liberation movements and Algeria was the host
country. So, at that
time in 1970, there were
representatives of struggles of people from over 90 countries there. Being
within that diplomatic
atmosphere, revolutionary
atmosphere, that was very good & very positive. But there were
contradictions in terms of the
Algerian society being
revolutionary in the beginning – i didn’t understand what was going on.
People loving the French &
whatnot; i couldn’t
understand that, after all they had been through.
Q: When was the International Section of the Black Panther Party
established, and how did it come about?
A: Well, like i say, the official opening was September 15, 1970,
and it came about because the Panther Party had
international
recognition at that time. Really, there were some inegalities because of that,
because We were considered the
favorites of everybody.
There was no liberation movement in Algiers at that time that had an embassy,
except us. Even the
people that were waging
armed struggle – all the Portuguese colonies, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea
Bissau – even those
people didn’t have an
embassy. They were working out of apartments & whatnot. So, that caused
some resentment. We
weren’t aware of it at
the time, but the privileges that We were being given were because people
respected us for dealing with
the beast from the
interior. We were considered heroes, maybe much more than what We deserved, and
We didn’t really
realize it at the time.
So, We created a lot of resentment without really knowing about it.
Like, We’re just
niggas off the street, [and] We’re lookin’ for a place to have an embassy
because they hadn’t given
us one yet. So, We’re
lookin’ around with real estate agents, they show us a place, it was big
enough to put an office upstairs,
We could live
downstairs, so We rented it and paid a years rent in advance. Well, We didn’t
know, but it turned out to be in
one of the most bourgie
neighborhoods in Algiers! But for us, with our standards from the United
States, it didn’t seem like
that way to us, but We
found out later that it was. We needed cars. Well, if u see old French cars –
the R16, and things like
that – they were the
kinds of cars that in the ‘States, We wouldn’t be caught in! You know, i
was driving a GTO, with a 450
cubic centimeter inch
engine in there, with 4-on-the-floor when i left the states. So, driving an
R16, for me it was almost like
a Model T. So, We rented
two of them to have enough transportation. But it turns out, that was a car
that everybody down
there dreamed of having!
It was one of the leading cars that you could have.
So, a lot of mistakes
were made on that level, on our part from being just totally ignorant, but We
needed
transportation, and that
was the biggest car that We could find. Even though it didn’t meet our
American standards, it got us
around. We didn’t
realize the resentment that created in other people’s minds. Like having
these two R16s, having a villa in
Hidra, then by that
time, they had given us the Vietnamese embassy, so We had an embassy of our
own. Later, i found out
that people were saying,
“oh, they’re not revolutionaries, they’re bourgies – they’re
bourgeois people.” Can you imagine
calling Sekou Odinga,
Larry Mack, Eldridge Cleaver & myself bourgie people? (laughing) But those
were mistakes We made
for not understanding
the situation.
But then, too, We
weren’t like other people from the other liberation movements. They just sat
around waiting for
handouts. The OAU gave
every liberation movement 2,000 dinars a month to live on. You can’t live on
that! It was symbolic
as far as We were
concerned; We dealt with our own needs. Eldridge used a lot of the money from
the book he got; plus there
were support committees
working in Europe. So, We dealt with ourselves without asking anybody for
anything, and they
wasn’t used to people
moving like that, and that created resentment too. We dealt with whatever We
felt like had to be dealt
with at the time.
We’re not in no struggle for people to tell us what to do. So on that level
We made a lot of mistakes on the
cultural level, not
taking into account the cultural differences – We were ignorant to all that.
We were just being ourselves.
Q: What were the functions of the International Section?
A: To disseminate information about the Party all over the world,
doing as much as We could. Being really the
embassy, We were treated
as the official representatives of the american movement. No americans came to
Algiers or could
leave without our
authorization. If someone wanted to come, they would contact us, and then if We
accepted them, We would
give clearance to the
FLN. The people who were in charge of us would give the clearance at the
airport. We were the official
american representatives
in Algiers at the time, because the embassy was closed since the war in 1967.
Now, We didn’t know it
at the time, but We were also being used by the Algerians because they were in
secret
negotiations for oil
contracts with the american oil companies for the billions of dollars that they
were going to use to build
the future of their
country. So, i’m sure that We were used as a little pressure in their
negotiations, but We weren’t aware of
that at the time.
Q: Tell us about the split in the Black Panther Party as it
developed from the view of the International Section?
A: Well, as i said, before i left i didn’t agree with the way
Hilliard had taken the thing; really using repression and
creating an internal
police force to vamp on anybody in the organization that didn’t agree with
their line, or who didn’t agree
with them. He just put
himself as a “little-foot Stalin”; he became the Stalin of the Black
Panther Party.
But, us out there, even
before i left, our hopes was in Huey. “When Huey gets out, he’s gonna put
things back on the
line.” So, here We are
in 1970 – i think he got out in August – even a month before the
International Section opened up. You
have to keep in mind:
when Huey got shot and got busted and went to jail, you could only get a
handful of people together
there in the Bay Area
that called themselves Panthers. The Panthers were unknown on a national level.
So, when he comes
out of prison, there’s
not only a national organization, it’s on an international basis with international
recognition with
hundreds and thousands
of people outside the prison waiting on him! Oh, the nigga just flipped out. It
just went to his head
with that megalomania
[of] being Huey Newton, you see?
So, in the beginning,
everybody was just elated. It was just like when Nelson Mandela when he got
released.
“Finally, Huey’s
out; He’s gon’ put things back on the line.” But not only didn’t he put
things back on the line, he took the
things further than
David did! Nigga gets a penthouse up there in Oakland, a cadillac, they started
buying clothes, they got off
into that cocaine, i
heard they even put sistas out on the street! Them niggas just went crazy;
started dressin’ like Al Capone
and a bunch of gangsters
- moving on people, using brutality against people - just became bandits.
So, We’re out there,
gettin’ little vibes of what’s goin’ on here & there, not really
understanding everything, but
We’re not going along
with that. We got a order that, from now on, when you talk to international
representatives or put out
anything, Huey Newton is
to be called ‘The Supreme Commander’. Well, for us, that nigga done gon’
crazy, calling himself
the supreme commander,
We ain’t goin’ for that. So naturally, We didn’t do that, We didn’t
follow those orders, We
continued the thing as
it always was: ‘minister of defense’ if We had to talk about him. Then, a
week or two later, We got an
order changing the other
order saying, “No, he’s no longer the Supreme Commander. Say ‘The Supreme
Servant of the
People’.” We knew
that he had just gone out there in left field, and We started having meetings
trying to figure out what We
were going to do,
discussing all the contradictions & whatnot. We were about 25 at that time
in Algiers.
We didn’t really know
when or how We were gonna deal with it, but what happened was Huey had
completely
isolated us. Anybody
caught communicating with us, i think maybe some of them were actually moved on,
i don’t know, but
total communication was
stopped. The only person who had a right to communicate with us was Huey, but
We didn’t really
know what was going on.
Finally, Huey called one
night and told Eldridge, “Look, word’s going around that maybe We’re not
seeing things
eye to eye. Now, i’m
gonna be on this live television show tomorrow morning, and We’re gonna call
you, and We’re gonna
talk on this live show,
and We’re gonna show people that everything is alright between us.” So they
hung up, and when he
hung up, that’s when
We decided, “Well, this is it.” We prepared a statement, and the next day
they called, and Huey’s on
live tv and after the
formalities, the speaker asked Eldridge, “Well, is there anything you want to
say?” That’s when Eldridge
read the statement where
We denounced the direction that Huey was taking the Party and all the things
they were doing. On
live tv! Huey was
sitting there. That nigga went crazy! That’s what broke the split out into
the open. We couldn’t allow that
to continue, We didn’t
want people to think that We were going along with those things.
So, about an hour later,
Huey called me. He asked me, “What side you on, D.C.?”, i said, “i’m
against you.” He
laughed, “Hahaha. OK,
i’m gonna crush you.” About three days later, i got a phone call from Zayd
in a panic, telling me that
Robert Webb just got
shot in the head up there on 125th & 7th avenue. Well, i went into a
depression for about five days. i
couldn’t even talk, so
really, when he said he was gonna crush me, he really got to me when he offed
Robert Webb. Robert
Webb was a wonderful
brother. And Huey knew it, because he was such a nice brother, that at one
time, he was Huey’s
personal bodyguard.
Q: There are certain events that happened involving the
International Section that also made news in the United
States. Let’s talk about
some of them for a moment. Could you tell us a little about the two airplane
hijackings, the
one involving the $500,000
ransom. Can you tell us a little about that one?
A: Yeah, Roger Holder was his name, ex-Vietnam veteran – he had
flown helicopters over there, he really wasn’t
affiliated with any
organization or anything – but his personal conscience told him to deal with that;
hijack a plane. He wasn’t
very political, so his
demands weren’t real clear in the beginning. He was asking for the release of
Angela Davis and a few
other demands that
appeared to be progressive. Finally, he got a plane to come on over to Algiers
and join us. His girlfriend
at the time, Katherine
Holder, was with him. When he arrived, he was received as a hero in Algiers.
Everybody was around
him; i went to talk to
his girlfriend. So, i asked her, “hey, what group you with?” She said,
“Oh, i ain’t with no group, i just
came along for a ride.”
So that shows you what level that was on.
As i said before, We
didn’t know that Algerians were in negotiations for these oil contracts.
Naturally, they let the
people in their country
and they became part of the group, but they gave the airplane back, and they
confiscated the ransom
money. But, because
Blacks didn’t have confidence in the news media, there were people there in
Detroit that didn’t believe
that they had given the
plane back and the money. So they decided to do the same thing. They took a
plane and came over
with a million dollars
ransom. But by that time, the Algerians wanted to put a stop to that, so in the
beginning, they kept us
separate from them. That
was the McNairs, George Brown, George Tillotson, and another one called Knott.
Finally, they let
them get in contact with
us, but naturally, they gave the money back and they gave the airplane back.
The Algerians didn’t
want that kind of pressure;
they wanted to put a stop to that. So, they created a very uncomfortable
situation for everybody,
and We knew by then that
because the split had gone down and things were very tense there amongst us
there in Algiers, that
it was time to get out of
there.
Now after the split, the
people on the east coast, including Sekou & Larry that were there in
Algiers, decided that
they didn’t want to
have anything to do with the Central Committee. Being a Central Committee
member, that meant me too.
Even though they knew
that i was not part of all that stuff that was going on, they didn’t want to
make an exception. They cut
me loose also. That hurt
me pretty bad, so what i did was i resigned, and i was living out there in the
suburbs of Algiers. But
because We were there as
a group, i didn’t want to cause any political problems with the government or
anybody, so i didn’t
make it public that i
was resigned. So, i had been living out there since January. Roger didn’t
come until June; the other
hijackers didn’t come
until September, so i really hadn’t been participating in any of the
decisions. But, by the time that last
plane came, everybody
just saw dollar signs. When i say ‘everybody’, i mean the others, not me
because i knew they were
gonna give that back
too.
Q: When the takeover at Attica state prison occurred in
September 1971, one of the prisoners’ demands was
asylum in a
non-imperialistic country. How did the International Section respond to this
demand?
A: Well, We were very favorable toward it. We personally didn’t
do anything because Bobby Seale was on the scene
there, and We didn’t
have communications with anybody directly on the thing. But, if We had been
contacted and anybody
had been released, We
could have welcomed them in Algiers. We still had our diplomatic status with
the FLN, and We could
have welcomed anyone
there. That wouldn’t have been a problem.
Q: What were the events leading up to the dismantlement of the
International Section of the Black Panther
Party?
A: Well, all those internal dissensions that i was talking about.
You see, after that last plane came over, everybody just
wanted out of there, and
i’ll explain why.
They decided that they
were gonna make some kind of move and put pressure on the government to give up
that
million dollars! Well, i
came out from my suburbs where i was living to be at the meeting, and right
away i told them they
was crazy. The
government is not going to risk the future of their country for a handful of
niggas and a million dollars. So,
they just told me to
shut up, they didn’t want to hear anything i had to say. i said, “OK,
y’all keep my part.” Pete O’Neal
jumped up and said,
“Anybody else feel like that?” i went on back home, ‘cause i knew that if
they did anything, they was
gonna be in trouble.
i had a listening post
set up. Where i had radios tuned in on all the stations, even local stations in
the states, and tape
recorders & whatnot.
So, i’m sitting there listening to the BBC news at one o’clock in the
afternoon, and i hear a statement
that Eldridge & the
hijackers done put out condemning Boumedienne & the Algerian government. i
knew he’s done blown it.
Within five minutes, i
get a phone call from Larry Mack, “Call New York! Call New York! They got us
surrounded by
machine guns!” But i
had a woman friend there at the house, and before i did anything, i got my
guns, my ammunition, my
stash, and i gave it to
her and said, “Get out of here, quick!”. The bus stop was right across the
street. While she’s still
standing at the bus
stop, the police show up at my house. Because they didn’t know that i had
resigned, you see. But they saw
that i was there by
myself. They searched that house for everything, naturally they didn’t find
anything, ‘cause my woman
was standing there at
the bus stop with everything in her bag & she managed to get away with it.
So, they put everybody at
the office under house
arrest, and that night i hear sirens come again, and they brought all the
hijackers and put them out there
at my house to get them
out of sight, and put us under house arrest with two policemen on the door. i
could only go out to do
shopping with a
policeman accompanying me. Well, political interventions with the president and
everything managed to
calm down his anger for
what they had done. Everybody was released from house arrest after the weekend
was over. For all
technical purposes, that
was the end, it was just a question now of people getting out of there.
Unfortunately, that
coincided with the time that i had planned to leave. So all the plans i had put
together to get out
of there were blown away
by all this house arrest & having police on the door. So, i had to choose
alternative means and i
managed to get out of
there at the end of September. Really, i was not there when everybody managed
to get away & go their
own different ways. i
went back in the beginning of ’74. When i got back, everybody had already
gone. i went back as a
political refugee
because the authorities there had confidence in me; they had known me, they had
seen how i worked,
naturally they gave me
political asylum. They even helped me get an apartment & a job. i stayed
there ‘til 1977, all by myself
as a political refugee.
Q: When you left the United States and went into exile, the BPP
was a flourishing organization with national and
international support; less
than six years later it no longer existed. How did it feel, and how did this
affect you?
A: It was hard accepting and realizing the fact that instead of
Huey straightening things out and getting the party back
on the road, that he had
just taken it downhill. That hurt real bad. As far as i was concerned personally,
when the split went
down in February of
’71, the party was over. The party as it had become known, was finished. They
did all kind of little
things trying to become
a legitimate political party to get the support of the people, but really a lot
of it was just to disguise
all their criminal
activities. They had become hoodlums & racketeering people. It had just
become Huey’s personal tool. It
was over in February
’71 with the split, and that hurt really bad. Because of all the comrades
that had died & were in prison
for the principles We
had learned from Huey & Eldridge – that was a hard blow. Really, it was
like becoming an orphan.
Like a lot of people
with the communist parties disappearing all over the world, it’s being like
an orphan not knowing what to
do; knowing that
there’s still stuff to be done, but not knowing what to do.
So i had decided to
continue the activities that i had been doing when i became the field marshal.
i just cut off all
communication with
everybody, and i worked to leave Algiers and go back in and join up with the
people i had been
associated with. But
unfortunately, you have this problem of survival. And everybody i know,
everybody i know, got busted
sooner or later, dealing
with survival problems! i arrived there in the end of ’72, by the summer of
’73 i was all by myself.
But i didn’t want to
live there just to be living there; i was only back to continue the struggle. i
mean, going to the store to
buy food or buy a pack
of cigarettes and wondering every time i see a policeman if this is gonna to be
it, if i gotta go down,
well i didn’t wanna go
down just for personal survival. Going down for a struggle is one thing, i was
there for that; but going
down for personal
survival? i didn’t relate to that, so i left out again and that’s when i
went back to Algiers as a political
refugee.
Q: How have you been able to cope?
A: Well, it hasn’t been easy. There’s two things i’ve
learned: when War did that record “The World is a Ghetto”, i
don’t know if they
knew the depths of what they sang. But really, it’s true, the world is a
ghetto, and Black people are
considered on the bottom
everywhere; there’s no exceptions! Another thing, Che Guevara said, “Whenever
you’re in exile,
consider yourselves in
enemy territory.”
Now, like i said, in
Algiers the government was very helpful. Helped me get a job, helped me get an
apartment, and i
was very very well
treated. But you got the problem of cultural differences, which were very very
strong. i lived seven years
in Algiers, and the last
day was like the first; whenever i went out of the house into the streets,
“There goes the american!
There goes the
american!” It just wasn’t possible to integrate, because i’m not a
religious person especially; i wasn’t going to
become a muslim. i had
been told several times by certain officials responsible for liberation
movement people, “You
become a muslim, all the
doors will be opened.” Well i’m not an opportunist on that level; i
wouldn’t make those kinds of
compromises with my
principles, so i was just isolated out there by myself. The cultural
differences became so strong; the
pressure became so
great, that i had to get out of there.
Now, i’ll recount a
little anecdote; it’s funny, but it’s tragic also: The Africa Cup –
Football in 1977. The only thing
standing between Algeria
& the Africa Cup was Guinea, the team from Conakry. The first match was in
Conakry, and the
Guineans beat the
Algerians 2-0. There were some Algerians that attacked Black people in the
street in Algiers, as a result of
that football game. The
doorkeeper at the job where i worked was a Black man - people came to work the
next day talking
about, “You don’t
come to the stadium for the return match.” And talking about me (now these
were supposed to be
progressive people who
had been to the school of fine art) - “If he hadn’t done something wrong,
he wouldn’t have had to
leave his country”. i
left work; i quit work right then & there. That was in February; i started
moving to get out of Algiers. i
wasn’t ready to accept
that kind of atmosphere from a country that had suffered so much from racism as
they had from the
French. i preferred to
find some reactionary western culture (because i’m from a western culture
myself) where don’t nobody
care about what i do.
Well, the only other culture i had learned, being in Algiers, was the French
culture. All the other
foreigners that i had
met, Algerians and French alike, were living in France so i decided to leave
Algiers & come to France.
That was in April 1977.
Q: How many Panthers would you say are in exile in various
countries around the world?
A: Well, i don’t really have an exact figure, you know. i know
of about twelve personally, but i’m sure that there are
others because it just
wasn’t possible for me to know everybody.
Q: What does being an exile mean in terms of the impact on your
life?
A: Well, it means being cut off completely from everything you
know, everything you love. All your references are
completely blown away.
Everything is new; you have to learn new rules all over again everyplace you
go. Every culture is
different.
Frankly, everybody has
the same problems all over the world – survival: food, clothing, and shelter.
And really,
basically the only thing
that changes is the culture & the language. But, some of the rules really
(coming from the america
that i knew, that
doesn’t seem to exist anymore!) are hard sometimes. France, for example:
here, you have to have a national
identity card; you
always have to have your identity card on you. If you don’t have your
identity card, and if you’re
controlled, you can go
to jail for four days automatically. Well, coming from the united states where
there was no national
identity card, that’s
like big brother for me. Here, you can’t do anything without first having
authorization or registering
somewhere. i remember
when i opened up a photographic studio in San Francisco in ’64, all i had to
do was go down to city
hall, pay a dollar &
a half, and register the name & pay my taxes. That’s all i had to do.
Here in France, it takes like three
months to create a
company. Three months of paperwork. And because they have so many social
programs – social security,
medical care,
retirement, old age pension & things like that – the charges are
terrible! For example, me working as a
contractor; whether you
work or not, every three months you have to pay something like $5,000 in
charges to the retirement
fund, the health plan,
and things like that. So really, it’s hard here. It’s very, very, very
difficult; on the survival level, that’s
the most difficult
thing. Being outside of my element, i find survival on an economic level the
most difficult thing.
Because my attitude has
never changed all these 22 years i’ve been in exile in terms of the struggle,
i feel no
different about the
united states on that level. i’m just disturbed by the fact that i see things
have deteriorated to the point that
things are thousands of
times worse today than it was when i was active with the rest of the comrades
back in the ‘70s.
Q: What are some of the lessons that you have learned from the
last 22 years of struggle & exile?
A: Well, for me the most fundamental thing that i’ve learned is
the problem is the men & the megalomania. Every time
you look at
organizations that try to get started and they fall apart, it’s always
because of the men struggling over power, and
trying to get over their
own program, no matter what it is. And, even when you look at history, history
is nothing but that;
struggles of men wanting
to impose their way of seeing the world or protecting their power and
oppressing other people.
History is full of that.
That’s one of the things that i really try to get deep off into, studying
history, pre-history, the evolution
of man, trying to
understand that phenomenon, to see what can be done to change that. Because the
objective conditions
today are a hundred
times worse than they were when We were active; what’s the reason that
there’s not people out there
dealing with the
problem? Because the men – every time people get their heads together trying
to get an organization you
start having those
megalomaniac struggles for power. That’s the most fundamental thing that
i’ve learned out here. As far as
i’m concerned,
that’s the thing that We have to guard ourselves against. Anybody that wants
to get organized, to get
something moving again,
they’ve got to create some means to controlling this tendency of men to
struggle for power and
their own personal
aggrandizement.
Q: What are some of the concerns that you have now?
A: My concerns that i have now is that terrible situation that We
find ourselves in in the united states and really, the
recognition and the
understanding that it’s no longer just a national problem. All the countries
of the world treat their
problems as internal
& national, but really it’s an international octopus that’s calling all
the shots. International finance
capital; We have to
recognize the situation like it is. People in London are deciding the prices of
the cocoa and the precious
metals that people all
over the third world are producing; people in Chicago are deciding the price of
grains, the wheat &
everything that people
are producing; here at the stock exchange in Paris, they’re deciding the
price of sugar. It’s out of
control; it’s out of
control of government hands. There is no national solution to the problem,
it’s really an international
phenomena. Of course,
much can be done on an internal level. i mean, it’s a crying shame that
inside a country that’s socalled
leading the western
world like the united states, you have all those people living out there in the
streets, whole
families, ‘cause they
don’t have the means to have shelter. There has to be shelter, the basic
necessities of life for everybody.
Any movement that starts
out has to deal with those questions. Everybody has to have a shelter,
everybody has to have a
means to survive on a
physical level. Then, when We get those things accomplished, then We can take
things to a higher
level. Those are my
concerns right now.
Q: If you had one gift to give to the youth of today, who are
becoming politically aware, what would it be?
A: Knowledge of what went on before, so people don’t fall back
& make the same mistakes again. That’s one of the
one of the biggest
problems i see today, the lack of continuity. People don’t even know what
happened last week, let alone 20
years ago. So, any young
organizations, people coming out there today, that don’t know about all the
mistakes that We made,
they’re gonna make the
same mistakes again. A lot of people don’t believe that you can learn from
past mistakes, but i don’t
believe that. If We
could pass on the knowledge on a mass level of what went on before, that would
help those that are in a
position to analyze and
make decisions, see some of the things that shouldn’t be done.
Now, nobody has any
answers to how to deal with this stuff today. Nobody’s had to deal with it
before, and you can
see all the models that
We had before, in the so-called progressive communist world, have just fallen
by the wayside because
it was trying to be
imposed from the top. The people stayed where they were at. As soon as all
those repressive measures by
all the different
regimes fell aside, all those ethnic struggles that were taking place 75 years
ago sprung out all over again in
all those eastern
countries.
What We have to do, We
have to write the whole thing all over again. We have to start by coming up
with
something to deal with
the economic problems of all those millions of people out there suffering from
not having any shelter,
not having means to eat,
and no healthcare. i feel that personally, one of the solutions – one of the
solutions – is that there
needs to be a real true
party in the united states that represents the needs of the people. Another
party that really addresses
itself to the needs of
the people has to come into being. There’s just too many people out there
suffering that would support
it. i feel that if it
came along, anything that’s really effectively dealing with the people’s
needs, the people are going to get
behind it, ‘cause the
situation is terrible.
Q: There are Panthers that are still in prison: the New York 3,
David Rice, Robert ‘Seth’Hayes, Romaine ‘Chip’
Fitzgerald, there’s a
Panther on death row: Mumia Abu-Jamal; there’s Panthers still in exile:
Michael Cetewayo
Tabor, Pete O’Neal, Assata
Shakur, George Brown, etc. Would you say there’s a lot of unfinished
business? Do you
have any thoughts on what
must be done?
A: Yeah, well there’s definitely unfinished business. The reason
that all these people are still in prison, and having such
a difficult time getting
out is because of all these problems. Because the authorities know that people
that already have
experience, that have
knowledge, if they can keep them off the streets, that’s gonna leave the
people out there floundering
around. They can’t
bring that experience and leadership to the struggle. So, i feel that the
maximum number of people that
can be gotten together,
that have consciousness of what is the actual situation, should get themselves
together. The answers
are not gonna just fall
out of the sky; We’ve got to get our heads together and have a brainstorming
session and see what We
can come up with to
start dealing with that situation. i feel that’s the first step, people have
to get themselves together. Put all
those ideologies &
ideological struggle and who has the best line with words out of the way. The
people are suffering. That
has to be dealt with;
all those ideological struggles that just be wasting time, people be runnin’
their mouths trying to prove
who has the best line
just with words, that has to be thrown in the garbage can. And all those
megalomaniac men, struggling
for power trying to get
off their program, they gotta be put into a museum of history. People have to
get their heads together,
that have some kind of
political consciousness, to try to come up with some solutions and put ‘em
into action and see if We
can start moving to get
something going to get some relief to the people. The people are suffering!
Q: Is there anything else that you would like to say?
A: Everybody, that’s got any ideas to get some kind of relief to
all those suffering people, move on it! Don’t waste
your time, criticizing
the others; if you got an idea, move on what you think is right! Stop spending
your time
knocking down the others
‘cause you don’t agree with what they’re doing. What’s ending up,
ain’t nobody doin’
nothin’!
Q: Thank You
A: Right On!
3/31/92