property house lens

there's an old story, and it's used invarious cultures, where a group of blind menapproach an elephant and try to describe him. the first man approaches theelephant, touches its side, and says, it feels like a wall. the next man touchesa tusk and says, the elephant mustbe like a spear. another blind man touchesthe trunk and says,

it feels like a snake. and that is quite often whathappens with our descriptions of the black panther party. we know the party we werein and not the entire thing. we were making history andit wasn't nice and clean. it wasn't easy. it was complex. from chicago, illinois,the mighty chi-lites. for god's sake,

you got to give morepower to the people. there's some people upthere hogging everything. the thingthat led to the panthers was what we were seeingon television every day... attack dogs, firehoses, bombings. we stand on the eve of ablack revolution, brothers. now wehave the emergence of voices within thecommunity that were saying, we're not going to continueto turn the other cheek.

you tell them whitefolk in mississippi that all the scaredniggers are dead. we want black power. this was a revolutionary time. 50 countries in the worldgained their independence in the decade before thefounding of the black panther party. this was the time whenpeople are getting drafted to go and fight in vietnam. so if somebody'scoming and saying well,

if you're going to fight, why not fight right here in la or oakland, you know? that made a lot of sense. you couldn't beabsent and see what we saw. we couldn't unsee it. i was a cocktail waitressin a white strip club two years before i joinedthe black panther party. how did that happen?

the rage was in the streets. it was everywhere. we're not gonna get nothing. not by sitting aroundhere and just doing these sit-indemonstrations and nothing. people are not goingto do anything. but how are we going to do it? by violence. violence.

by uprising, having a revolution. just with blood, you know. let everybody bleed a little bit. relations between police and negroes throughout the country are getting worse. one of the cities mosttroubled by animosity between police and negroesis oakland, california. people always talked about freedom and what that means during that time period.

being black in america meant that you didn't walk down the street with thesame sense of safety and the same sense ofprivilege as a white person. there was absolutelyno difference in the way the police treatedus in mississippi than they did in california. they may not have calledyou nigger everyday, but they treated you the sameway they did in mississippi.

the police jump on you, beat you up, put thegun at your head. this is what we were goingthrough on a daily basis. when ifirst met huey and bobby, they were in the processof forming an organization for primarily self-defense. we didn't plan to have anationwide organization or anything like that. we were organizing, dealingwith the problems in oakland.

we use theblack panther as our symbol because the nature of panther,panther doesn't strike anyone, but when he's assailed uponthat he'll back up first. but if the aggressor continuesthen he'll strike out. huey had studied the law. in oakland at that particular time, anyone could carry a firearmwho did not have a felony conviction at the time. the firearm couldnot be concealed.

it had to be in the open. the california penal code,section 12020 through 12027, and also the second amendmentof the constitution, guarantees the citizena right to bear arms on public property. huey saidwe're going to carry our guns and we're going tofollow the police. and if they stop someone,we're going to stop. we're going to maintaina legal distance

and we're going to observethe so-called law officers in performance of their duties. we were in the car and driving around, having fun. we would... we was lookingat the pretty women and chasing the sisters. then something might happen, and then all of a sudden the focus would just become serious.

we're coming around the corner. stay facing where you are. we would stop. we would get out of the cars. we would walk up to the scene. those who had rifles would carry them in the open, clearly visible. we would stand at a,a distance where the police couldn't saythat we were interfering

with their arrest or theirdetention of the individual and, make sure thatthere was no brutality. we stood back with our weapons, ready to throw down if necessary. they would, take the weaponand pass it across like this, and it would sweep... passright over the officer. no one would do anything until a policeman ejecteda round in the chamber. then we would all ejectrounds in the chamber,

and all up anddown the street you could hear this clackity-clack,clack, clack, clack. and then when the trafficstop or the incident's over, they'd bring the weapondown across by you like this and get back in theircar and drive off. it was pretty intimidating. we referred to ourselvesas the vanguard, and we were setting, by example,a new course that we wanted the entire community to follow.

no one wants to touchthe legitimate hunter, but we've got to protectsociety from nuts with guns. when bands of armedpeople with loaded weapons can move about our streets,intimidating and frightening citizens, then ithink we should act. and we intend to act. it's my intention to make it amisdemeanor to have, loaded rifles and shotguns andweapons in public places. the police department had went

to a local congressmanto get a bill written. so huey called me up and says,we have to go to sacramento. it was conceivedas a media event that the press is always atthe california state capitol. no one reallywanted huey himself to go, because huey was kind of aquick-tempered firebrand. bobby was a little more cautious. and it was like, look, you know, you've been great so far,

but you might blow it up there,and bad things could happen. we caravaned to sacramento. i think there were about 30 ofus altogether, and most of us had some weapon. we was on thestate capitol on the lawn, and ronald reagan... ... then the governor of the state of california... was there about 10 feet away from us holding a press conference with these young,

like, parochial school kids. and what happened, assoon as the press seen us they gravitated from ronald reagan over to where the panthers was. the black pantherparty for self defense calls upon the americanpeople in general, and the black people in particular, to take careful note of the racist california legislature which is

now considering legislation aimed at keeping the black peopledisarmed and powerless at the very same time racist police agencies throughout the country are intensifying the terror, brutality, murder, and repression of black people. the state assembly was in the midst of a heated debate when the young negroes, armed with loaded rifles,shotguns and pistols,

marched into the capital. when we got inthe halls, you have to imagine, there's 100 cameras... stillcameras, print media people... backing up. and i'm saying, where isthe spectator section? and the press saysthis way, bobby. some party members got aheadof me with shotguns, pistols and wound up on the actual floor of the california state legislature.

they're heavily armed. whether their weapons are loadedor not, nobody seems to know. the armed group, who said they were members ofthe black panther party, retreated to a service station several blocks from the capital. i remember this one copcame down on a motorcycle, and he's seen allthese guns, and he got on the... on the thing.

and that's when theystarted to swoop down on us from everywhere. you have no right totake my gun away from me. you don't know theconstitutional right? sure we do. we're well aware ofthe constitutionality. i would like tohave my gun back. why do you believe thelegislature is racist? because, you know,you're a part of it.

isn't it obvious? this is a white system. the news got to everyone in the black community whohad a television, everyone who had a radio. it was in every newspaperacross the nation. it put us on center stage. i don't thinkthat loaded guns is the way to solve a problemthat should be solved

between people of good will. and anyone who would approveof this kind of demonstration must be out of their mind. when i heard about sacramento, i was like, damn,these brothers are bad. they're here up in sacramento,in the capital, packing? the boldness,the courageousness about it, the arrogance of it... that puta whole new face on things. i said man, i want to be partof this, whatever that is.

yeah, i walked into the office and told them i wanted tojoin the black panther party, and they kind of laughed. i didn't know that therewere any other women in the party at that time. but then i asked them,could i have a gun? i was a student at lincoln university outside philly when i first heard about the black panther party.

i found my friend, johnhuggins, and i said, we need to leavethis stupid campus. we have work to do. we got in john huggins'little hooptie car and we drove across thecountry from new york, and when we gotto the west coast we joined the blackpanther party. what we want, what we believe. point number one,we want freedom.

we want decent housing. we want aneducation for our people. we want an immediate end to police brutality. people joinedfor all kinds of reasons, but the panthers have a 10 point platform or program that really was sort of like the fundamental sort of organizing tool and orientation tool.

the civil rights movement was basically a southern movement. so when you had anorganization like the panthers who were taking on things likehousing and welfare and health, that was stuff thatpeople in the north could relate toand rally behind. our attack was not only against whitesupremacy, but it was also about capitalism. we actually thought that theway in which capitalism created

a working class that waskept absolutely destitute... was that was wrong. so we took the positionthat in order for us to free, that system hadto be dismantled. we could not be free in asystem that had oppressed us in the first place. so you have to getrid of that system. we werenot after the church folks. we were not afterthe muslim folks.

we wanted the brotheron the corner, the brother who's getting hishead banged in every weekend by the police. we wanted the brother whowas going to jail... just snatched out of thiscar for a traffic ticket because he was black. that's who we were after. we getcalls from atlanta, nashville, raleigh, north carolina, fromwashington, dc, bridgeport,

connecticut... every city,small or large, you could think of wanted a chapter ofthe black panther party. we would send membersof the organization to help connect them to us. but it was destabilizingin the sense that it was somewhat chaotic,the way the party was growing. and it was too fast and too big. therewas no screening process. there was no, why are you here?

what do you expect to havehappen while you're here? what are you tryingto accomplish? there was none of that. members came from whoeverjust came in off the street. the downside, of course,was we had no idea who any of these people were. we didn't have time for awhole lot of, who are you? what are you doing? we need... you want to do this?

fine. here. go. this week on"firing line", my guest is mr. eldridge cleaver,the information minister of the black panthers. eldridge cleavercomes out with this book, "soul on ice," a seriesof his essays from prison, and the new york timessays that it's brilliant, it gets on tothe best seller list. so when eldridgejoined the panthers,

the panthers hadgotten themselves a star, a literary star. i've been called by the national review, and all of this is an attemptto undermine the party or to give it a badpresentation to the public. huey newton alwayshad this vision. he was the visionaryof the party. bobby seale, he hadthe personality.

eldridge cleaverwas the person who made the party credibleto black intellectuals, to the white, leftintellectuals. you know, all of themloved eldridge cleaver. they understood whathe was talking about, or at least theythought they did. eldridgehad this incredible ability to encapsulate a thoughtin a few sentences and form it into an artisticstatement that pointed right...

that stabbed right intothe heart of the enemy, and he did that all of the time. now, was he always correct? no. and i say that ronald reagan isa punk, a sissy, and a coward, and i challenge him to a duel. i challenge him. i challenge him to a duelto the death or until he says uncle eldridge.

was he insane? fuck yeah. that boy was crazy, and hegot a lot of people hurt. and i give him hischoice of weapon. he could use a gun, a knife, abaseball bat or a marshmallow, and i'll beat him to deathwith the marshmallow. that's how i feelabout him, see? now see,they are not going to be able to control eldridge.

eldridge was a rottweiler,uncontrollable personality. who could be in anorganization with eldridge and he not be the leader? nobody. and that's basicallyhow it ended up. a pool of blood marks the spot where 23-year-oldofficer john frey was found fatally woundedfrom four gunshots. the shooting happenedat 5:00 am,

approximately where i'mstanding, on 7th street in the heart ofoakland's negro ghetto. the suspect, charged withmurder and attempted murder, is huey newton, 25-year-oldleader of the black panthers for self defense. newton is hospitalizedin serious condition and under heavy guard. we went up to highlandhospital and it looked like every policein america was there.

we didn't know for sureif huey was dead or alive. we didn't sleep that night. nobody slept thatnight, i don't think. as he was handcuffed to a gurney going into surgery,he was arrested for murder and expected to face execution. a lot of the other panthers were in jail because of the proteststhat they'd done in sacramento, so eldridge was the onlyavailable spokesperson

for the black panther party. the black panther party demands thathuey p. newton be set free, and we wish tomake it very clear that if he is not set free, there is little hope of avoiding open, armed war on the streets of californiaand sweeping across this nation. we said, well, huey's in jail. he's facing the death penalty.

what can we do? i think the initial sloganwas huey must be set free. eventually it gotshortened to free huey. black is beautiful. free huey! set our warrior free. it became a huge movement. today there were a number of freehuey newton rallies

across the nation. you did not have to be a memberof the black panther party. all you had to bewas a human being. people of all kinds tookup that cry, free huey. the examinermade a report back here in the last sunday's paperthat we were anti-white, that we hold no bones...this is a quote... hold no, pick no bonesabout being anti-white. this is a bold faced lie.

we don't hate nobodybecause of their color. we hate oppression. we hate murder of blackpeople in our communities. the people just turned out. they wanted to help us, theywanted to give us money, they wanted us to come speak. it was this gatheringof connection to the black panthers thatwas different to before. we've got to free huey.

everybody! we were a phenomenon... the way that we walked andtalked and dressed. we had swagger. it was a rhythm. it was a rhythm to how we spoke. it was a rhythmto how we walked, and the people recognized it. we stood out.

outside of that, on the street,they'd... ooh that's a butt ugly person. ooh, they ugly. but in the party it was justsomething that gave them this tremendous sex appeal. the panthersdidn't invent the idea of black is beautiful. people had started wearingafros and dashikis... but one of the thingsthe panthers did

was that urbanblack is beautiful, and that look justblew people away. if you were a youngblack man living in the city anywhere, you wantedto be like this. you wanted to dress like this,you wanted to act like this, you wanted to talk like this. you wanted to be this. it's a standard ofaggressiveness, of militance, of just forcefulness that'sthe sort of standard we

haven't had in the past. but figuratively speaking, you're not about to become a panther. not today ortomorrow, at any rate. maybe the day after. this brother here, myself, all of us were born withour hair like this, and we just wear it like this. the reason for it,you might say,

is like a new awarenessamong black people that their ownnatural appearance... physical appearance,is beautiful. black people are aware now. they're proud of it. it's pleasing to them. dig it? isn't it beautiful? all right.

you're talking about people whoare teenagers... 17, 18, 19, 20... that's the bulk ofthe panthers are teenagers. so the fact thatwe were so young and the fact that thishadn't happened before... i'm not certain that we recognized how startling it looked to other people. dear mr. newton, i'm a 13-year-old black girl andi want to be a black panther. i wish you would fill me in.

does it matter whatyour religion is? what are some qualificationsto be a black panther? ps... write me back personally. i was taught to be proper... behave yourself. you're going out inpublic, to always know that the whiteman was listening. with the black pantherscoming to the scene, it was just a completelydifferent message.

as a 12-year-old,you know... what? you had this wholeother portrayal of self, and just digging it. photographers took advantage. i mean, they took our pictures. they put them on newspapers. they put them on magazines. and that look that weprojected... you know, the big afro, theleather jacket,

the shades... that became a hit. and obviously, photographerswere drawn to the panthers. well, we hear a great dealabout the black panthers. black panthers. the black panthers. the black pantherswere absolutely unique. the black panther party. black panther movement. black panther party.

i think the black panthersreally understood the media. they knew what we were after. they knew what wewere focusing on. the panthers has amounted to... many people knowof the panthers. you might say that we exploited the black panthers. but i think there'sa lot of evidence that they used usto their advantage.

they were able toestablish their legitimacy as a voice of protest. the chairman of theblack panther party. and here he is. we have a film of yourbreakfast program. is this without sound also? yeah. i think so. would you... wouldyou comment on this? yes.

yeah, this is a free breakfastfor children program, and they're preparing the foodthere early in the morning. it's about two hourswork in the morning. these party members primarilyset this whole program up, and then we get involved as many of the community people as we can. who all wants tea? put more tea in, little brother. come on it, little sister.

y'all can sit down andget something to eat. studies came out saying that children that didn't havea good breakfast in the morning were less attentive at schooland less inclined to do well and suffered from fatigue. i mean, there was allsorts of scientific reasons to have a good breakfastin the morning. and we just simplytook that information, and a program was developedserving breakfast to children.

after myfather came home from vietnam and was discharged from thearmy and couldn't get work, we were going througha very hard time. food was kind of... you know, just the everyday necessities were hard. i was embarrassed togo, but when you went, you know, kids are all laughing,and then all of a sudden the stigma... orwhatever you thought was the stigma... wentaway, and you really

got to see that yes, this iswhat the black panthers are. we were showinglove for our people. you know, if you have achild, if you'd know that hey, these men and women are goingto feed my child in the morning, that's a big deal. the breakfastprogram actually really caught on. it served about20,000 meals a week to young people in 19different communities. so it wasn't a flyby night thing.

it really, actually wasmaking a difference. just at the momentthat the panthers are turning toward survival programs...towards free breakfast programs, free clinics, and free food programs that will help them reconnectwith the black community and build their membership,and repudiating this earlier advocacy of armed selfdefense and police patrols... j edgar hooverattacks the panthers. hoover saw any form ofblack organizing as a threat

to the status quo as he saw it. change that would haveinvolved equality, that would have put powerin black people's hands, was very much athreat to hoover. he started somethingcalled cointelpro, directed against what he calledblack nationalist hate groups. cointelpro was the abbreviation of counter intelligence program. the purpose of this new

counterintelligence endeavour is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwiseneutralize the activities of black nationalists. neutralize could mean making somebody an informant or putting somebody in jail or having somebody killed. hoover was sendingletters to various offices

almost on a weekly basisto come up with new ideas to go after members ofthe black panther party. 245 of the290 cointelpro actions were against the black panthers. one of the mandates was donot make this program public. do not tell anybody that it exists. fbi has a memo that states the objectives ofcounterintelligence operations. one is to preventthe rise of what

they call the black messiah... a single charismatic leader that could unify the movement. they want to prevent the appeal of radical political movement to black youth, and they wanted to isolate these groups to prevent themfrom gaining respectability in the black community. and they were very explicitin stating these goals.

we were followed every day. we were harassed. our phones were tapped. our families were harassed. my parents were bothvisited by the fbi. we must create suspicion with respect to theirrespective spouses, and your imaginationand resourcefulness must be employed in order forthe bureau to be successful.

they wouldsend letters to my wife, and the letterswould say that landon is sleeping with this womanor sleeping with that woman or sleeping withthe other women. then when i got arrested,the fbi came to me and said, ha, look. we've got all this evidence. all these people are gonnaflip and turn on you. we're gonna execute you,because we got you now.

we're going to execute you. but if you will be an informantfor us, then we'll let you go. my recruitment by the fbi was very efficient...very simple, really. i'd stolen a car and wentjoyriding over the state limit, and they had a potentialcase against me, and i was looking for anopportunity to work it out. and a couple of monthslater that opportunity came when the fbi agentroy mitchell asked me to,

go down to the local officeof the black panther party and try to, gain membership. the fbi wanted todestroy the panthers. they absolutely saw thepanthers as the vanguard of a very, very threatening andviolent revolutionary movement. they absolutely wanted thisorganization to be destroyed. the fbi was coming aroundmy mother-in-law and my wife, and for me to stopthat kind of activity, i stopped going home,and a lot of other people

did also, to protecttheir families. you could kind of in a sense saythat we abandoned our families for the panther party. you might have athree bedroom apartment that might have 10 panthersstaying there and sharing bedrooms. the living room wasbasically also a bedroom. we called them panther pads. somebody would beon 24 hour security.

somebody was responsiblefor cleaning the place. often it was a rotatinglist of responsibilities. it was a sense ofcommunity that we created. the rank and file wasthe every day members that did the dailywork of the party. they the ones thatmade the party, the back breakers, the onesyou put all the work on. panthers realizedwe have to live together to protect oneanother, and we have

to also be committed tothis thing, to this cause, to this movement,24 hours a day. the rank and file... whatever orders that camedown from our captains and lieutenants, we didthat, because that spirit was in us to stay in thismovement to our death, or if it meant going to jail. so whatever they toldus to do, we did it. i was in labor, cooking breakfast

for the breakfast program. so i was between contractionsflipping pancakes. i would spend all the day answering the phones, even afteri had my son, when i came back to work. i used to have to jump himup and down really heavy, because it justwouldn't stop crying as i'm answering the phone. you name it.

i cleaned freezerswith a toothpick. and that's how i'd answerthe phone... black panther party national headquarters. black panther partycentral headquarters. can i help you? dear huey, when i joined the party i was thrilled about becoming part of an organization that believes in the quality of men and women.

it bothers me that there are brothers who still view women as sexual objects. we should have no men inthe black panther party who feel this way... orwomen, for that matter. one of the ironies of the black panther party is that the image is the black male with the jacket and the gun, but the realityis the majority of the rank and file at, by the endof the '60s are women.

everybody knows that all thepeople don't have liberties, all the people don't have freedom, all the people don't have justice, and all the people don't have power, so that means none of us do. the black panther party certainly had a chauvinisttone, and so we tried to change some of theclear gender roles so that women had guns and mencooked breakfast for children.

did we overcome it? of course we didn't. as i like to say, wedidn't get these brothers from revolutionary heaven. "black panther newspaper"? panther paper! the paper wasthe lifeblood of the party. that's why we survived. we sold the papersat $0.25 back then.

it cost maybe $0.12 to print it. the other 12 and 1/2 cent went to the various chapters and branches. that's how we basically survived. the party paper went places party members would never get to go to, and be reaching people we would never see. but the paper get theresome kind of way or other. so it was very importantto get the paper out.

los angeles, 2,850. new haven, 3,000. when we wereloading boxes or bundling papers or whateverwe were doing, we did it in anassembly line fashion, and we would just startsinging, you know it. ain't no mountain high enough. ain't no valley lowenough to keep me from getting this paper toyou... or whatever we would do.

we would change thelyric just a little bit. you know...it's your thing. do what you want to do. why do you keep tell mewhat the... and then we'd say what to do. this man needs some helpwith human beings. in the papereverything came together. we had the platform... the tenpoint platform was in there. you know, it was the first thing you

see when you open up the paper. we want an end to therobbery by the white man of our black community. that's what we talkingabout, like number 3. number 4, we want decent housingfit to shelter human beings. you dig? i can dig that. and it explained who we wereand what... what we were about, what our goals were.

tell me, ma'am. do you read the blackpanther party newspaper? yes i do. why? because i'm blackand i'm proud. what do youlike best about the paper? because they're a proudpeople and i love them. for me there was only one reason to read the panthernewspaper, and that was

to see emory's illustrations. his paintings, hiscaricatures, his illustrations literally gave us the story. well to me, youwould respond to the artwork because it was a reflectionof them in the artwork itself, because you were putting themon the stage as the characters and the heroes in the images. they could see their brother, or they could see their uncle in the images.

through the breakfast programs,through the other programs that we had, the health clinics, people come in and talk about howthey can't pay their bills or they need child care... that teardrop symbolized that pain that i observed. even through their pain there was this strength and determination and conviction to still battle on. so we're trying to put thatinto the artwork itself.

emory was our social realism. he gave you a sense ofbravery, resilience, courage, and most of all, beauty. that was what iloved about emory. it was huey and bobby's ideato draw a pig drawing that would symbolize the police. so the first pig i didwas one on the four hoofs. it just came to me one night, why don't i stand it up on two hoofs?

i'll put a bandolier... a gun bandolier on with the holster and abadge and the flies around it, and that became thesymbol... icon of the pig. it took on a life of its own. revolution has come. off the pigs! time to pick up the guns. that rhetoric didn't bother us when it was spoken by the panthers.

power to the people. but when it was pickedup by college students, them saying it, thatdefinitely bothered us. i was a sergeantpatrolling in the projects, and there was the cutest little girl. so i stopped to say hello,and i said hi, honey. how are you doing today. and she looked at me andshe said, fuck you, pig. and i thought, wehave lost it, man.

we have flat lost it. anybody that criticized the police, especially that didn't have fear of saying it, probably made the police angry. it was us against them. that became the theme. we have seen the pig on the scene. we know what he's like. we know what he's capableof... just being a damn pig,

oinking and beatingand walking the street. the police must be brought under control by any means necessary, including through force of arms. these racist, gestapo pigs have to stop brutalizing our community orwe're going to take up guns, we're going to drive them out. that tendency to keep escalating therhetoric... that was a major part of thegrowth of the party,

but it was also a destructive force, because you werealways upping the ante. i say guns, pick up the guns, pick up the guns andput the pigs on the run. pick up the guns. boom, boom, it broughtall the repression down on them before they were prepared to handle it. i just want to deal withblack, and black liberation.

my sin is picking up my damn gun... and i'm a mother... having my baby in one hand, my gun in the other, and then i'm here motherfuckersto get what's mine. the voice that called for justice and brotherhood has been stilled. men of all races now must join together in this hour to deny violence its victory and to fulfill the vision of brotherhood.

the effect of the death of martin luther king on the panthers was overwhelming in the sense that once king wasassassinated, and the way he was assassinated so publicly,it shattered many, many people. they'd killed their last chance for me to be peaceful with them. they'd killed their last chance for negotiation. they killed the man who walked through hell to try to get along with you, and you kill him?

that was our champion. you killed whatever hope i had in you, and i have no more use for you... none. i believe that there was a decision made that some response on the part of the black panther party has to be made to what happened to king. eldridge cleaver was worried that if the panthers didn't take decisive action they would cease to be the vanguard.

so we had this idea of actuallyactively attacking the police. he goes and he approachesmembers of the party in oakland, and all of the olderpeople refused to participate. they knew that this would be suicide. but the youngest member of theparty, little bobby hutton, decides to follow eldridge into battle. little bobby called me... big man, i need a weapon. i gave him a winchester 12-gaugepump shotgun that i had,

and i told him, well, becareful out there, you know. watch yourself. and he said ok, i will, and he left. and then first thing in the morning, i have the radio on. the oakland police stated that they were fired uponduring a routine investigation into a suspicious person, andafter a short search cornered hutton and eldridge cleaver inthe basement of a nearby house.

a tear gas canister blew up, and the basement they werehiding in caught on fire. they decided they didn'twant to burn to death. they would rather surrender. eldridge told bobby huttonto take off all your clothes so they can't see you're concealing a weapon. when you surrender, take off everything. but bobby was embarrassed, and he just took off his shirt and he kept on his pants.

bobby hutton came out with his hands in the air... first memberwho walked out of the house and was gunned down. my heart sank. he was only 17 years old,and one of the first people to get killed in the party, and so young. in essence, i felt that i went out and got my little brother killed. what if i'd not given him the weapon?

those are some of the demonsthat, were in my closet. shot down like a common animal, he died a warrior for black liberation. in the name of brotherhoodand survival, remember bobby. that could have been my son lying there, and i'm going to do as much as i can. i'm going to start right now to inform white people of what they don't know. for the black panther party,it was crisis and chaos,

because this was the first timethat this had ever happened. there had been no panthermurdered by police. we want non-violence, just like martin luther king... but non-violence on the part of who? to sit and watch ourselves tobe slaughtered like our brother? we must defend ourselves,as malcolm x said, by any means necessary. after the loss of bobby hutton,

eldridge was ordered tosurrender to san francisco police to go back to prison,but on november 28, 1968, he didn't turn himself in,and he was not to be found. mrs. cleaver, do youknow where your husband is? when was thelast time you saw him? sunday night. it's rumored thateldridge is out of the country. do you think this is possible? no, i don't think so.

and so the mystery remains... where is eldridge cleaver? it's entirely possible that his wife and lawyer really do not know. to the law, he is simply a fugitive from justice. he had gone to algeria. there's nothing theunited states government can do to us in algeria. they don't have diplomaticrelations with algeria.

we could function openly,politically, in algeria, so we opened our international section the black panthers were welcomed by all sortsof liberation movements. the north vietnamese, who weremoving into a newer embassy, gave their old embassy to the panthers. and the black panthers, of course, loved being accepted like this. in eldridge cleaver's successful attempt

to establish an international wing, he's able to do some things that are very important. malcolm x and other black nationalists had talked about forging those types of alliances. the panthers actually did it. we wish you victory in your struggle. thank you. and we hope to receive you in liberated saigon. and tell them that i hope toreceive them in washington, dc.

at that time america was being demonized considerably because of the war in vietnam. so here we are, black americanswho are opposed to all of this. we're the counter to the united states. we were able to connect with north koreans, with vietnamese, with the chinese, and with also many african liberation movements. and many people came to see us there. we came over here

to do what we can to communicate to you what's happening in ourstruggle in the united states. i think a lot of whatdraws these groups together is a kind of anti-american sentiment. if you want to really shakethe american establishment, you want them to thinkthat they are in danger, that a revolutionarynew world is on its way. the panthers are certainly the people you're going to support.

since the united states of america is the backbone of oppression in the world, the blows that we strike againstthe empire there will also aid the liberation strugglesin africa, asia, and latin america as we aid ourselves. face the nation... a spontaneous and unrehearsed news interview with the chief of staff of the black panther party, david hilliard. your minister of information is now

in exile... eldridge cleaver. you speak with him often on the phone. is that correct? well, you know i do. they tap the phones. the phone is probably hookedup through the white house. the leaders of the party,its national leadership, sits with david hilliard. bobby seale is in and out of prison,

huey newton is in jail... at thispoint for a number of years... and eldridge cleaver is in algeria. david was someone who was considered a... you can say he was a sound storekeeper. he kept the shop in order. richard nixon is the chief spokesman of the american people, and if the man is not responsible for the people in government like the fbi agencies or the local police,

then he should stand up and,let the american people know that they do not endorse thekind of campaigns that's been waged against black america. nixon is elected with a sense of a mandate to crack down, and he feels that it is his personal charge after the '68 election to repress. this is a nation of laws, andas abraham lincoln has said, no one is above the law, no one is below the law, and we're going to enforce the law.

and americans should remember that if we're going to have law and order. the nixon administration gives j. edgar hoover even more of a sense that he can repress without restriction. do you feel the nation is in trouble? i think very definitely it is. but what is the answer? the answer is vigorouslaw enforcement.

that's the only answer. how about justice? you hear a lot about justice with law enforcement. justice is merely incidental to law and order. fbi director j. edgar hoover today asserted that the black panthers represent the greatest internal threat to the nation. hoover said the panthers have perpetrated numerous assaults on police and have engaged

in violent confrontations throughout the country. when hoover identified the black panther party as the number one threat to the national security of the united states at a time when they're fighting in vietnam, youknow, of course that was crazy. but it was politicallyvery effective, and it says to law enforcement at the local level, we can take the gloves off now. we don't have to respect the civil liberties

and we can go after them with everything we got. one of the executive orders of the panther party was that we was to defend ourselves from unwanted attacks,and not allow the police to just forcibly come in. if the tear gas is thrown, here's your water and your eye mask. keep this on you. ok.

nobody's coming in the front door... nobody. no gas. nobody gets on the roof. well, i just wish they would come tonight. yeah, well, i want them to come. the panthers were a criminal organization, were violent, and theywanted to kill cops. that's all i needed to know. about 40 policemen arrived on the scene

and began surrounding theblack panther headquarters. they were trying to changegovernment as we know it to terrorist activity. we took a very proactive stance in combating what we considered a terrorist organization. i think the fbi manipulated the police, and the fbi arranged for the black panthers to get guns through informants. they would convince the policethat the panthers had weapons.

they had to go in and be ready to be shot at, so the police went in and shot at them first. you'd hear about raids taking place against black panther offices. they were coming to kill us. police say there was sniper fire throughout the early morning hours, so they moved in cautiouslyand then began shooting. the black panther police shootout

lasted 30 minutes. it was obvious that the government had made a decision that this was all-out attack on the black panther party. every significant office is going to be raided. it's going to be bombed. it's going to be shot. they're going to be mass arrests. in the pre-dawn hours in chicago

today, police and negroes fought a... police and black panthers clash in houston, new orleans, and other cities. for the black panther party it was a crisis situation, because we didn't have the resources to handle all these arrests and all these trials. contributions to panther defense fund? contributions to the panther defense fund? they're trying to either wipe out the panther party

by jailing all the members andwiping them out economically, financially, or violently, through killing them. after all, they're just...they're just negroes, you know. in other cities the pantherswere under physical attack from police departments. but new york city, it was going to handle its panther problem differently. they created a conspiracy case that allowed them to arrest the entire leadership of the

new york city black panther party. a new york grand jury has indicted 21 alleged black panthers on charges of plotting several bombings in the city tomorrow. on april 2, 1969, in, pre-dawn raids, 21 black panthers were charged with all kinds of terrorist activity. these are some of the men the police are accusing of being involved in the plot, which

could have wounded or killedscores of busy new yorkers. 12 men were arrested today,two are already in jail, and seven more are still at large. and so the panther 21 started. i had just turned 16 years old, but i had already become a section leader. when they first kicked in thedoor of my grandmother's house at 4 o'clock in the morning, i thought wow, i'm important enough to be arrested.

i'm a real panther now. there was a feeling that it was a badge of honor. this was the most important place in the nation at that time for the party. it was spreading all over the east coast... from new haven, baltimore,everywhere, it was spreading. this group, 21 people, was the leadership of the new york area, all tiedup in court with $100,000 bails which none of them could make.

we were facing 360 plus years in prison, and i began to feel and accept the fact that i was going to spend the rest of my life in prison. is riddled with informers who are intent on creating situations in order to bring forth such indictmentsin an attempt to destroy... are you saying that they try to frame them? no question about it. i mean, i told the jury

that maybe the police started the party. people who've come back to new york are going to work full time until the panther 21 and the people accused are allowed to get a fair trial. we spent a lot of time building awareness and doing fundraisers. and then we had to have high profile fundraisers, because this kind of money that we needed couldn't come from the black community.

we would wind up doing fundraisers at places like jane fonda's townhouse so that we could raise money for the legal defense fund we'd all be in our leather jackets. we all would have our berets. some of us would be packing. some of us wouldn't. the only people that would speak would be the two people that was designated to speak.

they would speak. the rest of us would just line the walls, fold our arms, and look like black panthers... like, you know, we was ready to kill somebody. and them stars, they loved that shit. they just ate that shit up, you know. after a 13-month trial where new york statespent millions of dollars and put dozens of witnesses andhundreds of pieces of evidence,

a jury deliberated for three hours. the jury have considered all the counts and charges against the defendants and have found them not guilty. there were 156 not guilty verdicts. it was astonishing. courtroom erupted. the city erupted. there were people dancing in the streets as word spread.

come on over. jury, defendants, everybody,we're all here... 640 broadway. most of thedefendants have been in jail for more than twoyears, unable to raise the high bail set for them. the trial lasted eight months. the jury reached its verdict of innocent on all counts in less than four hours, concluding the longest criminal proceeding

in new york state history. what it was on the part of the jury to me... i don't know how each individualjuror feels... but together they have rejected, once and for all, a society which refuses to allow change. they said, you must allowpeople to get together and think about changing life and the way they live. and it's a beautiful victory. even as the new york 21 are being acquitted,

you're seeing smaller trials, other trials pop up really all over the country. some of them result in acquittals, some of them result in convictions, but this really consumes most of the party's energy. people were afraid to join. they knew that it was infiltrated. they knew that they would be watched immediately. they were afraid of being prosecuted unjustly.

nobody wants to go near suchan organization that's so hot. i was part of planning a demonstration against vietnam at the 1968 democratic conventionin chicago. bobby seale was invited to speak. the revolution in this country at the time is in fact people coming forth to demand freedom. he then left and didn't have anything to do with the demonstrations or riots

or confrontations in chicago, but he was arrestedon the advice of the fbi, and he was later indicted for that speech. bobby seale asked to have his... to postpone the trial until his lawyer, charles gary, could come to chicago. the judge refused, and then bobby said well, i'll represent myself. it started when seale demanded

to cross examine a prosecution witness, accusing the judge of denying his constitutional rights to defend himself. the judge ordered him to sit down and be quiet, but the fiery black panther leader continued to cry out. the judge told the marshals to hold him down, and that started several days of insanity. this stuff is a lie. we have a right to.

i'll represent myeslf. he kept insisting on his right to represent himself, and the judge's response to that was to order the bailiffs to put gaffer tape over his mouth and tie him to his chair. i mean, it couldn't have been more definitive if they had put a sign on him saying slave. you know. but it turned out bobby could make noise and say

things through the gag. stop the trial. one of the most amazing phenomena of that time was outside the federal court building there was a plaza. it was right in the heart of town, right in the middle of the loop. and these kids were coming downfrom the courtroom, and they... with fire in their eyes, having just seen that madness up there.

and all of a sudden, one day this black orator... who at that time was 20 years old... starts talking to these people, and all of a sudden it's like a magnet. the deputy chairman of the illinois black panther party, fred hampton. and i just want to tell you that the chairman of the black panther party is going to be ungagged and they're going to have to take those chains off him.

bobby seale's going through all types of physical and mental torture, but that's all right, because we said even beforethis happened and we're going to say it after this, and after i'm locked up and after everyone's locked up, that you can jail a revolutionary, but you can't jail a revolution. right. you may run a liberator like eldridge out the country, but you can't run a liberation out the country.

you might murder a freedom fighter like bobby hutton, but you can't murder freedom fighting. whatever it was, fred had it. when he got up in front of a group of people, the words just flowed. you were awash in the words, ok? it was like that. and i don't care how many people were there... it's like he was talking to you.

that's a dangerous person. he wasn't above us. he was one of us. i'm the deputy chairman of the state of illinois black panther party, fred hampton. by the time he was 17, he was the head of the naacp youth branch. he was already experienced by the time the illinois chapter

of the panther party was formed, so he was a natural choice to lead it. we say all power to all people. fred spoke in the people's church in august of 1969, and i was in the crowd. toward the end of his speech, he said, everybody stand up, and we did. and he says, now raise your right hand. say this... i am a revolutionary.

i am a revolutionary. and i couldn't say it,because i thought to myself, i'm a lawyer for the movement. i'm not a revolutionary. and then he said it again...i am a revolutionary. and by the third or fourth time, i was saying a revolutionary as loud as anybody else in the room. we say white power to white people.

white power to white people. brown power to brown people. yellow power to yellow people. black power to black people. we say panther power to defend our party. a lot of us thought that we were on the eve of a revolutionary situation here in the united states. we used to call, the panther party

the vanguard of the movement, because they were out in the forefront. they were kind of setting the pathway. the things that we would face some repression for, they would face it 10 times as great. they were, sacrificing their... oftentimes their lives in the struggle. and these people, this class have divided themselves.

they say i'm black and i hate white people. i'm white and i hate black people. i'm latin american and i hate hillbillies. i'm a hillbilly and i hate indians. so we're fighting amongst each other. fred hampton, here in chicago, was the main voice for racial unity. the black panther party stood up and said that we don't care what anybody said.

we don't need to fight fire with fire. yes, we better fight fire with water. yes, we're going to fight racisim not with racism, but we're going to fight with solidarity. we worked with organizationssuch as the young lords... a puerto rican street gangthat had become political... and the young patriots, hillbillies, appalachian white boys. bob lee, who was our deputy field marshal,

had a meeting with them, and he was explaining why we should work together. the coalition that fred was building in chicago represented the latinos, the poor whites and poor blacks. but also, because he had been in the naacp, he had linkages with folks whoin the congregations, or church folks, and with working class folks. so fred was building a broad-based coalition

in chicago, and that was the threat. j. edgar hoover most feared young whites uniting with the blacks' struggle. and he was most afraid of, what he called a black messiah, rising up out of this movement. fred hampton was very good at running an organization. he could delegate responsibility. he could spot talent.

the one thing that he failed to spot, however, was the fbi plant... who was, of course, his personal bodyguard. i routinely supplied whatever floor plans or diagrams i could, to the fbi. i... that started in june, 1969. i mean, they had a floor plan and keys to the black panther headquarters. december 3, 1969, there was a rally

at the people's church on the west side of chicago. and it was one of those rallies where fred gave one of those speeches. i don't believe i'm going to die in a car wreck. i don't believe i'm going to die from slipping on a piece of ice. i don't believe that i'm going to die because i've got a bad heart.

why don't you heal for the people? why don't you struggle for the people? why don't you die for the people? close to 12 midnight, william o'neal came and picked me up and brought me back to our apartment. chairman fred had been running 24/7 trying to organize, so he fell asleep. i was 8 and 1/2 months pregnant with our son,

so i fell asleep too. police attached to the cook county state's attorney's office raided a chicago apartment shared by two high ranking members of the black panther party before dawn today. the police were acting on a tip that a supply of weapons was in the apartment. the state's attorney recreated the layout of the panther apartment

and, made arrangements for them to produce his version of what happened. he stands up. i stepped over and i put the machine... in short bursts. we realized that there arestill some people remaining... and before i could get past the threshold, there were three shotsfired from the rear bedroom. the immediate, violent, criminal reaction

of the occupants in shooting at announced police officers emphasizes the extreme viciousness of the black panther party. so does their refusal to cease firing at the police officers when urged to do so several times. when the 15-minute gun battle was over, two black panthers were dead. police and panthers differ about what happened. in the apartment, we received no warning,

no tear gas... nothing to offer us to surrender or come out. bullets start coming through the walls... plaster flying. saw bullets coming, i mean, looked like the front of the apartment, from the kitchen area. they were... the police were just shooting. this cop stepped to the door with a sub-machine gun and you could see was a silhouette. and the muzzle flash as he fired, you know,

a fully automatic weapon into, a room that was barely six feet wide. i laid on top of chairman fred, and i could feel even through him the mattress vibrating. you could feel the bullets gong into you. i just knew we'd be dead, everybody in there. cop stepped back in and, fired off another round, hit me in the hips. everything was like this, it was just going so fast.

we told them we were wounded, and they said come out with your hands up. one of them grabbed my robe and they swung it open and say what do you? we got a broad here. and then another one grabbed my hair and slung me into the kitchen area. i heard a voice say, he's barely alive. he's... he'll barely make it.

they started shooting again. i heard a sister screamand they stopped shooting. police said he's good and dead now. the police made what must be a historic type of blunder in leaving the apartment open. so right away people went in there. i stepped into the living room and there was blood, fred's blood, pouring from... all the way from the bedroom in the very back of house,

out into... from the kitchen into the living room. it was like a slaughterhouse and there was blood all over the place. when we lifted the mattress up to look underneath, three 45-caliber machine gunslugs fell out of the mattress. only one shot came from a panther weapon, because mark clark, a young kid who answered the door was shot in the heart as he answered the door and the gun

dropped and went off through the ceiling. all of the splinters were coming into the apartment. so we said, this was a shoot-in. it wasn't a shootout. there's gas that the police department uses as standard equipment that nobody can stand to stay in the room with it. they could have shot four canisters of gas and then waited outside for everybody to come out.

then this was, this was planned? this was a plan to get fred hampton? all indications to me, personally, that this was, obviously a political assassination. i don't think anybody would have expected the police to commit just murder. it takes a certain kind of guy to carry that out. they lied about what happened that night. much of what they said happened couldn't

have happened the way they say that it happened. today many blacks came to the house where fred hampton was killed to see for themselves. don't touch nothing. don't move nothing because we want to keep everything just the way it is. they fired through the door and hit the brother through the door. the brother was shot four or five times,

though after they came through the door, they shot him again to make sure he was dead. this is where our chairman had his brains blown out as he, laying in bed sleeping at 4:30 in the morning. i do not intend to quibble about that account. do you know that it's the truth? the account that we gave of the events is the truth. it was a death squad that did this raid. it was a police death squad, and the

whole thing was set up by the fbi. the fbi gave william o'neal a $300 bonus because of his information being so valuable and not available for any other source. internally, the fbi was braggingand taking credit for the raid. publicly they were denying anyknowledge or participation. the funeral of the slain panther leader was marked by angry eulogies, including one from ralph abernathy, head of the non-violent

southern christian leadership conference. enjoy your peace, freddie, because there will be no peace in this land until freedom comes to all. we are going to trample these streets with our feet. the last message that i think that fred would've, wanted everybody to hear... and that is i am... i am. a revolutionary. i am...

we didn't know when it was going to happen, but we felt there was something about to happen. we were filling up sandbags, fortifying the headquarters, putting sand in the walls, putting sandbags around the entrance to the office. well, we were actually trying to build a tunnel to the sewer line.

if the police attacked us, we were going to escape into the sewers, and you know, we were going to set charges on the building and blow the building after we left. it seemed like it was more... it was more, police presence around. we were getting stopped more. we were getting harassed more. i think they found out

that it was a different climate for them here. we'd stop them, we'd searchthem, we'd shake them down. and i think we did establish that we were the dominating force. the special weapons and tactics concept was formed in 1966. the original swat team in the united states... or anywhere, for that matter... was the lapd swat team. and in, this particular case, this was the first time,

the swat team was activatedto serve a high risk warrant. it was decided that a no-knockwarrant would be utilized, and surprise would be theelement that you would use. a very close friend was workingintelligence, and he told me, he said, pat, these guys think they're going up against some street hoodlums. he said, they're not. they're fighters andthey're shooters. don't be at the door.

i am on watch on the roof,and it's a real quiet night. everything is just still. you don't hear anything. the access to that roof on the other side... pow! it breaks open. by the time i was swinging around i'm seeing the lights on me. they had a big light, and i'm hearing the whole... freeze, freeze!

still, drop it! and the front door blew open... went boom! well, pat had went in the gun room. we had a thompson sub-machine gun, put it down with thatthompson... wa wa wa wa wa wa wa. and he sprays across the... across the roof. you could see it in the light from the street. and i was seeing, it was like... at the time, man, i'm going to tell you, that instance,

it was the best music i ever heard. and then all of a sudden my gun just went off. i don't know what happened. the gun just went off, you know, so we had them in flank in front. and then paul redd got down. he got busy, and we drove them out the front door. three officers were down and the gun fight continued as the officers were drug out of the way

by other officers. peaches and tommy were two sisters that were there. they went into the communication, which is, you know, start calling the news media and calling national headquarters and calling everybody they could call. five minutes after 10, about four and 1/2 hours afterthe original raid this morning. all right. running down the streetnow toward the building.

going to see what's going on. there are police officers, looklike vietnam combat uniforms, with automatic weapons, calling us back. shotguns everywhere you can look. i looked at the tv. channel 5 had it on live. so i'm feeling like i can sneak in the back and join them some kind of way...it's crazy as i'm thinking. there's a large group of people right now.

they're putting the pressure on the police to allow us to stay so we can witness this. when the police was trying to creep up on the side, you could see them, their reflection, through the windows across the street. when they got close enough, they would tell me, ok, throw it now, throw it now. then they'd throw the damn bombout the window and the police,

they'd blow up and they'd run back and shit. we see this little cloud ofsmoke come, and it just moved. and that's the tear gas. back in those days everybody smoked all the time. so what we did was we put the cigarette butts in our nose to filter out the fumes. we're looking right at the panther headquarters. the devastation is astounding. the whole front of the buildinghas been shot up... bullet holes

all over the place, front door smashed down, screens ripped out. i got shot here, got shot in the arm, missed... they missed my head here. i got buckshot all in me. they shot that room up, you know. so this arm was dead. so now i'm up there with just one arm, bleeding all down the face and stuff.

but i'm alive. i felt free. i felt absolutely free. and i was a free negro, you know. i was making my own rules. you couldn't get in. i couldn't get out. but in my space, i was the king. in that little space i had, i was the king.

and that's what i felt. you understand? that's what i felt. we had riflemen across the street... on the roofs they were shooting into the... well, the shooting ports of the building that the panthers had created. panthers, on the other hand, were shooting back out. tommy had come downstairsand she was laying behind me, like in a t.

you could see, a sunbeamwent across her legs like that. so like, you need to move. and she... you know, she didn't,she just kept talking and shit. next thing, you hear a shot go off. the bullet went through both her legs, like that. so you know, at this time wehad pretty much got shot out. you know, we were saving enough bullets that when they came in the door that we would have some bullets toshoot back with, you know.

and i mean, it was like... it wasn't like it took no brain scientist to figure out, well, this shit is over with. we were talking about giving up, and, you know, all the brothers saying well, man, i'm ain't going out there, man. i'm not giving up. and for like 30 minutes, it just want around. i'm not going out first.

and i'm not going out first. we'll die in this motherfucker. peaches said i'll go out there. and i said, peaches. she said, no, i'll go. there's a white flag coming out the door. it's a woman. she's holding her hands up. and she went outside and peaches gave up.

and when they didn't shoot peaches there, we came out one at a time. that's how that went. it was a big glorious shootout, but after they raided us they had all the players locked up. all of the main players was in jail. we want huey out today. for about three years, the black panthers have used huey newton's name

for a rallying cry, demanding that he be freed from jail, where he is held on a charge of killing a police officer. the words "free huey newton" have been chalked and spray painted on a thousand fences and walls. this spring, the california supreme court found some errors in his trial and ordered a new trial. when the case was given to the jury, they were sequestered for four days to deliberate.

it was extremely tense. you could feel the energy and the tension in the air. people were talking about doingall types of things, you know. and oakland could explode, you know. matter of fact, every city across america could explode that day. the panthers had been gettingready for guerrilla warfare, and they said the sky's the limit if the jury convicted him.

we want huey! shouting we want huey now, the crowd got their wish. at this hour huey newton is a free man. everybody was just jubilant that day. finally he gets to walk out of that jail a free man. the sky was the limit and the sky turned blue. the image that was mobilizedto create the free huey movement gave huey almost mythic status in the party.

he had become an image and not a man, and that gave him power thatultimately proved dangerous. come to the clinic tomorrow for an appointment. he came out focusing on returning to the survivalprogram, the breakfast program, the free health clinics, free food program, and the sickle cellanemia research program. i remember huey p. newtonsaying the black panther party

was not going to last. he said the organizationwas going to get destroyed, based on the way we were. we were very aggressive, and we kind of realized that this wasn't going to last long. we know those arenot revolutionary programs. they are, at best, survival programs. we know that the people arein jeopardy of genocide, and that if they do not survive then

it won't be possible to bring about revolution. we were really trying to connect more with the people in the community. and this was, this was a big push. and there was probably somepeople who were not happy. we have a breakfast forchildren program here. but that's not what the blackpanther party is all about, you see. i don't agree with saying thatthe black panther party,

supports breakfast for children and that's all that we're about, you know. don't talk about this other thing. the black panther party is foroverthrowing the united states government. those people who were onthe other side of this issue politically did not see the black panther party as a vehicle for social service. we saw it as a vehicle forpolitical transformation,

radical change... for revolution. so we couldn't get excited about survival. eldridge cleaver, who... while sitting comfortably in algeria... was assailing the black pantherparty as being weak, and it didn't have any more muscle, and it was a reform organization, a breakfast for children club, and he denounced the party and he denounced the administrator... chief

administrator of the party at that time, who was david hilliard. he wanted to have even moreblood shed, which was not endearing us to the community. there were also problems with the panther 21 case there were legal fees. and there became questionsabout how much of the money that was raised for the panther 21 was actually getting backto defend the panther 21.

we wrote an open letter reallycriticizing national leadership and huey p. newton. and the response of national leadership... and in particular huey p. newton... was to kick out the panther 21. they were expelled from the panther party. eldridge came to thedefense of the panther 21. the black panther party has split it into two factions, namely the cleaver

and newton supporters. this dissension offers anexceptional opportunity to aggravate and possibly neutralize through counterintelligence. the fbi was picking at hueyand picking at eldridge. and i don't know whoelse they were picking at to create this sense of distrust. in the future, submit counterintelligenceproposals against the cleaver

faction in the black panther party designed to widen the existing rift, effectively driving a wedge betweennewton and eldridge cleaver. ensure this mailing cannotbe traced to the bureau. what we thought the fbi wanted to do was kill us, blow up our offices, shoot us. i don't think we understood exactly how insidious their project was. they created a culture of paranoia

which was incredibly destructive. in this sense, it was theultimate intelligence success, being able to pit the party against itself. and the panthers internal conflict would soon erupt in the mainstream media. good morning. yes, it's am all right, and this is jim dunbar with nancyfleming and gary bentley. we had become aware of some sort

of a rift that had come topass between huey and eldridge. we had booked huey andarranged the call from eldridge in algeria to take advantage of that. we've got lots of things comingup here on am this morning... lots of things that you'll like to see, and we're looking forward tothem too, right here on am. i'll not try to sugarcoat this. we thought this is a wonderfulopportunity to build audience, and so we decided to goahead and put the two of them

together. huey's goal in having eldridge on the show was to show people that he andeldridge were on the same page. and eldridge sabotaged that, so huey was livid. he was embarrassed. he was furious. and so within 10 minutes or so he called back. it was a split in the party, and within days we began to feel just how bad it was.

someone has to be disciplined,and my recommendation is to discipline eldridge cleaver... not for the criticism itself, but, the way in which it was presented. the word got back to us that eldridge had put out theedict that the streets were not supposed to safe for panthers. whether he said that or not...he was in algeria, we were here. who knows?

it was chaos. it was certain chapters that stayed with huey. many of the people who followedeldridge leave the party and go underground. and then some people justwere confused and frustrated and walked away. they don't know which factionof the black panther party to follow or if they shoulddeal with panthers at all. the party had leaders who at that point

were not worthy of thededication of their followers. and i think that that was probably the worst aspect of the party, is that i think some of the followers felt betrayed by their leaders. and the split becomes so deepthat it erupts, in some cases, into violence, into fights and into shootings, between panthers. this is exactly what the bureau, in fact,

wanted to see happen in the first place. this was part of what thecointelpro operations were really all about. j. edgar hoover, in particular, says we've been pitting people against each other. that's all worked out really well. but you know, now we don't evenhave to worry about it anymore. now they're just going tokeep it going on their own and we can step back a little bit

and just let them play it out. in the midst of all of this turmoil, the panthers decide to go in areally radically new direction. bobby seale, the black panther leader, has been in trouble with the law for many years. he's been in prison on somecharges, acquitted on others. and now he's trying to makea new career for himself. he wants to be mayorof oakland, california, where the black panther movement began.

it was nice meeting you. ok, nice meeting you. all right, then. how you all doing? the panthers decide to call members to oakland in an effort to run bobby seale for mayorof oakland and elaine brown for city council. don seale,member of the central committee

of the black panther party, called me at the baltimore chapter office and told me to begin closing down all of our programs. so we were instructed to ceaseand desist all party operations and to bring as many party members from baltimore out to oakland as possible. ultimately they roll the die. they assume that if they'resuccessful in this campaign, this might help to transformone american city.

this might be the blueprint for the future. but they do roll the die. the numbers were dwindling, and therefore the force of the party was dwindling. so it only made sense to consolidate everything and to say, what can we do with what we have? we laid down the guns two years ago. we don't need guns, we said, because we knew we had the ability to really organize and educate

the people and show them, really, some of the concrete thingswe can do in the community. initially, the idea of bobby running for mayor seemed ridiculous. black panther leader bobby seale ran second in his race for mayor of oakland, california, but seale polled just enough votes to force a runoff with the conservative incumbent john reading i think we were shocked

when he ended up in a runoff. but as we got into the campaign and as he started doing his campaignruns, as elaine started doing her campaign speeches,as people started getting... we started galvanizingpeople's enthusiasm, it started looking like he might win. part of the strategy for the campaign was to increase the number of black voters on the rolls in oakland.

we sent people out into thecommunity going door to door, walking the streets,registering people to vote en masse. and we went to the churches, and we went to the dope houses,and we went to the streets, and we went everywhere where the people were, trying to organize people to vote for bobby and elaine. they run an amazing campaign. bobby seale used to ride buses in oakland and do stump speaking on the bus.

and they really took it to the streets in a different way. bobby had made a promise that he was going to giveaway 10,000 bags of groceries with a chicken in every bag. and that was a takeoff on fdr's a chicken in every pot. we counted up and we found out last night it was 6,882 bags weactually gave away last night. and i think that the voter registration is running neck and neck with it.

i'm sure of that, because of a lot of... it blew our minds, so many black people in the black community's unregistered to vote. it was amazing, because they were able to register between 20,000 and 50,000 people to vote. they basically turned their survival programs into a get out the vote apparatus. but in the end, it wasn't enough. mayor john reading of oakland, california

was reelected yesterday in arunoff against bobby seale, the black panther leader. don oliver has that story. looking at the mood in bobby seale's headquarters, you would have thought he won. you know what somebody told me? what did they tell us, bobby? they say, we don't care how the election goes. bobby seale is for.

and they told me this, it blew my mind. you're still our mayor, and we're going to. plan a was for bobby to win, elaine to win, and our slate to win. there wasn't... as far as i could remember... a plan b. once we lost the campaignthere was kind of a... there was a void. it was in theory a great idea that you could marshal this army of organizers

to come to oakland. but for the most part, when all the chapters come back to oakland, the panthers as a national phenomena really, cease. after the elections in oakland, huey newton is known tohave some erratic behavior. people who were very close to him would say that it depends on the day you meet him. some days huey newton couldbe a brilliant, thoughtful

political strategist andcommitted to the liberation of the black people, and another day he could be self-serving and thuggish. i was one of the folks whooriented new panther members, and i oriented them by telling them about what a wonderfulperson huey was and about how he wasthe leader of our party, never knowing what the hell he was. we had created the cult of thepersonality around a fucking

maniac. he surrounded himself with former prisoners, and they became his inner retinue. around 1973,we created a special unit that would protect our leaders and do other kinds of activities related to what huey newton calledthe sterner stuff of politics. we're going to take over the underworld, the underground apparatusof the city of oakland.

we were shaking down the drug dealers, pimps. some people were like, stick up men. it was bringing in revenue. as he became more and more addicted to multiple substances, idon't think he wanted to live and i don't think he wantedthe party to live anymore. from there on, you know, he wasless and less the huey i knew, and more and morelistening to his demons. if huey wanted to see you

or you wanted to see huey, you had to come to his penthouse,which meant that you went up in his elevator, whichmeant that you were searched before you got up there. and when you got up there then you were confronted by thismaniac in his penthouse who did all kinds of thingsto people... physical assault, sexual assault, pistol whipping,threatening to kill. he also became very abusiveto the people around him.

he abused people like bobby. there were changes in the organization. bobby seale left. there were a lot of people whohad been in the organization from the beginning, and, and they left. then there was a time when he was violent withme, and that was why i left the black panther party. i said goodbye as i left, but i left.

dear huey, i've been in the party for 9 and 1/2 years, but i've come to a crossroads in my life. one path is the party and the other path is my personal happiness. i know you're busy, but i see our party falling apart and nothing is being doneto stop this from happening. it was absolutely devastating

for me to leave the black panther party. i felt guilty that i hadn't, you know, stayed to do something... i wasn't sure what. there was no other life. there was no other thing greater. then i learned to live in a world where there was no black panther party. our children are growing up. half the children don't know their parents,

or their parents don't know their children. i want to spend more time with my son. so many are on the verge of leaving because we suffer from loneliness, lack of personal lives and extreme poverty. everybody wanted this gun toting image of the big black... big bad black shaft guy jumping through the window and then, you know, beating everybody up.

i refute that as the image that was put upon us. i'm not shaft. you know, as a black man, that's all i am. i'm just a black man. dear huey, you know i trust that i have felt a virtually infinite respect for, belief in, support of the black panther party. i meant well... god knows imeant well and tried... them too. haven't we all, one way or another?

the great strength of the black panther party was its ideals and itsyouthful vigor and enthusiasm. the great weakness of the party was its ideals and its youthful vigor and its enthusiasm. that sometimes can be very dangerous, especially when you're up against the united states government. if there's anything i can do that would truly progress the people,

let me know. i may not be a member of the black panther party, but i will always be a black panther. all power to the people. peace and freedom to the world. we made mistakes. we charged ahead too fast andwere too arrogant sometimes. we certainly underestimatedthe police and the government in terms of their response to the black panther party.

but i think what remains true,the central guiding principle, was an undying love for the people. the black panther party platform and program... what we want, what we believe. we want decent housing fit forthe shelter of human beings. we want education for our people. to police brutality and murder of black people. we what land, bread, housing,education, clothing, justice, peace.