Autolycus
Member
Chui: So your source is a book that your not sure of the name of and you didnt even finish reading?
Well it must be the truth...
Well it must be the truth...
Black Panthers, forty years ago
- Thread starter Monkeyleg
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1911 guy
Member
BPP, KKK and others.
Most, if not all, groups that we tend to look at skeptically now served a useful purpose at their inception.
First the Klan. Not the revived pseudo KKK of the 1900's and today, but the original. It served a legitimate need in the south during Reconstruction. It was disbanded by it's founders when they saw it no longer serving the need it was created for. The KKK today is nothing more than a hate mongering group.
Then the Molly Macguires. A pretty violent bunch, but they had an end in mind that bore out their actions. Not to say the end always justifies the means, but at least it was a plan, not random violence. Back then they were considered Robin Hoods, pulling for the working man. Today we would label them domestic terrorists.
The Black Panthers fall into the same catalogue of a need to work outside the system. The sixties saw laws passed that made everybody equal in theory, but put blacks even further down the totem pole due to lack of enforcement and resentment from the mainstream. I'm too young to remember all the goings on, but I have friends and family who remeber some of the stuff pretty vividly. My Grandad (I'm from a white family in the midwest) told stories of going to Tennessee in the early sixties. The blatant discrimination seems foreign to me. I have a co-worker who grew up in Atlanta in the fifties and sixties. If it weren't for the history books, I'd think he was pulling my leg.
It's an American ideal, to work within the system as far as possible, then work outside it when the system fails and you know you're right. When you cross the line between right and wrong (not legal/illegal) you are judged harshly by history. Examples are the KKK and the Mollies. The Klan is shunned by mainstream America because of their actions in the first half of the twentieth century, the Mollies are regarded as the founders of the organized labor movement, now called unions.
If the Panthers had been a majority repressed by a powerful minority, they'd be lauded as heros today. Since they were a minority, they get a "eh, oh well."
Most, if not all, groups that we tend to look at skeptically now served a useful purpose at their inception.
First the Klan. Not the revived pseudo KKK of the 1900's and today, but the original. It served a legitimate need in the south during Reconstruction. It was disbanded by it's founders when they saw it no longer serving the need it was created for. The KKK today is nothing more than a hate mongering group.
Then the Molly Macguires. A pretty violent bunch, but they had an end in mind that bore out their actions. Not to say the end always justifies the means, but at least it was a plan, not random violence. Back then they were considered Robin Hoods, pulling for the working man. Today we would label them domestic terrorists.
The Black Panthers fall into the same catalogue of a need to work outside the system. The sixties saw laws passed that made everybody equal in theory, but put blacks even further down the totem pole due to lack of enforcement and resentment from the mainstream. I'm too young to remember all the goings on, but I have friends and family who remeber some of the stuff pretty vividly. My Grandad (I'm from a white family in the midwest) told stories of going to Tennessee in the early sixties. The blatant discrimination seems foreign to me. I have a co-worker who grew up in Atlanta in the fifties and sixties. If it weren't for the history books, I'd think he was pulling my leg.
It's an American ideal, to work within the system as far as possible, then work outside it when the system fails and you know you're right. When you cross the line between right and wrong (not legal/illegal) you are judged harshly by history. Examples are the KKK and the Mollies. The Klan is shunned by mainstream America because of their actions in the first half of the twentieth century, the Mollies are regarded as the founders of the organized labor movement, now called unions.
If the Panthers had been a majority repressed by a powerful minority, they'd be lauded as heros today. Since they were a minority, they get a "eh, oh well."
Spartacus451
Member
So back then you had to break the law to get put through the wringer? I can't believe they let them off without some pain and humiliation.
Well I think that is also what avoided many shootouts and standoffs like we see today. People expected the police to come and only arrest or slam on the ground and detain someone who was breaking a major law. Today they would expect conflict at the arrival of the police, back then the police arriving did not automaticly mean a violent confrontation and handcuffing was inevitable. CA was often a beacon of racial fairness and tolerance back then as it did not have the history of other parts of the nation.
This very incident is one of the main reasons of the 1968 gun control act passing. Of course that would later be strengthened by the 1986 laws. Such people could now be arrested, legaly disarmed for life, and unable to vote meaning thier 'representatives' would really have no reason to talk with them, ever.
Actualy it is these very groups the constitution was designed to protect. You see our founding fathers were "separatists". The ideology of our second Amendment was to insure nobody could be strong armed and made to comply by government forces with a monopoly of force against the will of the people. That all people would be armed, and that all could quickly become what we would today see as insurgents and terrorists if necessary. It was believed that if this was the case nobody could ever impose tyranny on such people. I am inclined to believe such a perspective is correct especialy when you look at places like Iraq where we will soon be retreating from such insurgents even though we have the most powerful military on the planet. It costs too much and they choose when and where and how long to attack for.
Our founding fathers wanted to insure every American had the means to defend against both foriegn and domestic tyranny in similar fashion. Nobody could force such people to submit. This was a real threat as the British or even another nation with far more military might could try to take back America. But a government's power and influance is only as great as the people believe it is. You could land and declare yourself the King all you want but if nobody believes you have any jurisdiction or right to rule then you will not have any power. You could try to force it, but if they are all armed in a way that can hassle and terrorize and oppose your own forces you have a time limit and they do not. Such a place is more resistant to conquest.
Such groups already widely existed throughout America and varied from town to town. Most towns had a "militia" that was most men that had arms and would respond to threats. These various militias and thier perspectives and political views were quite different from town to town. Some were quite radical, others were not. Some were religious "extremists" of the day like mormons (there were even Mormon wars) and Catholics (most of America was not Catholic and resented them as they were subject to foriegn rule through vatican policies), and others not felt to be so radical. All were felt to posses the same inalienable right. Because as long as all the various differing opinions and groups were armed and could oppose tyranny the others could not force them to live the way they felt was right.
So the ideal of the founding fathers was more to create a permanent stalemate that would be harmful to any party that attempted to break it, foriegn or domestic. A nation of potential Guerrillas always ready and capable.
To deal with fringe elements when they arose with force, but to protect thier right to exist in order to balance power. From this environment people could create thier free lives and prosper. This was very successful, but also kinda wild. It created the beacon of hope that people all over the world traveled to because even though it was kinda wild and dangerous, it was free and you could fail miserably or succeed greatly. It was the land of the free and the home of the brave. Only someone quite Brave would give up the security elsewhere to try to make it big in America.
Things have changed since then, but when I hear someone speaking of getting rid of and persecuting fringe elements and denying them rights I feel inclined to remind you they are the very reason you have the RKBA.
Monkeyleg
Member.
Great post, Zoogster.
It's always been my understanding that the GCA of '68 was the culmination of the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and then finally the actions of the Black Panthers in Oakland, and the politicians said, "man, we're all targets, and we'd better do something."
It's always been my understanding that the GCA of '68 was the culmination of the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and then finally the actions of the Black Panthers in Oakland, and the politicians said, "man, we're all targets, and we'd better do something."
davec
Member
No, you can thank cowardly white politicians who wet their pants at the idea of free black men exercising their god given right to keep and bear firearms.
Any free man who takes up arms against tyranny is a patriot. And in the 1960's and earlier in America, black men and women lived under tyranny. Especially in the South.
I do not believe its any coincidence that the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act came to a quick end after Malcolm X delivered his 'Ballot or the Bullet" speech.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/malcolmxballotorbullet.htm
Autolycus
Member
I would think that we need more men like the Black Panthers today. To many people are afraid to stand up for their rights. I think that unity displayed by the Panthers helped bolster the courage of the men in the organization.
freakazoid
member
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I also agree. They where willing to do something that it would appear that many today are to afraid of doing, something that needs to be done before our inalienable rights are cmopletely taken away. Something needs to change.
yokel
Member
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- Apr 29, 2007
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A gutsy move to be sure on the part of the Panthers, however, it evidently proved to be counterproductive in this instance.
I suppose that those guys do warrant a tip of the hat for their courage, pluck, and determination. They showed that they were quite prepared to "walk the talk" and pay a fearsome price for it if need be.
I suppose that those guys do warrant a tip of the hat for their courage, pluck, and determination. They showed that they were quite prepared to "walk the talk" and pay a fearsome price for it if need be.
I'm actually fond of them. You see, in spite of the communist rhetoric and other silliness of some of their members they DID take responsibility for their own community and for securing their own rights.
A much better position compared to the modern Jackson/Sharpton victimocracy.
A much better position compared to the modern Jackson/Sharpton victimocracy.
BPP
The American Black Panthers were probably the most violently racist of all the black groups in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and its leaders promoted their organisation as one which advocated self-help and keeping drugs out of black communities across the United States. The original philosophy behind the Panthers combined militant black nationalism with Marxism-Leninism (later Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh would inspire them) and advocated black empowerment and self-defense, often through confrontation. During its heyday, members of the Black Panthers shot more than a dozen law-enforcement officers. Today, former Panthers Eddie Conway, Mumia Abu-Jamal, H. Rap Brown, Ed Poindexter and David Rice are serving life sentences.
Panther Eldridge Cleaver was responsible for the international wing of the party. In 1969 he had fled from to Algeria after a period of time in Cuba. He had served almost 12 years in prison on a variety of assault with intent to murder, drug, rape and theft charges. Cleaver once claimed that violating white women had political intentions. Cleaver wrote, “I became a rapist. To refine my technique and modus operandi, I started out practicing on black girls… and when I considered myself smooth enough I crossed the tracks and sought out white prey. I did this consciously, deliberately, wilfully, methodically… rape was an insurrectionary act. It delighted me that I was defying and trampling upon the white man’s laws, upon his system of values, and I was defiling his women... I felt I was getting revenge... "I wanted to send waves of consternation through the white race."
According to former Black Panther supporter, Sol Stern, Newton, Cleaver and their colleagues were nothing but, “… psychopathic criminals, not social reformers… a torrent of articles and books, many written by former sympathizers, has voluminously documented the Panther reign of murder and larceny within their own community. So much so that no one but a left wing crank could still believe in the Panther myth of dedicated young blacks ‘serving the people’ while heroically defending themselves against unprovoked attacks by the racist police.”
Another leading light of the movement, Bobby Seale, admitted in 2002 that the Panthers were indeed criminals. He agreed with former Black Panther supporter, David Horowitz, who said the Panthers were responsible for at least 12 murders and were effectively a criminal gang no better than the Mafia. Horowitz stated, “The Panthers were – just as the police and other Panther detractors said at the time – a criminal army at war with society and with its thin blue line of civic protectors… The story of the Panthers’ crimes is not unknown. But it is either uninteresting or unbelievable to a progressive culture that still regards white racism as the primary cause of all ills in black America, and militant thugs like the Panthers as mere victims of politically inspired repression… the existence of a Murder Incorporated in the heart of the American left is something the Left really doesn’t want to know or think about... They were attempting to launch a civil war in America that would have resulted in unimaginable bloodshed.”
Also:
The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was an underground, black nationalist-Marxist organization that operated in the United States from 1971 to 1981. Comprised largely of former Black Panthers (BPP), the organization's program was one of "armed struggle" and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States."[1] To this end, members carried out a series of bombings, robberies (what participants termed "expropriations") and prison breaks.
Patriots? Hardly.
The American Black Panthers were probably the most violently racist of all the black groups in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and its leaders promoted their organisation as one which advocated self-help and keeping drugs out of black communities across the United States. The original philosophy behind the Panthers combined militant black nationalism with Marxism-Leninism (later Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh would inspire them) and advocated black empowerment and self-defense, often through confrontation. During its heyday, members of the Black Panthers shot more than a dozen law-enforcement officers. Today, former Panthers Eddie Conway, Mumia Abu-Jamal, H. Rap Brown, Ed Poindexter and David Rice are serving life sentences.
Panther Eldridge Cleaver was responsible for the international wing of the party. In 1969 he had fled from to Algeria after a period of time in Cuba. He had served almost 12 years in prison on a variety of assault with intent to murder, drug, rape and theft charges. Cleaver once claimed that violating white women had political intentions. Cleaver wrote, “I became a rapist. To refine my technique and modus operandi, I started out practicing on black girls… and when I considered myself smooth enough I crossed the tracks and sought out white prey. I did this consciously, deliberately, wilfully, methodically… rape was an insurrectionary act. It delighted me that I was defying and trampling upon the white man’s laws, upon his system of values, and I was defiling his women... I felt I was getting revenge... "I wanted to send waves of consternation through the white race."
According to former Black Panther supporter, Sol Stern, Newton, Cleaver and their colleagues were nothing but, “… psychopathic criminals, not social reformers… a torrent of articles and books, many written by former sympathizers, has voluminously documented the Panther reign of murder and larceny within their own community. So much so that no one but a left wing crank could still believe in the Panther myth of dedicated young blacks ‘serving the people’ while heroically defending themselves against unprovoked attacks by the racist police.”
Another leading light of the movement, Bobby Seale, admitted in 2002 that the Panthers were indeed criminals. He agreed with former Black Panther supporter, David Horowitz, who said the Panthers were responsible for at least 12 murders and were effectively a criminal gang no better than the Mafia. Horowitz stated, “The Panthers were – just as the police and other Panther detractors said at the time – a criminal army at war with society and with its thin blue line of civic protectors… The story of the Panthers’ crimes is not unknown. But it is either uninteresting or unbelievable to a progressive culture that still regards white racism as the primary cause of all ills in black America, and militant thugs like the Panthers as mere victims of politically inspired repression… the existence of a Murder Incorporated in the heart of the American left is something the Left really doesn’t want to know or think about... They were attempting to launch a civil war in America that would have resulted in unimaginable bloodshed.”
Also:
The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was an underground, black nationalist-Marxist organization that operated in the United States from 1971 to 1981. Comprised largely of former Black Panthers (BPP), the organization's program was one of "armed struggle" and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States."[1] To this end, members carried out a series of bombings, robberies (what participants termed "expropriations") and prison breaks.
Patriots? Hardly.
Autolycus
Member
Got a source for that?
Autolycus
Member
And what you do not seem to understand is that just because someone killed a LEO does not mean they are a monster. At that time the police were JBT towards the majority of black men and women in America.
And you make it seem as if someone who subscribes to some of the ideals of Marxism or Leninism is automatically evil.
And you make it seem as if someone who subscribes to some of the ideals of Marxism or Leninism is automatically evil.
Sistema1927
Member
No laws were broken. No shots were fired. Nobody was shot.
+1,000 (But, I would have capitalized God.)
Racism, the ugly root of all gun control.
+1,000 (But, I would have capitalized God.)
Racism, the ugly root of all gun control.
Zundfolge
Member
The Black Panthers are to the Second Amendment what Pornographers are to the First.
If we are all indeed free men, then there are going to be some free men that exercise their freedom in ways the rest don't like.
Unfortunately, instead of staying out of the way of good people confronting these evils on their own, government always feels the need to come in and "fix the problem" for us and ends up stripping the good of their rights (and the evil just keep on doin' what they were doin' anyway).
If we are all indeed free men, then there are going to be some free men that exercise their freedom in ways the rest don't like.
Unfortunately, instead of staying out of the way of good people confronting these evils on their own, government always feels the need to come in and "fix the problem" for us and ends up stripping the good of their rights (and the evil just keep on doin' what they were doin' anyway).
freakazoid
member
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2007
- Messages
- 108
ctdonath
Member
No.
It is a dark-humor reference to the Jonestown Massacre of 1978, where all the inhabitants of a cult commune, on orders from their crazed leader Jim Jones, drank grape Kool-Aid poisoned with cyanide. Over 900 people died.
The medium for the mass murder/suicide somehow worked its way into political vernacular as variations of "you/he drank the kool-aid", meaning "you are too accepting of the worst ideas of my political opposition."
In this thread specifically, you wrote "Communism is one of the reasons they believed that they have a right to firearms", and Chui (in a darkly humorous manner) is accusing you of actually believing such an absurd notion (as once the revolution ends, the FIRST thing communist leaders will do is take away all the guns from all the people, and going so far as on-the-spot murdering anyone who even suggests what you wrote). The term he used applies because you have obviously accepted a sweet-tasting idea that, if brought about, would kill you.
It's not a drug reference.
Helmetcase
Member
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2005
- Messages
- 706
I haven't posted here in a while, been quite busy...but this thread will bring me out of the woodwork.
Arguing about communism and whether the BPP's were bad people (read Eldridge Cleaver's Soul On Ice, you'll see that Chui doesn't quite have it right) is really missing the point.
The thing RKBA advocates should take away from this: most of the "2A is a collective right" court decisions the anti's bank on are the result of activist courts trying to find a way to justify disarming black folk who simply wouldn't take the bull**** anymore.
How to explain away a pesky right that allows agitating social activists to do things you wish they couldn't? Pretend that the founding fathers would write the COTUS to include a right that says "the govt can't disarm the govt."
If you like the 1A, you have to put up with the fact that it protects what the KKK and Al Sharpton have to say. You have to put up with the fact that it lets me go to a Satanist church or no church at all. If you like the 4A, you have to put up with the fact that the SWAT team can't just kick my door in because you *think* I'm doing something wrong.
And if you like the 2A...you have to put up with the fact that it also protects the right of black people to have guns.
One thing I like about the RKBA community--99.9999% of us have no problem with that.
Arguing about communism and whether the BPP's were bad people (read Eldridge Cleaver's Soul On Ice, you'll see that Chui doesn't quite have it right) is really missing the point.
The thing RKBA advocates should take away from this: most of the "2A is a collective right" court decisions the anti's bank on are the result of activist courts trying to find a way to justify disarming black folk who simply wouldn't take the bull**** anymore.
How to explain away a pesky right that allows agitating social activists to do things you wish they couldn't? Pretend that the founding fathers would write the COTUS to include a right that says "the govt can't disarm the govt."
If you like the 1A, you have to put up with the fact that it protects what the KKK and Al Sharpton have to say. You have to put up with the fact that it lets me go to a Satanist church or no church at all. If you like the 4A, you have to put up with the fact that the SWAT team can't just kick my door in because you *think* I'm doing something wrong.
And if you like the 2A...you have to put up with the fact that it also protects the right of black people to have guns.
One thing I like about the RKBA community--99.9999% of us have no problem with that.
American By Blood
Member
The Panthers were not a racist group in any meaningful sense of the word. They did not advocate black supremacy, white genocide, or any other hallmark typical of racist organizations. What they did was take the orthodox Marxist-Leninist stance on African America and give it a Maoist spin.
Marxist-Leninists had, since the 1910s, been agitating for an autonomous black republic in the American south. African America then (and to a certain degree today) fit(s) well within the Marxist conception of nationhood as outlined by Stalin in his 1913 work Marxism and the National Question (to briefly quote the man himself--"A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture"). The idea was that black America, freed from the special oppression they were then subjected to (Jim Crow et al) and given legitimate self-determination, would develop a national bourgeoisie to lead developmental efforts which would inevitably create the class antagonism by which socialism is born. Marxists black and white saw the paternalism of the white Southern gentry as a key factor in keeping African America an underdeveloped peasant nation.
The Panthers took that view and updated it under the influence of Mao Zedong Thought. To them African America was an internal colony still in need of self-determination. Their party line saw the (largely white) American bourgeoisie extracting cheap labor and talent (the black bourgeoisie was encouraged to leave black neighborhoods and incorporate itself into the greater American economy) from the black community, while simultaneously using the widespread lumpenization common to economically deprived peoples as a stick with which to beat white workers. Liberating the black nation would simultaneously foster development in that group and heighten class consciousness and labor-based organization among white workers by removing the distraction of engineered racial tension.
In their ranks the Panthers included men and women, black and white. They forged alliances with like-minded white anti-imperialists such as SDS and (later) Weatherman.
Pitfalls common to all nationalist movements were what proved to be the BPP's undoing. They were unwilling to engage in the meaningful self-criticism required to smash reactionary facets of black culture (for example, Chicago Panthers mocked feminists at the 1969 SDS conference by chanting "p***y power") and made a deal with the devil by recruting from the black lumpenproletariat (who they knew would be willing to take up arms) instead of remaining a vanguard movement of the black working class (who would have been far less likely to besmirch the Party's name by selling drugs out of local offices).
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The statement re rape quoted in an above post is, unfortunately, authentic. It's from one of the early chapters of Soul On Ice. In that same chapter Cleaver explains that he had since come to the conclusion that rape was not an effective revolutionary weapon. Some crimes, though, are unforgivable.
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That gun control is a product of the crisis of the 1960s should illustrate to THR members that civilian disarmament is less about D or R and more about maintaining control. America was on the verge of a revolution in the late 60s and it was a Republican President who signed the GCA of 1968 into law.
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No doubt about it, every so-called Marxist state has had a disarmed populace. Blame it on the ideology itself, opportunism, revisionism, or anything else. Nothing changes this historical fact.
I'll note, though, that Lenin spent some of his pre-Revolution exile in Switzerland and in his work The State and Revolution advocated for the universal armament of the proletariat and a post-revolutionary militia system remarkably similar to that of the little mountain country.
Marxist-Leninists had, since the 1910s, been agitating for an autonomous black republic in the American south. African America then (and to a certain degree today) fit(s) well within the Marxist conception of nationhood as outlined by Stalin in his 1913 work Marxism and the National Question (to briefly quote the man himself--"A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture"). The idea was that black America, freed from the special oppression they were then subjected to (Jim Crow et al) and given legitimate self-determination, would develop a national bourgeoisie to lead developmental efforts which would inevitably create the class antagonism by which socialism is born. Marxists black and white saw the paternalism of the white Southern gentry as a key factor in keeping African America an underdeveloped peasant nation.
The Panthers took that view and updated it under the influence of Mao Zedong Thought. To them African America was an internal colony still in need of self-determination. Their party line saw the (largely white) American bourgeoisie extracting cheap labor and talent (the black bourgeoisie was encouraged to leave black neighborhoods and incorporate itself into the greater American economy) from the black community, while simultaneously using the widespread lumpenization common to economically deprived peoples as a stick with which to beat white workers. Liberating the black nation would simultaneously foster development in that group and heighten class consciousness and labor-based organization among white workers by removing the distraction of engineered racial tension.
In their ranks the Panthers included men and women, black and white. They forged alliances with like-minded white anti-imperialists such as SDS and (later) Weatherman.
Pitfalls common to all nationalist movements were what proved to be the BPP's undoing. They were unwilling to engage in the meaningful self-criticism required to smash reactionary facets of black culture (for example, Chicago Panthers mocked feminists at the 1969 SDS conference by chanting "p***y power") and made a deal with the devil by recruting from the black lumpenproletariat (who they knew would be willing to take up arms) instead of remaining a vanguard movement of the black working class (who would have been far less likely to besmirch the Party's name by selling drugs out of local offices).
-------------------------
The statement re rape quoted in an above post is, unfortunately, authentic. It's from one of the early chapters of Soul On Ice. In that same chapter Cleaver explains that he had since come to the conclusion that rape was not an effective revolutionary weapon. Some crimes, though, are unforgivable.
-------------------------
That gun control is a product of the crisis of the 1960s should illustrate to THR members that civilian disarmament is less about D or R and more about maintaining control. America was on the verge of a revolution in the late 60s and it was a Republican President who signed the GCA of 1968 into law.
-------------------------
No doubt about it, every so-called Marxist state has had a disarmed populace. Blame it on the ideology itself, opportunism, revisionism, or anything else. Nothing changes this historical fact.
I'll note, though, that Lenin spent some of his pre-Revolution exile in Switzerland and in his work The State and Revolution advocated for the universal armament of the proletariat and a post-revolutionary militia system remarkably similar to that of the little mountain country.
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You're correct, Helmetcase, about gov't agents (maybe an extension of policy stemming from Reconstruction) trying to disarm Blacks.
I've read excerpts from Soul on Ice and read perhaps 2/3 of Soledad Brother many years ago. Both were loaned to me by Black nationalists I knew growing up. Neither were particularly tasteful, though I do personally understand racism and bigotry and some of what they discussed in their personal life. My mother knew Huey Newton and described him as "extremely intelligent and focused". Other than that she did not associate with him at all. I graduated with the nephew of Geronimo Pratt. He and I had many discussions about his uncle and the organization, but he wasn't too revealing or he only cared for his uncle and not the BPP. As a kid the BPP had a shootout in my hometown in BTR, LA. I think that was 1972 if my memory is correct. I don't know the particulars of the event but as a child I knew the Blacks all dressed in black with black sunglasses and aggressive mannerisms were "bad luck" about to happen. I also had a neighbor in grad school who was an "Angela Davis clone"; attractive, even in her 50s, steely-eyed and fiery. She stated that they embraced Leninism-Marxism and missed "the old days."
I've read excerpts from Soul on Ice and read perhaps 2/3 of Soledad Brother many years ago. Both were loaned to me by Black nationalists I knew growing up. Neither were particularly tasteful, though I do personally understand racism and bigotry and some of what they discussed in their personal life. My mother knew Huey Newton and described him as "extremely intelligent and focused". Other than that she did not associate with him at all. I graduated with the nephew of Geronimo Pratt. He and I had many discussions about his uncle and the organization, but he wasn't too revealing or he only cared for his uncle and not the BPP. As a kid the BPP had a shootout in my hometown in BTR, LA. I think that was 1972 if my memory is correct. I don't know the particulars of the event but as a child I knew the Blacks all dressed in black with black sunglasses and aggressive mannerisms were "bad luck" about to happen. I also had a neighbor in grad school who was an "Angela Davis clone"; attractive, even in her 50s, steely-eyed and fiery. She stated that they embraced Leninism-Marxism and missed "the old days."
ctdonath
Member
IIRC, the Black Panthers made a brief, and armed, appearance at an RNC convention in Texas a few years back. They stayed outside, spoke their peace, waved their guns, and left. The local police shrugged and said they didn't do anything wrong (made people nervous, but no legal lines crossed).
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