Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 20140628

Career. And at 10 on after words, qaz is city war tang looks back at the history of money. And we conclude our prime time programming at 11 p. M. Eastern with joe becker detailing the legal strategies and battles in recent years for marriage equality. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. Next on booktv, actor danny glover is joined by Kathleen Cleaver and brian jones to talk about the black Power Movement. The Panel Discussed key participants in the Movement Like stockily Carmichael Stokely carmichael, angela davis, you would bridge cleaver, bobby seale and huey p. Newton. This is about an hour and ten minutes. [applause] good evening, and welcome. Thank you so much, everyone, for coming. This is an amazing house that we have here this evening. And needless to say, i am thrilled and honored to be able to partake in this Amazing Group of people that we have here. My name is michelle materre, i am a media studies and film professor here at the new school, and i do teach about things like this black power mixtape thing. [laughter] so this was right up my alley when pam tillis asked me if i would moderate this, i was like, are you kidding me . But of course. So were really thrilled to have such a, an amazing set of powerhouse folks here in the house with us this evening, dont you think . [cheers and applause] so in addition to thanking our panelists, id also like to thank you as our audience because what it means is that you recognize and support this ongoing work and the commitment of these cultural warriors that we have here in our midst. And that we are continuing in the struggle for human rights, economic and education equality and freedom of speech. The struggle continues. So tonight id like to frame the conversation that were going to have around this sort of issue of education, and we have a lot of young people here in the audience, and how do we relate these, the issues that are represented in black power mixtape, both the film and the book. And if you havent seen the film, you have to see it. Its on netflix, its available. And then you must buy the book, of course. But its really with this in mind that wed like to emphasize the impact of this film and the companion book and their ability to influence our younger generation. Here we are at the new school, an institute of higher education, and we are all educators in one way or another. So this probably three or four theres probably three or four generations since this film was documented, documented in this period, so theres a lot that people dont know about. So really excited and just overwhelmed that this is possible to have here today. So, and were going to watch some clips from the film, too, so you will see some other parts of the film. But my first question to all of our panelists is what was the impetus for you to put yourselves on the front line in this struggle . Brian, we know you were a little younger [laughter] and you can tell us last. But kathleen and danny, id love to hear what you, what you felt your initial impetus was. [inaudible] yes, please. Well, in reality the mic, sorry. In reality, the impetus in my case had, i had joined sncc, i had wanted to for a long time, but by the time i did it, it was two weeks after stokely had made the call for black power. So i joined an organization that was in the process of getting committed to black power. I was. And i met people who were involved with the black Panther Party, i was in the black Power Movement and ended up moving out to california in november of 1967 which was approximately about four or five weeks after huey newton was in an altercation and ended up wounded, in prison charged with murder, policeman dead. And he was facing the gas chamber. Im at a black Power Movement, im engaged to a leader of the black Panther Party who said its more important for me to save hueys life than to keep myself on parole. So he was risking his parole which meant going back to prison. Huey had already risked his life. Bobby seale and other panthers were in jail. There was about five of us. And he said weve got to get huey out. So the impetus was actually a man who had started a revolutionary movement in the black power moment, 1967, who was facing the gas chamber. So we said, okay, lets do it, you know . Free huey. [inaudible conversations] well, i didnt have to go anywhere. [laughter] i was born and raised in San Francisco, and i remember specifically the summer of 1966. And i had been attending, it was the plaque Panther Party of America Black Panther Party of america, a group that was formed out of lownes county. And i had been attending meetings that summer, and there was a storefront right in the black community in the area of San Francisco. And at the same time, i was about to go back to school and come to San Francisco state. So i was spending a lot of time out at San Francisco state as well. And San Francisco state was, there was this large influx of men and women who had been involved in the, with sncc, core, other groups who matriculated out to San Francisco. And at that particular point in time, we found them. People like Sonia Sanchez was out there in the summer of 1966, poets like reggie lockhead. We were reading don knell lee who is [inaudible] and those are the kind of things that happened. And fortunately, there was a connection because they were former sncc members between Ralph Featherstone remember ralph . Stokely and h. Rapp brown. And the issue, the blacks had gained control of the associated student budget by the spring of 1967, and we brought [inaudible] out there to start a communication project. At the same time, once the party took its action, the black Party Panther took its action in sacramento and once after Bobby Huttons death and hueys arrest and everything that happened after that, all of a sudden the whole, the whole area was on fire. I mean, everything was drawn to that right there. So consequencely as a member consequently as a member of the black student union, we began to develop a relationship with the black Panther Party that lasted and it was this, and ill say this with no uncertain terms. Had it not been for that radicalization and that relationship with the black Panther Party, we might not have gone on strike in 1968. We might not have formed the ethnic studies program. And it was the party through its own Community Mobilization that was our biggest supporters during that strike. It brought in other people like Cecil Williams and everything. But the party, the two of us, we even had political education classes together at that time in 1968, during the strike of 1968. So as the party was going through that intense period where it was being attacked, at the same time we were supported, mutually supportive of each other and supportive in that effort, on the effort getting the ethnic studies program. Because it had become a mass strike. Not just the black student, but a mass strike and also supporting the party and doing whatever we could do. Id like to contribute. Actually, you had quite a few students who were panthers yes. Quite a few students were panthers in the bsu. At one point in time in the bsu we werent radical enough, and some of the, some of the parties of the bsu joined the black Panther Party. Wow. Amazing. And, brian well, as a toddler i was deeply committed to black power. [laughter] it was inborn. No, obviously, i was a toddler. [laughter] just listening to you all talk, im struck by the enthusiasm and the energy that you have for these moments now, still. And i think theres something z and[u this book that raises for a new generation that has not yet and im talking about my generation and younger has not yet tasted what it feels like to feel like you have collective power. Like, wow, there were five of us. How are we going to get them out of jail . If we just get together, we can change things. We dont walk around thinking that. [applause] youre clapping because we should walk around thinking that, but we dont. [laughter] and that, and thats why im so excited just to be sitting up here. But im excited to do anything i can to, for myself and for others to teach about this movement, to go back to the questions that were raised and this question of power, can we do things and change things . I will just say one thing which is i watched this film with my father who was not involved in the movement, but he had no personal connection to any of the people that youre describing. But the way in which from his experience he came from the north but went to school in the south this film, he turned to me and said, you know what, brian . These people kicked in the doors that i walked through. The way in which it was amazing and this comes from slick and all of the groups that we all worked and organized with. I think what happened was one of the things we learned is to begin to cultivate and a number were the organizing ability. They came to the black Panther Party and were happening at an incredible moment. It was a Teacher College in San Francisco so the were 10 tut Tutorial Centers around the city and we would use that as a platform to mobalize the Community Around housing and education. Well, you guys are already answered my next question, but i will always have more. I want to touch on something brian did say and that is how we only got to see one side of the movement in terms of what the media allowed us to see. This film is different. It takes us inside to humanize the people part of it. That is something we dont get to see too often and i think that is something this film does well. With that in mind, i would like to show clip number one if we could roll it. Select the person and so he is singing about this for the fbi but it just song and words. A few years ago, i was listening to Stokley Carmichael speeches and it was shortly after 9 11. I was making a reservation for jet blue to fly. When i got there the fbi, tsa, and other men in black suits pulled me into a room and questioned be about the Stokley Carmichael speech from 1967. You know, they were concerned . 40 years ago. We have gangta rappers to talk about shooting and killing but the fbi isnt looking at them. They are looking at me because i am listening to a speech from 40 years ago. And those words resinate until now. The fbi is still scared of this man and he doesnt have nearly the influence as he does now. I was saving that for later. That wasnt the clip i wanted to show. But it plays to the point about why it is so dangerous, and why the movement is still considered dangerous. This is them saying today the fbi stops him because he is listening to a Stokley Carmichael speech from 1967. What is that saying about where we are today and how can we where with we go from here . It is as if though we are going backwards another 40 plus years. Well, i think, they went to Great Lengths to put that genie back in the bottle. They wrote whoever they could into party and for the rest it was punishment duty and mass incar inc incarceration and that continues. They had to put down the black radical movement in part because it inspired so many other movements and many parts were trying to model themselves on the panthers and people like Stokley Carmichael. Thy went to that expense and involvement to make it happen and now i feel cannot roll that back and say we messed up. We should not have had all of those people in prison. Well the Media Coverage at the time of Stokley Carmichaels activity in the black power era was extroidinarily twisted and they tried to make him seem all sorts of things. They want today expose your arrest, talk about you like a dog, they were trying to get even one congressman said he should be the subject of retroactive birth control. The way they tried to demonize the information you could get from stokley was horrible. But in sweden, it was different. They were curious and cameraman could go anywhere and do whatever they wanted. Sweden had a different policy about covering america. They didnt follow the u. S. Views of itsself or the vietnam war. You could read stories about the other america. The black and Civil Rights Movement. It was a sense of power or fear. It was like this is news. People were interested and they invited stokley. That footage was from sweden. People were making it clear what the black movement was about and it was excited and people were attracted to this but that wasnt allowed here. The people who were atracked were cornered off and audiences would be all black or if white people could be condemned so they hold reception in the media and society of who stokley was and about was different. That is what they wanted to show. Hate white people is what it is supposed to be about. Kill white people. This is what the fbi wanted to think the black movements were about so they could justify how how they were abused. We can see this throughout American History. The idea of controlling ideas and our imagination. Imagine this process which in some sense in a very democratic process. It wasnt a higherarchy cross. The point in the black power move l movement as well. And then you had figures like this woman right here and i remember when she came on she became just an iconic figure in that sense and she was really married to a major spokesman of the black movement and connected to the black Panther Party. Those were incredible and visual ideas. In some sense they wanted to control that. A little too visionary . Yeah. Those visionaries. And because they are excited like stokley or kathleen or huey himself. The question as young people, even when i was young, when i saw those young sneak students working down there, i wanted to be like them. I was like 1415 years old. I wanted to be like them. Imagine you have huey newton. People wanted to be like him. You had to sever that idea as well. Well, okay, now i would like to try to get to the clip i was looking for before which is labelled on my page Stokley Carmichael. Can we try that one again . Yeah. It got out of order somehow. That is the one you played. Maybe you didnt play the whole thing perhaps . Where is anthony . This is it. I called president johnson on the telephone. Humphrey said he wasnt at home. Trying to get ahold of dr. Martin luther king. Couldnt get no answer from the rockfeller. I couldnt get no diamonds from his mind. If i can enjoy the American Dream it will be water behind them. When i said burn, baby, burn. Burn, baby, burn. That is for the fbi. That is just like man. Nothing is wasted. Everything just takes a different form. What form will you take when you die . When he was burning the name, he said this is for the fbi. He was maybe a fiery speaker with passion and ideas but he was calm, cool and collected. He is singing about this is for the fbi. But it just song and words. A few years ago i was listening to Stokley Carmichael speeches and preparing for a new record. It was shortly after 9 11 in america. I was making a reservation on jet blue airhines to fly to california. When i got there fbi, cia and tsa intercepted me, took me in a room and started questions me about the Stokley Carmichael speech i listened to. They probably had a bug or tap. But they were concerned with me listening to the Stokley Carmichael speech from 1967. 40 years ago. So we have gangsta rappers that talk about shooting and killing. But the fbi is looking at me because i am listening to a speech from 40 years ago and it shows you the power of those records resinate until now. The fbi is still scared of this man. He doesnt have nearly the influence over the community as he did then. You got to see it twice it was so good. But in reference to that clip, this sort of mind the scenes look at the leaders of the movement. We dont have i never saw this footage before i saw this film. What was it about these young swedish film makmakefilmmakers journalisist that allowed them to do this . I saw footage in this film that blew my mind. In algeria, they showed images of the building where we were. No one in america has seen pictures of the building other than in the New York Times on november 1st, 1970. Edward cleaver is supposed to be done but he is saying we want to reach the level of the war but they would not low it. The level of insane White Supremacy and we challenged it and had a movement that is refuting it. So in the context of the vietnam war and being disrespected, the names they got called and all that, might have had something to do with how they responded. But it intimidates the press and people and they are afraid to get to know these people. And international lies to struggle of africanamericans. The collaboration with the struggles in vitamin and this is after the algeria liberation and also connected with the African Support Committee and groups within the continent or anc. All of this brought, in some sense, cared an enormous power that resinated with people. So the Civil Rights Movement for all intensive purpose was an internal struggle with the United States dealing with racism and now we call into question capitalism and exployitation and that started to frame the discourse. You make alliances in algeria, connecting to what happened in vietnam and around the world. Malcolm did it when he went to mecca and came back and talked about the International Relationship and taking the struggle of africanamericans to the u. N. And now you have a local Grassroots Organization doing that work, talking about building through Community Protection from police, free schools, free health care, breakfast for children was the predecessor to the governments breakfast. Breakfast for children was started by the Panther Party. [ applause ] you have all of these things on a local level and Building National and International Networks with that. That is dangerous. Obviously. I think, also, just about your question, america has a tendency to pathologize black people. America thinks genetically, psychology, culturally and it shifts but it is always something. It is hard to step outside that. Ask a question like why are you in jail . What are you doing here . Why do you do the things you need . Radicals are portrayed as irrational people whose problems flow from an irrational psychology problem. So a sweeds might as well be from mars and ask angela davis why are you here and lets talk about it. Thanks for asking me a question. Lets talk. Now i am talking and the camera is rolling and telling me une t unedited what i think. And you think maybe people grew up in horrible conditions not some problem with black people that makes us want to run in the streets. With that reference to angela davis, thank you for that leadin, brian, can we go to clip number three, please. Trial, i think will be historic in its unfairness. There is no evidence to involve ms. Davis in the charges. None whatsoever. And i think they seized upon this opportunity to try and put her to death. Governor reagan originally fired her from her teaching job at the university of california and this is an extension of that. The evidence presented to the grand jury shows that the guns we used into the shootout in san raff were registered in her n e name. Assuming that is true. That is all she says. She owns guns. There is not illegal in the state of california of owning a gun. But because of the press that built up and the need the government felt to put her in yale and hopefully from their point of view to kill her they could put enough pressure to get an indictment in that grand jury room. And the actual interview with angela in this film is priceless. It is angela in jail. And you have never seen this footage anywhere else if you have not seen the film. I love you to talk about the woman of the movement. We know about angela and you were the first woman. The first was joanne mitchell. She was the womans captain. I became on the Central Committee but she was the captain before the Central Committee. The movement, the Civil Rights Movement in the south, was mobalized, organized, dominated by the activities of women. And the men who are spokesman are leaders and they are written about in the press and they go to meetings but they dont actually reveal that doesnt reveal the way the movement evolved. When you put the term leaders, people unconsciously want to see a male. But that doesnt mean the work, programming and leadership wasnt done by quite a few women. And in the black party two guys started with but as time went on and more and more men got arrested it got to the point where the majority of live, on the ground panthers were women. It doesnt mean it isnt there, but it is discounted. You want to add anything . I cannot answer that. You know, i think about too often and you mention understanding what black radicalism is. There is a tradition throughout the 21st century we dont call on. We think of the specific moments in time when we look at the Civil Rights Movement. But if you look at the beginning of the 20th century. You know all of those leaders and the communist party and then look who was at the manchester conference on pan africanism. There you can. Look at it. You have the future leaders of the caribbean, future leaders of africa, and this is you have all of these great people who come and are part of this radical tradition. It is always, we always never never embraced that part of it. You know . Even today, in terms of understanding that it does, what happened, or changes happen, you have to step outside of the context that you are functioning in and find another voice and narrative for liberation. And that is coming through the black radical tradition. The black Power Movement is much of a larger, much larger historical context. And then as i said before, it is reimagining democracy. Having them participate in their own liberation. You can reimagine this. They are not looking for democracy to play out in some other ways. They take the rein of it and use the process itself. [ applause ] the movement i joined, the black Power Movement, eevoledve from the civil rights in the deep south. And many of the leaders were woman. They were not given that title but it was created and started and the conference was called by ella baker and she was the inspiration and mentor and allowed the leadership within that Youth Organization called student nonviolating company to mature and develop. Boy the time i moved to california in the fall of 67, there was a woman who was elected to secretary and very, very well acknowledged leader. I remember seeing pictures of her in ebony and she was a leader of the fleet in mississippi summer of 64. I was so impressed. It was so inspiring to cy young people and young women working together and challenging these shares and going to jail and singing in the paddy wagons and going on the buses that got burned up and diane nash was the leader of the freedom rise. This notion of being a radical and woman were not inconsistent but a large part of the population wasnt thought of with the women. So they dont see the leadership because it is coming from aa tradition. It was dorthy heights and ella davis that brought bob moses down. And that is what kathleen is talking about. I think sometimes, too, america tells itself a story about the movements that undercut the kind of work that those Women Leaders were doing. Where it is like that was put behind the scenes and these were overnight success stories. This was who is americas next great civil right leader contest and whoever is on stage wins it. Not this was something that was built over decades of work. Just to flag a couple books out there. A book about ella baker and a book about rosa parks and how this has reached incredible por portion. The degree we cut off rosa parks as an organize is astounding. People were banging their head against the wall and keeping at it and seeing no fruits of their labor and feeling like nothing is going to give. To celebrate the accomplishment and it does a disservice to those who follow in her foot steps. Brian, i am glad you said that. You have been in the new york city Public Schools for over nine years. How do we get this information, this film and book, into the core curriculum of the new york city Public Schools . I am not talking core curriculum. I know what core curriculum means. I am not talking during negro hysteria month. I have to give credit to irene davis, filmmaker of mine, she coined that term. Not me. We dont want this as a onceayear thing. We want this embedded as American History not black history. There is no america without the africans who were kidnapped and brought here that brought the country. There is no country. And so at every stage in American History the black struggle is central to understanding the whole story of the country. What i found, and i was an elementary teacher, teaching little ones, eight of those years in harlem. That is what students want to learn about. The hard part is dealing the standardized testing and the demands and the budgets and closing. That is the problem. The problem isnt how to get it to kids. Kids want to learn real history. History about people fighting back, you have them right here in the palm of your hand, like wait a minute, wow. That is what has them the most riveted and interested. You dont have to preach or sermonize to young people. Their life, when they are exposed to real history, they make their own meaning out of it. That is what ever generation has to do and it isnt that hard to see the struggle of your parents and uncles. But what people dont know is that we have a legacy of standing up, collective power, and of winning. And a feeling that we can win. And that is what we have to let them be exposed to. Absolutely. Thank you. [ applause ] and i think anthony, we have questions from the audience but i have to mention two more. I think amy goodman was here did she leave . She is waving. There she is. And danny, you were on democracy now a week ago . I am going to be on tomorrow. When was that interview with you on democracy now when you got to speak to mumemea . That was some months ago . That was awesome. I saw that recently. Right after them dropping the Death Penalty and we reached one stage but we have to free momemea still. [ applause ] and on that show, amy surprised you by getting her on the phone. Everybody should go watch that. You have been fighting for his freedom for over 20 years. You know, davis and i were part of the Defense Committee. You talking about someone we were on the Defense Committee way back. And here we are trying to get him out of jail. He is off death row but still in prison. I was on the Defense Committee of jerome prat as well. Way back. [ applause ] i would be remised if i didnt acknowledge my producing partner jocelyn. All of work that was done she found various ways in which we can involve the community, have it seen, having the discussions and discourse as well. And also, i have a great friend who is my little brother and she is one of the great filmmakers of the world, [ applause ] we have questions from the audience now. I am going to start with one i know is from a student of ours. Alexander salizar. She said it is clear that activism has changed and become more individually based. How do you think we can make it collective once again . The problem that any activist is attempting to address are collective problems. If you have individually based solutions they are not going to work. So just first of all be realistic and secondly regroup and relearn and reorganizing. Not posture but organizing and put together people in a group or motion when they participate collectively in making choices and implementing their decisions. That is great thank you very much. Here is another question, we made the comment at the beginning we removed several generations removed from the movement but the struggle continues. My question is what is the advice, direction or request do you have of young people to continue honoring the struggle . I see it all of the time. I was in chicago and there with is a young man named emanual prat in chicago on the south side. He has a fishery. He is teaching young kids sustainability in terms of Food Production, going food and fish, he made a business out of it. That is the kind of activism we need. I have been spending the last year with a group of students in mississippi. The mississippi students for justice. And the students for a better working and supporting nissian workers in canton, mississippi. Seven students sat in and protested one of the organizers singing freedom songs and they give him his job back. That is the activism i see on those levels and we dont hear about that. All of the activism we have come out of has been transformitve. We have do understand that a actvism isnt transforming. It is only that way when it is collecting. When you saw young black men put on the jacket and beret it was extrao extrao extrao extraordinary. We may use what exist in the system and building ally alliances and service what needs to be done at the moment. That doesnt take away from the fact we have to change this. No matter what we have gone through and what we have in the whitehouse we have to change this ship. How do we find that, connect to that and understand that. Evolution, revolution as it is said what i think is problematic is the level of activism underway isnt well understood and wellknown. If you live in an area with an Environmental Movement you know about it because you live there. But if you live six state away you dont know about it. So there is a communication issue and a reluctance in the media to show collecting of young black people. Sometimes they have to show it like the protest in louisiana. And we are finally hearing about the nigerian girls being kidnapped three weeks later when Trayvon Martin was murdered in florida 22 high schools had walkouts. How many heard that . Because somebody organized 22 high schools to walk out. They dont just happen. So i was thinking about that. There is a way in which there is a blackout that makes it difficult to connect to strands of organizing going on. We benefit from a solidarity of connecting the dots and assuming struggles are related and dependent on each other and expecting and trying to build solidarity between issues. Using this technology that you are using now and tweeting and text to instill this connection and getting the word out more so we dont get through the mainstream press. We have the technology. Lets use it. So danny, another question for you. I heard you wanted to make a film about the haiti revolution. [ applause ] what is the status and i think this person would launch a kickstarter for you if you wanted to. 15 years ago, on a set in sin gall, a movie we were doing and she translated the script, got the rights from the novel, found the director and money to do the film. We were sitting one night, as you sit trying to find something to do when you are doing an allnight shoot and she mentioned we were talking about the things we wanted to do. And it is like the whole sky lit up when he said the haitian revolution. That discussion itself beginning there led to the relationship that formed louver films that brought us black power mixes. We have a vision still because that is the centerpiece of our company. We have a vision of doing that. But all of the other relationships we have had, the time that remain s, uncle boom who he calls his past life and the relationship trouble the water. You can go on. But what we have coming out and what we have done in the past and everything else, we are trying to get to that point. We will get to that point of doing this movie but there is so many otherthi things that evolved from the relationship and the light came on and we wanted to form a company to bring the work we saw here. To find someone else, to support african filmmakers, you know . Those are the kind of things that evolved from that. That is where we will go until further notice. As soon as you need our support on that, please, let us know. I think that is a really important issue. This question is from a filmmaker doing a dock on a black homeless veteran who says slavery is alive and well in america today. He believes that black folks need to look inside themselves and not at white folks to tell them who they are. Your thoughts . I just like to comment. I passed a man on the street this afternoon. He had a sign that said homeless veteran, please give me whatever you can for food. I walked past it, thought about it, and said this is in sasane. I found dollars and said this is all i had. He told me 75 of the homeless in new york are veterans. That tells you something about the level of lack of compassion, reality in the government that we have. If 75 of the homeless in new york city are veterans. And one of them and they are begging for money. This is crazy. So the va of course we know is a disaster. What i wanted to get out was the manager in which we access information and we participate in communities has been radically altered by the politics of this country. Back into the time of the black panthers and the radicals and all of these different groups were bubbling up the United States wasnt the number one leader of the world. The United States is in competition. There was a war undergoing between people were on the capitalist side and people against that. It was called the vietnam war and it went on for quite some time and ended with vietnam becoming its independent country as it should have been. But that was many, many years ago. At this point there is no opposition to the world domnation of the economic cyssym of the United States and that alters how people function and think and respond to each other. We have to get out of this one world whatever it is. What was bushs thing new world order. We have to get out of and this new ugly world order to get to a better order where we can communicate and do something to solve the problems we actually have. With that in mind, i have a question i have been dieing to ask brian, having to do with the model and the syndrome in the system that seems to be evolving in our Education System and that is the notion of the pipeline to prison through our schools. I want to know if you have any ideas about how we should be mobalizing around that to break up that model and are there instances that you can tell us about that are doing that . First of all, we need to stop stopping and frisking students in the hallways of school. Stop giving them summons for president y offenses that then pile up. Stop policing policing them in the hallways of their own building. But we have to add to that. The things that are separating students and pushing them in those directions. If we have a highly standardized curriculum and a High Pressure testing all of that is just a giant sorting mechanisms and has nothing to do with development and teaching and learning. And for students who are already pissed off, maybe with good reason, this curriculum and these mandates and those standardized and this, that and the other is another reason to check out. It is boring. Now turn to page 35. It is ridiculous. And if you go on the common core website they want to take things that are explosive in our history and take away the teeth. Take away the danger from it. They want you to teach the letter from a birmingham jail without talking about why he is there. And they want to talk about the ge ge getty speech but thought talk about the bodies there. They want to teach a skill set that has nothing to do with skills in the first place. Close reading . It isnt just the metal detectors, or the police, there is something going on that is making school culturally irrelevant to them and isnt sensitive to who they are. It isnt just looking up six year olds, although they are doing that, it is what is happening to the process of school itself. What is it going to take to move beyond that . First of all, we have to overcome the high bar that has been set over and over by the Supreme Court that says a pattern of racism isnt such and you have to catch saying saying the nword. So if you are not dumb enough to get caught, you can shoot them down. Zimmerman said the fword . Who cares what came out of his mouth. It is what came out of his gun. You can do anything to people as long as you dont say the old fashion words you a racist and we have to say no, that is racist. If most of the kids put in handcuffs at six are black, that is being racist. If most of the schools shutdown are black schools, that is racist. Every institution in america has a plaque on the wall saying they are going to treat people equal. So this color blindness is the new racism. Either one of you want to respond to that . Sorry i went off there. I wish there were a hundred more element teachers that had the same thought. Can we have an institute for teachers like brian . I think i will take one more question from the audience because this is a really good one about coalition building. It says that many of us are trying to work between coalitions like at the new school, students for justice in palestine [ applause ] and the feminist collective. [ applause ] however we are having trouble getting folks to believe that these struggles can constitute each other. How do we get people to see that and believe that . Well it is a challenge of organizing, but a form of Community Building as well. You will organize and talk to people that you know because you sat down and you ate lunch or went for a walk or are in a class. It is hard to organize with strangers. So you have to form connections and build alliances and build relationships in the process of developing political challenges. That is key. I think it is political education also. If you dont know that the nypd learn how to occupy the bronx by going to the a Training Center in another area you dont know the relationship. So we have a lot of political education to realize the connection between the different struggles and make them visible. I have spent time around the bob center in detroit, michigan, and what was so amazing, i remember one evening, meeting with 30 different organizations, small groups of organizations there at the center. One around rethink education. One about urban gardening and Food Production and another expanther brother ron, i cannot think of his last name, who as an organization for peace zones for life. And i watched all of those organizations support each other in the sense and begin to, and i found a way in which they were able to develop a common narrative and let that be the driving force for their coalition building. And as kathleen said as well as that organizing so all of the particular things of ours to find ways to build coalition. They are essential. The success of the San Francisco strike wouldnt have been successful had it not been for africanAmerican Students and native American Students and hispanic and asian students and progressive white students. It is finding ways of mobilizing and creating the language and narrative and that language and narrative of transforming. For those students of you in the audience looking for a class to take in the fall, just a blatant promotion, i am teaching race and class in media in the fall so feel free to join us. [ applause ] i would like to close with a couple quotes from the book. Kathleen, you said that you see there is a systemmatic decision to prevent the radical leaders from having their natural effect. It is difficult to mobile people but you have eliminate others who have been killed you take away the strength of that movement. So had king chosen to be more coweredly maybe he would have lived longer but that is not the choice he made thank you for that. [ applause ] and danny you used a reference to paul roverson and we just lost paul roverson, jr. This past week. You said each generation makes its own history. A new generation must make its history but it faces huge challenges twl is the climate, the global financial, the crisis of poverty or in equitty in the world. We can draw on the immense resources of those that came from us. And the the black power mixtape 19671975 gave us strong shoulders to stand on. [ applause ] thank you. [ applause ] if you have any Closing Remarks you would like to make we can do that now and then we want to invite people to stay for the book signing and more dj hustle and regular round table talking. I would like to say people have to believe they can do this. Jim foreman used to also say, and i admired him immensely, he was my first mentor and i never worked so hard in my life. The first weekend all got to atlanta i think i only slept three hours because i was taking notes during the meeting. What i was going to say is you have to be able to believe in yourself, believe what you want to do, and foreman used to say we will win without a doubt. I said, yeah, but when . And so we have to put when off the table and believe we can win. If we dont win, you can be sure, this is is a country going down the tubes a little fascious hole in the future. [ applause ] c1 blp i think one of the things we came away from just this evening and what we have seen with the the black power mixtape 19671975 is enormious contributi contributions have been made in the past. As we all said in so many words. We can build on that. You know . And even though we feel as if there are we are at some sort of impass in our capacity to build and struggle, we are still here. And there is so many of the audience, and the young people in the audience, is a testimony to the necessity of the work we have to do. We are here, we are available, we want them to in some sense develop their tools of analysis, of truth telling, to listen to old stories and build and create new stories. [ applause ] everywhere i go i sfeel likei cy young people trying to absorb the black movement. I see them reading on malcolmx on the train or if i am wearing my angela davis i am stopped 20 times. There is a new generation trying to break from the empass and what we understand is there is an important legacy here that is essential to what we have to do from here. That is why they want to bury it and that is why we want to present it in a film, book or whatever form we can we neat get it out there. And lastly, i am so proud to be sitting up here with these heroic figures of the black Power Movement. Thank you,