Amazing group of people. Ivan media studies san film professor here isnt i do teach about things like8uez the black power mixtape 19671975. [laughter] this was writeup my alley when i was asked to moderate the of course. So we are thrilled to have such an amazing set of Powerhouse Group of people here with us this evening. Dont you think . So in addition to thinking that panelists several selected thank you as our audience that you recognize and support the ongoing work and commitment with the cultural warriors we have in our midst and we are continuing in the struggle for human rights and education equality and freedom of speech. So tonight i would like to frame the conversation around this issue of education and a lot of young people in the audience to the issues represented is and the black power mixtape 19671975 with the film or the buck. You have to see the film lon netflix. But with this then minded to emphasize the impact of this film with the companion book than their ability. Here we are but were all educators. But there are three or four generations but to be overwhelmed. Is but i am sure we will see other parts but my first to question is what was the impetus for you to put yourself on this months the of strength. You are a little luck in under. [laughter] but i would love to hear impetus. In reality i have been wanting to do joining as nick for a long time it was two weeks after stoically made the call for black power so i joined an organization that was committed but i was. But people were involved with a black Power Movement and black Panther Community is and ended up moving out to california in November November 1967 that to end up in for her prison and the paper said police man dead. But to be engaged to the leader the party to said it is more important to me in to keep myself on parole. He was risking selection of the impetus was a man who started a revolutionary movement with that black Power Movement reset okay, lets assume that. I5 sd did not have to go anywhere. [laughter] born and raised in San Francisco i remember the summer of 1966 and i[. Sr had the black Panther Party of america. And i had attended meetings that summer and at the same time put my expand expect that the chocolate taco is large with men into women who have been involved but there are people out there in 1966 with reports of lot ted and i know we were reading reid. Those are the kinds of things that have been. End fortunately there was the connection between the other stone remember him . Stoically, in to they had gained control by the spring 1967 to start a communication project. At the same time, once the party took action is sacramento, in issue he was arrested all of a seven the whole area was on fire. Everything was drawn to that. So we begin to develop a relationship that lasted. Had it not been that radicalization with the we may not have gone a striking 1968 to may gave from the ethnic studies program. It was a party through the community for the biggest supporters parker brought in other people but there were tort two of us in reid to the have classs together. Some of the party was going through that to where he was being attacked but instead i am being supportive of the effort now i have to become an eppley and ethnic studies student. In to support the party spent mb to contribute. You had quite a few students who were panthers. Writes. So one pouring to in time it was the issue but we were not radical enough. Amazing. And has the toddler i was deeply committed. [laughter] is inborn. Obviously. I was a toddler. [laughter] just listening to you talk by a stroke by the enthusiasm in the energy you have for theseu5 cn moments now. Still. There is nothing moms in this book the event has not tasted what it feels like that you have collective lido walk around thinking fact. [applause] ceramic you are clapping because you think that we should. But we dont. That is reichas so excited to be standing appear but to do anything itn for myself and others to teach about this movement to go back to the questions of a raise. Indian reid. But he had no personal connection but the way in which he came from the north and went to school in the south he turned to me in said these people kicked in the doors that i walked across. The film humanizes people and was struck by their intelligence, charisma and some just made so much since then that is part of why they want to bury the black power traditions sanders still after the of black power militants and why bringing this back to life is important and it is still dangerous. So many things have been in no clinton at the time. Agreed to develop bin seven cisco. I met hank jones 1966 has but to the removal from your home . But i met to him than that part of that party go away was so amazing and this comes from all the groupsi;6uo g capacity. I think what have been is one of the things that we learned begins to cultivate and none of us are organizing the ability. So those elements were part of what was happening as an incredible moment and since zebras discussed it was a Teaching College comet had 10 Tutorial Centers around of city. We were always told the. Housing and removal . To make you have already answered man next question. I will always have more. But to touch on something that have really got to see one side of the mood moment from what the media allowed. So this film does something totally different and it takes us inside to humanize the part of the end and we dont get juicy too often. And with that in mind i would like to show a clip number one. So he thinks about this for the fbi but it is just words. A few years ago i was listening to the Stokely Carmichael speeches while i was preparing and shortly after lendl levin in america i was making a reservation to fly to california. At the airport the fbi, cia fbi, cia, it t. S. A. Intercepted me and took me in a back room to start questioning me about the Stokely Carmichael speech. They had the tab for a bug but were very concerned withc me listening to the speech rap that talk about shooting and killing people but theyre looking at me because i was listening to the speech from 40 years ago and they resonate even today the fbi is scared of this man he doesnt have nearly the same influence as he did then. The was saving that for later. That is not the cliff by wanted to show because i knew you would respond like that but that does to the point he were making why it is so dangerous and why is the movement is considered so dangerous. The saying how the fbi stops him at the airport because he is listening to a speech from 1967. What does that say about where we are today . Where to rigo from here . It is says so we have gone backwards. I think they went to Great Lengths to put the genie back into the bottle to profit in whoever they could to bring to the party and for the rest is punishment duty and mass in kirkland dash incorporation. Mass incarceration. They had to put down the black radical movement because it inspired so many parts of happening in america to model[fyn themselves on the panthers a and people like Stokely Carmichael. They went to all that involvement in now i feel they cannot just dialed that back. Saevac we messed up. The Media Coverage at the time of Stokely Carmichael activity in the black powerc era was extraordinarily twisted and even one congressman said he should be the subject of interactive birth control. So the way they tried tovky set in sweden but it to let her practice to do anything she wanted. Sweden also had a different policy. They did to the and views of some self. They also talked och but if it was not fear. People are interestedju9tu. People go around the of wrote spanish and people were ejected to this but whether they are all black or white so the reception of to west but they wanted to justify how they were abused. Something else. We know this and we see the work throughout history the ada to control our imagination. And najaf and right here this process is a very democratic process. It was not caracol. Leica hired a. Then you have people like phase charismatic people like this young woman right here. I remember when she k. Mahon and she became a figure but those are the hideous come a little bit too visionary . Fe are charismatic. Key will be assisting in that chair spinach you have to cut and sever that id as well. Now like to go to the clip bad it is labeled maybe you did not put it for the whole place perhaps. Who spearheaded said the next thing he said hello hairless uh this elusive a but is this just song and wears. A few years ago i was listening to choose the tea three speeches was preparing for a new record and shortly after 9 11 and an aircraft was making a the reservation to fly to california. When i got to the airport of the fbi thomas a. A, a gsa caveman intercepted me and took me into a back room to a question me about the Stokely Carmichael spee chart was listening to. Day probably had a bug or a of me listening to this speech from the 40 years ago. The words that he said we have scrappers talking about gangsters shooting people but theyre looking at me from 40 years ago and that shows you the power of those words of that the fbi is still scared of this man. He still doesnt have the same influence now as he did then. Host you got to see it twice it was so good. [laughter] that what i do want to do talk about it is the behindthescenes look of the leaders of the movement. I never saw this kind of footage before. And what was it about these young swedish journalist filmmakers that were allowed that type of access and by what they look for that . They could do what they wanted there not told by their editor to do this or that. I saw what completely blew my mind. But in algeria, they showed images of the building. Noted america has ever seen pitchers of the building of the International Section of the Panther Partyu z from november 1st 1970. And you cannot turn on tv to hear what he has to say but they showed him as saying we want to reset the level of the vietnamese that we have not gotten there yet. Can you a management . Because the United States was that war. In to the swimming here and somehow it did not affect us reid did not. You had a whole movement and the also high on their recent in june to new us but they are afraid to get to know these people. With another part of the movemenzpia is in to internationalize the struggle here of africanamericans, though collaborations of vietnam, algeria the atoll of this cleared out the spirit but all of those began says he will come back to talk about the international what you have a local Grassroots Organization who was doing that work began talking about building through community protection. Breakfast for children. There are children now. It was started by the black Panther Party. [applause] thank you. Of you dont remember that. You have all these things happening a local level and Building National and International Networks d3i. The reason of the shift is always something so it is hard for People Living here choose step outside of white sofa of a say3i but they are portrayed as a rational from the irrational psychological problems. [laughter] instead of flowing from conditions of life. There may as well ask angela davis. Why are you here . Lets talk about it. [laughter] ag for asking me a question. Okay. Lets talk. Now i am talking but the cameras are still rolling in now meet telling you . When people see that theyre so struck but you start to think maybe these people just drop in horrible conditions and got the big idea they could do something to change at. Maybe it is about that not a pathological problem with black people that makes us want to run into the streets [applause] with that reference to human blood davis lets go to clip number three. The trial will be historic in its unfairness. Is priceless. It is in jail. So, kathleen i. Would love you to talk a little bit about the women of the movement. We know about angela and that you were the first female leader within the party. The first one was joann made mitchell. I came on the Central Committee before the community and this idea of leaders, the movement, the Civil Rights Movement in the south was mobilized and organized, dominated by the activities of women and the men who are spokesmen are designated leaders and they are written about in the press and they go to the meetings, but they dont actually reveal that doesnt reveal the way the movements evolve. You know, when you use the term leaders then people sort of unconsciously want to see a male but that doesnt mean all of the work and leadership in education and all the programming wasnt done by quite a few women and in the black Panther Party, the initial the people that started it as time went on and more and more got arrested it got to the point that the majority of lives on the ground where women into so there is no major effort to understand what the radical movements are about and there is no Larger Movement to understand what the leadership of black women is about. That doesnt mean that its not fair but its discounted. I cant answer that. I think about too often you mentioned understanding what black radicalism is. Is it a black radical tradition throughout the 20th century that we dont. We think of the specific moments in time. We look at the communist partys and then look at who was on the manchesteis on themanchester Coe Manchester conference on africanism and there we go in the beginning of the century. You have all of these great people that come into the part of the radical tradition and we almost never in race that part t part of it and even today understanding that it does, what has happened, whatever changes happen, you have to step outside of the context that you are functioning and outside of the context and finding another place and another narrative for the liberation. And that is mostly coming through the black radical tradition. So the panther predicament of october movement is of a larger, much larger historical context. When you have them participate in their own liberation its a reimagining of this. It is a democracy to play its game now in some other way they take the rain and use the process itself. [applause] the movement i joined the vault out of the Civil Rights Movement in the deep south and then in the deep south many of the leaders were not given the title, that the organization of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was actually created at the start of the conference is called by a ella baker and she was essentially the inspiration and she allowed the leadership in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to mature and develop. There was a woman that had been elected the secretary very, very well at college leader. In ebony magazine she was a leader of the motor fleet in mississippi. To see young women and men working together challenging piece shares, going to jail, singing in the paddy wagons, going on these buses that were burnt up. I am is the leader of the freedom rides, and so this is the notion of being a revolutionary radical. They were not inconsistent however i will say that a large part of the population hasnt been educated to the fact that there was this leadership within women. They sent others from the university down. They brought them down. America tells a story about the movements that undercuts the kind of work that those Women Leaders would have where it is all put behindthescenes and as far as we understand these were not overnight success stories. This is something that was built over decades of work and a couple of great books that are out there about to ella baker and about whom this mythology has reached incredible proportions. The degree to which we cut off rosa parks from who see she was laboring in the tough conditions to figure out banging their head against the wall but to keep at it seeing no fruit of their labor for years and years and feeling like nothing is going to give and to celebrate her account which meant and to forget the decades that preceded it does a disservice trying to follow in her footsteps. I want to talk to you as an educator you have been here for over nine years now. How do we get this information, this film, this book into the core covered alum to the public. [laughter] i am not talking about a negro history area month. [laughter] i have to give credit and i use it all the time so thank you. Shes listening im sure. There is no america without the africans were kidnapped and brought here in the country created there is no country. Every stage in American History that struggle is central to understanding the whole story of the country. Eight of those years in harlem. Thats what students want to learn about. Its not hard. The hard part is trying to deal with the demand of the standardized testing and all of the demands and everything they are putting on the schools. They want to learn real history about people fighting back you have them right here in the palm of your hand like wait a minute. You dont have to preach to young people. Their life, they are exposed to the real history. They make their own meeting out of it. To see the struggle of yourself and your parents and your cousins and your uncles in the struggle with the yesteryear but what people dont know is that we have a legacy of standing up in collective power. I know we have some questions for the audience but i have to mention two more things. [applause] when was that interview on democracy now when you got to speak . I saw that recently. They were dropping and we knew that we had reached one stage. [applause] and she surprised you. I remember that. It was quite emotional. Everybody should watch that. Arthur davis and i were part of the defense committee. They were part of the kennedy way back. It goes way back. [applause] i would be grimaced if i didnt acknowledge my partner. Everything else is various ways in which we can involve the community can have it seen to become a discussion and i have a great friend here. Hes one of the great film may curse. We have questions from the audience now. Im going to start with one of the student of ours that is alexander. It seems as if it is more individually based. How do you think that we can make it collective once again. It is attempting to address our collective problems. If they have individually based solutions they are not going to work. They are not rattling off things out of their head, organizing, putting together people in a group or motion of some sort that if they participate in making choices and implementing their decisions. Several are removed if the struggle still continues. My question is what advice, direction or request do you have people today in terms of continuing or honoring that struggle. I missed part of that. Whawith advice for directionr request do you have of people to continue the struggle . I see it all the time. I was just in chicago and this young man in chicago on the south side j. David cote training not only Food Production, growing food and fish and everything else, he is also made a business. Ive been spending the last year with a group of the students in mississippi. The mississippi students justice working and supporting. Seven of the students sat in a week and a half ago in protest against one of the organizers whosisorganizing a union, sat ie office singing freedom songs that they gave him his job back. That is the kind of activism that icy. The question is that all of the activism that we have come out of our transformative in the sense. So we have to understand that activism not only becomes individualized but its not transformative. You only have activism that is transformed when it is collect collected. All of those things were extraordinary so it has to be transformative. We may use what is an existence now in the systems and find the Alliance Building the alliances and the services that need to be done at the moment. If that doesnt take away from the fact that we have to change this. No matter what weve gone through and what we have in the white house we still have to change this, and thats transformative. Why dont we find that and how do we connect into that and understand that . Evolution. Revolution, evolution. What i think is underway and has been for that say the last 15 to 20 years is not well understood and not well known. If you live in an area where theres there is a big environml Justice Movement and you hear about it because you live it but if you are six states away you dont know it exists so you make the exception it is not existing so theres a Communications Issue and reluctant gusto to show collective action involving young people but sometimes they have to show it like the protests in louisiana they couldnt not show it. [applause] we are finally hearing three weeks later about the nigerian girls being kidnapped three weeks later. When Trayvon Martin was murdered, 22 schools had walkouts. How many of you had coverage and interviews with organizers because somebody organized 22 high schools to walk out. Those things dont just happen. So i was thinking about that when you were speaking. Theres a blackout that makes it difficult for us to even connect to the strand of organizing going on. I think we benefit from the general either the solidarity of connecting the bot of assuming that our struggles are connect it to each other and related to each other dependent on each other and on that basis expecting and trying to build the solidarity between the different movements. Using this technology that you are using now to instill this connection and getting the word out we have the technology. Lets use it. I heard you wanted to make a film about the revolution. What is the status, and i think that this person would want to kickstart a campaign for you if you wanted to. I met her 15 years ago in the movie that she had translated the script, got the rights from the novel, filed director and the money to do the film and we were sitting one night trying to find something and she mentioned what are the things we want to do and its like the whole sky lit up, and it that discussion itself led to the relationship that formed the films. We still have a vision because that is the centerpiece of our company. At the time that remains. You can go on but all that we have coming out now and what weve done in the past and everything else, we are trying to get to that point but theres so many other things that have evolved out of that relationship and that light came on and we knew we wanted to form a company to bring the kind of work that we saw to find someone else so thats where we will go until further notice in the revoluti revolution. As soon as you need our support on that lets us know. Thats an important issue. This question from a film maker on a homeless veteran who says that slavery is alive and well in america today. He beauties we need to look not inside themselves and not at white folks to tell them who they are. Your thoughts . Spirit i would 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 walk past ten and i say this is insane. I found some dollars and i said this is all i have. He told me 75 of the homeless in new york are veterans. That tells you about the government that we have. 75 of the homeless in new york city are veterans and they are begging for money. This is crazy. So, the va is a disaster but what i wanted to get at is the manner in which we access information and we participate has been radically altered by the politics of the country back in the time the black panthers and the radicals and all these different groups. The United States wasnt the number one leader in the world. The United States is a competition. There was a war going on between people who are on the capital side and against the capital side and it ended in the independent country as it should have been. But that was many years ago and at this point there is no opposition to the world of domination of the Economic System in the United States and that alters and tiger really how people can function within the country and how they think and respond to each other. We have to get out of this one the world whatever it is, the new world order. We have to get out of and behind this new world order to get to a better order where we can communicate and do something to solve the problems that we actually have. I have a question i have been dying to ask having to do with the model and a passenger on the system that seems to be evolving in our Education System and that is the notion of the pipeline to prison and i want to know if you have any idea how we should be mobilizing around that issue to break up that model and are there some instances but you can tell us about that. We need to start debate. Fullstop first game students in the hallway and giving them a summons that start piling up and policing them in the hallway of their own buildings. That is an obvious place to start. But we have to add to that the things that are alienating students increasingly that are pushing them in that direction. So if we have a highly standardized curriculum. Theres nothing to do with genuine inquiry, nothing to do with teaching and learning. [applause] and for the students who are already pissed off. And these mandates and this and that and the other are yet another reason to check out from the School Experience and you can hardly blame them. Now lets turn to page 35. Its ridiculous. And if you go on to the common core website that are explicit in the history and they want to take away the teeth, take away the danger that they want you to teach the letter from the birmingham jail without talking to students about why hes in the jail, they want you to teach the gettysburg address without talking about the field of other bodies. Its not just of the metal is. Its not just of the police in the hallways. Theres Something Else going on thats making the school totally irrelevant to people in a way that feeds into the other thing as well so its not just walking up sixyearolds also they are locking up sixyearolds its not just that it is also what they are happening to the process of the school itself. And how do we correct it, what is it going to take for us to be on to that . We have to overcome the high bar that is a pattern of racism that doesnt count as racism. You have to catch somebody saying the n. Word. So if you are not whats his name, if you are not dumb enough to get caught on camera saying ridiculous things that you can do anything you want. You can shoot them down. Who cares what came out of his mouth. [applause] you can do anything with people. Not those oldfashioned words that show you are a racist. As long as you keep that off the table you can do anything to people. No, thats racist. If they are put in handcuffs at six thats racist, schools getting shut down our predominantly black teachers and predominantly black students thats racist. We see this kind of Colorblind Society in every institution in america, every institution has a plaque on the wall swearing up and down that they are colorblind and going to treat everybody will. It is the new racism. Apostasy whe. Has. You will organize and talk to the people that you know, because you set down and ate lunch or when to for all walks. It is hard to organize with strangers say you have to form connections and build alliances and relationships in the process to develop political challenges and that is very, very cheap because if you dont its challenges dont go anywhere and i am sure some of you have had that experience. [laughter] also haag education if you dont know all how in the n. Y. P. D. Dont know how to control the bronx and then you dont know the difference between occupation and occupation. We have to realize the struggles to make so much visible. I spent some time in detroit michigan. Lois o amazing 11 about urban burgeoning and Food Production and ron has an organization in ha sass support each other and ask it in the eye of day to develop a the common narrative for that to be the driving force of the Coalition Building and as kathleen said in then that allows us thats it is essentials. That would not have ben successful if not for africanamericans are native american inner hispanic American Students were asianAmerican Students would not have ben successful. And to create some the other engine narrative with is transforming. If youre looking for a class in the fall i am teaching this class and race in the media in the fall. Join us. The lights shoot close with a couple of quotations. There is a systematic decision to prevent the radical leaders from having their natural effect is difficult to mobilize but within a short time if you eliminate more to mr. King, robert kennedy, hampton and all the others who were killed you diminish the strength of the movement. So had keying chosen to be more cowardly maybe he would have lived locker the status of the choice he made. [applause] and you used as reference and each generation makes its own history a new generation that now must make history but it faces huge challenges whether the Climate Crisis and then poverty in the end of its equity in the world but all of us than a drop in the resources of those who struggled before us. And the people of mankind beyond earth gave us strong shoulders to stillborn stand on. [applause] we glass more roundtable all talking. People have to believe they can do this. Jim forman always used to say and i it fired him tremendously as my first mentor i have never worked so hard in my life the first weekend i got to of land title vegas but the three hours old weekend and it sncc was en chaos and collapsing. You have to be able to believe in yourself what you want to do and know that we will win. So we have to put those men off the table. [laughter] and believe we can win. If we dont cover you can be sure this is a country going down the tubes will little faster in the future. One of the things we have come away from with those contributions from the past and even though they feel as if the air at some sort of impasse to build and struggle. With the necessity of the work we are here, we are available to develop their tools and analysis of truth telling to listen to the stories to build and create news stories. [applause] everywhere rigo i see young people trying to of sore people i see them reading of the max on the train or if i wear my a angela davis tshirts diana stops 27 times to go somewhere. [laughter] for that generation that tries to do breakout and there is the important legacy that is essential to what we have to do from here. That is why we want to present did a film or in a book did whatever form we can. To say i am so proud of. With those heroics figures. [applause] thank you so much. Please get your book signed by our two powerhouses on the stage. [applause] i just finished the book that is about the five hollywood directors and from john huston it is the fascinating look at hollywood and rolled for to to document what went on to motivate people. With the brilliant artist to literally went to war. With of a tax law of the of violent with the film the classic documentary about the b17 and he lost his hearing because of his service. It is a fascinating portrait