Heritage month. This is about 90 minutes. Good afternoon, and welcome back. This is our next panel in the afternoon. Organizing across the boundaries, strategies and coalitions in the struggle for the civil rights and social justice. Before we get started i just wanted to explain a little bit about the genesis of this panel or this how it came about like a lot of great ideas, i came across this book doing a search in the catalog. And this is many months ago we were kind of thinking about what do we want to do. There are so many books that come out on if Civil Rights Movement every year. We thought lets focus on some that are kind of different and interesting that kind of change how we think about the movement, kind of up in our understanding of it. When we came across this one. It has a great cover art. We loved how she was looking at these groups in an area we dont often think about and how these two groups came together in their struggles. So dr. Rice is going to be our first speaker. She earned her ph. D. From berkeley. Shes now a professor in ohio. Shes taught there since 2007. This is her first book so march for others. It was published just last year by the university of pennsylvania press. And our next speaker after her will be Bill Jennings who grew up in san diego and he was just telling us the story early today which i thought was great about his p. E. Coach in middle school was tommy smith and he had this wonderful inspiring moment when he saw him on tv at the 1968 olympics after hed won the gold medal, racing his fist up in the air and that inspired him to become an activist. He moved to oakland and joined the black Panther Party. He helped without a loft of he helped out with a lot of programs for many years with the panthers, with Free Breakfast Programs and also uniting with Mexican American farm workers and cannery workers and doing responsible similar programs with him, too he is 2 archivist of the black Panther Party and he started a website called its about time bpp. Com that includes tons of images, manuscript items from the party that you can peruse at home. After both of them speak well do a q. A. On stage. The moderator for that will be cap selena gomez. Our monitor grew up in bogota, colombia. So please join me in welcoming our panelist starting with lauren ariza. Thank you. \[applause] thank you. Thank you for that kind introduction. I actually wondered how i came to be invited. I had no idea. So thank you all for coming. I also want to thank forward . Ok. All right. Ok. Also want to thank the library of congress for organizing todays symposium on coalitions and the struggle for justice as part of their year long serious on what has been termed the long Civil Rights Movement. Todays symposium rectifies one of my major critiques of social movements which is that each movement is usually studied in isolation as if each movement was an island with no connections, other movements, or as maria said, as the beach was a silo unto itself. Examining coalitions between movements provides us with a more nuanced, more complex and ultimately i argue, more accurate depiction of social movements and the people and organizations that fought for social justice. Quite simply, activists of this period didnt think of themselves as being part of individual movements. They didnt describe themselves as being part of the Civil Rights Movement or the which i or the Chicano Movement or the red power movement. Instead, they envisioned themselves as part of the movement. The umbrella term for the various struggles for equality and social justice that unfolded in the 1960s and 1970s. So accordingly, these movements were marked by continuous interaction and Dynamic Exchange between activists. Sometimes the strategies, philosophies and accomplishments of one movement nearly influenced others. But in other instances movements physically intercepted. Participants overlapped, resources were shared and efforts were merged to more effectively combat the shared enemy. But how do coalitions happen . How did we even get to this point . How do people divided by race, ethnicity, geography, religion, or language come together to fight for social justice they each have their own struggles and concerns. And what determines whether these coalitions will be successful how do where do we get to the point where not just people coming together but obviously accomplishing something. In my book, i attempt to answer these questions by using the United Farm Workers as a lens to explore attitudes and approaches towards Multiracial Coalition building. Briefly, cesar chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1967 in order to organize farm workers in california, many of whom were mexican. Chavez and others believed in unionization would offer the best protection for workers who suffered from back breaking labor, expose jury to extreme temperatures, dangerous insecticides and low pay. They were also vulnerable to child labor and sexual harassment. In the their struggles against the powerful forces, these were not just these were not family farms that the farm workers were working on. These were massive corporations that operated huge farms that were then backed by california politicians and Law Enforcement. And so in their struggles against this powerful system, the ufw engaged in action tactics such as picket lines, markets and boycotts, all of which were rooted in labor activism were also inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. These protests attracted Media Attention and eventually garnered the farm worker support from a wide array of constituencies, including religious orders, students, activists of the new left, house wives, politicians and celebrities. So among the supporters were five major organizations of the black freedom struggle in the 1960s and 1970s. My book explores these relationship. I look at the naacp, the urban league, the southern christian Leadership Conference and the black Panther Party. What i wanted to know was which such a diverse array of organizations that really capture the scope of civil rights organizing during an era from a radical to the very conservative, i want to know why such an array of organizations chose to work with a union of Mexican American farm workers in rural california. I also want to analyze the trajectories of these alliances. The level and type of support that each of these organizations gave them varied. So my book is a study of the factors that determine the viability optical Multiracial Coalition building. When social movements form in a coalition it can make practical strategy a sense when youre fighting racism, poverty, exploitation, disenfranchisement, Police Brutality, you need all the help you can get. But even when working with an ally makes sense, Coalition Forming is a complicated undertaking and involves complicated factors. So the coalitions that were formed between the black freedom and the ufw were shaped by race, class, region, gender. But aspects of each organizations organizational identity, ideology, tactics, Historical Context in which it operated, its leadership, all of these things were also instrumental in the development and outcome of coalitions. So for the purposes of todays symposium, im going to focus on the relationship between the the ufw and the black Panther Party, which for some its probably the most surprising aspect of my book. So two people founded the black q a newton and bobby seale founded the black Panther Party in oakland, california, in 1966 in response to overwhelming Police Brutality in that city. On the surface, as i said, this alliance surprises a lot of people, because on the surface, the two organizations seem to be unlikely allies. The black panthers were different in nearly every way from the largely Mexican American, nonviolent, rural and catholic farm workers. Despite their differences, the the ufw and the black panthers formed a coalition in 1968 during the unions nationwide boycott of california grapes. Previously, in the unions earlier strikes, they would target one grower at a time. They would boycott that growers products and when they got a union contract, they would move onto the next. In late 1967 they came up against a vineyard corporation that was very stubborn. They convinced other Grape Growers in california to give their labels to them. So you might think you were buying grapes from a different grower, but you were actually buying their grapes because they put somebody elses label on the box. When the leadership discovered this was happening they went to chavez and said, this isnt going to work. We cannot do this boycott unless we boycott all california grapes. So if it grows in california, were boycotting. And this ended up being a spectacular strategy, because, one, it was easier. California grapes. And i was like were going. It was easier and take the boycott nationwide. People are boycotting california groups so its this moment that black Panther Party along with self other people in the country take notice of what the farm workers are doing and the panthers come to the union state immediately participate in rallies in support. The black panther newspaper regularly pushed articles explaining the great boycott and calling for its readers to join in the various members of the vfw told me was very effective because not only did they need bodies on the picket line panthers on picket line made it less like hi that they would be harassed by the police. So and the panthers and the ufw the panthers werent just helping the ufw. They were helping each other. They joined forces and this happens during the great boycott when both groups align against Safeway Grocery stores. Safeway Grocery Stores, i believe they still are, but certainly they were at the time the largest Grocery Store change on west, and they refused to remove california grapes from the shelves. They also refused to donate to the black panther parties free breakfast for children program. The party ran this program to help underprivileged children of all races succeed in school by serving them a hot nutritious breakfast every morning and relied on locke rall businesses to make this happen and the panthers and the farm washingers join forces. Not only did they picket together. The panthers brought their particular know how. Many of the panthers, including the panther leadership were veterans. A motor pool was formed for the black Panther Party to use, and he implemented that during the safeway boycott, so what happened was that in the evening when people get off work and go growsry shopping on their way home, panthers would recruit local children from the find to come man the picket line out in front of safeway, and then motor pool would be there, and the panthers would say to shoppers trying to come into the safeway store, please dont shop here. Safeway is telling greats, dore participate. And so well drive you in this car right here to luckys. Well right you while you shop and you dont have to carry those bags and chauffeur to the Grocery Store and by doing this the panthers are able to assist the farm workers in the star and the store meanwhile was shout dunn because of lack of customers because this motor pool was so successful. So following the uaw winning the First Agricultural contract for farmers in the united states. The panthers and farmers continue to Work Together and their relationship grows and evolves. The panthers supported the ufws production of iceberg lettuce. The ufw spoke out in defense of the black Panther Party when it was subjected to violent repression by Law Enforcement and then an bill will be talking about this as well. Their political interests coalesce, when california growers sponsor proposition 22 in 19727 where this proposition, had it pass, would have outlawed boycotts against Agricultural Products so it would have crippled bfws organizing off the. This coincide when bobby seal was running for mayor of oakland. Chavez and bfw endorse bobby seals mayoral campaign. Chavez goes door to door in oakland xanks on seals behalf so this their we like evolves and grows and their interest, as i said, continued to dovetail. What brought these organizations together in the first place and what made them look at each other against these gulfs of culture, of play, of identity, and reach out to each other . What makes this happen . So the first is a sense of crossracial solidarity. There was a recommend in addition among both the panthers and the farm workers that both africanamericans and mexicanamericans suffered from similar patterns of racial discrimination, and this recognition of the shared the share repression is really the foundation for this for this alliance, and this is something thats misunderstood about the black Panther Party. While the black Panther Party certainly advocated for selfdetermination and black power, it also called for selfdetermination, political power, racial pride, Economic Justice on behalf of all oppressed groups. Not just africanamericans, and it advocated multiracial solidarity, and this is evidence in their slogan of all power to the people, right, so whereas other black power groups were wanting black acpower, black panthers did, that they also chanted all power to the people emphasizing this inclusiveness, this shared sense of power. This is later articulated by huey newton when he develops this philosophy of revolutionary incommunalism, this idea that oppressed people worldwide are united, that the National Borders are inconsequential in the face of capitalism, but as i said, even before he articulates, that because he doesnt articulate that until 71, theres that foundation, that shared recognition of the plight of peoples of color is really foundational to the black Panther Party ethos so they formed alliances with several organizations regardless of race, including the brown berets as carlos mentioned but also the young lords, the red guard, a radical Chinese Organization based in San Franciscos chinatown, the young patriots, a group of young white afternoppan migrants in chicago. So in my book this is also very similar to whats happening with snic. Snic also reached out to the farm workers on this recognition that mexicanamerican farm workers in california and africanamerican sharecroppers in the south were experiencing the same types of exploitation. And so theres this recognition of this crossracial solidarity. So this is also by place. The unique, one of the reasons the party imbrace this is multiracial solidarity is because of where it is. The unique of the American West often prompted, not just in the 1960s but earlier, we see in the 1940s where the naacp is working with latino and Asian American organizations. And part of this is the diversity of california but then also part is because of the way segregation happens in the west. Carlos alluded to this earlier where yes there was residential segregation but African Americans and latinos were segregated to the same neighborhoods, especially in los angeles but also in oakland as well. So panthers in oakland, or in los angeles as well, had grown up with latinos, with american indians, with Asian Americans. And so they shared the same experiences of residential segregation, inadequate education, Police Brutality. And so this shapes the partys development. And again, this is also characteristic of civil rights organizations in the west. Civil rights organizations in the west tended to be more supportive of the ufw because they already have knowledge of Mexican Americans and their issues. So for example snic field secretaries in california, who were originally from california persuaded the rest of the organization to support the farm workers before the farm workers Even National ly. Snic was working with the farm workers before even their first strike. This is how aware of whether the Mexican American farm workers were experiencing in california. Similar think naacp in the west had to fight new york to support the farm workers. So the contrasts are the southern based organization. In the 1960s and 1970s the south was still very much black and white. This changes in the 1980s with immigration reform. But in the south, as i said in the 60s and 70s, latino population was never more than about 4 of the population. So southern christian Leadership Conference for example wasnt aware of the struggles of latinos until the Poor Peoples Campaign in 1968 because they just werent privy to it. It wasnt what was happening in alabama and georgia and what have you. And so also later as black power organizations start to form in the south, again this makes sense. Because it is coming from a place of strict black white segregation. Whereas the multiracial milieu of the San Francisco bay area makes Coalition Building a more practical strategy for civil rights organizations. But also this relates to the the idea of place is not just about the regions of the count bry, it is also going back to rural versus urban, which the last panel addressed as well. The u of w is addressing not just farm workers but the system of inequality in rural agricultural areas. So civil rights activists who had experience with agricultural labor, rural environments tended to be more supportive of the ufw. The black Panther Party, even though it was an urban organization, was largely composed even the leadership southern migrates themselves so or descended from the southern migrants. So the leadership of the party particularly had historical knowledge, they had Family Experience with rural inequality with agricultural labor. Similarly snic conducted most of its organizing in rural areas. So they also oh really . See this is what happens when i try to like talk instead of [ laughter ] i was just telling somebody that if i dont just read i go over. So okay. So briefly, so two more points. Another thing that brings them together that enable this is coalition to form is class. Again talking about this intersection of race and class and gender and place. Panthers were the leadership e smeshl were socialist. So they saw the farm workers as fellow exploited workers. They believed that multiracial cooperation against capitalism was more important than racial differences. And they were able to unite across race because they had this sense of class solidarity. Snic also wiz was able to work with the panthers in this way. Because again although not explicitly socialist, working with African American sharecroppers in the south gave them that experience of the ties between economic exploitation and racial discrimination. And then finally leadership. Even if an organization or even if two organizations have everything in common. They are in the same place. Working at the same goals. The backgrounds of the members are similar, an alliance might not happen. Because a coalition really is a relationship between individuals. So it takes someone to say hey this is important. I know we have this great big thing were doing but what this other group is doing is really important and we need to work with them. So it takes a leader to make that step and make it happen. So the panthers that was bobby seal. Bobby seal really spear head this is alliance that the rest of the part fully embraces. And he does so because his father had been a labor contractor. One of the things that farm workers were fighting against. He had an Old School Bus and he would take farm workers out to the fields in california and then drive them home in the evening and he would charge the farm workers for the ride but then he would charge the farmers for bringing the workers. And bobby seal even as a child was outraged by this. He thought it was terrible. He wasnt comfortable wit. He would argue with his father about it. So when the government campaigns the use of labor contractors hes on board and says this is who were going to work. Same for snic, mike miller, head of the San Francisco office, makes that relationship happen. Leonard carter spear heads that alliance. So it takes a leader to say were going to have this relationship. Were going to bridge these divides. So ill just conclude by saying this relationship between the black Panther Party and the United Farm Workers are an example of the possibilities inherent in Coalition Building. That such divergent organizations as the ufw and the black Panther Party can come together and in an alliance that is truly productive you know, the farm workers win labor contracts or union contacts. They give visibility from the panthers giving them a platform in their newspaper in bobby seals campaign. The panthers also benefit. They get help with the safeway boycott but they are also their image among latinos greatly improves because chavez is endorsing him. And thinking maybe they are reluctant about the panthers but when chavez gives the okay then all of a sudden they are embraced by more conservative elements of the latino community. So this shows what can happen when organizations look beyond their differences to find their commonalities. Thank you. [ applause ] bilinogenings. Bi Bill Jennings. Greetings everyone. My name is billy x. Jennings. Im glad to be here. Former member of the black Panther Party. Joined in 1968 and i stayed in the organization till 1974. The first person id like to give like a photo essay of my involvement in the black Panther Party and community work. Because so many people have talked about the black Panther Party today. So i was born in the south in anderson, alabama. We call it the scene of the crime. And my mother was very instrumental many my political consciousness. We were from alabama. My dad was in the service. He left my dad was in the military. So im from alabama and we was transferred to san diego, california. We made that journey in 1955 just as the montgomery boycott was starting in alabama. And so one of the first things we did when we got to california, my mother made my father buy a tv. Because tvs was not a come thing in households at that time. So in order to keep one the struggle in our home state in alabama my mother made my dad buy a tv and every day watch Walter Cronkite report what was going on in the south. And my mother used to get so emotional. So mad. Because she seen bull conners. Racist police. Our people being hosed down and dogs being sicked on them just for trying to vote or attend a rally. My mother used to get so emotional. Back in those days, later on i had nine other brothers and sisters but at the time i was the only child. And she would look at me and say boy dont you ever let nobody do that kind of stuff to you. So she just instilled that in to me. I went on with my life. And in my junior year, i was coming back from a track meet. I was on the track team for lemore high school in san joaquin valley. I used to fight every day in junior high school. And he was my physical education teacher. And he would see me fighting every day because of somebody calling me a name or Something Like that. And he came uhm to me one day and said bills you cant fight everybody. You have to pick your moments. And that is exactly what he did in 1968. So when he went to olympics and won that gold medal and i seen him standing up there and put his fist up said this is what hes talking about. Choosing your moments. So later on im still in california. We moved to were still in san diego. And so the panthers go to sacramento in 1967 and i see them on tv. And i was so kpiepted about that. I woke my dad up. He hates to be woken up after hes in his easy chair. And said dad look at this. And he was amazed to see black people was doing Something Like that. And these are the same brothers. Bobby seal in the middle. Emory douglas. These are the panthers that went to sacramento and changed history for black people in america. Because they stood up and took a positions were not going to take Police Brutality. And they started the organization to parole Police Officers in the black community. And did because huey newton was going to high scholaw school. And panthers would carry law book in their arms when they went to engage with the police. Because the police at that time, they didnt they didnt take much to be a police officer. Let me say that. It didnt take much. You didnt have to go to college. You didnt have to do any of that stuff. All you had to do was look tougher or know somebody. So a lot of these cops didnt even know the laws and we would cite the laws to them but historically that lawbook has been dissected out of our arms. Most people didnt even know we were doing that. We were citing laws. They didnt understand the miranda law. That was instituted in 1966 the same year the black Panther Party started and we were reciting to it people and they didnt even know what it was. Cops like this, oldtimers. Bad attitude people we had to deal with in our community. So the black Panther Party not only dealt with Police Brutality. We dealt with we dealt with various types of discrimination, you know. So most people just know the black Panther Party from dealing with the police but black Panther Party had a ten point program. Within that program we fought for fair housing, Better Living conditions. And what really attracted me was point six. We want all black men exempt from military service. I was a i was 17 and they started had lottery. When i read that, im like yeah im against the draft too. And the thing about it was black people was recruited, drafted to go fight a what are for democracy. There was no democracy for black people. Remember 1965 president johnson signed a bill called the voting right act. They were sending people before that. Black representatives and chicago represe chick knoothes war. At the height of our existence we had 51 offices in 30 cities. International support. An embassy in algeria. When Aldrich Cleveland was ran out of the country in 1969 he established an embassy in algeria. Later on we got an embassy in sweden, a support committee in paris run by Richard Wrights daughter t author of native son. We had support and north vietnamese, they gave us our embassy in algeria. Because they were mooifing to a bigger one. And these are many of the rallies that happened during that time. And theres been a lot said about Coalition Building. When we had rallies just couple weeks ago, a reporter asked well wasnt the plaque pane black Panther Party a racist . I said you hadnt done your history. How could you say that. They ran cleveland for president. Sds. The biggest antiwar group going, white group. So we had that solidarity is in the black Panther Partys dna. I do a lot of today i do a lot of exhibits, displays, and this is one of them. It is a combination of i call it the early years. You know we was marching and rallying around certain issues. Later on in 1969, this is something that people really dont look at or dont even know about the black Panther Party social programs. We had Something Like twenty and the most known is the free breakfast for School Children program. This is operated early in the morning and the reason why we started is because it opened young people opens level of poverty was below poverty level. You had blacks and chicano kids going to school hungry. And so we started this social program to feed kids and it took off in oakland. The black Panther Party was the First Organization do that. And just before i came here, i looked at the Agriculture Department and they claimed they feed 6. 2 million kids a year. They call it their nutrition program. But it is the same thing the black Panther Party started. We embarrassed them into starting that program because at that time the government was busy shooting rockets to the moon. Dogs and among keys to the moon when our people here were starving. So later on in 1971 they started had Free Breakfast Program and feeding kids throughout the country. So we started doing that. Also at the same time we took up where snic left off. They had summer schools and we had liberation schools. Early stages there was no black history classes. None taught anywhere except make a black college down south. But in metropolitan cities there was no history being taught. Even i came up without even know the full potential of our people. And when you dont know that you are really lacking. So we took it as a very important thing to educate young people. And that was a whole focus. Educating young people. Feeding the kids. Giving them a better chance of life than we had. Free food program. Were known for that. At various stages of our organization we gave away tens of thousands of groceries. Wed give away food, register people to vote. This is the first time grown people had ever been asked to reg store to vote. Black Panther Party did that. We just cant do it in california. We did it throughout the country. We would give away 10,000 free bags of groceries, register people to vote and do sickle cell anemia testing. People didnt know what that was. Doctors didnt know what that was, the government didnt know. Until the black Panther Party made it known. Even in 1972 richard mill house pig nixon brought up that in the state of union speech in 1972. And we have to do more to conquer sickle cell anemia. I wonder where he got that at. So we started these Community Centers throughout america. Right . So in this particular picture you can see people from the community. We have a Voter Registration there. You see one guy with a big box of cereal hes taking home to his family. And there was a Meeting Place for people in the community. So we provided services 24 hours a day. And because we did this, a whole purpose was to bring the social consciousness of people to a certain level so they could start to finding their own situation and start taking more stern action. So we got involved in rent control. We got control we also did a lot of protesting. Because at that time in america it was very common for landlords to use leadbased paint in their apartments. And many young kids start chipping start eating that and got lead poisoning. So we protest against that, bad conditions. Also black Panther Party was at the vanguard. Women were 50 of our organization. Women had just as much right as any male in our organization to be a leader or be in charge of an office. We have a number of offices throughout america that was run by women. The boston office. You know the Mount Vernon Office down in new york. We had different offices in memphis tennessee that was run by women. You know they were they were the word. Not only that, during the course of the black panether party era we had like 14 free medical clini clinics. Two still open to this day in Seattle Washington and portland oregon. And we provided services. We didnt ask your last name. Is your mother and fathers last name the same. We didnt ask how much money you made. We said if you have an ailment come down to the clinic. So we employed women as well. Which is a very good image for young women. Now this is Sickle Cell Anemia Program in l. A. It was named after aapprentice Bunchy Carter who was murder in 1969. We talked about that earlier, i think carlos did. Now, this right here, east 9th and 26th. Called jingle town in oakland. Like an undeveloped area. Its close proximity to a dell monty cannery. And back in 1969 a lot of Migrant Workers came through jingle town and were bringing their kids. And so we set up a Free Breakfast Program at the marys help for christian church. Most of the kids were chicano but we didnt care because they were hungry. So in working with the local people there, a brown beret unit established itself in that area and started working with us on a daily basis at the free breakfast for School Children program. So eventually within 6 months they were able to take that program over theirselveses which relieved us to go do other organizationing abilities. So we worked hand in hand with the brown beret, United Farm Workers, any group that was moving forward. Moving up to 1972 people talked about bobby seals campaign. I ran the Main Campaign office. And during the campaign there was talk about proposition 22. Proposition 22 was a proposition that the growers wanted to put on the ballot. So i worked directly with United Farm Worker people because they would come to our office and i was sited and precincts to work in. So i they worked hand in hand with panther members. We might send six out to precincts. Three chicanos and three members of the black month Panther Party. During that campaign to me personally i thought it was the best thing to ever happen to oakland. We rescued tens of thousands of people. We gave away food. Even though we didnt win the election, the fact we almost did. We got into a runoff. There were nine other candidates. Some was city council. Some was millionaires. We kicked all their butts and we got into a runoff and we scared the mess out of oakland. And so they ahead to come out real racist to us. They e shoed old time bobby seal with his. 45. And showed with his robe on and said which do you want to be mayor . Coldblooded. But even though we lost the election it opened had door and swung the door wide open. And next election we had a black mayor. We had chicanos on the city council. So there was a positive result behind that. So this is bobby and elaine during the campaign. The black Panther Party, the paper was very important. Right here on the front cover is lettuce from the lettuce strike. And also during 1969 it was seven chicano brothers in San Francisco that was arrested. They were called las iete. The Organization Grew so fast they cant have the personnel or equipment to mobilize people. So the black Panther Party newspaper, already a million seller, you know, on the back we decided to butt basti ya, and the panther paper until they were able to get their own paper. Which started i think in october 19 old it up again. Basta ya. So working with different people with different interests was not anything new. Now also this is a personal picture from our archives and Caesar Chavez. I was given a bunch of negatives from a former photographer before he died. And in the box was a negative. You see this chair in this negative. You go from frame to frame. And see this chair out in the field. They are having a rally out in the field. And you see this chair moving about each frame. And then the last frame you cc sar sitting in the chair. Caesar sitting in the chair. This is the black Panther Party newspaper boycotting safeway. I still dont shop that safeway [ applause ] i still dont shop that safeway. And this is myself right here holding the United Farm Worker sign. I always wear a straw hat. Thats where my grand kids are able to find me in these pictures. Also same time in 1968 there was a National Strike of auto workers. Gm and ford gone on strike to black Panther Party members supported them. They supported students on camps likes i was. Growth street college. Now in todays era we started a number of programs called black panther history month. And every october we have the speakers coast to coast. This is myself in chicago. This is myself and huey newton. Straw hat again. That was my job 1971. The Central Committee t governing body of the party used to say to to this. Whatever happen to huey, it better happen to you first. So we had World Connection with different groups. Last year i went to australia and i was there with the aborigine panthers. Ive been to portugal, london, all around the world. Because we have panthers in the east [ cell phone ] we have panthers in all of those places because we were able to adopt our fraprogram to fit the needs. These are fallen members of the party. During course of the party 28 members were killed. There was a thing that the fbi started called cointel pro. Counterintelligent program. Killed a lot of people. Jald a lot of people. Something like 19 Political Prisoners still in jail and one is this guy right here. Hes not in jail. He got away and hes in African American for 40 years. But he has a lot of programs there as well. So there is a number of people whos done positive work. Even today, even the city are starting to pull up historical markers of what panthers had done work in the community. And this is our 45th year banner. You can see right under the free all Political Prisoners, there is a that is lettuce. That is let frtuce from the lete strike for the farm workers. So we always keep that in memory. I do a lot of speeches at the high schools and clenls and the colleges and these are some of the collages ive done. And in october 17th and 19th were vig a big panther reunion down in kansas city. So im going to end it there. If you are any questions or suggestions you can come to our website. Website is full of information. So id like to end it right now. Our 50 years is coming up in 2016. All right. Thank you. [ applause ] so lauren, if you and kathleen would join us on stage. Well it is such an honor to be with you two here today and thank you so much for your wonderful presentations lauren and bill. I think this first question, i had it planned, but i think carlos really inspired me to frame it the way im going to frame it. I want to ask you what are the less lessons that were drown from these coalitions and efforts to reach across racial and cultural movements in the california area. Okay, you, lauren, explain how you know, how the beginning of this coalition was inspired. The recognition of the shared repression. But im interested in the transformational process and the blow my mind mome moments of union throughout the years. I think proposition 22 was one of those moments for sure. But what were the moments of a learning from each other, the discoveries i guess of this union . Well i could say that we we set the table for people to come after us. Because we showed that this can actually work. You know, solidarity works. In 1971 we put the initiative on the ballot in berkeley called the Community Control the police. At that time berkeley was like a center for the activities. College kids and people from Interest Community beat up from the police. We 16,000 signatures and put that on the ballot. Even though it lost. We had 38 , it showed that we could do that. That if we could concentrate a little bit harder we could bring people to the poles and get them to vote. And that whole effort is a learning effort. Black Panther Party believed in revolution. And we knew that the way to do that is to raise peoples political consciousness. And that is what we did. And thats what the newspaper was about, the rallies, giving people information they didnt have before. In the black Panther Party we believe that information is the raw material for new ideas. So our whole agenda was to educate people to lift their political ideology so they can see the future, so they can see the contradictions that are before them. So by working with the United Farm Workers we showed people can Work Together. We can acrossline. We have common interest. Because the black Panther Party saw the struggle not as a race struggle but as a class struggle. And based it on just what i heard today about the poor peoples march. In that same year the black Panther Party started a chant and it went black power to black people, red power to red people. Brown power to brown people. Yellow power to yellow people. People had never ever heard that before. That was like mind blowing. You know, people actually said okay. You know, we should have this. So it is all about educating people and organizing. That is what people can walk away from today. They lift the conscious of each era in america or each generation to a higher level. So the other generation is not going to take what the generation took before. Just like when i was 17 i wasnt going to take what my parents took. Im not taking no beat down. If someones going to get hurt im not going to be the only one. I was thinking something about gordon said earlier about, that even if uhm, it doesnt matter if these coalitions are fleeting. If it is around one campaign or if its around one boycott, it is still important. And i definitely have had this critique from another historian friend actually. Who was like, well, you know, the bobby Seal Campaign is one year and the safeway boycott is this many months. Is this really a coalition . I said yes. Because it is still a moment of people coming together. It is still a moment of working together, producing a tangible outcome. So even if its shortterm, even if it is a handful of people it is still important. Because it is still showing the possibilities of what can happen when people, again, you know, dig deeper. When they dont look at the differences that are an the surface but they uncover all the things they have in common that are much deeper than that. And what can happen. And it wasnt always that stable because i was reading that in the late 60s the black Panther Party there was a period of time you couldnt support the Farm Workers Union because you were concerned with all these trials and you had to unite and the early 70s and proposition 22 and the mayoral campaigns and united again. So can you talk about how this all sort of fluctuated. Well i would say like when we go into the community to educate people. And that was our main focus, to educate people. It doesnt matter. We explained to them who their enemy was. You know, it is the average businessman, the lying politician and it is the armed part of the system t Police Department and military that is our oppressor. So we building on that. People already had bad experiences with the capitalists because they were the ones who were running the United Farm Workers were working against. So we had to identify who their friends and who their enemies are. So its a whole educational process. Just when we work with the farm workers, it wasnt just a year. It was every day thing. Because the struggles are every day. You dont take a day off. So, you know, we learned from each other. We had first aid stations. We had rest stations and stuff like that. So because of the black Panther Party being a revolutionary group we was attacked by the government. So a lot of our time was distracted from our work in the community because we had legal problems, you know. Bobby seal, huey newton the whole leadership of the black Panther Party went to jail. But also in 1969, 400 members of the black Panther Party went to jail on various charges and the reason is because o a lot of them was bogus charge, harassment charges just so we could spend bail money to get the people out of jail. And they will be arrested for like selling the black Panther Party newspaper. And Everybody Knows youre supposed to have freedom of the press. But not us. So those kind of things were continuous every day struggle. And so United Farm Workers, the brown beret, and other organizations had to go through the same thing. Besides fighting the Police Departments we also daid a lot f political work. Sure, what hes alluding to when i was doing my archival work i noticed in both the ufw papers are wayne state and detroit and huey newton papers are at stanford. And when i was looking at the letters between the ufw leadership and the black panther leadership there was a lull in the early seventies and i had to go back and look. And its because everybody was in jail. And it was during so when the lettuce boycott begins, it is when bobby seal and Erica Huggins are on trial in connecticut. So every bit of the Panther Partys energy and resources were being directed to assisting with that trial. Once they win the trial and they are released, then pretty much immediately they turned their attention right back to the work that they had been doing. So like you were saying, like it is an every day struggle. There wasnt a timeout. But the focus for a little while had to be getting, you know, bobby and erica free. So once that happens they are able to put their resources back towards the lettuce boycott, which they do. And move beyond the lettuce boycott, during that same time, when bobby seal ran for mayor of oakland, he also initiated he brought up before the city council that we should have bilingual ballots and also the language on the ballot should be that other people could read it. And that was way before the system decided to do that. So the black Panther Party first suggested that because it was only the right thing to do, you know. And beside the bilingual ballots we worked in the community in fruitville, which is the main chicano area. And we was able to get a lot of support from people because we were pushing the issue that was dear to their hearts. Yeah. Even goes beyond the farm workers that these election materials. It points out, this is before the Voting Rights act, the amendment in 1975 includes language but didnt in 1972 when the panthers brought this up. So it is really ahead of its time. And not only did bobby seal take this to city council but he explains it to the black leaderships and he says spanish is the first language of california and this is really important. So hes like bills been saying its about educating. Not just educating other communities but educating their own community as well. And so really gets everybody behind this initiative. Im also interested in having you talk a little bit about this tension between the non violence and militancy. Well it was mostly in the black Panther Party but i was reading at some point the you know, the farm workers struggle. So there was some people within the movement that, you know, started, you know, getting tired of the non violence. And was the union between the black Panther Party and the Farm Workers Union, did this effect did the union effect this sort of tension between non violence and violence . Did it decrease it . Did it increase it . I dont know. Well let me say, black Panther Party was based on philosophy was based on malcolm x. We called ourselves the children of malcolm x and he didnt believe in non violence. That was the main contradiction between malcolm x and Martin Luther king. So as children of malcolm we took that position. And they also brought up the fact me, most of us came from the south. I came from aniston. And we could not take a non violent posture in a light of what was happening on a nationwide level. We were all from the south. We saw what was happening in memphis and stuff like that. So my mother was not a non violent person. She believed in self defense and taught all of her kids, all ten of us to do that. So that philosophy was permanent in the black Panther Party but did not stop us from working with other groups. Because we worked with church groups. We had 90 of our breakfast programs at churches. So even though we believed in self defense, that just because someone was non violent or thought their method was different from ours, as long as we got together on the strategy and what direction to go, it didnt matter. Within the farm workers, non violence i mean it was really chavezs thing. So he studied gandhi. He was deeply committed to non violence, not just on a tactical level but a deeply philosophical level but doesnt mean the rest of the farm workers were. So in the early days of the ufw chavez realizes the rest of the farmers really arent on board with this. And he invites members of snic and core to delano to teach classes. Because the others arent really going along with. This then the panthers relationship and the farm workers are kind of questioning. Wait this whole effort to be non violent and then were working with the panthers. And then other unions, because remember the farm workers while fighting discrimination they are a union and in the aflcio. So one of the documents i found was a letter from a man in another aflcio yunion who was like how can you work with the panthers . How can you do this . And chavez was look, they are oppressed so were going to help them. And it didnt matter. The difference between chavez and some other practitioners of non violence was chavez knew that for him non violence was the way but he knew that it wasnt necessarily the way for everyone. And so in fact one of the more surprising documents i found in my research, there is an interview with Caesar Chavez at the jacques levy collection at yale where hes very critical of the Martin Luther king. Non violence is fine but you shouldnt force it on other people. You know, its not for everyone. So he didnt feel there is any contradiction in working with the party at all. He says like they are oppressed, they are dealing with the same things we are. Therefore we are going to Work Together. But he took it very seriously. I mean he even fasted sometimes, right . But for him it was always deeply personal. Right. So he wasnt expecting everyone else to be that way. He was committed to it on a level that he knew that other people werent, you know, willing to do. But that didnt stop him from working with others. Yeah. Im going clear up b one point. Even though we had different philosophies and non violent was not our philosophy. Didnt mean that the black Panther Party was violent. Black Panther Party stood for self defense. That means if you start trouble with us you better look out. We dont go to the Police Department and shoot at the Police Department. We dont go at 4 00 in the morning and start trouble with them. Or anything like that. But if you come to our neighborhood and do that, you got trouble. That is called self defense. Because no one here is going to let anyone walk up to them and insult them or slap them around. Nobody here will let that happen to them. The as self defense mechanism that everybody has. And this is what we had as a people. We was not going to take that no more. Okay. Im going to move on to im going to ask bill about your the archive that you are building and the exhibits that you have put together, which is wonderful work. What is your main goal in collecting all of this and building this archive and producing these exhibits . What is your main hope . Educate people. Because the concept of the black Panther Party has been miscon screwed. The legacy of the people is all over the place. People think the black Panther Party was racist and blah blah blah. So what ive done and ive been a collector all my life. Only time i wasnt collecting stuff was when i was in the black Panther Party. Before that as a kid i had super man comic books dating back to 1947. Every moral spiderman, i had all those. Baseball collections, i had coin collections. Even a stamp collection. I even have the first stamp that ghana produced. The First Independent state in africa, i collected that. I was 10 years old. So that had always stayed with me. And when i got actually i was listening to bobby seal. And bobby seal was saying something that was incorrect. I was like wait no that aint right. And so and not only that all he had was the huey p. Newton and the archive starts only after he gets out of jail in 1970 so the things before are not even documented. So that was my energy to tell the story of the reconciled. Not the leadership that Everybody Knows about. But the reconciled Party Members. Right . So i started collecting panther papers. I party put out 510 issues of the paper. I have 475. I have a lot of them on the website. Taken fliers from different rallies to put them on. I have a massive collection of underground newspapers, sds left notes. Write ones. Detroit free press, the l. A. Free press. The brown beret t United Farm Workers newspapers. I try to take samps les of thos and put them on the website and show what the media was saying about these people. So a person going to the website is saying what this were saying and what we were say so they can make they are oin judgment. Its au all about educating peoo have the correct information. Ive been instructed they need to open it for questions to the audience. Does anyone have any questions . And im going to give this microphone. So if we could fast forward to 2014 when i think the leading cause of death in minority men is violence. And in looking at the organizations that have taken hold of some of the communities in l. A. , the bgf, marasa dies y o choe. What is it going to take to. Black people started organizing these young men. And in chicago the oldest gang in america is black stone nation or black peace stone nation. Fred hampton, a former member of the naacp started organizing those around the black paneth ert party program. They started changing the way they process the information. Why are we tearing off our community. Why are we treating kids like this . And made them look at that and same thing with john huggins and Bunchy Carter in l. A. They started changing the gangs around because that he had revolutionary idea to help the community. And what it is going to take is revolutionaries who go back in the community and reteach and reorganize people. Because what they have done, we take one step forward and two steps back. We had different organizations and groups. Like the slawsons for instance. When Bunchy Carter got of the prison. He had learned through the process of being in prison what it took to make change. So he took the ideology of the black Panther Party down to l. A. And said were not going to be the slawsons no more. We are now the black Panther Party and all you o who dont want to be in our group you can leave. That was the kind of the down fall of gangs at that time. The era between 1968 and 74 you dont hear too much about gang activity. As a matter of fact the juvenile delinquency rate in all those communities went down. Do you know why . Because they have a new model. They have a new image in the community. They have a guy or sister in the community who are educated who, one, feeding them breakfast in the morning. Two we had a senior escort service. We used to escort seniors to get their checks cashed at the first of the month. Do you know why . Because there was no such thing as direct deposit in those days and every criminal and low natured person. So there was a lot of assaults on Senior Citizens and stuff like that. So we took those negative things and turned them into a positive. Even the crooks and the gangsters realized this is a good thing. Because they had mothers too. And they didnt want those things to happen to their mothers. So it is going to take a philosophy and someone Strong Enough and respectful enough to get these gangs attention for that to happen. And it is going to take a process. It might not happen in you or me lifetime but it is going to be hard. Anymore more questions . I wondered if you had an opinion about occupy . Who me . Yeah. Oh. Occupy. Occupy was cool with me. They were kind of short range as far as their ideoloa ologology i was glad to see people mobilizing. And being from oakland who where they had the strongest vanguard or occupy people, you know, they invited us down to speak at least once a week. Some Party Members were talking about some of the experience they had about being in the party because they wanted to know what it took. So we would come down and have political education classes with occupy. The only problem i had with occupy is they didnt they didnt see the full picture. They wanted too much democracy and not enough activity. [ laughter ] i think i have one last question for lauren. About your research and about your research methods. Outside of archival and primary sources and secondary sources, you also did a lot of interviews. And you interviewed bill in 2005, i think. Probably. Sure. Around. And i interviewed maria as well i think back in 2000 i interviewed you the first time. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about, you know, what the process of an interview. Sure. I did quite a bit of archival work. But a lot of my work is based on oral histories. You know, i have the good fortune of a lot of these activists being with us. And also i went to graduate school at berkeley, and so a lot of them live nearby. So that was nice. So but but also, as i pointed out, coalitions are really about people. Coalitions dont stwartart with memo. They dont start with a newspaper article. They start by a visit, a conversation. So mike miller the head of the snic office in industriessan fr Caesar Chavez shows up and asks him to cook him breakfast. And skd asks for his help organizing a boycott of this lig liquor company. When bobby seal wants chavezs endorsement when hes running for mayor, actually bill told me to call big man over big man howard. So i called big man there is a reason hes called big man. Huge. I called bigman and we meet and he tells me a story that is not recorded anywhere. Where basically some volunteer gets a crop duster and flies big man and bobby seal to la paz and they immediate with chavez in the union hall. And they have dinner together and then bobby asks for chavezs endorsement. Chavez says yes and they get back on the plane and fly back to oakland. And big man was terrified the entire time. This little rickety crop duster hovering over the fields. Its windy in the Central Valley all the time. But that is a story that is not written anywhere. And chavez is no longer with us. And bobbys memory isnt what it was. [ laughter ] well . Thats true. You know, so yeah i talked to big man. And then i talked to one of chavezs soninlaws who was also his body guard who was also there to find out about this conversation thats not recorded anywhere. And then also again because coalition is really about people working together. And you are only going to get the real story of coalition if you talk to those people. Okay. Anymore questions . Carlos has a question. I know you are up in oakland, right. But, you know, in l. A. We had a strong working relationship with the party. The free huey newton rally at the sports arena. Did you go to that one . No. But theres pictures of that. Yeah. You know, stokely spoke, ron, teherana and elvis cleaver grew up in east l. A. So when he got out of joint and a lot of the guys in the joint got us together and we met him and kathleen. And we had a forum in east l. A. Where tejerena spoke and you know when the [ expletive ] hit the fan and the shootings and everything and bobby. We had to break with us with the whole thing of the killing of the Bunchy Carter and john huggins. Have you seen the movie the raid on Central Street the big raid. They used some of our photos from archiving. When we got busted they would come support us and we had funerals we would be there. So that is another story. But at the same time in terms of history, in Southern California was one of our biggest supporters. Southern californias chapter ran from bakersfield to texas to louisiana. So the brothers from l. A. Not only had Southern California. They organized in sanita ana, sn diego, houston chapter, the dallas chapter, chapters all along the southern plains. So the southern chapter of the black Panther Party was a very strong chapter and all the work they did with the young with hasnt been documented but i would love to collaborate with someone because im doing oral mists myself. So i think there was one last question over here. Again, in the interest of bringing it forward some, and i apologize i was not here at the beginning of the program, i may have missed something, but im thinking about the southern Farmers Cooperative and then currently an organization, the Rural Coalition which does work to bring farm workers together across all groups. Did any of those activities begin to come in to the research because i dont know, lauren, when your research ended, but in terms of thinking about what we do today, what groups we look to support and become a part of. Right. Im really definitely it doesnt come in to play, my book ends about 73, 74. Even though you have black and white my grant farm workers in the south at this time you only get an influx of latino my grant farm workers starting in the mid80s. Im encouraged by the groups that are forming now in the south around again modern day Multiracial Coalition building around labor and theres quite a few groups that you pointed out that are working together. The only southern farm worker group that i really talked about was the one in mississippi which is an off shoot of the mississippi freedom democratic party. Theres an attempt to unionize share croppers. I only talk about them briefly because they are not able to harness support from local civil Rights Groups at the time, for example they reach out to clc and clc is not terribly interested. They are turning their attention to urban areas at the time. So they are ultimately not successful. But i definitely look at the groups that are forming now and having quite a bit of success and seeing that and realize that as an extension of some of the Multiracial Coalition building that you see with the United Farm Workers. The way its articulated is very similar. Mine stopped in 7374. I dont address these minor groups. But i believe i know there are others who have done quite a bit of work on this. I believe, gordon, does max work on some of these southern unions . Okay. Yeah. Right. Right. [ inaudible ] in the mississippi valley, so there were some mexicanamerican workers in the south before the 1970s and 80s and theres a book out there that im forgetting the name of right now that looks at that. But, yes. So theres some attempts, but its a much of it is not very successful. Right. I have a footnote. Footnote to this conversation or as johnny would say, sidebar. That theres a lot of information on this subject in a newspaper called the southern patriot. It was put out the group used to be in new orleans, they left and moved to kentucky tennessee. But their paper was out for sma ib years and has a lot of information in it. Im this weekend on the cspan networks, tonight at 8 00, the bradley. Or ben lincoln and the power of the press. Tonight at 10 00 on book tvs afterwords, jefferson davis. Noon, the former editor in chief at Simon Schuster publishers. Cspan3,history tv on
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