Revolution in Our Time: Chapters 6–10

It needed to be clear that their main purpose was to defend the Black community against violence, not to instigate violence against white people.

Huey and Bobby also knew that arming themselves would make them susceptible to close scrutiny by the police.

The final point on their Ten-Point Platform succinctly summed up their demands: “We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.”

Forty acres and two mules was promised
 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor
 and mass murder of black people.

The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million black people; therefore we feel that this is a modest
 demand we make.

We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society.

We believe that all black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.

Plebiscites in other nations during and after political turmoil had helped give regular people a voice in determining their future government.

“THE RACIST DOG POLICEMEN MUST WITHDRAW IMMEDIATELY FROM OUR COMMUNITIES, CEASE THEIR WANTON MURDER AND BRUTALITY AND TORTURE OF BLACK PEOPLE, OR FACE THE WRATH OF THE ARMED PEOPLE.”

The Panthers believed that if Black communities were ever going to see justice, the United States of America needed to experience a complete social, political, and economic upheaval.

“The Black Panther Party is simply the vanguard of the revolution. And we plan to teach the people the strategy and the necessary tools to liberate themselves.”

Most of the Panthers’ solutions are based on socialism, a political ideology that emphasizes shared resources being controlled by the government and distributed equally among people. The Panthers’ interest in socialism made them unpopular in the United States. The American system is based on capitalism, a political ideology that emphasizes individualism, private property ownership, and a free market in which goods and services are privately controlled.

This great global war had ostensibly been about freedom and democracy.

No political party can possibly lead a great revolutionary movement to victory unless it possesses revolutionary theory and knowledge of history and has a profound grasp of the practical movement.

The sisters and brothers “on the block” were the poorest of the poor, the most disenfranchised Black people, most of whom readily accepted the Panthers’ message, ideology, and tactics.

The brazen way they confronted police officers made community residents sit up and take notice.

It reminded them of an old Louis Armstrong jazz song, “Black and Blue,” which laments the conditions of life for Black Americans. According to Bobby, the song equates the despair of Blackness with being “beat-up black-and-blue from over two hundred years of racist discrimination.”

The first Panther member, Lil’ Bobby Hutton, was promoted to treasurer, even though the Party coffers were quite modest in those early days.

The coroner’s report indicated that he had been shot with his hands raised, but the county refused to allow additional scrutiny of the body or the evidence.

You are not required to consent to a search; therefore, you should not consent and should state clearly and unequivocally that you do not consent, in front of witnesses if possible.

Black nationalist groups were organizing all over the country, motivated by the clarion call of “Black Power!”

Nearer to Oakland, in Los Angeles, Elaine Brown participated in Black Student Alliance organizing and became one of the first women to represent the group in the Black Congress, a coalition of Black activist organizations in the area.

When they talked about oppression, they talked about a “racist power structure” and “avaricious politicians” who stole from the people, literally and metaphorically.

The violent rhetoric did not deter police aggressions; rather it spurred them on, as if violent rhetoric against the police was a form of violence in itself.

“What is a pig? A low natured beast that has no regard for law, justice, or the rights of the people; a creature that bites the hand that feeds it; a foul depraved traducer who’s usually found masquerading as a victim of an unprovoked attack.”

“What is a pig? A low natured beast that has no regard for law, justice, or the rights of the people; a creature that bites the hand that feeds it; a foul depraved traducer who’s usually found masquerading as a victim of an unprovoked attack.”

Even during the civil rights era, people tended to speak in terms of “prejudice” and “discrimination,” and it was not until around 1970 that the word racist became part of popular parlance.

The Panthers referred to themselves as the vanguard party, which underscored their goal of creating a broad revolution and gaining many followers.

“I needed to know the legal ramifications of any move,” Huey said, although “the goal of the trial was not primarily to save my life, but to organize the people and advance their struggle.”

“Emory’s images...helped the average protestor and grassroots organizer define the phenomena of who and what our oppressors were,” Bobby Seale said.

“With their huge typographical headlines, use of color, and strikingly rendered drawings of black people...I was attracted to Douglas’s images because they showed both anger and hope.”

The Black Panthers worked hard to study the law and follow it in every way. They did not engage in intentional civil disobedience like their forerunners in the civil rights era—they did not seek to be deliberately arrested, and they were advised never to resist arrest. Paradoxically, it was the police who repeatedly broke the law in the effort to prove the Panthers were doing something wrong.

“We draw the line at the threshold of our doors,” they said.

Dr. King’s violent death marked a watershed moment for activists at all points on the civil rights spectrum.

His death drove home a difficult truth: violence may beget violence, but if you are Black in America, nonviolence also begets violence.

These researchers came back with a detailed analysis, concluding that racism was so pervasive in the institutions of society that many Black Americans “feel it is legitimate and necessary to use violence against the social order. A truly revolutionary spirit has begun to take hold...an unwillingness to compromise or wait any longer, to risk death rather than have their people continue in a subordinate status.”

These researchers came back with a detailed analysis, concluding that racism was so pervasive in the institutions of society that many Black Americans “feel it is legitimate and necessary to use violence against the social order. A truly revolutionary spirit has begun to take hold...an unwillingness to compromise or wait any longer, to risk death rather than have their people continue in a subordinate status.”

But seeing the tumultuous footage from around the country had convinced a few Panthers that the assassination had been the last straw for Black people everywhere.

Waiting no longer felt tenable.