Akinyele Umoja and Thomas McCreary on Black Liberation Army History

Speaker 1: Some people take the position that the BLA came out of the Black Panther Party. There are other people who take the position that the concept of the BLA was long before the Black Panther Party. I think that the BLA has some of its manifestations, not all of them, in Deacons for Defense. They came out of Boca Luisa, Louisiana. Some of them can be found in Robert Williams, Monroe, North Carolina, you know, where black people even took up arms and defended themselves. Some go back to Nat Turner, you know, Denmark Vested, the slave rebellions, you know. We like to think that there was a black liberation army from the time that black people stepped foot on the shores of North America. But to answer the question in more contemporary terms, I would take the position that the BLA arose out of the Black Panther Party. And that rise came about due to the counterintelligence program that was waged against the Black Panther Party and other segments of the Black Liberation Movement. The BLA was an organization I take the position that the BLA came about when the Black Panther Party gave birth to the contemporary Black Liberation Army. This was a very difficult birth, meaning that the BLA was born in blood. It was premature, but the conditions of the time and the split within the Black Panther Party made us have to move to where we started moving. But if we had had more time, you know, I think that we could have done a much better job in terms of developing the Black Liberation Army. Well, it was two major factors. I mean, it all stemmed from the counterintelligence program. Once J. Edgar Hoover started waging war against the party, A lot of things started happening. A lot of Panthers started getting framed up on trumped up charges, sentenced to long prison sentences. There was a lot of conspiracy cases going on during that time. A Panther 21 case, which involved Sundiata and a number of other Panthers. There were killings taking place through the government, you know, Fred Hampton. The counterintelligence program was also an organization, putting us and the Panthers against each other, alleged to death of Bunchy Carter and John Huggins at UCLA. Even the shootout with Bobby Hutton and whatnot, manifestation can be found within the counterintelligence program. So those were some of the conditions that forced people to have to go underground. Then there was a split within the Black Panther Party. which we now take the position that much of that was orchestrated by the counterintelligence program. It was exploited, and it started pitting Panthers against each other. And, you know, people didn't feel safe, you know. A lot of people, this split caused a number of Panthers and chapters around the country to be expelled. I just want to clarify some things in regards to the split. There are those who take the position that it was East-West Coast split, but the split was much deeper than the East-West Coast thing. We need to be real clear on that. New York Panther 21 was on trial. They were expelled from the Black Panther Party. And that's prior to the New York chapter being expelled. They expelled, the Panther 21 was expelled, and then later the chapter was expelled. But not only did, and that's New York being on the East Coast, but also the LA chapter was expelled. It's a West Coast thing. Geronimo Pratt was expelled from the Black Panther Party. So you had leadership here on the East Coast of the Black Panther Party on the East Coast being expelled from the party while the Panther chapter was left intact for a short period of time before they were expelled. You had people on the East Coast... decided to go with Huey, for example, the Baltimore chapter. They went with the West Coast. So it was not, the split was much deeper than the East-West Coast thing. It had a lot to do with the leadership of the party at that time. It had a lot to do with police repression that brought this about. The split in Paul was brought about due to the counterintelligence program. And due to the pressures that the counterintelligence program placing upon the party, there were those in leadership and some of their thinking was that they wanted to de-radicalize the Black Panther Party. They took on reformist, you know, things that they were doing in terms of organizing masses of people. There are those that say that the Black Panther Party existed for 16 years, from 66 to 82 or 83. Then there are those who say the party existed as a revolutionary organization from 1966 to 1971. And in 71, that was when the New York chapter was expelled and whatnot. We on the East Coast, not, I won't say East Coast, we are here in New York. We... had a very short run in the Black Panther Party. The party came to New York in the spring of 1968, and by the summer of 71, it was over for us. You know, we had a three-year run in the Black Panther Party, but it was a very intense three years, very, very intense. I mean, we crowded, I would say, 30 years into those three years. In those three years, due to government repression, left an indelible mark among members of the Black Panther Party. You know, a lot of people were still in their 60s, late 50s, who are still affected from that period of time. It had a profound effect upon a lot of people, you know. A lot of people were still damaged from that period of time. But you have people with psychosis, you have people who have mental disorders, you have people who are took to drinking and drugs, alcohol, post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from that period of time and whatnot, nervous breakdown, a whole assortment of ailments that came out of that period of time because what you had, you had young people. The average Panther was between the ages of 17, 22. That was the average age of a man, 23 maybe. So when you got to be 25, 30, you were considered old. Eldridge, we referred to Eldridge as Papa Ray. Eldridge was in his 30s, you know, so that was considered old. So you had a lot of youth that came into the party, and they gave it their all. They were very committed and very, very committed young people who came into the party. We lived at a time in the 1960s when... It was a very tumultuous decade. It was an exciting time. And we were in a position to bring about some major major changes in this country you know it was at a point in time when we really really could have came very close to changing this government permanently you know and i've never in my study of history i haven't known any other time we came that close to bringing about a revolution in the united states you know which would affect our lives we've been a much better place today i would think that in the beginning that Bobby and Huey, having an understanding of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoist thought, they, and the overall black movement at the time, a lot of elements of the black movement knew that we would be in for a protracted struggle, and that We knew that we would have to have a military apparatus to even defend any type of organization for security and other aspects that an organization of that type would need. In the early days of the Black Panther Party, it was the Black Panther Party for self-defense. So arms was a very key factor in the development of the Black Panther Party. In terms of its military wing, Bunchy Carter, Deputy Minister of Defense for the Southern California chapter of the Black Panther Party, LA. He came into the Black Panther Party after prison, after having met Edgerton and Folsom, I think they were in Folsom. Bunchy was a brother off the street and political term we refer to as the lumping element. Bunchy was the leader of a very strong and large gang in LA called the Slauson Street. Bunchy virtually, coming into the Black Panther Party, brought a whole military wing into the Black Panther Party. The LA chapter, they recognized from their very own start that there would be a need for an element of people underground, an element to protect the party. They created a thing called the Wolverine, the wolves, and they functioned. A lot of those brothers never became known as Panther members. A lot of them did recruitment and other things for the Black Panther Party. You had a lot of people come into the Black Panther Party that were Vietnam vets. we had geronimo pratt uh they had military expertise and they and they and they put that to work for the black panther party i mean it saved a lot of lives and it prevented more um provocations and shootouts than probably would have taken place. The party being an organization that had an open door policy which allowed for all kinds of people to join the party. Anybody could join the Black Panther Party. And even though it had security apparatus and tried to screen out people, that open door policy allowed for a lot of informants and agent provocateurs to come into the party and create havoc and disruption. You know, I would say that there were Panthers, especially in the L.A. chapter, who never became known to the public as Panther members who did things for the party, a military fashion for the party, and protected the party. And I would suppose that existed in other chapters around the country. There was always security apparatus, but the formation of the Black Liberation Army really took off when the county intelligence program from, say, from 68 to 69 on, when the heat of all that was coming out and panelists were being murdered around the country, that's when the BLA was having its formative years. You know, in contemporary times, we talked earlier about the BLA having a concept going back years and years and years before that. And the BLA, you know, it got its birth from the Black Panther Party, many people came in, well, some people, a lot of people who were never Panthers became drafted by the Black Liberation Army. The BLA, one of the things that I was proud of the BLA was that it was never, ever infiltrated. That's not to say that people didn't get captured and give up information. But it was never infiltrated because you didn't join the BLA or pick the BLA. The BLA picked you. You know, uh... People were, many people were chosen and called and people had a right to heed that call or not. But it wasn't all, so when you go and join the BLA, you know, those people were handpicked and cadres and cells picked their people and were able to function that way, you know. autonomously from other cells. All cells was an autonomous, but there were a lot of cells who were autonomous from each other. And that kept down informants and, I mean, people informing on certain things within BLA because you could only deal with your cell at a particular time. Then the BLA had a policy of, the cells that I functioned with, we had a policy of that 24 hour period. Our jury members, we took that concept from them. give us 24 hours and we can move. And in most cases it was less, much less than 24 hours. Cause we knew that once people was captured, what they was going to be up against, you know? So, I mean, and, and our whereabouts with our comrades was known all the time. We knew where people was at. And if, and if you weren't, could not be accounted for, uh, That was an alert for us, you know, that something was wrong. And so, you know, we pretty much functioned, you know, safely that way. One of the goals were to try and alleviate some of the oppression, the naked violence that was taking place against the above-ground movement, black liberation movement as a whole around this country. There were a lot of killings. within the black community especially in new york city cops was throwing young kids off rooftops and out of all these police murders they were always justifiable homicide uh we could not no longer stand by and have that continue to exist you know our position that uh since the black community was very defenseless at that time that we would take some of that pressure off the black community and we would absorb some of that And at the very same time, you know, let them know that there was going to be some forces that they would have to deal with if they continued to deal with the black community in the manner in which they were doing and the black liberation movement. The BLA, not just the black community as we know it, but also our prisoners and whatnot. BLA took a very strong position around those brothers being murdered in Attica. And if my memory served me correctly, there was some actions taken in behalf of those Attica brothers. The same thing with George Jackson when he was murdered in San Quentin. We wanted all forces that be in this country to know that there was going to be some consequences if you kept moving in the manner in which you were moving. And as our youth would have us to be rather audacious at the time, we took the position that if they were going to be wailing in the black household, there would be some wailing in the white household or the oppressor's household. You know, and there had to be funerals on both sides that, you know, we could no longer continue to exist in the manner in which we was existing at that time. The people that I worked with that came out of prisons, they were highly politicized when they came out. They had studied inside of prison. They were in formations in prisons who sent them to us, thought they would make good soldiers. And it wasn't about taking a raw recruit and having to sit him down and politicize him. But I must say this, there were uneven development in blah with this political education. Some brothers and sisters were more politicized than other brothers and sisters. And sometimes your politicalization affects the position you may take in terms of making a move or doing certain things and whatnot. But there were uneven political development in blah. You understand? But we were always conscious of this and we were always Even in the situations that we found ourselves in at that time, we studied on the ground. We didn't just, it wasn't just about guns and bombs and that sort of thing. I mean, we had to study. From the day of the Black Panther Party to the last law person went to prison, I mean, we studied. You know, it wasn't just about all arms struggle and no study. You know, there were medical cadre and personnel, and there were doctors, there were nurses, there were people who could, you know, deal with trauma. injuries that deriving out of that you know uh yeah i mean it was developed it wasn't developed to the our fullest extent what we would like to have had been but we were able to save some comrades lives that way and brothers was able to keep on fighting you know i mean everybody uh A lot of people, they are those who didn't die because they received medical help. And if they died later on, the powers that be were surprised that there were other marks that would have taken them out maybe two years ago. So yeah, it worked very well. You know, that's in any underground, any arm movement, you gotta have your medical thing intact, you know, or you should have. No, it wasn't just about individual deal of arms. People in the Black Liberation Army worked on many levels. You know, there were people who worked on medical levels, there were people who worked on transportation, there were people who worked on housing, the overall Black Liberation movement. Now, We came out of the Black Liberation Movement and that movement supported us. We were as strong as our movement was. If the movement became weak through oppression, from the powers that be, that mean their blood's gonna be weak. You know, we were only as strong as the movement, and our victories was the movement's victories. Those individuals who would house us and whatnot, they were movement people. Those people had nine to five jobs. They was doctors, nurses, and lawyers, or whoever they may have been, or John Q, sisters, my aunt, your grandmother. These was the people that was housing us and whatnot, and making us safe, and they looked out for us. And these was people from our community. After all, we didn't, you know, come from some other place. We came from the black community, you know, like, and a lot of times when people ask us questions about blah or the Black Panther Party or a lot of times they ask questions, a lot of us came into the movement with the same hangups that somebody have on the avenue. The sister on the avenue or the brother in the bar and whatnot, we came into the Black Panther Party with all those awards. The only thing that made us different was that we were willing to change. But when we became politicized, then people started looking at us as if we came from somewhere else. The powers that be, they would try to drive a wedge between us and the black community, but we were the black community. You know, they say they would write things like we were outlaws and the black community disowned us. It's just bullshit. How are you going to disown us? We were the black community, you know, and our support because we didn't have the newspapers, we didn't control that. But we could go in any bar, any barbershop, a hair salon, and after an action happened the night before, and people would be ranting and raving about what those ladies and men did the night before. So, I mean, we were well accepted in the black community. If we were not, we would not have been able to exist. We would have been turned in. Very few people in the Black Liberation Army, very few who were turned in by informants. We usually got captured in military action, not just someone snitched on us over there. We were protected well, and this was the wishes of the black community. We had working relationship with many organizations, with many organizations, RNA, close relationships with the prison movement, other revolutionary nationalist formations that was out there and whatnot. Like I said, we was from the black community. And any progressive people that we could work with, we worked with them. And we was about coalition building and solidarity with a lot of people, man. the Native American movement, the Chicano movement, you understand, the Young Lords, all people of color and people, or progressive people, period. We worked with them, you know, and where we could do actions together, we did that. We used some, some dealt with different levels of actions and some didn't. So, you know, I mean, but like, oh yes, no question. We believed on the united front. Expropriations were for the movement. It was not for individual gains or whatnot. We made withdrawals from the capitalist banks to fund the revolution. We had to run underground, it takes a great deal of money. I mean, you gotta have cars, you gotta have apartments, you gotta have housing, you're moving around, you spend a great deal of money and whatnot, so it takes money to run a revolution. And so like, Those expropriations were not done for selfish gains. We weren't trying to buy a house with a main coat of Cadillac. We had practically taken a vow of poverty. because most of us had nothing but what was on our backs and whatnot. And we wasn't trying to get rich doing that. A lot of money went for legal fees, bailing people out, making sure people's commissary was stashed, stacked, you know, brothers didn't have to suffer or want for much if they were captured. A lot of our time was spent in terms of trying to liberate brothers who were captured. So, you know, it takes money to run any kind of struggle. I think that we should keep in mind that BLA being a military wing of the liberation movement and the political apparatus that was above ground in supporting BLA, it was their place to deal with those types of answers. But the Black Panther Party dealt with that early on. If you remember, Bobby Nose went to Sacramento with guns. And that was because the law of California at that time allowed you to have guns. And you could have them openly. And you could have them in a car as long as around was an entertainment. In New York at the same time, New York's laws was different. It had a sovereign law. meaning you could get up to five years, I think, at that time, for having a concealed weapon. California, you could have your weapon out in the open and whatnot. And so the party, in its early days, coming out of California, you understand, they were able to deal with that from a legal point of view in terms of carrying arms, When the legislature, Ronald Reagan, being the governor at the time, wanted to take away that law, that's when they marched on Sacramento. And, you know, that's when the party got its major national and international notoriety from that episode. Them trying not to prevent them from passing that law. They would take their arms away from them because at that time they needed them in California. We know that a lot of times when we're captured or in prison, that we have to deal with the bourgeois legal system. But it's our job to expose that system, to expose that system for its shortcomings and its inaccuracies and its injustices towards the people that they've captured and whatnot. In exposing the system, in this country. Any aspect of the system that's not doing what it's supposed to do for its people or what it claims to do, that's educating the masses of people. Once the people become educated that the system is not working, this is a contradiction. And once they see the contradiction, they say I need to do some other things. You can't, so that's why these trials, that's why when you go to these courtrooms, that's why those brothers and sisters on trial, they're educating the masses about the contradiction within the judicial system and about why they're receiving so much time as opposed to somebody else doing a more heinous crime and not receiving that kind of time. It's the same, see, we take, the fight is not just on the battlefield in the streets. The fight is also in the judicial system. The fight is against all aspects of this government's laws and how oppressive they are and how unfair they are. So when we go off in the courtroom and don't allow the trial to proceed and we disrupt the trial and we're not having it and we're not coming out and whatnot, the mass will see that. And the president may have said some crazy motherfuckers there. But then on the other hand, they could see the contradictions. That's what we're talking about and whatnot.

Speaker 2: Same thing with Sunday out of college trial, the 21 and whatnot.

Speaker 1: The 21, you had individuals in the 21 trial who defended themselves. Of course, she was one of them. She defended herself, and she did it eloquently. And she pointed out all the contradictions in that 157-count indictment they brought against him. You understand? And a two-year trial, the most costly trial in New York State's history up until that time. And after two years of being incarcerated, most of them in Sundialis, they locked up the whole time. He was one of the ones that came out on bail. They acquitted them in 45 minutes. Two years. I mean, you know, like, I mean, something's fundamentally wrong with that thing, you know. Now, some people say, well, the acquittal of Sunday Island and the 21, that proves that the system works. That's bullshit. It don't prove that the system works. First of all, who's going to give them this two years back? Loss of employment. name smeared through the mud they was accused of gonna blow up uh mason's department store botanical garden the subway system in new york city alienate them from the masses they they they was random raven yeah you see they was talking about that for the people they were gonna blow the people up on easter sunday So these are the contradictions, man, you know, like that they were able to expose and whatnot at that time. And same thing with the BLA trials. All those trials were disruptive trials because we wasn't going to go to the penitentiary willingly. We knew that a lot of times there were incidents there where they threw down on us first in terms of these armed confrontations and whatnot. And we just wasn't having it. We were not going to have that, you know. Like I said, if there had to be fear, there'd be fear on both sides. Some of the differences with the Deacons for Defense, you see, my understanding of history around the Deacons for Defense, here's some brothers and sisters came out of Boca Lucia, Louisiana, because it was a very oppressive place. And it was also a place where the Civil Rights Movement had failed to go into certain parts of Louisiana. You see history of the marching in Mississippi and Alabama. Louisiana, man, especially Boca Lucia, was off the charts. So those brothers and sisters there, they had to take up arms to defend themselves. They were killing and lynching people and it all didn't make the news. Then on the other hand, the Deacons for Defense was the ones who strung that perimeter around the Civil Rights marches. When we see these marchers marching through Mississippi and Alabama, long lines of people, ask yourself, why didn't the Klan just run out of the woods and start shooting and killing up a bunch of people? Because them bucklers was back in them woods and whatnot. They put that defense around the Civil Rights Movement. And I think it's very, very unfair to them to not have been recognized as such because the Civil Rights Movement wanted... take the position that it's about non-violence. They didn't want to talk about the people with the guns and whatnot and people who stood up like that. And that does a disservice to our overall movement. It does a disservice to black people. It does a disservice in terms of our history and whatnot. We don't talk about that aspect of our history and whatnot when we try to criminalize that aspect of our history and say they're just a bunch of thugs and whatnot and they're off the street and whatnot. Everybody, everybody wasn't being beaten and waterholed down and turning the other cheek. You know, we know that from Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman. And if you do a little study, a little further study in your history and whatnot, we know that with John Brown and Harper's Ferry and the raid and whatnot. And if you go a little further in that history, then you have to ask yourself, why didn't Frederick Douglass, why wasn't he on that raid? Harriet Tubman and the rest of them. Harriet Tubman, that's my hero in that. I mean, I love this woman, man. But I mean, so don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't take the position that those brothers and sisters out there who died out there like that and who put their lives on the line. that it didn't matter that it was just a futile attempt at exercising futility. That's nonsense, you know? I mean, like, a lot of those brothers in the Deacons for Defense, they left Louisiana. A lot of them came into the North and Chicago and became taxi drivers and melted off into history and whatnot. But it's unfair to the generation that come along now. They don't know anything about that history and whatnot. And to think that we were just always observant and passive and just dying peacefully. You know, that's ridiculous, man. You know, if we're going to tell the history of black people in this country, we need to tell all aspects of it. The good, bad, and ugly. We need to talk about all of that there. And then let the chips fall where they may. You know, I mean, no other people that I know of that I've read about have ever suppressed that aspect of their history when it existed. You know, we're so fond of talking about how brave we fought in World War II and World War III and like, but when it comes to black people, we ain't got no blood. We bleed all over the world, but we ain't, like Malcolm said, we ain't got no blood when it come to us, you know. That's legitimate. We bleed in Germany, Korea, Vietnam, you know, but like here, and we went to war in those places for much less than would have happened to us here. You know, I mean, for much, much less, you know.

Speaker 2: Happens all the time, I suppose, huh?

Speaker 1: Freedom to be safe. Freedom to not be messed with. Freedom to, you know, pursue your life and your livelihood and without restraints. We're not talking about integration here. We're talking about just pure, simple freedom. You know, I mean, to be left alone, to be safe in your home and whatnot, to be... You have some intellectual prowess to pursue all that you can be. You know, that's freedom. You know, I mean, like... And why should we have to point to... black children who become exceptional scholars or go into space. Why do we, why, I mean, the restraints that they've had against them, they were able to make those achievements, but why should we have to have those kind of restraints? What about the rest of our population that wasn't able to reach those heights because they were suppressed or exploited or not given the chance, you know? That's freedom to me. When a question like that, it is what the Black Liberation Movement did and what BLOB was able to, to the extent it was able to protect that movement, to allow it to do those things, because you're talking about mass front work. working with the masses of people and setting programs in place and whatnot. The law was not in a position to do that. The law was in a position to protect its movement. That was its goal, to protect its people. So the movement was able to develop and go on. And the movement, and you know, the Black Liberation Movement, the jury's not in on that yet. You know, no, it's jury in on blah. You know, I mean, so like, because there's still a manifestation of all that still taking place today and whatnot. That's why we have a San Francisco aid trial going on. These people, hell, these people in their late 50s and early 70s. And they're being taken to the ramifications of that period of time. It's still with us today and whatnot. And it also is manifesting that period of time and that history is manifesting itself in the hip-hop world today. You know? That's why you have a lot of people in the hip-hop movement becoming consciousness. You know? As opposed to, say, five or six years ago. There seemed to be, have been a transformative development within the hip-hop consciousness. You know, I mean, they're saying things now that they weren't saying 10 years ago. Hell, Alicia Keys recently made a comment about they needed another Black Panther Party. It wasn't, these things were not taking place in the last 10, 15 years. They are doing research on that period and that history and whatnot. Unlike our times from the 60s, struggles and all about culture, all aspects of our culture. You had James Brown say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud. You had the temptations. You had people doing anti-drug songs during that period of time. You had last poet, talking about revolution and whatnot, Nikki Giovanni and her poetry, a little-known sister, Valerie, Valerie Johnson. These people making poetry during that period in time, you know, addressing the condition within the black community, you know, and so it was easy to organize then because oppression was so blatant and so in your face. and why it is still blatant in some quarters in our community, they have camouflaged it. So people have a tendency to think that it's not happening to them. It's like Malcolm did the analogy about you go to the dentist and he give you some Novocaine and you're sitting there bleeding with blood running down your jaw. Don't even know you're in pain. So a lot of us, you know, we don't, we say you, Some people take the position that was civil rights, but we're not with that. That ain't happening to us now. Until he walk out in the street and half his face get blown off by the police department. He'd beat into the cement out there. He'd find himself railroaded to one of the state penitentiaries for life's sake, for a crime he didn't commit. He'd go before a jury, and it's an all-white jury, and they'd look at him like he's crazy. And if he didn't commit the crime, he just ought to have committed it. You know, so, I mean, you know, like, I think oppression... And sometimes oppression breeds a lot of resistance. People become oppressed. People take it so long. And that's all people.

Speaker 2: That's just humankind, I think.

Speaker 1: The myth is that we were outlaws, that we were divorced from the black community. no one knew us in the black community, that we had no support in the black community. That was a myth. We would not have been able to exist without the black community. We saw refuge in the black community. The black community housed us, made us safe. nursed us back to health, and kept us moving. And when we ran out of arms and couldn't get our own arms, they supplied us with our arms. That was the black community. The black liberation army comes from the black community. Make no mistake about that. That 13-year-old just passed on the street, that little girl skipping rope and doing double dutch down the block. Tomorrow morning, she may be a soldier in the Black Liberation Army for the next four or five years. Depends on how her life goes and how this government treats her. So those are some of the myths and whatnot. The Black Liberation Army have did wonders in... helping black youth, black people with their own self-esteem. Because like I say, you know, like when you see that you're being beaten into the cement, a lot of of your people and nobody else is paying for this year, that's like a hopeless situation. That's demoralizing. I mean, like, no one, no one should have to live like that. And you shouldn't want to bring your children up in a society like that. Imagine what that's doing to a six, seven-year-old, seeing someone drug down the stairs, four or five flights of stairs and whatnot, beaten to death. there's no justice, there's nothing, nothing happens behind that. That person is being scarred. That is psychological violence against the youth, you know. So, you know, yeah, we think that even in our loss and those who died and whatnot, we think that it was the right thing to do at that period in time. Given the information that we had, At that period in time, if we had no other information out there, then we would do it all over again tomorrow in a heartbeat. The same way. Because we only can make decisions on what we have and what we know. Fear. Fear makes people act strangely. And we have to understand fear. We can't hold that against some people. was fear it was fear from the counter intelligence program it was fear how they was moving on us and how they came down on the black community certain elements in the black people had their doors kicked in was not even affiliated with the black liberation army in this search for us it was fear and so we understand what fear can do if the movement If the liberation movement, the black liberation movement as a whole, had it been stronger, we would have been able to weather that storm there. But, I mean, the people, the people, man, you know, like, we didn't just deal with the local police department. The counterintelligence program, we was dealing with the Central Intelligence Agency, Army Security, the... Naval Security. All of these people spied on the Black Liberation Movement in this country and the BLA. We've got tons and tons and tons of files that the counterintelligence program kept on individuals and whatnot. Now, mind you, all this paperwork that they kept on a lot of us, man, like I said, we weren't even 25 years old at that time. And so that kind of repression coming down on the black community made people fearful, you know? But again, I say, if the black liberation movement was strong, we will be only as strong as our movement. If the civil rights movement, if other elements in the black community had supported us, it wouldn't have been that way. It would not have turned out that way. We, from the people, we can only do what the people do. We don't have the power to just liberate our people because if we could, we would have. And we would have did it much before all those deaths took place. I suppose that an apology would be in order for The young people, because we didn't accomplish our goal, because our intentions were to make it a much better place for those who were going to come after us. And we would have hoped that somebody like you wouldn't have to be here on a Friday night sitting up in a Columbia University making a recording. You could be out with your boo somewhere, chilling out or dancing on the floor, instead of trying to have to deal with struggle. But we didn't win. We didn't, you know, but...

Speaker 2: The jury's still out. The struggle still continues.

Speaker 1: Our elected officials, the black officials and the black so-called leaders, they don't have enough backbone to speak out on those people and whatnot. Obama, they're talking about a president. I can't see voting for anybody if he ain't talking about freeing some political prisoners. Why shouldn't they? I mean, why aren't people confronting people about Hillary Clinton, for that matter? Bill Clinton cut loose a few people when he left office and whatnot. Some people for... But he didn't cut loose any black political prisoners. And he didn't free Lily Peltier. You know? I mean, I'm not saying that those people that he did give partners to didn't deserve it, because they most certainly did. But it's an uneven development. You know? And I think that if the elected officials... Don't start speaking about political prisoners in the black community. They put pressure on them to speak about these people in one night. You're talking about Nelson Mandela. We got Nelson Mandela. We got something out there like Coley. We got Herman Bell, we got Jahliel Matibon, we got all, we got Bashir Hameed. We got all these political prisoners across the country, man. We got Yogi Pinel, is who's sitting up in Florence. You got Dr. Matula Shakur. Those are our Nelson Mandela and whatnot, but it's safe to worship people from afar because they don't have the same ramifications and whatnot. When Nelson Mandela came to New York, we had to fight to even get to tell him about our political prisoners in this country. Nobody addresses that. Nobody talks about the American political prisoners and whatnot. And if they do, it's not publicized. And they're not sitting on a public forum where it can be heard. You understand? In the meantime, we got people that have been locked up 35 and 40 years. And you're talking about political prisoners. When you talk about political prisoners, you must always talk about our political exile, because we want them home, too. without charges. There's no reason why Sada Shakur should need to be in Cuba and couldn't come to her mother's funeral or her daughter's graduation or the birth of her grandchildren. There's no need. We need to be crying out for those. All of our prisoners need to be returned to the United States if they so desire. Sada, well, he's been out of the country almost 40 years. He's been in exile longer than a lot of us have been alive. That's a long time, man. You know, that's outrageous. Pete O'Neill, of course, Pete said he don't have a desire to come back no more, him and Shaw. And not just them, you got D.C. languishing down in the south of France. And the other brothers who were in France and in Egypt and elsewhere in North Africa is in exile. We need, every time prisoners are mentioned, our political exiles must be mentioned. They need to be a campaign for those people to return to this country and whatnot. Because a lot of them left here all trumped up charges, man, and it was fabricated by the government. And as a result of our movement benefiting from it, our people taking that brunt force off of John Q. Citizen on the street in Bed-Stuy Hall and saying that we'll deal with this ourselves. That took some of the pressure at the time off the black community. And that's what we wanted to do. And then we found out that when we stepped out there and whatnot, they weren't all that bad and whatnot. It's a question of who lays out the most firepower. That's who wins today. They ain't all that invincible. They're cowards, really. Because every time that you get up in the morning, man, and kiss your missus goodbye and strap on that gun and come into the black community and brutalize our people and whatnot, you're a coward. You're a coward. This community, our community, is the most defenseless community on the face of the earth with the exception of the prison population. We have nothing to defend ourselves from. You know? So they murder, kill, rape, jail us and do what they want to do. With impunity. So there was a period of time we can always go back and say that wasn't happening like that. And that day will come again if the conditions don't change. Because conditions breeds resistance. Always have and always will. Good job. I just think that in closing I would just say free all our prisoners and bring our exiles home.

Speaker 2: what we call the Black Liberation Army, really is a concept more than an organization, but more of a concept that evolves maybe into an organization, but it starts out as a movement concept. The first time as a historian I see the term being used is in, I believe it's in mid-60s, the Revolutionary Action Movement. There was a document that they had It talked about organizing black youth into a black liberation army. The Revolutionary Action Movement around was formed in the early 1960s. It was a radical organization. It always portrayed itself as a clandestine organization, a secretive organization. It starts in the Midwest in Cleveland with college students and some people who come out of the left. Black people were part of the left, but They wanted to incorporate some of the activism of the civil rights movement, but they also had more of a black nationalist orientation. They weren't integrationists per se. They kind of saw themselves somewhere between SNCC and CORE on one level and the Nation of Islam on the other hand. They were influenced by left politics, but they wanted to be independent from the white left in the United States. So that was their political orientation. They saw themselves as revolutionary nationalists. So as they began to organize youth, and when you start to begin to have the urban rebellions in the 1960s, I think they have this whole concept of organizing black youth into a black liberation army. So that was one element of... of this concept being promoted during that particular time. But I think many of the people in the Black Liberation Movement, the Black Power Movement, had this whole concept of having a black underground. Of course, most of us think of the Black Liberation Army, we kind of associate it with the Black Panther Party. And Black Panther Party in this program said that Black Panther Party members couldn't belong to any other military other than the Black Liberation Army. They never said this is our organization. But if you consider it being a concept in the Black Power Movement at that particular time and the Panthers being the largest black power organization, then particularly when Pathways of Force are underground, that's what they operationalize their underground into is this whole concept of, or under the name, under the umbrella of a black liberation army at that particular time. But you've got people who are influenced by RAM, you've got people who are influenced by R&A, You got people, when I say RNA, I mean the Republic of New Africa and the Black Panther Party who are all a part of this broad movement concept. And people who weren't part of any organization that was with the underground, I mean above ground at that particular time, the public movement. So it's this broad concept. And it becomes, at different times, more people began to use the name, operate under that name, and maybe even make statements under the name of the Black Liberation Army. Well, it's been a strategic move since we got here. If you look at the first black folks who came to the United States, they always tell us 1619. But the first actually were brought to what we call North America in 1526, were brought to what we now call Georgia, McIntosh County. were brought by the Spanish. And they ended up harassed. The reason we don't know about that community or the Spanish aren't in Georgia anymore is because the African people got together with the Native Americans and ran the white folks off. They waged guerrilla warfare at that particular time. And if you look at the slavery votes, whether it be Demar Vesey, Nat Turner, this is why if you saw some of the BLA documents, they say the BLA goes back to slavery. It goes back to Nat Turner, to Demar Vesey, to Gabriel Prosser. It goes back to the Seminoles, Seminole freedmen who fought guerrilla warfare. So there's always been black people who imagine that we needed to pick up arms and fight against our oppressors. Even today, people might not have talked about it, but in our imagination, In our own minds, there is a hope that when we see our people being brutalized by the police and terrorized in our particular communities, they're black people who think, we need somebody to respond to that. Who can we call upon? And so I think that's something that black folks tend to identify, somebody who's gonna fight in their interests. and bring justice in our situation, particularly when we don't see the criminal justice system in this society bringing justice on our behalf. So it's been something that's always been imagined. You mentioned 1969 as being a hot year. It's not the start, but it's a hot year, a very intense year. Some people call that year the year of the panther, and not because the panthers were so vibrant on one level, but also in 1969, but also during that period of time, you had such a vicious assault on the Black Panther Party by local police forces, by the FBI, culminating in that year with the murder of Fred Hampton in Chicago and also the raid on the Los Angeles Panther Chapter in Los Angeles, California. So when you have those attacks, and particularly in Los Angeles with them, many people, many Panthers viewing the attack on a Panther office in Central Avenue in Southern California, it was like an all-out assault by the LAPD. That was the first time SWAT was being used in Los Angeles. They were... attacked in a pre-down raid, and you basically had teenagers being able to successfully defend the office from this all-out assault by LAPD. So many in the Panther Party at that time, even though you had 13 Panthers arrested, many viewed that as a victory. But he kind of signaled at that particular moment that the Panthers were under attack and you start to see series of cases, whether they be minor little misdemeanor cases to major felony cases being trumped up against the Panthers at that particular time. The government basically had the strategy. Just trying to tie the party up in a series of trials where they would sap their resources. But also methods or things were used to try to incarcerate people for long periods of time. if they could manufacture evidence, if they could force people who might have had charges against them to give testimony that would convict other Panthers. But a series of repressive measures were done, and so many people didn't feel it was good for them to hang around and end up in prison. And they decided it was best, rather than being available, and some of them actually had charges against them, to not be available and to continue to fight in an underground level. And I think the perception they had at that particular time was that You know, not only was the Panthers under attack, but genocide was coming to black people. And so it was necessary to have an arm that could respond to the genocide that was being waged on black people. I think a lot of people don't look at it from this perspective today, but actually a low-intensity war was being waged against the Black Panther Party to root them out of the black community at that particular time. And so they responded in kind. If a war was being waged upon them, then they were going to be at war. And they were going to... So the Black Panther Party and many other elements of the Black Liberation Movement went underground and formed clandestine units, secretive units, to be able to respond to the attacks being waged on black people at that particular time. It was a hostile situation. There was, again, a low-intensity war being waged on the Black Liberation Movement at that particular time, what people have popularly called COINTELPRO. But that was just the FBI's program, the CIA had a program, Army Intelligence had a program, Naval Intelligence had a program, local police forces had a program to try to destroy the Black Liberation Movement at that time. And not just folk we call radicals, but even people like Dr. King, you know, were being, you know, targeted by the United States government at that particular time. Dr. King was viewed by the FBI as being a communist and a threat to U.S. security. It's similar to, it would be like them saying that Martin Luther King was a terrorist today, you know, under George Bush's war on terrorism. So, you had this assault on the movement at that particular time and uh basically not under u.s domestic law but under even international law and many people were kind of opponents of people uh studied malcolm x and malcolm x told folk to look at what was going on around the world And as they looked around the world, you know, people around the world were fighting for their freedom against colonialism and racism and, you know, all other forms of oppression, whether it being in Vietnam during that particular time. Or whether it be in Africa where you had African liberation movements fighting against colonialism, things of that nature. So I think folks were inspired by those movements and they knew by international law they basically had a right to utilize any means that were available to them to fight for their liberation. I think that was a movement and an ideological current that was going on. At that particular time, it kind of influenced people that they had any means available to them to be able to respond to this assault that was occurring on our movements. I mean, if you talk about people who were organizing breakfast programs, free health clinics, and things of that nature in the black community at that particular time, and they were trying to destroy that, then they felt they had to respond in kind. And so it was a hostile situation, and they were under attack. And so they chose to do what they thought was right, particularly by international law and just by people's moral standards, that if you're under attack, you have a right to defend yourself. And you have the right to utilize any means to stop people from killing you. They're political acts. That was their motivation, their political motivation. Their motivations weren't to get rich or die trying like 50 Cent says today. No, they were trying to free their people and they were trying to protect themselves. Their motivations were political and they were motivated by political acts and political What do we call it? If you take somebody who decides, I'm going to leave college. I have a promising career as an upwardly mobile black professional. But I see people dying in the street. I see poverty in the black community. And I want to change these conditions. So I'm going to leave college and I'm going to become a part of this movement. OK, to change the conditions in my community. OK, that's not somebody who's a criminal who's saying, look, I just want to get rich. OK, I just want power for myself. No, these young people at that time, because we're talking about young people, they decided to go underground because they wanted to. change what they saw as a racist, oppressive society. I mean, and keep in mind, all of these young people were part of things like the Black Liberation Army, Black Panther Party, Republican New Africa, these type of organizations. They had, you know, they'd grown up seeing Emmett Till lying in a casket disfigured from being lynched. You know, Emmett Till was probably around the age of most of the people when these organizations were maybe a little bit older. You know, they grew up seeing black folks being waterholes for just trying to get basic civil and human rights. They saw people denied entrance to colleges and things of that nature. So they grew up with this perspective. They grew up in communities where... to be black and poor were damn near synonymous. They grew up in communities where police just terrorized our communities. So they wanted to change that. That was their motivation. Their motivation wasn't to be in a penthouse and drive a stretch limo. So you really can't define their acts as criminal. You can only define them as motivated by human rights. Political change, political, social change and social justice. Well, we'll say from the 69 up until the mid 70s. OK, because 69, as I said, when you have the repression, particularly on the Black Panther Party and other black power movement organizations, you have several people forced to go underground. And if you look at the Black Liberation Army of that period, and I'm basing this upon police reports, trials, and even VLA documents where they claim certain activities. But if you look at that particular period, most of the activity is, number one, defensive activities. Because people are trying to evade being attacked. But you also have, particularly in the New York region at that particular time, you had several incidents where children were being killed by cops. And there was no redress. Oftentimes they were declared justifiable homicides. And so you have forces who felt they needed to respond to those actions against police officers. In terms of murdering black children and black people in black communities at that particular time. So you have these responses to the police on one level. You also have post-Vietnam, you have the influx of drugs in the black community at that particular time. And so you have actions on the part of people in the black movement at that particular time. And it's got to be underground, right, to respond to drugs being filtered in the black community at that particular time, particularly heroin. And so you have expropriations, if you will, from drug dealers at that particular time. military attacks on drug dealers in the black community at that particular time. That kind of characterizes the activity at that particular time. You also have expropriations. From the mid to late 70s, you have some underground expropriations beginning to occur. And I think looking at it from a historical perspective, I think what's going on is because you also have like the acceleration, and a lot of people don't really think about this, but you have the acceleration of a paramilitary right in this country in the late 70s. And you have folks like David Duke beginning to speak and run for offices and win a significant amount of votes. You have Tom Mesker in California who... who again runs in for office and wins a significant amount of votes, but you also have like these paramilitary groups, um, in Louisiana and Alabama and North Carolina who, uh, talk about their organizing for a right-wing revolution in this country, a white supremacist revolution in this country in the Northwest. You have the Aryan Nations movement that's cropping up at that particular time in the late 60s, excuse me, late 70s, early 80s. You have, there were actually a segment of the Klan who attempted to organize a coup of the country of Dominica. They were first contracted by the United States government to be involved in mercenary activity in Grenada. So that was even a signal that there was some collaboration between some elements of the United States government and these white supremacist elements. So you had clandestine forces. We know this from communiques that were put out from the Black Liberation Army at that particular time. that they were trying to arm themselves and organize themselves to respond to what they considered to be a massive attack on the black community. So you begin to see these expropriations, if you will, from American financial institutions to begin to create this infrastructure to be able to respond to this attack that was going to occur. They saw it was going to occur on black people of that particular line. So um, that's what kind of characterizes that period. And of course you have the, um, um, the trials, the RICO conspiracy trials and things that kind of resulted from that activity during that particular time. But Kamau Siddiqui's case, Kamau was actually arrested on a domestic dispute in New York City, and I believe it was like in maybe 2001, 2002, I can't remember the particular year. Being that he was a former member of the Black panther party and he's also the father of the child of asada shakur the fbi come in to interview him and basically he's given an offer to provide if he provides information on asada's escape from prison in 1979 if he also explains how she got to cuba and if he's able to cooperate by enticing asada to go to a third country where they could come in and snatch her up then they would make sure he was released if not they said he would die in prison because kamau had sarcondosis of the liver uh he had hepatitis high blood pressure and you know he wasn't um the most healthy individual. He refused to cooperate with them. And so at that time, the FBI convinced the state of Georgia to reopen a case that they had closed. Georgia had stated in the 70s that the people who had murdered a cop here in Georgia, I forgot his name, in the 1970s. They said the case was closed when two BLA members were killed in the United States. They suspected Twyman Myers and I think Frank Fields to be the people who actually killed a police officer. But Georgia was convinced to reopen the case and to make Kamau Siddiqui a suspect. Kamau was indicted, then brought to Georgia and convicted. And he's now during time in Augusta Medical Center here in the state of Georgia. But I think that, to me, that was a key case to kind of reopen because you began to hear, after the Kamau Siddiqui case, grand juries starting in other states, in California and New York, investigating things that occurred in the 70s with, quote, unquote, Black Liberation Army-related cases. So the most notable one is the case of the San Francisco Eight, where Eight individuals are being charged with the murder of a police officer or the killing of a police officer, excuse me, killing of a police officer in San Francisco, California, when there was a raid on a police office at that particular time, a police department office at that particular time. In this case, it's very interesting insofar as the San Francisco 8 case, most of the case is based upon torture of some Panthers that occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1973. And that evidence and that testimony was thrown out. since it was proven at that particular time that Panthers were tortured over a period of weeks. And after that torture, they decided to just say anything that the, you know, the new, uh, at that time, I think it was the, not only FBI, but it was the New York police were involved in torture, San Francisco police and New Orleans police. And so, uh, since, um, They weren't able to get into that. They weren't able to be able to use that evidence at that time. Now they're claiming that they have new evidence, even though it hasn't even been proven yet that they actually have new evidence. First they claimed they had physical evidence, but now they don't have any physical evidence. They claimed that they had the gun that was used at that time, but now all of a sudden they don't have the gun. But they have these eight men being held most of them on bail at this particular time, and two of them who are already incarcerated are being held in San Francisco based upon the fact that, what, they have no evidence, really. But what some of us actually believe is, with the kind of the agenda that you have with the Bush administration, There are elements in the government who are actually going back and they're trying to resolve old conflicts that they haven't forgotten. And there's no spirit of consideration of reconciliation. They're just going back and targeting folks. And I think this is in the same spirit is why you have folks like Matulu Shakur, Jamil Alameen, and Seiko Odinga. transferred from prisons in different parts of the country Jamila Alamein even being a state prisoner and taking in Florence ADX the highest security prison in the United States for no reason at all other than political reasons that they want to have these men there because they're potentially leaders and again the people in this this government are trying to carry out old grudges and so these men are basically locked away isolated from their families and friends they're uh you know thousands of miles away from any any particular family member and limited contact or visits kept under 23 hour lockdown and the hour they get is in isolation also because you don't have any contact with any other prisoner. It's a way not only to punish them or as payback or revenge for, you know, their activism in the past and their fight for social justice in the past, but it's, um, it's also a means to try to disorient them and try to just destroy them as potential leaders in our community. Originally, we talked about how you had this period from the, um, really like 1971 through 75 which was a period where people were forced underground and you had folks responding to like police terror around the country and you had people responding to the influx of drugs in the community so it was like a stop the pusher campaign I know some forces I know you used to call it damn the pusher man campaign was a like a campaign against dope in our community okay particularly heroin at that particular moment but then in a um the mid 60s mid 70s i'm sorry all the way to the early 80s uh you had uh units that were participating in expropriations to prepare themselves uh for what they saw as a right-wing white supremacist onslaught on the black community community a genocidal attack on the black community um in this period you have really from in the late 90s through The current period of time, you've had these attacks on who the government perceived was a part of the black underground, or who they try to label as being part of the black underground. So you have, for instance, the case of Kamau Siddiqui, and you have the cases of the San Francisco Eight, and who knows what others. We know that there was also a grand jury in New York investigating things that occurred in the 1970s in the New York area. but that's what's kind of characterized this period. Uh, you can also, I would also include in that though, um, as we mentioned earlier, the, um, uh, attack, uh, really on, on political prisoners by putting people like Matulu Shakur, Jamil Alameen, and, uh, Sekou Odinga in the, uh, Supermax prison in Florence ADX. The, uh, put raising the bounty of Osada Shakur to $1.5 million. It's been, particularly with this administration, the Bush administration, has targeted these elements who were like symbols of resistance to black people and to try to further repress them. And I think in the case of the people who were in Florence ADX, to really try to destroy them mentally by placing them in these conditions where they're in the 23-hour lockdown. And little contact, you know, through using the phones or limiting their visitations, things of that nature, to try to destroy them psychologically. So I think this kind of characterizes the attack on the black movement, and that's how it has to be seen. There is a form of counterinsurgency called developing what they call pseudo-gangs. The first time it's really kind of documented is in the Mau Mau or the Kenyan nationalist movement against British colonialism. One of the things the British did was create recruit Africans to do activities for them. We know that happened in the Black Liberation Movement in D.C. and other places. They created black organizations. They even created plan chapters to do things. So that's possible. I just don't, I haven't seen any evidence for it, let me put it that way, that I can confirm and speak on definitively. But that is a part of counterinsurgency strategy to do that, and they will do it. Some people say that the Black Liberation Army was pretty insuring. Again, I think when you talk about most of the actions that we've talked about in the past, people were forced into that activity. People were involved in organizing for a plebiscite peacefully, right? People were involved in breakfast programs. People were involved in trying to provide health care. or people, things of that nature. And they were attacked and forced underground. They responded to defend themselves and try to survive as human beings and also to carry out activity when they were under war. If you compare that to other situations, it's like People in France were attacked by the Nazis, right? And they formed resistance to fight back. I mean, that's what people do when they're under such an assault. They go underground and try to survive and oftentimes wage guerrilla warfare or whatever. to try to survive. So I wouldn't say it was premature. If anything, that would be saying the whole movement was premature, but they were attacked and they responded and what they could do being young folks at that time. You know, you're talking about, again, we're talking about people who were teenagers in their early twenties. You had some folks who were Vietnam vets and had military skills, but again, they were kind of forced underground and responded. And if anything, they, they developed a capacity to respond over time. But I wouldn't say it was premature. I would say they did the best they could. Well, I think because of COINTELPRO, I think there was a division between in the ranks of the Black Liberation Movement at that time. So because of divisions within the movement, oftentimes when you had comrades who were attacking, were part of the underground they wouldn't receive support from certain forces who were above ground because of ideological differences which i think were magnified by uh certain by the elements of the state and because and because the immaturity of the movement again we're talking about young people we're not people talking about people with a leadership that's been seasoned over decades a struggle, right? So because of that, you had these divisions in the movement. And from my perception, you didn't get support for folk when they were underground during that particular time. I also believe that the movement's resources were also kind of stretched. Because again, when we talked about earlier in terms of COINTELPRO, attacking the Black Panther Party and other organizations and tying them up with a series of felonies and cases, a lot of resources were used on legal defense during that particular time. So when some people were arrested, you didn't have the capacity to support them. I think also the state was kind of effective at labeling people as crazy cop killers or whatever during that particular time. And so maybe there was some fear associated by some of the people in civil liberty organizations and other organizations in terms of providing support for people who have been engaged in armed struggle. So they didn't get adequate support. But there were small groups of supporters who valiantly fought, who attended trials, who got lawyers together, things of that nature. And, you know, we don't want to forget the activity of people who engage in that type of activity. One of the things of note was Matulu Shapur and Afeni Shapur were part of an effort called the National Task Force for COINTELPRO litigation and research. And through that activity, they were able to help the defense of people like Geronimo Dijaga, Daruba Ben Wahad and others who were kind of who were in prison, but they kind of proved. that there was this whole governmental strategy to set these people up and put them in incarceration. So we can't forget those type of efforts that people waged in the community at that time. In spite of all the COINTELPRO attacks continuing, and in spite of the lack of resources, people still maintain a fight to try to free some of these political prisoners and prisoners of war. I think The thing I think that's most important about the Black Liberation Army and that experience is oftentimes, I think, Do we want future generations to look back and to say we didn't do anything? Like when I think about a Nat Turner, when I think about a Denmark Vesey, as a professor, when I talk to my classes, when I point out the resistance that our people engaged in, whether it was black people who escaped and worked with the Seminole Indians in resistance or the black people who were... in the Great Dismal Swamps, and who resisted during that time, or Harriet Tubman. These are examples that we weren't happy doing slavery. These were examples that people did fight back. When we look at the Civil Rights Movement, you know, it's examples of the Fatima Hamers and others And I think the Black Liberation Army represents that. The fact that somebody was even capable of liberating Assata Shakur out of the penitentiary. And now she lives as a maroon, basically, or I like to say Quilombo in Cuba. uh that showed that there were some people who were dedicated and sophisticated and willing to uh sacrifice themselves for all of our freedom of our people so i think that's what they most represent they represent a continuation of this legacy of people who desire to fight and struggle you have one part of the weather underground of course you know this all does all this controversy over bill ayers and uh barack obama right now but um And, you know, they were valiant resistance fighters, but they were allowed to rehabilitate themselves. Looking at a Bill Ayers, who's now up until he's attacked by the right wing and John McCain and those were the respectable part of the Chicago political scene. But. You have a person like that, but then you have VLA members who they're not even seriously considered for parole. And why aren't they seriously considered for parole? Say the case of Sundiata O'Colin was mentioned by his parole board because of his belief in independence for New African people. because of his belief that we have a right to a nation and self-determination. He's denied parole. It's a very clear case of political internment. His continued existence in the penitentiary is political internment. He's clearly a political prisoner for that reason. So there is a difference in terms of how the BLA, how other, even Native American fighters like Leonard Peltier and others, again, this country is not seeing, this empire, I should say, is not seeking reconciliation with them. And this is why Matulu Shapo and others have said we need to have a campaign for truth and justice around that period to talk about what occurred and to hold the United States accountable for things that happened during that period of time. but also bring about some justice for those who, again, who are in prison because of this hostility that existed within the United States at that particular time. And it's important that people don't forget and that we have to raise their names up. In other words, places like the Million Man March, the political prisoners have to be acknowledged. You know, there's no serious... people who ever fight for the liberation of their folks in south africa when they were fighting against apartheid they talked about the people the soldiers who were incarcerated right When you talk about the Irish movement, they talked about their soldiers who were incarcerated. When you look at the Middle East, the Palestinians, one of their most primary demands is the release of people who've been interned in the West Bank and Gaza, right? So until we place that as a priority in our movement, we won't have a serious freedom or liberation movement in this country. You know, because there are white people like Marilyn Buck, who's still incarcerated today because of her affiliation with the underground movement. You even have Sylvia Baraldini, who lives now free in Italy, but was a political prisoner who was associated with the movement and the black underground in this country. which is why she was incarcerated, I kind of see those folks as like descendants of like John Brown, you know, people, whites who participated in Underground Railroad during that particular time. But if you talk about the general white left at that particular time, really kind of isolated, isolated, It wasn't just the BLA because you can't even look at the BLA in isolation, but it was the revolutionary black movement in this country oftentimes was seen as a threat to them. Even going back, you mentioned Robert Williams earlier. Robert Williams, who was talking about defending himself from the Klan in North Carolina when he was in exile in Cuba, some of the left forces in this country attempted to isolate him while he was in Cuba and didn't want his message about self-defense to be projected on an international level or even projected in the united states from there so um it's it's always been racism in the left and um not a willingness to uh respect our right to self-determination and the bla represents an expression of that you know the expression of black people want to have some self-determination it's the black liberation army fighting for black liberation who was an alliance with uh wanted to see because bla was not a uh exclusive organization if you will in other words they saw themselves being in solidarity with uh liberation of people inside this country and around the world you know no matter what ethnic group uh they were so um but there was they were like their uh would not be talked about. And there were certain places, if you were engaged in solidarity with that, they didn't want you to speak on the platform. There were major rallies. They didn't want you to be represented to talk about these particular people. And so there was a sense of isolation that occurred by a section, which was a majority of the left inside of the United States. There's not much of a left today, but I'm just saying they didn't want to talk about that. Um, that in a lot of the cases that was a strategy to put the state on trial because, uh, people recognize, for instance, if you had a case of, uh, folk who were attempted to expropriate something from a drug dealer who was selling drugs in our community, right. Um, people would try to expose the relationship of that drug dealer to the police and everything else. And the jury would a lot of times see that. And I think there was a couple of elements of a strategy of trying to put the state on trial, whether it was crooked cops, whether it was a system that was exploiting our people or drug dealers or things of that nature. I think, one, I think they were trying to win the trial by exposing the jury to what was going on and politically educate the jury. But number two, in terms of educating the people who were not allowed in the courtroom, just to give them a political context of what was going on in America. Because I think, ultimately, as revolutionaries, they believed that the biggest trial was waiting to happen. It wasn't just the trials that they were engaging in, even though they were trying to free their comrades. And I think it was an attempt to try to define their reality and use it in that arena to try to define our reality and who they were. Again, they weren't criminals. They were, in fact, revolutionaries, or they were people fighting for self-determination. And so they wanted to find that. And, you know, that's why some of the best statements I think about the Black Liberation Army are statements that were made in trial. If you read a trial statement of Kwasi Balogun, if you were to read statements that were made in court by Sekou Odinga or The court document that was used by Matulu Shapur stated even challenging the right of the United States government to try him because Matulu actually stated that this um in in this particular case and what he was being charged with he didn't say he was involved in acts but he said acts he was charged with for example the liberation of asada shakur he said given a political context of that act the united states government could he not even try that in american courts did it had to be tried by international tribunal it was interesting that uh uh Other people have actually studied, I'm talking about other people who have been captured by the United States government, have studied Matulu's document and used that in their legal cases because he kind of set some precedent. And the judge in that case forced the Defense Department of the United States to respond to Matulu's argument. He ultimately did not accept that particular motion, but I think it was, again, an attempt by the legal defense in that particular case to try to define exactly what's going on here. And that stands as a record, again, as a document that shows the intentionality of the people engaged in that struggle during that particular time. There was development while folks were incarcerated in an attempt to try to consolidate because, as I mentioned before, you had... it was what we what we call the black liberation army was something that's very decentralized represented different elements of the movement but when you had so many comrades who were poor incarcerated and behind walls uh they did develop uh secretly a means of uh consolidate themselves and to play an impact in the broader movement. So, for instance, I remember being at a rally in 1979. It was three days after Asada was liberated. And then you had a statement from the Black Liberation Army. coordinating committee that talked about the significance of what occurred. You know, because, you know, all we knew was we heard on the news that the sister broke out of jail. All we had were their media accounts. So finally, we got a statement from clandestine forces, from secret forces in our liberation movement, underground forces. or what was the significance of this event and who was responsible for it. So it's significant from that point of view. But let me also say that many comrades, whether it was under the direction of this coordinating committee or it was just as individuals, they became the leadership of men who were incarcerated in whatever prisons they were in. And I think they played major roles in preventing gang conflicts. They played a major role in helping to transform young men who had that criminal mentality. So they played a significant role in trying to change people. I've heard young men who talked about How they sold drugs from the time they were 11 years old to they were in adulthood and how they helped their families, their individual households. They didn't realize they were destroying the community until they came in contact. with political prisoners who took the time to politically educate him and help transform him. They said that was the only rehabilitation that they saw was from the interaction from these elder, former Panthers, former BLA, former RNA, former RAM people who are incarcerated now who did that for him. And, you know, it always makes me wonder what would be What would our communities be like today if you had a SUNY out of COLE on the street or a TULU school on the street? You know, they were taken away from us. And again, when you see their capacity as organizers incarcerated, what would be their capacity to organize on the streets? And what condition would our community be in today? had they not been taken from us in the first place. So it's a tremendous loss not having some of your most talented, creative, and intelligent organizers here with us today. Well, you've had, I think from the initiation of Black Liberation Army political prisoners, you've had certain, several, efforts to appeal to the international community and international bodies. One of the first ones I can remember is in 1977, I believe, you had a petition that was done with the National Council of Black Lawyers. It had support of many Black Liberation Army political prisoners and prisoners of war. And from that, there was an investigation done, visit done to political prisoners around the United States by United Nations officials. Of course, throughout the late 70s and early 80s, you had efforts going to the United Nations to... excuse me, from the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. A lot of these efforts were led by the December 12th movement, and they petitioned and gave information to the international community about the state of political prisons and prisons of war inside the United States. Also in... 80s, you had a delegation go to Zimbabwe to represent Dr. Mutulu Shakur and trying to get political asylum for Dr. Mutulu Shakur in Zimbabwe during that particular time. But you've had several efforts that have been initiated by political prisoners themselves or people who work in their defense to not only well, to educate the international community about the situation and reality of us having political prisoners and prisoners of war inside the United States, but also to get support and solidarity for their beliefs, more political asylum in foreign countries. I don't know. I don't think it, what Malcolm used to say, those who know don't say, and those who say don't know. You know, when in a period of time, that Assata was liberated in 79. See, when Assata was captured and convicted, New York papers came out and they said, BLA is dead. There's no BLA. Then all of a sudden, she liberated. And then they, you know, later on documented all this other activity that occurred. So I don't know of its existence, you know, and I haven't, but I don't know, you know. But what I would say is there always has been there always will be a black liberation army until our people free and so I would say yes but I don't know you know I have no knowledge of it I judge freedom myself that black people would have the right to determine what their relationship is gonna be with the United States number first and foremost and number two that it would mean that people's basic needs can be achieved, whether it be food, clothing, shelter, quality education, health care, all of those things. Because I think at the core of our people, we basically think that those basics should be achieved. I think our people basically had them, you know, when our people, before we were In North America, in the societies we lived in, we had food, we had clothing, we had shelter, we had our own forms of healthcare, right? And we don't have those things now. And so, but primarily when I talk about determining our relationship to the United States government, it means that we would be able to determine and use our resources in a way that we can achieve food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, all of those things that are basic, quality education. But right now, somebody else determines that for us, right? Somebody else decides in our communities They utilize and determine with our resources, our taxes and things like that, what type of education we're going to get. Somebody determines with our resources what type of health care we can get. Somebody determines with our resources what food is available to us, what type of services are available for our basic lives. So until we have control of those resources and be able to determine those things, I would say we're not free. Well, I think we've been fighting for it. And that's what we're talking about today. That's what the Black Liberation Army has been fighting for. And that's what Nat Turner fought for. That's what Demar Vesey fought for. That's what Herod and them fought for. That's what the people who escaped and ran away to the Great Dismal Swamp. That's what they were fighting for. That's what Marcus Garvey wanted. You feel what I'm saying? That's what Malcolm X wanted. So that's what Queen Mother Moore wanted when she talked about reparations. So, that's something that's been a historical fight. I think, and I don't think, you know, I know I haven't given up on that fight. So, and I know that that's what, when you think about Tulu Shakur being incarcerated, he ain't gave up that fight. You think about Asundi Adekole, he ain't gave up on that fight. That's why they won't parole him. You know, if you think about, that's why Asada Shakur is in cuba right and sister nahana will be doing people like that um folks haven't given up on that fight uh we have to do is increase our capacity because i think um the needs of our people are there uh where you just need to have that vision again okay so um i don't i don't look at our people and say Our people are something wrong with us or anything of that nature. What I say is our people are fighting against, just in this period, the most sophisticated empire that exists right now. And I think we've done a great job and we've been involved in a great struggle and a great fight. But we just got to meet the challenge. And we'll get there. We will get there. There are a lot of people from our movement who are still incarcerated. There are a lot who are still exiled. I think that we should never forget them, as I said before. We can't. we can measure our progress by the fact that we still have them incarcerated and we still have folks who are exiled. I think also that It's important that projects like yours continues on because we have to educate our youth to what our struggle was. And I think one of the most challenging things to me today is the people you're talking about from the 1960s and 70s, they had a great capacity to dream and they had a significant belief that they could change the world. And this is something I don't think we're seeing in our children today. I think that's one of the reasons that prisons are full of black youth who are in prison for crimes, you know what I mean? Who are in prison for a whole lot of stuff, you know? I think if people had a vision and a feeling they could change the world like folks during that time, if they incarcerated us, it wouldn't be about that. It wouldn't be about, you know, us doing things to each other, but it'd be about us trying to change this world.