Bob Brown Interview Part I, December 10,2019
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- SPEAKER_3Hello. It is December 10th, 2019. And this is an interview with Bob Brown by Sierra Solomon for the Malcolm X Meridian. Hill Park oral history project recorded at American universities Humanities truck office here, with Bob Brown. Thank you so much again for cream. And just before we get started, I just wanted to ask you a few questions or do I have permission to record this
- SPEAKER_1interview today?
- SPEAKER_3Okay. And also want to note that of our agreement that this interview will become a public domain access for Bob Brown and his organization to use it and to discuss discussing use, however, they see fit. And that this interview is also in relation as a relationship with the American University Humanities truck. So, before I ask, Little bit more about yourself. Is there anything else you wanted to share that? I did not cover. That's okay. Awesome. So can you share just a brief introduction? Introduction of who you are, as in relation to, like, organizations that you're affiliated with where you're doing presently?
- SPEAKER_1Well, first of all, I joined the movement in Chicago in 1965 56 years of Ago as a 15 year, old high school student. And I've worked for the last 56 years for the movement full-time, except when I was in school for low pay and no pay. When I joined the movement in 1963, I worked with the Congress of racial equality in Chicago. From 63 to 68. Quality rails. Also known as Stokely Carmichael. Came to Chicago one month after he regurgitated or re4. He didn't coin Black Tower. That's Madness and whatnot. He just revived and helped no propagate, it'll push it worldwide. 30 days after that in the late part of July's. 66, he came to Chicago For a couple of reasons. One to meet with the Nation of Islam, and honorable Elijah Muhammad to, to help organize the Black Panther Party in Chicago. In 66 two years before the panther party, which people know about with Fred Hampton and Bob Rush which I founded and recruited them. So, I wound up becoming accident of History, the director of the Midwest, Is office of snake. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee After High School rebellion in September of 1967 and we helped the bail bond funds, the lawyers, you know, other kinds of stuff. I resigned from core, When Roy Ennis and right-wing. Republican forces, took control of it in 68, and most of the top National leadership, royalness James Farmer, Floyd mckissick became Republican and I refuse to become a Republican. There were problems inside of snip, in 68 and long story, short Kwame, there was some confrontations between the panther party with the Eldridge, Cleaver fraction and the FBI informants and side of the movement, the panther party and of the 20 original chapters of the panther party. I think we can document that I'll faction stuck on manga Kwame. Ture faction. I found it 10 or 15 of them and whatnot. In terms of the Huey P Newton, Wayne of the panther party. There was some confrontations that the United Nations between the Eldridge Cleaver wing of the party and Jim foreman and accusations. That the Panthers put a gun in his mouth at United Nations. Some people say that's not true
- SPEAKER_2but even if it is true it is an
- SPEAKER_1FBI informant who told it and I was the one who did it, long story short, the snake people It's best that you be allowed to mean wrap around or ready to go to war. With the pants party. And luckily that was a verted and whatnot with the with the police on both sides, pushing it and whatnot. So like I say, luckily that was averted. It wasn't an East Coast West Coast snake Panther War, but in the wake of that, when a cointelpro operation inside the Snick, Snick purged Kwame Toure and they certainly a telegram. Telling ordering me to call a press conference in Chicago, to denounce Stokely Carmichael Kwame. Ture, denounced Miriam Makeba and denounced the Black Panther Party. I responded. And said you didn't hire me. You can't fire me Fu. I quit. Who the hell is Phil Hutchins. The newly elected leadership. So I resigned Long starts in with 68, I worked
- SPEAKER_2with many
- SPEAKER_1organizations in Chicago during that period in time. It's not the subject of this interview is too much to discuss. I also was one of the top black draft resisters and I worked as best I could with the peace movement there and the draft movement and whatnot in Chicago. Call me to her. There were rebellions with respect to Martin Luther King and other stuff in Chicago, two. People were arrested accused of starting and organized and rebellions a man named Doug Andrews. Who was the local, West Side group called Garfield organization, a national group called act. And if Circumstances had been different, he would have been the found the organizer of the Black Panther. A party and in Chicago and a man named fats, Crawford, who was the deacons for defense and justice. Anyway, long story, they were rested rallies and fundraisers who are organized by a woman named. Georgia Palmer, Georgia, English Palmer, starring Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis jr. And a whole
- SPEAKER_2Who's who
- SPEAKER_1we brought Kwame into town to be the keynote. Speaker at that fundraiser. And we introduced him to Fred Hampton. And we'll talk about that later on. It's at that point, March of 1960 68, that he asked me to found the panther party in Chicago. So I helped recruit The that
- SPEAKER_2what is become known in history of
- SPEAKER_1black fans of party? They were other aborted
- SPEAKER_2attempts again, too much detail to discuss
- SPEAKER_1here. I recruited Fred Hampton. I recruited by brush. I lasted 11 months. because they were in, your logical struggles, where the maoist Chinese cointelpro, and the marks of the next Moscow, cointelpro and Democratic party, and
- SPEAKER_2all these different forces, fighting to take
- SPEAKER_1control to either crush or control the party and They had more resources, human and financial, they would better organized. So we lost and lasted about 11 months and I resigned from the panther party in 69, but long story, put it here with
- SPEAKER_2From 1967
- SPEAKER_1forward Guam, they had to raise Stokely Carmichael had met Kwame. Nkrumah that secretary Rabe Miriam Makeba in Guinea Conakry and in chroma
- SPEAKER_2had called for the foundation. The
- SPEAKER_1forming of an organization called the all African people's revolutionary party. We worked for five years from 67 to 72,
- SPEAKER_2to lay the foundation for
- SPEAKER_1that party and announced the u.s. chapter publicly and October of 1972 and how would University and bottom line. I have been working for that movement for the last since 1967. Of course, when every organization and unfortunately, and many families, they are splits divorces separations. So, that was and that was one, such problem in 2007, and a small group of us pulled way. We didn't want to spend the rest of my life arguing over. You can't get along. Hit the road. So we pulled back and we formed a small, All group called, The all African people's Revolution that party and we put the word
- SPEAKER_2GC in parenthesis, just to distinguish us from the other
- SPEAKER_1groups. So that people would know. This is all work. This is our contribution. This is our arrows. I'll mistakes we can take responsibility for our own work. So that is the organization which I'm representing here today, okay. All that working people. Revolution that part D G C
- SPEAKER_3and what does g c stand for?
- SPEAKER_1Well, it's
- SPEAKER_2Guinea Conakry this but we don't,
- SPEAKER_1Talk about that
- SPEAKER_2again. We just used it to distinguish,
- SPEAKER_1our faction Al group from the
- SPEAKER_2two, three, four, other groups out there is using a similar name
- SPEAKER_1is like after slavery. Some people took Brown. Yeah, from the slave master and song Pretty e
- SPEAKER_2on the end of it or changed it you know just to distinguish us
- SPEAKER_1and so we don't have to spend the rest of my life. If fighting over you, no Collective
- SPEAKER_3property. Okay? So you saw you started this, you or a native of Chicago
- SPEAKER_1nominated. I'm a native of Africa. I'm from Africa but the boat dropped us off in the United States. I can trace my father's side of the family back to before, 1776 That there's a man named Francis Marion who is known as the Swamp Fox.
- SPEAKER_2He was the George Washington
- SPEAKER_1of South Carolina. George Washington, without a
- SPEAKER_2Virginia and he led struggles and the are u.s. Army against the
- SPEAKER_1British.
- SPEAKER_2Well Swamp Fox, led the struggle against the British in South
- SPEAKER_1Carolina. He was one of the largest and richest slaveholders.
- SPEAKER_2He among his many slaves, or people
- SPEAKER_1who were Africans, who were
- SPEAKER_2enslaved, he had allegedly two of his
- SPEAKER_1favorite House Negroes,
- SPEAKER_2one of them went with him in story. Is he traveled with him while he was fighting the Guerrilla war in the swamps. In order to keep his sweet potato and his socks,
- SPEAKER_1warm and dry and Condoleezza Rice convinced George Bush.
- SPEAKER_2Forget whether it was senior or Junior, but one of them bush people, put his picture in the White
- SPEAKER_1House. Because Condi asked him to do that.
- SPEAKER_2Well, the other loyal
- SPEAKER_1person was a young teenager late teens, who's one of my ancestors and he
- SPEAKER_2drove the wagon train.
- SPEAKER_1From Georgetown South Carolina to Memphis
- SPEAKER_2Tennessee. The for it was
- SPEAKER_1named Memphis Tennessee and whatnot. I mean he was so loyal that the slave Gods didn't ask him for no identification. Nothing because he had done it. So often he was known. So he drove the rice, he drove the cotton,
- SPEAKER_2whatever the product and he basically help keep
- SPEAKER_1the plantation. Ian.
- SPEAKER_2Functioning right, right? He wound up dying 100e. That's before he was born before
- SPEAKER_11776 and what that he was he
- SPEAKER_2was he was old enough to be driving wagon
- SPEAKER_1trains between doing the so-called American
- SPEAKER_2Revolution of 1776 1783. He died in Mississippi
- SPEAKER_1and the plantation that he and his sons worked on up until 1865. Is now the University of Mississippi at Ole Miss and they were part of the first students at Russ College in. Get the city and Mississippi and one of the sons was the first
- SPEAKER_2Bishop of the white Methodist Church for the whole, southwestern region in
- SPEAKER_1the 50s. And then we also had the colorful side out of Chicago, but, you know, so,
- SPEAKER_2I'm born here
- SPEAKER_1and ancestry is traced back. To before. I mean it's the British that brought us here, you know, and whatnot. So we have claims against the British, we have claims against the Spanish, in terms of my family that we can document. But I was born in Chicago and so to work my parents and I've struggled for 56 years in Chicago even though I've lived other places and I'm still struggling but I don't claim it. Malcolm is correct. I'm a victim of America. I'm not an American.
- SPEAKER_3so, when you What made you leave Chicago and eventually locate in Washington DC or were there any places in
- SPEAKER_1between I've lived all over this country, okay? When I resign, the panther party in Chicago, in 1969 I was basically persona non grata. You know that many people inside the movement people that I worked with the leadership that position was you just child, you're young, you just a baby, you can't move out on your own. I was forced out of Chicago. Just like every just like today over a quarter of a million Africans have left Chicago, with one of the biggest migrations going on today, you have people been They pushed out of Washington DC and to the south east, and south west, and into PG County. We were being pushed
- SPEAKER_2out a whole generation of Youth was
- SPEAKER_1told by Mayor. Daley, you know, set out go to school, go to Marines, or military, or go to jail, and they literally put whole gangs that they go on the west side. New find 30 youth you know with one of the gangs when the West Side they give them a choice. They give full scholarship to go to Missoula Montana. You know, was very few, if any Africans at the University of Montana, in Missoula, in
- SPEAKER_31968, their reason for them picking that, that, you know, picking that institution that's was out of
- SPEAKER_1state that institution was willing to accept gangsters, okay? Give them scholarships. Give them. However, they got the scholarships and it was about as far away from Chicago, as you could get. It because they had moved and destroy the gangs to destroy the Black Panther Party, and they were dispersing as many as they can. I had some opportunities is too much to go through. You know, I appointed a president of Shaw University James cheeks who became Howard University's president left Shaw University in shambles. To come to become the president of Howard University.
- SPEAKER_2He appointed his younger brother, King
- SPEAKER_1teak, to be president and left the
- SPEAKER_2campus and even more shambles. King cheeks.
- SPEAKER_1Got a promotion and became the president of Antioch University of Yellow Springs. Ohio,
- SPEAKER_2So, when old
- SPEAKER_1Nigerian asked me to introduce him to some influential Africans in the US and millionaires that told him, I don't know none, but I introduced him to one old man named Reverend jrg. Hargreaves. And as a long history, he's the first one that gave Andy young, the money to work with Martin Luther King. He was one of the most powerful people in United Church of Christ. He was a Godfather to all the gangs and the Black Panther Party at the same time. And even if we killing each other and fighting each other on the streets and he called us and said come to breakfast. The only argument was who going to wash the dishes, and you can believe gangsters wash dishes and whatnot. There's a whole history to it. So we made argue the president.
- SPEAKER_2And he offered me a
- SPEAKER_1scholarship to go to Seoul University on a university Without Walls project and I took it just like any other youth. There are things that are pushing you away, that you want to leave the family, you want to leave the neighborhood. You want to leave the game. Yeah,
- SPEAKER_2but there are also opportunities
- SPEAKER_1I went National, you know, I'd been booking quantities, speaking engagements, and the parties recruitment drives and fundraising drives worldwide for two years and Chicago just became too small. So I wound up in Raleigh, North Carolina for a moment.
- SPEAKER_2We made the decision and we'll discuss it later on
- SPEAKER_1to organize African Liberation day 1976 and I moved to Washington, d.c. to organize African Liberation day and became
- SPEAKER_2a student and teaching assistant for brief
- SPEAKER_1moment at Howard University. Actually to pay the rent and I wound up living in d.c. until 1988 when I went to prison for helping to break the political embargo on Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and they rewarded me with seven years. And I slept in about seven, penitentiary's Federal Penitentiary sore from Adam Xander
- SPEAKER_2Virginia to
- SPEAKER_1de-seed the Harrisburg to
- SPEAKER_2Reno, Oklahoma to Lafayette Louisiana to Huntsville to Atlanta
- SPEAKER_1to Raleigh to Petersburg and back to halfway house and home arrest. Yeah. So I've lived. I've lived
- SPEAKER_2in New York,
- SPEAKER_1Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia. You know, D.C
- SPEAKER_2Baltimore. Plus the jails but I've worked at visited and do I worked in at least 40?
- SPEAKER_1only 50 states and I'll travel worldwide will give you as one of the documents my most recent Political biography. is the first time I've combined the political work, the key political work with some of the Work. I did just to pay the rent and was the first time I come by and some of that. And it's colorful.
- SPEAKER_3So the your time from the late 80s and early 90s. Why are you were in the penitentiary is, were you there with leaders of the American Indian movement? Did you guys collaborate for those protests?
- SPEAKER_1First of all, There was collaboration with speak about that. Okay. With to
- SPEAKER_2prison
- SPEAKER_1sentences, okay?
- SPEAKER_2The US government subpoenaed
- SPEAKER_1Host of people Nation of Islam, people a PRP people mainly me, they threatened to subpoena Kwame and other people, but they also subpoenaed to testify running Bella caught while the Nene, and Bill means who were two of the top leadership and whatnot and they wanted us. Two. They accuse the Libyan students of violating the treasury band, the Embargo. What not by sending we between the Nation of Islam. And the, a PRP we sent hundreds, if not thousands of people to Tripoli Libya Libyan students paid for it. We went up on Indian reservations and got old people who have never left the reservation, you know, we
- SPEAKER_2move them to New York. We
- SPEAKER_1Help them get their passports. They had their own, we kept in prep, they own
- SPEAKER_2passports and we took them over. We took even out enemies are political enemies over
- SPEAKER_1that. Because are you break the Embargo and be you let the
- SPEAKER_2people see for
- SPEAKER_1themselves and
- SPEAKER_2see you take me
- SPEAKER_1from Africa, how can you tell me, I can't go back to Africa so Vernon and I spent, it's either. Seven or nine months. In for civil contempt
- SPEAKER_2until they also killed the Libyan students of trying to kill all of the
- SPEAKER_1North. because
- SPEAKER_2supposedly in retaliation because
- SPEAKER_1northen the regular Administration, bombed, Libya and killed Among other people could have his daughter one of these adopted daughters. So this is the lies that they said, and they claimed bottom line at Vernon and I had the information,
- SPEAKER_2which could
- SPEAKER_1convict them, and we refuse to testify, we had no information. It was a lie, right? But we even refused to prove it was a lie. No, we set in jail until the grand jury. Hurry. Expired and they couldn't convict the Libyan
- SPEAKER_2students. So they deported
- SPEAKER_1them and then they had to let us go. But then they because I refuse to cooperate. You know, they rewarded me. With. 28 years in the penitentiary. claiming that I used hot telephone credit cards, fifty dollars, worth of hot telephone credit cards, you know, and they sealed the conversations, they are National Security conversations because
- SPEAKER_2in the ledge conversations, a who's who of the movements
- SPEAKER_1names was mentioned and I won't mention them here and they bottom line, they came in my prison cell early one morning and say we have helicopter sitting outside to take you back to DC. To testified, you know, they throw
- SPEAKER_2the keys to the jail in my
- SPEAKER_1face and told me you don't have to spend a night in jail. You have information that your government wants and needs. They wanted me to put Jesse Jackson in jail to put, Louis Farrakhan to put Kwame ture. They wanted me to just what do you know about them? You know, and what not, and I
- SPEAKER_3I
- SPEAKER_1told him my name is not Monty Hall. I do not play Let's Make a Deal. Yeah, throw it at me and they threw it 28 years 450. Damn dollars, they allege? I play
- SPEAKER_2innocent man, I
- SPEAKER_1still plead innocent
- SPEAKER_2because we know who the real thieves are the people who kill the Mamba and kill out of young day to make
- SPEAKER_1telephones. You know, it was not. So, It isolated me, you know. So from 87, 88
- SPEAKER_2I was part of a
- SPEAKER_1cointelpro operations and we can document
- SPEAKER_2a whole 10 years of every year.
- SPEAKER_1They were throwing whatever, they had at Kwame Stokely Carmichael, he was throwing whatever they had at me. So from basically 8 is 72 96, you know, I was on Parole and isolated. And I have been struggling since 96
- SPEAKER_3to
- SPEAKER_1get back politically and personally, to where I was right. You know, I did my time every minute That made no compromises then and I make none. Now,
- SPEAKER_3since 96 you've been Mainly still in the DC area
- SPEAKER_1or I've been all over. I've been I've lived in Guinea for love months, in Cincinnati Ohio. I've lived in
- SPEAKER_2Charlotte and Raleigh
- SPEAKER_1and Burlington. North Carolina. I've lived in
- SPEAKER_2Baltimore in
- SPEAKER_1d.c. Yeah, because, you know, when you ain't paid Yeah, you either live with people family or party members and what not until that no longer works, or you have to struggle to find some kind of a housing, I wanted to get back to DC, but one of the reasons I'm back is because I have my little, I don't have social security or pension, but my little Financial stuff. I was able to work out And with a fixed small, fixed income, and Obamacare, and I was able to find apartment rent a room, not an apartment or room in southwest DC that I can afford. And I just technically moved back here, maybe two months ago and I haven't even brought my furniture and books up yet. I'm just in a room with a bed. A laptop table and the chair. Until I get the resources to bring my personal stuff.
- SPEAKER_3Okay. So did I, I'm trying to figure out how to phrase it. Did the government and all assist arrayed back. Then when you were released in 96,
- SPEAKER_1okay? No, as normal, they gave me a one-way bus ticket
- SPEAKER_2and they didn't really give me
- SPEAKER_1that. Because for the last 11 months, when I was spent 31 months in the penitentiary for the last 11 months, I
- SPEAKER_2was the quality control
- SPEAKER_1inspector for the Furniture Factory.
- SPEAKER_2We refurnished truckloads of US
- SPEAKER_1Government equipment out of DC, they shift. I was pointed that because I was the only one in the penitentiary that new a compatible type on the computer, especially among The index, the prisoners and they offered me a job to be
- SPEAKER_2the secretary to the warden and told him he'll
- SPEAKER_1know. You know I took the dish room, right? I come to serve the people, not the government not the system
- SPEAKER_2but the old man told me you'll never get paroled from the dish room so you got to do something to fix up your record.
- SPEAKER_1So I said, okay, I'll be the prison Factory and the
- SPEAKER_2warring gangs in the prison the Aryan Nation had the wood shop. no, and the Nigerians had this and
- SPEAKER_3Yeah,
- SPEAKER_2the old man had the paint shop
- SPEAKER_1and they were not working cooperatively, you know,
- SPEAKER_2your move. It would be bottlenecks because they weren't cooperating. And
- SPEAKER_1okay, if the
- SPEAKER_2people who were polish your painting, the furniture is upset, it'll pile up in the Woodshop, right? So I was able to help work some of that
- SPEAKER_1out, okay? And by the time I left that Furniture
- SPEAKER_2Factory was doing two and three
- SPEAKER_1shifts, And I still did not compromise. They. Before, one of the examples is they took
- SPEAKER_2doing the Iraq. I guess it was the Iraq War One
- SPEAKER_1in-laws. They were
- SPEAKER_2refurnishing furniture for one of them chips to be sent over to the war
- SPEAKER_1and I pulled the style organized a strike. You know, for maybe one day you know it wasn't a real
- SPEAKER_2strike but I had sympathy and support
- SPEAKER_1and whatnot. They wasn't at the
- SPEAKER_2prisoners. One going too far. I want to
- SPEAKER_1exaggerate you know, but long story short I refused by then I luckily already had my parole. I stayed in the hole for about a week and when I came out, I went back to the distro, I'm not going to work under no circumstances with the US government, right? I didn't vote for Obama, don't support him. I'm Happy from an African standpoint that African or black or negro president, but you did nothing for us.
- SPEAKER_2We look at him as an individual, he simply a
- SPEAKER_1white head on a what I'm a black-haired on a white body
- SPEAKER_2and he couldn't do no more than they permitted him to do
- SPEAKER_1and all this other stuff
- SPEAKER_2is just it's the
- SPEAKER_3game's Optics here, you know,
- SPEAKER_1like they are,
- SPEAKER_2they're doing to what's-his-name Donald Trump regime
- SPEAKER_1change.
- SPEAKER_2Destabilizing his ability, he won the election by their rules.
- SPEAKER_1He ain't my president, I vote for him
- SPEAKER_2but he won the election. He won the Electoral College by their rules and they are not permitting him to govern
- SPEAKER_1because Congress owns the person who controls the purse strings that doing the same thing to him that they did tell Washington to move Mike with Duffy to foot. Adele Castro, you know?
- SPEAKER_2Now I'm not saying he don't deserve
- SPEAKER_1it. You know, he, you know, he deserves it.
- SPEAKER_2Yeah, but I cannot participate in these
- SPEAKER_1games, right?
- SPEAKER_2Hillary Clinton is no
- SPEAKER_1good. You know it was not
- SPEAKER_2George Clinton, Bill Clinton. I'm sorry is no
- SPEAKER_1good. You know we can we can document all of them. I can support piece by piece. Some of the things that are done, but I'm not an American, right? Right. So they have done, nothing to help us nothing.
- SPEAKER_2Even now they do what they
- SPEAKER_1have to do. Okay, I have Obamacare. Not because they like me, it's a law.
- SPEAKER_2It's a multi-billion Dollar trillion-dollar
- SPEAKER_1business. You know they got to do it,
- SPEAKER_2right? And if they don't do it, I'm a race help.
- SPEAKER_1I'm gonna Raise Hell. Because I was part of
- SPEAKER_2of the other movement for Better Health Care. What is, what is the time for party free medical clinics? What is quitting Young's, you know, single-payer movement that goes back to the 50s in Chicago. This movement existed before Obama was born before. Hillary was born before I was
- SPEAKER_1born. No, we simply make a contribution to it and yes, it has helped. It has helped. I'm not gonna lie, it helps me.
- SPEAKER_2You know, I never had Medical Care. Never
- SPEAKER_1Until the last year or two,
- SPEAKER_2when I was a I'm 71 I could even get it when our 65
- SPEAKER_1it is only in the last two years,
- SPEAKER_2given the contradictions within the system that I was able to
- SPEAKER_1qualify for it. And yes, it has made my
- SPEAKER_2life a little bit
- SPEAKER_1better. But I'm not selling out. For what I should have had when I was born. So human, right. It's a god-given, right? It's not a little bomber, right? We should
- SPEAKER_2have had it. Before they stole us. So now that we got it, we should use it
- SPEAKER_3responsibly right
- SPEAKER_1but I don't owe them nothing. They still owe
- SPEAKER_3us. so, moving more into Not necessarily your time in d.c. because you've been everywhere but more into the history of how you got involved with the organization in DC itself. if you can kind of recall, maybe your first memory of organizing in DC and when you did organize did involve Malcolm X park or another location.
- SPEAKER_1Yes,
- SPEAKER_2first of all
- SPEAKER_1I've been coming back and forth to Washington, d.c. a living here since 1968. Okay? I came here. At least two ways. I
- SPEAKER_2came here to meet with
- SPEAKER_1Kwame ture and the Snick and the panther people who were living and working in d.c. To discuss how to build a panther party. I also came here. And slept and Resurrection City for a few days until quality. And the forces came to resurrect. Some sitting ordered me to leave. Before it was closed down. So those are the first two organizing participation.
- SPEAKER_2I know the forces, who would sneak in, Washington DC, in
- SPEAKER_11965 66 and 67. The people who was different, factions of
- SPEAKER_2Snick, the people who, for most Nick and antis Nick, it is these people
- SPEAKER_1who organized the demonstration and found it, Malcolm X Park and African Liberation day.
- SPEAKER_2And when we We get to that
- SPEAKER_1will name? All of them were at least the ones we know and discuss the road. When
- SPEAKER_2you look, it's Nick as one
- SPEAKER_1organization. It's too too long to go into detail will do that you know, in our presentations and projects that we are working on, but you had various factions,
- SPEAKER_2you cannot talk
- SPEAKER_1about
- SPEAKER_2Malcolm X day or African Liberation day without
- SPEAKER_1talking about the road that Marion Barry. Ivanhoe Donaldson kotlin, Cox child at Cobb.
- SPEAKER_2Baba Zulu what you lay with Toto, call me to rage and Bailey. And other Coco Pharaoh FM, minor, Freddie Green. You know, the whole history of
- SPEAKER_1them
- SPEAKER_2The faction with
- SPEAKER_1Kwame. And the faction with the revolutionary action movement.
- SPEAKER_2They are the ones who
- SPEAKER_1named that Park. Malcolm X part and I think we can prove that. So
- SPEAKER_2that
- SPEAKER_1I don't want to get so too far ahead of us but that's my first. I
- SPEAKER_2came here in 1972 because Cleveland
- SPEAKER_1sellers asked me to come here.
- SPEAKER_2Cleveland sellers is the one who really organized African Liberation day 1972, and we'll discuss that in
- SPEAKER_1detail. And people are very upset. With. My understanding of it Cleveland sellers asked me. I came
- SPEAKER_2to to meeting one of our meetings and clears his throat. I need your
- SPEAKER_1help.
- SPEAKER_2All I did
- SPEAKER_1was advised give
- SPEAKER_2information. I
- SPEAKER_1did not coordinate the African Liberation day buses that came from Chicago,
- SPEAKER_2that was coordinated the haki madhubuti throughout you read and a sister named. Bernetta Bush, who is now a retired judge in the city of Chicago. I just saw her a couple of
- SPEAKER_1of months ago at a memorial when they were the Chicago
- SPEAKER_2contingent that came here, the leadership of it and other forces we know. So I basically just
- SPEAKER_1Stood quiet
- SPEAKER_2behind clearly, with clearly
- SPEAKER_1made my
- SPEAKER_2suggestions privately or cuss people publicly and there's at least two volumes of an FBI file named Bob Brown and African Liberation Day. 72, Bob Brown LLC.
- SPEAKER_1I've done many. I
- SPEAKER_2worked in marionberries re-election campaign. I helped put Willie Wilson's mayoral campaign in the streets. I worked on the national staff of Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign and among other things, I helped deliver some of these Nick people because there's no way he could have ran that campaign without Marion Barry. And I would hold on, Alison. And I need the bombs was the field. Director National Field, director of The Campaign. That's where I met her and whatnot, and Donna brazile. Had been assigned by Dorothy Height and National Council of negro women to help organize the youth. I don't know what Donna brazile did before that, I haven't had contact with her and decades but I met her there. So
- SPEAKER_1you know, I worked with
- SPEAKER_2tenants groups with Adams Morgan day. You can't talk about Malcolm X Park without told my Adams Morgan day.
- SPEAKER_3How are those two?
- SPEAKER_2Well, first of all, geographically. Okay. And was walking day was basically from 16th in Columbia Road to 80,000 Columbia Road. It may have been part of, I'm trying to do the research to help your project, but it may have been that some events from Adams Morgan day were
- SPEAKER_1held in Malcolm X part. I
- SPEAKER_2know the stages for the most part were on Columbia Road or on. 18th
- SPEAKER_1Street. And when My ex,
- SPEAKER_2you know, the mother of our two daughters. She was the attorney for Adams Morgan
- SPEAKER_1day.
- SPEAKER_2I mean, this is the whole, you know, when they, when the American Indian movement, came to town for the 72 Bureau of Indian Affairs and the 78, longest, walk, number one, They entered through Silver Springs and Takoma Park and that whole them highways and across Eastern Avenue and they they stopped at Malcolm X Park and we can prove it. We have the, we have the and the role we played and support forces, you know the Latino Movement, we know them Arturo Griffith. Who's the the afro-latino forces we?
- SPEAKER_1You know,
- SPEAKER_2I'll see if I can find him and ask him to help the project, you know, Sonia, good tirith. She was the community organizer for the El Salvadorian community. Who for the most part lived on Mount Pleasant Street and I'm sure they had all kind of immigrant and Latin Latino activities and events in that Park. They then the community moved to Maryland and Virginia for the most part because Mount Pleasant was the entry point for many of the undocumented immigrants from Africa and the Americas. Because it was easier to find housing in Mount Pleasant and in that area and they had bars. You can't imagine how many meetings we've had on Mount Pleasant Street and whatnot. The Cuban Embassy is right up the street, you know, so all these different movements that we will give you as best we can a list of dozens if not hundreds. Of activities mainly political that we believe and or can prove had some kind of an activity in Malcolm X, all the peace movement, the solidarity movement, The Immigrant movement, various African movements, the Palestinian Community for years. We did joint African Liberation day and Palestine
- SPEAKER_1day.
- SPEAKER_2So we will, we will come up with a list. Now that we know your time line will move a little
- SPEAKER_1faster and we'll come up with a list of different activities that will help. You know, we we started doing this.
- SPEAKER_2We some of the research people claim that Martin Luther King hung out in the park,
- SPEAKER_1don't see why, why would dr. King have to hang out in that Park,
- SPEAKER_2but one of their The rationales is because pits hotel or Motor Lodge was right up the street and Pitts was the headquarters for the Poor People's campaign and at the very end pits became housing for battered women and children. What I'm sure that if you had children up in that, hellhole sooner or later, one or two of them, The win over the Malcolm X part, right? If no more than individually, they may not have been you know, organized
- SPEAKER_1programs and I'm just saying
- SPEAKER_2it's a whole history
- SPEAKER_1to it.
- SPEAKER_2We in a bobbin Goma. You know, says that he started drumming the week, did, Martin Luther King was murdered. He didn't call himself
- SPEAKER_1Bob and go Mo says
- SPEAKER_2February the week of February 22nd that week 65
- SPEAKER_1Doc Powell,
- SPEAKER_2you know, who is the Malcolm X drummers and dancers says they were founded in
- SPEAKER_175.
- SPEAKER_2Other documents suggest the Jan Bailey who was DC Snick? Working with Kwame ture and the pan-african committee of the Black United Fund. and no pineapple Committee of the black united front, the funders row locks He will depend have committee and many people say he is the one. Who helped organize some of the first Malcolm X day. He is. Certainly one of the ones who helped organize locally the African Liberation day and he was For several years, a member of the Central Committee of the a, a PRP. And I'm sure I have some of his papers that he gave me before he passed, I haven't even opened them up and looked at him but you have Coco, Coco pharaoh and you have F minor. F A minor when she was a teenager. She her family lived, close to Elijah Muhammad and she was Elijah. Muhammad's daughter's best friend. And the two, women or two girls running out of it in and out of each other's houses. You know, all doing the period as for, with school and Latin America in the 1950s and met much of the Palestinian Arab leadership. She never joined the Nation of Islam, but she was always around when Malcolm was purged from the Nation of Islam, she went to New York and she was a journalism major And teach French or some language in whatnots, she was in the room. When Malcolm was killed. And so it was an old man named David Brothers. They were brothers became the chairman of the Black Panther Party of New York State and a member of the founding member of the Central Committee of the API, p.f. of minor became the communication, secretary for Snick, she wrote much or at least edited she, she did the Press work and she helped do, right? Or at least, edit the speeches and what not it. These are for minor who typed and wrote call me to raise speech in 1972. He reluctantly so long history, he reluctantly get wrote the speech. He did not come to ald 72 because Kwame nkrumah had just passed and he refused to leave Guinea at that time. So he'd because Chloe's solos and other forms. I asked him to write the keynote speech, he wrote it men on the cable, brought the speech in the country. At the last minute it is. Ethel who typed it and corrected it, and it is Ethel who sent the speech to North Carolina at the last minute and said this is who is going to read it. I got that
- SPEAKER_3document.
- SPEAKER_2Gave the rationale and must be a man for whatever reasons her rationale at that point in time she dissed that and she said, cold-bloodedly she had Kwame to raise intellectual property. She made those decisions it's in the document and she said at the last minute, after I know, They were supposed to send her a bus ticket to go down there. She was gonna go with the guinean embassy. And one at the last minute, the embassy backed out and she decided not to go and Jan, Bailey, delivered the letter and told them it is a wool suit. Who's going to read qualms this message? Do you understand what that means? He was handpicked. Also, he was knocking makes Liberation University whatever he was. He had it, but when you read Kwame, to raise speech, at that point in time to
- SPEAKER_130,000 people,
- SPEAKER_2you are anointed and appointed as the leadership of the
- SPEAKER_3movement.
- SPEAKER_2These are these are some of the interpretations that people are very upset about. They don't want it toe. We can go, we can go down the list. If we have time, we can go ald by ald Discuss. How it was organized. Some of the deals that were cut some of the personalities and roles that they play. You just can't give a letterhead, you know, this is the call to ald 1972, you know, and you see a list of
- SPEAKER_1names on the left hand side, you know, with whatever
- SPEAKER_2titles and organizations
- SPEAKER_1yolk acid Impressions list.
- SPEAKER_2But there's a while those names are on 30,000
- SPEAKER_1people
- SPEAKER_2come, there's a reason why only a dozen or so on the left hand side, One because can't with so many names, get on that piece of paper so you have to limit it
- SPEAKER_1and then you have to prioritize it
- SPEAKER_2on the basis of who they are. And what they deliver. So it's not enough for historian. To Simply say, here's the letterhead, not the historian
- SPEAKER_1must analyze it.
- SPEAKER_2Cleveland sellers who is Cleveland fellows. Very strong State who is Flowing State and while on parole who isn't on parole revolutions Walker and then look at the new people Look at the new people who sadaqat, who is Nelson Johnson, who is Joe? Wallows now on Malaysia Telly, they are
- SPEAKER_1new.
- SPEAKER_2Now, they may be promoted. But didn't necessarily ones with with, with the bank account
- SPEAKER_3wondering that was there a was there a clear difference from when Cleveland sellers, first organized ald in d.c. to what it started to become with new leadership
- SPEAKER_2was look. First of all, is not
- SPEAKER_3first, okay? Sorry
- SPEAKER_2African Liberation Day in the United States goes back to
- SPEAKER_11959. Okay, I'll give you documents that
- SPEAKER_2African Liberation day. 1958 Ghana 1959. The first two African Liberation days in the United State. Not, they were called Africa, Freedom days. First of all, it was Africa, Freedom Day, founded by Kwame nkrumah. And the first Conference of independent African States in April, 15 1958, and then was changed to African Liberation day May 25th, 1963 bottom line after Liberation day is the baby. Of the oau, and the African
- SPEAKER_3Union.
- SPEAKER_2And its name has changed three times Africa, Freedom Day to African, Liberation day to Africa
- SPEAKER_1date. Is he in
- SPEAKER_2chroma is nkrumah and the second changes with Haley, Selassie who chaired that meeting and the last changes with Muammar
- SPEAKER_1Qaddafi. Okay. And people
- SPEAKER_2don't deal with that. But then in the US, There were at least three African Liberation Africa, Freedom Day
- SPEAKER_1activities, at least three that I'm aware of
- SPEAKER_2one was organized by a white group. In New York City called The American Committee on Africa. That basically is one of the groups who helped fund and create the South Africa. Freedom Movement in DC and trans Africa.
- SPEAKER_3Do you happen to know the name of the
- SPEAKER_1group will give you all of
- SPEAKER_3that, okay? Sorry, I was pretty
- SPEAKER_2you are. I gave that in the presentation to the black power chronicled project for the snake Legacy project and they were sitting in the room and they were not too happy with the truth. So that's one group, you know, George Hauser and American Committee on Africa, and that's a whole
- SPEAKER_1history. Going back to the 50s.
- SPEAKER_2The Nation of Islam. When Malcolm X organized African Liberation day in April. In 1959, there is a YouTube video. On the internet of him speaking. So that's the
- SPEAKER_1second.
- SPEAKER_2There's at least another one in
- SPEAKER_1Chicago.
- SPEAKER_2Organized by a woman named dr. Kristine Johnson. Sister Christine as she was called danced with Kwame, nkrumah in the 1930s when he was at school in Lincoln. Oh, he was such a gentleman. She became the first woman principle of the nation of Islam's
- SPEAKER_3School.
- SPEAKER_1In the 1960s.
- SPEAKER_2She is the one who one of the ones who helped introduce Squaw mean, Malcolm
- SPEAKER_1X. To Kwame nkrumah,
- SPEAKER_3okay,
- SPEAKER_2call Malcolm X met Kwame nkrumah when he first came to the United Nations after Independence to speak because Malcolm
- SPEAKER_1Adam Clayton Powell. Had a committee. Working with the police department in Harlem
- SPEAKER_2anytime ambassadors or top, dignitaries came to United Nations.
- SPEAKER_1Many of them would ask to go into the community. Can somebody host us with a community event, blah blah
- SPEAKER_2blah. So the state department and the police department
- SPEAKER_1organized, a committee starting in nineteen,
- SPEAKER_2sixty nine, sixty because you had many,
- SPEAKER_1African countries that have become independent and leaf flag Independence.
- SPEAKER_2And they were now coming to the UN
- SPEAKER_3to speak,
- SPEAKER_2and some of them wanted to go
- SPEAKER_3to Harlem, right?
- SPEAKER_1You know, and Malcolm X, most
- SPEAKER_2representing the Nation of Islam on that committee. When Gamal Abdel Nasser came to the UN Malcolm.
- SPEAKER_1And my father-in-law met him at the airport in 1959.
- SPEAKER_2When nkrumah came.
- SPEAKER_1Malcolm X. My father-in-law was not at that one.
- SPEAKER_2When Fidel
- SPEAKER_1Castro King
- SPEAKER_2Malcolm was up in the hotel room in the hotel, Teresa meeting with Malcolm X, my father-in-law was in the lobby head of security for the Nation of Islam for that
- SPEAKER_1day
- SPEAKER_2and Fidel's, brother Raul. Was in charge of security for the Cuban mission and for Fidel, and they spent the whole evening. Together. And Raul said, if you ever make it to Cuba, Cuba, look me up.