Transcripts For CSPAN2 Feminists In The Black Power Movement 20160228

To kind of challenge the ways thathat in much of our public conversation today there is a kind of dangerous i think distinction being made between whats being treated as the good old Civil Rights Movement and the sort of movements for Racial Justice and black lives matter today. These are very dangerous distinctions and i think really looking at the history of rosa parks and particularly look at the history of rosa parks through criminal justice, really challenges these distinctions that some commentators are making today. And so i think a real look at rosa parks remind us from scottsboro to emmett till and jeremiah reeds distorted campaigns for justice for black women who were raped to the kind of criminalization of organizing that we see with Highlander Folk School and the bus buck offs to all of the Defense Committees she served on to all the antiPolice Brutality work she did sitting on the peoples tribunal after the 1967 detroit uprising and on and on. I think seeing that scope gives us a much different movement to sort of draw upon today and really revealed i think and challenges sort of the way this fable of the Civil Rights Movement comes into our present. So tonight we are very lucky to have three scholars who have flown here today to be with us. The first speaker were going out tonight is Kenneth Janken talk about his new very important book on the wilmington. Yes come from uncchapel hill. The second speaker is going to be professor Rhonda Williams from cleveland to talk about her new incredible book and looking at what our across the 20th century at a then Erik Mcduffie has come from university of illinois at urbanachampaign. Cable b signing after the program tonight. His first book concrete demands but its going to be talking tonight from his new book project which is but specifically we talking tonight about his new work by malcolm x his mother, louise little. And he is fresh from sort of all sorts of Research Across the world. So we are very, very lucky and please join me in welcoming Kenneth Janken, Rhonda Williams and Erik Mcduffie. [applause] good evening. Ive used the Schomburg Center for all of my work at one time or another. I find myself here, and i was thinking about come its always been a dream of mine to come here and talk. So i can cross that off my list tonight. Thank you for inviting me, and im really, really thrilled to be here. And thanks to all of you for coming out this evening. Im going to talk about the wilmington 10 tonight, and ive generally found that the wilmington ten is something that is dimly remembered. Its more remembered in my state of North Carolina, my adopted state of North Carolina, but frequently it gets confused with the 1898 race riot in wilmington which was a coup against a black elected legally black elected government in 1898. So its not that well remembered by the wilmington ten in its time, and for our time, was a monumental case of political repression. Very similar to other examples of egregious injustices such as the murder of Chicago Black panther leader fred hampton by the Chicago Police with the assistance of the federal bureau of investigation. The legal frame up of angela davis and the attica prison rebellion, with just a bit more thought i think i could offer several other examples but that would take up more of my time and not allow me to get to the point of want to do. In the case of the wilmington ten the full force of the legal system hammered nine young black men in their teens or early 20s and a white woman in her 30s for the part in protests over desegregation of Public Schools in wilmington, North Carolina. The actions of elected officials, police, prosecutors and judges throughout the wilmington tens or deals was callous and corrupt even by todays standards of prosecutorial misconduct. Part of what i would like to do this evening is too harsh for you the events of the wilmington ten and their frame a. But its also important to remember and to understand that what happened in wilmington also helped to define a new phase in africanamerican politics in which an increasingly varied movement coordinated its efforts under the leadership of a vital radical left, and ill spend some time outlined that as well for you. As will become evident in a moment, the name will make intent is in many ways a misnomer. Not only did these 10 persons not inspired to do anything, they also did not know one another or hang out together or share common friendships or networks together. They were caught up on the repressive machinery operated by the authorities to suppress an expansive social movement, and in particular one person on the sideline, benjamin. While ill be taught by the wilmington ten as a corporate entity as it were, because that is how the events are remembered in history, its important we understand they were also 10 individuals, and i want you to know the names. Binchy this, reginald apps, jerry jacobs, james mccoy, wayne moore, morton patrick, and shepard, connie kendall, willie, and jill right. 10 individuals whose lives were ruined to further the aims of the state. The media event that led to the wilmington ten with a boycott of wilmingtons recently desegregated schools in the first week of february 1971 by black students who object to the mistreatment by school officials, by police who came onto campus to stop fights and by white adult frogs look into the schools to harass black students. They also protested their exclusion from a variety of Extracurricular Activities such as cheerleading, the sports teams, student council, the Honor Society and so on. High School Students issued a list of demands and established the boycott headquarters at Gregory Congregational Church which is fully with the United Church of christ. A local paramilitary White Supremacist Organization called the rights of white people which had broken away from the klan in the county because it believed the klan was to moderate. They heard about the boycott and begin to harass the students including driveby shootings at the church. In response students and their supporters appealed for City Protection including a curfew but neither the mayor nor the police chief was willing to oblige. They said things were under control the way they were. Window protection was forthcoming students and their supporters defend themselves, established a perimeter around the church and set up an armed sentry. Also in response to the attack im not supporters of the boycott committed arson and other Property Damage against white owned businesses. And again against nearly previous all white New Hanover High School gym. It to be noted, however, that not all of the arson was in retaliation for the attacks. At least one business was burned down by its owner who try to take advantage of the unrest in town to profit from his fire insurance. And another fire at a business also had suspicious origins. This was Schwartz Furniture store and several residents thought it was peculiar that while the store burned down and all the merchandise burned down, the owner had conveniently taken all of his record books home with him the night before the fire and continued to go all the patrons come all the customers for their installment payments. Among the businesses that byrd was mikes grocery which is located a couple of blocks from the church and mikes grocery plays an Important Role in the events of the wilmington ten. We mikes was burning on a saturday night at the end of the first week in february 1971, the police shot and killed an unarmed student protest leader by the name of steve mitchell. He had gone out when he heard the fire alarms going. He had gone out to check and see what was happening, and to help, the fire had spread and hes going to help rescue people from the adjacent buildings, help people move up the furniture, you get out of the fire. When he poked his head out the police shot him. They picked him up, put him in a police car ambush of a 15 minute drive to the hospital to more than two hours, and he arrived dead on arrival. The next morning a white supremacist named harvey drove through police lines, got out of his vehicle, as he prepared to shoot at the church who shot and killed by somebody who is still unknown. It was with this mans death, with harveys death, but the mayor and the police chief took action. A curfew was no established and at the citys urging the governor called in the National Guard and state highway patrol. The guard raided the boycott headquarters, and with its superior firepower, calm was imposed on the city. The boycott was suppressed by the students demands were not met. One year later in march of 1972 state and local officials still smarting from the rebellion and determined to make someone pay for it arrested 17 persons on charges related to the burning of mikes and the murder of harvey. 10 of them were put on trial in september 1972 for conspiracy, arson and shooting of firefighters and Police Responded to a fire alarm. The prosecutor, jay stroud, based his case on perjured testimony that he himself had solicited and on an illegal process of jury selection in which excluded practically all blacks from the jury pool based on the race and successfully strived to a stack the jury with whites who openly expose racist views were plenty stated they had made up their minds that at least some of the 10 were guilty, or who said that in order to find them not guilty, they would need to the testimony of those people. Rather than assuming that they were not guilty, they would assume theyre guilty until proven otherwise. It is illegal process, the prosecution was ably assisted by the trial judge, robert martin, who also hamstrung the defendants attorneys. After week of testimony the jury took only hours to convict and the judge sends the wilmington ten to a total of 282 years in prison. I can talk more about this process into question and answer. I can talk more about this illegal process that the prosecutor used. So in october of 1972 the wilmington ten were sent off to prison to serve out terms of sometimes up to 34 years, but 282 years in total. And that mightve been the end of the story, because we know that throughout the 60s and 70s that are people who were arrested, who were framed, who were convicted and sent to jail and nobody ever hears from them again. This was true for a group of high School Students in eight North Carolina, and there was also a struggle over School Desegregation and they were also students who pushed and shoved and always. At one point in time there was a fire set in the boys lavatory in the trashcan, did minimal amount of damage coupled with smoke, although fire, nothing particularly big and has morphed into a fire bomb in the press. It in the courts. The authorities arrested 11 high School Students, and put them on trial but told them that if they pled guilty and forego any appeal and to serve the time that they would get sentences of 11 years. Not being able to afford attorneys and being young and scared, they did in and did their time. I only found out about them, actually i only found out about them going to the archives of the Schomburg Center. This mightve been the end of the story for the wilmington ten, but almost immediately upon their conviction, and really i think while they were still on trial what occurred was a vigorous multilevel and Multidimensional Movement to free them. It was built statewide, first principle is the network of the United Church of christ congregations that dominate, by the denominations commission for Racial Justice to it gain strength through the efforts of the Youth Organization for black unity, a radical black nationalist organization and its newspaper the African World which had a national circulation, a circulation of more than 10,000. Many members of this organization were had and the direction of marxism and the good part of the leadership of the Youth Organization for black dirty would end up in the communist Workers Party, five of whose members were murdered in greensboro in november 1979. It gained National Attention through, it gained National Attention to the efforts of the National Alliance against race and political oppression which was close to align with the communist party. And finally it was National Wilmington ten Defense Committee headquartered in washington, d. C. That was able to draw in a variety of congressional staffers and ultimately interested Amnesty International to take up the issue and label the wilmington ten prisoners of conscience. Now, what i want to emphasize here is that this was a massive left led movement that was international in scope. The Youth Organization for black unity, the commission for Racial Justice, the National Alliance against racist and political oppression all had welldeveloped critiques of American Society and capitalist society, the damage they did foo africanamericans and other racial and national minorities. Looked upon the case of the wilmington ten not as an average miscarriage of justice, but as a typical though perhaps extremely the system worked and was designed to work. They worked hard to link the issue of the wilmington ten with all manner of local issues facing communities in North Carolina and around the nation. Showing the connections between this particular instance of injustice and an educational system that failed africanamericans, Police Forces that triggered the brutality, criminal Justice System bent on mass incarceration, and a poor class set on exploiting workers more intensely by denying them the protection of a labor union, and a u. S. Foreign policy that support apartheid and colonialism in southern africa. And they were effective at drawing thousands of people to demonstrations coming caging and political education, which is to be called consciousness raising, in committee centers, houses of worship around the country. And bringing into the fold all manner of people including politicians, inspiring politicians and prominent Public Opinion makers. They finally compelled the president to become involved and the pressure eventually forced the fourt Fourth Circuit of the. Court of appeals to overturn the conviction. Not on technicalities as many people claimed at the time and continued to climb today, but because of substantial prosecutorial and judicial misconduct resulted in a frame up. This was a moment in history when th the left and africanamerican politics was Strong Enough to lead a united front. Insider politicians like jill johnson and mickey mr. Schock two state represents is in North Carolina flock to the movement because they recognize its power and because they might have been swept aside if they had been swept aside it did not. This new type of politics was to send it until the early 1980s when for a variety of reasons that wasnt suppressed to place by Political Class was more in tune with rules and regulations of the twoparty solution. So thank you. Those are my remarks tonight. [applause] hows everybody . All right. Let me get comfortable up here. Today im going to talk about black power roots and expressions. In 1969 doing a speech in west london opera novels James Baldwin talked about freedom and the United States stance of allegedly waging war in the name of freedom. And he said in a slow deliberate clip for sure, a war is being waged. But he said, no matter what the professions in my happy country may be, we are not bombing people out of existence in the name of freedom. If it were freedom we were concerned about, then long, long ago we wouldve done something about johannesburg, south africa. If we been so concerned with freedom, boys and girls, as i stand here we are concerned with power, nothing more than that and most unlikely for the western world it has consolidated its power on the backs of people who are now willing to die rather than be used any longer. Then during the question and answer portion, he was asked a question about integration and black power. Im going to play you a clip and the clip enters with folks laughing because a lady in the audience just said to you drink water after someone named dick, and shes talking to dick gregory. Anyway, thats just so you know whats going on. [inaudible] the point i want to get across is integration or black power . Is not a question . Please explain the first place, i dont see it necessary in any division between the. But me take black power first. Black power is a very simple brewster i dont know why everyone gets upset about like power. People except white power all over the world. Know what even questions it. No one questions the white power which is destroying many women and children in vietnam. That is part because its power. No one, no one questions the power of the holy ghost. The term black power, that strikes fear in many peoples mind, they will describe precisely. The overthrow of the holy ghost. And it does actually mean that. What it means is as black people, this is all that means, that black people have in their own hands control of their own destiny. That is all it means. The english have a great phrase for the they are very proud of the phrase. Its called selfdetermination of people. Thats all it means. As integration, that is not our goal, no, at all. It is precisely its our problem. So in 1968 the year before that talk, baldwin had written i had never known a negro in all my life who is not obsessed with black power. That same year, 1968, the second wife of black nationalist Marcus Garvey who was deported from the United States in 1927 published like power in america, the united printers located in kingston, jamaica. Marcus garvey, roads and routes an expression. Marcus garvey the cofounder of the human eye a universal Negro Improvement Association with amy garvey was a black national simply embrace wrights selfdetermination. The largest black mass organization, the u. N. I a have global reach as far away as australia. Eventually parted ways with Marcus Garvey because Marcus Garvey believed in black capitalism and harrison delete and black socialism. Queen mother herself work of the comments part in harlem and Marcus Garvey influenced louise little, marcus x. Who was influenced among allies of mohammed was influenced by garvey was opposed by like a national. Malcolm x would be amplified we mother more. Who out of world war ii, max stafford who was don freeman from cleveland founded a revolutionary movement in the early 1960s, both influenced by Richard Wright, the color curtain and the concept of the work done in the 1950s would cross paths with gloria of the Cambridge Movement and malcolm x at the 1953 grassroots conference in detroit where malcolm delivers the famous message to the grassroots. Both macs, now mohammad, and dawn who in 2014 cofounder the committee for social justice with his full weight to protest the cleveland atrocity in which police after highspeed chase killed two people in a hail of 137 bullets in 2012, both max and don were also influenced by the robert f. William leader of naacp, who was dismissed as the leader because his believe in armed selfdefense and who by the time of the detroit conference in 1963 was an ex and don freeman and max stanford like others would travel so in 1964 but they wanted to meet there with sncc activist in 1955 malcolm x would be assisted and Stokely Carmichael be helping people to organize the black panther electoral party, and, and also a number of twists and turns and shoots and influences and events and routes and routes and proliferation of organizations, by 1966 sncc with carmichael as its chair, rubio robinson as its executive director and james forman, executive director, leading efforts around black Liberation International affairs, sncc, student nonviolent coordinating committee, and many other persons and organizations have turned to form under sncc of black power. And thats just one way, just one way to connect some of the dots. So now because of the interlude all the way down to sncc and connecting the dots, now we arrive back at amy because we now are back in 1968. Amy is part of this interlude tracing the roots and the roots and expressions to hear about her pamphlet published in 1968. The pamphlet featured an essay titled the fourth and court of black power in america. It began this way. Depths of emotion small world, what depths of emotion a small word, what depths of emotion a small word can be built. A small word can evoke. Hate and love, things that take the highest rating of all while words by themselves seem harmless but combined with another, they have explosive reaction. For instant shes been the use of the word for and before you a slogan africa for africans have profound implications. It challenge european imperils in athens concert as hope and told to african sons and daughters all over the world. Similarly like power now confronts the United States of america. 35 years later ruminating on his own role in raising consciousness about black power, they recalled the moment when he uttered just two ordinary words, black and power. At the june 1966 rally in mississippi. Too simple very commonly used english words. Won an adjective, the other a noun. Basic, nothing the least obscure or academically pretentious about them. Nothing mysterious or even slightly ambiguous either. So what of this term black power . Rooted in the broad search for apartment for black people, like power is arguably a general and timeless goal. However, black power capital b. And capital p. Represents a historically contextualized set up oppositional ideologies and politics, undergirded by raise consciousness and pride selfdetermination of solvency, black power is a politics in which black people place less faith and white goodwill and pay more attention to the destruction of power. In doing so they demanded the authority to control decisions as well as resources, empowering black peoples lives and circumstances. While this is often meant mounting challenges of the regime of oppression, it is not always resulted in or even for some necessitated transforming oppressive regime. For generations they have always been black people who have hope for liberty and struggle for rights and inclusion in the country. However, the daily battles and indignities intrinsic to live in in a white controlled nation fertilized by notions of black superiority and economic inequality also serve as constant reminders of a different murky reality. Wars and struggles, this murky reality produced caution and discussed and desire, all of which gave rise to concrete demands and and passions liberation struggles. It fueled a nationalist during the first half of the 20th century as well as explicit explicit articulations of a negro and black power between world war ii in 1966. And the signal both emergent and suppression of a robust of a robust, apologetic black politics that took center stage in the 1960s and 1970s, what i called the air of black power of politics. So during the era of black power politics, the iconic and familiar narratives begins when Stokely Carmichael went on stage in front of a crowd gathered in mississippi and after some priming by will the ridge called for black power. It was at that moment as far as mainstream White Society and the media new at all hell broke loose. This thing called black power, the gradual beloved they believe might it attempts at transforming race issues. What they didnt know or were ignorant of or quite frankly simply ignored where previous signs of concern and similar calls for racial Economic Equity and opportunity, and black empowerment and black power. However, acknowledging the previous sign, the previous concern still dont capture or can safely the multifaceted story and multiple actors, particularly women beyond what has become too often amid 1950s narrowly defeated mail paradigm. So, therefore, the need for a framing that recognizes and repositioned this 1966 moment as a critical turning point for sure, but as an expression of the rise of the expansive era of black power of politics. And even more than that a friend that would situate this moment within a more robust and panoramic chronological ancestral genealogical and geopolitical framework. And robust panoramic chronological ancestral genealogical and geopolitical framework that exposes the roots an expression of black power, and the expansive era of black power politics. The interlude was amy, all the way up to the Stokely Carmichael and sncc a black power. And usually what i do is i close out with examples. Usually three. I dont have time for three. Ive got three minutes. So usually its 1917, the unfamiliar. I talk about ida b. Wells and east st. Louis legacy. Or i might do but not as familiar, right from 1955 black power negro power, talk about the legacies of Richard Wright and paul woolston. Or i might do 1963, a parallel frame. So for the sake of time and probably my last two points inside the scope thats what im going to focus on to the familiar narratives we know. Starts with the march on washington Martin Luther king i between. As did the interlude here is one parallel framing also helps us to understand the roots and the roots an expression of black power alongside the burgeoning of civil rights struggles and organizations. And before the iconic moments of the black power cried in 1956 bit in anticipation of us into of the emancipation proclamation, queen mother moore, cofounded the Reparations Committee based in los angeles filed a claim with United States government for reparations on december 20, 1962. She and fellow activists had gathered 1 million signatures on a petition. She said i begged from gas station to gas station. I begged from farm to farm. Once i was shot at by the klan. Threeshot. They went on thinking they killed me out of my car went into the ditch. Work for the black people. She presented the petition to president john f. Kennedy. He Surprise Lake did not respond to a 1963 she published the pamphlet why the reparations money for new growth. The opening paragraph read after 244 years of free slave labor in the most inhumane senator and barbaric atrocities which past and magnitude any savagery perpetuate against human beings in history of the planet earth an additional one abuse of socalled freedom of companies by care, the committee seek the reparations for the citizens of american slaves who is an absolute necessity the government of the United States is ever to wipe the slate clean to redeem herself and pay for the damages she has inflicted upon more than 25 million american citizens. As the centennial unfolded, then her more vigorous the cost of establishing a black caucus of political power, show the public stage. With interracial campaigns. These newly strident voices question of freedom orthodoxy that put faith in persuasion and federal government that moves slowly to dismantle, slowly to dismantle racial and economic inequality when even it did so at all. Black activists and intellectuals anarchists wrapped up the black freedom rhetoric in a manner that also convey the urgency of the country commander in addition to civil and Voting Rights they decided radford neighborhoods, ford will read, better schools and end to Police Brutality, acts as wellpaying jobs and socially just treatment by white landlord, by banks, workers and teachers and government officials. This was back in the day. We can talk about that later as well. They want the ability to control black life in institutions, black nationalism, independent power and unified political and economic actions became elevated catchphrases. In many ways the centennial year of civil rights protests featuring the march on washington for jobs and freedom was also a remarkable year for black power. Thank you. [applause] good evening. Its my pleasure to be here, and to be third after two fantastic talks. My my my. Definitely going to try to incorporate some of the ideas and comments that were raised in the previous presentations. In some ways im going to think on my feet. I should say that his talk this evening is drawn from a new book project on guard the in the midwest and i will be speaking this evening about the weasel level who was a brilliant pan african is grassroots organizer, who is so often that stood as the mother of malcolm x but somehow going to try to emphasize this evening is to understand her brilliance in her own life. The photo behind me is a photo of louise little and her husband earl little bit actually those are two photos that have been combined so thats actually not, that photo was not taken of them together. Lets get down to business as time is of the essence. On july 3, 1926, the official newspaper of the jamaican nationalist Marcus Garveys universal Negro Improvement Association, unia, published a 65 word report from louise little about the groups recent activities in omaha, nebraska. The negro world, the unias official newspaper, featured news about the Garvey Movement and black people globally. At its peak in the early 20s the unia claimed 60 members in the u. S. , canada, the caribbean, central america, africa, europe and australia. The group understood itself as a provisional government, and xl committed to building itself reliant institutions and independent africa at a global black empire capable of protecting the rights and dignity of african descendent peoples everywhere. Darbys call for redemption of black selfdetermination electrified black people across africa. Last but not least the weasel little. She was born on the caribbean island of grenada. She left her homeland in 1917 and eventually made our way to omaha with her africanamerican husband earl little. A brilliant and resourceful activist intellectual, steadfastly committed to garvey is him, the weasel little is best known today as the mother of the preeminent black nationals malcolm x. In the opening sentence of the report behind me, little noticed that the unia division are local in omaha had met in june at liberty hall, 2570 lake street with earl little presiding. She did not mention that the Omaha Division president was her husband. The meeting began with prayer, the singing of the icy mountain. The unia gathering or the song that they sang at the start of all of its meetings. Louise little closer the report by noting that the unia, rather the omaha unia had launched a quote mentorship drive end quote. The quote neither contained information about little nor her husband, know the details of the size of the local membership. A short report states. This short report stands as the only known document, the only known document in Historical Archive of the Garvey Movement written by louise little. Although she disappeared from the official record of the unia, little remained actively involved in the transaction organization at the Grassroots Level and struggled against global White Supremacy for years to come. In 1926, little with her husband moved from omaha and eventually settled outside of lansing, michigan, by 1929. She raised and instilled the principles of mccarthyism in her eight children in the urban and rural midwest. In the 1930s marked a challenging time for louise little. The violent murder of her husband in 1931 under suspicious circumstances, the burden of raising a lot of on her own and her struggle against white state officials, state violence who sought to place her children in foster initiate a mental breakdown. Which eventually resulted in her commitment in 1939 to the kalamazoo State Hospital and psychiatric institution. She remained there until 1963 to 20 efforts of her children she would live for 30 more years, reside with family, again, she led for 30 more years after she was released. Should reside with family in michigan although she never returned to grenada. Littles spirit and intellect remained strong until her passing at the age of 97 in 1991. Despite achievements of long life, having until recently overlooked luis, as an activist, intellectual and her importance in nurturing the black radical sensibilities of malcolm x. And here are some of the books about overlooked and in some cases actually discuss her important life. As emphasize, the book bottom left, and i quote, the biographers of malcolm x had never portrayed his grenadian mother Louise Norton language Little Africa woman that she was. She is instead invariably depicted as a distraught tragic figure who after her husbands murder succumbed to madness and was committed to a Mental Hospital. From then onwards she disappears from the pages of history. He was right. Following the autobiography of malcolm x ghost written by black journalist alexander most scholars have unfortunately portrayed the weasel little one dimensionally, again as a wretched figure. It shows as a political, rather a political figure focusing exclusively on her alleged physical abuse, rather abusive marriage and struggles with Mental Illness triggered by the gruesome murder of earl little at the hands of a lynch mob and the hardships of a widowed mother which result again in her institutionalization. Manning marables Pulitzer Prize for biography malcolm x, reinvention, a life of invention minimizes louise littles active role in cultivating malcolm x is political consciousness. Many grenadians of black people around the world remain unaware of the little. Extraordinary life and that she was the mother of International Renowned u. S. Black national other cities. Just a few key points i want to emphasize. First in a very short time i have, again i want to emphasize the importance of the extraordinary life of louise little. And how her life, the concrete demands of black people do many urgent needs, demanding for selfdetermination. This paper highlights rather stands the study by calling attention to the boards of the u. S. Midwest as a key and distant sight of the unia and the national movement. Third point, louise little provides insight into the people that black women played in advancing what historian has called grassroots garveyism. Deorganization work performed by garvey ites at the local level to achieve global black freedom. Four, studying louise littles life provides insight into rethinking dominant narratives of the block Power Movement as well as the emerging field of malcolm x studies which continues to shroud the significance of black women especially poor and workingclass women, to the building, sustaining of oppositional movements across africa. Follow me. All right. Finally, i think indeed what littles life brought insight into appreciating the gendered counters of contemporary black struggle for freedom. Namely, the movement that has rallied around the slogan black lives matter. That like so many black activists, black women activists, hyper visible and hyper invisible in the slogan, the same thing we can see with louise little. How she has been again both essential to the making of malcolm x yet at the same time she has remain invisible. So that said, time is of the essence. Intro to talk about louise little, everything starts with her in grenada. She was an organic intellectual drawn from in grenada she grew up in a small village, and it was here where she was raised in a family committed to education, black pride. We should also know that the she also would note well. This baptismal certificate suggested she was born in 1894. Whats important to keep in mind is that louise little was born in a society deeply entrenched racism and White Supremacy. Her mother was raped at the age of 11 by elderly white man. Yes, yes, but come and folks may know louise little was fair complected. Yes, she always identified as black as she always identified as a person of african descent. Due in no small part to her family. Her grandfather, who was actually born in nigeria, yes, yes, he was a liberated african who made his way to grenada. That is his burial site. I took the picture last year on the family land. Fm account of their own land and as we will discuss and as folks may know, the littles on her own land. I can join for the idea of selfdetermination, selfreliance and independence, they grew their own food. Her and daughter how to sell. And it was in grenada where she learned for languages but she spoke french, atwal, she spoke english and she spoke creole. Is cosmopolitan, small village on the eastern side of grenada very much help to nurture for a pan african sensibility. This was a church in which she worshiped. Theres been some works and renovation since the early part but that indeed is the church where she worshiped. She left the island of grenada in 1917 like so many young black people especially women, although she was educated. She had no real opportunity on the iphone. She went to canada to montreal where she joined the unia to her uncle who was based in montreal who, in fact, heard garvey speaker at in this course, although i should note all the little never returned to grenada. When she left the island in 1917, she never came home. But she never forgot the lessons that she had learned. In this correspondence from her uncle. Com, and ive got a little pointer, let me point. What is it . Louise censor regards to you at all of the home folks. To say that she is well. Begin she may have been thousands of miles away from her family as she didnt forget who she was and where she came. Ultimately, of course she met her husband earl little in montreal, came to philadelphia with a continued to work for the movement and they were assigned to go to omaha to build the unia their, a midwestern and daschle said it had been the site of a race riot in 1990 but back to the black folks thought that. They wanted at the forefront of the struggle and went to the midwest. Heres the marker of where the littles lived in omaha, nebraska. From omaha and again heres what i want to emphasize. Begin the kind of grassroots, the kind of community feminism, a term coined by the historian taylor to describe was in which, melding of black, like feminism, the wind which black women saw themselves as being leaders of the race. This passage comes from, the opening passage of the autobiography of malcolm x. Whats her to get although the story is told through the words of alex haley and through malcolm, still to provide important insight into louise little, where she was confronted by knight riders, by the klan members who were searching for earl little. She was pregnant. She couldve decided to hide what did she do what she intentionally exposed her body to her, her pregnant body, or folks could see she was expecting, in order to do two things. One, one level to show that she was defensive. More importantly she was trying to claim the need for the defense and protection of black women. The need and protection of the next generation of black people. She stood her ground. She stood her ground and the white left. And again whats important about the autobiography, it doesnt talk about how louise little was how she was the secretary of the omaha unia. I know our time is short but i will keep talking. Yes, yes. Keep going. Louise little, community feminism, family, her children, grandchildren emphasized the importance of how she can still ideas of selfdetermination, independence, selfreliance. Why . She recited the alphabet in french to them. She had the children read the negro world, read activism is from grenada. Chatter children immersed in pan african, anticolonial politics. And again she nurtured this. And this passage below shows again how malcolm x this idea didnt come out of thin air. They came from deep within. They came from her family. From louise little. Time is of essence and i think i will start to wrap up here. Because of her selfreliance, because of her refusal to step down to White Supremacy, yes, her husband died under mr. s circumstances in 1931 but she took care of eight children. Eventually the state, state violence, targeted to louise little because of her independence. Because she owned her own land. This is a file, probate file, thats the county in which lansing is located. It says, very painful, that this form says that she was insane. But look downward it says she claimed she is of royal blood, right . Think about that and africanism, she certainly believe that. She surveyed believed that she was a black person who indeed deserve pride and respect. And because of her defiance, she was put away in a Mental Hospital, and the photo on the left, and that hospital is still open and kalamazoo Mental Hospital is still there. All right, but in closing what is important, although she spent nearly 30 years, or 25 years, in a psychiatric hospital, her spirit remained strong. And the ideas of selfdetermination that she cultivated in her children grew, help to build not only malcolm x but as well as the top left corner the we the littles oldest daughter, rather second daughter, purchase land in the Central Michigan resort black resort town where she built homes, she opened a Grocery Store against selfdetermination, entrepreneurialism, selfhelp. And who legacies scholars have largely overlooked and denigrated. Still, there are many questions that remain unanswered about our life. Finally, his life serves as a powerful model for those of us today committed to creating a more just and democratic world. She understood the importance of grassroots organizing for black liberation as well as the need to cultivate the next generation, cultivating the next generation of black Freedom Fighters. She also believed in the dignity of black womanhood given that african descendents people remain secondclass citizens globally and that the lives of black people dont matterin the lives of the state and every day white people. The lease believes that an author for modeling black liberation for us all. Thank you. [applause] to mosey watered here. We are going to start the question and answer portion. Now do each of you need maybe two or three minutes to raise a point you didnt get to . You had mentioned. Can i have a moment . I want to show that last slide real quick. Just a slide on through, would i mess it up for you all to wrap the wrong way . So i ended right before i was going to close because i knew we had to share the stage. Some Unfinished Business which i think really ties nicely to where eric and kenneth actually left us to and that is, this picture is 137 this is tommy or rice pickup one of the things that i wanted to close by saying is actually quoting someone that people probably wouldnt even think connected to black power, right . Thats all the things i am talking about about the familiar or not familiar. This is the ways in which we insert them not to include them but really transform the narrative. Surely children also said, people are going to get used to black and woman power coming together but surely children, one of her campaign persons was Octavia Butler and i dont know if all of you heard of Octavia Butler but shes a sciencefiction writer and she campaigned for killam in 1972 and in the 2004 documentary chisholm 72 she says power, Octavia Butler says power is really just a tool and its what you do with it that matters and then the way i wanted to end was, it seems then that the need for struggle to achieve empowerment for black people is necessary on the middle class black set we sometimes get caught in on individualism and what it means to succeed in a respectable mode and that we have to move beyond what i imagine and see as a recuperating dependency on real and feigned white goodwill. That these struggles remain as a necessary and it requires discussion for class and gender, politics and requires discussion of fake violence and Police Brutality and requires discussion of not just individual interpersonal inequality but systemic and structural inequality in a social justice framework. Can we not talk about the liberation of poor people . So for me this slide is emblematic, symptomatic , telling us and giving us marching orders of the ways in which we need to struggle and the way in which this movement eaten didnt come out of nowhere. But that repositions the kind of gender and sexuality politics that often got hidden and often resulted in the domestic and intimate state violence against black women. [applause] thank you. Another minute . Know, im good. Briefly i was thinking in terms of the crowd given that we have a clevelandconnection , im not sure if necessarily everyone and i could be wrong, i dont want to submit anything if everyone is familiar with the cleveland trials in terms of again, atrocity is another statement in terms of what happened so if you wanted to share. The reason i lift up the word or phrase cleveland atrocity, you all remember me mentioning 2014 don freeman and his soulmate Norma Freeman formed the committee for social justice. Dante was the one term coined the term cleveland atrocity becausepeople what we were people were calling it was a police chase that ended in the death of two people. Saying it wasnt atrocity he lifted up the idea. Many grassroots people on the ground in cleveland on many hues talking about the 137, 137 shots of two unarmed people by 13 Police Officers that ended after a police chase in a middle School Parking lot. And no conviction. None. Its done. Right now, at least. Theres misdemeanor charges but there have been no conditions. Reload got off. We just had word that there was an administrative measures taken, administrative review. 06 of the 13 officers were fired at six of them received some disciplinary action. One of them retired before they made the decision and was fired. And the union is fighting all of them, the police chief union is fighting all of it. So atrocity might be even in that case a poor word of the entire dynamic but it definitely is up from where it used to be and that link between police violence, state violence, racism, economics, one of the things that the union had said was if they hadnt been high on cocaine and marijuana that maybe they wouldnt bedead. These are some of the bombastic kind of statements that dont even give us the full contextual picture of these two people and the demonization of them for their own death and victimhood whether they were high or not and the question is where they high or not anyway is extremely problematic but it ties all of this together. There actually killing people for being high. All these campuses better watch out for that. What that means is it the discourse around black lives right . And the ways in which that narrative can perpetuate a state violence and Police Brutality and repression and how thats tied to prison industrial complex, mass incarceration, who gets incarcerated in 282 years for sentences and im just hearing the echo back and forth. One of the things i was listening to when ken was talking and i made a note, i was like, grocery Police Student killing students, mitchell 15 minutes ride to the hospital that took two hours and i just went way home to baltimore. And to freddie gray. Following the method that malcom x talked about, we brought you three doctors to diagnose the history of these ills you are suffering here and hopefully you can help us work on a prescription to stop these problems. Do we have any questions or comments from the audience . I cant believe im hearing what im seeing but it should be the thing that mississippi is no longer mississippi but now its just sippy. The book talks about an uncle bush bishop that says black power and everybody say no, its black power but bush bishop says in order to have black power you need black powder. My question to the panel is how is black power to be attained . Thats a greatquestion. Anyone want to start . Thats a good question, we were all just saying thats a good question. And i can speak from the perspective of building that movement in the 1970s, 1960s and 1970s i thought what was remarkable was the ability of a left to simultaneously offer thorough going critique of American Society, american capitalism and americas role in World Affairs and be, and offer that critique in a way that, to my mind at any rate was nondogmatic. That was posed in such a way that you didnt have to agree with the underlying principles before you could understand what they were saying and combine that with a remarkable ability to listen to people and figure out what their demands were, what their demands were and joined those two. That was remarkable to me. And doing it in such a way that the people who were there, so for example. Theres this commission for Racial Justice, justice Youth Organization for black unity and these are people who, they are first in theirfamilies to go to college , they certainly are upwardly mobile but they have no desire at this point to become incorporated intothe system. They critique the system and there are people who are very similar to them, very similar backgrounds but who have a much different trajectory. They have built up some credibility as movement organizers, somebody like mickey sean, this is no knock against him but he was trained, like a black prep academy and went on to college and met and organized with Martin Luther king but he had determined that he could be most effective as a democratic politician and worked his way, worked his way that way and there are any number of other people who are beneficiaries of the struggle for Voting Rights who took that route. Theres a fellow who names escapes me that, i guess he wouldve called himself a Community Organizer in the 1960s and he worked his way up to the chairman of the board of governors of the university of North Carolina system. There are a lot of people like that. In the conditions of the 1960s, in 1970 the success of that left in framing the issues of inequality, of the connections between race and class and their skillfulness in bringing people into mobilizing people so for example, the mission for Racial Justice was able to mobilize black churches in virginia, in tidewater virginia and eastern North Carolina and these were congregations of people who had been oppressed for generations that had no experience in organizing themselves politically. The commission for Racial Justice was able to bring them in and give them the tools to do that. In these conditions it was the center, these people who desired incorporation who were following the lead of the left. They didnt run away. In fact, i think they understood that enabled to maintain any sense of relevance they would have to unite with the left so to me, what i took away from this whole episode was the importance of having a strongleft , not necessarily the importance of, if you have a strong left that can animate people then the other people who you want our allied will come along but if you pander to that center and water yourselves down andtry to be as acceptable as you can to everybody , you lose. That was one thing i took away from that. Can we get another doctors opinion here . If i can chime in and thank you to the gentleman who asked the question on the floor for this. How is black power to be attained and im going to use a specific local example from today and if you have a phone or a tablet, feel free to google de town farms. Thats an example to which i will refer to go detroit as we all know has been devastated by industrialization, racist state takeovers of the Public Schools and not too far of course, flint and water crisis. What are some fulton detroit trying to do . Detroit leads the country with urban farms and they understand how farming alone will not solve all the problems but they talk about growing food, growing people. The Detroit Black Food Security Network again, urban farming providing nutritious food for black people in the city of detroit that was 80 percent black and the point i was trying to tie into my own paper and again, building these kinds of genealogies, the cofounder of the de town farms was a mentor or mentee of malcom x. All these folks regard themselves as guardians so they are thinking about his selfreliance, selfdetermination, understanding these intersections of race and class and to bring gender. How this operates and in the global context and trying to do something aboutit. Louise brill , owning her own land. Sharingthose lessons with her children. Growing food, growing beats. Exactly. Hes a cool brother. Malik actually came and spoke at case a couple of times where i found the social institute for injustice and you can google that and hear him talking about the issue around selfdetermination. His own struggles and his own kind of coming into transformation around issues around gender. He openly talked about notions of patriarchy and White Supremacy and how thats all connected to the question of what it means to supply your people with sustenance, one of which is food and nutrition. My question back would be, because i see so many people at the mike, my question would be because this is what the book is about for me, concrete demand. What do you mean by black power . Because theres so many iterations and forms of black power. Im a bit like i said would attack the oppressive regimes in place. Some of it can work beside the oppressors regime and find some sense of selfreliance and selfdetermination. Some of it works toward the black radical left and the black feminist radical politics and some of it cant stomach patriarchy and oppression within the race as well as try to meet the goals of the Majority Society but create a selfdetermined community. But we have to talk about what black power means in order to understand what it is we are searching for and trying to achieve and hopefully would be in the most radical and progressive sense for the liberation andequality movement. Who is the next on the mike . I guess my question is mainly for doctor williams but obviously i would love input from any of you but i guess i wanted to see if you could touch on if there was any and if so what was the significance of the 68 up riots in cleveland on the black power, capital bp black Power Movement going on at the time . 66 and glenville 68 and we are talking about liberal 68, Fred Ahmad Evans who is engaged with Armed Struggle, shall we say . There were some guns with the police and you know, 68 is a moment where we see the crystallization of some of the language around black power and relationship to other places but as early as 61 with the Freedom Fighters in cleveland they are talking about black power right . You have don freeman and mohammed in 63 talking about black power, black political power, black economic power and talking to the boxes, they are going south in 64 and so the glenville uprising and rebellion is a place where you see the manifestation and explosion of these kinds of issues through Armed Struggle and the proclaiming of Armed Struggle and armed selfdefense and protection. Its also a moment where you see the interaction and kind of egregious and clarified ways between the police and the black community. That also happen in 66 in half as well so it is that kind of moment of interception where you see all this going on and people saying weve had enough but i even hesitate to say they said they had enough what they were saying it already. It is this moment where its connected in that stream of urban rebellion, 64, 66, 68 and the mlk moment, the post mlk moment. Does that help . High. Im the type of person that thinks of everything extremely deeply, in symbolism and i dont really know how i can make this a question but how, the system is so embedded with racism sometimes i feel like when we speak out we are somehow asking for permission to do things even when they have that big dont shoot campaign, there were a lot of black students at black colleges with their hands up and, you know there were photos taken. A lot of powerful photos put out on social media a lot of black people with their hands up and so because i look at things so deeply, sometimes i feel like we are asking for permission a lot. I think, i dont know who it was but there was a black author talking about the white gays and she was questioned about some of her work. She was interviewed about it and she was called a racist a lot of different people because she kind of focused all of her books just about blackness, about black culture but it didnt have that white gays so do you all think its necessary for us to do things like this . This picture, this Unfinished Business picture. I feel like to advise people in this community, we have a lot of money. We have the ability to just kind of put things together and Start Building you know . A lot of things i think we are still asking for permission even in hidden colors there was a piece where it was like a cartoon that was drawn and it was a cartoon talking about how back in the day black people kept asking for permission to do this and that and with the system being so deeply racist, i dont understand why we are asking for permission so i do think because we all live in this world that it is necessary we all learn whether, whatever color we are, black, white or in between so i do think its important for everybody to see the damage that has been caused by ignorance so i do think its somewhat necessary but i think we do so much of this and. We want to ask a few more questions. You want to respond to this one . I think im moving through what you said. For me, absolutely. Im going to say absolutely we need to do this. We need to be in the streets more. Now how we get in the streets, what we say when we are in the streets, what we demand and what we also do for ourselves at the same time, even more moments. Theres no peter you do this or you create your own business or you do this for you challenge capitalism or either you do this, whatever. All this needs to be in motion at the same time and i think concrete demands. That interlude not only chat charting the genealogy in but showed all the same things happen at the same time. What kind of black power or gender need to you want but i think we need to be in the streets. We need to you know, lift up. Unfortunately the name of a trance at seven. Unfortunately the names of crawford. Unfortunately the names of eric garner. Unfortunately the names of kenisha anderson. What are we going to do . First we got to lifted up and make some noise about it and what we are going to do after that . The key is to not just see these individual cases. They are individual cases because they are all human beings whose lives have been snuffed out right smart but the fact of the matter is the system is going to keep rolling and we are going to have more individual, unfortunately unless we can begin to figure out and or stomach the fact that this is something thats going to have to be a long struggle. Figure out what we have to do and stomach the fact that this is going to be a long struggle and we cant make about simply, maybe to part of your point showing up at a rally and thinking weve done something we havent done. That is a long struggle. We need to show up and do this but its a long struggle and if any of what we talked about tonight means anything, we know that you this whole series that, rosie and jean have done for four years. That the black freedom struggle, the liberation struggle, the struggle for economic and social justice is ongoing. We have to figure out the difference, platforms, the different strategies and tactics. We got to learn from the past but understand we are not in the past when we are trying to block the pathway forward so i think that gets that a little bitbut you put a lot in there my sister. You started with the ida d wells thing. Lets remember what the ida d wells moment begins with is a successful business. Right . Sometimes the way we chart history is it was a successful business. The reason they got killed is it was a successful business. So part of selfdefense, were protecting our property. If you have a successful business and the police think you can kill your children. The minimum youre going to have a conversation about it and youre not going to talk to yourself about it so you got to talk to white people about it. You got to talk empire. Youve got to recognize the power that power has because we live in a militarized society too and we got to figure out what we do about that. The great kenyan novelist says theres a lot of languages that we have to talk. We have to keep our own vernacular but we also have to know the language of power in the country we are in. Right . So those are not mutually exclusive. We are very talented at juggling these things. Whos got the next question mark. Can you tell us and you can speak more about the role of black muslims in the black radical tradition and how the way they made sense of their religion shaped the politics nationally against racism in america but also on the global stage against imperialism abroad and im thinking of also Sophia Bukhari of the black panthers and in mom jamil also noted as hr brown. I can start. As i often say and im the first one to say this but the history of African Americans and islam go back to the very start of the makings of our people and certainly we are talking about the 20th century and again, so much is tied into garveys him or the roots of garveys him that again the nation of islam was a neo garveyist formation. Nobel ali was very much admired garvey so in terms of the 20s and 30s we can see again the importance of people of african descent embracing islam and of course the great work of Michael Gomez for nepal and in which islam has always been, is indeed an organic component of the african diaspora, not something new that occurred during the 50s or 60s as a result of black power so what i would argue again is in terms of politically and culturally, we cannot talk about africanamericans without talking about a very long history of islam. Just the fight for freedom of religion. Thats what malcom x is fighting when he is in prison is the fight to develop your own faith and thats been a consistent asset. A lot of people misspent when talking about the nation of islam and the work they are doing for religious freedom and we each compartmentalize it. You are saying . Oh you want to get up on it . All right this question is a twopart question and its open for the panel but in particular for Kenneth Janken. You mentioned how the success of the williamson 10 and having their own wrongful convictions overturned was in part because of the help of the far left and by the far left im assuming you mean white peoples participation and my question is how do you feel about the far left participation in the current climate of state sanctioned violence and you do you feel like they can do more . Thats interesting to me because i didnt have in mind when i was talking about the far left as it being a white left. There were white people involved in it but the left that was involved in developing that campaign to free the wilmington 10 was largely black. The commission for Racial Justice was a religious organization but it was clearly on the left and they were involved in all sorts of struggles around Police Brutality and prisoners rights and reforming the criminal Justice System. Youth organization for black unity was a black organization. The National Alliance against racist and political repression was affiliated with the communist party of the United States which was largely left but the National Alliance was a black lead and was the vehicle, i guess you could say that the communists attempted to create alliances with the black Liberation Movement so i dont know, i dont think i fully accept the framing of it. The other question, well what do i think about the far left in fighting state sanctioned violence today, im in favorof it. Im in favor of the left getting involved in it and getting involved in it in a way that respects the existing struggle so i think, i guess im more familiar with the way this has developed in North Carolina and theres a rather broadbased movement, the Forward Together movement, the moral mondays, i dont know if thats familiar to people here but it is multiracial. It is black lead i think what it is multiracial. There are white leftists in there, theres latino organizations and they are trying, they are working on multiple levels and i think among the most valuable things they are having is a very open discussion about the nature of the problem and they are not shortcircuiting things by saying we need to be quiet because what we are talking about is utopian or its not going to fly. Its a very open, wide ranging discussion about power so to me, thats all for the good. Camille, enclosing if i can jump in for all three of us and i think whats so interesting especially if youre a graduate student here and if you are looking for a problem in terms of the new communist movement of the 60s that settled from the mid50s through the 70s into the 80s, there really isnt a whole lot of rich fulllength scholarship about the communist Workers Party which as you point out was basically a black party so black marxists, the pl, and again in terms of cleveland or the midwest,detroit , the revolution of black workers twos out of detroit, graham, its wide open in terms of the work that needs to be done to at one level complicate the way we think about it but understand and trace genealogies of understanding that at one level these responses that we are seeing on the street that black lives matter is not new although certainly happening in different historical conditions but many that we are seeing today have happened and have asked for permission. They indeed demanded in the 20s, in the 30s and one they did they found themselves targeted by state violence. Ditto. Now we are getting short on time so what i wanted to do was, we have four people left, am i right . So if you could all for ask your questions then we could try to answer all for. Okay. Good evening, thank you all for coming in and working your presentations. I know we appreciate that. My question is really geared toward doctor eric, doctor Erik Mcduffie but its open to the panel. My passion is my people of course and the struggle and all of that. My profession is a speechwriter which is a pathologist. The clinical nine about louise little, its asking what was the assessment . Was she really mentally insane and im not even going to go there in terms of how women are seeing with the emotion and this and that and so were so marginalized and minimized and in the history anyway so i just thought i would throw that out because thats a clinical mind and me. Was shes clinically insane . Thank you. What i want to get your thoughts on is just, im putting tonight in perspective of the week here and an encounter i had with a mixed group. We are in Interesting Times because as malcolm would say, the chickens have come home to roost and White America is now feeling they have any erosion of a power base so i would like to hear something about, what can we do in light of this election where everything is up for review . How do we advance the cause of black power in a time where again, everything is up for review. White people are wondering, are they valued in the mix and they feel like, should we join the black lives Matter Movement . Im curious to know what your thoughts are on what we can take today, moving forward in light of the election, be it president ial, local, whatever to advance that. I want to thank you for the gifts you gave us today. And i have really three points. One is the theory of garveyism and i think that is key to our survival because we have to become more reliant on our own community and stop going outside of our communities, im not saying cut ourselves off from the world and solely be in our community but the key is to be able to sustain our own community so that our money can circulate in our community. Thats one point. The other was in doing so we need to start looking at the montgomery bus boycott and how that boycott crippled the bus company so they had to start looking at things differently. The other one is, i would like to ask our White Brothers and sisters to acknowledge and see that White Privilege is a problem. I would like for you guys to now speak up more in regard to making that wrong right. Thank you. So the three of you, do you all think the system can be successfully infiltrated, tactically changing things over time or do you feel the system needs to be overthrown question mark the sister who stood up, she said racism is deeply embedded in the system and for me it doesnt seem so much of the races and is simply embedded in the system as racism is anonymous with the system. You cant get out racism without changing the system literally as a country built on the systematic disenfranchisement of a people so you think you can infiltrate and change over time or do you need to overthrow the system and start anew . Softballs you know . I wonder if you can offer some brief historical insight as to where and how black power has been retained and strengthened among the black middle class that there were so many other ethnic groups as they moved up and gained a foothold, their purpose was to consolidate and strengthen their ethnic power but for us, obviously in a different situation than most other ethnic groups, we feel this need to water it down to assimilate even more and to recoil from the claim of black power so have you seen any historical insight where that has been retained and and or can you refer us to scholarships, im really curious about that. Well, guys, im glad we brought you doctors here to give us a diagnosis. Can i start out, im the least, i want to start with the first question about was louise little insane and my answer is, i suspect not but i didnt see her diagnosis. Whats interesting to me about that question though is the way that i here today questions of oppression being talked about. For example at my university as at other universities black students have voiced their displeasure about underrepresentation in the student body or that their numbers in the student body, that their numbers are so high in the student body primarily because forprofit athletes make up a large percentage of the black population and so other types of black students are not being included and theres incidences of being stopped in stores or, i dont need to go through all the list but what is interesting to me is the response of the authorities was, we are going to make more Mental Health, more Mental Health Resources Available to black students so if you feel oppressed, the problem is you must be crazy. Or you must be mentally disturbed and im sure theres mental anxiety that goes along with it but it seems to me the solution is not a Mental Hygiene solution. Its a political solution and a social solution. And so its interesting to me how ideas and discussions about Mental Illness invade these other questions and turn it into Something Else and coincidentally, its also a time when Mental Health resources are being ruthlessly cut. Thats just kind of a connection that i made there and the answer is to the third question was no, i dont think things can be infiltrated and that there can be some type of incorporation that will lead to anything resembling genuine equality and i think we ought to think about the president ial election not in terms of backing a candidate but in terms of the space that it creates to have discussions about types of change that people want to have an the ways that people can go about mobilizing for it as opposed to bernie, hillary, donald or whatever. Maybe i will jump in and we will give doctor williams a last word here. What i would say, my first book is black women in powers of authority. I dont want to say anything is self evident by what they write on but the fact that i wrote on black women in the capitalist society i think this Current System does not work and has to be toppled. Next, can we both infiltrate and again, thinking about lenin and revolutions of both reform and revolution, how those forces operate dialectically and in terms of this question about louise little and thank you for the question, i thank you so much. Angela davis in her autobiography talked about socalled Mental Illness really has social roots so its very much a reflection of racism, poverty, what have you. Kelly grows in her work black women and criminalization by the state, the way in which the white state criminalizes and apologizes black women and therefore because black women get deemed as being criminal therefore that opens the door for their suppression and i would say that was very much true with louise little. To be clear, her husband died violently in 1931. Violently, right . This is in the heart of the depression. Here is a caribbean board woman in the middle of Central Michigan which was a center of massive clan activity. She had seven children and she had an eight child with a man with whom she very much loved and it would seem like she was going to get married but the man got cold feet because he was concerned about raring and feeding eight children. He left her, he jolted her, she had this child. She probably suffered in part from postpartum but again this is the depressionshes a black woman trying to hold it down with poverty, the state is coming after her , targeting her and indeed, theres a report that says you know what . Shes probably okay. She just had some rest, shed be okay because she was defiant the cost she stood up and was openly confrontational, not confrontational, she was defending herself and her children from white state officials who were trying to take her kids from her vehicle thats what they did. So the fact that she had a breakdown, yeah. I think we would all have a breakdown if we were in that kind of situation but again, this is a form of state violence. The ways in which prisons or Mental Hospitals are used to suppress and control people and sadly thats whats happening but the key thing she emphasizes, the narrative is this crazy woman but she lives 30 more years after her family got around. And yes, she wasnt quite the same person but she was still resilient. She still had spirit. Her family loved her so even spending 25 years in a jail, she still remained confident and proud of who she was and thats the story im trying to tell. The other thing we let off the hook sometimes is the new deal. For black people, the new deal is really a raw deal and when you deal with thewelfare state , mike talks about the shadow of the courthouse. These socalled hospitals act as Detention Centers and they didnt know how to cure stuff anyway. Look what they did to the kennedys sister. You are dealing with a primitive system there. Shes got all this education, no ones asked the question how come she didnt get a job as a schoolteacher . Shes possibly losing jobs whe they find out shes black. That might drive you crazy. Lets do a little selfcriticism also. Her Church Community shamed her from being pregnant, right . Lets think about that. At the time when you need your community to be backing you going through this trial, your own Spiritual Community, i think thats why malcolm x criticized Elijah Mohammed publicly because he was thinking about what happened to his mother and his siblings when your own Spiritual Community youve been building doesnt give you the solidarity you need as a single mother but they are going to jump on you too. Thats why i think when why did malcolm x. Do it when he did it, when he rebelled, he said in the jan carew book he said i was thinking about my mother. Malcolm x. Says, admitted at the end of his life almost everything he did he was thinking about his mother. So when the schoolteacher tells him he cant become an attorney because hes a nigbor, malcolm said he wanted to become an attorney because he wanted to get his mother out of the insane asylum. When teacher told him that it wasnt just because he lost his career aspirations but he knew he couldnt help his mother. A matter of fact, hes in denial about that. He wants to think about Everything Else but then hes forced to think about the mother at the end , he saysto jan carew , you know, im just beginning to study the spirit of the resistance of black women but its changing mywhole worldview. He said im just beginning and i think if you look at every speech he makes near the end of 64, beginning of 65 you hear a different voice of malcolm. Hes telling you ive changed my worldview and he doesnt say a lot of other things. He says hes thinking about this resistance of black women. He said starting with my mother. So the mother is the key thing but we left the raw deal state off the hook in terms of what they are doing to women and what they are calling wealthy women and he was right. It was destruction of black families. He called it straight out. The National Welfare Rights Organization will later that cause but during this period they dont have too many allies to defend their rights and i hear people be so sensitive about welfare. If you look at the interviews its like every mother is ashamed. I tried to do everything i could. Stuff like that. So its really, to see the triumph from one meeting of black power was articulated by the National Welfare Rights Organization. The women in baltimore who were doing the struggle there and in newark, my hometown women who did the rent strike went on the longest rent strike in American History was in the Public Housing project in newark. Those same women have established the most successful nonprofit Housing Development in the country. They produce more Affordable Housing units than everybody else and in las vegas, the season of power those women are developing alternative things like the black power meant Different Things to different classes and the struggle came about when the classes at the top fall the struggle was over because they got political office. And they left everybody else who had struggled for thatway behind. Right . So thats my take on it is black power meant Different Things to different social sectors and so the timing, som people think the struggle is over once i got to be the mayor. Once i got to be the professor. That goes to one of the questions. I even wanted to jump in, i had my ditto moment and say thank you to the crowd but it goes to one of the questions that was asked about the brief historical insights in strengthening of the black middle class so the question is, if we even do some diagnosis of the places we are in now when i say the places we are in, im talking about social, political, economic and geographical and was running some of those places. The whole idea about continuing to upend the notion that we can just expect because we actually have established some folks in the black middle class who have positions of professors and mayors and chief of police and bureaucrats that somehow thats going to translate into the betterment of the black community is extremely troubled and problematic at this point. Does that mean im not going to fight the for the black folks in those spaces . No, but the romantic reliance on that doesnt work for us. Solely by itself and i think that ties to the whole moment of the election and focus on whats on the agenda. Exactly whats on the agenda . What kind of black power do we want depending on what kind of black power we want in the moment when and where i enter which is the opening of the present hierarchal status for the majority of folks, then how can we do that Coalition Building Coalition Building is very hard. I think, rosie said earlier, beat just because, i dont know if its in this conversation but because you say you want black brown unity or workingclass unity among white, black, brown, whoever else people, native americans, we got to talk about colonialism. Are you having that conversation that allows people in the space so around the election is also thinking about the issue and who is moving forward the most progressive issue and part of that also means we got the boat and as much as people voting is the least you can do right now, need to vote. Folks need to register and vote and need to understand that the boat in and of itself is not going to achieve like the black middle class is not going to achieve and then i think the other thing we have to do, theres a lot that we have to do and i realize its 8 04 but we have to get under the narrative so the narrative we create and the language we use and the rhetoric we use translates into concrete policies and programs that then circle back around to create and fortify the system that we are trying to topple as we try to reform so thats not an either or either. If youre waiting to topple then we are going to catch hell if we are not trying to do Something Else with the system you but that narrative, those narratives, thats we why can get rid of wheat. We didnt get rid of corporate welfare. We didntget rid of wall street welfare. We didnt get rid of suburban welfare but we got rid of what we called welfare which is a sdc. So demonizing people and doing that work on the backs of people, i think we have to ask the hard questions. We have to look at the issues of the election. We got to vote, we got to mobilize. We have to use the space right now do the vote to mobilize people and build sustainable struggle and thats hard work also. Thats why i got you. Thank you all so much for having us but your lifes work and your living has to be a struggle. Next month, march 3 , the subject is women in the black panther party. So come out to that one there. And then, the church and the struggle is going to be april. Am i looking at the right thing here . And then may 5 is educational justice organizing so keep coming we will solve each problem stepbystep. [laughter] all right. The books will be, the authors will sign the books in the lobby. Doctor williams, as always. All right. [inaudible conversation]