Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20141018

Father buy a tv. Because tvs was not a come thing in households at that time. So in order to keep one the struggle in our home state in alabama my mother made my dad buy a tv and every day watch Walter Cronkite report what was going on in the south. And my mother used to get so emotional. So mad. Because she seen bull conners. Racist police. Our people being hosed down and dogs being sicked on them just for trying to vote or attend a rally. My mother used to get so emotional. Back in those days, later on i had nine other brothers and sisters but at the time i was the only child. And she would look at me and say boy dont you ever let nobody do that kind of stuff to you. So she just instilled that in to me. I went on with my life. And in my junior year, i was coming back from a track meet. I was on the track team for lemore high school in san joaquin valley. I used to fight every day in junior high school. And he was my physical education teacher. And he would see me fighting every day because of somebody calling me a name or Something Like that. And he came uhm to me one day and said bills you cant fight everybody. You have to pick your moments. And that is exactly what he did in 1968. So when he went to olympics and won that gold medal and i seen him standing up there and put his fist up said this is what hes talking about. Choosing your moments. So later on im still in california. We moved to were still in san diego. And so the panthers go to sacramento in 1967 and i see them on tv. And i was so kpiepted about that. I woke my dad up. He hates to be woken up after hes in his easy chair. And said dad look at this. And he was amazed to see black people was doing Something Like that. And these are the same brothers. Bobby seal in the middle. Emory douglas. These are the panthers that went to sacramento and changed history for black people in america. Because they stood up and took a positions were not going to take Police Brutality. And they started the organization to parole Police Officers in the black community. And did because huey newton was going to high scholaw school. And panthers would carry law book in their arms when they went to engage with the police. Because the police at that time, they didnt they didnt take much to be a police officer. Let me say that. It didnt take much. You didnt have to go to college. You didnt have to do any of that stuff. All you had to do was look tougher or know somebody. So a lot of these cops didnt even know the laws and we would cite the laws to them but historically that lawbook has been dissected out of our arms. Most people didnt even know we were doing that. We were citing laws. They didnt understand the miranda law. That was instituted in 1966 the same year the black Panther Party started and we were reciting to it people and they didnt even know what it was. Cops like this, oldtimers. Bad attitude people we had to deal with in our community. So the black Panther Party not only dealt with Police Brutality. We dealt with we dealt with various types of discrimination, you know. So most people just know the black Panther Party from dealing with the police but black Panther Party had a ten point program. Within that program we fought for fair housing, Better Living conditions. And what really attracted me was point six. We want all black men exempt from military service. I was a i was 17 and they started had lottery. When i read that, im like yeah im against the draft too. And the thing about it was black people was recruited, drafted to go fight a what are for democracy. There was no democracy for black people. Remember 1965 president johnson signed a bill called the voting right act. They were sending people before that. Black representatives and chicago represe chick knoothes war. At the height of our existence we had 51 offices in 30 cities. International support. An embassy in algeria. When Aldrich Cleveland was ran out of the country in 1969 he established an embassy in algeria. Later on we got an embassy in sweden, a support committee in paris run by Richard Wrights daughter t author of native son. We had support and north vietnamese, they gave us our embassy in algeria. Because they were mooifing to a bigger one. And these are many of the rallies that happened during that time. And theres been a lot said about Coalition Building. When we had rallies just couple weeks ago, a reporter asked well wasnt the plaque pane black Panther Party a racist . I said you hadnt done your history. How could you say that. They ran cleveland for president. Sds. The biggest antiwar group going, white group. So we had that solidarity is in the black Panther Partys dna. I do a lot of today i do a lot of exhibits, displays, and this is one of them. It is a combination of i call it the early years. You know we was marching and rallying around certain issues. Later on in 1969, this is something that people really dont look at or dont even know about the black Panther Party social programs. We had Something Like twenty and the most known is the free breakfast for School Children program. This is operated early in the morning and the reason why we started is because it opened young people opens level of poverty was below poverty level. You had blacks and chicano kids going to school hungry. And so we started this social program to feed kids and it took off in oakland. The black Panther Party was the First Organization do that. And just before i came here, i looked at the Agriculture Department and they claimed they feed 6. 2 million kids a year. They call it their nutrition program. But it is the same thing the black Panther Party started. We embarrassed them into starting that program because at that time the government was busy shooting rockets to the moon. Dogs and among keys to the moon when our people here were starving. So later on in 1971 they started had Free Breakfast Program and feeding kids throughout the country. So we started doing that. Also at the same time we took up where snic left off. They had summer schools and we had liberation schools. Early stages there was no black history classes. None taught anywhere except make a black college down south. But in metropolitan cities there was no history being taught. Even i came up without even know the full potential of our people. And when you dont know that you are really lacking. So we took it as a very important thing to educate young people. And that was a whole focus. Educating young people. Feeding the kids. Giving them a better chance of life than we had. Free food program. Were known for that. At various stages of our organization we gave away tens of thousands of groceries. Wed give away food, register people to vote. This is the first time grown people had ever been asked to reg store to vote. Black Panther Party did that. We just cant do it in california. We did it throughout the country. We would give away 10,000 free bags of groceries, register people to vote and do sickle cell anemia testing. People didnt know what that was. Doctors didnt know what that was, the government didnt know. Until the black Panther Party made it known. Even in 1972 richard mill house pig nixon brought up that in the state of union speech in 1972. And we have to do more to conquer sickle cell anemia. I wonder where he got that at. So we started these Community Centers throughout america. Right . So in this particular picture you can see people from the community. We have a Voter Registration there. You see one guy with a big box of cereal hes taking home to his family. And there was a Meeting Place for people in the community. So we provided services 24 hours a day. And because we did this, a whole purpose was to bring the social consciousness of people to a certain level so they could start to finding their own situation and start taking more stern action. So we got involved in rent control. We got control we also did a lot of protesting. Because at that time in america it was very common for landlords to use leadbased paint in their apartments. And many young kids start chipping start eating that and got lead poisoning. So we protest against that, bad conditions. Also black Panther Party was at the vanguard. Women were 50 of our organization. Women had just as much right as any male in our organization to be a leader or be in charge of an office. We have a number of offices throughout america that was run by women. The boston office. You know the Mount Vernon Office down in new york. We had different offices in memphis tennessee that was run by women. You know they were they were the word. Not only that, during the course of the black panether party era we had like 14 free medical clini clinics. Two still open to this day in Seattle Washington and portland oregon. And we provided services. We didnt ask your last name. Is your mother and fathers last name the same. We didnt ask how much money you made. We said if you have an ailment come down to the clinic. So we employed women as well. Which is a very good image for young women. Now this is Sickle Cell Anemia Program in l. A. It was named after aapprentice Bunchy Carter who was murder in 1969. We talked about that earlier, i think carlos did. Now, this right here, east 9th and 26th. Called jingle town in oakland. Like an undeveloped area. Its close proximity to a dell monty cannery. And back in 1969 a lot of Migrant Workers came through jingle town and were bringing their kids. And so we set up a Free Breakfast Program at the marys help for christian church. Most of the kids were chicano but we didnt care because they were hungry. So in working with the local people there, a brown beret unit established itself in that area and started working with us on a daily basis at the free breakfast for School Children program. So eventually within 6 months they were able to take that program over theirselveses which relieved us to go do other organizationing abilities. So we worked hand in hand with the brown beret, United Farm Workers, any group that was moving forward. Moving up to 1972 people talked about bobby seals campaign. I ran the Main Campaign office. And during the campaign there was talk about proposition 22. Proposition 22 was a proposition that the growers wanted to put on the ballot. So i worked directly with United Farm Worker people because they would come to our office and i was sited and precincts to work in. So i they worked hand in hand with panther members. We might send six out to precincts. Three chicanos and three members of the black month Panther Party. During that campaign to me personally i thought it was the best thing to ever happen to oakland. We rescued tens of thousands of people. We gave away food. Even though we didnt win the election, the fact we almost did. We got into a runoff. There were nine other candidates. Some was city council. Some was millionaires. We kicked all their butts and we got into a runoff and we scared the mess out of oakland. And so they ahead to come out real racist to us. They e shoed old time bobby seal with his. 45. And showed with his robe on and said which do you want to be mayor . Coldblooded. But even though we lost the election it opened had door and swung the door wide open. And next election we had a black mayor. We had chicanos on the city council. So there was a positive result behind that. So this is bobby and elaine during the campaign. The black Panther Party, the paper was very important. Right here on the front cover is lettuce from the lettuce strike. And also during 1969 it was seven chicano brothers in San Francisco that was arrested. They were called las iete. The Organization Grew so fast they cant have the personnel or equipment to mobilize people. So the black Panther Party newspaper, already a million seller, you know, on the back we decided to butt basti ya, and the panther paper until they were able to get their own paper. Which started i think in october 19 old it up again. Basta ya. So working with different people with different interests was not anything new. Now also this is a personal picture from our archives and Caesar Chavez. I was given a bunch of negatives from a former photographer before he died. And in the box was a negative. You see this chair in this negative. You go from frame to frame. And see this chair out in the field. They are having a rally out in the field. And you see this chair moving about each frame. And then the last frame you cc sar sitting in the chair. Caesar sitting in the chair. This is the black Panther Party newspaper boycotting safeway. I still dont shop that safeway [ applause ] i still dont shop that safeway. And this is myself right here holding the United Farm Worker sign. I always wear a straw hat. Thats where my grand kids are able to find me in these pictures. Also same time in 1968 there was a National Strike of auto workers. Gm and ford gone on strike to black Panther Party members supported them. They supported students on camps likes i was. Growth street college. Now in todays era we started a number of programs called black panther history month. And every october we have the speakers coast to coast. This is myself in chicago. This is myself and huey newton. Straw hat again. That was my job 1971. The Central Committee t governing body of the party used to say to to this. Whatever happen to huey, it better happen to you first. So we had World Connection with different groups. Last year i went to australia and i was there with the aborigine panthers. Ive been to portugal, london, all around the world. Because we have panthers in the east [ cell phone ] we have panthers in all of those places because we were able to adopt our fraprogram to fit the needs. These are fallen members of the party. During course of the party 28 members were killed. There was a thing that the fbi started called cointel pro. Counterintelligent program. Killed a lot of people. Jald a lot of people. Something like 19 Political Prisoners still in jail and one is this guy right here. Hes not in jail. He got away and hes in African American for 40 years. But he has a lot of programs there as well. So there is a number of people whos done positive work. Even today, even the city are starting to pull up historical markers of what panthers had done work in the community. And this is our 45th year banner. You can see right under the free all Political Prisoners, there is a that is lettuce. That is let frtuce from the lete strike for the farm workers. So we always keep that in memory. I do a lot of speeches at the high schools and clenls and the colleges and these are some of the collages ive done. And in october 17th and 19th were vig a big panther reunion down in kansas city. So im going to end it there. If you are any questions or suggestions you can come to our website. Website is full of information. So id like to end it right now. Our 50 years is coming up in 2016. All right. Thank you. [ applause ] so lauren, if you and kathleen would join us on stage. Well it is such an honor to be with you two here today and thank you so much for your wonderful presentations lauren and bill. I think this first question, i had it planned, but i think carlos really inspired me to frame it the way im going to frame it. I want to ask you what are the less lessons that were drown from these coalitions and efforts to reach across racial and cultural movements in the california area. Okay, you, lauren, explain how you know, how the beginning of this coalition was inspired. The recognition of the shared repression. But im interested in the transformational process and the blow my mind mome moments of union throughout the years. I think proposition 22 was one of those moments for sure. But what were the moments of a learning from each other, the discoveries i guess of this union . Well i could say that we we set the table for people to come after us. Because we showed that this can actually work. You know, solidarity works. In 1971 we put the initiative on the ballot in berkeley called the Community Control the police. At that time berkeley was like a center for the activities. College kids and people from Interest Community beat up from the police. We 16,000 signatures and put that on the ballot. Even though it lost. We had 38 , it showed that we could do that. That if we could concentrate a little bit harder we could bring people to the poles and get them to vote. And that whole effort is a learning effort. Black Panther Party believed in revolution. And we knew that the way to do that is to raise peoples political consciousness. And that is what we did. And thats what the newspaper was about, the rallies, giving people information they didnt have before. In the black Panther Party we believe that information is the raw material for new ideas. So our whole agenda was to educate people to lift their political ideology so they can see the future, so they can see the contradictions that are before them. So by working with the United Farm Workers we showed people can Work Together. We can acrossline. We have common interest. Because the black Panther Party saw the struggle not as a race struggle but as a class struggle. And based it on just what i heard today about the poor peoples march. In that same year the black Panther Party started a chant and it went black power to black people, red power to red people. Brown power to brown people. Yellow power to yellow people. People had never ever heard that before. That was like mind blowing. You know, people actually said okay. You know, we should have this. So it is all about educating people and organizing. That is what people can walk away from today. They lift the conscious of each era in america or each generation to a higher level. So the other generation is not going to take what the generation took before. Just like when i was 17 i wasnt going to take what my parents took. Im not taking no beat down. If someones going to get hurt im not going to be the only one. I was thinking something about gordon said earlier about, that even if uhm, it doesnt matter if these coalitions are fleeting. If it is around one campaign or if its around one boycott, it is still important. And i definitely have had this critique from another historian friend actually. Who was like, well, you know, the bobby Seal Campaign is one year and the safeway boycott is this many months. Is this really a coalition . I said yes. Because it is still a moment of people coming together. It is still a moment of working together, producing a tangible outcome. So even if its shortterm, even if it is a handful of people it is still important. Because it is still showing the possibilities of what can happen when people, again, you know, dig deeper. When they dont look at the differences that are an the surface but they uncover all the things they have in common that are much deeper than that. And what can happen. And it wasnt always that stable because i was reading that in the late 60s the black Panther Party there was a period of time you couldnt support the Farm Workers Union because you were concerned with all these trials and you had to unite and the early 70s and proposition 22 and the mayoral campaigns and united again. So can you talk about how this all sort of fluctuated. Well i would say like when we go into the community to educate people. And that was our main focus, to educate people. It doesnt matter. We explained to them who their enemy was. You know, it is the average businessman, the lying politician and it is the armed part of the system t Police Department and military that is our oppressor. So we building on that. People already had bad experiences with the capitalists because they were the ones who were running the United Farm Workers were working against. So we had to identify who their friends and who their enemies are. So its a whole educational process. Just when we work with the farm workers, it wasnt just a year. It was every day thing. Because the struggles are every day. You dont take a day off. So, you know, we learned from each other. We had first aid stations. We had rest stations and stuff like that. So because of the black Panther Party being a revolutionary group we was attacked by the government. So a lot of our time was distracted from our work in the community because we had legal problems, you know. Bobby seal, huey newton the whole leadership of the black Panther Party went to jail. But also in 1969, 400 members of the black Panther Party went to jail on various charges and the reason is because o a lot of them was bogus charge, harassment charges just so we could spend bail money to get the people out of jail. And they will be arrested for like selling the black Panther Party newspaper. And Everybody Knows youre supposed to have freedom of the press. But not us. So those kind of things were continuous every day struggle. And so United Farm Workers, the brown beret, and other organizations had to go through the same thing. Besides fighting the Police Departments we also daid a lot f political work. Sure, what hes alluding to when i was doing my archival work i noticed in both the ufw papers are wayne state and detroit and huey newton papers are at stanford. And when i was looking at the letters between the ufw leadership and the black panther leadership there was a lull in the early seventies and i had to go back and look. And its because everybody was in jail. And it was during so when the lettuce boycott begins, it is when bobby seal and Erica Huggins are on trial in connecticut. So every bit of the Panther Partys energy and resources were being directed to assisting with that trial. Once they win the trial and they are released, then pretty much immediately they turned their attention right back to the work that they had been doing. So like you were saying, like it is an every day struggle. There wasnt a timeout. But the focus for a little while had to be getting, you know, bobby and erica free. So once that happens they are able to put their resources back towards the lettuce boycott, which they do. And move beyond the lettuce boycott, during that same time, when bobby seal ran for mayor of oakland, he also initiated he brought up before the city council that we should have bilingual ballots and also the language on the ballot should be that other people could read it. And that was way before the system decided to do that. So the black Panther Party first suggested that because it was only the right thing to do, you know. And beside the bilingual ballots we worked in the community in fruitville, which is the main chicano area. And we was able to get a lot of support from people because we were pushing the issue that was dear to their hearts. Yeah. Even goes beyond the farm workers that these election materials. It points out, this is before the Voting Rights act, the amendment in 1975 includes language but didnt in 1972 when the panthers brought this up. So it is really ahead of its time. And not only did bobby seal take this to city council but he explains it to the black leaderships and he says spanish is the first language of california and this is really important. So hes like bills been saying its about educating. Not just educating other communities but educating their own community as well. And so really gets everybody behind this initiative. Im also interested in having you talk a little bit about this tension between the non violence and militancy. Well it was mostly in the black Panther Party but i was reading at some point the you know, the farm workers struggle. So there was some people within the movement that, you know, started, you know, getting tired of the non violence. And was the union between the black Panther Party and the Farm Workers Union, did this effect did the union effect this sort of tension between non violence and violence . Did it decrease it . Did it increase it . I dont know. Well let me say, black Panther Party was based on philosophy was based on malcolm x. We called ourselves the children of malcolm x and he didnt believe in non violence. That was the main contradiction between malcolm x and Martin Luther king. So as children of malcolm we took that position. And they also brought up the fact me, most of us came from the south. I came from aniston. And we could not take a non violent posture in a light of what was happening on a nationwide level. We were all from the south. We saw what was happening in memphis and stuff like that. So my mother was not a non violent person. She believed in self defense and taught all of her kids, all ten of us to do that. So that philosophy was permanent in the black Panther Party but did not stop us from working with other groups. Because we worked with church groups. We had 90 of our breakfast programs at churches. So even though we believed in self defense, that just because someone was non violent or thought their method was different from ours, as long as we got together on the strategy and what direction to go, it didnt matter. Within the farm workers, non violence i mean it was really chavezs thing. So he studied gandhi. He was deeply committed to non violence, not just on a tactical level but a deeply philosophical level but doesnt mean the rest of the farm workers were. So in the early days of the ufw chavez realizes the rest of the farmers really arent on board with this. And he invites members of snic and core to delano to teach classes. Because the others arent really going along with. This then the panthers relationship and the farm workers are kind of questioning. Wait this whole effort to be non violent and then were working with the panthers. And then other unions, because remember the farm workers while fighting discrimination they are a union and in the aflcio. So one of the documents i found was a letter from a man in another aflcio yunion who was like how can you work with the panthers . How can you do this . And chavez was look, they are oppressed so were going to help them. And it didnt matter. The difference between chavez and some other practitioners of non violence was chavez knew that for him non violence was the way but he knew that it wasnt necessarily the way for everyone. And so in fact one of the more surprising documents i found in my research, there is an interview with Caesar Chavez at the jacques levy collection at yale where hes very critical of the Martin Luther king. Non violence is fine but you shouldnt force it on other people. You know, its not for everyone. So he didnt feel there is any contradiction in working with the party at all. He says like they are oppressed, they are dealing with the same things we are. Therefore we are going to Work Together. But he took it very seriously. I mean he even fasted sometimes, right . But for him it was always deeply personal. Right. So he wasnt expecting everyone else to be that way. He was committed to it on a level that he knew that other people werent, you know, willing to do. But that didnt stop him from working with others. Yeah. Im going clear up b one point. Even though we had different philosophies and non violent was not our philosophy. Didnt mean that the black Panther Party was violent. Black Panther Party stood for self defense. That means if you start trouble with us you better look out. We dont go to the Police Department and shoot at the Police Department. We dont go at 4 00 in the morning and start trouble with them. Or anything like that. But if you come to our neighborhood and do that, you got trouble. That is called self defense. Because no one here is going to let anyone walk up to them and insult them or slap them around. Nobody here will let that happen to them. The as self defense mechanism that everybody has. And this is what we had as a people. We was not going to take that no more. Okay. Im going to move on to im going to ask bill about your the archive that you are building and the exhibits that you have put together, which is wonderful work. What is your main goal in collecting all of this and building this archive and producing these exhibits . What is your main hope . Educate people. Because the concept of the black Panther Party has been miscon screwed. The legacy of the people is all over the place. People think the black Panther Party was racist and blah blah blah. So what ive done and ive been a collector all my life. Only time i wasnt collecting stuff was when i was in the black Panther Party. Before that as a kid i had super man comic books dating back to 1947. Every moral spiderman, i had all those. Baseball collections, i had coin collections. Even a stamp collection. I even have the first stamp that ghana produced. The First Independent state in africa, i collected that. I was 10 years old. So that had always stayed with me. And when i got actually i was listening to bobby seal. And bobby seal was saying something that was incorrect. I was like wait no that aint right. And so and not only that all he had was the huey p. Newton and the archive starts only after he gets out of jail in 1970 so the things before are not even documented. So that was my energy to tell the story of the reconciled. Not the leadership that Everybody Knows about. But the reconciled Party Members. Right . So i started collecting panther papers. I party put out 510 issues of the paper. I have 475. I have a lot of them on the website. Taken fliers from different rallies to put them on. I have a massive collection of underground newspapers, sds left notes. Write ones. Detroit free press, the l. A. Free press. The brown beret t United Farm Workers newspapers. I try to take samps les of thos and put them on the website and show what the media was saying about these people. So a person going to the website is saying what this were saying and what we were say so they can make they are oin judgment. Its au all about educating peoo have the correct information. Ive been instructed they need to open it for questions to the audience. Does anyone have any questions . And im going to give this microphone. So if we could fast forward to 2014 when i think the leading cause of death in minority men is violence. And in looking at the organizations that have taken hold of some of the communities in l. A. , the bgf, marasa dies y o choe. What is it going to take to. Black people started organizing these young men. And in chicago the oldest gang in america is black stone nation or black peace stone nation. Fred hampton, a former member of the naacp started organizing those around the black paneth ert party program. They started changing the way they process the information. Why are we tearing off our community. Why are we treating kids like this . And made them look at that and same thing with john huggins and Bunchy Carter in l. A. They started changing the gangs around because that he had revolutionary idea to help the community. And what it is going to take is revolutionaries who go back in the community and reteach and reorganize people. Because what they have done, we take one step forward and two steps back. We had different organizations and groups. Like the slawsons for instance. When Bunchy Carter got of the prison. He had learned through the process of being in prison what it took to make change. So he took the ideology of the black Panther Party down to l. A. And said were not going to be the slawsons no more. We are now the black Panther Party and all you o who dont want to be in our group you can leave. That was the kind of the down fall of gangs at that time. The era between 1968 and 74 you dont hear too much about gang activity. As a matter of fact the juvenile delinquency rate in all those communities went down. Do you know why . Because they have a new model. They have a new image in the community. They have a guy or sister in the community who are educated who, one, feeding them breakfast in the morning. Two we had a senior escort service. We used to escort seniors to get their checks cashed at the first of the month. Do you know why . Because there was no such thing as direct deposit in those days and every criminal and low natured person. So there was a lot of assaults on Senior Citizens and stuff like that. So we took those negative things and turned them into a positive. Even the crooks and the gangsters realized this is a good thing. Because they had mothers too. And they didnt want those things to happen to their mothers. So it is going to take a philosophy and someone Strong Enough and respectful enough to get these gangs attention for that to happen. And it is going to take a process. It might not happen in you or me lifetime but it is going to be hard. Anymore more questions . I wondered if you had an opinion about occupy . Who me . Yeah. Oh. Occupy. Occupy was cool with me. They were kind of short range as far as their ideoloa ologology i was glad to see people mobilizing. And being from oakland who where they had the strongest vanguard or occupy people, you know, they invited us down to speak at least once a week. Some Party Members were talking about some of the experience they had about being in the party because they wanted to know what it took. So we would come down and have political education classes with occupy. The only problem i had with occupy is they didnt they didnt see the full picture. They wanted too much democracy and not enough activity. [ laughter ] i think i have one last question for lauren. About your research and about your research methods. Outside of archival and primary sources and secondary sources, you also did a lot of interviews. And you interviewed bill in 2005, i think. Probably. Sure. Around. And i interviewed maria as well i think back in 2000 i interviewed you the first time. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about, you know, what the process of an interview. Sure. I did quite a bit of archival work. But a lot of my work is based on oral histories. You know, i have the good fortune of a lot of these activists being with us. And also i went to graduate school at berkeley, and so a lot of them live nearby. So that was nice. So but but also, as i pointed out, coalitions are really about people. Coalitions dont stwartart with memo. They dont start with a newspaper article. They start by a visit, a conversation. So mike miller the head of the snic office in industriessan fr Caesar Chavez shows up and asks him to cook him breakfast. And skd asks for his help organizing a boycott of this lig liquor company. When bobby seal wants chavezs endorsement when hes running for mayor, actually bill told me to call big man over big man howard. So i called big man there is a reason hes called big man. Huge. I called bigman and we meet and he tells me a story that is not recorded anywhere. Where basically some volunteer gets a crop duster and flies big man and bobby seal to la paz and they immediate with chavez in the union hall. And they have dinner together and then bobby asks for chavezs endorsement. Chavez says yes and they get back on the plane and fly back to oakland. And big man was terrified the entire time. This little rickety crop duster hovering over the fields. Its windy in the Central Valley all the time. But that is a story that is not written anywhere. And chavez is no longer with us. And bobbys memory isnt what it was. [ laughter ] well . Thats true. You know, so yeah i talked to big man. And then i talked to one of chavezs soninlaws who was also his body guard who was also there to find out about this conversation thats not recorded anywhere. And then also again because coalition is really about people working together. And you are only going to get the real story of coalition if you talk to those people. Okay. Anymore questions . Carlos has a question. I know you are up in oakland, right. But, you know, in l. A. We had a strong working relationship with the party. The free huey newton rally at the sports arena. Did you go to that one . No. But theres pictures of that. Yeah. You know, stokely spoke, ron, teherana and elvis cleaver grew up in east l. A. So when he got out of joint and a lot of the guys in the joint got us together and we met him and kathleen. And we had a forum in east l. A. Where tejerena spoke and you know when the [ expletive ] hit the fan and the shootings and everything and bobby. We had to break with us with the whole thing of the killing of the Bunchy Carter and john huggins. Have you seen the movie the raid on Central Street the big raid. They used some of our photos from archiving. When we got busted they would come support us and we had funerals we would be there. So that is another story. But at the same time in terms of history, in Southern California was one of our biggest supporters. Southern californias chapter ran from bakersfield to texas to louisiana. So the brothers from l. A. Not only had Southern California. They organized in sanita ana, sn diego, houston chapter, the dallas chapter, chapters all along the southern plains. So the southern chapter of the black Panther Party was a very strong chapter and all the work they did with the young with hasnt been documented but i would love to collaborate with someone because im doing oral mists myself. So i think there was one last question over here. Again, in the interest of bringing it forward some, and i apologize i was not here at the beginning of the program, i may have missed something, but im thinking about the southern Farmers Cooperative and then currently an organization, the Rural Coalition which does work to bring farm workers together across all groups. Did any of those activities begin to come in to the research because i dont know, lauren, when your research ended, but in terms of thinking about what we do today, what groups we look to support and become a part of. Right. Im really definitely it doesnt come in to play, my book ends about 73, 74. Even though you have black and white my grant farm workers in the south at this time you only get an influx of latino my grant farm workers starting in the mid80s. Im encouraged by the groups that are forming now in the south around again modern day Multiracial Coalition building around labor and theres quite a few groups that you pointed out that are working together. The only southern farm worker group that i really talked about was the one in mississippi which is an off shoot of the mississippi freedom democratic party. Theres an attempt to unionize share croppers. I only talk about them briefly because they are not able to harness support from local civil Rights Groups at the time, for example they reach out to clc and clc is not terribly interested. They are turning their attention to urban areas at the time. So they are ultimately not successful. But i definitely look at the groups that are forming now and having quite a bit of success and seeing that and realize that as an extension of some of the Multiracial Coalition building that you see with the United Farm Workers. The way its articulated is very similar. Mine stopped in 7374. I dont address these minor groups. But i believe i know there are others who have done quite a bit of work on this. I believe, gordon, does max work on some of these southern unions . Okay. Yeah. Right. Right. [ inaudible ] in the mississippi valley, so there were some mexicanamerican workers in the south before the 1970s and 80s and theres a book out there that im forgetting the name of right now that looks at that. But, yes. So theres some attempts, but its a much of it is not very successful. Right. I have a footnote. Footnote to this conversation or as johnny would say, sidebar. That theres a lot of information on this subject in a newspaper called the southern patriot. It was put out the group used to be in new orleans, they left and moved to kentucky tennessee. But their paper was out for sma ib years and has a lot of information in it. Im sorry. Thank you very much. [ applause ] the cspan cities tour takes cspan 3 American History tv on the road. Heres a feature from one of our recent trips across the country. [ bell tolding ] san miguel chapel is known as the oldest chapel in the United States most likely because its built before 1300. So parts of it are still there. In fact, if you go to the altar, you can see the original steps to the first sacristy that dates back to 1300. The indians are said to have built san miguel mission. They came in here in search of riches or they came in search of better land so that could grow their crops, but with all of that, because of their devotion to catholicism, they needed some place to worship. And so that became san miguel chapel. At the time it was san miguel mission. Its been noted as several different things, san miguel chapel or san miguel mission, but thats probably why they came here. They needed some place to worship. This Church Actually has been built and rebuilt several different times due to different types of destruction. But originally, they came here and built a small chapel. And its probably because they were just devout catholics and they needed some place to worship. The building is basically made of adobe by which is mud. In this day, they used mud, clay and straw. Back in the 1600s, they used mud, manure, and straw. And thats how they built it. Adobe is made and sun baked for several, several days before it is able to be stacked to form a wall. And depending on how they stack the adobe, determines the depth of the wall. San miguel statue is at the Center Bottom of the altar and san miguel is the patron of the mission church. It dates from the 1600s. It was carved in old mexico by missionaries and then brought to santa fe. Above san miguel is christ of nazarene and the typical art bork was first discovered by the archaeologists in 1955, found beneath the large wooden the painting was sent to the Taylor Museum of art in colorado springs. Their artists worked at cleaning and restoring it and as you see it today. The bell of san miguel dates back to 1356. This bell was brought to us and it was actually on a threetiered tower that fell at one point, and landed on top of the cemetery in front of the chapel. So now we just we keep it in the church. Santa fe is very significant as being the holy city of faith. And generations of peoples have come here to worship in san miguel chapel. So since its inception, its had a continuous serving mass. We continually have mass at 2 00 in latin, and at 5 00 in english. So i believe that theres just a spiritual feeling that you get about coming here. Its not a museum. Its a place of worship and a place its very, very spiritual to many people. Not only because of what has happened many years past, but what you can gain from what is happening today. I often ask people to take a step back, come in, take their time and absorb what may have happened so many hundreds of years ago. And get a feel for what the people were that came here back then, lived through and went through. And continue to remember that we all came from somewhere. Whether it be devastation or privilege, but faith and commitment is whats most important in life. The cspan citys tour takes book tv and American History tv on the road. This weekend we partnered with Time Warner Cable for a visit to green bay, wisconsin. Wisconsin is known as americas dairyland because we make the most cheese but also the best cheese. The industry developed in wisconsin from what was homestead cheese where everybody, each farm family made cheese for their own use, it was recognized that we had an ideal environment for raising dairy cow and cheese was really just a way to take that perishable product before refrigeration would last only three days. If you make cheese, Cheddar Cheese can last for a decade. This was late 1880s when the industry got started in wisconsin. Generally farmers in the neighborhood would form a cooperative. They would build a Cheese Factory and they would hire cheese maker and the cheese maker would work for the cooperative on shares. The cheese makers tended to move around a lot. There were thousands. In 1930 over 2,000 cheese plants in wisconsin. It has transportation and a road system improved there was consolidation among the smaller plants and that continued up until about 1990 when there were only about 200 cheese factories in wisconsin. Watch all of your own events 1970s. Watch us in hd, like us in facebook and follow us on twitter. And now on cspan 3, its American History tv, first up a Panel Discussion on minority activism leading up to the 198 election. Africanamerican and well hear from panelists on how people from different races Work Together and why the movement was largely remembered as being dominated by africanamericans. This event was part of a symposium to Mark National hispanic heritage month. Its an hour and 20 minutes. Thank you so much, everybody, were going to move on to our first Panel Discussion. We are presenting this symposium, called organizing across the boundariries in the struggle for civil rights and justice. When poor people marched on washington, the 68 campaign in black and brown. I will introduce the speakers briefly and then they can come up and begin the discussion. So the first person ill introduce is Gordon Mantler, whos an assistant professor at George Washington university specializing in the history and rhetoric of 20th century social Justice Movements and the africanamerican and Latino History of the United States as well as an oral history and history of film. His first book and focus of his Library Presentation is power to the poor and the fight for Economic Justice 1960 to 1974 and it was published in 2013 in the inaugural volume in the politics and power series of the North Carolina press. Were happy to have him here and hes the recipient of many awards. So were very happy to have Gordon Mantler here, how is this going to work . Come on up and have a seat . Yeah. And our second panelist resides andworks in boil heights in eechlt lavm. It was while attempting east l. A. College that montez joined the mexican Student Organization and organized and fought do establish one of the first chicano studies in the United States. So we have an Academic Program as well coming out of that which is wonderful too. A and he took part in founding a very social Movement Including the brown berets and the Antiwar Movement and the free huey Newton Campaign and other campaigns during the 1960s and 1970s. So carlos montez, if you could come up as well. And finally our moderator, who of course works here at the American Folk Life Center at the library of congress and he looks after our civil rights history project. Good morning. Thank you for coming out today on a rainy afternoon or morning here in d. C. It seems like fall is here now. And i want to thank carlos for flying out from california to be here today, and for marias great keynote. Its hard to believe its been nine years since i first interviewed both of them for my book that came out, i guess, eight years later, back in 2005 when i first trekked out to california, new mexico and colorado to speak with them and some other folks and the oral history is that, in a lot of ways became the core of the book. So what i plan to do today is to briefly sketch out the story of when poor people marched on washington and what was dr. Martin luther kings last crusade, the one he was working on in the last six months of his life. You may have noticed that we are in the season of civil rights anniversaries, the opening introduction to the entire symposium today suggested that this is the last program of a season of programs that started off in the spring to commemorate freedom summer, the 15th anniversary of that in mississippi as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Of course its also the 60th anniversary of the first brown decision from 1954. And none, of course, though, no commemoration has been, moment has been celebrated as much as the 1963 march on washington here in d. C. Last august. Im not going to go into critique and analysis of the original march and the commemoration, but what i will say is that im struck at how much that march has overshadowed the many other civil rights marches that have occurred in this city, particularly the 1964 prayer pilgrimage, just a few months after the Brown Campaign and the Poor Peoples Campaign. This is a product of continued public memory and scholarship that emphasizes two 1960s, an early 1960s of the halsigon days of the civil rights struggles and kennedy liberalism, and a bad 1960s, of riots, white backlash and for a lot of folks black power. And today i want to talk about the Poor Peoples Campaign that dr. King envisioned but never saw. And one that i argue reveals the complexity of the man, the complexity of the movement, and the complexity of the decade far, far more than the campaigns counterpart five years earlier. To alarmed by what he saw as a vicious circle of state violence in the form of Police Brutality and harassment as well as military involvement in vietnam and by rioters frustrated with the slow pace of civil rights reform, particularly in northern and western cities, dr. King, living here in the district really was fearful that we were very quickly moving toward a fascist state here in the United States. So in 1967, dr. King announced a Poor Peoples Campaign that would bring waves of the nations peer and disinherited to demand adding that the poor would, quote, stay until america responds. But he envisioned the campaign as not just one of black and white, but one of a Rainbow Coalition that included mexicanamericans, Puerto Ricans and native americans, he hoped the cam pain would do a number of things, one, transform fully the struggle for civil rights and human rights, of course many other people had been already doing that, but this was a considerable turn from what they had been doing earlier, including under people that they had not worked with before, bringing about the federal governments reeducation to the war on poverty, which had been declared four years earlier by president johnson but never fully funded partially because of the commitment to the war in vietnam and three, restoring the credibility of nonviolence and social justice organizing which had really lost ground even though we know that was always there. The campaign blossomed into one of the most even some activists as either irrelevant or a disastrous coda of the civil rights struggle. It certainly was flawed, it did not achieve many of its stated goals and a closer look at the campaign revealses a remarkably instructive moment, designed to wage a sustained fight against poverty. Only in d. C. In the spring of 1968 did representatives of so many different movements coming to to build both a physical and Spiritual Movement that went beyond a oneday rally. The Student Movement north, south and west achkd many others. And what such a Diverse Campaign reveals is how class based coalitional politics often operate alongside the racebased identity politics of black power and chicano power. This is often times i think what the public memory suggests, as well as historyography and similar shift, which were always at odds, but in fact i would argue that they were mutually reenforcing an interdependence. It also reveals how poor folks often saw their poverty differently, issues that were left but not the same based on the different historical despite dr. Kings call for a different sort of cam pain, it wasnt until 1968 that activists beyond civil rights circles began to respond and in what was called the Minority Group conference, about 80 activists across the wide spectrum of the left gathered in atlanta and it was a remarkable moment that few people had ever heard of. Some of the most important leaders of the chicano movement, seated next to dr. King, burt corona and Corky Gonzalez of determineds crusade for justice were among many that were there. That were coal miners from Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia who were interested in land and environmental issues, religious activists from the National Council on churches and the american Friend Service committee, and all these people in varying degrees call themselves as opponents of the vietnam war and saw that inextricably linked to the abandonment of the war on poverty by 1968. It was here that king presented his vision, one, that was not just about how sclc defined poverty, which you could see as jobs or income or solution to po poverty but one that included everyones ideas. The refrain about the burgeoning civil rights between them and sclc. Conferring is a twoway street. Africanamericans must listen to them and include them in campaign decision making, reyes lopez dominated the room in a captivating defense of the land grant rights where americans demanded the restore ration of land ownership. And i also wont go into all the details of the land grant struggle, but ill be happy to talk about that in q a. The delegate s bonded over food and sclc took their issues seriously. To miles horton, the founder of the highlander folks school, the Training School or center for civil rights and Union Organizing in tennessee dating what to the 1930s, dr. King said i believe we got a glimpse of the future and the making of a bottom up collision, as we know king was assassinated just three weeks later. Spark violence in the district and all over the country. But Ralph Abernathy insisted that the campaign would go on. Some dismised the campaign, saying it was too prevokive, the kind of protest was outmoded for a variety of reasons, many of them reconsidered, black panthers, who i talked with who said you know we wanted to go to washington as in memory of dr. King, even if they were still skeptical that it would accomplish that much. So in fact the campaign was so flooded with volunteers, so flood with Financial Support that the campaign at sclc was quite overwhelmed and speaking of this idea of ptsd, thats a good way of describing ralph abernat abernathy, jesse jackson, the close aides around king and the people who had been working with him for years trying to put this cam pain on, literally a month after dr. Kings death. So this organization it starts to become apparent as marchers begin to descend on washington in 1965 and 1966. They came from the west, the northwest, the midwest, northeast, and of course the south. And i hope that in his comments and remarks that carlos might speak a little bit about his experience on the caravan from the west. I remember some interesting stories that he told, some of which are in the book. And the most photographed of the caravans, however, was the mule train, as you can see here, a classic symbol of southern poverty, sharecroppers, black southern poverty. And what this did was, inadvertently or perhapsed a very tently that this campaign was one more civil rights cam pain and not the multirights cam pain that the sclc and dr. King originally sought. By using this symbol over and over again and having a reporter, it seems just cover and follow the mule train, the National Press reinforced this idea that this is really about southern poverty, not about midwest earn poverty, or the africanamericans or Puerto Ricans, but southern poverty. In distracting from the campaigns initial message was resurrection city. The plan had always been to have some sort of encampment in washington where marchers could say and they could launch their campaigns to the white house. So they setled for a small area on the National Mall and got a permit to do so. It was partly based on the march of 19 when world war i veterans came to d. C. To demand their bonus early, rather than getting it in 1945, in 1932 because they were desperate to have some kind of money at the depths of the great depression, of course they were burned out by u. S. Soldiers, led by douglas macarthur, and sent back over the bridges into virginia. But it was seen as, by king aides at least as successful in that it helped bring down hoover, it was just one more way, one more poor optic for a president already on the ropes that he just didnt care about poor people or care about regular folks and veterans. And its interesting if you go to the lbj library and spend time with papers of aides to johnson in austin, they were all reading Arthur Schlesingers history of the march. They were all very aware of how that played out in 1932 and they were insistent that that was not going to happen in 1968. By late may, the city had up to 2,500 People Living in it. Described by one magazine, very colorfully, a revival meeting within an army camp. They ate at the mess hall, they put their kids in the Greta Scott King daycare center, they got their hair cut, they listened to some of the best entertainment in town. Residents wrote their own newspaper, often criticizing sclc leadership in the process. There was a poor Peoples University that offered a range of courses, everything from the history of the treating of guadalupe hidalgo, to which is what civil rights organizers were demanding as one solution to poverty. And there was also the Many Races Soul Center which fostered Intercultural Exchange between the residents, especially through music and dance. But it was a particularly rainy spring, i feel like again, just like the meredith march, there was a lot of rain. As one of my the folks i spoke with for the book said, it rained like in the bible, in 19 days out of 31, it poured. It was a particularly wet spring here. And it had to be evacuated twice, you can see, you know, what happened. I think maybe the drainage has gotten better in west potomac park. And heres pictures of slightlier happier times. Barbers doing their jobs, so by the time most of the mexicanamerican and native american marchers arrived from the west, which was several days after resurrection city had been started, and they started pitching tents there, the city was a mess. As ernest vehill, denvers crusader for justice said with some undersame, we didnt see what we hoped to see, clearly for understandable reasons, Martin Luther king had been assassinated. But we said if they dont have their craft together, we wish them the best of luck, meanwhile we have to get on with what we came here for. Many lived in the Hawthorne School which was a Progressive High School that opened its doors to the marchers, at the time they were building i street southwest, that later became Southeastern University which is now defunct, went defunct a few years ago. And the choice of hawthorne, i argue was critical. Much of the campaigns relationship bidding, for chicanos occur. Some of it was Cultural Exchange over food and music, others describe their shock at the poverty of poor whites from appalachian, who they interacted with to the point where they would give their extra shoes, their extra jackets to these poor whites that seemed to have less than they did. Met folk that they wouldnt have otherwise met. And who got them thinking in different ways. So one of my favorite quotes from carlos, and ill say ill get here see if i get it right. When would we have gotten together with the crusade, meaning the crusade for justice, lived with them, shared blade with them, marched every day with them. And their activities bonded the chicano active hiss that it bonded them together after they went home. One of the most interesting ones was in front of the Supreme Court in june of 1968 where about 400 africanamericans native american and mexicanamericans joined to protest native fishing rights. Ive you dont know, in the 1960s, this was one of the key issues for a lot of native americans who had been supposedly given the right under treaties that were up to 200 years old to fish in ancestral waters, state laws a lot of the times, including Washington State for bid them from doing this and they would be arrested, so inspired by the and put this challenge into the court system, and the Supreme Court earlier that year had ruled that the state laws were indeed constitutional. They were not a violation of the treaties and so they showed up here in early june and protested in front of the court. Of course this protest didnt change the ruling, the ruling would change later on in the early 1970s. But what it did do is highlight the complexity and the potential of Coalition Building at the time. On their way back to how thorne, where most of them were based in the Supreme Court, beat back a lot of the protesters. There was one photo of ernesto vehill, they didnt think the protesters were moving false enough, and they just attacked them. Several folks were jailed. You really find common cause when you sit in the same jail cell, he told me. They were released, and after they were released, they were greeted as hereves. What i think this incident juntd scores is the role of Police Brutality as a key issue that everyone agreed on, not all the issues of folks brought to washington were the same and what they emphasized, but Police Brutality and harassment and opposition to it brought folks together, whether it was chicago, the district, l. A. , albuquerque, denver, no matter where they were, this was something that bonded folks together. On june 19, a made for media ehavent that featured a theme of hunger and in contrast to the march from five year s earlier, women had played a very prom them role, Greta Scott King gave a keynote, many other people took the stage to speak. And yet what i would argue is focusing on it, as the media insisted on doing, obscured the campaigns relevance in a lot of ways, which was not just about a one day rally, but the relationships that were built over time, over several months of time. Just days after sold daidarity the city was torn down. They did not renew the permit and forced the evacuation of folks and the city came in and knocked it down. Many of the documents, many of what sclc had that a historian could normally use to talk about and write about the campaign were destroyed when the police did this. So it took me several years of piecing together the story of the campaign and resurrection city for oral histories and through travels through about 20 archives. And so in the end, the campaign accomplished the modest policy changes. The welfare rights they even gained a seat at the table at least initially in a new nixon administration, with the ties they made there. The government released surplus food to the 100 poorest could have beens counties. But what i would argue is more importantly, we should care about the Poor Peoples Campaign now in the 21st century for several seasons. One i think we should reassess the expectations we have for national Coalition Building, just because theyre fleeting, that theyre not sustained doesnt mean theyre unproductive. The black freedom struggle or the Civil Rights Movement was not simply a happy optimistic message for brother hood as the march on washington in 1963 but that one included full citizenship rights, which included Voting Rights and equal opportunities for everyone, including black, white, and mexican american, thank you so much. Thank you, gordon, carlos, if we could have you up here. Ive got a couple of parts that kind of long so im going to try to do a new one. But what im looking for, you know, it was great looking at all the photos, it brought back a lot of memories. My history is a little bit different. My family is from mexico. Lets see library of congress. Power point, is that the power point . Yeah, and then ive got this outline that i did a little longer one. Can you hear me here. This is a quick four point. S i was born in el paso, texas. We lived in juarez and we moved from juarez to l. A. In the late 50s. So my experience and we grew up i remember living in juarez in an alley. You dont know youre poor when youre poor. When i go back and look at it, it was an alley, no bathroom, no running water, no electricity, and it had no refrigerator, it was the kind that you put the ice where the iceman delivered. I didnt know we were poor until we moved to l. A. My culture assimilation, the music and im walking to school, but also the neighbors across the street, i didnt know they were southerners, the young black guy was raising pigeons, my mom didnt speak english, so youve got a rural family from mexico, from the country and you have blacks from the south in the time block, chicanos and blacks, the older whites were already moving out. And i grew one the cholos. And they treated me okay. So i went to school in a chicanoblack community. I so i thought it was normal. But some of the first things i saw on the black and white tv, does anybody know about dodgers stadium, there was i said how are they doing that to the mexicans, they were picking them up and throwing them out, they were evicting them to build the stadium. But i grew up in south l. A. , florence area, walking into the neighborhood, which was still white, southeast l. A. Huntington park, to see the movies, right, and seeing a sign, apartment for rent, whites only. Youre a little chicano, youre a mexican becoming chicano, youre like, okay, the blacks, but what about us . Where do we fit in . Little by little, we realized that they didnt want us either. You got to give me a time thing because sometimes i talk too much. Im a writer, part of the legalization obama didnt do the doca like he promised. He was still doing the protests. So my involvement agrgrowing up with racism in south l. A. , during the 65 rebellion, i was a janitor at the local school. We could come back the next night and we would be cleaning, i was right in the middle of it having that discussion with them, kind of just learning from them, or seeing the debate. But my experience in high school and east l. A. , i was young, growing up in the urban city, there was soul music, being harassed by the police, being pushed out of high school, becoming angry young chicanos without any direction, but the civil rights mom, you watch it on tv, moechhammed ali, they to me why dont you go ahead and do it. The older chicanou theyre more about assimilation, i said why cant we do like carmichael . They said why dont u you do it. So i hooked up with the young chicano for community action, which became the brown berets. The big connection with the black panthers, bobby sele giving us the red book and then john huggins achnd bungee carte. They founded the gang in south l. A. , but they founded the black Panther Party and they came to east l. A. To say lets Work Together. I said who are these guys . I could relate to it because im from south l. A. , i had already moved to east l. A. By then erp they believe to bridge that. And bungee and john were eventually assassinated at ucla, but they had the forethought to talk about black and brown unity. Heres a picture of me, i dont know where that was. But there i am, angry young chicanos, when we became conscious, we thought the problem was the whiteman, chicano power supported black power. I think that they be one of the reasons we got the notoriety, but by then we were already becoming more radicalized, the vietnam war, the black panthers, we werent really socialists, but we liked mao. We liked china and mao, better than we did russia. But it was real basic, we wanted to get into theory until later on. And maybe later on, i have a little bit but the Poor Peoples Campaign, we get the invitation, king had been assassinated, and, i got the call, and, you know, youre young at that point, lets do it. It took the walkouts, it took a couple of months, it run into school, when youre young, youre 20, youre down, right . And, is so, we ran, we did go down to south l. A. , got on the bus, we were proud to say, we, the chicanos are going to be on the back of the bug. And the caravan going over there was tremendous, every night was a rally, black, native americans, whites, it was exhilarating, it was like wow, phoenix, were having a big rally, with the farm workers, everybodys eating, so happy, were starting to bond and other chicano organizations that were there, going to el paso with the tents, it was the texas rangers, you know, it was a lot more repres repressive, police werent able to shut us down at the l. A. Convention center. It was welcome brother, welcome brother. But another chicano guy, he said, no, youre not my brother. I said what do you mean im not your brother . There were still some blacks and chicanos that were prejudice, but albuquerque, the native american movement, going out to colorado, more the urban chicano, the crusade for justice. Where was it when we took over the Mississippi River . I remember one time we were marching over a bridges, and we said, were going to sit down on this bridge, you mentioned africa a what state was it . Missouri i dont know how it happened, it was spontaneous, you know. The older sclc were therethey shut it down for a little while. So we were getting all pumped up, and we respected sclc and Martin Luther king, we dont advocate violence as the brown berets, we started to become more politically conscious because we were about walkouts and stop Police Brutality, but when they did the great raid, they said, hey, he wants the land back. Its not just about better schools, stop Police Brutality, its about taking our land back and chicano power. I know a lot of republicans in arizona are afraid of that. Thats why they keep shutting us down in arizona. So let me get back on the Poor Peoples Campaign. So, yeah, eventually we got to the Hawthorne School, roke, it was just an empty school, cement, it wasnt no luxury, were all getting bunk beds and where are we going to eat . It was fun, but they were native americans, blacks, whites, and thats where i saw poor whites, poorer than us in l. A. , and i go, oh, my god, and Puerto Ricans, and so i say little by little, the white mans not the enemy, it must be the economic system. So we started evolving, it was a struggle against capitalism eventually and give me a time thing. Im glad you showed the march on the Supreme Court. I remember, support the natuive american s, land rights, fishing rights, and i remember we were mit marching up to the stairs, right . Oh, i got ten minutes . To we were marching up the stairs and we walk in there, and the native americans, were going to lead this march, so were marching up behind them. As soon as they get up to the Supreme Court, what do they do . The big giant door closes on us. And we walked up and started banging on it. Let us in, let us in, let us in. I bet the security guy saw us coming and closed the door or we would have gone in there and sat down. But they were denying justice to is native americans, all this genocide, so we surrounded the whole area and we had pictures of that, we surrounded the whole thing and we had a rally there and oh, heres one of the Poor Peoples Campaign. So that was exhilarating, but consciousness raising, the native americans, learning, for me, about the land rights, the fishing rights, the treaty rights. I dont even remember when this happened, somebody emailed this to me and said youre in there. Did you take that one . You took that one . All right, all right. Thank you. Thank you. So i didnt know, i think it was raining that day, so i dont know what the issue was that day . Were going to march, lets march, and it was windy and rainy, every day was exhilarating, i dont know why. But im in there, if you can figure out where im at, you get a prize. Because i totally dont look like i look today. But another one that i remember, when we were there, we were indicted by the l. A. County grand jury for conspiracy to disrupt the school system. We said, were going to be arrested, we should get our beret out and get under cover. So were like lets march to the Attorney Generals Office and demand amnesty for us. We said, yeah, lets do it. We marched on ramsey clark, they had a delegation saying give us amnesty, i already have a warrant for me. So we were outside, and corky, i dont know who else went in in, i dont know if you know who went in they came out and said ramsay said, hey, cool, but hes got no jurisdiction, but we said were going to have sit in outside, by that time the young people are like, we like abernathy, we like jesse, we started to relate to the young plaq blackses and the young Puerto Ricans, so we said were going to have a sit in at the Attorney Generals Office. And yeah, were going to fit in, all blacks, we started over sit in, no preparation, no nothing. So then a little while later, they send jesse, this is where i learned my lesson about classes. I just have some pictures that i have continued to work in the community in the struggle with black Liberation Movement consistently all my life. So jesse shows up, young elegant speaker, black power, yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, okay, hes going to be solid there with the sit in, and he gets everybody riled up, what were going to do now, were going to march back to resurrection city, and i was going, wait a minute, wake, were having a sit in. Thats when i realized, i love jesse, but i saw him as a poor working class, and they used him to kick us out, to kind of diffuse that anger there. I wanted to show that real quick. Kind of digressing, jump and hit a little bit. A year or two ago, they invited me to speak at the south l. A. Power coalition, building black unity. And it was ron karanga, how many of you know him . He was there and i was there. And we talked got building black unity. And by the way, thanks to the library of congress, and the library staff, i wanting to thank you for getting this out. So i have to bring in bunchey carter. Because they wanted me to talk about the history of black latinos, i was like, hey, you guys kill me. And then, you know, i know with the fbi pro and tell thing. So back on Hawthorne School, to what was the other big okay so then jesse jackson, the and another big march that i really loved was jesse, i dont know if it was the department of housing or agriculture or food, which one was it, were going to march, were going to protest, okay, lets go. So we all marched into the big giant federal building, were going to go eat. Lets go eat, right, so we wind up in the cafeteria and all the cafeteria workers were black, they said get your food achkd go up there and dont pay. And it was not just me, there was a bunch of us. Hundreds of us. We get our food, we get up there and the poor africanamerican lady is ringing it p up. Were like just go give it to jes jesse in the back. Were not going to pay. The issue was food. Every day was a different issue, i guess it was food. We were starving theres no food, powdered milk and all that. Im telling you, the staff was there with us. But it was a big media thing. So the you know, we did bond with the other chicano organizations, the welfare rights organization, the crusade for justice, long lasting relations which builds the chicano Liberation Movement. Because after that we went to the mountains, we visited up in, learned about the struggle. Said were going to introduce you to our sheriff. No, i dont want to meet the sheriff, this is our own government, i was like oh, shoot, ill meet him. Their own mayor. So the crusade, so we continued to have relations with the black panthers, i had the pleasure of meeting with john pratt after he got out of prison. Erica cousins, kathleen cleaver, myself and geronimo before he passed. And the struggle for fbi repression that continues today. I mean we continue working together, i had the pleasure of reading fred hampton jr. A year or so ago. But, you know, and in some ways the Poor Peoples Campaign was informative, i learned that word the other day, we used to say it bl blew my mind, so it was the white power structure and the capitalist structure and we have to learn about the Political Prisoners of puerto rico. I donted protesting. I was real active in kind of summing up here, one of the things im proud of is the l. A. Rainbow coalition for justice in which black and chicano families got together to protest Police Murders a a s and we worked wi johnny cochran, and i was a delegate, i was latinos for jackson, i was at the democratic convention, if they aint going to do it, we need jackson, and we new mondale was going to go down, so we supported jesse in 84 and 88. I can go on and on and talk about solidaritys struggle that we worked with in africanamerica. The Southern Coalition but go ahead, im finished. And i got newspaper of the fight back news. Org in the back, you can check out. Thank you very much and we have time later today, theres a little video clip. Take this off. Okay its supposed to be a panel, right, im so excited. Go ahead and give me. Right. Thank you. Of course, this is a problem listening to engaging speakers. Have a bunch of questions written down and they go right out of your head even though we have them written down on notes. Ill start with you, gordon and give carlos a chance to catch his breath. The word transformation or im going to reintroduce blowing my mind back into my lexicon i think, i like that better, can you talk a little elaborate on that a little bit because you go to some lengths in your book which by the way is on sale out there in the lobby. A shameless plug for gordons book and for all the other authors books. Hell sign it for you at no extra charming. So, please. At least you made the plug and not me. So, the question is about how it was a transformative moment. Yeah, i mean, as i said, it was the demographics i guess of the poors People Campaign skewed young so you had a lot of teams, 20 somethings like carlos who were there, who were coming to washington for the first time oftentimes, and so going to the nations capital, the heart of it all, and meeting all these folks, that they really didnt have a chance to interact with very much, and and i was struck by all the oral histories that did i and how many folks independently brought up the white appalachians that they met from Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia and the coal fields there. And they were struck at how desperately poor many of these folks were. Materially in particular. The moments where its like a white coal minor says, well, im interested in land rights, and being able to control my own land rather than having some coal company own the mineral rights underneath their homes, and and chicano activists and native american activists saying im interested in the same thing, and seeing that these issues bonded folks, you know, across the country, maybe in different contexts to a certain extent, but not completely, right . And this is one of the reasons why i think the advocate for the land rights struggle, a flawed advocate, not as much an organizer as he was an order, and yet he built a really vibrant organization and coalition in new mexico in particular that inspired folks from across the southwest for sure, and even the rest of the country for several years around this idea that land should be restored to people that it was stolen from, and, you know, in the wake of the u. S. Mexican war and so, yeah, for a lot of these people they come. They meet people that they had never met before. They had conversations with folks they never met you know, that they never would have had a chance to before, and what i think is so interesting about the Poor Peoples Campaign and instructive about it, as i say, its not some grand success at least in the way the media would define, you know, the criteria they would suggest, but living with folks day in and day out, standing in line whether its for food or for the bathroom or for what have you, trying to stay dry, you know, in this really wet spring. Those are the kinds of conversations that you build relationships from, and i i think the march on washington was very inconspiring in 67 and yet it was a oneday real, and i think that theres a big difference, you know, through the kinds of relationship, constructive relationshipbuilding that you can do, you know, over six weeks and two months versus one day or three hours for that matter. Perfect. Im glad that you brought the land grants in because i do want maria varella to weigh in on that a little chance later on in the conversation. Carlos, does that jive with your own . You started talking about that consciousness raising. It did. I remember the appalachian families, talking to them and looking at them, how they were dressed and how they talked and about where they lived, and i was saying, like they are poorer than us, at least in l. A. In east l. A. At that time, you know, my father was, you know a he was in the carpenters union, assembly lines, you know, and the fact that there was a union there, at least, you know, had not really good money but, you know, we had health care and rented a house and moved and i could see they were poorer than us, you know, an here they were with us, you know, and then also the black, young blacks from d. C. And from the south, talking to them and and then, you know, hanging out and marching together and going to get food and clothing. Wed go and have some Free Clothing down the street wed go. Lets get this and lets get that. Youre right. Sometimes you would meet people at a real or event, network for 15, 20 minutes an hour and then youre gone and then you Exchange Emails but being there day after day and then getting arrested. One thing i forgot to mention, the young folk, we rebelled. Well have our own march. We marched on the white house, and there was young plaques, chicanos and native americans, and we got busted, and they got us from the back and grabbed us and shot us down and one thing ill never forget is the young black brother they got. They busted his head. He was bleeding, and i know they got me and had me down, and i had a beret. Maybe i didnt bleed, but they threw us in the pead wagon, right . Literally picked us up and threw us in there, so, you know, like you said, being in jail and getting busted together with blacks, whites, chicanos, you know, that bonded us in the poor peoples movement. Yeah. I was interested in hearing you talk about transformations in two different ways, you said at one point, correct me if im wrong, i was a mexican and i was becoming chicano and the other one was the transformation of your consciousness talking about kind of a racial or ethnic identity, all of a sudden you see structural problems and everybody across sort of racial lines faces. Is that a fair way to describe the experience . Absolutely, absolutely, because, you know, a Little Mexican kid, growing up in south l. A. And listening to chuck berry and fats domino. Do you know who that is . You know, rock n roll, you know, the beginning of rock n roll and soul music, i dont know if it was the beginning, and i remember another one, we would go to one of the local shows when Elvis Presley Jailhouse Rock came out and a bunch of young kids, chicanos and blacks in the Little Theater on saturday afternoon like rocking it out. And people out there in the aisle, tried to imitate Elvis Presley and i was like, whoa, you know. It was fun, you know, but it bonded, and then going to School Together and one of my first girlfriends in the high school when i moved to east l. A. , africanamerican and so so so i became chicano, you know. I was no longer mexican because my culture and my language and my point of reference is difference, you know, seeing the racism, and the schools and the community, you know, and then my language and my music, you know, and then in east l. A. I was more into cruising music, the santana sound, urban chicano sound and picked up on the soul music and had our own flavor. Carlos santana, everybody remembers him. Sure. So it became a chicano culture and then the Political Part was, yeah, the white man not the enemy. The system is the enemy thats keeping us down, keeping the vietnamese down in vietnam and here in the u. S. , so i so i was more like a class solidarity, you know, and then the Rainbow Coalition, you know, brought it out as well as the panthers. The panthers not the enemy, carlos, its the system and here, read the red boar, you know, and then the cuban revolution, so we started becoming more antiimperialist. Does that jive with you . Yeah, definitely. One thing can i say is im struck by the role of culture that if politics dont bond people, which, you know, folks have their different political strategies and you see a lot of that on display in the Poor Peoples Campaign where there are big personalities, theres strategic differences. The question about does selc allow other folks to real be part of the decisionmaking or is it Just Lip Service . Mean, not everybody is a fan of Ralph Abernathy. A lot of people are very critical of him and yet i think he had an impossible position that he was placed in, and part of i think the mistakes he made, of course, was that he tried to step into dr. Kings shoes directly rather than be his own self, but even when the politics breaks down, and the differences become heightened even if the commonly tis and similarities and their positions and the issues are still there, i mean, it strikes me how much culture bonds folks together, and theres a lot of i think theres really good scholarship about how music and i keep on coming back to this in the resurrection city and the Hawthorne School is that that it was often the way the folks started talking with each other, and then it would heed to other things so they would share some food and share some music and and then that would lead to other things, so i would i think its its a transformative moment to go back to your initial question for a lot of these folks, and it took you know, they only had to travel 3,000 miles here to do it. Right. You Say Something that was interesting to me. You talk about seeing a struggle in Coalition Building across not just the various dimensions of race or class or gennady but its not either or, its both and, and where does gender enter into your particular perspective, and im reminded of what maria said earlier this morning about what is what is the role of, you know, women in this particular, you know, set of coalitions that you guys are talking about . You know, great question. So in a lot of ways a poors People Campaign works as much as it does work because of the women that are there, and i think, you know, a lot of this is on display onli