Fight Power News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

I wondered if that was part of your reaction about hearing about this indictment. keeping in mind that history on how many haven't succeeded in getting convictions. >> absolutely. it's incredibly high stakes -- also, because, over and over, again what we see with major prosecutions that fight power and military groups, when there is a failure, when people are acquitted, when a movement is able to package an acquittal as a victory for organizing, we see upticks in violence on the other side. you can draw a direct line from the 1987, 88 trial, to the aqua homer city bombing in 95. the other thin...

So one way to look at public enemy and fight the power as though they're speaking with the ancestors, james brown, and through sampling, they're bringing the ancestors to a new generation of african-americans. >> so here was this group in 1989 at a moment where african-americans are under assault again. saying, we've got the blueprint for how to fight this. and that bloublueprint is what happened in the '50s and 1960s. you've fought to fight power. we've got to stand up. we've got to present our bodies. >> part of the black freedom struggle has always been about thinking of this larger kind of...

It's a musical practice. but i always thought of it as a way of recognizing musical history. so one way to look at public enemy and fight the power as though they're speaking with the ancestors, james brown, and through sampling, they're bringing the ancestors to a new generation of african-americans. >> so here was this group in 1989 at a moment where african-americans are under assault again. saying, we've got the blueprint for how to fight this. and this blueprint is what happened in the '50s and 1960s. you've fought to fight power. we've got to stand up. we've got to present our bodies. >>...

♪ you don't need no baggage ♪ we'll just thank the lord >> she was such a representation of black power. i mean, literally, her voice was an instrument beyond anybody's reckoning. it's one of the greatest voices in american history. >> her ability to travel across racial lines, and to bring an unbridled power, sexuality, but also rage. she became an embodiment of blackness, of a kind of soulfulness that was the essence of our people. >> we are black! our noses are broad!

Tension, there was a release of the power. >> public enemy, the young black male situation in america, we feel we're all public enemies. we have a logo that has a cross. we feel that represents ourselves, and anybody in our situation. >> public enemy had already been the most political rap group, at the time and still probably the black group ever. they were taking from black oppositional politics that was different from the mainstream wronz. nobody really had the -- to consistently use that as a base of operation.