Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement From the 1950s to the 1980S
Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer (eds)
Vintage Press, 1995. Published in Australia by Random House. 692 pp., $22.95
The Black Panthers Speak
Philip S. Foner (ed)
Da Capo Press. $27.95
By Arun Pradhan
[Conclusion of a two-part review.]
Political divisions had always existed in the US civil rights movement. Its spectrum spanned black businessmen (there were no women who had "made it"), liberal would-be politicians and a range of more radical activists and groups. Although they often worked together, at times their differences seemed insurmountable. One such occasion was March 2, 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson launched Operation Rolling Thunder. The war against Vietnam had begun.
Voices of Freedom devotes a chapter to King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's (SCLC) position on Vietnam, which helps draw out these divisions. Part of King's hesitation over the war was his fear of being labelled a communist; he commented to a friend, "It's bad enough being black without being red too". Finally taking a stand against the war in 1967, King drew criticism from his more conservative supporters, but also left the growing numbers of radicalised young people arguing it was too little and too late.
Stokely Carmichael, a leading member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was surprised at King's position. He noted that opposition to the war was consistent with King's non-violent philosophy, but also that it shifted the SCLC further to the left.
He explained, "[King] depended upon the United States government in its contradiction with the South, in his struggle against breaking the laws in the South. But when you go against the United States government there's nobody upon whom you can call except God."
Birth of a symbol
In Lowndes County, Alabama, there was no doubt respect for King's principles in 1965. However, when you are black and live in a Ku Klux Klan stronghold, not practising self-defence seemed idiotic, as did reliance on the Democratic Party: the party's official motto in Alabama was "white supremacy" and its emblem was a white rooster.
SNCC began to look at the possibility of building a black political base outside of the Democrats, and in March 1965 Stokely Carmichael came to Lowndes County to do that. They soon launched the Lowndes County Freedom Organisation, whose symbol (required because of high illiteracy rates) was a black panther. One member commented, "It was a political symbol that we were here to stay, and we were going to do whatever was needed to be done to survive. Those of us who carried guns carried them for our own protection."
This furthered divisions, as SCLC spokespeople urged residents to stay with the Democratic Party. It shifted SNCC to the left, with Carmichael becoming president, focusing more on a black-led black movement. And it helped fuel the imagination of two young black activists in Oakland, California.
In October 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale launched the Black Panther Party. Both books begin to set the record straight, which is shrouded in myths and distortion. Voices takes up the rise and fall of the Panthers, interviewing Seale and Newton as well as other leading members.
The Panthers reflected the broader movement, at first citing Martin Luther King as their influence, but later seeing what they were doing as a continuation of Malcolm X's politics, minus the religion. Both men read everything they could about black history, as well as texts by Marx, Mao and Lenin. They sought more detailed knowledge of local conditions, conducting a survey of people who needed welfare to gauge community needs.
From this they drafted a 10-point program, which included self-determination, exemption for blacks from military service and an end to police brutality. Seale summarised: "We wanted land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. Then we flipped a coin to see who would be chairman. I won." Newton became "minister of defence".
Black Panthers Speak does not play the same contextualising role. While containing some additions, the bulk of the book was originally printed in 1970 and is based on excerpts from the Panthers' newspaper. As such it gives an invaluable insight into the debates that the Panthers were involved in and the politics they espoused.
The breadth of articles is enormous: they range from questions of violence, polemics against liberalism and solidarity with Cuba to revolutionary art, the role of the party paper, Vietnam and the united front tactic. There are chapters devoted to women's writings in the party and one to the Panthers' community projects.
Political debates
The Panthers' combination of socialist politics, militant black power and grassroots community focus captured the imagination of newly radicalised black people. They recruited many of the youth in struggle, which even made Martin Luther King envious.
In Black Panthers Speak, excerpts from an interview with Newton in the left journal The Movement have him arguing against a range of views prevalent in the civil rights movement. He dismissed both the separatism of "cultural nationalism" and the selling out of the "black bourgeoisie". He propounds a class analysis of racism.
Newton was arrested in 1967 on a charge of killing a police officer. This focused much of the Panthers' attention on a "Free Huey" campaign. During this period they attempted to fuse with SNCC, even drafting Stokely Carmichael as the Panthers' "prime minister".
The breadth and decentralisation of SNCC made this unworkable. There were also major differences between Carmichael and Newton and Seale on the question of alliances. Newton argued against Carmichael's "fear" of entering into united fronts with white and other groups. The Panthers actively worked to forge such coalitions, particularly with the socialist Hispanic group the Young Lords.
One of the highlights of Black Panthers Speak is Newton's polemic against the defection of "minister of information" Eldrige Cleaver. Newton had been released from jail to find the party in disarray, the counter-intelligence war waged against it having exacted a heavy toll.
He attempted to reconnect with the party's base by turning towards community projects such as breakfast programs for children, medical services and liberation schools. Cleaver argued from exile that the time was ripe for an increased militarism and that the people were ready for revolution.
Newton argues against unnecessary illegality and for the importance of mass action. He explains the role of the 10-point program in "moving from A to B to C", as opposed to just announcing revolution and making the impossible leap from "A to Z". He noted, "The only time action is revolutionary is when people relate to it in a revolutionary way. If they will not use the example you set, then no matter how many guns you have your action is not revolutionary."
Deadly response
In 1967, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover launched a program aimed at breaking the radical side of the civil rights movement. He later described the Panthers as "the greatest threat to internal security of the country". Of the 293 actions initiated by the FBI, 233 were targeted at the Panthers.
Black Panther Speaks has a section on this offensive that relies on the narrative of Panther lawyer Charles Garry. He points to the $200,000 spent by the party on bail bonds for its members over two years, as well as the murder of 28 Panthers in the same period.
Most leading members were arrested at some point, often to have charges dropped after a time in prison. The court testimony of Seale is extraordinary, as he turned down the offer of a court-appointed lawyer, preferring to represent himself. The judge denied him this right (illegally), and to prevent Seale from attempting to defend himself, had him gagged and chained hand and foot to a metal chair before sentencing him to 16 terms of three months each for contempt.
Voices charts Hoover's offensive by interviewing one of over 60 FBI spies who infiltrated the Panthers. Through its infiltration, the FBI stopped a coalition between the Panthers and a Chicago black gang which had 2000 armed members.
The book also documents the cold-blooded killing of two key leaders of the Chicago Panthers. Surviving members were put on trial over the incident, although later proceedings found that of the 80 shots fired, 78 came from police guns, and the dead Panthers were shot in their beds.
The civil rights movement traversed a considerable distance in travelling from King to the Panthers, and during this journey thousands of nameless people brought about change by fighting segregation and police brutality.
Mirroring broader politics, the wave of the civil rights movement had subsided by the '80s. In the last decade, many of the victories are coming under threat. Both books offer not only a valuable history of past struggles but also a timely reminder that for things to get better, we have to put up a fight.