by Joshua Bloom
6. Eldridge Cleaver, “We Have Found It Here in Korea,” Black Panther, November 1, 1969, 11. To make this point, Cleaver specifically invoked Kim Il Sung’s concept of Juche, or self-reliance. Cleaver argued that the Korean experience supported the idea that a foreign ideology should not be adopted wholesale. For context, see Kathleen Neal Cleaver, “Back to Africa: The Evolution of the International Section of the Black Panther Party (1969–1972),” in The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered], ed. Charles E. Jones (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), 226. See also Eldridge Cleaver’s later pamphlet On the Ideology of the Black Panther Party, circa 1970, which develops this line. Some have argued that the Black Panthers’ emphasis on the lumpen proletariat was their downfall. But this line of argument is deeply flawed. While the black underclass was a core constituency of the Party, many members and most leaders were either working class or middle class with educated and professional families. No narrowly working-class Marxist revolutionary formation in the United States has had nearly as transformative a historical effect as the Black Panther Party.
7. The original Ten Point Program was first published in the Black Panther on May 15, 1967, 3; Huey P. Newton, “The Functional Definition of Politics,” Black Panther, May 15, 1967, 4.
8. David Hilliard and Lewis Cole, This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party (New York: Little, Brown, 1993), 223–26, also David Hilliard, conversation with Joshua Bloom, May 3, 2011, on Hilliard’s view of Hewitt’s key role in deepening the Party’s engagement with Marx.
9. Ho Chi Minh on cover of Black Panther, March 3, 1969. To see the change in the Ten Point Program, compare the old version in the Black Panther, June 28, 1969, 21, to the new version in the newspaper on July 5, 1969, 22 [emphasis in original]. Ray “Masai” Hewitt is first listed as the minister of education in the Black Panther, July 12, 1969, 23, replacing George Murray; Hilliard and Cole, This Side of Glory, 223–26; on Chicago involvement, see also Clark Kissenger, Guardian Midwest Bureau, “Chicago Panthers Busted,” reprinted in Black Panther, May 4, 1969, 6, and “Chicago Panthers Serve the People,” Black Panther, May 31, 1969, 4.
10. This is not to say that the Party never took sides. To the contrary, in the Sino-Soviet split, the Party came down squarely on the side of China. See “Russia-U.S. Conspire to Trick China into War,” Black Panther, March 23, 1969, 1, 10.
11. “Intercommunalism,” Huey P. Newton Reader, 181–99. Newton here suggests four phases in the Party’s ideological development, from black nationalism to revolutionary nationalism to internationalism to intercommunalism, a schema replicated by others. See Judson L. Jeffries, Huey P. Newton: The Radical Theorist (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002), 62–82. But these categories are ideal types, loosely reflecting the gradual trajectory of change and accentuating differences in what remained basically black anti-imperialist thinking, rather than revealing any sharp categorical shifts in the Party’s ideological history. In our view, the much sharper and more important shifts are the practical political ones around which we structure our book—rather than narrowly ideological ones.
12. See Penny Von Eschen, Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism 1937–1957 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997); Joshua Bloom, “Black Insurgent Influence on Truman’s Civil Rights Advocacy,” unpublished, winner of the 2011 Reinhard Bendix Prize.
13. This treatment of the Black Panther solidarity activities in Scandinavia draws principally from the following articles in the Black Panther: “Bobby Seale in Sweden,” March 31, 1969, ,14; “Chairman Seale & Masai Return to U.S.,” March 31, 1969, 14; “Free Huey Demonstration in Scandinavia: Black Panther Spokesman Connie Matthews Speaks at Free Huey Rally in Sweden,” June 21, 1969, 18; “Danish Left Wing Socialist Party,” July 19, 1969, 9; Young Left League of Sweden, “From Sweden,” August 2, 1969, 11; “Scandinavian Solidarity with the B.P.P.,” September 13, 1969, 9; Klaus Pedersen, “Interview with Scandinavian Rep. of Black Panther Party: Connie Matthews,” reprinted from Land of Folk, October 18, 1969, 9; Bobby Seale, “Bobby Speaks to Scandinavia,” October 25, 1969, 10; Connie Matthews, “Connie Matthews at San Jose State on the Vietnam Moratorium,” transcript, October 25, 1969, 11; Black Panther Party Solidarity Committee Stockholm, “People in Scandinavia Getting Hip to U.S. Fascism: Demand Release of Bobby Seale,” October 25, 1969, 21; “Big Man” Howard, “Big Man Speaks to NLF in Stockholm, Sweden,” transcript, November 18, 1969, 2; Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund, “West German S.D.S. Supports Black Panthers and Black Liberation Movement,” March 9, 1968, 13; “Black Panther Party Authorizes Leadership in Scandinavia,” May 4, 1969, 10; Danish Left Wing Socialist Party, telegram, reproduced May 4, 1969, 10. Also see Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 228.
14. According to Ruth Reitan, relations between the Panthers and the Cuban government were initially strong, and plans were in the works to develop a military training ground there for black revolutionaries; Reitan, The Rise and Decline of an Alliance: Cuba and African American Leaders in the 1960s (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1999), especially 104–5. But by 1969, when Eldridge Cleaver sought to develop a training program, support had weakened. In an interview with Henry Louis Gates Jr. in 1975, Cleaver reported that the relationship with the Cuban government had been strained from the time of his arrival. The terms of asylum were that he would remain a private citizen and not engage in public activities. Eventually, Cleaver became dissatisfied with the arrangement because he could not promote Panther activities as he wished while remaining clandestine. This caused tensions with the Cuban government. Also, his wife, Kathleen, was pregnant, and there were difficulties getting her to Cuba. When an unconfirmed Reuters wire report appeared in May 1969 claiming that Cleaver was living in Havana, he made plans to leave for Algeria. He sent a message to Kathleen to meet him in Algiers through the writer Lee Lockwood, who was leaving Cuba one day before Cleaver. Eldridge Cleaver, interview in Paris by Henry Louis Gates Jr., winter 1975, 28, 33, 56, transcript in Joshua Bloom’s possession. Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 216–17. In this chapter, Kathleen discusses the following international alliances: asylum from Algeria and Cuba; other diplomatic relations with North Korea, North Vietnam, China, and the People’s Republic of the Congo; and alliances with independence movements from Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Palestine, as well as leftist revolutionary movements from Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain, and West Germany.
15. Mamadi quoted in Eric Pace, “Africans at Algiers Festival Denounce Concept of ‘Negritude’ as Outmoded,” New York Times, July 28, 1969, 4.
16. Eldridge Cleaver, interview by Gates, 56–57.
17. Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 213.
18. “Cleaver and Seale Accept Algiers Bid,” New York Times, July 14, 1969. In his 1975 interview with Gates, Cleaver also said that the Panthers were placed on the invitation list independently by the Algerian government, but this and other sources imply that his decision to relocate in Algeria had much to with his desire to overcome the political restrictions inherent in exile in Cuba.
19. Eldridge Cleaver, interview by Gates, 61.
20. Sanche de Gramont, “Our Other Man in Algiers,” New York Times Magazine, November 1, 1970, 228.
21. Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 218.
22. “Cleaver Arrives for Algiers Fete,” New York Times, July 16, 1969, 9. According to Cleaver, official status for the Black Panther delegation to Algeria was arranged by the National Liberation Front of Vietnam. When the Panthers arrived in Algiers, they met Charles Chikarema, an English-speaking representative of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union. Chikarema introduced them to Elaine Klein, a vivacious woman from New York who had supported the Algerian Revolution as a student in New York and moved there immediately after independence, where she became a close friend of Frantz Fanon and served as press secretary to the first president, Ben Bella. At the time of the Pan-Africa
n Cultural Festival, she was working in the Ministry of Information there. She was on the committee to organize the festival and invited Cleaver and the Panthers to participate. She also introduced Cleaver to representatives of the NLF, who met with President Boumedienne the next day and arranged for the Panther delegation to have official status at the festival (Eldridge Cleaver, interview by Gates, 55–56; Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 220).
23. Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 220.
24. Ibid.
25. Eric Pace, “African Nations Open 12-Day Cultural Festival with Parade through Algiers,” New York Times, July 22, 1969, 9; “Algerian Leader Opens Arts Festival,” New York Times, July 22, 1969, A8.
26. Eldridge Cleaver, interview by Gates, 60; Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 213.
27. See photo, Black Panther, August 9, 1969, 14; Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 213.
28. Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 220–21.
29. Ibid., 213, 221.
30. Eldridge Cleaver and Haitian representative at Pan-African Cultural Festival in “Black Panther Discussion with African and Haitian Liberation Fighters,” transcript, Black Panther August 23, 1969, 16–17. The Tonton Macoutes were Duvalier’s special paramilitary police force that maintained his control through brutality and terror.
31. Ibid.
32. J. Anthony Lukas, “Cleaver Is Said to Seek War Prisoner Trade for Jailed Panthers,” New York Times, October 22, 1969, 18. See also Vietnam Moratorium Committee, “Panther Political Prisoners for U.S. Prisoners of War,” Black Panther, November 22, 1969, 3. The negotiations were arranged with support from the Panthers’ Chicago Eight allies. See also “Bobby Kidnapped, Under the Fugitive Slave Law,” Black Panther, November 8, 1969, 4.
33. Committee on Internal Security of the House of Representatives, Gun-Barrel Politics: The Black Panther Party, 1966–1971, 92d Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1971).
34. Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 234.
35. Gramont, “Our Other Man in Algiers,” 228.
36. Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 228–30, Eldridge Cleaver, interview by Gates, 67.
37. Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 232; Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 232; Gramont, “Our Other Man in Algiers.”
38. “An Inevitably Victorious Cause,” quoted in “Cleaver and Black Panther Group Attend Hanoi Observance,” New York Times, August 19, 1970, 13; Liberation News Service, “Message from Anti-Imperialist Delegation of American People While Still Enroute to D.P.R.K.,” reprinted in Black Panther, August 8, 1970, 18; Gramont, “Our Other Man in Algiers.” Kathleen Cleaver met up with the delegation in North Korea but was not part of the delegation and traveled separately; email, Cleaver to Waldo Martin, April 28, 2011.
39. “Anti-Imperialist Delegation of American People Here,” D.P.R.K. Pyongyang Times (the North Korean government newspaper), reprinted in Black Panther, August 8, 1970, 18.
40. “Savage Repression against Black Panther Party of U.S.A. Must Be Stopped Immediately,” D.P.R.K. Pyongyang Times, reprinted in Black Panther, August 8, 1970, 18.
41. Pham quoted in Eldridge Cleaver, Gangster Cigarettes (Stanford, CA: C. P. Times, 1984).
42. “An Inevitably Victorious Cause,” quoted in “Cleaver and Black Panther Group Attend Hanoi Observance,” 13.
43. Eldridge Cleaver, transcript of broadcast over Voice of Vietnam Radio, August 1970, Black Panther, September 26, 1970, 14; see also Kathleen Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 234.
44. Brown, A Taste of Power, 231; see also Eldridge Cleaver, “Cleaver Speaks,” New York Times, November 1, 1970, 228.
45. Gramont, “Our Other Man in Algiers.”
46. Ibid., 228.
15. RUPTURE
1. Wallace Turner, “More Than 100,000 on Coast Demonstrate in Moderate Vein,” New York Times, November 16, 1969, 1; Daryl Lembke and Philip Hager, “Thousands Parade Quietly in S.F. to Show War Frustrations,” Los Angeles Times, November 16, 1969, 1; Tom Wicker, “Dissent: Deepening Threat of a Sharply Divided Nation,” New York Times, November 16, 1969, E1; John Herbers, “250,000 War Protesters Stage Peaceful Rally in Washington; A Record Throng,” New York Times, November 16, 1969, 1; David Hilliard and Lewis Cole, This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party (New York: Little, Brown, 1993), 260–65. The “moratorium” protests a month earlier were even more moderate.
2. Hilliard and Cole, This Side of Glory, 260–65. Video of Hilliard’s speech and the crowd’s reaction, in possession of David Hilliard. See also Turner, “More Than 100,000 on Coast Demonstrate in Moderate Vein”; Lembke and Hager, “Thousands Parade Quietly in S.F.,” 1.
3. “3 Police on Coast Shot by Negroes,” New York Times, November 20, 1968, 94; William Lee Brent, Long Time Gone: A Black Panther’s True-Life Story of His Hijacking and Twenty-Five Years in Cuba (New York: Times Books, 1996), 17–124; “Central Committee, B.P.P. Press Conference,” Black Panther, January 4, 1969, 6.
4. Huey P. Newton, “Executive Mandate No. 3,” Black Panther, March 16, 1968, 1.
5. “Rules of the Black Panther Party, Central Headquarters—Oakland, California,” Black Panther, September 7, 1968, 7. When these rules were first issued, Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale were in charge of the Party, and David Hilliard was just emerging as the person most involved in managing the daily operations of the Party nationally. Kathleen Cleaver and Emory Douglas were also members of the Central Committee. Huey Newton had already been in jail for about a year, and it is hard to know whether he would have approved the rule about participation in the underground Black Liberation Army had he been directly in charge. The rule appears to run against his position in “The Correct Handling of the Revolution,” although not his broader sensibilities. In any event, it is notable that the Party began to enforce strict rules and discipline member behavior in September 1968, the same month that the Panthers announced plans to launch their first Free Breakfast for Children Program. The initial rules and the initial announcement of the free breakfast program were published next to each other on the same page of the Black Panther. As the Party quickly grew and met with increasing repressive action from the state, and as both legitimate members and agent provocateurs engaged in unsupportable actions, the Party sought to groom its public image. Panther leaders likely saw both the purges and the community programs as ways to win broad support and burnish the Party’s reputation.
6. “Central Committee, B.P.P. Press Conference,” 6.
7. “Rules of the Black Panther Party,” 20.
8. Bobby Seale quoted in “Panthers Deny Part in Berkeley Slaying,” San Francisco Examiner, January 13, 1969, 16.
9. “Interview of Chief of Staff David Hilliard,” Black Panther, April 20, 1969, 18.
10. “Interview of Chief of Staff David Hilliard,” Black Panther, April 20, 1969, 18.
11. “Eldridge Cleaver Discusses Revolution—An Interview from Exile,” Black Panther, October 11, 1969, 10–12.
12. “Last Statement by John Huggins,” Black Panther, February 17, 1969, 8.
13. “Reactionaries from the East Oakland Chapter,” Black Panther, March 23, 1969, 4; “Vallejo Chapter Expels Reactionaries,” Black Panther, March 31, 1969, 17.
14. “Pig Conspiracy against Conn. Panthers,” Black Panther, May 31, 1969, 5.
15. “Chicago Panthers Serve the People,” Black Panther, May 31, 1969, 4.
16. Bert, “The Powells: Tools in the Hands of the Fascists,” Black Panther, June 28, 1969, 11; “Harlem Branch Purges,” Black Panther, June 14, 1969, 7.
17. “Boston Purge,” Black Panther, July 19, 1969, 13.
18. “Denver Panthers’ Statement to the Press,” Black Panther, August 9, 1969, 22.
19. East Oakland Branch, Black Panther Party, “Renegers,” Black Panther, February 7, 1970, 15; Illinois Chapter, Black Panther Party, “Expelled,” Black
Panther, February 7, 1970, 8; “No Longer Functioning with the B.P.P.,” Black Panther, October 24, 1970, 9.
20. John W. Finney, “Democrats Back Vietnam Protest,” New York Times, September 27, 1969, 1.
21. John W. Finney, “Lawmakers Back Antiwar Protest,” New York Times, October 7, 1969, 8.
22. John W. Finney, “War Critics Plan to Force All-Night Session of House,” New York Times, October 10, 1969, 1.
23. On Nixon’s policy and for the statistics on troop levels and battle deaths, see Melvin Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 131, 164, 179, 191, 195, 197, 203, 215.
24. SDS had split along ideological lines and lost much of its influence by the time of the large national protests in the fall of 1969. For a poll showing that the majority of respondents now believed that “War was a mistake,” see Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves, 130, 164. Draft induction statistics are from the Selective Service System, History and Records division, Washington, DC, www.sss.gov/induct.htm.
25. Committee on House Administration of the U.S. House of Representatives, Black Americans in Congress: 1870–2007 (Washington, DC: U.S. House Office of History and Preservation, 2008).
26. Paul Frymer, Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 105–6.
27. Manning Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991), 119–20.
28. Cedric Johnson, Revolutionaries to Race Leaders (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 129.
29. John Skrentny, The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 186.
30. Ibid., 177–78.
31. Noliwe M. Rooks, White Money/Black Power: The Surprising History of African American Studies and the Crisis of Race in Higher Education (Boston: Beacon, 2006); Fabio Rojas, From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2007). For statistics on the number of programs in doctoral universities, see ibid., 171.