Original subtitles

With so many Panthers on trial and others facing trial in this building

alone, it is apparent that Charles Gary and his law office associates are quite

busy men.

There was a demonstration of sorts in Oakland today.

Representatives of several.

Yeah, cut it.

Will you describe the shootout to me?

I had a bunch. I think the shooting came from that green building over there.

They had four of them got shot.

Did you see them get shot?

Mm-hmm.

The way of the sit-in, the lie-in, the crawl-in, the cry-in, and the

beg-in is outdated.

There are many, many innocent men and women in prison today simply because of

the fact that they happen to be in the way of a policeman.

The Panthers exhorted people to violence.

In the initial announcements, when they were announcing the Huey Newton rally,

they exhorted people to bring their guns.

He was really nothing but an antisocial gangster. He is a sort of gangster, you

know, because this is a gangster story, but a gangster with a difference because

this is a gangster with a conscience.

I think they're very much a threat to social harmony within this city and

generally throughout the country.

Due process of law has become a joke.

We say that Huey Newton is completely innocent.

After Huey's arrest, that's when things really started rolling.

And I went over the girl's head, down on the other side of her, continued fire.

Those officers fired 99 shots.

Through the walls of an apartment where they knew people were sleeping. That

could have been my son lying there, and I'm going to do as much as I can.

I'm going to start right now to inform white people of what they don't know.

A revolution of value.

Chessing one, two.

Chessing one, two.

Just hang on.

I'm terrified of cameras in large crowds,

especially in New York City.

Last time I came to New York City, they wanted to get me to speak at the Apollo

Theater.

Somebody called me up on the phone and said, Huey, we're going to have to

cancel the rally at the Apollo because somebody's going to assassinate you from

the balcony.

I said, listen, if I'm ever foolish enough to try to get up on stage at the

Apollo Theater, you won't need no assassin to get me. You just have the

man come and hook me off the stage.

But it's called the Sandman.

The same man cometh.

I'm no Patti LaBelle, James Brown.

I'm actually a rather shy individual. I wouldn't consider myself to be, you

know, very charismatic.

You know, I never really did anything hero-like.

You know, I just worked on some little community programs.

I do have a role to play, however, I'm a theorist of sorts. That means I work on

theories, but I really do not enjoy discussing the

details of my personal life, except as it relates to the movement. I hate

interviews, tape recorders, microphones.

Stuck up in my face. I tell you too, people, I hate stages, just because

you're on stage and they expect for you to entertain them.

I keep trying to tell people I'm not an entertainer.

The day I came out of prison, a hot sunny day, so I took my shirt off. A lot

of people wanted to read like a...

You know, a grand gesture into that, like it was something significant.

But it was really, you know, just a little simple act. I'd been in solitary

confinement for three years. I came out, sun was shining, felt good, so I took my

shirt off.

And then shortly thereafter, I received through the mail like a brochure from

some Hollywood outfit.

And they had some little clippings in there, you know, with my picture on it,

with my shirt off. And they had a little letter from the Hollywood studio

attached to the clippings. And the letter from the Hollywood studio said

something to the effect of, Dear Mr. Newton, we feel that you have star

quality.

Something like that.

These Hollywood studios are a trip, because they're in the business of

creating fiction, but we in Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, we're in

the business of creating non-fiction.

We're making revolution.

Coming soon to a cinema near you.

Now here's a selection from the soundtrack.

Hope you enjoy it.

Available now on Panther Records and Tape.

In 8 tracks.

In the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, we're just like the

vanguard of the revolution.

We're like the tip of the spear. We make the first impact.

But really, the real damage is done by the butt of the spear. That's the

people. They make the revolution.

And the butt of the spear makes the real penetration.

You see, without the butt penetration, the spear is no more dangerous than a

toothpick. And people say, well, Huey, you're very violent. Why are you so

violent? Huey, you sit up and talk about spears and penetration and stab people

with toothpicks. And I say, well, hold on. Wait a minute. Time out on the

court.

Existence is violent. I exist.

Therefore, I'm violent in that way.

And I think it's hypocritical to try to pretend otherwise. I really do. I think

it's hypocritical. I think it's hypocritical. I really do. I think it's

hypocritical. I think it's hypocritical in the same way it's hypocritical when

all these vegetarians try to tell you they're not harming anything.

A carrot screams also.

So we reject violence, but we make a distinction between the violence of the

oppressor and the self-defense of the people. We think that the people have a

right and an obligation to defend themselves by any means necessary, just

like Malcolm X said. And you know, some people, sometimes if you want to get rid

of the gun, you've got to pick the gun up.

And we think it's absurd to ask the people in Vietnam to put down their

guns. But when the American ruling circle is napalming them to death, we

think it's absurd. We think it's absurd to ask the people in South Africa

operating underground over there to put down their guns. When black people in

South Africa treat just like slaves, we think it's absurd. All over this world,

we've got to teach our little children how to love and how to defend

themselves. And the only way we can ever resolve this contradiction between love

and self-defense is by reversing the domination through revolutionary action.

And then maybe we can hold on to love and put down some of these guns.

Okay? Look.

I don't even like guns.

I hear guns click around my head and make me nervous.

I don't need no gun to do my thing. Mao Zedong said that power grows out the

barrel of a gun. He never said that power was a gun. That's why I don't need

no gun to do my thing. What I need is some freedom. What I need is the power

to determine my destiny.

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

Let's make that number one on a Black Panther potty top 10, 10-point potty

platform, October 1966.

What we want and what we believe. Number one, we want freedom.

Period.

We want the power to determine the destiny of our black community.

Period.

Number two, we want full employment for our people. That's right.

That's what the brothers and sisters out on block tell me. I say, what's

happening? They say, Huey, I need a job. That's what's happening. I say, right

on. So do I. Maybe we can work together.

Number three.

We want an end to the robbery by the white man of the black community. Wait a

minute. That doesn't sound right. Hold on.

Hold on. I know everybody trying to rip off the black community is white. A lot

of them are black.

Huh? We're not anti-white. We're anti-wrong.

Type this up. Let's do a little revision on number three and just say that we

want an end to the robbery by the capitalist.

The black man, the capitalist. Can you put that in the uppercase?

In the capital letter?

I think it starts with a C. I'm not sure.

Okay, a capitalist.

Number four, we want housing. We want shelter, which is the fifth of human

beings. Because a lot of people around town don't have a roof over their head.

Hard rain falling and getting all wet.

Hi. What do you want? You want some education?

You want some education?

What kind of education you want?

Huh? Education which what? Reveals the true nature of this decadent American

society? That's what I thought you said. Tied that up. Okay, good.

You want an education which teaches us our true history and our role in the

present-day American society?

Put a semicolon in between the first part and the second part. A lot of young

people are going to be reading the ten points and want it to be grammatically

correct, okay? Don't want to be accused of bad punctuation.

Okay, number six, I think we should deal with Vietnam straight up and just say

that we want all black men exempt from military service.

That's right.

We want all black men exempt from military service because you can't have

a black man going over there to fight the yellow man for the white man when

the white man stole his land from the red man. Okay, that makes a nice rhyme,

but no political sense whatsoever.

Okay, we dealt with Vietnam. Let's deal straight up with the streets of Oakland

and just say that we want an immediate end to police brutality and stop the

murder of black people. Stop the murder of black people. Stop the murder of

black people.

Look. Hold on, I got vamped on by some pigs on my way over here this evening.

That's why I call them pigs, because a pig is about a low-life animal.

Pig had the audacity to ask me what I'm doing with my gun. I say, pig, what you

doing with yours?

Number eight, we want all black men immediately released from federal,

state, county, city jails and penitentiaries. Let them go free. They

have not had a fair trial. Nine, they just said they wouldn't. Black people

are brought to trial in this country. We want them tried in a code of law, not

out on the street for some pay, but in a code of law by Jeremy Pierce and

specified by the Constitution of the United States of America. It's a

constitutional right to be tried by Jeremy Pierce.

All right, let's do a little summation for number 10, okay? Let's sum it up.

Now, what do we want, people? We want some land.

Hi? You want some land?

Type it up. You want some land? You want bread?

Alright, that's it. Type it up. Land, bread, housing, education, clothing. I

know you want a black leather jacket. Don't worry. We're going to hook you up.

Land, bread, housing, education, clothing.

Land, bread, housing, education, clothing.

Justice. That's a good one. Always looking for justice. I went to the state

penitentiary looking for justice. That's what I found. Just us.

Land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice.

And what else do we want people?

Huh?

Peace.

I got your peace.

Rest in peace.

Huey P. Newton shoots up integrated theater audience details at 11.

I got you.

But that's what they're interested in, though, isn't it?

Hmm?

Isn't it? I'm talking about the white media.

That's what they like, isn't it? Black men with a gun.

Sensationalism. Shoot them up.

And I must admit that in the early days, we were quite sensational, were we not?

I run around town with a black beret on my head.

My little jacket on, pop that shotgun on my shoulder, bandolier across my chest.

I must look like a combination between Rambo and Shaft.

What do you call that, Shambo?

We engage people in a whole lot of rhetoric when we should have been using

more organizing tactics.

We were perhaps premature in introducing the whole concept of armed struggle to

the black community.

We used a lot of filthy words, a lot of bad language in the black community,

which wound up hitting us from the black community, especially the black church.

So after a while, you go to a Black Panther rally, all you see is white

folks there.

Don't laugh if you know it's true.

But that does not dissolve the white press and the blame the white press

deserves. The white press serves the white establishment, and they are

required to write a lot of nonsense about how all the Black Panther Party

want to do is kill white people, kill police officers. That's a bunch of

nonsense. We have guns. Yes, we did have guns, but they were registered guns.

Okay, just like the NRA's guns, okay? Just like Charlton Heston's guns, okay?

And we were never in violation of gun law in the state of California. Gun law

in the state of California in 1966 said that you could carry a loaded gun out on

the street so long as it was registered, not concealed, and not pointed in a

threatening manner. You could carry the same gun in your automobile so long as

it was not loaded, not concealed, and not pointed in a threatening manner. And

of course, as soon as we started doing that, they changed the gun law on us.

But we had books. We had law books. We had legal education.

Now, legal education was just as much an important part of our self-defense

program as the guns, but you don't read about it. You don't read about the

survival programs that we had going on for the people.

Free children's breakfast program, trying to feed some of these little

hungry kids before they go off to school in the morning. You don't read about

that. You don't read about the educational program that we had going on

for these kids, for the older folks as well. You don't read about the shoe

giveaway, clothing giveaway, coat giveaway that we had going on back east

so people don't freeze to death. You don't read about that. You don't read

about the free prison busing program where we bus people from the communities

out to the prison, to the penitentiaries, so the people can visit

the loved ones who are incarcerated. You don't read about that. You don't read

about the...

a free ambulance service that we had going on in the Winston-Salem, North

Carolina chapter because black people in Winston-Salem, North Carolina would deny

basic emergency health care. You don't read about that. You don't read about

the sale anemia testing program where we tested over 500,000, half a million

people before the U.S. government even realized that sale anemia was a threat

to the well-being of black people in America. Why?

Because there's no guns there, no sensationalism there, no dramatic value.

It doesn't sell newspapers.

It doesn't boost television ratings. It's just some black people getting

organized to help some other black people.

Okay, well, look, hold on, hold on. But look, look, look, look, look, hold on.

If you read the FBI files, if you read the FBI files, if you read the FBI

files, which I have read because you got about a million pages in there with my

name on it. Okay, look, if you read the FBI files, you will see that even Mr. J.

Edgar Hoover himself had to say that it was not the guns that were the greatest

threat to the internal security of the United States of America. It was not the

guns. What was it, people? Huh?

What was the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States

of America in the opinion of Mr. J. Edgar Hoover? What was it? Huh?

The greatest threat to the internal security in United States of America was

the free children's breakfast program.

That

was

the greatest threat to the internal security in United States of America.

Grits. Now, why was it free?

Huh?

Now,

why was it a children's breakfast program? It was a children's breakfast

program because what? Because the children's breakfast program, what? It

engendered a certain following on the black community's part. Right, sister?

Huh? A certain respect on the black community's part. Right, sister?

I mean, nobody can argue with free grits, right? So Hoover saw it as a kind

of a, he said the children's breakfast program, he said it was a, what was the

word he used?

What was the word he used in the file? He said the grits was a, what was the

word he used? He said it was a, he said it was a,

Uh, infiltration.

That's funny, ain't it? It's funny. Ain't it funny?

It's funny.

Infiltration, I mean, how are black people who were born and raised in the

black community, who live and work in the black community, going to infiltrate

their own black community? You tell me that.

If anybody's infiltrating, I think it's J. Edgar Hoover.

Probably in a negligee.

Now, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on. You want to talk about Victoria's

Secret? Let's talk about J. Edgar's Secret.

Now, here's a fair-skinned black man trying to pass himself off as a dark

-skinned white woman.

Now, that's a hell of an infiltration. If it's successful. If it's not, it's

just a mess.

Look, I think you got the wrong word. Anyway, I wouldn't call it infiltration.

I'd call it revolution. Straight up, wouldn't you?

Huh? How do you spell that? Oh, people, watch my back, please. I thought I heard

some high heels sneaking up behind me.

J. Edgar Hoover, you little bitch.

Watch my back, people, please. You got my back?

He's my back guy.

Appreciate it.

First of all, I'd like to say all power to the people.

Here's your minister of defense, Huey P. Newton, speaking live and direct from

the belly of the beast, the Nine of Wolves, where Big Brother's always

watching you, CMC East, the state panchantry.

They say that this is a preferred prison.

Some of the inmates in here are going to think that it is a preferred prison, but

you know and I know that this is just a little prison.

The big prison is on the outside.

This is just the outside in miniature.

But like the poem by Dryden, I should like to say that even if paradise were

my prison, I should still like to leap the crystal wall.

They assigned me some menial tasks.

Of course, I refused.

They put me on cell lockdown, solitary confinement, confiscating my deodorant,

my soap, my shaving powder, my toothpaste, my toothbrush, my reading

and writing materials.

I have no political or literary expression whatsoever.

And whenever I do get to shower, they throw me in the shower with the Nazis

and knock the door behind us. In fact, just the other day, they threw me in the

shower with this guy who had bashed in the brains of another inmate with a

baseball bat.

I'm butt naked. He's butt naked. I'm looking at him. He's looking at me. He

looks like he's getting ready to make a move. I get ready to defend myself.

He walked over to me real slow, stuck out his hand and said, oh.

So you're Huey P. Newton? Wow, you're famous. Can I shake your hand?

And then the authorities said, well, Newton, that guy is very dangerous. You

did a good job with him. You should come on and work with us now, boy.

But I'm going to keep on fighting until I die, however that may come.

And listen, David, if they touch me, you know what to do.

But for the time being, I would like for you to maintain discipline within the

ranks. I like a straight story minus the rhetoric. I would like to know how many

Black Panther papers we've been selling on the outside.

And I would like to know how we can secure some shoes.

Because you know they got some brothers in here who can make some shoes. You can

get just about any kind of shoe you want in here for just two cartons of

cigarettes. So we got to see how we can get a shoe factory going on the outside.

And get some jobs for some of these brothers to come out of here.

And get some shoes. We got so many black people in prison in America right now. I

lost count.

But we must know that prison can never be victorious.

Because walls and bars and guards and sales can never keep... to hold down a

suppressing idea.

I'm going to close out now by saying all power to the people.

We're going to leap this crystal wall.

Life does not begin at birth.

Mine certainly didn't. My life was forged in the life of my parents before

me and their parents before them, their parents before them, their parents

before them.

My parents gave me courage and strength.

They taught me to be unafraid of life and therefore unafraid of death.

They were both very much involved in the NAACP through our church. My father, in

fact,

was a man of the church, small man, he wasn't very tall, but whenever he stood

up in that pulpit on Sunday morning, he was like the tallest man in the world to

me. Hard-working man, he worked three or four jobs simultaneously to support us.

He had two, seven children in the family. I'm the youngest one of seven.

We were poor, of course. I didn't know what that meant at that time. All I knew

was that my daddy was away from home quite often, and I resented him for that

at that time, but I now realize that he did it because he loved us.

And we did love him in return.

Even though he was what you might call a benevolent tyrant.

See, there was only one correct way of doing anything in this wide world, and

that was always my daddy's way.

Sound like anybody to you?

That's what I thought.

And, you know, even at a young age, I was a little hard-headed, you know,

running around, you know, trying to resist my daddy's authority, you know,

smoking coos behind his back.

And they usually paid for that resistance on my backside.

On the classical piano.

They saved up so I could have private lessons. They want me to travel the

world playing the classical concerto like the classical brother. What's his

name? Andre... What's the classical brother's name?

Andre... Andre Watts.

He's a brother, isn't he?

Okay,

I think he's a brother. I don't know if he's a Panther, but I think he's a

brother.

Anyway...

Anyway, I resisted all that Andre Watts riot stuff, and I got myself together.

Thank you.

As a young adult, and I went on to law school, which made my parents very happy

because they figured I would graduate from law school, take the bar, pass the

bar. come practicing a tenor name, make a lot of money. Of course, I dropped

out, and that disappointed them. They saw it as a form of ingratitude after

all they had sacrificed for me. But I tell you the truth, people, because I

didn't come to New York City to lie to you. I tell you the truth, the only

reason why I started shutting the law in the first place was so that I could

become a better burglar.

Now, that's true. No, that's true. The first college course I ever signed up

for back in junior college was a course in criminology because I wanted to be a

criminal, but I didn't know which type.

So I figured...

No, so I figured I would take a course in criminology. Maybe that would help me

make up my mind.

I was a big-time fool. That's what I was. That's why I have confidence in

knowing. what a big time fool is. But I heard through some other people when I

went to prison that my parents did support my Panther Act, made me feel

very good, made me feel even better when I was able to come out of prison. My

parents were able to tell me that straight to my face. In fact, first

place I went to when I came out of prison on that high Sunday day was to

see my mama.

She wasn't doing too good. She was in the hospital at the time, but she was

doing a whole lot better when I walked through that hospital door. I'll never

forget it. A whole lot of hugging up, going on. There was a joyous reunion.

And then I went straight away to see my daddy, and he was overwhelmed.

It said that he didn't think that he would live long enough to see me

released from prison, and then he wept.

Of course, my namesake is Governor Huey P. Long of Louisiana.

That's where I'm from, Louisiana.

And it seemed like my daddy felt that Huey P. Long had done positive things

for black people in Louisiana, so he named me after him.

And as you can imagine, the name always caused me a few difficulties.

Not really political problems, per se, but really more problems of a personal

nature, you see, because I was the youngest one of saving. I was a baby,

and my name was Huey.

So everybody want to call me...

Don't say it. Okay, look, don't say it.

Don't say it. Don't even think about saying it. You don't want to know what

happened to the last person who called me that to my face. Don't say it. I

don't play it.

Huh? Who want to be named after a little funny-looking, funny-walking, funny

-talking cartoon duck with a bonnet on his head? I don't play that, baby. And

these kids can be merciless. Rhyming on your name? Oh, my God. They rhyming on

my name every day. Running me home from school, throwing rocks outside my head,

talking about Huey P. Huey P. Go wee, wee, wee. Huey P. Go wee, wee, wee.

Throwing rocks outside.

Huey P. Go wee, wee. Boom!

I'm running home to my mama, you know, tears coming down my face, rocks outside

my head. I said, Mama, Mama, Mama, I don't want to be Huey P. Newton no more.

I don't want to be Huey P. Newton no more. My mama just said, listen, son,

son, listen, son, Huey P. Newton was the name that you was giving at Boith, and

that is the name that you were carrying to your grave, Huey P. Newton. Now get

inside, wipe off your face, sit down, and practice your Rachmaninoff.

Oh my God, there were these little stories they used to tell about my dad.

Back in Louisiana? That's where we're from, Louisiana.

Did I tell you we're from Louisiana?

Or could you just, okay.

Well, it seemed like my daddy, it seemed like my daddy back in Louisiana got into

a little dispute with a white man.

And the white man said, well, you know, boy, if ever I get into a dispute with a

colored fella, I sure enough have to with him.

My father just looked him straight in the eye for about a minute or two and

said, well, you know, if another man with me, he got to be the better man and

you don't look like you qualify.

Then we moved to California.

And my father went out to Oakland, California with another good friend of

his who was also trying to support a large family. This friend of his got a

good job with the Oakland Public Works Department, something like that. But he

quit that job because he got a new job with the Oakland Police Department.

He must have been one of the first black police officers from the force. I'm

talking about way back, 1952, 1953, something like that. And my father broke

friendship with him, not because he joined the police force. You know, he

had to support his family just like my daddy. But he broke his friendship with

him because his friend was only allowed to arrest black people.

So he broke his friendship with him on principle, because that's the kind of

man my daddy was. He was a man of high standing principle. And I suppose the

funny thing is, in my immediate family, color was never really the cue, because

we had people in my immediate family of all colors, right? All complexions, all

hair textures. My father, in fact, was even more fair-skinned than I am.

Straight black hair. His father was a white rapist. But color was never really

the cue in the family. I mean, sometimes it'd be a little tearful, a little

argument in the family. You know what you call it.

One of my lighter-skinned sisters read. They get her upset. She started crying

through her freckles. Well, you tell one of my darker-skinned sisters, hey, you

so black, you would leave fingerprints on coal.

But it was all just in the family. It didn't have anything to do with this

perverse color complex which seemed to infect Americans at every level. That's

something altogether.

In fact, I was reading a news item just the other day that blew my mind about

this guy, Jimmy the Greek. Did you hear about him? Jimmy the Greek, sports

broadcaster, one of the television networks.

And he was fired from his network position because allegedly he said that

black people are intellectually inferior because we are athletically superior.

But he did not say that. What he said was that black people, if given the

chance, can do anything they want in the society, even play golf and tennis. But

see, the society is programmed to read into every little thing black

inferiority, when really it's just a question of black superiority, which all

they have to do is get some black folks to enslave them for 400 years, give them

the worst housing, the worst food, the worst education, the worst clothing, and

then the weak gene line would die out and a truly superior race of people

would emerge.

Now, hold on. Wait a minute. Hold on.

Hold on, hold on. I'm not talking about what the Reverend Jesse Jackson has to

say. I'm talking about what the Reverend Hugh P. Newton has to say. And I do not

expect white media to create positive black male images. Positive black male

images are created through revolution.

And I thank you if you say that I have scared you. Hey, I take it as a

compliment. Because any time that a black man in America stands up against a

slave mentality, he's going to scare some white people.

And some black folks, too.

Just ask Paul Robeson. He'll tell you about it.

We're not going to do anything on this television talk show but procrastinate.

I hope you realize that by now.

So might as well just kick back and relax and enjoy the musical interlude.

You scared people, Huey.

You scare people, you.

You scare people, you.

Good, I'm glad. I'm glad I scared you. You need to be scared. Boo.

You scared me with all that bad folk music.

Wearing all that funky buckskin in French.

White people in America are a trip, huh? They exterminate the Native American,

then they try to dress up just like them.

Huh? What kind of necrophilia is that?

You scare people.

Funkin' up the elevator with all that patchouli oil. Please, come on, y'all.

Come on, y'all. Take a bath.

Now, I used to get a lot of visions and dreams.

I used to get a lot of visions and dreams. Not Dr. King's dream. I had my

own dream. Thank you very much, okay?

None of that we shall be overcomes. I never write anything down, so forget the

damn thing.

So what I did this evening is I brought in some stuff that I've been working on.

It's a little poetry.

Did you know I wrote poetry? You didn't know I wrote poetry. You're kidding. He

wrote poetry? Wow, how sensitive of him. Wow, I thought he was just a black

militant. Wow. But I'm not a poet per se. I do enjoy expressing myself in a

poetic form. I'm Nomai Angelou.

But I can tell you why the cage bird sang.

Thank you very much.

But I am currently working on my life story. It's going to be a film for

Richard Pryor's company.

No, really, Richard Pryor's a very good friend of mine. He put me in rehab.

No, come on, it's true. He financed the whole thing. He said, this nigga's

motherfucking lame.

At least I didn't shoot up my car.

But I am the scholarly co-author of an article in

the book, A Social Evolution, edited by Professor Robert Trivers, University of

California, Santa Cruz.

The title of the book, A Social Evolution, the title of my chapter, is

Deceit and Self-Deception Amongst Plants, Animals, and Ourselves.

Don't laugh.

Okay, that's not a joke. That's a book. You missed a joke. That's a book. Look

it up the library.

Look it up, library, Newton, N-A-W-T-O-N, Huey P., just before you

get to Sir Isaac, okay?

But I'm not a writer.

I'm not a writer.

I don't have the discipline for it. I tell you that discipline right now, I

don't have the discipline for it. In fact, I'll tell you this. You might not

believe me. In fact, I said this just the other day. My closest comrade called

me a liar to my face in public. It was embarrassing.

But I'm going to say the same thing to you.

You can say the same thing to me if you want to. But listen, people, when I was

graduating from high school, I was a functional illiterate, believe me.

Cat, dog, uh-uh, uh-uh. Spot, uh-uh. Dick, Jane, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh. I

didn't know those words. No, I didn't know those words. I didn't know those

words. And I definitely didn't know the words on my high school diploma,

especially the ones in Latin. The only reason they graduated me in the first

place was to get rid of me because I was like one of the top five or six bad guys

in the school system. So they figured they'd graduate Huey P. Noonan to get

rid of Huey P. Noonan. I was suspended from school approximately 38 times.

That's a conservative estimate.

I was kicked out of virtually every public school. in Berkeley and Oakland

public schools. They told me I had an IQ of about 74, maybe 75 on a good day. But

I didn't like the authority that they had for me. I didn't like the discipline

that they had for me. I like to fight. I like to fight. I like to bite people's

ears off. I like to choke my basketball coach.

I didn't like authority.

I didn't like discipline. I didn't like the curriculum. I didn't like the

reading list, Cinderella.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. What am I going to do with one dwarf, let alone

seven? Nothing but kick him in the little ass.

Seven times seven.

Little Black Sambo. Please, every time they read Little Black Sambo in the

classroom, all the black kids in the class are laughing out of embarrassment

and hide their faces out of shame. I hate it. Little Black Sambo. You want to

do an announcement to Little Black Sambo?

huh you want to do it let's do an analysis a little black sample a little

black sample okay little black boy right the only little black boy we ever read

about in public school system right right okay now granted he was rich he

didn't fit in the poor black boy stereotype he was rich he was giving all

these presents from his daddy but he gets into a little confrontation with

these tigers and he gives up all the presents without a struggle he's a

little black coward

And then at the end of story all I want to do is kick back and relax and eat

some pancakes He's a little black glutton

I hate it, huh? I hate it, Little Black Sam. But man, one time they're reading

that story in the classroom, I got so upset, I took my shoe off, I threw it at

the instructor.

Huh? She got upset, so I cry.

Run out the classroom, I took my other shoe off, I threw it, I hit her up the

side of the head with that one.

And then all the kids in the classroom start talking about, oh, he used to go

wee, wee, wee, but now he cries it. He cries it now. Oh, he think he cries it.

He cries it. Oh, he cries it. He cries it. He cries it. I say, cool, cool, call

me crazy, call me crazy, call me crazy, call me crazy, call me crazy, because

that's what they call my daddy back in Louisiana. Crazy, crazy, crazy, yellow

nigga.

I suppose with my PhD, they would have to call me crazy doctor nigger.

But my deepest difficulty, people, when I was in high school, adolescence,

teenager, my deepest difficulty was not a little black sand bowl. My deepest

difficulty, people, was the fact that I could not dance.

Don't laugh, that's not funny, okay? That's a tragedy.

Okay, young black man can't dance is a big time tragedy.

Shakespeare go to town on that one, the tragedy of young black man who could not

dance.

We'd be here all night, have to have a gumbo intermission. Don't laugh at my

pain. Please, people. I was a little too shy, a little too self-conscious. I

wasn't doing those dances they were doing back then. And I didn't have a

developed sense of rhythm. I didn't fit into the racial stereotype.

Thank you very much. And I wasn't doing those dances. I wasn't doing the twist,

the afro twist, the peppermint twist. I wasn't doing none of those twists.

They say, Huey, come on, let's do the camel walk. I said, look, I'm not trying

to walk like a camel, one hump or two humps. It's difficult enough trying to

walk like a man in this society, let alone getting down on the floor and

doing the gator. Wilson Pickett talking about he got to land up a thousand feet.

I'm not doing one of them.

Watch yourself. You're showing your age and your color. Watch yourself now.

Now, when I go to the dance party, the high spot, everybody starts dancing. You

know how I play it off, don't you?

They got my poetry.

And you know they cause some fights. Oh, my God. They be trying to... Bust my

head trying to bust the rhyme.

But poetry was the way that I got onto the educational track, because I was

very fortunate in that I had my older brother, Melvin.

He's four years old, and I am a great scholar. He was in college when I was in

high school. And Melvin, God bless him, recognized I was having certain, you

know, educational difficulties. That's what you call a euphemism. And he used

to bribe me like 25 cents a quarter if I could memorize certain verses from

certain classical poems and plays. You know, he had me doing like the Eisenman

Dias, you know that one? Shelley, the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock. T.S.

Eliot, you know, the bells and the raven, you know. and the Shakespeare and

all that. I was pretty good at it because I could hear something like once

or twice memorized in that fashion, always had a good memory, always a good

bluff. My secret technique was I'd get myself in a room late at night, lock the

door behind me, get myself a long playing record, you know, what a record

is, put a record on the turntable, you know, stick the needle up in the groove,

you know, just listen to the thing over and over and over and over again, try to

follow along in the script in the book, but I couldn't, because I couldn't read,

I didn't know the words.

I could like listen to the thing and pick it up through the oral tradition. I

remember this one guy, he used to record a lot of these. records. Funny looking

guy, little mustache.

You see him on Johnny Carson shows sometimes.

He came out of the films House of Wax, Dr. Fives. My favorite one was The

Theater of Blood, where he played the demented actor that took revenge on all

the critics.

What a man name. He had the spooky voice on the Michael Jackson thriller thing.

What a man name. Help me on this one. Vincent Price.

Did I say Vincent Price? Man, I love, thank you. I love Vincent Price. I love

Vincent Price. Vincent Price is nice, man. I love Vincent Price. Vincent Price

is nice. Hello, this is Vincent Price. Oh!

Oh, man, I love Mrs. Rice. Mrs.

Rice is cool, right?

So I listened to my Mrs. Rice band all night long, all night long, all night

long till the break of dawn. Then the next night I'd go to the dance party,

everybody started dancing, you know, and I would start reciting, and everybody

would start fighting.

And see, by that time, my brother Melvin had become what you might call an

amateur hypnotist, and he started training me on how to put people in

hypnotic trances, and people started saying, wow, Huey P. Newton has mystical

powers, wow.

And that caused a lot of fights, too, especially when... when I successfully

hypnotized my brother's girlfriend.

Anyway, the first book that I made my way through on my own independently, I'm

very proud of that book.

Big book, difficult book. You know, I had to go through that book like five or

six times before I figured out what was going on in that book.

And I never did learn how to pronounce all those long Greek names. I really

didn't. Huh?

I don't know how Greek people talk to each other, really. Huh?

I would hate to have to listen to two Greek people making love and three Greek

people forget about Pastor Olive Oil, I guess.

After I had mastered the Plato's Republic, I started engaging my little

girlfriends in like philosophical existentialist type dialogues, you know.

I would kick back, you know, real cool, you know, in the corner at the house

party, you know. And I would light up a cigarette, you know.

And I would ask my little girlfriends like existentialist, you know,

philosophical, you know, type questions like...

Do you have free will?

Is your God omniscient?

Is she all powerful?

Did you create God?

Or did God create you?

Can I get that phone number?

What you doing talking Greek to my girl? I have a Brother Velvet hat for you,

man. I learned a classic. The Shakespeare Macbeth. Come on.

Talking about life. Full of sound and fury.

Nothing.

But even if life is full of sound and fury, hopefully it can signify

something.

You know what I'm saying?

Hopefully I can get my significance on.

Hopefully I can be like the great blues man Robert Johnson sitting up at the

crossroads. Sound to the east of me, fury to the west. Hopefully I can go

straight ahead and follow the North Star like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass,

get my significance on.

I was discussing this, in fact, just the other evening with a very close comrade

of mine over some barbecue.

And what I was saying was that this is the existentialist dilemma. You look at

the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, you see the preacher, he was the first

existentialist. He wanted to live as a dog rather than die as a lion.

And then you can talk about Kierkegaard, Kafka, Camus, and all that. But don't

ignore the existentialist blues tradition. Blues tradition of Bessie

Smith, Clara Smith, Mamie Smith, any Smiths to tell you about it. East St.

Louis blues, Miles David, blowing blues.

Son of a dentist, but still, he blowin' blues. Call it jazz, it's just blues.

It's all blues, it's all blues, it's all blues, it's all blues. Seattle, left

-handed, plugged in, electronic, psychedelic. They call it rock and roll,

but it's just blues.

Choke on your vomit in London. Blues, blues, blues, blues.

My comrade said, well, that's a very interesting analysis, comrade Huey, but

would you please pass me that barbecue?

And I said, sure, you want chicken and ribs? He said, well, I dig the pig. Can

you spare a rib? I said, I think I can spare a rib. You want hot sauce on it?

He said, hell yeah, you know I'm from Texas. You know I want the hot sauce.

One day I'm going to... my own barbecue sauce.

I said, right on. What? Huh?

What happened?

Oh, is that the... Oh, is that the... Okay.

That's a poetry cue. Okay, cool. All right.

Missed my poetry cue sitting up here talking about barbecue.

Okay, here we go.

I like that sound.

That's a sweet sound. I just threw it up on that.

Okay, here it is.

Let me do this one.

One day I realized I had forgotten name, age, sex, dress, race.

I had found myself.

What is greater than love or hate? I will tell you then. What is greater than

love is the relationship I have with the tip of my finger.

That's it.

I can break it down, simple concept, no problem. Break it down, okay, it's a

simple concept.

You see, if I try to define myself as my finger, I deny myself my thumb, but if I

try to define myself as my thumb, I deny myself my hand.

But if I try to define myself as my hand, I deny myself what?

My arm.

That's it, you're with it.

If I try to define myself as my arm, I deny myself what?

The body.

But if I try to define myself as my body, I deny myself what?

The head.

The universe, right? My soul.

It's like I diminish myself, right?

Huh?

Everybody got it?

Okay. See how y'all do on the next one.

Okay, here we go.

I do not know enough about myself because you do not know enough about

yourself.

Would you help me know?

I met someone who was part of myself I did not appreciate.

It is not that our ego is too large. The problem is that our ego is too small.

Love is more constant than life.

Anybody like that one?

You like it? I appreciate it. But I think you're in the minority. I really

do. Because I can take it or leave it myself.

No, really. I just want to be brutally honest about language, about words.

I really do, at this point in time. I don't think that language is really

good. I don't think that the human language is really caught up with the

rest of the human evolutionary process.

You're sitting up trying to compose like a funny Valentine, and

you can't do it, so what do you do? You wind up making an investment in the

Hallmark Corporation.

And then when the words fail, when the language fail, when the poetry fail,

then what do we do? We wind up trying to touch each other, right?

Huh?

Jump back into the womb and reconnect.

So you know the first thing they did when they brought us over here was

separate us. You remember, don't you? Put us in a cage.

Tried to breed us like a, uh, uh, uh, uh, like a, uh, uh.

What's the James Brown song?

Like a sex machine.

No love there. And then whenever they killed us down south, they always made

sure that they would cut our penis off. What's that all about? The topless and

bottomless performances, I hate it with a passion because they have a nerve to

call it the love act.

They say, come on in. See, the live love act. I mean, what did love got to do

with all that? See, love is such a used and abused and battered term.

What we got to know is love and hate are not opposites.

They're both sitting up on the same frequency, Kenna.

The opposite of both love and hate is indifference.

And it's impossible for black folks in America to be indifferent about

anything. So you can imagine the kind of agony that's going to put somebody

through trying to reconcile love and hate.

Got another one.

I heard God call.

I got my gun and waited.

When he appeared, I realized and took the gun from my head.

I don't know if the poetry is working.

So I might as well just turn up the music.

I guess that's what they call that contemporary jazz.

It was close to the blues, wasn't it?

I mean, jazz and blues, they had the same genealogy. They both had the same

granddaddy, great-granddaddy, great-great-granddaddy, too.

My closest comrade told me that

Jazz is like the blues' light-skinned cubs.

Everything coming out that blues thing.

All the popular music.

Unpopular music, too.

Huh?

I called up the so-called soul station the other night. I was listening to the

radio. I was irate. They had the nerve to play the Eric Clapton version of I

Shot the Sheriff.

Huh? I called him up. I said, don't y'all know that a Jamaican brother wrote

that song?

Huh?

Eric clapped.

Talking about I shot the sheriff. I bet you he didn't do no time for it.

At least Frank Sinatra had the decency to admit who he ripping off.

He said Billie Holiday was the greatest influence on him.

I bet you he didn't send her no residual check.

When Billie Holiday died, they didn't change the lights over on the Empire

State Building, did they?

Huh? She said just another dead junkie.

Said she funky junkie, but she's just a dead junkie. I guess that's what they

call the blues, though, isn't it?

Huh?

And that's why the lady's singing it.

Hmm.

Everything coming out of the blues, even the new thing that these kids got going

on. With the Sugar Hill Kids, what do they call them, the Sugar Hill Kids?

Huh? With the new thing, what they call it? The rap.

The what?

The rap.

Like H-Rap Brown. The rap. Okay, I understand that correlation.

Okay, rap.

I was watching a news program just the other evening on the public broadcast,

and they was doing a documentary on these kids in Brooklyn Bed-Stuy. Bed

-Stuy, I think that's where the Panther headquarters was bulldozed. No, it

wasn't bulldozing Bed-Stuy. That was in New Orleans. I get my pig.

Mixer.

They was interviewing these kids out on the street, black Puerto Rican kids, and

they was asking them what they want to be when they grow up. And the kids was

saying, you know, I want to be doctor, lawyer, chief of staff, armed forces.

And they asked this one little chubby boy, I think his name is Christopher,

funny eye, and they asked him what he want to be when he grow up. And he said,

well, when I grow up, I haven't really made up my mind, but when I grow up, I

want to be either a gangster or a rapper. And they said, can you do an

example of the rap? Because I guess they didn't want no example of the gangster.

He's just saying, Christopher, say, yeah, I can do an example of it. And

then the little boy just snatch up the man, Mike, right up out of his head. Oh,

my God, it was notorious.

He just snatch up the man, Mike.

He said, this is the rap I'm going to do when I get big. Because he was small,

but he figured he was going to get big. He said, this is the rap I'm going to

do. He said, birthdays was the worst day.

But now we're sipping champagne when we're thirsty.

I love that.

I love that. That's brilliant, man. I love the way he rhymed my birthday and

Thursday, man. That's almost as good as Hotel Motel, boy. I tell you, boy.

And I hope he achieve his dream. I really do. I hope he achieve his dream.

I hope his dream don't turn out to be like Dr. King's dream. Ooh, that turned

out to be a nightmare. But it make me feel good to know that this child's

going to be around for a long time. But I don't know if the rap thing is going

to last.

I can't imagine anybody outside of Brooklyn wanting to buy it.

He might be better off as a gangster, because America can always use a new

gangster, especially in the White House.

Maybe he can somehow combine his interests, put the gangster together

with the rap, like a double major.

It makes me feel good to know that this child is not even going to be 30 years

old by the time the century changes over into the year 2000, 2001.

And you know, I'll still be a rather young man myself.

You know, Stokely will be doing his thing. You know, Eldridge is going to

have his soul on ice. We'll be like three to Hardway. That was a boss flick,

wasn't it? Ooh, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, three to Hardway. Jim Brown,

Fred Williamson, who the third one? Jim Kelly. Ooh, Jim Kelly bad. Kick you

straight up in the belly, Jim Kelly. Huh?

And don't mess his afro up none.

I tell you, man, the afro is cool, man.

Jim Kelly, man.

Whoo, I tell you, boy. I think they changed his name when he came out to

Hollywood. It used to be O'Kelly. They said Jim O'Kelly was too ethnic.

Now, he had a little cousin, bald-headed cousin. What's his name? R. Kelly, yeah.

We used to run around the house talking about he could fly.

Nothing down there, darling. Come on now.

But you heard about having a... There ain't no way I'm fighting that black

Irish.

You know he crazy.

But this blues thing is phenomenal.

It's a stone that the builder refused.

You'll always be the head corner stone.

That's my daddy's sermon, but you don't want to hear that because we definitely

have to have a gumbo intermission.

But it's a phenomenal thing, everything coming out. of the blues tradition.

In fact, I wrote a little poem which was inspired by a definition that my comrade

gave me. And it goes a little something like this. It said, blues is a

note between a note and

a geek.

A geek is like a circus performer who's very talented, like a flying Melinda,

like a high trapeze artist, but he fall down, get injured in a line of duty, get

crippled. The circus people feels very sorry for him because circus work is all

he's ever done. It's all he can do, all he's been trained to do.

The circus people are the kindness of their heart. What they do is they get

themselves a cage and they put the geek in the cage. And for the entertainment

value, they get themselves a live chicken and they lock it in the cage

with the geek. And the geek is then required to...

Chase the chicken, catch the chicken, kill the chicken, eat the chicken raw.

Now, nobody want no raw chicken, especially with no hot sauce on it. But

he got to do it because he got to survive.

And that's all he's been trained to do. It's all he can do. So he got to chase

that chicken. He got to catch that chicken. He got to kill that chicken. He

got to eat that chicken head.

Feather, bone, blood just running down his face. It's nasty, but he's smart.

The geek is smart.

Because what he does is he saves one solitary chicken bone for the end of the

so-called performance. And at the end of the so-called performance, he throws

that chicken bone out to one member of the audience. Because he realizes all

those people out there on the outside of the cage.

All those people out there outside of the cage watching him do his thing. What

he got to do to survive even though he crippled. All those people on the

outside of the cage watching him.

They're the freaks. See what I'm saying?

He the geek.

And all of them out there?

They're the freaks.

And that's what the geek and the freak is.

Is that clear?

Good.

walk into the room with your pencil in your hand you see somebody

naked in you you say who is that man you try so

hard but you don't understand just what you will

say when you get home

Because something is happening here, but you don't know what it is.

Do you, Mr.

Jones?

You raise up your head and you ask, is this where it is?

And somebody points to you and says, it's his.

And you say, what's mine? And somebody else says, well, what is?

And you say, oh, my God, am I here all alone?

But something is happening and you don't know what it is.

Do you, Mr.

Jones?

You hand in your ticket and you go watch the geek who

immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak and says,

how does it feel to be such a freak? And you say, impossible, as

he hands you in bones.

And something is happening here, but you don't know what it is.

Do you, Mr.

Jones?

But nobody has any respect.

Anyway, they already expect you.

to all give a check to Tax Deductible Charity Organization.

Ah, you've been with the professors and they've all liked

your looks.

With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks.

You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books.

You're very well read, it's well known.

I'd like to introduce you to someone.

Ladies and gentlemen, UAP Newton.

A very handsome young black man who has written a book.

Revolutionary Suicide.

A concept I shall now ask Mr. Newton.

Pleased to explain. My opinion of him was basically that he was just a

gangster. It's a very violent man. There were allegations that you pistol-whipped

the tailor.

How do I express my love for you, brother? I think that we should be, at

some point, considering making Huey P. Newton's birthday a national holiday. A

holiday for this man?

That's funny, okay?

Because he's wrong about his way. You scared people, Huey.

You and I share a favorite movie, Black Orpheus. He's a real gentle,

compassionate man.

The white man makes you a drug addict. Thank you for appearing tonight on my

baby's birthday.

It may be that one of the difficulties you have as chief spokesman for the

Black Panther Party is you're totally incoherent. Huey, for whatever reasons,

The system has really put you through the mill.

Are you bitter? If you had to do all over again, would you change anything?

I don't know what you're talking about, and I think you don't either.

Is any or all of that true?

No.

No, none of that is true.

I've never actually been convicted of anything.

I've been charged about 58 times.

They charged me with being everything under the sun, except being the son of

man, but I've never really been convicted of anything.

I was accused in 1974 of murdering a prostitute. I was acquitted of that

charge. I came back from Cuba to stand trial for that charge. I was acquitted

of that charge.

What I found and what my lawyers found was that there were about a million

pages of FBI documents with my name on it. They want to tear down my character

and destroy my heart and reputation, intimidate my family members, call me an

outlaw, which I'll accept. I'll be the outlaw because in order to change the

law, you've got to step outside the law. That's what revolution means. It means

to change. Look it up in Webster's.

They call me a deviant, which I'll accept it well.

I'm a big-time deviant because I deviate from docility.

I deviate from behavior, what is commonly referred to as a good negro.

Tom.

Come here, boy.

That's it.

Go on, Tom. Roll over. Play dead for the people. Look.

That's my Tom. Look at him. He's cute. Look at him.

That's it. That's my little Tom. Look.

That's it. Give the people.

Come on. You rock, chicken.

You want the hot sauce on? No, you don't want the hot sauce on. Come on. Mmm,

mmm, mmm.

Yeah, you chicken. Come on. Fetch it.

Fetch it. That's it. Come on, Tom.

Fetch it. That's it, my Tom.

Come on, Tom. Fetch it. Fetch it. Step in. Fetch it!

What did the woman say? Huey P. Newton, living in Palacios, planning a $650 a

month deluxe penthouse, popping in the sky, moving on up.

I live here because I have to. This is a security building. I have to take

certain precautions.

This is nothing more than a second sale.

But I have to be here right now, getting my kicks back here.

Looking through my telescope at those people down there on the street, living

their life with joy. See, I'm not allowed to have joy right now. I've got

to defer my enjoyment until the appropriate time. It's inappropriate for

me to be joyful right now.

But when I was down there on the street, I used to get my joy out of some pretty

stupid, petty, insignificant thing. I used to get my joy out of a good fist

fight, and that was stupid.

But then on the other hand, you realize that when you grow up and you reach your

full maturity and you learn to distinguish between what is significant

and what is insignificant, you lose a lot in that process, too. So I guess

that's why I'm up here right now, 25 floors above the concrete, looking for

joy like that. Local records, though, in the blues section, don't see them blues

-looking frozen foods. You know what I'm talking about?

You know what I'm talking about? You don't know what the hell I'm talking

about, do you?

You pay good money to see Huey P. Newton. Huey P. Newton sit up here like

he's smoking drugs. Look, let me break it down to you this way, people. It's

like you go into a kitchen. You've got to prepare a special dish. You look in

the cookbook. You see the recipe called for in the onion, the big onion. You've

got to peel up that big onion. You've got to chop up that big onion. And the

tears come down your face. You're crying just like a baby.

And you're saying to yourself, where's the joy?

What is the gumbo going to taste like? So you don't know what the gumbo is

going to taste like. All you know is that you're crying just like a baby.

See, this is just like if you want to change the system, but you don't know

what the system is going to be like after you change it. All you know is

that you don't like the way things are right now, so you're just getting

frustrated and angry, and you're getting lonely, and I guess my loneliness is

just like a byproduct of my immaturity, I suppose, because you know I was in

solitary confinement for three years, and while I was in there, I certainly

learned the value of meditation.

I learned the value of masturbation, too, but that's another thing.

Look, people, come on now. I am no saint.

I am no saint. I haven't achieved what the Buddha's called. What the Buddha's

called? Anybody's in the house, what do you call it? Like a personal serenity.

Like samadhi? Is that what you call it? Samadhi? Like help me, samadhi? Look,

whatever they call it, whatever they call it, whatever they call it, I have

not achieved it. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, sometimes, you know, I

have a good day. I have my samadhi.

what didn't somebody just last about seven eight minutes max usually somebody

just last about seven eight seconds then i started looking for somebody else i

guess i always felt a little bit uncomfortable outside of the bars

because you know i left a lot of people behind me on the death row especially in

texas and pennsylvania and until they are free i would never really

Until they are free, I will never truly be free. But you know, it's not so bad.

I get outside sometimes.

People recognize me in the broad daylight. They come up to me and say,

hey, anybody ever tell you you look like Huey P. Newton? And I say, well, I think

I am Huey P. Newton. They say, you're kidding? You're Huey? Wow, right on.

Have a good day. You know, that's what I tell you.

You know, have a good day.

So I go on, I have a good day, but then the good day is done because the sun go

down on the good day just like the sun go down on every day.

So I come, food is nothing but two empty cartons, two chopsticks and a fortune I

do not want to read. And I start feeling guilty all over again because I know I

want to go on straight, live, and direct to the gas chamber if the people had not

freed me.

See, they freed me.

I didn't have any power in the whole thing. That was the true power of the

people. They freed me. I was just sitting up in my little 5x7 cell, up in

my 5x7 hell, up there on the 10th floor of the Alameda County Jail in a building

I call the Great White Well. I'm just sitting up there in the belly of the

well. But I can hear the people yelling, chanting, screaming, organizing.

Ten floors on the street underneath me, down on the avenue, on the boulevard,

all over Oakland. They're talking about what? Free Huey. Up in Berkeley, they're

talking about Free Huey. In San Francisco, they're talking about what?

Free Huey. Down in L.A., Free Huey.

Dallas, Houston, talking about Free Huey. In New Orleans, Free Huey, yeah,

you're right. Free Huey, yeah, you're right. Atlanta, G.A., Free Huey.

Wilmington, North Carolina, Free Huey. Washington, D.C., Baltimore, too,

they're talking about Free Huey. Ohio, Detroit, Free Huey. Providenceburg

Island, Boston, Free Huey. Free Huey. All over New York City, they're talking

about free Huey. All over Mexico City, they're talking about libre Huey, libre

Huey, libre Huey. In Chicago, Fred Hampton murdered in his bed, dreaming

about free Huey. I am a revolutionary.

In Chicago, Fred Hampton murdered in his bed, dreaming about free Huey. No one

was murdered. In Chicago, Fred Hampton murdered in his bed, dreaming about free

Huey. Free Huey. Free Huey. Free Huey. Free Huey. Free Huey. Free

Huey.

Yeah, they feed you it.

And then Huey came out and he wanted Huey to free them.

And I keep trying to tell people, I said, people realize your power. That

was the true power of the people. You freed me. You freed Huey. Now why don't

you all just go on and free yourself?

But they can't do that, can they? No, they can't do that.

Because your people always have to create what they call a leader.

And the leader is everything that the people want to be, but the leader is

everything that the people can never be.

So then when the leader fails, you're like, the leader's going to fail every

time. He's just flesh and blood. He's going to fail when the leader fails.

Then the whole construction of the concept of leadership fails, and then it

just becomes a matter of contempt.

That's when they assassinate you. Then they put your image on a postage stamp

so they can keep licking you in the grave.

And I really don't think that leadership, per se, is something we're

going to be using in the future. I really don't. I don't see any leaders in

my future. You see any leaders in your future? Look in the White House, in the

oral office. You see any leaders in your future? What did Bob Dylan's song say?

Don't follow leaders, watch your way.

parking meters. Even Karl Marx himself said, I myself am not a Marxist. I think

Groucho Marx said the same thing. That's why I tell the people, I said, people, I

can't be your leader. I can't be your symbol. I can't be your idol. I can't be

your icon. I can't be your revolutionary poster. I mean, I can't be your hero.

Hero's nothing but a sandwich.

I don't want to appear to you like I'm a fake. I don't want to play the fake on

you. But really, people, come on, realize this. I'm just what they call a,

I'm just what they call a, I'm just what they call a, I'm just what they call a,

a regular human being.

You know, I was talking the other evening with a very close comrade of

mine, Mr. Alex Haley. You know Alex Haley, don't you?

Ritz, Ritz, Ritz.

Kunta Kinte and all that.

Kunta Kinte.

Last time I saw Kunta Kinte, he was on Star Trek.

I guess that's what they call progress in America, huh?

Put the slaves up in space. Now what is that? Is that like a relocation program

or something?

40 acres and a spaceship?

Anyway.

there go the sign me up but uh what what alex was saying was very interesting in

terms of leadership because what he was saying was that if you go back to asian

africa and you walk down the road and you see an asian african walking down

the road at you and you ask the old african who are you the african will

tell you i am we get it i i am we we

are we we are all one one you know what i'm saying

one of the multitude just one And that's what I call revolutionary suicide, which

is the name of my book.

I'll autograph you a copy if you buy it first.

It's also the name of a poem which I'd love to share with you. I know that you

were rather indifferent at best in my previous poetic efforts, but I have a

copy here of my person. Perhaps I could produce it if you would give me a word

or two of encouragement, perhaps a grunt. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your spontaneity is amazing, okay?

Your sincerity is killing me. You're killing me softly with your sincerity.

Okay,

I'll do it.

I heard a guy call, got my gun and waited. I did that one right?

Got my gun and waved.

Okay, cool.

I do not know enough about myself because you do not. I did that one.

Knowing nothing about yourself. Okay, that's cool, cool, cool, cool. Lose a

note between a note. That was a good one. Lose a note between a note. Use

some words from my idea.

Between an idea. My comrade gave me that one. Whew, that's genius, isn't it?

Whew, chocolate genius. That's what I call it. Whew, my God, come on.

One day I realized.

I forgot name, age, sex, address, race. No, I did that.

Shame on you. You heard sex, you got excited. Shame on you. Okay, I know it.

Okay, by having no family, I have inherited the family of humanity.

By having no possessions, I have possessed all.

By rejecting the love of one, I have received love of all.

By surrendering my life to the revolution, I have found eternal life.

Revolutionary suicide.

See, we used to go like this, and then everybody would do like this, but I

guess they don't do that no more, huh?

Huh?

Well, has it played out?

We believe. I think you're in the minority, though.

I really do.

Because I think a lot more people do it like this now than this.

Am I right?

Thank you for your honesty. I appreciate it. That's what I thought.

But back in 1966, we did have some possibilities, did we not?

Did we not?

We had Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, did we not?

You heard of them? Your grandparents told you about them?

Huh? You heard about them?

Tell me this. What the hell is a Vandella?

Huh? Because I've been trying to figure that out since we was dancing in the

street during the heat wave.

Archie Bell and the Drells. What the hell is a Drell?

We had to go down to Houston, Texas, find that out. That's where they were

from, right? Hi, this is Archie Bell and the Drells, Houston, Texas. In Houston,

we not only sing, but we dance as good as we walk. In Houston, we got a new

dance called the what?

Okay, come on then. This is the music tighten up with. Okay, first tighten up

on the drums and the drum will come in. Then tighten up on the bass. Bass line

come in. It was wicked. How'd it go? Come on.

Come on, y'all.

Now make it mellow.

Come on, y'all.

Come on, y'all.

I couldn't dance too good, but I could get off in the privacy of my cell.

To the left now, come on. And to the right.

Everybody tighten up. But don't you get to, come on.

To the right now.

Tighten up.

Now make it mellow.

Will y'all quit on me?

You let them take your tighten up from you?

Huh?

Huh?

People don't ever let nobody take your tighten up from you.

It's a very... It's a very precious thing.

Oh yeah, we had another pop group back in 1966 that I forgot about. We had the

Black Panther Party for self-defense.

And now I'm sitting up here, I don't feel like defending nothing.

I look out my window, sometimes I don't even know where I am. I could be in

Connecticut, San Francisco.

They say it's only 10 hours from here to Vietnam. I could be over there running

through the jungle with Creedence Clearwater Revival and all that.

I mean, none of us really know at any given time where the hell we are. You

don't know where the hell you are right now, do you?

You don't know if you're living or dead. Sitting up here in like a void, like a

dream state. More than likely, we're sitting up here in a police state.

Huh? Huh?

From what I heard, I don't have no crystal ball.

But from what I've heard, they're using Africans for target practice in New York

City. Huh?

41 shots.

Only 19 hit them. They need to take some more target practice.

Put a broomstick up a man's rectum. I say rectum, they nearly killed him.

Huh?

Look, I hear the high heels sneaking up behind me, people, so I'm going to get

out of here.

But before I do, I want to share something with you on the QT.

Okay?

It's on the QT?

Let me tell you all something. Ten times in the last three weeks, one of my staff

workers has been approached by the FBI.

The FBI wrote a little note, attached it to a $50 bill, put it on the windshield

of my staff worker's car. The note said, there's plenty more where this comes

from. Okay, I got the note. I'll show it to you later.

Just yesterday, my same staff worker was approached face-to-face in the broad

daylight by the FBI. The FBI agent said to my staff worker that they would pay

to my staff worker a certified check for 20,000 U.S. dollars if my staff worker

would just tell the FBI anything about me or about the Black Panther Party.

Why? Because we're in the system now.

We're not a threat any longer. We're up in the penthouse now, so they want to

protect me.

Federal Bureau of Investigation won't pay 20,000 U.S. dollars for the

privilege of protecting Huey P. Newton. Now that's a mission people have said,

is that or is that not some crazy shit?

It's crazy, isn't it? But you tell people about this FBI stuff, they think

you're just being paranoid. But let me tell you something, people.

I've been following to the grocery store, the barbershop, the donut shop.

Whenever they train me in my automobile, it is always bumper to bumper. And I'm

getting to the point where I'm saying this lady in the 20th century, the man

should have been able to develop his technology to the point where he can

just have a little satellite up there on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, beam it

down on me, save everybody a lot of trouble. Me and FBI.

Don't you think? And I'm getting to the point where I'm saying this is like my

running joke. My running joke at this point in time is I would love to reverse

the evolutionary process and get my tail back. And then at least I know what's

following me. What's that?

Okay, cool, I thought it was the FBI. What's that? Oh, they should tell you.

Okay, cool, I thought it was the CIA.

What's that? Oh, they should tell you. Okay, cool, I thought it was Ronald

Reagan. Smell just like him. Look,

I am not paranoid, people. I am not paranoid. I am not paranoid. I'm bored.

I'm bored. I'm B-O-R-E-D. I'm bored.

I wish I could walk out on myself right now. I really do.

I wish I was sitting up watching the NCAA highlight.

Three points for the nigger, a million dollars for the network. Who got gang?

Huh? And the boredom is just a little place I like to run and hide sometimes

when maybe the pain is not too great.

Because you know I got very much involved in alcohol, right?

Cocaine, valium, heroin, cool cigarettes.

Now this is a slow murder of yourself, isn't it?

Isn't it?

It's like I'm sitting up here murdering myself to death, isn't it?

It's like a reactionary suicide, isn't it?

Sometimes I think maybe we...

Sometimes I think maybe we shouldn't have worked so hard to free me from the

gas chamber. Maybe that would have been a better death for me than this boredom

I'm going through right now.

Just reactionary suicide.

Sometimes I think maybe I would have been better off if I had gone to

Jonestown, Guyana.

Well, hell no, that's not going to work, because I'm not leaving this world with

Kool-Aid on my lips, okay?

Okay?

Seven children in my family, you know, we grew up drinking some Nancy Kool-Aid.

They're going to have to put some kvassi up in their mouth.

At least some cold duck.

Come on, Reverend Jones.

And then I got all kinds of fools come up here to the security system. I want

to call themselves journalists, ask me stupid questions like, what's the

difference between the old hippie nude and the new hippie nude? How are you

going to answer a question like that?

What's the difference between the old hippie nude and the new hippie nude?

Look, I'm just the same old thing. We got the same problems in the community.

We got drugs in the community. community imported into the community by the

government, manufactured especially for the community by the government, and

then the police uses those same government drugs as an excuse to vamp on

everybody in the community. Oh, they call it a war on drugs when really it's

just a war on poor people. Oh, well, Huey, how would you like Huey P. Newton

to be remembered? Well, I don't want Huey P. Newton to be remembered.

I love you too.

See, I guess what's most frustrating for me right now is that I'm a lot like you.

I'm not very active any longer.

But I suppose that believing in nothing is believing in something, right?

Now, would anybody care for a hit of

this?

Come on. Get your shotgun on. Come on. What? Hi.

Come on.

You want some of this?

Well, you got a better brand?

That's what I heard.

Well, the systems really put you through the mill.

Are you bitter?

Are you bitter, Huey?

There's a black man talking to you.

I said, no, brother man, no black man, no Bryant.

I am not bitter, okay?

I mean, I'm entertained.

You know me, I stay entertained. I mean, sometimes it's a good picture show,

sometimes it's a bad picture show, but you know me, I'm going to stay

entertained. Speaking of picture show, y'all ever seen this movie called Black

Orpheus? Anybody?

Good flick, isn't it?

One of my top favorites of all time.

Orpheus is a good-looking brother, isn't he?

Isn't he?

Huh? I just hear the sisters. Come on, brothers.

Admit that your brother good-looking. Your nut's not going to drop off. Come

on. Huh?

A good looking brother. He can play that guitar, can't he? Samba, bassano, he got

that thing going on, doesn't he? But he gets into a confrontation with death,

remember?

You know, death wins. You're like death going to win every time. You can't fight

against death. But what he does is before he dies, he gets himself an

apprentice, remember? A little boy. And he teaches the little boy how to play

the guitar. And he tells the little boy that if he learns to play this one

particular tune on the guitar just right, that he will have the power to

win.

Make the sun rise.

That's a lot of power.

You can make the sun rise just by playing one tune on a guitar.

So the last scene of the film, I'm going to set it up like they do on the Jotty

cars. The last scene of the film, Orpheus is dead, but the little boy has

his guitar. And he's sitting up on top of a high, high mountain down in Brazil.

And the little boy is playing that tune that Orpheus had told him, just like he

told him.

The glissando and the R.I.P. is you and all that going on.

And the little boy got a little girl right next to him and she's dancing.

She's very pretty.

She got the breeze just blowing through her skirt. She got the power of the

people in that movement. There's a movement of people right there. That's

what Ziggy Daddy called it, right?

What's Ziggy Daddy's name?

Ba, ba. Movement of people, right? So the little girl is spinning and

grinning. The little boy is strumming and humming. And before you know it,

before you can say the words, get up, stand up, the sun just...

Sound just... Just come right on up.

And there is a lesson that we all can learn from the Black Orpheus.

And the lesson is that death will win, death will win every time.

Well, there is an opportunity that we all have to somehow circumvent death by

passing a heritage on to the next generation.

Just say, Ziggy.

See, I used to think that I could somehow outwit death and I could

outmaneuver death, but I don't believe that any longer. I mean, I no longer

believe that I cannot be killed.

Nobody gets out of this life alive.

Definitely not Huey P.

That's why I tell all my comrades, I say, hey brothers, hey sisters, you only

going to die one death, don't die a million deaths worrying about it.

I'm just trying to laugh at all the funny things that happen on the way to

the grave.

And I guess the funniest thing that happens when you die,

everybody want to bring you some flowers.

But they don't want to bring you any soup while you're alive to help keep you

alive.

And I'm getting to the point where I'm saying, you know, when I die, I don't

want any flowers. I can't smell flowers where I'm going.

I want my soup.

Huh?

You know what I'm saying?

I want my soup.

See, because these people always just want to believe in the image that they

created of me, but they never really want to believe in me doing the things

that I really felt were important to me. But that's cool. That's all right.

They're afraid.

Politicians are afraid to communicate.

Social workers are afraid to socialize, and they just want to put me up in a

box.

And I realize that Huey P. Newton will never get out of that box, but I tell

you something, people, it's not something that causes me any problems

any longer. It's really truly not, because you know what my motto is?

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Huh?

What was that thing my brother Melvin taught me?

Huh? Shakespeare?

Macbeth?

Act 5?

Scene 5?

Huh?

Sitting up in that castle, straight up ghetto gangster.

Talking about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this what? Creeps in

this petty pace. Petty pace.

From day to day to the last syllable of recorded time.

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

Out hold the brief candle.

Life's but a walking shadow.

A poor player that struts and frets.

Bizarre upon the stage and then it's heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot.

Will the sound and fury signify?

Birthdays was the worst days.

Now we sip champagne and be thirsty.

Birthdays was the worst days.

Now we sip champagne.

Birthdays was the worst days.

Now we're sipping on... Sipping on pain.

Sipping on pain.

I'm ready for my... close-up.

47-year-old Huey Newton died in a hail of gunfire this morning. He was found

dead down on Oakland Street. Those who believed in one Huey steadfastly refused

to acknowledge the other. As we mourn him, we celebrate the legacy that he

left us of struggle and resistance.

Newton,

a handsome, charismatic man, was somewhat of a folk hero to many. The

Black Panther Party, which Newton founded with Bobby Seale in 1966, had

come to symbolize the new black militancy of the 60s.

who put this shit into motion.

There's a very, very strong unit of the Black Panther Party located in Brooklyn.

You can jail a revolutionary, but you can't jail a revolution.

It's not a black America's problem, because whatever type of people we have

today, America produced these people.

Whenever a colonized people begin to move against the oppressor, the

oppressor must step up its oppression.

They made quite a spectacle with their black leather jackets and their guns.

They displayed a fearless and arrogant pride that poor black people had just

never experienced.

Huey P. Newton is the only leader that black people should recognize.

You must free our leader.

He must be freed and he will be freed.

I have these Black Panthers up here with guns on the second floor.

We are not in a mind to sit around or to sing songs about Huey. We will go down

with Huey.