[Music] this is Hell live from the United States where the Press doesn't tell you the news they sell you the news this is hell and because we are completely listener supported we can have guests on like today's who will be discussing a part of history that is far too often overlooked a part of history that is based on generalizations vague understandings and rumors here to help us have a better grasp of what the Black Panthers were where they came from what they stood for what they believed and the militancy they saw as the only way to Liberation we are always very happy to have on our show truly is an honor historian Gerald horn returns to the show to discuss his new book arm struggle Panther in Communists black nationalists and liberals in Southern California through the 60s and 70s first Gerald does it sound okay so far so good all right we'll see how this goes so you start by taking us back to June 1971 in alers then the S of the major International legation of the Black Panther Party headquartered in California it was in Algeria where Party leaders Kathleen Neil cleever and Donald Cox were to be found conferring with a diplomat from the embassy of then socialist Czechoslovakia the readout was a explicit us militants were seeking a cache of Model 61 automatic machine pistols ideally suited to the conditions of our struggle in the urban areas also desired were silencers these Panthers had been informed that the diplomats government supported the Liberation struggles of All Peoples so why not back that in the Citadel of imperialism so my question is was this cuz you you point out how this was seen as a a logical step from the inco uh Urban revolts indeed the Panthers argued for a move from riots to Armed struggle was this in reaction to what the Panthers and others saw as colonialism as a class project that is something that benefited not all Americans in fact had victimized many Americans and ancestors and their ancestors that preceded them but only the wealthy was what is missed in our understanding of colonialism when we do not see it as a class project but something that was a benefit to everyone including those who are not wealthy well it's appropriate that you ask that question as we approach July 4th 2024 the 248th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America and as I pointed out in a previous book the county revolution of 1776 the founding of the United States in many ways was formation of the first apart regime that is to say the Declaration of Independence was unsparing in its denunciation of the indigenous population and certainly they were not covered by the Bill of Rights nor other laws many of them did not become US citizens until the early 1920s and certainly the founding the United States was not meant to cover the black population Thomas Jefferson made That explicit and clear in its notes from the state of Virginia and so when the Panthers materialized in Al in 1971 seeking arms to fit class struggle and arm struggle they were carrying forward this idea that black people in particular were in oppressed class and that the United States was designed to oppress them in fact pew pew you know the foundation at insan just a few days ago did a study that was only covered as far as I can tell in the LA Times not in the New York Times or Washington Post which showed that a significant majority of black people feel that the United States was designed specifically to persecute and oppress them Hugh dismissed this as a so-called conspiracy theory that is to say like thinking Elvis is still alive and still in the building but of course they received significant push back from black Scholars or black activists in particular because of course this majority thinking that the United States was designed to oppress and persecute them were on to something you and Chicago should not be unfamiliar with this I'm sure you recall what happened on December 4th 1969 when Black Panther leaders uh Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed Fred Hampton in his bed with his pregnant wife and Mark Clark sitting in a chair in the we hours of the morning leading to lawsuits leading to investigations and that was a typical of how the Panthers were handled having said that it's also fair to say that Los Angeles Southern California in general was probably the epicenter of the Armed fist coming down on the heads of panthers many in your audience are familiar with the notorious Los Angeles Police Department you're familiar with what happened to Black motorist Rodney King a few decades ago when he his beating at the hands of actually the California Highway Patrol were captured on tape in the LA metropolitan area uh leading officers who of course did not encounter Justice then that led as you may recall to an urban Uprising and in Co Urban uprising of the early 1990s by then the early 1990s the Black Panthers were little more than a Fain memory and this was a direct result not only of persecution and oppression dirty tricks uh what happened to Fred Hampton and Mark Clark folks being jailed some folks still in jail folks being driven into exile for example folks turned into snitches and other kinds of miscreant targeting the Black Panther Party so it's it's a very troubling story that folds in this book now before us you write how in 1952 that the leadership of the Communist Party of California were on trial in Los Angeles on charges of violating the notorious Smith Act a prototypical thought crime as you describe it where the gravan of the case was precisely their professing Marxism leninism and socialism so just so people understand the Smith Act how was the Smith Act a thought crime or you know uh making thinking into a CRI crime well the prosecution basically involved the prosecutors dragging out Dusty tones of lenen and Marx and quoting them with regard to what they had to say about overthrowing capitalism and then imputing those words to the leaders of Communist party because after all they profess to be followers of the philosophies of Mark and linen although there were not necessarily overt acts connecting them to acts of violence there were Smith Act prosecutions not only in Los Angeles not only in Chicago but in New York in scores of City including in Hawaii I dealt with that in my previous book fighting in paradise and what happens is that these prosecutions not only hamstring to put it euphemistically the Communist party but it attempts to in some ways legalize the idea of professing socialism having said that it's also fair to say that even though the US Communist party was hampered tremendously by the Smith Act prosecutions many of which did not end until the late 1950s the Black Panther Party picked up that mantle that is to say that if you look for example as I do at Jonathan Jackson a precocious teenager the younger brother of George Jackson who had been in prison a field Marshal of the Black Panther Party Jonathan Jackson as a high schooler in Pasadena California started a newspaper called escra isra of course homage to a newspaper of the same name coming out of Bic Russ more than a century ago the black panthers in their political education classes of course study the philosophies of Marx and Engel and lyen but also of those like CLR James of Trinidad in Tobago who wrote the book on the Haitian revolution black Jacobin of course studying Eric Williams Trinidad in Tobago in his still canonical texts capitalism and slavery and so what happens is that despite the hammering of the Communist party and the attempt in many ways to legalize the professing of socialism uh this had not deterred the Black Panther Party but alas what happens is that this inflames the US authorities leading to the after mentioned persecution of the Black Panther Party and then what happen subsequently is that when the historians begin to tackle this important subject often times they elive or omit the Socialist ideologies of the Black Panther Party and incorporate them under the rubric of quote black power now it is not illogical to incorporate the Panthers under that particular rubric but to wholly omit their professing of socialism to wholly omit their attempt to reach out to socialist Cuba as a matter of fact as you probably know Apple TV now has uh an offering uh concerning huie P Newton a founder of the party and his attempt to reach socialist Cuba when he was on the lamb in the 1970s as we speak there are still former Panthers residing in socialist Cuba who have received uh Sanctuary there you had Panthers who sought sanctuary in Tanzania when it was pursuing a path of non-c capitalist development leading towards socialism I could go on in this vein but the larger and wider point is that a lot of this history for various reasons has been obscured if not mangled if not erased if not made invisible do you think that the the people who were trying to find Refuge who were trying to find sanctuary in Cuba do you think that contributes contributes at all to this day to anti-ban lingering antagonism that it seems as bipartisan here in the United States granted Barack Obama did lift some of the restrictions against Cuba but those were taken away by Trump and I don't believe the Biden Administration has put those back in place from the from the Obama era so do you think that that that black militants looking for sanctuary in Cuba contributes to anti-ban bipartisan antagonism to this day absolutely you need need look no further than the woman we know as Assad Shakur formerly known as Joanne chesar who for years has now received sanctuary in Social excu recalled that former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Republican former presidential hopeful put a b the or head and there was a fear in Cuba that the US paratroopers or the like would land seeking to kidnap her indeed if you look at the Wall Street Journal this very morning on the back page you will see a scare article suggesting that China the enemy now has a number of Spy Bases in socialist Cuba this brings back Echoes and memories of the so-call CU missile crisis of 1962 when the world came perilously close to nuclear warfare because of the allegation that the then Soviet Union had placed missiles in Cuba it was said to threaten the National Security of the United States of America in that context the Breakthrough under President Obama of going to Cuba and raising the hand of then president Ro Castro has been anomalous since the Triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959 and I think that one of the problems of the hawkish forign policy of President Joseph R Bon has been his failure to carry through with the Obama policy concerning Cuba but instead adopting and whole cloth the policy of his predecessor Donald J Trump I assume in an attempt to win over the notoriously right-wing leaning Cuban American population of South Florida which includes I'm afraid to say the US senator from New Jersey Bob Menendez now on Trial Gold Bar Bob as he's called because you know he puts gold bars in his closet he says because his parents who are capitalists in Cuba were expropriated and therefore he doesn't trust Banks so he's he's still blaming uh Cuba for his misdeeds and for his uh prosecution so yes it is there is no doubt that the Embrace of the Panthers by socialist Cuba uh helped to foment and engineer Discord and persecution of Panthers and socialist Cuba alike you WR that it was in 1932 that the idea was bruted that the young communist league in Los Angeles should become in the words of communist leader Ben dobs a semi-military organization go out for military training have uniforms a response to quote fascist gangs that were arising in Germany again this is 1932 was the movement that would eventually at least contribute to if not lead to the creation of the Panthers a reaction to Rising fascism not only in Europe but here in the United States with the German Bund were they ahead of their time in denouncing global fascism in the United States well I'm afraid to say that you're on to something uh I've already made mention of the Rampages of the LAPD for example uh there was an armed conflict in December 1969 when the LAPD assaulted the panther headquarters there was talk about bringing tanks from further the South uh at the uh Marine Base South of Los Angeles to assault the panther headquarters going back to the 1930s as you've done I also mention that at that particular time there was existent a communist International headquarter in Moscow at that concern at that time there was great concern about the rise of fascism not least in Spain where you may recall that the fascist ultimately Tred as a result you had the communist International in Moscow training a communist from all over the world in various techniques of armed struggle that I'm afraid I say came up during the aention 1952 Smith Act trial in Los Angeles but before then in 1910 you had activists described as anarchists who blew up the LA Times building LA Times back then was a notorious right-wing rag really free fascist Rag and this was the response to their Ming and then how can we forget the fact that during the batt old days of slaver you had in October 1859 the late great John Brown a euroamerican hero particularly amongst black Americans in fact if you go to Haiti you'll still find a Broad Boulevard named after John Brown he led Hardy band in Western Virginia seeking to lead an armed Uprising against slavery but for his troubles was captured by then US military leader Robert E Lee who months later became the military leader of the so-called Confederate States of America which sought to overthrow the United States because they wanted to perpetuate ens slavery enslavement of Africans forever more and then how can we forget in this litany the late great that turn when 1831 once again in Virginia LED an armed Uprising against slavery of course there was a Hollywood movie about him uh I think it was called The Birth of a Nation not the Cinematic travesty of more than a century ago but actually in retrospect a very important film and so this land this bloody land to quote John Brown often times has seen armed struggle now how can it be otherwise because how did the settlers get the land from the Native Americans it was through the barrel of a gun how were Africans kept enslaved it was through the barrel of a gun why is there a Second Amendment to the US Constitution which was designed to make sure that settlers were armed to confront rebellious Africans and marauding indigen it was of course because of the ne necessity been perceived to seize this land and to have free labor so why should anyone be shocked that in the 1960s given that Bloody history that the Panthers and others would decide to as the saying went at the time pick up the gun and the origins of policing here in the United States being involved being uh slave patrols but you know what we're told Gerald and you've heard this a million times Kanye West even made a point of saying this that there were no uprisings during us slavery during slavery and the Confederacy in the American South there were no uprisings happening how much does that kind of thinking the Eraser of people like John Brown of people like Nat Turner how much does that lead to any perceived delegitimization of the Black Panthers armed struggle for Liberation how much does that misperception of our past lead to a lack of understanding the context of what the Black Panther Party would become well it has everything to to do with that and of course it's not accidental because I'm sure you kept close tasks on the recent Supreme Court decision of the last 24 hours which in many ways seeks to provide the what is thought to be the incoming US president Donald J Trump with what could easily be considered dictatorial power powers as Justice Sor of Puerto Rican ancestry put it in her dissenting opinion uh theoretically potentially it could authorize Donald J Trump to get Navy Seals to assassinate political rhins or political distence for that matter uh without running a foul of the law now if that Grim scenario takes place once again I'm afraid to say that the idea of armed struggle might arise and there are those as they say in Washington on both sides of the aisle who would like to Forstall that possibility but I'm happy to report the good news which is that one of the reasons you've had so many attacks on universities of late is precisely because you have a number of Scholars not necessarily radical Scholars but honest Scholars who are seeking to reveal and uncover the history that we are now discussing for example I do interviews myself on Pacifica Radio and just last week I interviewed a scholar actually from Northwestern University believe it or not who just wrote a very important article on the enslaved use of arsa for example including seeking to burn down the Confederate White House in the 1860s including seeking to burn down the house uh Martha Washington Widow of the founder George Washington in an attempt to escape her wrath an attempt to use ourense to assassinate the slave owning senator from South Carolina John C Calhoun a proud alumnist of Y University now to many the revelations of this scholar in the December 2023 turnover American history came as a revelation as a boat from the blue but if you think about it for more than a NC and if you think about the recent history of the Black Panther Party you will see that it's obvious that the enslaved Africans were not lifely accepting their fate they were using every means necessary to escape their D fate and that's certainly the Legacy Beque to the heroic black center party but this as you and I have discussed before this is the kind of history that the right that uh Florida Governor Ronda santis that they want to censor from any kind of curriculum you write that when it comes to the Panthers and Communists I found that it is difficult to comprehend the former without contemplating the latter what happens to our understanding understanding of the Black Panthers when that context of Communism is either dismissed ignored or in other ways not considered what do we miss in our understanding of what the Black Panthers would become when we dismiss the idea of any context or influence from communism well I think when it least to is a miscomprehension and a misunderstanding of the politics of the United States in the first instance for example myself and other Scholars have suggested that in order to understand the abolition of slavery you have to understand the Haitian revolution 1791 to 1804 which ignited a general crisis of the entire slave system in the Americas that could only be resolved with this collapse and not least in the United States of America of course the successful revolutionaries in Haiti helped to foment slave Uprising not only throughout the Caribbean but also in the North American mainland in order to understand the retreat of us apart speaking of Jim Crow as myself and other historians have pointed out you have to understand the rise of a socialist camp and their aid to National Liberation movements and at least in the Caribbean and Africa and how this created a dilemma for Uncle Sam because the United States was seeking to cultivate hearts and Minds in Africa Asia and Latin America found it difficult to do so as African and Caribbean nations were coming to Independence given the fact that they have a storehouse of natural resources that Uncle Sam wanted to get his grubby little pause on and so that creates a dynamic that leads in 1954 to the US Supreme Court uh saying you know what Jim Crow us apartate is unconstitutional that leads us to today where we're still facing dire problems not leas police Terror directed against black communities but that preexisting Global context of the rising socialist Camp aiding National Liberation movement is heartly prevalent today which of course has led directly to an increase in police Terror and unless we understand that pre-existing context we can understand what's ha what's happening today for example it's interesting to note that the US Supreme Court chief justice in 1954 at the time of this decision by the US Supreme Court was Warren the former Governor of California Republican who as I talk about in the book presides over the interment of us Nationals of Japanese ancestry between 1942 and 1945 uh because it's thought that they were inherently Pro Tokyo of course us Nationals of German and Italian ancestry were not necessarily treated similarly and in order to understand how Earl Warren becomes this Avatar of civil liberty supposedly in 1954 while presiding over one of the grosses violations of civil liberties in the history of the United States which is saying something in 1943 you have to understand this Global context it really does a disservice to history a disservice to reality to try to understand the United States absent a global context and certainly it does a disservice to the history of the Black Panther part you right that the White House was dis was displeased when news emerged from alers the news that I was talking about earlier that the Panthers were in a close relationship with Palestinian militants Eldridge Cleaver a quote close friend of the fata representative in Algeria being the principal point of contact the bumptious Cleaver was spotted addressing a fata KB and Premier leader yaser Arafat appeared in public with him and had offered to train Panther members at its bases in Jordan cleever was invited there for an inspection Tour by August 1970 four Panthers arranged to spend a month observing operations there with the Palestinians hoping to develop blacks in the US as a propaganda base the Loos lipped Cleaver informed the world that our party also has underground aspects there are some black panther members no one knows about the Los Angeles leader jono a Vietnam veteran and he went on so did the Panthers View and I assume that they did and they still do uh did they view US police as an occup forces is the Palestinians view to Israel and is there a lingering Legacy of Palestinian support within the African-American Community dating back to the Black Panthers has that left a mark on African-American politics in general oh absolutely you need look no further than the recent defeat in the primaries of New York State just a few days ago a Congressional Black Caucus member Congressman Jamal Bowman of fron Wester who has been quite vocal in forthright in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza the Israeli Lobby spent in Nate s to make sure that he would be defeated in his primary which happened they now have in the crosshairs Corey Bush another Congressional Black Caucus member she from St Louis who spoken out in similar words and verbiage with regard to gosm I dare say that uh probably Andre Carson of your neighbor in Indiana who happens to be a Muslim will also be in the crossair although it would be very difficult to beat him since he has a base of support in Gary Indiana they failed speaking of the Israeli Lobby and defeating CDC member Congressional Black Caucus member summer Lee of Western Pennsylvania and primaries in that state in the Keystone State just a few weeks ago so certainly there is a lingering Legacy of Panther excuse me black American Palestinian solidarity with the Panthers being just one more chapter in this story recall as well that the leader we once knew as stokeley carmichel later as kwami tur was also part of this Legacy as was the organization he once LED speaking of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee the shock troops of the anti Jim crew movement however to be fair I should also mention that uh there are those today for example Congressman hakee Jeff of Brooklyn the so-called speaker in Waiting mayor Eric Adams of New York City uh Reverend El shton of New York City uh who have contradicted that Legacy that I've just help one but I should also mention that the Panthers were not only in solidarity with the the Palestinians they also offer to send brigades to North Vietnam to fight alongside the Vietnamese as they were struggling against us imperialism they sent delegations to North Korea for example the AFF Mission Kathleen CLE who was negotiating with the Cs and alers in 1971 which begins my book uh her daughter as I recall who was now in Exile and Tanzania Southeast Africa was actually born in North Korea as they she and Elders cleverer were visiting them so part of the extra pated Legacy of the Panthers has been internationalism and it's striking to note that despite the heroism of Jamal Bowman Cory Bush summer Lee Andre Carson I'm afraid to say that with regard to some of our Mass organizations that are still with us including the NAACP which you may know plays a huge role in this book they abandon the internationalist barricades and given the fact that they're the largest mass organization in Black America uh this has had an powerfully negative impact on our struggle because as noted by my reference to the the Haitian revolution helping to lead to the abandonment of slavery the rise of socialist Nations and National Liberation movements impacting the abandonment or the erosion I should say of Jim Crow one of the reasons why these malign and malignant forces now seem to be on the march today is because we that is to say many of our organizations like n acap have not lengthened the battlefield which is the central lesson of progress not only for black Americans but I would say for Progressive movements generally in North America you mentioned black panther seu odinga according to his comrade Donald Cox he served as an international Diplomat where he was Bas when he was based in Algeria people from alers to Cairo Beirut Kuwait and all the way to the cape in South Africa that either knew or heard of seu especially when he was welcoming Oliver Tambo Nelson Mandela's closest comrade to alers or being photographed alongside yaser Arafat Palestinian leader so were the Panthers seen as a threat not just to potentially capitalism being communist but were they seen as a threat to ongoing us colonialism and imperialism were they in any respect rising up against many of the exact same issues that students occupying campuses were the spring and the encampments that still exist today and what is missed when we do not see the Panthers as an uprising against imperialism and colonialism that long predated the actions against genocide in Gaza today well the short answer to your intelligent intelligent question is obviously yes and I'm glad you mentioned the student encampments because one of the many assets and merits of these heroic students is that they help to alter the vocabulary because of these student activists we now have to confront the term settler colonialism they've applied it to Historic Palestine of course we could apply it to North America we also can look at the offshoots of setler colonialism that the Panthers spoke about such as quote internal colonialism because many in the Panthers saw black Americans as being analogous to Palestinians being analogous to Africans under aart a pre 1994 and there therefore they saw it as their obligation to reach across the oceans and across the borders and Link hands with these folks and yes there is no doubt that the US authorities saw this as a threat to US National Security and as a result they put enormous pressure on the algerians because algeri then as now was a major repository of natural gas natural gas of course has played a role in in terms of the war in Ukraine it's playing a role with regard to politics in both Texas and Louisiana as we speak and certainly it played a role in terms of the machinations of the then Nixon Administration when it was trying to woo the algerians away from their Conor with the Black Panther Party and I'm afraid to say that the Nixon Administration was not uh necessarily unsuccessful in that regard but once again that Bes speaks the farsightedness of many of the panther leaves including the late seu ainger recall that he only passed away quite recently after spending a stent in prison as has been the case I'm afraid to say for many Panther leaders as noted many were wound up in prison many wound up in Exile in Cuba and elsewhere and of course many like Fred Hampton and Mark Clark of Chicago wound up 6 feet under so you well first of all we are speaking with historian Gerald horn who returns to the show to discuss his new book armed struggle Panthers and Communists black nationalists and liberals in Southern California through the 60s and 70s you can go to our website this is hell.com and search on his name horn h o r NE and find all of our interviews with Gerald absolutely free so you write of you give some of your own history writing I first visited Berkeley in 1969 for an anti-fascist conference sponsored by the Panthers and then returned in 1970 as a law student at the sprawling University of California Campus I worked alongside the Panthers read their well circulated newspaper regularly collaborated with them on various projects taught them at the prison at Vacaville due north of the campus then I lent my prize copy of Friedrich Engles the origins of the family private property in the state to an inmate then known as Donald defreeze who never returned it he perished in May of 1974 during the midst of a shootout between his symbionese Liberation Army and the authorities I knew Steve weed from Princeton the fiance of AIS Patty Hurst whom the SLA kidnapped and allegely brainwashed I was present when the young scholar Angela Davis was a celebratory party or head of celebratory party making marking her AC quiddle in 1972 on criminal charges that could have meant the death penalty I knew her attorney Howard Moore and was a CL M of his spouse Jane Bond Moore continent with the Zeitgeist it was while residing in Berkeley that I became familiar with shotguns including ski shooting though I had not picked up a gun previously and never did again after departing California was there any sense with in that M Mo uh movement at that time at that moment was there any sense of dread about police or government blowback and the possibility the movement would be shortlived squelched by the state was there any sense that it was only a matter of time that it was inevitable that the state would strike back to the point of threatening if not ending that movement I'm afraid so and uh I think in in a sense we have to gift of Prophecy because that is precisely of what happened I should say on the other side of the equation that one of the reasons I wrote this book because I'm afraid to say that armed struggle might be in the future of many of our younger comrades particularly as noted given this movement towards the ultra right as enunciated by the US Supreme Court and providing dictatorial powers to what they see as the incoming US president speaking of When Donald J Trump and so what I'm trying to do in part in this book is provide a blueprint and part of what not to do I mean for example I I think the Panthers could have been better diplomats put it mildly many of the Panthers or some of the Panthers I should say alienated their host in socialist Cuba for example some of the Panthers alienated their host in Algeria at a time when they were the guests of the state I also mentioned early on that before launching arm struggle there should be a comprehensive study of the battlefield assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy across the barricades and if the decision is made with regard to launching armed struggle you don't necessarily have to broadcast that you quoted my reference to cleaver being Loos lipped which I think is a reference to broadcasting prematurely of what your side is planning to do recall that I've talked about how many Communists were trained in the techniques of gorilla Warfare in Moscow in the 1930s um they did not necessarily come back from Moscow blabbing about that to the newspapers or even to other comrades for example so once again I think this book is not only trying to uncover and obscured if not disappear history but also trying to provide a road map as to what not to do if this historic moment of seeking to combat Fierce repression reappears I like that it's not as much a howto it is a how-to but it's also very much a how not to you point out that understandably the Panthers have been viewed retrospectively by some as an emblem of the black power Trend which emerged as huip P Newton and Bobby seal Founders were catapulted into prominence more precisely the Panthers were a halfway house between black power and the then tormented Communist Party an ally of the soon Tobe extinguished Soviet Union in an anticipatory rebuke of 21st century Scholars black party Panther or Black Panther Party leaders Messi huitt and Eldridge cleever were asked you are being lumped together with the various cultural nationalists the Leroy Joneses the Kangas the Muslims and Cleaver responded contemptuously for a Blackman it is far more important to read Marx rather than learn Swahili now I'm not too sure if this is the right phrasing but is African nationalism if you will Allowed by liberals even celebrated as a distraction from the class project that is targeting African-Americans is celebrating African Culture by say kneeling in a kente cloth alow But Rising up against racialized police violence and capitalist exploitation does that cross the line for liberals well I I it a different way I would say that going back to the text there was a bitter and internent struggle uh in Los Angels in Southern California between forces surrounding the man who's still with us today speaking of Milana K founder of Quanza a black American holiday celebrated at the end of the year uh the end of 2024 for example and I think it's also fair to say as my book concludes that corindus forces were manipulated against the Black Panther Party not least in January 1969 when there was a shootout on the UCL campus leading a couple of Panther leaders in La dead stone cold de speaking of John Huggins and Dy C having said that perhaps because we tried to evolve I think it's fair to say that uh there's nothing necessarily negative about learning swah as a matter of fact I think I go on to say in that same paragraph that George Jackson one of the panther stols study foreign languages um many militants today uh try to move away from the monolingualism that characterize the United States of America by studying Arabic which is spoken over a good deal of West Asia and North Africa in particular soill us to become a linga Fran uh East Tanzania Kenya given the fact that Tanzania has become kind of headquarters for black American Exiles obviously including Panthers by the way and panther Cubs as they're called that is to say descendants of the Panthers uh obviously studying Swahili uh could have been worthwhile before they landed in Dar Sal so it's it's it's very complicated although I do think it's fair to say that there were many liberals who were not comfortable to put it mildly uh with the Panthers and were more comfortable uh with the black nationalists as embodied by Mr Kanga who as I said is still in the land of the living in his 80s for example has lived a long and bable life and I would like to think has evolved Beyond some of his more UNT War projects of the late 1960s but you'll have to ask him about that so why was the Black Panther Party opposed to black power what does that tell us about both the idea of black power as well as the philosophies of the Black Panthers that the Black Panthers were opposed to black power well I would say it was the particular iteration of black power that was then being embodied and enunciated not least by kenga and his forces which as they saw it tended to down play the struggle for socialism as they saw it uh tended to involve conciliation with the US ruling class for example there's a story that Kinga has sought to refute that suggested that during a moment of tenseness in Los Angeles there were many moments of tenseness in Los Angeles during this era he had a sit down but then California governor Ronald Wilson Reagan for example exle he was prominently featured in The Wall Street Journal and other Publications for example so I think it was a particular iteration of black power that the Panthers objected to at least that's my reading of History you mentioned the destabilization and dirty tricks campaign of the FBI co-intel Pro which wounded not only the Panthers but also the mainstream Civil Rights Movement yet according to to uh Communist Party Council John ABT his client William Schneiderman the lead defendant in the LA trial that's the Smith Act trials was the target of 1388 of 2,370 official acts of this program and the authorities Crusade lasted longest 15 years against them from about 1956 to 1971 a purpose was to invalidate Marxism as a mode of thought or minimally force a retreat of the ideology and compel doubters of the alleged munificence of capitalism to profess liberalism instead this was not altogether unsuccessful did the FBI successfully silenced marxists seeing them as a threat to capitalism and does that explain why the FBI does not see seem to be as concerned about say fascism because it is to some degree compatible with capitalism that's the understatement of the decade and I should also mention that in this book in addition to telling a story about the Panthers in addition to telling a story about black nationalists like Kanga in addition to telling a story about the Communist party I also have a number of points I seek to make about the Jewish American Community because going back to the 1940s in particular the LA Communist party was disproportionately comprised of Jewish Americans the US ruling CL saw this as a strategic problem should be addressed and I think I said in the book that if you look at us imperialist policy toward Central America during the same era which was encapsulated in the phrase beans and rles that is to say concessions on the one hand and repression on the other well that's precise L how the US ruling of class approached the Jewish American Community repression June 1953 Jewish American commun julus El renberg execute why because of alleged ported supposed leaking on their part of the supposed Alle reported secret of atomic weapons from Moscow and then of course there were concessions these vaunted IB leave Institutions and schools like Northwestern for example for decades they had pursued the anti-jewish quotas limiting their admission to these institutions these anti-jewish quotas were eroded shall we say allowing for the Ascension of many Jewish Americans on the class ladder allowing them to enter the professions Dentistry medicine accounting law the academy for example and then simultaneously you saw the many on the left beginning to flock towards Israel and it's interesting just as a footnote many of our friends on the left they often times use this term identity politics to to describe as a descriptor for various wings of the Black Liberation movement I've never heard anybody in the United States describe Israel as an identity politics State even though it's a state based upon a narrow ethn religious identity and so that particular maneuver was not altogether unsuccessful because Israel becomes Unsinkable aircraft carrier for us imperialism in West Asia as noted it becomes a bone of contention with the black liberation movement recall my remarks about seu adinga and they're huddling with yasa arat for example this helps to underg a real black Jewish Rift which has not disappeared recall my words about Jamal Bowman for example recently defeated in a New York state Congressional primary and so uh this is another story that I tell in this book and this is a story that we need more research and writing about you mentioned uh in Palm Springs by the 1950s this desert Hideway for the Stars was yet to attain the preeminence it was to AC Cru soon afterwards this transformation occurred as the result of what was described officially as a city engineered Holocaust as Negroes who then occupied Prime downtown land were ousted without proper notice or relocation cruy many of these workers had gone to work in the morning but found Upon returning in the evening their homes in ashes as many as 2,000 families were burned out robbing them of generation wealth poignantly one victim moaned that this dog came running across the street the dog was on fire and the house burned up too again these are not the kind of moments that we are taught in history classes around the United States so what's unsurprising for Americans to not realize or recognize the reasons for these for the eventually ra racialized police violence the uprisings against that is our understanding of not only the Black Panther Party but racism more generally uninformed about our racist history and is it just only a matter of informing the public or is our misunderstanding due to more than only being miss or uninformed well that last question goes back to a debate fored in no small measure by the late great web d a black American who was a founder of pan africanism a founder of NAACP joined the US Communist Party in 1961 before de camping to West Africa Ghana and self-imposed Exile where he died in 1963 as the Martin Washington was stepping off and recall that early in his career he he thought that the issue was ignorant and so if he could only write books and do investigations helping to alleviate this ignorance that this problem of white supremacy and racism could begin to erode I think in The Cold Light Of History we can say yes these kinds of Investigations are necessary or mandatory or needed or required but they're not enough because the ignorance is not necessarily accidental it flows inexorably inevitably in elu from a certain kind of socioeconomic system that depends for its operation on a disproportionate percentage of the population being misled I mean for example if you look at the uh recent elections in France for example you'll see that the Neo fascist did quite well and what's interesting comparing the rightwing in France with the United States is that in France the rightwing fundamentally says we're going to keep social welfare programs we're not going extend them to uh French folk of Arab or Muslim ancestry or recent immigrants whereas the United States the descendants of the settler disproportionate percentage of the euramerican population they're willing to vote for Trump whose operations inevitably are going to lead to a weakening of social welfare program you have to believe that either a as many of our friends on the left s they Mis read their own class interest or more Darkly that like black people in Pre 1994 a part St South Africa they're willing to take the hit with regard to penalties delivered by sanctions because they see Over the Rainbow as a brighter future that is to say that if you look at History of the United States at one time uh the settlers benefited handsome from depredations inflicted upon the indigenous I mean I I tell the story as you know in my Texas book about the aler of the Cherokees in the Southeast quadrant of the United States of America and many of the Cherokees had become slave owners many of them had become involved in sedentary agriculture many of them had become Christians they had a written language they published newspapers which I drew upon for my study they still had to go and European migrants right off the boat were able to move into their mansion and so when you have people on the left who celebrate the early history of the United States unwittingly perhaps is as evidenced by July 4th 2024 they are celebrating ethnic cleansing they're celebrating indigenous dispossession they're celebrating the disproportionate enrichment of settlers and settler descendants who seem for some reasons tend to think that if they are able to put a dictator in the Oval Office with all restraints removed per the recent US Supreme Court decision then the path can be clear for a return to these alleged houseon days when supposedly there in States was great and they're not they're going to make the United States great again Gerald one last question for you we've been speaking with Gerald horn who has returned to the show to discuss his new book arms struggle Panthers and Communists black nationalists and liberals in Southern California through the 60s and 70s and I got to tell you I have about 45 more questions for you we could be doing this for another three hours I would I would absolutely enjoy that but unfortunately we're up against the clock so as you know our final question for each and every one of our guests is what we call the question from Hell the question we hate to ask you may hate to answer our audience is going to hate your response how depending is the status quo in the United States on denialism of our racist our settler Colonial past how dependent is the success of the Trump campaign how dependent are they on a denialism a willful ignorance of the United States past well the bad news is is that there's something to what your question embeds that is to say that yes there is denialism but to return to a point I bred a few moments ago the good news is that you have a number of honest historians who are Excavating this pth uh I've mentioned them in a number of podcasts recently they should be easy to discover with a little searching and a little digging and that's one of the reasons why history and historiography has become a battle that's one of the reasons why in Texas and in Florida in particular you see school librarians being persecuted harassed inspired school principales school teachers this is not happening by accident or by happenstance it's happening because you have a number of courageous people in this country who are pushing back against denialism and I would like to think that with some expert strategizing particularly invol in the lessons from the past which include lengthening the battlefield Reaching Across the borders Reaching Across the oceans to the likeminded that will be able to Prevail but right now I would say that the prospects are merely 5050 just to follow up on that real quick so are liberals also willfully ignorant of that past are they also embracing and to any degree a denialism of that past well for sure and and I think of this particularly in terms of how liberal de with the those to their left they TR you you rarely on MSNBC see anyone to the left of liberalism uh with regard to Liberal pundits and opinion columnists they rarely mention the plethora of ideas coming from those to the left of liberalism I think that they're still observing the dictates of the Red Scare what we talked about a few moments ago in terms of the attempt to legalize socialism and to make Marxism off limits somebody needs to tell these people that the Cold War I think it's fair to say probably ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and so it's time to move away from that mossback thinking but I think that in addition to being ignorant speaking of some of our Earth while liberal friends I think that they feel that if they begin to embrace those to their left that those to their left might assume hedony in the movement which is probably true and that at the same time they will be that to say the Liberals will then be further harassed by the conservatives was called that one of the hate terms used by Mr Trump precisely is Marxist and assist for example and so there is the dilemma I mean look at the response to the Supreme Court decision yesterday you have all of these liberal lawyers saying oh you know we need to amend the Constitution just like you can snap your fingers and amend the Constitution just like there's not a 75 million strong Trump Bas over represented in the halls of Congress which will object or they say oh you know we need to lengthen the terms of Supreme Court Justices yeah sure I mean as if they forgot that given the current rules you need 60 votes in the Senate to do anything meaningful or uh they'll say we need to end the filibuster oh sure right now the poll suggest that the Republicans are about to take take control of the US Senate as soon as November and what they do not engage is the political struggle as opposed to this legal Tinker uh tinkering with various Constitutional Amendments and various laws what about the political struggle what about going door too knocking on people's door trying to influence them politically I mean there is the wherewithal to do that sort of thing but again I think that some of the Liberals feel that if they go down that path it'll lead to their being ousted uh from ideological hemony in the movement and political leadership in the movement and so instead they're going to run the risk of fascism and as I've said archly in the recent past we have a lot of time to discuss and debate these issues in the concentration camps wow Gerald now our listeners know if they didn't know it already why you are one of our very very very favorite guests on our show while you continually while our listeners continually year after year after year suggest that we replay your interviews at the end of the year during our best of this is Hell series Gerald it is always a pleasure and whenever you have anything out that you want to talk about feel free to contact me really looking forward to talking to you again enjoy your upcoming weekend and thank you so much for being back on our show thank you for inviting me all right take care Jo you've been listening to a this is Hell interview for more interview hell and to support the show visit this is hell.com [Music]