[Music] fighting not accepting the conditions as they are and we are so pleased to have with us today as our honored guest Dr Gerald horn professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Houston Dr horn holds degrees from Princeton University of California and Colombia his professorship is the Moore's professorship at University of Houston Dr horn is an extensive writer he has written more than 30 books and he has written hundreds of professional articles he's highly regarded in his area and he's done extensive research on a wide range of topics of imperialism labor civil rights International war and we're so pleased that he has agreed to honor Us by being on our Airwaves today and Dr horn if you're there we welcome you and we are so pleased that you're here with us thank you for inviting me thank you well thank you so much uh Dr horn for being on and we want to also mention that uh he is the author of the most talked about book probably in the nation the counterrevolution of 1776 slave resistance and the origins of the United States of America and his latest book you got to get this one armed struggle question mark Panthers and Communists black Nationalist and liberals in the Southern California through the 60s and70s those are two very very awesome books but that's unne said he has about 30 Dr welcome to the program we make you just start off with talking about the basis of that book The Counter revolution of 1776 well it should be obvious that when the slave owners led by Jefferson Washington Madison Patrick Henry revolted against British rule that a prime objective was pleasing the land now the fact that some of our friends on the left expect Native Americans lost their was the OB to genocide to celebrate that particular tragedy I think says it all second of all I think it's fair to say that when the slave owners revolted against British rule they were not joined by the enslaved indeed by several orders of magnitude the enslaved did not join in the formation of the United States of America and I think that's one of the many reasons why by play descendants have been treated so atrociously and so horribly because when you fight a revolution or when you fight against a counter Revolution more precisely and do not Prevail you should be expecting to be treated horribly forever more unless until you can turn the table which we proceeded to do 1791 to 1804 with the Haitian revolution which of course our ancestors supported from ly because the Asian Revolution ignited a general crisis in the entire slave system that could only be resolved with this collapse which it proceed to do in North America in 1865 I noticed in your previous remarks that you commented upon this election that's approaching in November I think that we should draw reasonable inferences from the choices the predominant choices that we've been presented with on the one hand you have the Republicans who are the party of Neo fascism as suggested by the Trump immunity case which you just articulated and then the Democrats are the party of foreign intervention not only with regard to Gaza and Ukraine perhaps the South China Sea in 2024 2025 but what's remarkable is that for the black voter in particular this presents a real dilemma because the idea is that you vote to block the Neo fascist which has a certain logic however by voting for the party of for military intervention you're basically eroding what has been our main state which has been International solidarity I made reference to the haian revolution for example I could have gone on to talk about our relationship the African Liberation movement in the 20th century our relationship to the Socialist camp in the 20th century and so when you're voting for the party of for military intervention you're basically cutting your own throat that's right that's the cruel dilemma that our people face in 20124 that's a a critical point because you know not too often do people are or people encouraged to vote to stop someone else and not focus on what they're starting by voting for the other person you know one of the things that I found fascinating about your book is um the the Revolutionary War was not considered a war against slavery or about slavery you know they usually sa that for the Civil War but in fact you made point that they were seeking to abolish slavery in England almost like I think they did the slave trade and it was looking at abolishing slavery so the colonist in America decided that they wanted their independence so that they can keep slavery indeed uh you may recall that it was in 1772 four years before 1776 that in England there was Somerset case which was thought to have invalidated enslavement across the pond that is to say in England itself which was not greeted with equinity amongst the slave owning class because after all London had jur on this soil I should also mention that we should draw reasonable inferences from the fact that after the United States was established the enslave continued to struggle to overthrow the United States of America and a previous book I wrote called negro comrades of crown I talked about the War of 1812 where the United States tried to seize Canada from London and of course the black people in the United States were against this because they were escaping ly two Canada to escape the Clause of enslavement and in fact in August 1814 when the British Red Coats invaded Washington DC they were joined by the enslave in Washington DC in Maryland and Virginia who helped to torch the White House sending President James Madison and his gous spouse Dolly s into the streets one step ahead of the poty and then getting on British ships and departing to Trinidad and Tobago where their descendant continue to reside now when I spoke on this topic a few years ago after the book was published in New York City there were folks in the audience who had roots in that particular migration and fact at that point we're living in Brooklyn uh once again what the point I'm trying to stress is that there is no reason for us to celebrate July 4th 1776 it was marking the creation of the first apar state likewise if you go back to the formation of aarte in South Africa in 1948 among other things it was designed to uplift the poor Europeans so that they would not engage in class solidarity with the poor Africans likewise if you look at the vaed US Constitution which you just quoted Frederick Douglas to some effect denouncing and if you look at the Ved Bill of Rights the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution they did not apply to the enslaved right they did not apply to the native Amer hey the Native Americans did not have the right to bear arms in fact a strategic objective of the settlers the European settlers was precisely to keep arms out of the hands of Native Americans likewise a purpose of the Second Amendment and in fact of the entire legal framework of the Constitution was to be able to have militias to suppress Revolt of the enslaved and to wage war against the Native Americans now that should be obvious but somehow it's not which is why we have to have these kinds of discussion Dr horn thank you so much we're going to continue with our questions we want our listeners to know get ready we're going to have a call- in time and that Callin number is 22209 2877 21229 2877 Dr horn you talked about how uh when these uh forces and troops came in that the enslaved Africans joined in them in your book you also talk about the consistent uh uprisings and resistance that are noted in history if you take the time to look where African-Americans were here and continuously The Maroons coming up and fighting and St no Revell and all of that if you could just share some of that with our listening audience well let me Begin by saying that I I too host the Pacifica Show on kpfk in Los Angeles oh okay and just a few days ago I interviewed a scholar who has done new research on the enslaved in North America and Arsen you can find his article in the December 2023 Journal of American History okay and what's remarkable is that black women in particular were Masters at Aron you had the enslaved trying to set fire to the Confederate White House soall recall that the Confederate States of America that say Dixie sought to secede from the United States in the 1860s in order to perpetuate the enslavement of Africans forever more you had the enslave seeking to burn down the Confederate White House you had enslaves seeking to murder Martha Washington the Widow of George Washington in her house by setting fire to her house with her in it you had the enslaved seeking to murder the family of John C Calhoun the leading spokesperson for slavery a senator from South Carolina a proud alumnus of Yale University and that's not to mention what we already know about the Revol of mat Turner in Virginia in 1831 the Revolt of Gabriel in Virginia Circa 1800 inspired directly once again by the Haitian revolution so I'm not sure where this idea took ascendancy that somehow the enslaved were quite E when in fact exact opposite is Cas quite the opposite that's right Dr horn and for those of you who have called in uh we see the lines lit up and it's blinking we're going to get to you so just stay on the engineer will get to you uh shortly but we just want to make sure that everybody knows the number that's 212 call us now 22209 2877 we have a lot of you online it's lit lit up so we want to make sure that you stay on there because they're we're going to get to you and and uh to your point Dr Horn uh we have to remember that we this is a battle that we have to continually fight and raise the question you know the idea that oh our Negroes were happy Negroes Scholastic Books had the audacity to print a children's book I think it was called a birthday cake for George Washington in which they had the nerve to depict those enslaved people as being pleased at what it was that they were doing and being satisfied and Happ so it's not anything that we can leave to rest uh thinking that we've achieved that and we can move on Jo well Dr horn once again I I really appreciate you coming on and we want to really get into this stuff you know a lot of people don't understand that when you wave that red white and blue flag some say Betsy Ross stitched that flag while we were catching stitches in slavery so I don't know why you would Rave a flag that somebody Stitch while you were catching stitches in slavery and most people don't realize that the real reason that the Declaration of Independence occurred is because they wanted to maintain the economic system of slavery Dr hor well what's striking is that the propaganda suggests that 1776 was an anti-slavery Revolt now you have to watch their language they point to Vermont in the 1770s Vermont not only sought to Bar enslaved Africans they sought to Bar free Negroes as well that's what they mean by an slav likewise in Oregon in the 1850s just before it joins the United States of America it too tries to Bar slavery but bar free Negroes as well and as a result Portland Oregon has the smallest black urban population in the nation today just like Vermont probably has the smallest black population of any of the 50 states and so you really have to watch the language of these propagandas and I think what what it is as well is that if you go back and look at the origins of settler colonialism and by the way I find it remarkable that the term settler colonialism is applied to Historic Palestine but somehow it's not applied to North America but as I pointed out in my 16th century book when England began to send settlers across the Atlantic in the 1580s they settlers were sponsored by the 1% in London although the settlers themselves came from various class backgrounds and so class collaboration that is to say Europeans of different class backgrounds collaborated as happened on January 6 2021 when mostly Europeans of various class backgrounds shopkeepers working class cops veterans seeking to prop up a SP billionaire so class collaboration has been the ethos of the United States of America and so what happened in order to make US History consistent there are those who seek to impute class collaboration to the enslave population which is fous that is to say to suggest that we like the settlers were seeking to cut deals with the slave holders as opposed to burning up the slave owner in his bed as I just articulated well thank you very much we're going to go to some of our callers and uh we just want to remind you that right here in New York City right here in New York City New York was the second largest slaveholding city in the union only second to uh Charleston South Carolina and in 1712 Africans rose up and burnt the place up they even burnt up the governor's mansion and then in 1779 after the whites were putting pressure on the slave holders say hey these people are are in dangering us they started burning up more subs so that had gradual emancipation after 25 years your daughter is free and after 27 years your son is free they said no so they burnt more stuff and then in 1827 New York abolished slavery it stayed on to about 1840 but caller we have a caller and caller you're on the air Bron newor yes you're on the air one um Dr horn could you elaborate on uh your kpfk and what day your your your program exists and perhaps this is an excellent time to ask the listeners to donate money to Pacifica so that we can have this tool of learning and perhaps we can use a the information that you just share about the history of African's existence here in the the Americas um as a teaching tool and a um and as a Pacifica so we can get out of debt okay thank you very much uh Dr horn well the program that I co-produce and host comes on Saturdays at 2m Eastern at kpfk.org and then that show and other programs for for example this one most likely as well are then uploaded to the activist News Network which is a YouTube channel so either kpfk.org or the activist News Network on YouTube you can find the various interviews that I either host or am the guest for well thank you very much uh we have another caller caller y on the air hi there is that me yes it is yes it is oh that's beautiful first of all I want to say thank you so very much uh uh Mr Charles Baron and Mrs Charles Baron for doing the uh Frederick Douglas you know in the past they would play the entire speech early in the morning and I would put my speakers outside so that my neighbors would wake up in the right state of mind so thank you so very much because thei did not do it this year now I want to thank also uh Dr Gerald horn yes Dr Gerald horn and I have a question Lincoln and his wife own I believe 250 slaves did he ever free them or was he assassinated leaving his wife with the slaves the enslaved Africans excuse me enslaved Africans Dr Lincoln the president Dr H I think it would be more accurate to say that Abraham Lincoln as a president as reflected in the book by the late journalist historian Lon Bennett book entitled for Glory sought to emancipate the enslaved and then Deport us all or our ancestors to Santo Domingo to Central America to West Africa wherever as long as we got out of here for example George Washington the so-called founding father of course was a slave owner and in fact my 2025 book will be on slavery in Washington DC and as a result I had the opportunity recently to look at his will and Not only was he a major slave owner along the dimensions you just articulated but also he may have been one of the biggest property holders on planet Earth which brings me back to my original comment which is that one of the reasons there was a revolt against British rule in 1776 is that Britain was expending blood and treasure to expel the indigenous the Native American from from their land so that land speculators like George Washington could seize that land and perhaps it's not coincidental that a leading candidate for the White House in 2024 is able land Speculator there's a certain maob consistency there I'm afraid to say well thank you very much that book that we're talking about with Lon Bennett Jr is forced into Glory Abraham Lincoln's White Dream to free us and Deport us so America can be purely white next caller caller you're on the air hello you're on the air MH hey gang appreciate your knowledge very much uh Charles that you're your wife you're brilliant I love your relationship you guys are really cute Dr horn um you are so intelligent with your history and I appreciate learning from you um I I would like to add and I ask this to Dr Gerald horn are you open if history had unfolded something and had left it incomplete are you open Dr horn um oh I don't you have to articulate the question for me am I open yes in other words because I'm hearing some of the things that you're saying and I I just wrote a book and I did some research on a lot of different things and Quantum linguistically I broke down the Declaration of Independence because I agree with everyone and completely with no argument before I wrote it and as I started to unfold it I started to realize that the declaration has a certain continuity and I don't want to speak it cuz of course it's in the book right now and I would like to add too that I do not argue that these men had slaves and they were egregious to what the fiber of being American really be and they also both Jefferson and Franklin benjam Franklin had also said what we wrote in this document we will not be able to complete and one day maybe we can because think about this we get older to our lives and alchemistic through the fiber which we age we I don't want to say we get mellow um but we get more call I think I think uh Dr hor May got the the gist of what you're saying so let's let him respond to uh what you're saying go ahead Dr horn well to the extent that I understand the question I would say that the Declaration of Independence marking July 4th 1776 Den in no uncertain terms the indigenous population that's right London is accused of supporting the indigenous population likewise you probably know that the Star Spangled vanished the national anthem yes in its notorious third stand the black population that's right not least because what I referenced a few moments ago concerning our ancestors of flocking to the banner of the Invaders In order to overthrow slavery in 1812 1813 1814 how many national anthems are there that denounce a specific category of the population and in that regard let me mention a news item that escaped the attention of the New York Times but I've been mentioning repeatedly in recent days and weeks the Pew Center which is a think tank just did a study uh and a survey of black Americans where a majority of black Americans have concluded that the government of the United States is working against their interest now what's remarkable is that there are few political organizations that can explain why a majority of black Americans think the government is working against their interest and likewise Pew itself castigated those that they surveyed saying that this was some sort of conspiracy theory like Elvis Presley is still alive even the people people who posed the question didn't understand the depth the profundity of the response and this is one of the reasons we have so many problems in this land that's correct well you can call us once again at 21229 2877 21229 2877 and Dr horn you know one of the things that uh we always have to make very very clear uh to uh people in the establishment of the United States of America you know some of the major documents like the Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that said only the enslaved Africans in the Confederate states which he had no jurisdiction over are free and the ones that were slave states that didn't leave the union you can keep yours and this whole thing about juneth you know it's not like we were sitting in Texas waiting for General Granger to come didn't know they was in emancipation and oh my God now we're free you know the 13th Amendment happened not June but December so we were all free we wouldn't need a 13th amendment that say slavery shall be abolished uh except except as a punishment for crime and we went from the plantation to the penitentiary you want to respond to some of that Dr horn well I've been speaking quite a bit about juneth marked just a few weeks ago and as you correctly suggest what happens with regard to juneth was that the enslavers in Texas had this diabolic scheme to continue slavery despite the surrender of the Confederacy recall that Texas is an independent country from 1836 to 1845 they only joined the United States under pressure and under duress in 1845 they sought perhaps to reestablish their sovereignty and keep in mind as well that across the border and Mexico France had taken control of Mexico and was proslavery so the idea was of the Texas enslavers was either a to continue enslavement in Texas itself or B cross the border with their enslaved in Po and continue enslavement in Mexico which after all had abolished slavery for Texas Independence in 1836 under a president of African descent speaking of vente gero and one of the reasons why Sam Houston Stephen El Austin and the other enslavers revolted and seceded from Mexico just like their ideological ancestors George Washington Thomas Jefferson at all seceded from the British Empire in 1776 so the they can continue slav wow very interesting we have some callers so we're going to go back to our phones uh caller caller caller you're on the a hello caller you're on the air yeah thank you so much uh I've been listening and listening and listening but I haven't heard the solution and I would like Dr horn to address uh why we haven't uh done what Gandhi did and you know reserved all these so-called seats in government for africanamerican descendants of slaves slavery is like a disease and and all we have to do is get uh reparations to cure that we don't really have to worry about who's going to be president or none of that and we can't get reparations until we re return the ties of the African descendants of the slaves with their African relatives in Africa until the Africans stand up and say that we want you returned and you going to keep everything that you earned into you United States instead of worrying about returning some damn statues and some pictures which they're running all over the world talking about no matter how long they've been gone they still belong to us well what about the people no matter how long we've been gone from Africa we still belong to you and you haven't asked one time if you get behind us if they get behind us we going to get anything we want on this planet Earth and all this fooling around with this voting nonsense if we don't get good lawyers like Dr horn who can negotiate with the world courts on what we are entitled to as people who never signed on the dotted line to give up our citizenship to Africa some of these immigrants are coming in here signing on the dotted line African as they want to be but they've given up all of their rights and and the descendants of slaves we never did that here in America thank you very much let me let Dr horn respond to you thank you caller Dr horn well as I suggested a few moments ago part of the key to our making progress has been our ability to build International solidarity by dentification Revolution 1791 1804 by Dent of our relationship with African Liberation movements Caribbean Liberation movements socialist camp in the 20th century and let me take the opportunity to compliment former city councilman Charles Baron who knew that that was a key principle because he was in solidarity with the much beler government of Zimbabwe which came under pressure because its government sought to reverse the tith of settler colonialism by reclaiming the land from the European Invaders and that was a step towards building this kind of panafrican solidarity Global solidarity that has been the key to our progress and I dare say to reiterate that it's going to be very difficult to execute that strategy as long as we feel compelled to support either a the party of Neo fascism which means suicide I.E the Republicans or the party of for military Intervention which means the stabilizing our Global relationship we need to break out of that straight jacket thank you very much we have another caller caller you're on the air hey it's Charles Richard again I just wanted to ask Dr Gerald how can I uh forward you a copy of this book how do I get how can I do that oh better book stores everywhere they're all over the place I'm not underground yet well Dr horn you know we uh certainly appreciate you we have some time left I want you to make some closing remarks of course but I think this has been a powerful program we hope it gets rebroadcast because of your your deeply deeply uh profound discipline of scholarship and research so we thank you very much for being on the air with us and we're going to have you come back because it's just not enough time to really get to all of the stuff that we know that you uh can share with us but could you give us an update on some of the stuff that's happening in Africa we always like to say as Dr osif for and Kuma said and Amal yella of the African people's Socialist Party says Central to the liberation of African people on the continent and in the diaspora is the unification and liberation of Africa under socialism so if you can speak to some of that that many people are talking about in these revolutionary times Well I note that you may reference to the event ongoing in the former settler Colonial regime in Kenya and what's interesting is that President Ruto who obviously sees himself as the deputy sheriff for us imperialism looking at his dispatching of cops to ha for example is digging himself a deeper hold because he's retreated on the tax increases that led to these protests tax increases on women Sanitary products baby diapers for example wow and instead he's going going after the government bureaucracy and laying those people off so that those government bureaucrats in their TOs and TI would being Street sooner rather than later with regard to South Africa I'm sure you took note of the setback for thec but what's interesting is that in the appointment of the cabinet by President Raposa he broke up the Agriculture and land Ministry turned over agriculture to a representative of the old parade party so-call Democratic Alliance and then turned over the land Ministry to a leader of the penist Congress of asenia which you might recall that before the Advent of the economic freedom fighters which got 10% of the vote it was the PAC that was carrying the banner with regard to land reform so it's going to be very interesting to watch what this P representative is going to be able to do with regard to restitution of the land in South Africa which nles to say is a central issue oh thank you so much Dr Horn uh we're going to close it now oh this has been wonderful uh we got to have you come back andess has some closing announcements and then I'll close us out thank you so much Dr H we honored to have you and we're going to check out that kpfk.org so that we can see some of your other presentations uh just in terms of