Kev's Book Rants

EP: 1 - Black Against Empire: The Panthers Fight Against Capitalism

• Kevin Williams • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Join me, Kevin, on the debut episode of Kev's Book Rant as I dive into the powerful story of the Black Panther Party. In this episode, I'll explore the Panthers' fight against racial injustice and their bold challenge to the capitalist system. Through the lens of "Black Against Empire" by Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin Jr., I'll discuss the Panthers' strategies of unity and revolution that struck fear into the hearts of government officials and America's elite.

Discover how the Black Panthers stood out among other civil rights groups of the 60s with their focus on direct action and self-defense. Learn about their roots in Oakland, their embrace of Marxist and socialist ideologies, and the profound impact they had on communities across the U.S. and the world.

I'll also cover the intense government response to the Panthers, highlighting the FBI's COINTELPRO initiative and the tragic assassination of Fred Hampton. Through a blend of historical analysis and personal reflection, I'll underscore the timeless lesson that unity among oppressed groups holds immense power.

Tune in for an engaging and thought-provoking journey through one of the most influential movements in American history, and find out what lessons we can apply to today's struggles for justice and equality.

What's up, everyone? Welcome to the very first episode of Kev's Book Rant. I'm Kevin, and today we're going to get into the story of the Black Panthers. I want to talk about their fight, which was much more than just a battle against racial injustice. It was a full-on challenge against the capitalist system.

Also, I'm going to explore how this group's vision of unity and revolution became something that legitimately scared the powers that be, from government officials to America's elite. We're going to do all of this through the lens of the book "Black Against Empire" by Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin Jr. So let's get right into it.

 The 60s and Various Groups

So let's get right into it. During the 60s, you had a lot of groups fighting for the rights of Black and oppressed people, and even though they had similar goals, each of them had their own unique way of accomplishing those goals.

Take the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) for example. This was Martin Luther King's group, and his strategy was all about the power of love and non-violent protests. They really believed that peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience were the best way to bring about change in America. King's philosophy aimed at appealing to the moral conscience of white people.

Then you have the Nation of Islam led by Elijah Muhammad. They were proponents of Black nationalism and believed that Black communities should be separated to foster a stronger community identity and self-reliance.

Now, Malcolm X was a part of the Nation of Islam for a while, but he and Elijah Muhammad had some beef, and that's a whole different story in itself. Maybe one day we'll get to that. Malcolm X always said that being self-reliant was about building up Black businesses and community support. He thought that having a solid community identity was key to standing up against a racist society.

This was different from the integrationist approach because the Nation of Islam wasn't about trying to fit into a culture that didn't want them there in the first place.

Then you've got the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). They were a lot like SCLC but a little edgier. Stokely Carmichael led them. At first, he was all about nonviolence, but after seeing a lot of setbacks and ongoing violence, he pivoted to a tougher stance. Eventually, he got behind the idea of Black Power and moved away from the non-violent approach of the SCLC.

The Black Panthers

Now, when you get to the Panthers, they had a lot of similarities with the other groups, but what made them different was their focus on direct action and self-defense. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was started in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. They were tired of police brutality and racial discrimination, so they decided to take matters into their own hands to protect their community.

Newton started studying law to understand their legal rights when they had encounters with the police. Once he found out that California law was cool with them openly carrying firearms, provided they weren't pointing at anyone in a threatening way, he got to work setting up community patrols to keep an eye on the cops. They were essentially policing the police. Martin and Bloom used this phrase in their book and have a whole section that goes deep into how the Panthers protected their neighborhood. It's really cool.

This way, the Panthers could legally keep tabs on the police while safeguarding their neighborhoods. This helped them build up respect and credibility around the country because this strategy was both bold and well-informed, and it helped the Panthers grow quickly. As the Panthers expanded and started establishing chapters across the U.S., they started to incorporate Marxist and socialist ideologies. This embrace of these ideas is important to understand their trajectory from this point on.

Attention from the Government

Adopting these ideologies, especially at this time in history, was a bold statement because this was when the Cold War was going on, and anything remotely socialist was seen as a direct threat to the American way of life. Taking on communist ideas wasn't just a political stance; it was a defiant challenge to the very foundations of American society.

This shift showed that the Panthers were just as committed to economic equality as they were to racial justice. They saw the fight against racism and economic exploitation as part of the same struggle. When the Panthers adopted socialist and Marxist views, they were doing more than just fighting for rights at home. They were joining a global effort to push back against imperialism and colonialism.

These views on economic and social justice led other organizations to ally with the Panthers, seeing them as part of a broader movement for change. Local allies like the Peace and Freedom Party and the Brown Berets jumped on board. They even teamed up with the Young Patriots, a group of young white men from the South waving a Confederate flag.

When you think of a group of young white men waving a Confederate flag in the 1960s, what comes to mind regarding their political alliances or social values? Nothing that would lead me to believe they would have anything to do with the Panthers. When you look them up on Wikipedia, the first sentence says, "The Young Patriots organization was an American leftist organization of mostly white southerners from Uptown Chicago."

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would see the words "white southerners," "Confederate flag," and "leftists" describe an organization. Their existence is just mind-blowing to me. But anyway, back to the Panthers.

Worldwide Recognition and Government Fear

Once they started getting worldwide recognition and backing from countries like Algeria and North Korea, countries that had strained relationships with the U.S., the U.S. government started to worry. At this point, the movement was anti-capitalist and spreading globally, and this really scared America.

America did a lot of things globally during that time because they feared the global spread of communism. They were willing to go to war in Vietnam and Korea because they feared the spread of communism. So, if you've got an organization in your own backyard trying to spread communism, how do you think they're going to respond to that?

When you put it in that context, it makes sense that the U.S. would be on high alert, especially with the paranoia already going on in America. They had to undermine this movement because it was seen as a threat to American interests. One of the ways the government tried to undermine this movement was through an FBI-run program called COINTELPRO.

The Government's Persecution of the Panthers

COINTELPRO was an initiative that tried to destroy local political organizations that the FBI viewed as threats. It was started by J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI at the time, who was known to be paranoid, a little underhanded, and a racist.

There's a book called "The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover" by Lerone Martin that explores how Hoover's Christian nationalist ideas affected his time as the FBI director. Martin said, "Hoover never saw African Americans as being full citizens. He believed African Americans needed to work towards citizenship collectively, whereas white Americans, particularly native-born whites, were considered citizens naturally. He never considered the sociological factors that kept African Americans at a distance from economic security, housing security, and educational access. Hoover saw these things as natural rather than created. In that sense, he was certainly a white supremacist and a racist."

This is the guy who had unlimited resources and control over the FBI, shaping America essentially in his own image. The messed-up thing about the COINTELPRO program was that there was no regard for ethics or law. The FBI was out of control. They wiretapped phones, made up evidence, and sent secret letters to turn people against each other. They smeared leaders by pulling up dirt, real or made-up, just to drag their names through the mud. They played dirty with no care for the rules or who got hurt.

The Black Panthers started community programs like the Breakfast for Children programs and opened health clinics. What does the FBI do? They labeled them as the greatest threat to the internal security of the country. How twisted is that? When did providing breakfast to kids become a threat? They sent in informants to create internal conflicts and did everything they could to tear the Panthers down.

In the book "Black Against Empire," the authors highlight the extent of the government's assault on the Black Panthers: "The federal government and local police forces across the nation responded to the Panthers with an unparalleled campaign of repression and vilification. They fed defamatory stories to the media, wiretapped the Panther offices across the country, and hired dozens of informants to infiltrate Panther chapters." They basically declared war on the Panthers. They did things to the Panthers that you do to an enemy state when you're at war.

The Fear of Revolution

The fear of revolution has always been a thing in American history. For example, let's go back to the 1600s and talk about Bacon's Rebellion for a second. Bacon's Rebellion was a revolt in 1676, where you had a mix of economic frustrations and resentment for how the government was showing favoritism toward the wealthy elite, and it led to violence.

This is an oversimplification, so check it out for yourself. You had poor laborers and workers, both white and black, freed and enslaved, joining forces in this rebellion because they shared common grievances against the ruling class. After the rebellion was suppressed, the colonial elites were worried that it could happen again. They were afraid of an alliance between poor whites and poor blacks. To prevent this, they implemented laws that deepened racial divisions and solidified the legal framework of slavery.

The 1705 slave codes were the official starting point of institutionalized slavery. All of this was because the rich and powerful at the time were afraid of losing their control and privilege, leading them to exploit racial divisions to maintain power.

When you think about the profound impact slavery had on shaping the economy and all of American history, it becomes clear that the foundations of our nation were built on maintaining divisions among the lower class. By keeping the masses separated and focused on their differences rather than their common struggle, they employed the age-old strategy of divide and conquer. This is why the government was so afraid of the Black Panthers in the 60s because they were making significant progress, challenging the status quo, promoting unity among oppressed communities, and fighting against systemic racism and economic inequality.

Takeaway

The Black Panthers weren't the only ones who stood up for what they believed in during that time. There were many movements and people fighting for various rights, not just Black and oppressed people. Women were fighting for their rights, and the environmentalist movement was working to change how we interacted with the earth and the world around us. The book "Black Against Empire" covered the entire journey of the Black Panthers, and as I read through it, I couldn't help but notice the overarching theme: there's power in numbers, and we, the people, possess that power. The sooner we realize that we have more in common than we have differences, the better chance we have at creating a world that works for the large majority of people.

The Panthers had flaws, and it eventually led to their downfall. But they got it right when they realized that coming together with people who share similar goals can do powerful things.

Please don't get the wrong idea about me, especially this early in the game. This isn't an argument for communism, Marxism, socialism, or anything of the sort. It's more of a wake-up call to realize that capitalism is so ingrained in our psyche and system that it's basically a religion to us. The government and big businesses will go to crazy lengths to maintain that system and keep it in place because it keeps them at the top.

Every government does immoral things to get and maintain power, and America is no different. There is no perfect economic system or political ideology. At the end of the day, a system is only as moral as the people who run it. There will always be the haves and the have-nots, the elites and everyone else.

I don't have a problem with people being rich. If you create a product or service that changes lives, you deserve to be rich. My problem is when people are exploited, marginalized, or oppressed for a few to get and maintain power. You can be rich, just not at the expense of everyone else.

Here's my point: don't ride for capitalism or socialism or any kind of -ism because they are just tools. They are all flawed. Recognize your place in all of that. If you're part of the working class, you're often just a pawn in a larger game. That may sound pessimistic, but I think it's the truth.

Here's a challenge: have a conversation with someone who thinks and sees the world differently. Figure out what struggles you share. You'd be surprised at how similar your struggles are. Bridging the divide among the working class starts with understanding and recognizing shared concerns. Organize around issues detrimental to everyone, and change can start to happen.

Find common ground, and we can start to break down the barriers put up by those who want to keep us separated to maintain the status quo. Have that conversation, figure out what struggles you share, and change the world one issue at a time. Start with common issues and fix the world that way, then figure out the differences as you go.

That's my rant. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time.