"panther baby" recounts his life as a member of the black panther party during the 1960s and 70s. he does that his time in prison where he received several college degrees who now teaches at columbia university, famous addition he wants urged students to satisfy her. from the free library of philadelphia, this is about an hour 10 minute. >> hello, good evening. so i wanted to introduce the writer, jamal joseph. i met jamal a long time ago. he used to be the chair of columbia university, where i went to graduate school. and long-ago i had a friend at new line cinema, which asserted

a big company, and makes big movies. i was saying to her one day that i was working about this movie of the black panthers in doing this research and really wanted to talk to someone. and she said well, i am working with this fabulous screenwriter. she loves to work this man did and is just incredible and you should talk to him. and i thought that is outlawed,, i didn't fully understand. was he a black and bare, a friend, did he just hang out with them? it seemed very strange, two very separate things come to screenwriter for a big hollywood company and black panther. that was my first meeting of jamal. i found him to be this incredibly soft-spoken and gentle man and i think it was in many ways one of the first times that i sort of saw an african-american who really was working in hollywood and writing

movies than i thought that was really far more amazing that he actually lived this history, that i really admire so much. and you know, i think from then on we started knew each other and i think probably something that i find most amazing about him and about his experience is that coming in now, when i went to him a year ago and wanted to get some photographs from him to use for a project, i remember asking to make you have anything you could lie me? any photos they could copy, letters? and he said i don't have anything. when i was a young man, i think it's about 16, i had to go underground and we dumped everything. i thought, that is to be so profound that it is such a young

man, that he had to, you know, kind of destroyed this sort of young that he had in order to hide. i found it very heartening and i think in a lot of ways i knew his history that moment has sort of stuck with me. so you know, i am really very, very happy to introduce this amazing writer in the areas, jal joseph. [applause] >> thank you so much. good evening. i want to just acknowledge first of all the philadelphia free library for this event, for setting it up. whitney p. alene who is a wonderful friend and dynamic

publicist who has been working hard. and then all of the panthers. we don't say former panthers. we see panther alumni who are in the house. reggie shell was a captain, later of the philadelphia chat here. reggie are you here quite reggie shell, give him a big round of applause. [applause] sister bcs to calder, barbara cox was from philadelphia, but was atto marshall. don cox struggled all around it whenever she would come to new york, i don't remember when you in new york either how you would take the young panthers because they're always hungry and feed us. we go to a restaurant and you would get us chicken and waffles or fish and grits.

brother saul tran who is going to help us with the question incinerators yet cannot all be alone, all the panthers and let's give them a round of applause. [applause] i apologize a little bit. i'm working but despite the affair. i found out on the road i have a little kidney infection, so i resigned to her and went to l.a. and then got to seattle and from seattle got really sick in boise, idaho and that i had the flu in the doctor diagnosed me. so you'll see me mop down kind of a little bit. such a great conversation we been having not only about my experiences, but how can people

got involved and how you relate the day. and what we could be doing today. and that one of you sound like a 60s conspiracy heiress, but i had a nightmare that i would've found out out of the strap to a hospital bed and initiator hoover with a big syringe and a laptop laughing his eyes out. finally got yours, jamal. my journey into the black dancer party started before i became a panther. i think what i would like to do is read a little passage from the book and then show you how i happened to walk into the panther office and how that day changed my life. this is chapter three of the boat and its called finding the panther layer. i walk into a panther office in brooklyn of september 1968.

wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. and that to say the best for last, but not until the end of the program. this chairman bobby year? chairman bobby seale, founder of the black panther party is here. please stand up. [applause] i knew i was saving that, but then i started raising. he didn't need to do than attend the program. he wants no bobby seale is announced and will get a chance during q&a citta to chairman bobby as well. i want them to the office in september 1968. dr. king had been assassinated april of that year, rising anger flared and agendas around the country. the feeling on the street was the ship was about to hit the fan. black power was the craze of the day and hating whitey was for it

in to do. first recorded speeches to campus rallies, whitey had gone from being the man to be and the bees. come black students were trading in their feel-good motown records for the recorded speeches about combat and the angry jazz recordings of arnet coleman. i went down to 125th street in harlem that night, the night dr. king was assassinated. protesters and writers swarmed the streets, clashing with cops overturning cars, setting trashcan fires at white owned businesses. one of the storefront windows were shattered by the airport trash can. looters ran into the store and started taking clothes, appliances and whatever else they could gather. not everyone limited. in fact, most of the crowd continued to chant, the king is dead and black power. but it was enough for the cubs to start swinging clubs come to shooting pistols making arrests. a cop grabbed the intermediates

the wall. before he could hand pick me up in the paddy wagon come to a group of rioters turned the police car over. the cop told him to stay put and ran towards the rioters. i was scared, but i wasn't. i took off running in the opposite direction. i blended in with the group of rioters and tried to figure out which way to go. a group of cops headed towards us. some ran into a clothing store be included. i followed. the cops entered the store swinging clubs and making arrests. my heart pounded as i ran into the back of the store and on about relating to an alley. i gasped for air as a read-only alley and was stopped by a wooden fence. the cops came into the alley. halt they yelled, put your handset. in my mind i froze, put my hands in the air and turned around taste the cops with tears in my eyes, but my body kept hauling as. i grabbed the fence and screwed

over like a scared alleycat appeared to shots rang out. when splintered on the fence near my hit the schema you cannot push any to flip over, pick myself off the ground and scramble out of the alley. but it turned out onto the street i kept running right past to other cops who try to gather me. i away, turning the corner almost collided with a group of 20 or so black men in leather coats and army fatigue jackets, wearing afro centaur race and is standing on the corner and the military like formation. stop running, young brother. one of the men said, don't give these people an excuse to get me down. i doubled over, heating, trying to catch my breath. i didn't know this and come of his voice sounded like a light rap of confidence in this eve chaos. moments later to cops right around the corner. they stop doing to their tracks.

what are we doing it one of the cubs to mandate? move aside. the blackmail attempt lasses didn't flinch. where exercising their constitutional right, making sure no innocent people get killed out here tonight. purchasing figures the cops recorded. no losers here. as you can see, we disciplined community patrol. you have guns the cop asked with a tinge of fear in his voice? that's what she said the to me in attempt glasses replied. i said we were exercising our constitutional rights. the cops look at the size and discipline of the group for a moment to monterey. by the time i caught my breath, i was speechless. by that time i caught my breath, but i speeches from what i just seem. black man standing down the cops. go straight home demand that the tinted glasses said. the pigs look for any excuse to murder black folks tonight.

without the black men walked on. i scooted down the subway and headed home. when i enter the apartment, grandma was sitting on the couch watching images of dr. king on tv. tears fell from my eyes. she didn't even ask very bad, which is unusual since i was two hours late getting home. i sat next to her, put my arm around her and we watch tv report said the assassination and the riot. i came to school the next day -- before that, which is a little bit about my adoptive grandmother. i was conceived in cuba and my mother was a graduate student and broke up with my father and came home and announced to my grandmother she was pregnant but it broken up with the guy in my grandmother pressed a little bit more about who the father was. and when she found out he was a young revolutionary hanging

around the lake cissy delano castro, mom got put on the first plane to new york city. any to vitiate any deadbeat time in a graduate student and on her way to be a doctor. but when she showed up in new york city she was a young black woman who couldn't speak english. she spoke spanish and spoke french and a frien told her about a loving place where they took worth in caves, so she put me there for what she thought would be a temporary stay, but wound up eating my early childhood and adolescent home. new new grandma and papa took me in when they were quite old and their parents and older brothers and sisters had been slaves. so i grew up hearing stories about america and about as solid or you didn't look away person in the eye if you are black coming down the street. in fact, if they were in the

side to come you got into the gutter no matter if it is raining, muddy, while two were, to side with to them. i heard about the ku klux klan and munching and jim crow as first-person reports. they saw a cross burning. they lost relatives to lynching. with that though, they were working class people, newly workers of domestic, pop baltimore worked as a laborer and i think rbis in the 20s. they joined the naacp and others at the in the naacp youth council. i was honor student, inquired, had a sense of going on. we collected food and books up north to send to the civil rights workers in the south who were distributing that stuff to communities. pa died when i was 12 years old, so they're assisting of wanting to be a man. mm.game.killed and i was enraged him angry.

so the day after this i went to school and on the fringes, you know, on television you would see sophie carmichael and h.r. brown and bobby seale and you renew when in the news described them black militants and of course talking about the power. i want to back up a little and talk about because all of my lessons in black history i do what you think it was over dinner table with books spread out. paul was a working man and he was what they call in those days the race man. so a lot of them would be as simple as we'd be watching television, the old black-and-white tv and a tarzan movie would, on. johnny wipe the fly across the screen and to speak his language and the monkeys would go here and pa would you looking at that

and after five minutes he would go what the is that? last night you tell me how a little cracker may be consolidate the airplane, grow up and speak everything. boy, change the channel. it was living history. then i would switch and i remember this come in the first time seen a job very reisner giving some editorial. i think it was about the space program. and he was going on and on and been very educated can make out, bright and. elected them for five minutes and said you were lying, onion had, cracker. change the channel, buoyed

.. >> and one of my friends, a white kid a jewish kid named paul looks up at me and says, eddie, i don't know if you can announce you're going to be a black militant like it's a career choice. [laughter] i was like, no, paul, you watch. you watch. and then i had to as much prove to paul as to myself as to the own anger i was feeling, find the most militant organization on the scene. and it was suggested, believe

me, i didn't really know what was going on, you know? and so there'd be reasons, you know, to look at organization and reject it just on the surface level. it was like the black muslims. now, i don't really like bow ties, plus grandma makes some mean bacon. it's be like snake, i know paul and them would have fun with that, and then they ran a news report talking about the rising militancy in america, and there was a story about the black panther party. and they ran the footage where, of the panner panthers led by chairman bobby stormed the state capitol in sacramento. and for folks who don't know, the panthers started patrolling the streets of oakland, california, with shotguns and law books enforcing one of the aspects of the ten-point program. i want to get to that later, but that caught the imagination not only of the community of america because it was legal to carry guns in california if they

weren't concealed, and the law books were to make it clear that at first huey and bobby and the other panthers who joined understood the right to bear arms, understood the right to arrest. they would follow the person to the precinct, bail them outthey had the money. if not, there were young lawyers and legal volunteers to help get people out. but i'm seeing these black people with guns. so california responds by saying, yes, the law says you can carry weapons when they're not concealed, but when we wrote that law, we didn't mean black guys with leather coats and berets. so they quickly moved to change the law, and is panthers responded by storming the hearing in sacramento, and it made national news. and i'm looking at this seeing the panthers storm the legislature going, like, they're crazy. they got guns and leather coats, they're crazy. and the powerful white legislators, the white men, they're ducking under their seats for cover.

and the panthers come out. , chairman bobby reads the statement about the constitutional right to bear arms and that we have to defend ourselves because the police are not defending our communities, they occupy our communities. and then a reporter says the ultra militant black panther party. he says, please, stop their cause. and they found more guns and communist literature in the trunk. and i said, they're so crazy. i said, they got leather coats, they got guns, the man said they're communists. i'm joining that one. [laughter] because you're a kid. you want to be with the roughest and the toughest. there wasn't a panther office in the bronx where nuni lived, the harlem office hadn't opened yet. there was a panther office that two of my older friends had found the secret headquarters of the black panther party. and anybody that knows about the panthers knows that our offices and our community centers were anything but secret, but we had found the secret headquarters, and it was like a two hour subway ride to get there.

and can as we're riding -- and as we're riding, not having any real information, the guys are trying to psych each other out, mainly me. i think they thought if i jumped off the train, they had to go get me. so one guy leans over to me, and he goes you know this is serious, right? you know the panthers is like the mafia. once you join, there's no getting out. i'm like, there's no getting out? but i can't be a punk in front of my boys, so i squared my skinny little shoulders, and i went, i don't care. the other guy leans over, and he says you know the panthers don't kill, right? you've got to kill a white dude to be a panther. kill somebody? i can't be a punk in front of my boys. and the other guy goes, get it right, get it right. you don't got to kill a white dude. i'm so relieved by this. he says you've got to kill a white cop, and you've got to bring in his badge and his gun. [laughter] i don't care. [laughter] we get to the panther office, and there's that wonderful black

panther party sign on the outside, and we come in the back, and i sit down. brothers and sisters have on their leather coats and their army fatigue jackets, and some have berets and afros, and some of the sisters have their heads wrapped. and up front the person who's running the meeting was the information lieutenant, and he is explaining the panther ten-point program. now, this is, if you read this, it was written in october of 1966. if you read this document that was written 45 years ago, um, the thing is that it's brilliant. sadly, it could have been written two years ago. talk about that just in a second because a lot of those points have not been addressed. but, you know, the points are things like we want freedom, the power to determine the destiny of our community, we want full employment for our people, an end to the robbery of our communities, decent housing fit to shelter human beings. nothing in there about killing a white dude, nothing in there

about bringing the cop's badge and gun. am i hearing this? i have my own internal conversation. want to be a man, i want to show my boys. and i think the brother gets to point number five which is about education, education that teaches us the true nature of this decadent american society. i jump up and i say, choose me, brother, because you know what? i'll kill a white dude right now. the whole meeting stops. and the lieutenant says come here, brother. he reaches down into the bottom drawer, and my heart is pounding. and i look like look how far down he's reaching to the drawer. he's going to give me a big ass gun. [laughter] and he hands me a stack of books. autobiography of malcolm x, famous little red book quotations from chairman mao, and i'm thinking, i played hookie to come here. [laughter]

and he's giving me some books. this must be a test. he's checking me out to see if i can really be a panther. i'm 15 years old, brothers and sisters, i'm this skinny. i have like the little jackson five afro, and my voice hadn't quite changed yet. the voice sounded a lot like michael's. i cleared my throat, tried to put some bass in my throat, and i looked at him in the eye and said, excuse me, brother, i thought you were going to arm me. [laughter] and he said, excuse me, young brother, i just did. and as i'm walking back to my seat, he says, young brother, let me ask you a question since you came here talking about you want to kill white folk. he said of all of these cops, these racists who are in the community who were murdering people, brutalizing people, gunning them down like dogs, he said if all of them were black and the people being killed and brutalized were white, he said all of these store owners in the

community who were ripping the community off with high prices and with rotten meat and spoiled vegetables, if all of them were black and the people being ripped off were white, and he says and these demagogic fascist, crooked politicians, if all of them were black and the people exploited were white, would that make things correct? and this time i answered with my brain, and i said, no, brother, that seems like it would be wrong. and for the first time, he said, that's right. this is a class struggle, not just a race struggle, a class struggle for human rights. study those books so you understand what the revolution is about. so i like to tell that story because i was -- two of the notions that people have about the black panther party when we look back was that the panthers was a violent organization that just hated white people. and i was disabused of both of those things the very first day.

and as i was leaving the office, there was a -- next to the posters of malcolm x and of huey and bobby, there was this poster of kay get varian rah, and it had this quote, and it's a quote that i would soon come to understand that i could live by in the movement, and it was taken from a speech a few years earlier at the united nations, and it said at the riskover sounding ridiculous, let me say that revolutions are guided by great feelings of love. and that became clear to me, made clear that that was going to be my work as the panthers. community programs, breakfast programs, health clinic, food giveaways. that was the work. and i wanted to go all the time. on the go all the time. nuni is like, boy, where you going? uh, school. where you going? basketball practice. but you're not on the team. i just made it, you know? so i'm on the go, doing the stuff. clean your room, boy, take out

the garbage. and finally grand ma gets tired, and she does what grandparents will do, she went to straighten up my room. and hidden under my bed between the mattress and the box spring was all of this panther literature. and i came home from school that night or probably from a meeting or some community service that night, and grandma had the kitchen table stacked with panther papers and other literature, and she had in the middle the bible, and then she had the strap that she used to beat me with. that was the mafia altar, you know? i didn't run into it when i joined the panther office. and if you see the artwork of henry douglas, imagine how this is to a woman who had been born of slaves, you know what i mean? seeing cops portrayed as pigs with flies buzzing around their head and school children, you know, african school children barefoot, you know, books on one hand, that's cool, ak-47 on the

other shoulder, you know? and i come in, and i stop cold, and grandma say, boy, what is this? i was, like, grandma, you was in my room? she says don't you even start because i don't know whether i'm going to bress you with this belt or kill you with this bible. [laughter] but you are not going back there. so, you know, i pleaded, i tried to explain, but she -- already at this point was seeing on the news every day that panthers were being arrested and that panthers were being killed. so i went, you know, obedient grandson that i was, i had to go one more time. and i was in front of the panther office with our section leader, our lieutenant, and i said i can't come back anymore because grandma's like a brainwashed uncle tom, and she won't let me go, and it was almost like she was a superhero leaping over a car into my chest, and she said, never, ever talk about your grandmother like that. she said, because she's just

loving you the best way she knows how, and you needed to be more responsible ant -- about all of this. my section leader came to speak to her, a crazy brother, but he made sure that i knew my ten-point program, that i reported to community service, that i conducted myself as a young panther, you know, even the right way to hit on a panther girl. [laughter] he's like, jamal, you're a panther now. you can't be up in here talking about what's happening, baby? half the women don't want to hear that stuff. they want to hear power to the people, my sister. [laughter] and then when you say, and then when they say how you doing, my brother, you say, oh, my sister, you know, i'm just really exhausted, i'm worn out. and i was up early this morning at the breakfast program. and i was organizing at school, and i was over at the health clinic helping out, then i did community patrols, we were helping the senior citizens get home, i'm just worn out, sister, but you know what? it's okay because i'm struggling for the people. [laughter] excuse me, let me try to keep my

eyes open over here. [laughter] then the sister might say, well, brother, you know, you're so tired, why don't you come by, we made a little dinner. that's what panther women want to hear. so my lieutenant came to my house to talk to grandma. he had on his leather jacket, but he had taken all the buttons off. he had a tie on. i didn't even know we were allowed to wear ties. and he sits down to her and says mother baltimore, nuni's name was may d right away he gets some points because she's an elder. he says if you say eddie can't come back to the panther office, i have to listen to that, we have to listen to that because you're his grandmother. you're my elder. if you tell me to do something right now, ma'am, i have to do it. he said, but i know he's not doing everything that he's supposed to do, and if you don't mind whether he can come back or not, i'd like to keep an eye on him. ma'am, if you say his curfew is

10:00 f he doesn't walk in the house at 9:45, i will take off this garrison belt buckle, and i'll beat his butt. and i'm sitting on the side going, what you doing? you signing up to beat me with grandma, you know? you're supposed to come, like, do the panther, you know? he said, ma'am, i know he could be doing better in school. if you want him to bring you an 85 on the next algebra test f he doesn't bring you a 95, i will take these size 13 combat boots, and i'll give him a swift kick in the butt. and grandma listened, not what she was expecting. kind of checks up, you know, with the lord. she had the hotline. she said, well, you know, my mind was made up, she said but you seem like a nice man, and it's hard raising a boy alone because he don't know his daddy, and his granddaddy passed away. so if you keep an eye on him and make sure he does what he's supposed to do, i'll let him go back. and so, hooray, i went back.

and more active but, you know, made to be more conscious of what i had to do to take care of grandma. and five weeks later the, an assault team, we would call them a s.w.a.t. team, but they were called tactical patrol force, kicked in grandma's door at 4 a.m. in the morning. i had just turned 16, and they take me out in handcuffs and chains in what became the panther 21 case. and that number 21 is because, you know, the district attorney in new york, mr. hogan, was going to solve his panther problem a little bit differently, you know? they were attacking panther offices all around the country, in des moines, iowa, our offices was blown up, here in philadelphia the office was raided, and can the panthers were made to stand naked in the cold for hours and hours. of course, in chicago fred hampton was murdered in his sleep. but he was going to legally

lynch us. so that number 21 represented anyone in a leadership position in the black panther party. and although i was the youngest, i was always armed, and i was a good student and a hard worker, and i became head of all the high school cadres. so my name came up. yep, him too. we're getting all the leadership. we didn't know what it meant, what a conspiracy case meant. and when we got to court, the bail was set at $100,000. now, that's a lot of money today. imagine what that's like in 1969. so we were remanded and sent to different prisons, and as time went on the lawyers fought under the rules of discovery to find out what this case was about. and the heart and soul of the case was made by undercover cops who were part of an elite unit in new york called the boss unit, the bureau of special services. and one of the boss unit cops was a man named gene roberts who

wasn't a nation of islam, who left with malcolm and who was malcolm x's bodyguard and, in fact, was just a few feet away when malcolm was assassinated. you can go online, and you can see pictures of malcolm a moment after she he was shot getting mh to mouth resuscitation. that man was gene roberts. malcolm drew his last breath from an undercover cop. and he used those credentials to join the black panther party and, in fact, became a security officer. and the other person who was part of that elite unit was my mentor. he came in, used, you know, that he had some military background, but he always was the crazy panther. he was the person thatwe talked about organizing a building that was having problems with the landlord into a represent strike and showing the tenants how to take that money and make repairs and fix the boiler and do some things that was, you know, and hold the money in escrow, he

would be like, well, where does the landlord live? let's find out where his little mansion is and go burn it down. and, of course, the young brothers were like, yeah. but it's that person who's aggressive in the meeting, that person who is, you know, telling you i know where to get the dynamite, know where to get the guns. he was the agent provocateur. so there was the journey of the panther 21 case. there was coming out of prison and then becoming a spokesperson for the panther 21 and thereby one of the youngest spokespersons for the black panther party. there was a return to prison for shutting down drug dens and drug houses in harlem because the drug epidemic in harlem -- as it was in philadelphia, as it was in chicago, as it was in watts -- it was like the drug dealers were acting with impunity. blocks and blocks of addicts would line up. it was like an open air market,

abandoned buildings. and we were seeing kids 12, 11, 10 years old buying drugs and then going off into one of those abandoned buildings and o o d. and so we began to shut those drug dens could down by force. and then finally there was the longest stint which was the stay in federal prison where i met an old prisoner who gave me some great advice, and it was good advice for being in prison, it's good advice for life. he said, young blood, you can serve this here time, or you can let this here time serve you. and at that time at leavenworth you could get into the college program through the university of kansas, and i dived in the, read everything i could and was able to earn two degrees from ku, from the university of kansas. it's also where i found the power of the creative arts. because i had had done some plas and been involved in the black arts movement.

and the brothers came to me and said you taught, you know, karate and martial arts out there. yeah, you know, people though that. and they said, you did those plays and stuff, didn't you, brother? i was like, damn, how did they know that? they kind of walked away, and i was like, oh, man, did i violate the rule? did i punk myself? in any event, i went to the library. there were no black plays, there was one black play, but it was a raise sin in the sun -- raisin in the sun. so i wrote a play. it had women characters, and i went back to the brothers and said, look, the only play i found was a raisin in the sun, and the brother said, yeah, it's cool, pick up four or five dudes, we'll put a dress on 'em. i said, no. [laughter] so i wrote a play, and we're rehearsing it with some of the black prisoners, and then into the rehearsal comes the leader of the latino crew and his right hand.

and these were some tough brothers. they were doing life, they had killed a couple of prisoners since they had been in jail, and they come and they sit down, and we all think they left their turf, what are they here to do? and the leader, rafael, is looking like he's really upset, he's getting madder and madder, and then after ten minutes he looks and points right at me, and he was like, yo, ese, let me speak to you. i'm like, oh, man, i knew this was a bad idea. we heard a rumor about what you're doing, and i see it's true. and i'm going to tell you something, and you listen, you listen good. that guy you're working with, yo, he's not feeling his character. [laughter] i said, rafael, why don't you come in if and he got in, and he was great. so he made his friend get in. so now the black history month play became a black and latino history month play. then a white guy, toughest guy, 220 pounds, body builder, black

belt. rev comes up, he comes back two hours later, all his guys surround him. white supremacists, bank robbers, they said, rev, you went up there with the black and latino guys? he said, yep. what was they doing, rev? he said, a play. they said, rev, what did you do about it? he said, well, they gave me a part. [laughter] we became the only diverse group, the multicultural group and were able to use that conversation through the arts to talk about those things that i had learned 15 years ago in the panther party, to talk about class struggle, to talk about the fact that oppression in this country is a business, that slavery of african slaves didn't happen just because white folks didn't like black folks, but because here was an abundant pool of labor. the first slaves in this country were indenturedder is slams, but there was an expiration date.

their time would run out. then you had native americans who said, no, we live here, i don't think so. so you had this abundant pool of labor, and you had racism that became the marketing strategy for oppression. and from then until now, from the founding of the fathers, from the first start -- stock being traded on wall street, african slaves, and from the first fortunes that were made by insurance companies who insured the slave trade like lloyd's of london and other companies, we're dealing with oppression as business. and what happens in movements, what happened to malcolm x at the time that he started talking about race and economics, what happened to dr. king, what happened to the black panther party when the black panther party said this is about class and economics, and when we say all power to the people, we do mean power to all folks. white power to white people, brown power to brown people, red power to red people, yellow power to yellow people. when you have that conversation, the state will attack. the state will to press. -- will

oppress. the state will do anything they can to destroy you. so excitement about what's going on today with the college campuses and with the occupy movement, excitement about what's, you know, about people taking it to the streets, but i like to remind them about what we did. we took it to the streets, but we took it back to the communities. we learned from people like chairman bobby that you have to organize people around their needs, and we learned that from the civil rights movement. we were in the community always feeding people, housing people, clothing people be and creating that understanding. fast forward to the work that i've done with impact repertory theater around arts and activism empowering young people through the arts but letting them have their voices heard about what's going on. and when you combine an activist and a artist, we like to call it an artivist, and finally columbia university where i have been a professor for 1 years --

14 years. you know, as a young panther i would go on campus, and they would -- students would take over the campus, you know, in protest of the war, any issue. columbia was a hotbed. and they would have the panthers and the lords and everyone come up, and usually the panthers were the kind of close, close the show. and as a young panther, i knew my job was to get the crowd on fire. and i would give a speech that would go something like, brothers and sisters, if columbia university doesn't recognize that the war in the vietnam is a war of capitalist exploitation and they don't recognize that the united states pig military is occupying vietnam the way the new york city pig department occupies harlem, that they're trying to occupy their campus, and, brothers and sisters, you need to do more to take this campus over today, you need to burn the damn place down, the students, of course, would cheer. fast forward 40 years, i'm walking toward a class. the statue of alma mater is

where we would always set up, the big bronze statue at the center of campus. and i hear someone go psst, and there's no students around, none of my colleagues, i take another step, and i hear it. and i look up, and it's that statue. that same statue we would blindfold with the north vietnamese flag and spray paint. and she would look and go, oh, it's professor joseph now, huh, baby? [laughter] i remember when you wanted to burn the damn place down. who knew alma mater could speak? who knew she was black? thank you. [applause] um, we're going to do the q&a, and while we're setting up, to help us moderate the q&a is philadelphia's own asutan ahmad

who for 22 years did public relations work with the government right here in philadelphia. he and his wife founded, and he serves as president of the jihad ahmad community foundation which he created in honor of his son who was killed by gunfire when he was 15 years old. it was a 15-year-old shot by a 16-year-old with a gun that was owned by a 17-year-old. and their way of mourning was in the true spirit of the panther party, was to fight back on behalf of all of our young people and to create a really dynamic foundation that is doing education and job counseling and lots of magnificent work. so, please, welcome our brother to the stage. [applause]

>> [inaudible] >> okay, there we go. first, brother jamal, let me just ask you one quick question. when you -- all what you've been through with the panther party, what would you describe or how would you describe the impact of all of that? you know, brother sutan, the thing that is the most impactful that i think informs what i do is this idea of love and service. ask any panther, a loaded question because they're in the room, but in the future if you meet someone who is in the panther party -- and, by the way, chairman bobby and i laugh about this -- if all of the people who said they were panthers were really there, we would have had about 100,000 members. [laughter] i think at our height we might have had 7,000 or 10,000 members. but what i do say is look at their eyes when a child is in the room or when an elder is in

the room x if you see a real love there f they weren't in the panther party, maybe they were there. but if you ask them, and we did this one time, there was a big event at columbia university in support of -- [inaudible] and dr. cornel west was on the program, and i was on the program. and i said panthers tell you that we were taught to have an undying love for the people, or they would say serve the people mind, body and soul. because that's what gets you going. that's what gets you up at 4:00 in the morning when your own apartment was freezing. don't think because we were panthers they had special housing for us. here's the good housing, you know? we were dealing with the rats and the roaches and broken boilers that makes you get up when it's cold, cold, cold, to go across town. when you're exhausted at the end of the day to get off that bus and help that elderly person with their packages up that seven-floor walk-up.

and by the way, at 12:00 midnight when you're going to get that three or four hours sleep that we were lucky to get, it's what makes you get back off that bus and stand between a cop who has their gun drawn and a person who's up against the wall that you haven't met before, to put yourself in harm's way because you understand i haven't met them, but they're my brother and my sister. it's the idea of undying love. and brother mumir calls me from prison, and i had said this earlier, and i said the students have a question for you, and one of them asked and said what were you taught to believe above all other things? the love the people, serve the people. >> okay. all right, we're going to open up -- great question. give him a big happened. come on, don't be shy. [applause] as brother jamal talked about, it's 45 years later, but there's conditions that still exist in the ten-point platform program that we need to address today. if you have one point that would

qualify conditions today that these to be corrected, which one would you use? >> all of them. i know that's like the blanket answer, but the other thing i like to talk about a lot since i essentially grew up in the prison, you know, we had a point where we talked about, that all black men and women released from federal, state, county prisons and jails because they have not had a fair trial. and when i was in prison, growing up in the prison, united states was number three in the amount of people that they had locked up behind the soviet union and south africa. about four, maybe 50,000 people. now we are undisputed number one. two million plus people locked up. military industrial complex. slave wages. but it's legal. all right? slavery's not legal, but it's legal to lock someone up because

these prisoners make, what? they make furniture, uniforms, t-shirts for the navy, fiberoptic cable. black and brown boy, huge profits. schooling that are being examin, you know, people in the industries look at third and fourth grade reading scores to determine how many prisons to build. and those programs that i told you about that existed when i was in prison don't exist anymore. college education programs, all those are being cut. so we have to address that, and i say we have to create roadblocks to jail and pathways to yale for these young men. when you have a statistic that says one in four that graduate from high school might wind up in the college, but one in three are guaranteed to be in prison, we have work to do. and it's the work that you're doing, brother, the work that i'm trying to do with the young people, that aggressive intervention, being there for them not just demonstrating. because think of this, please, if there are two million people

locked up, how many children of prisoners are in that cycle where their grand participant, their father and -- grandparent, their father and now them are destined for prison? we need to be mentoring them before they get in the system. and that's programs, that's love. if you can't do anything else but to take them to get a slice of pizza, a hot dog and shoot some hoops, that matters. here's the thing about parenting and mentoring, you don't have to be perfect but, please, be available. >> okay. [applause] all right, we're going to open the floor, but before i do that, once again, i want to take proper recognition of the founder of the black panther party, bobby seale. co-founder along with hugh -- huey p. newton. >> i think it would be remiss if we didn't give chairman bobby the microphone just to say -- >> absolutely. -- >> you know, a quick thing to the audience tonight. [laughter] >> bobby's in town for a speaking engagement at penn state tomorrow. >> right. >> but he heard about jamal

tonight, and he couldn't miss it. >> yeah, i had to see jamal. [laughter] i think jamal and i, after all those years, ran into each other on the more taan downey jr -- morton downey jr. show. >> that film public enemy that we did together. >> bobby, i need you to come up here. what are you talking about, felipe? he was with the young lords party. and i -- [laughter] i said, man, i'm not coming on that show. if i came on that show and that dude stuck my finger in my nose, i'd say i'm going to knock him out. and if he wants some ratings, he's going to really get some ratings. he said, no, bobby, he's scared of you. i wound up doing that show three times. >> right. >> you and i and us, we were all on a panel. so i got back for that, and then jamal ran into some other people about the film public enemy, and it was the just good to see this

brother. i really love this brother. i mean, i love all my brothers and sisters, but there are certain ones, you know, who really evolved, you know what i mean? in the context of all the oppression, the prisons, etc. anyway, power to the people, you guys. >> all right. [applause] >> power to the people, chairman bobby. thank you. >> now, in an effort to entertain all of your questions or to get in as many questions as possible, we would like you to have the mic, but we would like you to ask a very specific question in the shortest way possible. and then we'll ask jamal to reply so we can get all the questions accommodated. so we have two mics on both sides, so just raise your hand. i'll acknowledge you. the mic will come to you, and you'll get a chance to ask your question. >> okay, jamal. i finished the book, and it's an excellent book. i have a loaded question, but it's quick. have they put out

autobiographies, or do they intend to? >> i know -- [inaudible] is working on a book, and -- [inaudible] has a book, well, it's really a jasmine guy book called evolution of a revolutionary, and it's a conversation with her, but i think he's going to do a more extensive memoir. her story's just fantastic. can i tell a quick story? i can't say enough about the strength of the women in the black panther party. and panthers know, but the world needs to know that there came a time when the black panther party was run by women because of all that was happening, especially the local chapters because of all that was happening with our brothers being arrested and killed. you would walk into an office, and the women would outnumber the men three to one, four to one, and they were in key leadership positions. we're out on bail in the panther 21 case and, technically, we

were always supposed to have somebody with us. we went to the breakfast program one morning. we fed the kids. we fed about 50, 75 kids, and we're cleaning up, and i'm in the front mopping, and eufhany's in the back, and about 25 cops come in with their guns drawn. and this guy out of central casting for being the police lieutenant, you know, i'm talking about with the trench coat and the crumpled suit and his shield hanging, he comes in there, and he looks around and goes, what is this? and i said, um, it's a food program, community program. and he goes, what kind of program? i look at all of the cops, and like i said earlier, i wasn't stupid. i didn't say black panther, i said, it's a community food program to feed the children in the community, but i'm thinking to myself, this is it, they came to kill us. euphany's out of the back, and

as if these guys do not exist, as if these guns are not drawn, stands between me and this police lieu i tent and looks up at me and says, jamal, don't say another word to him. i was straight then, i had my orders. i went back, i started mopping, i ignored him, and you cod see he was a little shook, and he said, is there a problem? and she turned right to him and said, yeah, there's a problem. the problem is i don't talk to police officers, never have, never will. turned her back. and he looks around, couldn't figure out what to do. he did like this, the cops put tear guns away and walked out -- their guns away and walked out. that's strength. [applause] >> did you ever see, did you ever run across -- [inaudible] after you got out of leavenworth? >> no, before. it's this the book that last time when we wering with beat -- we were being beaten up. and i'm straddling a chair and, you know, the trial was over,

the 21 had been committed, and i'm bloodied, and yea what comes in to make the positive id, and he's got his gold detective shield, and i'm strapped to a chair like this, and he goes power to the people, jamal. and by now i knew his real name was ralph. and i said, what's happening, ralph? he says, you look pretty beat up there, guy. and i said, well, you know, your pig buddies have been torturing me for the last eight hours. and he goes, jamal, i know you hate me, and i know you're going to get a lot of time. and just, you know, and he says i know you're going to get in top shape, and you're going to come out and hunt me down and kill me. that's okay. he says, because i'm going to be waiting too, and i'll be ready. and i have to admit until this point in time there was a little hatred, but at that moment confronted with it i turned my chair so i could see him because this side of my face was completely swollen shut, and i said, ralph, i said, you're

probably right that i'm going to get a lot of time, and i said you're definitely right that i'm going to be thinking about a lot of stuff. but i said i am not going to waste a single solitary second thinking about you. a. >> a lot of the literature i read from the sisters, they talk about the male chauvinism and the sexism. they do talk about it, they were at the forefront, but could you address that? and address what geronimo pratt talked about, the shooting at ucla that we need not get into the divide, that it was really a mixup? but address those. >> yes, those are two important and two tough questions. let me say i think that on the issue of chauvinism within the black panther party, a lot of it also had to do with where you were. and so i can't -- any experience

that a sister said she had in the black panther party. but i have to say in new york and a lot of places on the east coast like in boston where sister audrey was in charge, you know, when erica huggins was up in the connecticut, in new york with sisters like euphany, we didn't have that, you know? the sisters struggled, the sisters would call you on it, the sisters would make the brothers like when we thought we were too busy running around, come here, i've got an assignment for you. what? hold the baby, change the diapers. so it had to do with that. sisters struggled against that and introduced this conversation into the black community that we didn't have before about sexism and male chauvinism. so not to deny any of the sisters of the story usually -- when there's sisters in the room, i like them to identify that question. but i like to say just very clearly, and i'm proud to say it again tonight, the men of the black panther party taught me how to fight clearly, but it was the women of the black panther

party that taught me how to be a man. [applause] >> we have a question right in the back. >> hotep, my brother. >> hofep. >> okay. i just have one question to ask you. what kind of -- how can i put it? did the panthers have any means, spiritual means of knowing, um, traitors in the ranks, informants in the ranks? did y'all have any type of spiritual means to know if someone was an informant by checking a brother or a sister to see if they were an informant? you know what i'm saying? >> i do understand what you're saying, but, you know, in the early days -- and this was true in new york, there was an open door policy to people kind of joining the black panther party. and we would judge people on their practice. that's what people would do. that moment their hard work and what they did. when it became clear and it

first became clear, you know, that this kind of infiltration was going on, quite frankly, with our case and with the panther 21 case, and there are many, many cases across the country including, you know, the cases brought against chairman bobby seale that it was clear that there were informants there to plant the evidence to try to get panthers locked up for life. and in chairman bobby's case, to get him the electric chair. then it became a little harder procedure. then it was very hard to become a panther. we had something called the national committee to combat fascism. you had to be a commitment worker. it took months if not years to actually become a panther, but you had to be careful about if you have a people's movement, organize in the community, what level of paranoia and restriction are you going to have versus for what you're doing in the community? and we always thought the best way to be safe was to be among the people doing good work because that's what it was

about. it wasn't so much about our safety, but the safe safety of the community. >> question i have is you were in prison, and you were able to get your education, and there are many people and parents, i'm sure, in the room who have kids who went to college or they went to college, and they really had to struggle to pay for their college. what is your feeling about continuing offering college to people in prison for free, and then there are people who are not in prison and have to pay a lot of money? >> um, well, joy, it would be a better debate if those programs existed. they're cutting them now so much which is counterintuitive to all of the studies that show that the more education that you get in prison, um, the lower the rate of recidivism. and they're being cut by our liberal politicians who usually like, oh, god, i'm up against all of this conservativism. and these people that say that i'm not tough, so i'll get tough on crime. but that means they get tough on

poor black folks who, you know, who -- the criminal justice system is not serving them anyway. so that's part one of the conversation. part two of the conversation, joy, is that we used to have to fill out those pell grant forms and those other forms so the colleges figured out how to get some money. it wasn't completely altruistic. and part three of that conversation is they mandatory that you work, everybody in prison works. make it 25 cents an hour, so their labor was paying for that. so there's all kinds of ways that you could say that it was paid for, but the really sad truth is that these programs have been cut and so that you are taking up black and brown boys who are, you know, starting, who are growing up in prison. and not because they were panthers, do you see what i mean? they're coming in at 14, 15, going all the way through the system, then coming out, maybe realizing what grandma or a counselor or a pastor said, enough is enough. no education, no skills, and

then all of the programs that used to exist to help them, the vocational training programs, the job programs, they've been cut. so your setting up this vicious cycle of our young men being part of what sister michelle alexander calls the new jim crow, the new plantations. >> do you think that the movement was stronger with the women being a part of the black panther party? >> i'm sorry, brother, could you repeat that? >> do you think the black panther party was made stronger because of the women in the movement? >> absolutely. i mean, i think there's no question that throughout our history from the middle passage to now to slavery to all of the things that we've gone through that without the strength of our women that we would not be here period. and that's certainly, certainly evident to me as a young man. you know, growing up, you know, in the movement and in the black panther party. absolutely.

>> believe me, i was enlightened by the panther party. being a student at temple university, i did papers on -- [inaudible] i hope i'm pronouncing them right. >> yes. >> and i'd like to know the status. is shakur still exiled in cuba, and is -- [inaudible] still in prison? >> can yeah. the simple answer to both of those is, yes, she's still exiled and probably will be given the nature of what's happened, what i talked about, us moving toward, you know, the right-wing policy in terms of -- you know, south africa when nelson mandela became president, he had truth in reconciliation hearings. he was able to sit down and say, listen, things happened on both sides, let's have a conversation so we can move over. you know, most other industrialized, civilized nations in the world have a limit of the amount of time that they will keep people

incarcerated. even if you're talking about people that, you know, life in prison and who's been imprisoned over 30 years and those in exile, why can't we have a conversation about what was happening in terms of the black liberation movement and what was going on and what we need to do to move forward? this why people would take those stands, why those things would happen and have truth in reconciliation hearings and move forward. >> okay, our last two questions up front. >> i know this brother's been waiting for a while. >> which one? okay. we'll grab one more, we'll add one more. >> good evening, mr. joseph. i'm a temple university student also, double major, film and media arts and african-american studies. my intentions are to tell stories that people maybe they don't want to hear or are too hard to hear. do you have any advice for

somebody like myself in. >> can yeah. be passionate about those stories. and link up with your classmates and other folks in the community or maybe some people that you can link up that want to tell similar stories and understand that they will get made if you make them. hollywood is just a bank now, and they want people to do all the work and make the film and bring it to them. so i'm urging young film makers to tell their stories. and if you can't tell it as an independent feature film that you can manage to scrape together and tell for a few thousand dollars, then tell it as a web series. then attract money from that and use kickstart and all those other things in order to get those stories out there. don't wait for some executive in hollywood who's really scared because thai ruled -- they're ruled by fear. the safe movies for them are the comic book movies. you have to make it and then, oh, let's do the next paranormal

activity. so kind of be empowered to tell those stories. there's a quote that chairman bobby has, and i use it in the book. he says when the panthers started, the panthers -- he and huey had the panthers carry shotguns and law books because those were the dynamic weapons of social change. but if the panthers were starting today, they'd still be patrolling the streets, but it'd be with video cameras and laptop computers because these are the accusatoryhange today. question, all right? i want that to be understood first. but i'm in communication with -- [inaudible] on and off, and i would like to know is there any plans or is, can we possibly begin to make some plans to address that brother's situation and brothers like him? i mean, this brother has received hits from the new jersey parole board of 20 years, 10 years, 10 years. he just recently received another hit from the parole

board of ten years. >> absolutely. >> and for me the reasons -- i have read some of the decisions of that parole board, and most of the decisions that they have made have been based on the brother's writings and what he's had to say which we all know is freedom of speech even incarcerated, you're protected. is it possible that we can begin to address these types of situations and bring some of the recognition, your recognition and the recognition of other individuals in here to try to address and aid some of these brothers and sisters in this situation? >> right. i'm going to split my time -- >> well, let me grab the last question, and then we'll wrap it all into one. >> okay. >> good evening. >> hey, good evening, brother. >> like to thank you so much for appearing here tonight, brother. >> thank you. >> i really do. i'm really concerned about the youth in this black-on-black crime. >> uh-huh. >> i really would like to know what is your suggestion for how

we can take the guns out of young brothers hands and put books in their hands instoatd? >> this is what i talked about earlier with mentoring, with being in the community with them, with folks that they respect. you know, brother sutan with what he's doing with his foundation work, similar to what i'm doing with impact. but nothing beats kind of coming into those commitments and especially folks from -- communities and especially folks from those communities that they respect, spending time with them. fred hampton was able to turn the young lords gang in chicago into the young lords political party. and it was doing the same thing with the black stone rangers and a lot of other gangs, getting them to, first, stop pointing the guns at each other and then putting them down and show the right sign in order to build community programs. but that comes from -- policy is really important, you know? so we have to work on that level. but being in the community be, working with them day by day.

my commitment to my young people has been strong. i'm with them three days a week, every day can except if i'm out on tour, all day on saturday. and that's how you save lives, and that's how you spark not only just adults kind of talk, but them talking to one another. you know, that's what makes a true difference. >> as we wrap up this program, i would like to answer part of your question, brother. the reason -- recently, we had an anniversary here of october 2011 which was the celebration of the black panther party. it was also the coming out of what is now the national alumni association of the black panther party. we have a web site which is na naabpp.org. one of our key pillars is to address the issue of political prisoners. we have comrades across this country who are still unjustly

incarcerated. the second issue is to address the issue of our young people and to find a way to pass the baton correctly. there's also a pillar there that talks about a legacy of this organization and tell our story in its proper way. and then we have developed a format where we can begin to engage ourselves once again in issues that are critical to people in our community and across this country. so i would invite everyone to visit the web site which is still a work in progress. we're only a 1-year-old organization, but as jamal said, once you come in, you're always in. so we're always panthers, and as members of the naabpp in the room right now, once again, i would like all of them to stand up. our co-founder, bobby seale, is part of our board of the organization stretch, sister havens -- reggie, mark, i mean, there's conversations around this city and across this

country. right now we're represented in, i think, about 20 cities, and we're moving forward. many of us old. we've been soldiering for a long time, and that's why we have to have the youth, and they're the key to this issue. so once again, i want to thank you all. i want to give jamal a big hand. [applause] and invite all of y'all to join us upstairs. and if you haven't got the book, there are many books available upstairs, but you can come right cup stairs, you can -- upstairs, you can get a chance to close up with jamal and, possibly, get his autograph in your book. once again let's give him and bobby seale, our founder, another big hand. [applause] thank you very much. and once again, welcome to philadelphia for those who are here for the first time and some who wasn't. >> tonight on booktv, "in

depth" with anna quindlen as she talks about social policy and the politics that guide it. >> in terms of female political representation, we're behindiraq iraq and north korea. so americans like to congratulate themselves all the time on we're number one on all these things. we're just not. you know, we're not doing very t well on infant mortality, we're not doing very well on maternall mortality. obviously, we've talked so muchb about things like obesity and good health, but in terms of women leading, we really are not doing anywhere near as well as we should be doing, and we shouldn't be doing it not because it's fair or egalitarian.egal i mean, that was our early argument. we should have women in highve places because that's the fairness principle. well, i believe in the fairness principle, but i also believe in pragmatism. if everything worked in america, if law firms were chugging alone really well and hospitals were running like clockwork and

congress was really doing a bang-up job, i would say, well, you know, things are prettyrett good. we need women in leadership positions because nobody is is leading as well as they shouldud be. and if we're ignoring a big i chunk of the population, maybe that accounts for why the t leadership is not as good as it ought to be. >> watch the entire three-hour "in depth" interview with anna quindlen tonight at 8 eastern here on c-span2. >> during the republican and democratic conventions, we're asking middle and high school students to send a message to the president as part of this year's c-span's student cam video documentary competition n. a short video, students will answer the question, what's the most important issue the president should consider in 2013? for a chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. and there's $50,000 in total prizes available. c-span's student cam video competition is open to students grade 6 through 12.