anderson, alabama. we call it the scene of the crime. and my mother was very instrumental many my political consciousness. we were from alabama. my dad was in the service. he left -- my dad was in the military. so i'm from alabama and we was transferred to san diego, california. we made that journey in 1955 just as the montgomery boycott was starting in alabama. and so one of the first things we did when we got to california, my mother made my father buy a tv. because tvs was not a come thing in households at that time. so in order to keep one the struggle in our home state in alabama my mother made my dad buy a tv and every day watch

walter cronkite report what was going on in the south. and my mother used to get so emotional. so mad. because she seen bull conners. racist police. our people being hosed down and dogs being sicked on them just for trying to vote or attend a rally. my mother used to get so emotional. back in those days, later on i had nine other brothers and sisters but at the time i was the only child. and she would look at me and say boy don't you ever let nobody do that kind of stuff to you. so she just instilled that in to me. i went on with my life. and in my junior year, i was coming back from a track meet. i was on the track team for lemore high school in san

joaquin valley. i used to fight every day in junior high school. and he was my physical education teacher. and he would see me fighting every day because of somebody calling me a name or something like that. and he came uhm to me one day and said bills you can't fight everybody. you have to pick your moments. and that is exactly what he did in 1968. so when he went to olympics and won that gold medal and i seen him standing up there and put his fist up said this is what he's talking about. choosing your moments. so later on i'm still in california. we moved to -- we're still in san diego. and so the panthers go to sacramento in 1967 and i see them on tv. and i was so kpiepted about that. i woke my dad up. he hates to be woken up after he's in his easy chair. and said dad look at this. and he was amazed to see black people was doing something like

that. and these are the same brothers. bobby seal in the middle. emory douglas. these are the panthers that went to sacramento and changed history for black people in america. because they stood up and took a positions we're not going to take police brutality. and they started the organization to parole police officers in the black community. and did because huey newton was going to high scholaw school. and panthers would carry law book in their arms when they went to engage with the police. because the police at that time, they didn't -- they didn't take much to be a police officer. let me say that. it didn't take much. you didn't have to go to college. you didn't have to do any of that stuff. all you had to do was look tougher or know somebody. so a lot of these cops didn't even know the laws and we would cite the laws to them but historically that lawbook has been dissected out of our arms.

most people didn't even know we were doing that. we were citing laws. they didn't understand the miranda law. that was instituted in 1966 the same year the black panther party started and we were reciting to it people and they didn't even know what it was. cops like this, old-timers. bad attitude people we had to deal with in our community. so the black panther party not only dealt with police brutality. we dealt with -- we dealt with various types of discrimination, you know. so most people just know the black panther party from dealing with the police but black panther party had a ten point program. within that program we fought for fair housing, better living conditions. and what really attracted me was point six. we want all black men exempt from military service. i was a i was 17 and they started had lottery. when i read that, i'm like yeah

i'm against the draft too. and the thing about it was black people was recruited, drafted to go fight a what are for democracy. there was no democracy for black people. remember 1965 president johnson signed a bill called the voting right act. they were sending people before that. black representatives and chicago represe-- chick knoothes war. at the height of our existence we had 51 offices in 30 cities. international support. an embassy in algeria. when aldrich cleveland was ran out of the country in 1969 he established an embassy in algeria. later on we got an embassy in

sweden, a support committee in paris run by richard wright's daughter t author of "native son." we had support and north vietnamese, they gave us our embassy in algeria. because they were mooifing to a bigger one. and these are many of the rallies that happened during that time. and there's been a lot said about coalition building. when we had rallies -- just couple weeks ago, a reporter asked well wasn't the plaque pane -- black panther party a racist? i said you hadn't done your history. how could you say that. they ran cleveland for president. sds. the biggest antiwar group going, white group. so we had that solidarity is in

the black panther party's dna. i do a lot of -- today i do a lot of exhibits, displays, and this is one of them. it is a combination of -- i call it the early years. you know we was marching and rallying around certain issues. later on in 1969, this is something that people really don't look at or don't even know about the black panther party social programs. . we had something like twenty and the most known is the free breakfast for school children program. this is operated early in the morning and the reason why we started is because it opened young people -- opens level of poverty was below poverty level. you had blacks and chicano kids going to school hungry.

and so we started this social program to feed kids and it took off in oakland. the black panther party was the first organization do that. and just before i came here, i looked at the agriculture department and they claimed they feed 6.2 million kids a year. they call it their nutrition program. but it is the same thing the black panther party started. we embarrassed them into starting that program because at that time the government was busy shooting rockets to the moon. dogs and among keys to the moon when our people here were starving. so later on in 1971 they started had free breakfast program and feeding kids throughout the country. so we started doing that. also at the same time we took up where snic left off. they had summer schools and we had liberation schools. early stages there was no black history classes.

none taught anywhere except make a black college down south. but in metropolitan cities there was no history being taught. even i came up without even know the full potential of our people. and when you don't know that you are really lacking. so we took it as a very important thing to educate young people. and that was a whole focus. educating young people. feeding the kids. giving them a better chance of life than we had. free food program. we're known for that. at various stages of our organization we gave away tens of thousands of groceries. we'd give away food, register people to vote. this is the first time grown people had ever been asked to reg store to vote. black panther party did that. we just can't do it in california. we did it throughout the country. we would give away 10,000 free

bags of groceries, register people to vote and do sickle cell anemia testing. people didn't know what that was. doctors didn't know what that was, the government didn't know. until the black panther party made it known. even in 1972 richard mill house pig nixon brought up that in the state of union speech in 1972. and we have to do more to conquer sickle cell anemia. i wonder where he got that at. so we started these community centers throughout america. right? so in this particular picture you can see people from the community. we have a voter registration there. you see one guy with a big box of cereal he's taking home to his family. and there was a meeting place for people in the community. so we provided services 24 hours a day. and because we did this, a whole purpose was to bring the social consciousness of people to a certain level so they could start to finding their own

situation and start taking more stern action. so we got involved in rent control. we got control -- we also did a lot of protesting. because at that time in america it was very common for landlords to use lead-based paint in their apartments. and many young kids start chipping -- start eating that and got lead poisoning. so we protest against that, bad conditions. also black panther party was at the vanguard. women were 50% of our organization. women had just as much right as any male in our organization to be a leader or be in charge of an office. we have a number of offices throughout america that was run by women. the boston office. you know the mount vernon office

down in new york. we had different offices in memphis tennessee that was run by women. you know they were -- they were the word. not only that, during the course of the black panether party era we had like 14 free medical clini clinics. two still open to this day in seattle washington and portland oregon. and we provided services. we didn't ask your last name. is your mother and father's last name the same. we didn't ask how much money you made. we said if you have an ailment come down to the clinic. so we employed women as well. which is a very good image for young women. now this is sickle cell anemia program in l.a. it was named after aapprentice

bunchy carter who was murder in 1969. we talked about that earlier, i think carlos did. now, this right here, east 9th and 26th. called jingle town in oakland. like an undeveloped area. it's close proximity to a dell monty cannery. and back in 1969 a lot of migrant workers came through jingle town and were bringing their kids. and so we set up a free breakfast program at the mary's help for christian church. most of the kids were chicano but we didn't care because they were hungry. so in working with the local people there, a brown beret unit established itself in that area and started working with us on a daily basis at the free breakfast for school children program. so eventually within 6 months they were able to take that program over theirselveses which relieved us to go do other organizationing abilities.

so we worked hand in hand with the brown beret, united farm workers, any group that was moving forward. moving up to 1972 people talked about bobby seal's campaign. i ran the main campaign office. and during the campaign there was talk about proposition 22. proposition 22 was a proposition that the growers wanted to put on the ballot. so i worked directly with united farm worker people because they would come to our office and i was sited and precincts to work in. so i they worked hand in hand with panther members. we might send six out to precincts. three chicanos and three members of the black month panther party.

during that campaign to me personally i thought it was the best thing to ever happen to oakland. we rescued tens of thousands of people. we gave away food. even though we didn't win the election, the fact we almost did. we got into a runoff. there were nine other candidates. some was city council. some was millionaires. we kicked all their butts and we got into a runoff and we scared the mess out of oakland. and so they ahead to come out real racist to us. they e shoed old time bobby seal with his .45. and showed -- with his robe on and said which do you want to be mayor? cold-blooded. but even though we lost the election it opened had door and swung the door wide open. and next election we had a black mayor. we had chicanos on the city council. so there was a positive result

behind that. so this is bobby and elaine during the campaign. the black panther party, the paper was very important. right here on the front cover is lettuce from the lettuce strike. and also during 1969 it was seven chicano brothers in san francisco that was arrested. they were called las iete. the organization grew so fast they can't have the personnel or equipment to mobilize people. so the black panther party newspaper, already a million seller, you know, on the back we decided to butt basti ya, and the panther paper until they were able to get their own paper. which started i think in october 19 -- >> old it up again. >> basta ya.

so working with different people with different interests was not anything new. now also this is a personal picture from our archives and caesar chavez. i was given a bunch of negatives from a former photographer before he died. and in the box was a negative. you see this chair in this negative. you go from frame to frame. and see this chair out in the field. they are having a rally out in the field. and you see this chair moving about each frame. and then the last frame you cc sar sitting in the chair. -- caesar sitting in the chair. this is the black panther party newspaper boycotting safeway. i still don't shop that safeway [ applause ] i still don't shop that safeway. and this is myself right here holding the united farm worker sign. i always wear a straw hat. that's where my grand kids are able to find me in these

pictures. also same time in 1968 there was a national strike of auto workers. gm and ford gone on strike to black panther party members supported them. they supported students on camps likes i was. growth street college. now in today's era we started a number of programs called black panther history month. and every october we have the speakers coast to coast. this is myself in chicago. this is myself and huey newton. straw hat again. that was my job 1971. the central committee t governing body of the party used to say to to this. whatever happen to huey, it better happen to you first. so we had world connection with different groups. last year i went to australia and i was there with the aborigine panthers.

i've been to portugal, london, all around the world. because we have panthers in the east [ cell phone ] we have panthers in all of those places because we were able to adopt our fraprogram to fit the needs. these are fallen members of the party. during course of the party 28 members were killed. there was a thing that the fbi started called co-intel pro. counterintelligent program. killed a lot of people. jald a lot of people. something like 19 political prisoners still in jail and one is this guy right here. he's not in jail. he got away and he's in african american for 40 years. but he has a lot of programs there as well. so there is a number of people who's done positive work. even today, even the city are starting to pull up historical markers of what panthers had done work in the community. and this is our 45th year

banner. you can see right under the free all political prisoners, there is a -- that is lettuce. that is let frtuce from the lete strike for the farm workers. so we always keep that in memory. i do a lot of speeches at the high schools and clenls and the -- colleges and these are some of the collages i've done. and in october 17th and 19th we're vig a big panther reunion down in kansas city. so i'm going to end it there. if you are any questions or suggestions you can come to our website. website is full of information. so i'd like to end it right now. our 50 years is coming up in 2016. >> all right. thank you. [ applause ] >> so lauren, if you and kathleen would join us on stage.

>> well it is such an honor to be with you two here today and thank you so much for your wonderful presentations lauren and bill. i think this first question, i had it planned, but i think carlos really inspired me to frame it the way i'm going to frame it. i want to ask you what are the

less lessons that were drown from these coalitions and efforts to reach across racial and cultural movements in the california area. okay, you, lauren, explain how -- you know, how the beginning of this coalition was inspired. the recognition of the shared repression. but i'm interested in the transformational process and the "blow my mind "mome" moments of union throughout the years. i think proposition 22 was one of those moments for sure. but what were the moments of a learning from each other, the discoveries i guess of this union? >> well i could say that we -- we set the table for people to come after us.

because we showed that this can actually work. you know, solidarity works. in 1971 we put the initiative on the ballot in berkeley called the community control the police. at that time berkeley was like a center for the activities. college kids and people from interest community beat up from the police. we 16,000 signatures and put that on the ballot. even though it lost. we had 38%, it showed that we could do that. that if we could concentrate a little bit harder we could bring people to the poles and get them to vote. and that whole effort is a learning effort. black panther party believed in revolution. and we knew that the way to do that is to raise people's political consciousness. and that is what we did. and that's what the newspaper was about, the rallies, giving people information they didn't have before. in the black panther party we

believe that information is the raw material for new ideas. so our whole agenda was to educate people to lift their political ideology so they can see the future, so they can see the contradictions that are before them. so by working with the united farm workers we showed people can work together. we can acrossline. we have common interest. because the black panther party saw the struggle not as a race struggle but as a class struggle. and based it on just what i heard today about the poor peoples march. in that same year the black panther party started a chant and it went black power to black people, red power to red people. brown power to brown people. yellow power to yellow people. people had never ever heard that before. that was like mind blowing. you know, people actually said okay. you know, we should have this. so it is all about educating people and organizing.

that is what people can walk away from today. they lift the conscious of each era in america or each generation to a higher level. so the other generation is not going to take what the generation took before. just like when i was 17 i wasn't going to take what my parents took. i'm not taking no beat down. if someone's going to get hurt i'm not going to be the only one. >> i was thinking something about gordon said earlier about, that even if -- uhm, it doesn't matter if these coalitions are fleeting. if it is around one campaign or if it's around one boycott, it is still important. and i definitely have had this critique from another historian friend actually. who was like, well, you know, the bobby seal campaign is one year and the safeway boycott is this many months. is this really a coalition? i said yes. because it is still a moment of people coming together. it is still a moment of working

together, producing a tangible outcome. so even if it's short-term, even if it is a handful of people it is still important. because it is still showing the possibilities of what can happen when people, again, you know, dig deeper. when they don't look at the differences that are an the surface but they uncover all the things they have in common that are much deeper than that. and what can happen. >> and it wasn't always that stable because i was reading that in the late '60s the black panther party there was a period of time you couldn't support the farm workers union because you were concerned with all these trials and you had to unite and the early '70s and proposition 22 and the mayoral campaigns and united again. so can you talk about how this all sort of fluctuated. >> well i would say like -- when

we go into the community to educate people. and that was our main focus, to educate people. it doesn't matter. we explained to them who their enemy was. you know, it is the average businessman, the lying politician and it is the armed part of the system t police department and military that is our oppressor. so we building on that. people already had bad experiences with the capitalists because they were the ones who were running the united farm workers were working against. so we had to identify who their friends and who their enemies are. so it's a whole educational process. just when we work with the farm workers, it wasn't just a year. it was every day thing. because the struggles are every day. you don't take a day off. so, you know, we learned from each other. we had first aid stations. we had rest stations and stuff like that. so because of the black panther party being a revolutionary

group we was attacked by the government. so a lot of our time was distracted from our work in the community because we had legal problems, you know. bobby seal, huey newton the whole leadership of the black panther party went to jail. but also in 1969, 400 members of the black panther party went to jail on various charges and the reason is because o a lot of them was bogus charge, harassment charges just so we could spend bail money to get the people out of jail. and they will be arrested for like selling the black panther party newspaper. and everybody knows you're supposed to have freedom of the press. but not us. so those kind of things were continuous every day struggle. and so united farm workers, the brown beret, and other organizations had to go through the same thing. besides fighting the police departments we also daid a lot f political work. >> sure, what he's alluding to

when i was doing my archival work i noticed in both the ufw papers are wayne state and detroit and huey newton papers are at stanford. and when i was looking at the letters between the ufw leadership and the black panther leadership there was a lull in the early seventies and i had to go back and look. and it's because everybody was in jail. and it was during -- so when the lettuce boycott begins, it is when bobby seal and erica huggins are on trial in connecticut. so every bit of the panther party's energy and resources were being directed to assisting with that trial. once they win the trial and they are released, then pretty much immediately they turned their attention right back to the work that they had been doing. so like you were saying, like it is an every day struggle. there wasn't a timeout. but the focus for a little while

had to be getting, you know, bobby and erica free. so once that happens they are able to put their resources back towards the lettuce boycott, which they do. >> and move beyond the lettuce boycott, during that same time, when bobby seal ran for mayor of oakland, he also initiated -- he brought up before the city council that we should have bilingual ballots and also the language on the ballot should be that other people could read it. and that was way before the system decided to do that. so the black panther party first suggested that because it was only the right thing to do, you know. and beside the bilingual ballots we worked in the community in fruitville, which is the main chicano area. and we was able to get a lot of support from people because we were pushing the issue that was

dear to their hearts. >> yeah. even goes beyond the farm workers that these election materials. it points out, this is before the voting rights act, the amendment in 1975 includes language but didn't in 1972 when the panthers brought this up. so it is really ahead of its time. and not only did bobby seal take this to city council but he explains it to the black leaderships and he says spanish is the first language of california and this is really important. so he's -- like bill's been saying it's about educating. not just educating other communities but educating their own community as well. and so really gets everybody behind this initiative. >> i'm also interested in having you talk a little bit about this tension between the non violence

and militancy. well it was mostly in the black panther party but i was reading at some point the -- you know, the farm workers struggle. so there was some people within the movement that, you know, started, you know, getting tired of the non violence. and was the union between the black panther party and the farm workers union, did this effect -- did the union effect this sort of tension between non violence and violence? did it decrease it? did it increase it? i don't know. >> well let me say, black panther party was based on -- philosophy was based on malcolm x. we called ourselves the children of malcolm x and he didn't believe in non violence. that was the main contradiction between malcolm x and martin

luther king. so as children of malcolm we took that position. and they also brought up the fact me, most of us came from the south. i came from aniston. and we could not take a non violent posture in a light of what was happening on a nationwide level. we were all from the south. we saw what was happening in memphis and stuff like that. so my mother was not a non violent person. she believed in self defense and taught all of her kids, all ten of us to do that. so that philosophy was permanent in the black panther party but did not stop us from working with other groups. because we worked with church groups. we had 90% of our breakfast programs at churches. so even though we believed in self defense, that just because someone was non violent or thought their method was different from ours, as long as we got together on the strategy and what direction to go, it

didn't matter. >> within the farm workers, non violence -- i mean it was really chavez's thing. so he studied gandhi. he was deeply committed to non violence, not just on a tactical level but a deeply philosophical level but doesn't mean the rest of the farm workers were. so in the early days of the ufw chavez realizes the rest of the farmers really aren't on board with this. and he invites members of snic and core to delano to teach classes. because the others aren't really going along with. this then the panthers relationship and the farm workers are kind of questioning. wait this whole effort to be non violent and then we're working with the panthers. and then other unions, because remember the farm workers while

fiting discrimination they are a union and in the aflcio. so one of the documents i found was a letter from a man in another aflcio yunion who was like how can you work with the panthers? how can you do this? and chavez was look, they are oppressed so we're going to help them. and it didn't matter. the difference between chavez and some other practitioners of non violence was chavez knew that for him non violence was the way but he knew that it wasn't necessarily the way for everyone. and so in fact one of the more surprising documents i found in my research, there is an interview with caesar chavez at the jacques levy collection at yale where he's very critical of the martin luther king. non violence is fine but you shouldn't force it on other people. you know, it's not for everyone. so he didn't feel there is any contradiction in working with the party at all.

he says like they are oppressed, they are dealing with the same things we are. therefore we are going to work together. >> but he took it very seriously. i mean he even fasted sometimes, right? >> but for him it was always deeply personal. right. so he wasn't expecting everyone else to be that way. he was committed to it on a level that he knew that other people weren't, you know, willing to do. but that didn't stop him from working with others. >> yeah. i'm going clear up b one point. even though we had different philosophies and non violent was not our philosophy. didn't mean that the black panther party was violent. black panther party stood for self defense. that means if you start trouble with us you better look out. we don't go to the police department and shoot at the police department. we don't go at 4:00 in the morning and start trouble with them. or anything like that. but if you come to our neighborhood and do that, you got trouble. that is called self defense. because no one here is going to let anyone walk up -- to them

and insult them or slap them around. nobody here will let that happen to them. the as self defense mechanism that everybody has. and this is what we had as a people. we was not going to take that no more. >> okay. i'm going to move on to -- i'm going to ask bill about your -- the archive that you are building and the exhibits that you have put together, which is wonderful work. what is your main goal in collecting all of this and building this archive and producing these exhibits? what is your main hope? >> educate people. because the concept of the black panther party has been miscon screwed. the legacy of the people is all over the place. people think the black panther party was racist and blah blah blah. so what i've done -- and i've been a collector all my life. only time i wasn't collecting stuff was when i was in the

black panther party. before that as a kid i had super man comic books dating back to 1947. every moral spiderman, i had all those. baseball collections, i had coin collections. even a stamp collection. i even have the first stamp that ghana produced. the first independent state in africa, i collected that. i was 10 years old. so that had always stayed with me. and when i got -- actually i was listening to bobby seal. and bobby seal was saying something that was incorrect. i was like wait no that ain't right. and so -- and not only that all he had was the huey p. newton and the archive starts only after he gets out of jail in 1970 so the things before are not even documented. so that was my energy to tell the story of the reconciled. not the leadership that everybody knows about. but the reconciled party

members. right? so i started collecting panther papers. i -- party put out 510 issues of the paper. i have 475. i have a lot of them on the website. taken fliers from different rallies to put them on. i have a massive collection of underground newspapers, sds left notes. write ones. detroit free press, the l.a. free press. the brown beret t united farm workers newspapers. i try to take samps les of thos and put them on the website and show what the media was saying about these people. so a person going to the website is saying what this -- were saying and what we were say so they can make they are oin judgment. it's au all about educating peoo have the correct information. >> i've been instructed they need to open it for questions to

the audience. does anyone have any questions? and i'm going to give this -- microphone. >> so if we could fast forward to 2014 when i think the leading cause of death in minority men is violence. and in looking at the organizations that have taken hold of some of the communities in l.a., the bgf, marasa dies y o choe. what is it going to take to. >> black people started organizing these young men. and in chicago the oldest gang in america is black stone nation

or black peace stone nation. fred hampton, a former member of the naacp started organizing those around the black paneth ert party program. they started changing the way they process the information. why are we tearing off our community. why are we treating kids like this? and made them look at that and same thing with john huggins and bunchy carter in l.a. they started changing the gangs around because that he had revolutionary idea to help the community. and what it is going to take is revolutionaries who go back in the community and reteach and reorganize people. because what they have done, we take one step forward and two steps back. we had different organizations and groups. like the slawsons for instance. when bunchy carter got of the

prison. he had learned through the process of being in prison what it took to make change. so he took the ideology of the black panther party down to l.a. and said we're not going to be the slawsons no more. we are now the black panther party and all you o who don't want to be in our group you can leave. that was the kind of the down fall of gangs at that time. the era between 1968 and 74 you don't hear too much about gang activity. as a matter of fact the juvenile delinquency rate in all those communities went down. do you know why? because they have a new model. they have a new image in the community. they have a guy or sister in the community who are educated who, one, feeding them breakfast in the morning. two we had a senior escort service. we used to escort seniors to get their checks cashed at the first of the month. do you know why? because there was no such thing

as direct deposit in those days and every criminal and low natured person. so there was a lot of assaults on senior citizens and stuff like that. so we took those negative things and turned them into a positive. even the crooks and the gangsters realized this is a good thing. because they had mothers too. and they didn't want those things to happen to their mothers. so it is going to take a philosophy and someone strong enough and respectful enough to get these gang's attention for that to happen. and it is going to take a process. it might not happen in you or me lifetime but it is going to be hard. >> anymore more questions? >> i wondered if you had an opinion about occupy? >> who me? >> yeah. >> oh. occupy. occupy was cool with me. they were kind of short range as far as their ideoloa ologology i

was glad to see people mobilizing. and being from oakland who where they had the strongest vanguard or occupy people, you know, they invited us down to speak at least once a week. some party members were talking about some of the experience they had about being in the party because they wanted to know what it took. so we would come down and have political education classes with occupy. the only problem i had with occupy is they didn't -- they didn't see the full picture. they wanted too much democracy and not enough activity. [ laughter ] >> i think i have one last question for lauren. about your research and about your research methods. outside of archival and primary sources and secondary sources, you also did a lot of interviews. and you interviewed bill in 2005, i think. >> probably. >> sure.

>> around. >> -- >> and i interviewed maria as well i think back in 2000 i interviewed you the first time. yeah. >> do you want to talk a little bit about, you know, what the process of an interview. >> sure. i did quite a bit of archival work. but a lot of my work is based on oral histories. you know, i have the good fortune of a lot of these activists being with us. and also i went to graduate school at berkeley, and so a lot of them live nearby. so that was nice. so -- but -- but also, as i pointed out, coalitions are really about people. coalitions don't stwartart with memo. they don't start with a newspaper article. they start by a visit, a conversation. so mike miller the head of the snic office in industriessan fr

caesar chavez shows up and asks him to cook him breakfast. and skd asks for his help organizing a boycott of this lig liquor company. when bobby seal wants chavez's endorsement when he's running for mayor, actually bill told me to call big man over big man howard. so i called big man -- there is a reason he's called big man. huge. i called bigman and we meet and he tells me a story that is not recorded anywhere. where basically some volunteer gets a crop duster and flies big man and bobby seal to la paz and they immediate with chavez in the union hall. and they have dinner together and then bobby asks for chavez's endorsement. chavez says yes and they get back on the plane and fly back to oakland. and big man was terrified the

entire time. this little rickety crop duster hovering over the fields. it's windy in the central valley all the time. but that is a story that is not written anywhere. and chavez is no longer with us. and bobby's memory isn't what it was. [ laughter ] -- well? >> that's true. >> you know, so -- yeah i talked to big man. and then i talked to one of chavez's son-in-laws who was also his body guard who was also there to find out about this conversation that's not recorded anywhere. and then also again because coalition is really about people working together. and you are only going to get the real story of coalition if you talk to those people. >> okay. anymore questions? >> carlos has a question.

>> i know you are up in oakland, right. but, you know, in l.a. we had a strong working relationship with the party. the free huey newton rally at the sports arena. did you go to that one? >> no. but there's pictures of that. >> yeah. you know, stokely spoke, ron, teherana and elvis cleaver grew up in east l.a. so when he got out of joint and a lot of the guys in the joint got us together and we met him and kathleen. and we had a forum in east l.a. where tejerena spoke and you know when the [ expletive ] hit the fan and the shootings and everything and bobby. we had to break with us with the whole thing of the killing of the bunchy carter and john huggins. have you seen the movie "the

raid on central street" the big raid. >> they used some of our photos from archiving. >> when we got busted they would come support us and we had funerals we would be there. so that is another story. >> but at the same time in terms of history, in southern california was one of our biggest supporters. southern california's chapter ran from bakersfield to texas to louisiana. so the brothers from l.a. not only had southern california. they organized in sanita ana, sn diego, houston chapter, the dallas chapter, chapters all along the southern plains. so the southern chapter of the black panther party was a very strong chapter and all the work they did with the young -- with hasn't been documented but i would love to collaborate with someone because i'm doing oral mists myself. so -- >> i think there was one last

question over here. >> again, in the interest of bringing it forward some, and i apologize i was not here at the beginning of the program, i may have missed something, but i'm thinking about the southern farmers cooperative and then currently an organization, the rural coalition which does work to bring farm workers together across all groups. did any of those activities begin to come in to the research because i don't know, lauren, when your research ended, but in terms of thinking about what we do today, what groups we look to support and become a part of. >> right. i'm really definitely -- it doesn't come in to play, my book ends about '73, '74. even though you have black and white my grant farm workers in the south at this time you only get an influx of latino my grant

farm workers starting in the mid-'80s. i'm encouraged by the groups that are forming now in the south around -- again modern day multiracial coalition building around labor and there's quite a few groups that you pointed out that are working together. the only southern farm worker group that i really talked about was the one in mississippi which is an off shoot of the mississippi freedom democratic party. there's an attempt to unionize share croppers. i only talk about them briefly because they are not able to harness support from local civil rights groups at the time, for example they reach out to clc and clc is not terribly interested. they are turning their attention to urban areas at the time. so they are ultimately not successful. but i definitely look at the groups that are forming now and having quite a bit of success

and seeing that and realize that as an extension of some of the multiracial coalition building that you see with the united farm workers. the way it's articulated is very similar. mine stopped in '73-'74. i don't address these minor groups. but i believe -- i know there are others who have done quite a bit of work on this. i believe, gordon, does max work on some of these southern unions? okay. yeah. right. right. [ inaudible ] >> in the mississippi valley, so there were some mexican-american workers in the south before the 1970s and '80s and there's a book out there that i'm forgetting the name of right now that looks at that. but, yes. so there's some attempts, but

it's a -- much of it is not very successful. >> right. >> i have a footnote. footnote to this conversation or as johnny would say, sidebar. that there's a lot of information on this subject in a newspaper called "the southern patriot." it was put out -- the group used to be in new orleans, they left and moved to kentucky/tennessee. but their paper was out for sma ib years and has a lot of information in it. >> i'm sorry. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] >> the c-span cities tour takes c-span 3 american history tv on the road. here's a feature from one of our recent trips across the country.

[ bell tolding ] >> san miguel chapel is known as the oldest chapel in the united states most likely because it's built before 1300. so parts of it are still there. in fact, if you go to the altar, you can see the original steps to the first sacristy that dates back to 1300. the indians are said to have built san miguel mission. they came in here in search of riches or they came in search of better land so that could grow their crops, but with all of that, because of their devotion to catholicism, they needed some place to worship. and so that became san miguel chapel. at the time it was san miguel mission. it's been noted as several different things, san miguel chapel or san miguel mission, but that's probably why they came here.

they needed some place to worship. this church actually has been built and rebuilt several different times due to different types of destruction. but originally, they came here and built a small chapel. and it's probably because they were just devout catholics and they needed some place to worship. the building is basically made of adobe by which is mud. in this day, they used mud, clay and straw. back in the 1600s, they used mud, manure, and straw. and that's how they built it. adobe is made and sun baked for several, several days before it is able to be stacked to form a wall. and depending on how they stack the adobe, determines the depth of the wall. san miguel statue is at the center bottom of the altar and san miguel is the patron of the mission church.

it dates from the 1600s. it was carved in old mexico by missionaries and then brought to santa fe. above san miguel is christ of nazarene and the typical art bork was first discovered by the archaeologists in 1955, found beneath the large wooden -- the painting was sent to the taylor museum of art in colorado springs. their artists worked at cleaning and restoring it and as you see it today. the bell of san miguel dates back to 1356. this bell was brought to us and it was actually on a three-tiered tower that fell at one point, and landed on top of the cemetery in front of the chapel. so now we just -- we keep it in the church. santa fe is very significant as being the holy city of faith.

and generations of peoples have come here to worship in san miguel chapel. so since its inception, its had a continuous serving mass. we continually have mass at 2:00 in latin, and at 5:00 in english. so i believe that there's just a spiritual feeling that you get about coming here. it's not a museum. it's a place of worship and a place -- it's very, very spiritual to many people. not only because of what has happened many years past, but what you can gain from what is happening today. i often ask people to take a step back, come in, take their time and absorb what may have happened so many hundreds of years ago. and get a feel for what the people were that came here back then, lived through and went through. and continue to remember that we all came from somewhere.

whether it be devastation or privilege, but faith and commitment is what's most important in life. >> the c-span city's tour takes book tv and american history tv on the road. this weekend we partnered with time warner cable for a visit to green bay, wisconsin. >> wisconsin is known as america's dairyland because we make the most cheese but also the best cheese. the industry developed in wisconsin from what was homestead cheese where everybody, each farm family made cheese for their own use, it was recognized that we had an ideal

environment for raising dairy cow and cheese was really just a way to take that perishable product before refrigeration would last only three days. if you make cheese, cheddar cheese can last for a decade. this was late 1880s when the industry got started in wisconsin. generally farmers in the neighborhood would form a cooperative. they would build a cheese factory and they would hire cheese maker and the cheese maker would work for the cooperative on shares. the cheese makers tended to move around a lot. there were thousands. in 1930 over 2,000 cheese plants in wisconsin. it has transportation and a road system improved there was consolidation among the smaller plants and that continued up until about 1990 when there were only about 200 cheese factories in wisconsin. >> watch all of your own events

>> each week, american history tv's "reel america" brings you archival films that help tell the story of the 20th century. your social security is in 1952 u.s. government film designed to explain how the social security system works. the social security act was signed into law by president franklin roosevelt in 1935. after several supreme court cases affirmed its constitutionality, the first benefit payments are made in 1937.