g good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley. it was 50 years ago today when members of the black panthers walked on to the floor of the california capitol. tonight we'll reflect on the protest with someone who literally wrote the book on america's little known history of guns. adam winkler, plus, former black panther leader erica huggens. we're glad you've joined us. adam winkler and erica huggens coming up right now.

and and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. 50 50 years ago today, more than two dozen armed members of the black panther party, including women marched on the state capital building to

protest the passage of an act signed by then governor ronald reaga reagan. this protest was enough to push the black panthers into general knowledge. adam winkler, law professor at ucla and author of gunfight. and here to talk about the overall legacy of the black panther party, one of his foreign leaders. erica huggens. before our conversation, first a look back at that day, 50 years ago. >> people in this court and the people in the legislature have not been acting like human beings, they've put trumped up charges of conspiracy and felonies on everyone who went in to exercise a constitutional right. instead they had no right to bear arms in a public place.

the second amendment of the constitution guarantees the citizen a right to bear arms on public property. the legislature, i talked to mulford last night, he said the legislature has made rules superior to the united states constitution, and also superior to the statutory law of california, they made a rule that no one could walk on their property with a weapon. i'm saying this is a bold construction. and also mumford is alive. >> how do you really feel? >> some may think it's strange, that we in a week, where we're focused on president trump's 100 days, would detour tonight stalking about the black panther party, guns in america, and i don't see it as a detour at all. given that president trump gave

a major speech a few days ago to the nra, and his views about guns which i found ironic, you couldn't bring guns into the speech that the president was giving, they wouldn't allow that, of course. this relationship between black folk and guns, is a larger narrative of guns in america. let me start by asking you to take me back to this day, 50 years ago, and how what happened in the state capital impacts the gun conversation in america. >> well, you're absolutely right, there's a connection between what happened 50 years ago and trump's speech to the nra this past week, what we don't often remember is how the black panthers were really at the forefront of revolutionizing thought about the second amendment. when he made that speech in front of the california state capital arguing that they had the second amendment right to carry guns in public. that was not the view of the federal courts that interpreted the second amendment, only to protect the right to join the

militia, not to have the right for self-defense, even the nra at the time, didn't emphasize at the time your right to have a gun in your home for self-defense. didn't talk about having a gun on the streets to prevent against violence you might find there, and didn't talk at the time about the need to have guns for groups who are fearing government tyranny. you have the right to bear arms and to fight against tyrannical government are central to the nra today, but had its roots in this speech by huey newton. >> who knew the link between the black panther party and the nra on this particular issue. tell me what this mulford law was attempting to do. >> the black panthers formed in 1966 by huey and bobby seal. two young african-american men who had grown frustrated and disillusioned with the civil

rights movement. it had been a decade since brown versus the board of education. schools were still segregated. they were motivated in part by the legacy of malcolm x who -- that famous photograph that we all know of him -- >> standing at the window -- saying by any means necessary. and the panthers took up that motto, by any means necessary. it's kind of euphemism. they sent groups of black panthers out, he had the ability to carry a gun openly in the state of california, as long as you didn't point it at anybody, you could carry that gun openly, that caused a lot of anger among police officers and republicans here in california. who like don mulford pushed for new gun control laws to limit the ability of the panthers to

go out on the streets with their guns. >> i'm honored to have you on this program. >> i'm honored to be here, thank you. >> it's our honor to have you on this couch. thank you for coming in. >> it's not lost to me. we were talking before we came on the ayrton the. which is that, i understand it in the air we gave, we shorten everything to 140 characters or less, but it always troublings me that when we say the black panthers, we always cut off the full title, the black panther party for self-defense. we always seem to forget that last part, what do you make of that? >> well, i think that almost immediately police response to the black panther party was very strong. and the overall government response was even stronger. and utilizing the mainstream media, it got shortened like that, and also, i think we don't

understand what self-defense as we unpack it was really about, it wasn't just about guns, it was about all of the uplifting of the community that came from people responding to us. having seen us at the time that we marched in sacramento. at the state capital building of california. and self-defense means that if there aren't food for the children, feed the children. self-defense means, if health care is not available, provide free health clinics. if people are not getting a fair trial, no jury of their peers, encourage people to vote. and also, if people are inkars rated provide transportation for loved ones to get to prisons. that's just a sampling of what we thought about self-defense.

taking care of the communities that we owe our lives to. >> one of the criticisms as you well know, the black lives matter movement, and they've done remarkable work, and we thanked them for their sacrifice that they've engaged in, and the struggle, they have not really had a plan. when asked, what do you want, what is the agenda, they scarcely want to acknowledge having a leader, much less a plan of action. that's different than the black panther party, you all had a ten point program, you started to articulate some of that, tell me about how important it was for the black panther party. to lay out a 10 point program. >> it was important because throughout history from the economic system of slavery forward none of those things we want in the 10 points have ever

fully been given. and i want to say something before i go a little further. and that is that we tend to think of black community or communities of color as mono lidgic. as if there's just one. there's one movement, there's one way. and i have to say that i really appreciate black lives matter, because what they do not want is to have a personality driven movement. and a plan comes from the grassroots level, that is how those programs came. they didn't come necessarily with the 10 point program. though they were inferred. people told us what they needed. and it varied across the united states. and also, when we developed chapters internationally. those needs varied, depending on the people and climate and

culture of that place. for instance, the free clothing program in california, but a free coat program in new york city. so all of these things are important to remember. and we were the first to step out and say, okay, you won't do it? we'll do it. and j. edgar hoover actually in one of the memoranda that was -- hundreds of them, that were sent through the fbi's heinous counter intelligence program said, we're not so upset about those guns. it's that free breakfast for children program that we should watch out for. >> so that tells us something about what made us so dangerous. >> what -- i'm not naive in asking this, only because i want to get you on record explaining this to mean, and sharing this -- what was it about a free

breakfast program giving black kids healthy nutritious food, that so intimidated a guy like j. edgar hoover? >> people loved us, we were going to transform society. we were going to bring the needs foe the attention of everyone. we were going to skew that mainstream message that we can wait. it might take a long time, but -- it might take another century, but we can wait for health care and food and decent education and housing. we can wait for the police to stop abusing, beating and killing people without any reason and against the law. we said we can't wait. and we were the children who grew up with martin luther king

and saw him brutally murdered. >> and wrote a book of course called why we can't wait. >> yes, he did. >> and we were paying attention. and so j. edgar hoover was very concerned, it's in writing, he called it the rise of a black messi messiah. and what he didn't understand is that there are many messiahs, that there are many ways that a community could be uplifted and we were doing it. right under his nose. as a matter of fact, as an example of the embarrassment as well as the threat. the breakfast program became so popular and so nationwide in almost every state in the united states that the government was

so embarrassed that they created the national free breakfast and lunch program for school children, that we now know. we didn't care who fed children, as long as they got fed. our and motto was to serve the people, body and soul. >> guns and butter, if somebody wants to claim they go together. let me leave the breakfast and go bag to the guns here. they're inex-trickably linked as far as the panthers are concerned. he said he wasn't worried about the guns, but he was worried about the free breakfast program. tell me what it was about the argument that huey and others made that so intimidated others where guns are concerned. >> part of it, it was a matter of asserting a level of self-defense a right of self-defense, and especially against police officers.

the crime and fear that the panthers had, that required them to have guns was against police officers, they weren't fearing ordinary criminals, they were fearing police officers. that was a direct threat to the government, and the government's order, they don't like the idea of someone takinging up arms against the government, these days with the nra that rhetoric is welcome in the white house, i imagine. so things have changed, part of the story too, is that it fell into an environment in the late '60s, there was a real push for gun control. many white people thought too many black people had guns and were doing too many things with them. the summer of love all over america, was the time when we saw the assassination of martin luther king, we saw the assassination of robert f. kennedy, progressive hope for many people. race riots break out in major cities, which was major parts of the city were destroyed. and federal reports looking into the riots and the racial unrest

of the time, put the blame, at least partly on guns, and the easy availability of guns in african-american communities. there was a real effort to try to shut that down. it wasn't just the black panthers and conservatives in california, ronald reagan, who signed the law, making it harder to carry guns on the street. ronald reagan going out there saying, there's no reason why a law abiding person on the street should carry a gun today. it was also elected officials nationwide. we saw the gun control act that many people said -- the federal gun control act of 1968 that many people said was designed not to control guns, but to control african-americans. >> i have said this a number of times on this program and beyond. only half jokingly, if you really wanted to solve the gun crisis in america, give every negro in america a gun, there goes the conversation about gun control. if the nra is serious about it,

give every black person in america a gun, and see where the conversation goes. >> how would you compare and contrast the way that the federal government treated say the bundy protests up in northwest america with the way they treated the panthers 50 years ago? >> big difference. the effort in the bundy case, at least as far as we know, we don't know about any government infiltration, of any effort to try to sew violence among the members of the bundy community. they took a hands off approach, we'll wait until you come out. >> and they were on government property? >> on government property. >> that's the distinction. they were on government property and the government still took a hands off approach. >> the black panthers eng gauged in a serious effort to infiltrate, to sow violence. it's a real fundamental difference. the government saw the black panthers as a threat in the way that the bundys were not seen as

a threat. the skin color of the people involved, did it having something to do with it? >> let me go from skin color to gender. one of the great joys of talking to you is to be reminded of the authority, the power, the role that women played. it wasn't just, with all due respect, it wasn't just bobby seally. it was the serious role the women played, tell me more about the role you and other women played in this movement 50 years ago? >> well, it's curious to think about role. we were all there together. so we were all -- we called ourselves revolutionaries, we were all social justice people, and it didn't matter to us man or woman, young or old. however, we do live in a society that tends not to respect. and care about the needs of the

voices of the lives of women, and girls. and so we really were a model for the movements to come. and i know this, because now i work with younger women. and younger organizations, and we were some of the first women to step forward and say, we can do this as well. and i want to sasay that as a woman joining the black panther party, i knew that the police were not going to treat me like a woman. because my blackness superseded my femaleness. so now i'm talking about the way things are threaded together. our cone siding identities. but after the first few years of the black panther party, the black panther party was 2/3

women. that is astounding to people, because they do not know it. how else would all of those programs that were sometimes international have continued? how would we sustain a school like the one i ran in oakland, the oakland community school? that wasn't cute. that wasn't sexy, like the guns and the braids and the leather jack jackets, that was hard work, day to day in community. and i know because i was there for 14 years doing that work. >> and so i think it's really important for us to remember how vital women have ben from the beginning of africans being tossed on to this soil till now.

and i think about black lives matter again. three young african-american queer women who stepped out of the -- with love in their hearts, and that is where we were in the beginning. i had never met everybody at the time as loving as huey newton in those early days. bobby seal, the camaraderie was based in love. >> it's beautiful to hear you say that, not that i don't know this, but we think black panther, we don't think love, those two things have been -- they're so disjointed. >> that's because we live in a society that has made an unsaid promise not to talk about the impact of race, it's legacy in the formation of this country. and the violence. this country began in violence. why wouldn't there be violence

now? or a response to itp p. >> yeah. where is -- i'm going to come to you to take us into the future. where is the conversation about guns in america going. there are a number of ways i could read this, give me your assessment of where you think this conversation is going to take us. >> certainly in the short term, it's going in the nra's direction. donald trump is a big supporter of the nra. if anything were going to the nra pushing for more permissive laws. i think one of the big challenges is keeping up with a changing society, and a society for whom the demographics are pointing opposite in the direction of the nra. growing african-american community. growing asian community, urban community. people living in cities rather than rural areas. all of these things are associated with support for gun control. not gun rights, the nra has to

make a big effort to try to appeal to people from different demographics than has traditionally been the case, that's a real challenge for the nra. you still see racist literature, white hate literature. they're making a big effort, maybe i wonder with black lives matter, if they're not leaving some challenges, some opportunities on the table. there's a lot of african-americans who feel the need to defend themselves against police. >> a great wrapper named killer mike who's on this program and elsewhere, he's reminding black people, you are a fool if you give up -- and i'm cleaning it up, you are a fool if you give up your gun. he's always preaching to black people, do not give up your gun. that's exactly what they want. which leads me to ask whether or not if for no other reason than self-preservation, the nra may have to start changing its tune and recruiting black folk to its side. they end up -- you see where i'm going with this? >> i think they're making

efforts to try to do it, they have a new spokesman, young african-american millennial on youtube, they're making efforts to move in this direction, it's a real challenge for the nra given the current demographic support of the nra. and hostilities it seems. >> one minute to go. what do you believe the legacy of the black panther party to be? >> i believe that the legacy of the black panther party is its community survival program. having worked with them all of those years. and it's not -- it's a more feminine way of looking at it, rather than a masculine way, that our communities need love in the form of resources. we set an example by doing that. and people are continuing, people have taken that model and they're doing it, slowly but

surely, and i believe that if we carry about all of the people of the united states, the government could do that. this is not a poor country. >> yeah. >> erica, thank you for your legacy on going. it's an honor to have you on this program. >> thanks for your insight. we appreciate it. >> 50 years ago here in california, historic day. tomorrow night, more of donald trump and his 100 day agenda. thanks for watching. as always, keep the faith. for more information on today's show. visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. hi, i'm tavis smiley, join me next time for a conversation with ted koppel. that's next time. we'll see you then.

and and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

good evening from los angeles. today thousand took to the streets to march in what has become a key day of action for immigrants rights activists to. night speak with an acclaimed civil rights attorney and president, and discuss trump's 100 day rally and the effect that the administration has had thus far on immigrants families. then we'll remember our dear friend, collaborator, oscar winning filmmaker jonathan demme. all that in just a moment. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪