“Long Live Third World Unity! Long Live Internationalism”¹

1. Yuri Nakahara Kochiyama, Passing It On—A Memoir, eds. Marjorie Lee, Akemi Kochiyama-Sardinha, and Audee Kochiyama-Holman (Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 2004), 173.

: Huey P. Newton's Revolutionary Intercommunalism

Abstract

“Long Live Third World Unity! Long Live Internationalism” explores the transnational socialism of Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. The Panthers linked their own oppression with that of other racialized and oppressed groups in the U.S. and linked oppression at home with imperialism throughout the tricontinental. The article begins with a brief discussion of the significance of the 1955 Bandung Conference and the 1956 Suez Crisis for antiracist activists in the U.S., paying particular attention to Malcolm X. It then situates the Black Panther Party as heirs to Malcolm X's tricontinental tradition; lastly, it traces the ideological evolution of Newton and the BPP from revolutionary nationalists and internationalists to revolutionary intercommunalists, arguing that this new conceptual framework, anticipating theories of globalization by twenty years as it does, situates Newton as a central figure of the tricontinental political traditon.

Keywords:

• Bandung Conference
• Black Panther Party
• Huey P.
• Malcolm X
• Newton
• Third World

Notes

1. Yuri Nakahara Kochiyama, Passing It On—A Memoir, eds. Marjorie Lee, Akemi Kochiyama-Sardinha, and Audee Kochiyama-Holman (Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 2004), 173.

2. Huey P. Newton, “The Technology Question,” in The Huey P. Newton Reader, ed. David Hilliard and Donald Weise (New York; London: Seven Stories Press, 2002 [1972]), 261.

3. Ibid.

4. Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964), 147.

5. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe and two Academy Awards, among several others.

6. Lee ends the film with photos of Tracy Chapman, Bill Cosby, and Janet Jackson wearing “X” caps.

7. Gerald Horne, “Myth and the Making of ‘Malcolm X’,” American Historical Review 98, no. 2 (1993): 441.

8. Maulena Karenga discusses the absence of Malcolm's relationships with African leaders in New York Amsterdam News 26 December 1992, as cited in Ibid., 445. Horne calls to task historians and scholars as well, stating that in its failure to give a “proper account of the play of international forces…Lee's flaw is not his alone.

9. Ibid., 446.

10. Ibid. The exceptional work produced in the ten years since Horne's article was published has begun to fill the void of which Horne speaks. See, for example, Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and US Foreign Affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Penny Von Eschen, Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997); Cynthia Young, “Soul Power: Cultural Radicalism and the Formation of a U.S. Third World Left” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1999); Robin D. G. Kelley and Betsy Esch, “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution,” Souls 1, no. 3 (1999); Robin D. G. Kelley, “‘But a Local Phase of a World Problem’: Black History's Global Vision, 1883–1950,” Journal of American History 86, no. 3 (1999); Nikhil Pal Singh and Andrew F. Jones, “Introduction,” in Positions, East Asia Cultures Critique; Special Issue: The Afro-Asian Century, ed. Nikhil Pal Singh and Andrew F. Jones (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003); Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003); Gerald Horne, Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois (New York and London: New York University Press, 2000).

11. Horne, “Myth and the Making of ‘Malcolm X’,” 444.

12. For more on the meeting between Malcolm and Castro in Harlem, see Rosemari Mealy, Fidel and Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting (Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press, 1997).

13. Kochiyama, Passing It On, 68.

14. Ibid.; Yuri Kochiyama, “With Justice in Her Heart: A Revolutionary Worker Interview with Yuri Kochiyama,” Revolutionary Worker Online, no. 986 (1998).

15. Kochiyama, Passing It On, 70.

16. Ibid., 69.

17. Ibid., 74, 71.

18. Ibid., xiv.

19. Anonymous, “The Violent End of the Man Called Malcolm X,” Life, March 26, 1965.

20. I use the term “tricontinental” to describe both the region known as the “global South” or the “Third World” and the political formation that aligned itself with this region and its emergent anticolonial and antiracist politics. Borrowing from Robert Young, I also use the phrase to invoke an identification with the 1966 Havana Tricontinental Conference, which initiated the first anti-imperialist alliance of the peoples of the three continents as well as the founding moment of postcolonial theory in its journal, the Tricontinental. While the term itself was not used by these activist-intellectuals, “tricontinentalism” offers a useful framework for understanding their global, antiracist, and anti-imperialist politics. Robert Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Oxford and Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers). See also Besenia Rodriguez, “‘De la Esclavitud Yanqi a la Libertad Cubana': U.S. Black Radicals, the Cuban Revolution, and the Formation of a Tricontinental Ideology,” Radical History Review 92 (Spring 2005): 62–87.

21. Huey Newton, ed., To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton (New York: Random House, 1972), 32.

22. In early 1971, due to discord manipulated and intensified by Hoover's FBI, Newton expelled several members from the BPP, including the Intercommunal Section run from Algiers by Eldridge Cleaver. In hindsight, the early seeds of these differences can be appreciated, for instance, in the divergent ways in which Newton and Hilliard on the one hand, and Cleaver, on the other, viewed Malcolm X's influence on their organization. Cleaver looked to Malcolm as one of his heroes, precisely because he saw him as “the father of revolutionary black nationalism.” Eldridge Cleaver, Revolution in the Congo (London: Revolutionary Peoples' Communications Network, 1971), 7. Hilliard and Newton depart from Malcolm X precisely because of his nationalism and his focus on Africa, to create a more expansive tricontinentalism, developing closer ties with antiracist groups of color in the U.S. and abroad. It is for these reasons that I focus here on Huey P. Newton. For more on the internal divisions within the BPP, and the FBI's role in fomenting them, see J. Edgar Hoover, “Untitled FBI Memo re. COINTELPRO” (August 25, 1961). Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, Inc. and Black Panther Party Collections, Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, California. Fred P. Graham, “F.B.I. Files Tell of Surveillance of Students, Blacks, War Foes,” New York Times, March 25, 1971; Tim Butz, “COINTELPRO: Psychological Warfare and Magnum Justice,” CounterSpy (1976); Ernest Volkman, “Othello,” Penthouse, April 1980. Ross K. Baker, “Panther Rift Rocks Whole Radical Left,” Washington Post, March 21, 1971; Earl Caldwell, “Internal Dispute Rends Panthers,” New York Times, March 7, 1971; Black Panther Party, “Expelled,” The Black Panther, February 13, 1971; Black Panther Party, “Enemies of the People,” The Black Panther, February 13, 1971; Black Panther Party, “Intercommunal Section Defects,” The Black Panther, March 20, 1971; Bobby Seale, “Bobby Seale: I am the Chairman of Only One Party,” The Black Panther, April 3, 1971.

23. Malcolm X, “Message to the Grassroots” (paper presented at the Northern Grass Roots Leadership Conference, Detroit, MI, November 10, 1964).

24. Ibid.

25. Melani McAlister, “One Black Allah: The Middle East in the Cultural Politics of African American Liberation, 1955–1970,” American Quarterly 51, no. 3 (1999): 633.

26. Republic of Indonesia and Republic of South Africa, Asian-African Summit 2005 and the Commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of the Asian-African Conference 1955 Asian African Summit, 2005 [cited August 18, 2005]); available at http://asianafricansummit2005.org/history.htm.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Shirley Graham DuBois, Gamal Abdel Nasser: Son of the Nile, a Biography (New York: The Third Press, 1972), 148.

30. Indonesia and Africa, Asian-African Summit 2005 and the Commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of the Asian-African Conference 1955.

31. Ibid.

32. Wikipedia.org, Bandung Conference Wikipedia.org, August 18, 2005 [cited August 18, 2005]); available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandung_Conference. Jawaharlal Nehru, Speech to Bandung Conference Political Committee Fordham University, 1955 [cited August 18, 2005]); available at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1955nehru-bandung2.html.

33. Wikipedia.org, Bandung Conference.

34. Indonesia and Africa, Asian-African Summit 2005 and the Commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of the Asian-African Conference 1955.

35. Ted Roberts, “Cuba and the Non-Aligned Movement,” Center for Cuban Studies Newsletter 3, no. 4–5 (1976).

36. Ibid.

37. Kumar Goshal, “War and Jim Crow Set Back at Bandung,” Freedom, May–June, 1955.

38. Ibid.

39. Unknown, “Harlem Speaks…About Bandung,” Ibid.

40. Anonymous, Ibid.

41. Kumar Goshal, “War and Jim Crow Set Back at Bandung,” ibid.

42. Paul Robeson, “Greetings to the Asian-African Conference” (April, 1955). Paul Robeson Collection, Box 7:000150. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Bandung, Indonesia.

43. Ibid.

44. Indeed, as Reuters and a New York Times reader noted, of the 2000 representatives in attendance at the Bandung Conference, no representatives and only two advisors were women. Laili Roesad, “Women Advisers at Bandung,” New York Times, April 22, 1955; Reuters, “No Women Delegates Among 600 at Bandung,” New York Times, April 18, 1955.

45. Robeson, “Greetings to the Asian-African Conference.”

46. W.E.B. Du Bois, “The American Negro and the Darker World,” (1957). Paul and Eslanda Robeson Collection. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, DC.

47. Ibid.

48. W.E.B. Du Bois, “The American Negro and the Darker World,” (1957). Paul and Eslanda Robeson Collection. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, DC.

49. James Boggs, “Correcting Mistaken Ideas about the Third World” (March 14, 1974). James and Grace Lee Boggs Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University Archives, Detroit, Michigan. Box 3: 16. 4.

50. Ibid., 6.

51. Ibid., 7.

52. Ibid.

53. Yuri Nakahara Kochiyama, “Third World,” Asian Americans for Action Newsletter, October 1970, 199.

54. Ibid., 199–200.

55. McAlister, “One Black Allah,” 632–633.

56. DuBois, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 163–164. The poem was published in several small progressive periodicals, including the December 1956 issue of Mainstream Magazine.

57. In a dissertation chapter, I discuss Shirley Graham DuBois's tricontinental socialism, in particular, her interest in Egypt and the Middle East, which has often been understood as pan-Africanist or dismissed entirely.I argue that her impassioned writings on the ongoing crisis in the Middle East provide significant insight into the global reach of her antiracist politics as well as her broader anti-imperialist project. See “Beyond Nation: The Formation of an Antiracist Tricontinental Discourse” (Yale University, in progress).

58. DuBois, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 141.

59. DuBois, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 152.

60. Shirley Graham Du Bois, Gamal Abdel Nasser: Son of the Nile, A Biography (New York: The Third Press, 1972), 154.

61. McAlister, “One Black Allah,” 632–633.

62. DuBois, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 155; Erskine B. Childers, “The Road to Suez” (1962). Shirley Graham Du Bois Papers, Box 31:20. Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Cambridge, Mass., 18.

63. DuBois, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 159.

64. Ibid., 163.

65. Ibid.

66. Du Bois, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 163.

67. McAlister, “One Black Allah,” 632.

68. Ibid. McAlister also discusses the Nation of Islam's endorsement of the Egyptian seizure of the Suez Canal.

69. Nasser also developed warm ties with Guinea's President Sékou Touré. DuBois, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 176.

70. Robin D. G. Kelley, “House Negroes on the Loose: Malcolm X and the Black Bourgeoisie,” Callaloo 21, no. 2 (1998): 431.

71. Ibid.

72. Ibid.

73. Huey P. Newton, David Hilliard, and Donald Weise, The Huey P. Newton Reader, (New York; London: Seven Stories Press, 2002), 52.

74. David Hilliard, “Introduction,” in The Huey P. Newton Reader, ed. David Hilliard and Donald Weise (New York; London: Seven Stories Press, 2002), 11.

75. Newton, Hilliard, and Weise, The Huey P. Newton Reader, 49.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid., 50.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid.

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid. Robert F. Williams, “Robert Williams Speaks at Panther Benefit,” The Black Panther, December 27, 1969; Robert F. Williams, “Robert Williams Speaks at N.C.C.F. Panther Benefit; Detroit, Michigan,” The Black Panther, January 3, 1970.

82. Newton, Hilliard, and Weise, The Huey P. Newton Reader, 50.

83. Each May, the Black Panther Party's newspaper, The Black Panther, published a commemorative issue celebrating Malcolm X's birthday. See, for example, Black Panther Party, “The Heirs of Malcolm have picked up the gun and now stand millions strong facing the racist pig oppressor,” The Black Panther, May 19, 1970, cover.

84. Black Panther Party, “They Work Together to Oppress Us. We'll Work Together to Resist,” The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service, February 5, 1972.

85. Newton, Hilliard, and Weise, The Huey P. Newton Reader, 52.

86. Hilliard, “Introduction,” 11. While Malcolm X identified largely with working-class Black people and, often, with left-leaning causes, his increasing critiques of capitalism are rarely, if ever, discussed in Black Panther writings and references to his work. These critiques are highlighted to differing degrees by various scholars. See George Breitman, Malcolm X: The Man and His Ideas (New York: Merit Publishers, 1965); George Breitman, The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary (New York: Merit Publishers, 1967); Eugene Wolfenstein, The Victims of Democracy: Malcolm X and the Black Revolution (London: Free Association Books, 1989, orig. 1981); Kelley, “House Negroes on the Loose.”

87. David Hilliard, “Part Three: The Second Wave,” in The Huey P. Newton Reader, ed. David Hilliard and Donald Weise (New York; London: Seven Stories Press, 2002), 179.

88. Huey Newton, “Revolutionary Intercommunalism,” in Revolutionary Intercommunalism and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, ed. Amy Gdala (Newton, Wales: Cyhoeddwyr y Superscript, Ltd., 2004 [1971]), 27.

89. Ibid., 49.

90. Ibid.

91. Ibid.

92. Ibid., 28.

93. Ibid., 49.

94. Ibid.

95. Black Panther Party Chief-of-Staff David Hilliard cites Oakland's history as pivotal in shaping Newton and the Party's internationalism. Hilliard discusses the city's rich union tradition and its racially and ethnically integrated political environment. “Solidarity is the watchword, and we are surrounded by examples collectively asserting their power. The internationalism is emphasized by the fact that Oakland, like Mobile, is an integrated community. You don't simply find whites and blacks, but yellows, browns, Native Americans too. These groups coexist in a particular way. New York is famous for its many ethnic communities. But whenever I visit there, I'm surprised at how groups don't mix: the city is multiracial, not intraracial. But on July 4, when the young people of Oakland crowd the park by the bay to watch the fireworks, the array of skin shades is beautiful and impressive; couples claim five and six strains in their blood.” David Hilliard and Lewis Cole, This Side of Glory: the Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1993), 68.

96. Hilliard, “Introduction,” 12.

97. Newton, Hilliard, and Weise, The Huey P. Newton Reader, 69.

98. Ibid., 70. In the years after these comments were made, Newton forged a relationship with allies representing, “oppressed people of Japan,” who formed the “Committee to Support Black Panthers in Japan.” These anti-imperialist activists, as critical of Japanese imperialism as they were of U.S. imperialism, corresponded with Newton, sending a monetary donation and expressing their support for the BPP's goals and most recently, Newton's “ideas of intercommunalism,” which they saw as “an enlightenment for many third-world people in Japan.” Newton, in turn, expressed his desire to accept the Committee's invitation to Japan, regretting that he could not do so during his visit to the People's Republic of China. Newton wrote, “We were very glad to know that our Comrades in Japan have embraced the philosophy of revolutionary intercommunalism, for truly this will be a uniting factor between our people and yours.…Our struggles, as you yourselves clearly pointed out, are one struggle; our enemies are the same enemy; our victories shall be common” and reprinted the Committee's letter in the December 4, 1971 issue of The Black Panther. Matsuko Ishida and Japan Committee to Support the Black Panther Party to Huey Newton, September 25, 1971 Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, Inc. and Black Panther Party Collections, Box 7 (series 2): 3. Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University; Matsuko Ishida and Japan Committee to Support the Black Panther Party to Huey Newton, September 25, 1971 Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, Inc. and Black Panther Party Collections, Box 7 (series 2): 3. Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University; Huey Newton to Japan Committee to Support the Black Panther Party, November 29, 1971 Dr. Huey P. Newton Fd. Collection, Box 7 (series 2): 3; Huey Newton to Masao Omata, November 29, 1971 Dr. Huey P. Newton Fd. Collection, Box 7 (series 2): 3.

99. For an excellent treatment of the Panthers' policing of the police, which were aimed at capturing the imagination of local black communities by “subverting the state's official performance of itself…turning the police…into the ‘symbols of uniformed and armed lawlessness,’” see Nikhil Pal Singh, Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), esp. 199–211.

100. Ibid.

101. Black Panther Party for Self Defense, “Panthers Move Internationally: Free Huey at the U.N.,” The Black Panther, September 14, 1968; Black Panther Party, “Take Black Genocide Before U.N.,” The Black Panther, March 21, 1970.

102. Black Panther Party, “Interview: With William Patterson and Charles Garry,” The Black Panther, July 5, 1969; Party, “Take Black Genocide Before U.N..”; Charles W. Cheng, “The Cold War: Its Impact on the Black Liberation Struggle Within the United States, Part 1 of 2,” Freedomways 13, no. 3 (1973).

103. See, for example, Black Panther Party for Self Defense, “Chinese Government Statement,” The Black Panther, July 20, 1967; Black Panther Party for Self Defense, “United States ‘Democracy’ in Latin America,” The Black Panther, July 20, 1967; Black Panther Party for Self Defense, “Mexican-Americans Fight Racism,” The Black Panther, May 4, 1968; Black Panther Party for Self Defense, “Eyes of the Third World on U.S. Racism,” The Black Panther, May 4, 1968; Black Panther Party, “Chilean Workers Struggle Against Exploitation,” The Black Panther, October 12, 1968; Black Panther Party, “Mexican Students Fight Against Repression,” The Black Panther, October 12, 1968; Black Panther Party, “Palestine Guerrillas,” The Black Panther, October 19, 1968; Black Panther Party, “Anti-U.S. Rallies,” The Black Panther, October 19, 1968; Black Panther Party, “Che Guevara on Vietnam,” The Black Panther, October 19, 1968; Black Panther Party, “Cubans Support Movement,” The Black Panther, October 19, 1968; Huey Newton, “Los Siete de la Raza,” The Black Panther, June 28, 1969; Black Panther Party, “Boycott Lettuce,” The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service, September 23, 1972; Black Panther Party for Self Defense, “Bootlicker Tshombe Captured,” The Black Panther, July 20, 1967; Black Panther Party, “Bolivians Fight,” The Black Panther, February 2, 1969; Black Panther Party, “Bolivian ‘Niggers' U.S.-Style Racism and Capitalism in Bolivia,” The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service, April 22, 1972; Black Panther Party, “Cuban Revolution 10 Years Old,” The Black Panther, February 2, 1969; Black Panther Party, “The Heroic Palelestinian [sic] Women,” The Black Panther, July 26, 1969; Black Panther Party, “The Week of the Heroic Guerrilla,” The Black Panther, October 9, 1971. Black Panther Party, “Important Statements of a Brazilian Revolutionary Leader,” The Black Panther, August 1, 1970; Black Panther Party, “International Communique No. 1,” The Black Panther, October 12, 1968.

104. George Murray, “George Murray, Minister of Education, Black Panther Party, Relates Revolutionary History in the Making at Havana, Cuba Press Conference,” The Black Panther, October 12, 1968.

105. Ibid.

106. Ibid., 27.

107. Mark Lane and Huey Newton, “Huey Newton Speaks,” (September 1, 1970). Dr. Huey P. Newton Fd. Collection, Box 57 (series 1): 7. Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, 6.

108. Ibid.

109. Newton, “Revolutionary Intercommunalism,” 27.

110. Huey Newton, “Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention: Resolutions and Declarations, Washington, D.C.” (November 29, 1970). Dr. Huey P. Newton Fd. Collection, Box 11 (series 2): 14. The idea for a Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention emerged from the Conference for a United Front Against Fascism, organized by the BPP and other community organizations and held in Oakland July 18–20, 1969. See Black Panther Party, “A United Front Against Fascism,” The Black Panther, June 28, 1969; Eldridge Cleaver, “On the Constitution” (1970). Dr. Huey P. Newton Fd. Collection, Box 30 (series 2): 6.

111. Black Panther Party and Youth International Party, “Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention” (1970). Publications Relating to the Black Panther Party. Tamiment Library, New York University, New York.

112. Huey Newton, “Huey's Message to the Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention Plenary Session, Philadelphia” (September 5, 1970). Dr. Huey P. Newton Fd. Collection, Box 11 (series 2): 14.

113. Newton, “Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention.”

114. Ibid., 1.

115. Ibid.

116. Ibid., 2.

117. Newton, “Revolutionary Intercommunalism,” 31.

118. Ibid., 36.

119. Ibid.

120. Ibid., 31.

121. Ibid., 32.

122. Huey Newton to Provisional Government of South Vietnam and National Liberation Front, 1970 Dr. Huey P. Newton Fd. Collection, Box 47 (series 1): 24. Nguyen Thi Dinh and South Vietnamese People's Liberation Armed Forces to Huey Newton, October 31, 1970 Dr. Huey P. Newton Fd. Collection, Box 7 (series 2): 3.

123. Ibid.

124. Ibid.

125. Ibid.

126. Newton, “Revolutionary Intercommunalism,” 119.

127. Huey Newton, “Intercommunalism: A Higher Level of Consciousness” (nd). Dr. Huey P. Newton Fd. Collection, Box 48 (series 1): 4. 13.

128. Newton, “Revolutionary Intercommunalism,” 119.

129. Ibid.

130. Ibid.

131. Within Black Atlantic political history, Selassie is perhaps most well known for being perceived as God incarnate among Rastafari and for leading an independent Ethiopia while it was under attack by Italy's Mussolini. By 1960, particularly after a failed revolutionary Marxist coup in December, Selassie became increasingly conservative, aligning with the U.S., U.K., and other western nations. Black Panther Party, “Agnew Visits his Country Estate—Ethiopia,” The Black Panther, July 19, 1971.

132. Ibid.

133. Ibid.

134. Ibid.

135. Huey P. Newton, “Uniting Against the Common Enemy,” ibid., October 23.

136. Newton, “Revolutionary Intercommunalism,” 33.

137. Ibid., 45.

138. Ibid., 6.

139. Ibid., 37, 56.

140. Many Panthers, including Newton himself, have admitted that he was a far more effective thinker and writer than orator. He claimed that he received letters from “truly oppressed…welfare recipients…saying, “I thought the Party was for us; why do you want to give those dirty Vietnamese our life blood?” Ibid., 47.

141. Ibid., 46, 41.

142. Ibid., 46–47.

143. “If we must die—let it not be like hogs/ Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,/ While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,/ Making their mock at our accursed lot./ If we must die—oh, let us nobly die/ So that our precious blood may not be shed/ In vain; then even the monsters we defy/ Shall be constrained to honor us, though dead!/ Oh kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;/ Though far outnumbered let us show we're brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death blow!/ What though before us lies the open grave!/ Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,/ Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” Claude McKay, “If We Must Die,” The Black Panther, January 4, 1969 [1919]. Newton, “Intercommunalism: A Higher Level of Consciousness.”

144. Newton, “Intercommunalism: A Higher Level of Consciousness,” 13.

145. Newton, “Huey's Message to the Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention,” 4, 6.

146. Newton, “Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention.”

147. Hilliard, “Introduction,” 17.

148. Newton, “Revolutionary Intercommunalism,” 5.