Williams, Robert F. "Speech: Delivered at the International Conference for Solidarity
with the People of Vietnam Against U.S. Imperialist Aggression for the Defense of Peace.
Hanoi, Democratic Republic of Vietnam November 25-29, 1965." (March 1965).
The Crusader, 6(3), p. 1-5.
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 FULL TEXT
Williams, Robert F. "Speech: Delivered at the International Conference for Solidarity
with the People of Vietnam Against U.S. Imperialist Aggression for the Defense of Peace.
Hanoi, Democratic Republic of Vietnam November 25-29, 1965." (March 1965).
The Crusader, 6(3), p. 1-5.
Brothers of Vietnam, patriots of the world, and lovers of peace and freedom:
I greet you in the name of those of my fellow countrymen who are civilized enough to oppose
U.S. aggression, I specifically greet you in the name of Afro-American freedom fighters who
are waging a determined liberation struggle against mainland American colonialism. As
Chairman-in-exile of the Revolutionary Action Movement, an American based united liberation
front, comprising many groups and organizations, I resolutely offer support to our gallant
brothers of Vietnam and to this International Conference for Solidarity with the People
of Vietnam Against U.S. Imperialist Aggression for the Defense of Peace.
Not only do we support the right of our brothers of Vietnam to defend themselves against
the armed aggression, repression and tyranny of U.S. imperialism and its running dogs, but
we wish to thank our brothers for the splendid examples they are giving us. Our people are
being inspired by the effectiveness and the great successes scored by the Vietnamese people
in their armed struggle of self defense and liberation. After almost 200 years of inhuman
bondage and shameful dehumanization under the present U.S. Government, our meek and passive
people, like our brothers of Vietnam, Cuba, the Congo, Mozambique and throughout Asia,
Africa and Latin America we are beginning to cast off the imperialist inspired curse of
turn-the other cheekism. Yes, on the very mainland of Neo-colonialism our oppressed people
are turning the streets of racist and imperialist America into battlegrounds of resistance.
More than any other people in the world, our people understand the savage and beastly nature
of barbaric Yankeeism. We know the hypocrisy and inhumanity of the evil government of our
beloved country.
Perhaps you may wonder why I, an oppressed descendant of African slaves, would refer to
America as our beloved country. It is because the blood, sweat and tears of our African
people have drenched the mountains, hallowed the valleys and swelled the rivers of America.
It is because the first patriot to fall in the American Revolution was a black man named
Chrispus Attucks. Yes, almost 200 years ago a black man fell first in the struggle for
liberation, in the struggle for American freedom and independence. Yet today our people
are still suffering and dying in their quest for freedom in the so-called free world of
racist America. There never was a revolution so grossly betrayed in the history of the
world. There never was such a cruel hoax so brutally perpetrated on a noble people.
We, the captive people of the free world of racist America, support the right of all
oppressed people to meet violence with violence. We resolutely support the right of all
people to self determination. We are resolutely opposed to the fate of oppressed people
being decided in any international body where the racist USA holds sway. We are opposed to
so-called justice being meted out to the victims of U.S. racism and imperialism by running
dog lackeys, hired thugs and agents of Yankeeism. We want, to remind those who cherish
freedom and justice that the Yankee honors his treaties, agreements and legal writs only
to the extent that they promote his sinister cause of world conquest. Yankee imperialism
is a racist imperialism. It is a threat to the peace and security of the entire world.
The American Indian, the first American, is a perfect example of those who trust in the
promises of the Yankee plunderers. The proud and once great American Indian sought to
honorably and peacefully share his native land with the conniving intruder who came preaching
a new doctrine of so-called Christian brotherhood. More than a hundred treaties signed with
the American Indians have been violated and shamelessly discarded by the U.S. Government.
The American Indian was the first victim of the U.S. Government's strategic hamlet, the
so-called Indian Reservation. Today, he too, is a prisoner on his own soil, and he has all
but been exterminated. What is a treaty, what is an agreement and what is a constitution
to the racist, barbaric and imperialist Yankee?
The Johnson administration is a racist, imperialist administration desperately trying to
conceal its inherent dishonor in a deceptive cloak of so-called representative democracy.
Wherever it can, it thrusts its imperialism deceptively upon the deceived through phoney
Alliances For Progress, Peace Corps, Aid Programs, Military pacts, phoney democratic slogans,
Yankee dollars and chewing gum. Wherever it can, it hides its brutal and evil racist face
behind the clever facade of mercenary Negroes. It stages a repulsive parade of handpicked
Negro puppets, Judases and apologists-for-the-system before the world to extol the virtues
of a fabled representative democracy for a government that respects the human rights of
colored people less than those of common street dogs.
The so-called U.S. Civil Rights Bill, allegedly guaranteeing rights to colored people is
a farce of the first magnitude. The Constitution of our country guarantees all people
equal rights. It has never been enforced and honored by the U.S. Government. A Civil Rights
Bill similar to Johnson's was enacted in 1875. It has never been enforced. The racist USA,
like racist South Africa, is a member of the United Nations and they both stand in contempt
of its human rights charter. It is ironic that the very body which is asked to condemn
racialism in Portuguese Angola and South Africa, maintains its seat within the borders of
the racist USA. The non-white delegates to this very body, themselves, do not enjoy
immunity from the brutality and violence of U.S. racism. Delegates themselves, have been
made victims of ruthless police brutality and humiliating racial discrimination.
Yes, like all people who struggle for human dignity and liberty, we Afro-Americans have
traitors and mercenaries in our ranks. The chief apologist for its corrupt, decadent, racist
and imperialist system is the head of the U.S. Information Services. This man, Carl Rowan,
is a running dog for the racist and imperialist Johnson Administration. A Negro was
especially designated for this highly sophisticated system of deception because more and
more the U.S. imperialists are smarting from the embarrassment their racist policies are
causing them abroad. It is the height of cynicism, the most cruel of hoaxes, for a
government to practice genocide against a minority, while sending one of its own members
to help bait the trap for other potential victims. This Negro spokesman for white
supremacy democracy, Mr. Rowan, visited his home in Tennessee and was not allowed to dine
nor use the public toilet in the U.S. Government subsidized airport because his skin is black.
Yes, the U.S. Government has sunken to the level of devil of the world. The same racist
savages whose bombs blow the heads off black babies in Birmingham, USA, who viciously club
pregnant Afro-American women into insensibility on the streets of America are the same
beasts who murder, torture and maim the patriots of Vietnam. It is the height of man's
inhumanity to man when a slave is sent to extend his master's brutal slavery to his brothers.
Afro-American soldiers themselves are being slaughtered like wild beasts on the streets of
the so-called free world of racist America, yet they are being sent as aggressors against
the anti-racist, anti-imperialist, peace loving people of Vietnam in a fraudulent crusade
of containing Communism.
Corporal Roman Duckworth, an Afro-American soldier, who had obtained leave from his post
in Mississippi to visit his seriously hospitalized wife, was viciously gunned down by a
racist sheriff because he refused to submit to the racist demands that he, a Negro
soldier, restrict himself to the rear of the bus. Was Cpl. Duckworth killed because the
U.S. wanted to contain communism in Mississippi? No!
Lt. Colonel Lemuel Penn, one of the very few high ranking Afro-American officers in the
Army reserves, while returning to his family had his head blown off at the very gates of
Ft. Benning, Georgia USA. His brutal and savage murderers readily identified themselves
as members of a Ku Klux Klan terrorist group and boasted that they killed him because he
was black. As in the case of Cpl. Duckworth and countless other lynched Afro-Americans,
the savage criminals have been acquitted and acclaimed honored heroes in their racist
communities. Was Col. Penn killed because the U.S. Government wanted to contain communism
in Georgia? No! These loyal servants of U.S. imperialism were killed simply because their
skins were black. The racist U.S. Government cynically pleads no jurisdiction over
America's southern soil, yet it brazenly proclaims the right to act as policeman, judge
and executioner in Vietnam and throughout the world.
Throughout racist America, our people are being terrorized, murdered, maimed, bombed,
lynched, raped, starved, sterilized by the states and imprisoned. Besides conducting a
campaign of genocide against our people, the fascist organizations are also attempting
to intimidate our white allies by subjecting them to all forms of violence, terror and
murder. These fascist forces are arming themselves with weapons from the U.S. Military
arsenals. They are openly training for their publicly proposed policy of exterminating
our people. We warn the racists of America that they are not living in the fascist era
of Hitler's Germany and that our brothers of all races throughout the world are not
going to passively submit to genocide. Let them remember that the anti-racist,
anti-imperialist forces of the socialist camp are growing more powerful everyday. We
are learning from the people of Vietnam. We are learning from the people of Cuba. We
are learning from the people of Algeria, Angola and the Congo.
We believe in the right of armed struggle. We believe in the people's right to defend
themselves in Vietnam as well as in Harlem, New York or Jackson, Mississippi USA. We
proudly hail the nuclear achievements of the staunch defenders of the oppressed, our
Chinese brothers, in developing weapons for self-defense against nuclear intimidation
by the racist USA. Our people, who have for many generations been defenseless victims of
monopolized white supremacy terror, consider the Chinese bomb, a people's bomb, a freedom
bomb of the oppressed. Our principles, our love for humanity demand that we place
ourselves on the side of the Vietnamese people.
As a representative if the Revolutionary Action Movement, I am here to give support to
the Vietnamese people in their struggle against U.S. imperialist aggression. We are
opposed to the barbaric acts of the hypocritical Johnson administration, at home and
abroad. Our human decency will not allow us to prettify and serve as spineless apologists
for savage Yankeeism. Not only do we condemn, protest and raise our fists in indignation
at these brutal crimes perpetrated against the noble patriots of this gallant land, but
we promise our brothers, and let the whole world bear witness, that we shall intensify
our struggle for liberation in the so-called free world of the racist USA. We shall take
the torch of freedom and justice into the streets of America and we shall set the last
great stronghold of Yankee imperialism ablaze with our battle cry of freedom! Freedom!
Freedom now or death! For our people, for our country and for our compatriots throughout
the world, we shall reclaim the nobility of the American revolution. We shall raise our
flag in honor, true peace and brotherhood to all the world. Thank you.
Robert F. Williams-U.S.A.
P.O. Box 6185, Havana Cuba.
AAVW Editor Note: The following statement was received by this web site from
Mr. Lemuel A. Penn's daughter, Linda Penn Yancey, and is presented here in her own words:
Notation for the oratory:
Please note that had the writer of this speech taken the time to conduct sufficient research, he
would have discovered that the cranial portion of Lemuel A. Penn was intact. There was a vertical
scar extending from the left side of his face to his neck, since the shotgun utilized released its
ammunition shell or projectile in the form of pellets (as used in skeet shoots).
Respectfully submitted by Linda Penn Yancey,
Oldest daughter of the deceased Lemuel A. Penn
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