Congress. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Subversive Influences in Riots,
Looting, and Burning. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1968. Pt. 3-A: Subversive Influences
in Riots, Looting, and Burning (Los Angeles – Watts) (June 28, 1968).
SuDoc No.: Y4.Un1/2:R47/pt.3a
Date(s) of Hearings: June 28, 1968
Congress and Session: 90th - 2nd
EXCERPTS
SYNOPSIS
Detective James C. Harris of the Los Angeles district attorney's office, who had testified
before the committee in November 1967 during its hearings on the 1965 racial disturbances
in the Watts area of Los Angeles, appeared again as a witness before the Committee on
Un-American Activities on June 28, 1968. His testimony concerned matters pertaining to
the Black Congress and a rally it had sponsored on February 18, 1968, at the Los Angeles
Sports Arena.
Mr. Harris stated that although spontaneous incidents have sparked riots and racial
disturbances, it is also true that dissident groups have caused hard feelings between the
races by deliberately planned actions. One such action, he said, was this Black Congress
rally.
Mr. Harris testified that the Black Congress is a "coordinating organization composed
of about 28 groups" which "encourage membership on the part of any black group
of 10 or more members who are involved in social change." Its director is Walter
Bremond. The rally which is sponsored at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on February 18,
1968, was, according to Detective Harris, an "action which clearly shows the intent
of the sponsoring group to foster... ill will between the races."
The witness testified that in early February 1968, Irving Sarnoff, an identified member of
the Communist Party, who is also the chairman of the PEace Action Council in Los Angeles,
"was in contact with Stokely Carmichael, and Carmichael agreed to appear in Los
Angeles." Sarnoff was working in conjunction with the Black Congress, according to
Detective Harris.
The purpose of the rally was to raise funds for the Huey P. Newton Defense Fund. Newton
is a member of the Black Panthers in Oakland, Calif., who was then under indictment, and
has since been convicted, of murdering a policeman. His defense attorney, Charles R.
Garry, has been identified as a member of the Communist Party.
Mr. Harris presented as an exhibit a flyer which advertised the rally and named such
noted militants as Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Maulana Karenga, Reies Tijerina, and
Betty Shabazz, the wife of the late Malcolm X, as speakers. Miss Shabazz, however, did
not appear at the rally, according to Detective Harris. He pointed out that Walter Bremond
served as master of ceremonies.
Detective Harris then quoted brief excerpts from the speeches made by several rally
speakers, including:
James Forman, then a national director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), the first speaker. He told of the existence of a "mutual defense
pact" and warned of "instant and protractive retribution" if any black
leaders were assassinated.
Bobby Seale, chairman of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, declared that
"Every black man here must have a shotgun in his home to defend himself and his
family against the racist Gestapo police..."
Reies Tijerina, the leader of the militant Mexican-American Federal Alliance of
Free City-States, declared that "The white man is an enemy of justice, and enemy
of mankind..."
Ron Karenga, leader of US, called on the audience "to get white people fighting
each other... Let them shoot each other..."
H. Rap Brown, a national leader of SNCC, stated that "Black people, if they are
going to be free, must begin to seize power. You better get your gun, brother... You've
got to arm yourselves... The only politics we can be concerned with is the politics of
revolution... We not only talking about destroying a power structure – we're talking
about ruination of a system."
Stokely Carmichael told the audience: "If this country burns down to the
ground, we rejoice and dance... In order to educate our people, it means that we must
take over the schools – nothing less – take them over by any means
necessary..."
Regarding Black Panther member Huey P. Newton and his forthcoming trial for murder,
Carmichael stated, "If you oft brother Huey, we oft fifteen honkie cops."
"Oft," Mr. Harris explained, means "to kill."
The white news media, Detective Harris said, did not cover the rally because they would
have been required to pay $1,000 in order to be admitted to the arena. The rally was,
however, covered by the West Coast Communist Party newspaper, the People's World.
The February 24, 1968, issue of that publication carried a page-one report of the proceedings
written by Gene Dennis. The article was entered as an exhibit for the record. Dennis
estimated that approximately 4,000 persons had attended the rally. Detective Harris
testified that 3,000 would be a more accurate figure.
The request for the use of the Los Angeles Sport Arena for the Black Congress rally was made
on February 8, 1968, by Mrs. Bobbie Hodges, local chairman of SNCC. Mr. Harris testified
that she had presented a letter requesting the arena for February 18, 1968, and a check in
the amount of $1,000 signed by Ayuko Babu.
According to Mr. Harris:
Babu is Anthony C. Ashley, an officer of the Black Student Union, a member of the National
Conference for New Politics, on the national executive board of this group, a guest speaker
before the New Left School in Los Angeles, a central committeeman of the Black Panther
Political Party, and a participant in many demonstrations in Los Angeles, particularly in
anti-Dow Chemical Company agitation at Cal-State, L.A.
Ashley is a male Negro, born 16 July 1943 in Amarillo, Texas.
Committee counsel then asked Mr. Harris if he could name the individuals who had
"furnished the money" for the appearance of the speakers.
The witness testified that Mr. John Pratt had given a check in the amount of $1,000 to
Walter Bremond; Helen Travis, an identified member of the Communist Party, had remitted
a cashier's check in the amount of $2,000; and Kenneth W. Rottger had made payable to the
L.A. Memorial Coliseum Commission a check for $10,000. Copies of the checks were entered
as exhibits for the record. Mr. Harris also testified in reference to the Rottger check:
I also have a letter dated the 21st of February 1968, wherein the receipt of this money is
signed for by Kenneth Rottger, and a copy of a letter directed to the Los Angeles Memorial
Coliseum Commission, where the rally was held, which instructs them to return the $10,000
check to Kenneth Rottger.
Detective Harris provided additional information pertaining to the background and activities
of Mr. Pratt, Mr. Rottger, and Mrs. Travis.
He concluded his testimony by naming 22 of the persons known to have attended the Black
Congress rally. Seventeen of the 22 were known Communist Party members. Background
information on these individuals extracted from the committee's files was entered as an
exhibit in the hearing record.
Mr. Smith. Do you have a summary of what was said by the featured speakers
at this rally?
Mr. Harris. I do, sir. The first speaker was James Forman, who was a
national director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. His statements included
the following:
We want to say publicly that we have a mutual defense pact and if you assassinate any of
these black leaders, you must be prepared for instant and protractive retribution. We are
talking about selective, directive, protractive retributions on police stations, on fire
stations, on power plants, on war factories... all over this country.
Forman then indicated that a merger of SNCC and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
had taken effect and that he was attempting to establish "operational unity"
leading to a brotherhood of black people.
He admitted that he was the minister of foreign affairs and that Rap Brown was the minister
of justice of this new operational unity group.
The next speaker was Bobby Seale who was the chairman of the Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense in Oakland. He stated:
Every black man here must have a shotgun in his house to defend himself and his family
against the racist Gestapo police who occupy our community like a foreign troop.
The next speaker was Reies Lopez Tijerina. Tijerina is a leader in a militant
Mexican-American group. He stated:
The white man is an enemy of justice, an enemy of mankind, and he is also poisoning the
minds of the public.
Tijerina leads the Federal Alliance of Free City-States (Formerly known as Federal Alliance
of Land Grants; since known variously as Federation of Free City States, Confederation of
Free City States, and Political Confederation of Free City States), an organization that
has laid claim to 100 million acres of the Southwest. The group alleges that the U.S.
stole this land after the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War of 1848.
Mr. Roudebush. Is that the same Tijerina who was here with the Poor
People's March?
Mr. Harris. Yes, sir, the same individual. This group has threatened
guerrilla warfare in New Mexico. He has been accused of assaulting United States officers
in New Mexico.
The next speaker was Ron Karenga, also known as Ronald McKinley Everett. He is the militant
leader of US, a black organization. He stated that "black power emanates from
political office, community organization, coalition and alliance, and disruption."
He advocated the power of disruption and stated, "Bring up controversial issues like
the war in Viet Nam..., and like all them other things they are doing." He said,
"These things have to be brought up to undermine the white man as a very corrupt and
vile thing."
Karenga further stated:
Let's talk about how to get white people fighting each other... Let them shoot each other;
let them march and picket and confront each other, and after it's all finished, we will have
a better world.
He stated, "Yeah, we're against violence, right, uh huh, right, but after sundown
anything might happen."
Mr. Smith. For the record, Mr. Chairman, Ronald McKinley Everett, also
known as Ron Karenga, of the organization US was the subject of testimony before this
committee on November 30, 1967.
Mr. Harris. The next speaker was Rap Brown, who was a national leader
of SNCC. He stated:
Black people, if they are going to be free, must begin to seize power. You better get
your gun, brother. I don't care if it ain't nothing but a BB gun with poisoned BB's.
America has shown us that she don't respect anything but counter force. You've got to
arm yourselves. There is no political structure in this country that's relevant to black
people. The only politics we can be concerned with is the politics of revolution. This
is our country. It was built on our backs by our labor. We've built the country up; we'll
burn it down if they don't hurry up and come around. You got to get beyond the racist pig
cop, you see, because he is a tool of the man who really controls this system. We not only
talking about destroying a power structure – we're talking about ruination of a
system. Black people cannot afford to become capitalists.
The next speaker was Stokely Carmichael. He stated generally:
We go to China. We go to Cuba. We go to Africa. We'll go wherever we want to go and if
the honkie don't like it, he can go to hell... So that day when we talk about our survival,
we do not talk about this country, which is America, which is white people; we talk about
our people – nothing else. That's all we care about. If this country burns down to
the ground, we rejoice and dance... It's foolish to assume that the vote is going to do
anything for black people... In order to educate our people, it means that we must take
over the schools – nothing less – take them over by any means necessary... We
need an ideology for us that deals with the problem of racism, which is above exploitation.
In relation to Huey P. Newton, a member of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in
Oakland, Carmichael stated, "If you oft brother Huey, we oft fifteen honkie cops."
Mr. Smith. What does "oft" mean?
Mr. Harris. This means "to kill."
Carmichael continued:
And if anybody in the black community says anything about it, we oft him too... We must
organize groups. We must organize groups which will, when they come down against us, have
the maximum damage against them and the minimum risk to us. That means we organize little
groups. When they oft us, that group ofts a number of them. If they get caught, it's a
small group... Our major enemy is the honkie... We have people today who are willing to
oft (kill). We do not want to oft our own people... But if any black man talks to any
honkie about what we do in our own community, we are going to kill him... We must be
concerned with our people. The hell with this ------- country. Let's be concerned with
our people.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Harris, were the news media admitted to this rally?
Mr. Harris. Not exactly, Mr. Smith. The white news media were offered
an opportunity to attend for a fee of $1,000.
Mr. Smith. Did anyone pay such a fee?
Mr. Harris. No, sir.
Mr. Smith. Was the rally covered by any other press organization?
Mr. Harris. Yes, sir, the People's World, the West Coast Communist
newspaper, carried an article written by Gene Dennis on Saturday, February 24, 1968, on the
front page.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I request this document be received for the record.
Mr. Roudebush. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(Document marked "Harris Exhibit No. 67" follows:)
HARRIS EXHIBIT NO. 67
STOKELY, RAP CHART 'STRATEGY OF SURVIVAL'
BY GENE DENNIS
OAKLAND – a "strategy for black survival" based on a "Black United
Front" was the line laid down by militant leaders of the recently merged Student
Non-violent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense before
a cheering, chanting, largely black crowd of 6,000 in the Oakland Auditorium last Saturday
(Feb. 17).
The program outlined by Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, James Forman, and Bobby Seale in
the Oakland meeting – and again Sunday afternoon before 4,000 people in Los Angeles
– calls for:
- Development of all-class racial unity in the black community, and alliance with Mexican
Americans, Puerto Ricans, and American Indians.
- International solidarity with the national liberation movements and colored peoples of
Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
- Recognition of the white power structure and its racist institutions as the main enemy.
- Rejection of socialist and communist ideologies in favor of militant black nationalism
grounded in "a communal way of life."
- Armed protection of black communities and maximum retaliation when the ghettos and its
leaders are attacked.
- Rejection of electoral action except as an organizing tool.
ALL-OUT DRIVE
The tenor of both meetings and the content of the program reflects a political shift arising
out of the growing conviction in the ghettos that the white power structure is about to
launch an all-out drive to exterminate the black community – perhaps beginning this
summer.
"The survival of black people," said Carmichael at the meeting, billed as a
"Birthday Benefit" for jailed Panther leader Huey P. Newton, "is our aim
– nothing else. We built this country and we're here because we were needed. But
when we're no longer needed our people are going to 'disappear' just like the red man who
was wiped out by the white man. Look how they are sending our brothers off to die
in Vietnam.
"For 413 years our people have resisted. They have resisted so this generation could
carry out what must be done."
Brown, who came to California despite a court order confining him to New York City, charged
the nation's police with preparing for genocidal attacks on the ghetto.
"Last summer in Watts," he said, "they took 1,000 kids and sent them to a
military camp in the country. Next time they may not come back. What are you gonna do
then?"
NEW TACTICS
"We will meet the repression," said Forman, "with a new strategy, new tactics.
We will build a brotherhood of black people to withstand the repression. We need a mass
political party. Us field niggers are getting together.
"We, as a people, are not frightened by the attempts to assassinate our leaders.
There will be retribution. We will destroy war factories, blow up police stations, destroy
power plants, and take retribution against governors, mayors, and the white pig cops that
occupy our community – and if Huey Newton is not set free, the sky's the limit!"
And the crowd roared its approval.
"We are not outnumbered," said Bobby Seale, Panther chairman, "we are
outorganized. Now we are going to get down to the nits and the grits. The Black Panther
party for Self-Defense is a revolutionary party. Racism must be stopped!"
Seale outlined the Panther's 10-point program for full employment, draft resistance,
self-defense, decent housing, meaningful and relevant education, and trial by peers.
"We hate the oppression we live in," he said. "We're tired of the cops
beating us over the head... Now is the time to put a shotgun in your home."
In both meetings, the black speakers minimized or rejected alliances with whites and addressed
themselves to the black section of the audience.
"I will not deny," said Carmichael, "that whites are oppressed. The difference
is: they are exploited, we are colonized... communism and socialism is not an ideology
suited to black people, period. It speaks to the class structure, we're not. We're facing
racism. No matter how much money you make you're still a nigger...
"We must organize our own people – organize our sweat, our blood, our life for
national liberation – and black nationalism is our ideology. We are a beautiful race,
our people can do anything!"
Both Carmichael and Brown put down electoral action. Carmichael called the vote "a
honky's trick" whose only value was as "an organizing tool to bring our people
together."
"The only politics relevant to us," said Brown, "is the politics of
revolution... the only difference between Lynch'em Johnson and George Wallace is one's wife
got cancer.
"There's no such thing as a second class citizen. Either you're free or you're
slave...
"Chairman Mao says the power is in the barrel of a gun. (Alliance with whites) is a
luxury we cannot afford. The man will kill you because you're black.
"There must be a revolution of the dispossessed – the Mexican American, Puerto
Rican, and black people. We are the vanguard of that revolution because we are the most
dispossessed."
UNITED FRONT
Carmichael called for formation of a Black United Front – "Every Negro is a
potential black man... we must have an undying love for our people... there will be no
in-fighting in the black community" – which will "hook up with our 900
million black brothers across the world – in Africa, Asia, and Latin America."
In building black unity and fighting for black liberation, he said, "we must get ready
for the marines... there will be maximum damage to them and minimum damage to us."
At the Los Angeles meeting in the Sports Arena. Carmichael lashed out against the U.S. State
Department's use of passport control to prevent black people from talking with their brothers
elsewhere, and insisted no one is going "to stop us from going to China, Cuba, Africa,
or any place in South America."
As in Oakland, he scored U.S. aggression in Vietnam and called for the victory of the
Vietnamese people.
Sharing the L.A. platform with Carmichael, Brown, Forman, and Seale, were: Reies Tijerina,
leader of the Alliance land grant movement; Mociesuma Esparza, United Mexican American
Students; Maulana Karenga, US – a black nationalist group; and Walter Bremond, Black
Congress.
Karenga repeated the call for black unity on the grounds all blacks are part of the
"class of the dispossessed," and urged the Natl. Assn. for the Advancement of
Colored People, the Urban League, and others to build black unity congresses across the
nation.
THE DISPOSSESSED
Tijerina won the support of the overwhelmingly black audience as he spoke of "a deep
communication between your faces and my heart."
He called the U.S. pretense of fighting for democracy in Vietnam "a rotten lie,"
and called on "all good whites" to join the blacks, Indians and Mexicans to reshape
American society.
In Oakland, Peace and Freedom party leader Bob Avakian told the crowd, "Black people
have forced us to face the reality of what America is all about. Black people are the
vanguard and our inspiration. Watch us with a suspicious eye and see if we don't
deliver."
Charles Garry, Newton's attorney, predicted the Panther would be found "not guilty"
if tried by "an impartial jury of his peers."
Ron Dellums, black member of the Berkeley city council, told the Oakland meeting, "Not
only are Huey's rights and his life at stake – but so are those of every black man,
woman and child. Every black politician must now stand up and say where he is."
RESOLUTION DUE
Dellums said he was introducing a resolution before the city council Tuesday (Feb. 20)
demanding Newton "be freed immediately."
Eldridge Cleaver, Panther minister of information and chairman of the Oakland meeting,
announced Newton definitely would be a candidate for Congress in the Seventh Congressional
District in the June primary – Whether he runs as a Panther write-in or as a Peace
and Freedom candidate remains to be decided, but he will be a candidate.
And it was Cleaver who also made official the SNCC-BPSD merger. Rap Brown, national SNCC
chairman, is now the Panther's minister of justice; James Forman, SNCC director of
international affairs, is now Panther minister of foreign affairs. And Carmichael, by voice
vote of only black participants at the meeting, was proclaimed Prime Minister of
Afro-America.
"The merger has taken place," said Forman, "but it will take several months
before it is final. The reason for it is unity to withstand the repression."
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