In Motion: Amiri Baraka

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IN MOTION: AMIRI BARAKA profiles the outspoken representative - formerly LeRoi Jones - of the Black consciousness movement who has been a major figure on the American literary and political landscape for three decades. Set in Newark, Greenwich Village, and Harlem, this documentary follows Baraka from before his trial for 'resisting arrest' and ends with his conviction despite allegations of police harassment.

The film visits Baraka at home preparing for the American Writers Congress, teaching a college class, hosting a jazz and commentary radio show, reading poetry, and speaking at an anti-apartheid rally. Interviews with writers Allen Ginsberg, Joel Oppenheimer, and A.B. Spellman, and activists Ted Wilson and Askia Toure provide insight into the modern day revolutionary, and the period which fostered him.

Accessible and informative, IN MOTION: AMIRI BARAKA takes a provocative look at an important chapter in modern American political history.

'A brilliantly executed documentary... In no time at all the documentary has established Mr. Baraka's prominence, his equanimity, and his problems... Why was Mr. Baraka arrested? The answer, explicit and implicit, is that it was because he was a black radical.'-John Corry, New York Times

'A fascinating look at a man who is indeed in motion, on a lifelong quest for artistic beauty and social justice that has led him to change his view of the function of the artist, to change his ideas about how best to bring about a fair society, to change his own name... [IN MOTION] contains striking cinematic touches.'-Cineaste

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Main credits

Bourne, St. Clair (Producer)
Bourne, St. Clair (Director)
Poter, Lou (Screenwriter)
Eison, Carvin (Film editor)

Other credits

Camera, Carmin Eison; editor, Carvin Eison.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

Amiri Baraka; LeRoi Jones; American Writers Congress; video; Dutchman,"In Motion: Amiri Baraka",Icarus Films,doc,art,bio; history

WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:02:03.235 align:middle line:90%

00:02:03.235 --> 00:02:06.717 align:middle line:90%
[TYPEWRITER]

00:02:06.717 --> 00:02:31.168 align:middle line:90%

00:02:31.168 --> 00:02:33.668 align:middle line:90%
And I\'m the great would-be poet.

00:02:33.668 --> 00:02:35.411 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, that\'s right-- poor.

00:02:35.411 --> 00:02:38.150 align:middle line:90%
Some kind of bastard literature.

00:02:38.150 --> 00:02:41.138 align:middle line:84%
All it takes is a
simple knife thrust.

00:02:41.138 --> 00:02:43.628 align:middle line:84%
Just let me bleed
you, you loud whore.

00:02:43.628 --> 00:02:46.118 align:middle line:90%
And one poem vanished.

00:02:46.118 --> 00:02:48.110 align:middle line:90%
Shit.

00:02:48.110 --> 00:02:50.102 align:middle line:84%
The whole people of
neurotics struggling

00:02:50.102 --> 00:02:52.856 align:middle line:84%
to keep from being sane
when the only thing that

00:02:52.856 --> 00:02:54.730 align:middle line:84%
would cure the neurosis
would be your murder.

00:02:54.730 --> 00:02:55.880 align:middle line:90%
Simple as that.

00:02:55.880 --> 00:02:58.290 align:middle line:84%
I mean, if I murdered you,
then other white people would

00:02:58.290 --> 00:03:02.050 align:middle line:84%
begin to understand me,
you understand, huh?

00:03:02.050 --> 00:03:04.029 align:middle line:90%
No, I guess not.

00:03:04.029 --> 00:03:06.070 align:middle line:84%
If Bessie Smith had killed
her some white people,

00:03:06.070 --> 00:03:08.176 align:middle line:84%
she wouldn\'t have
needed all that music.

00:03:08.176 --> 00:03:10.050 align:middle line:84%
She could have talked
very straight and plain

00:03:10.050 --> 00:03:13.360 align:middle line:84%
about the world-- no grunts,
no metaphors, no wiggles

00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:14.780 align:middle line:90%
in the dark of her soul.

00:03:14.780 --> 00:03:17.170 align:middle line:84%
Just straight two and
two are four-- money,

00:03:17.170 --> 00:03:18.881 align:middle line:90%
power, luxury, like that.

00:03:18.881 --> 00:03:19.380 align:middle line:90%
Shit.

00:03:19.380 --> 00:03:22.410 align:middle line:84%
Crazy niggers turning
their backs on sanity

00:03:22.410 --> 00:03:25.221 align:middle line:84%
when all it takes is
that simple act-- murder.

00:03:25.221 --> 00:03:28.840 align:middle line:84%
Just murder would
make us all sane.

00:03:28.840 --> 00:03:29.340 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:03:29.340 --> 00:03:33.290 align:middle line:90%

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I think he\'s a genius
my personal thought is.

00:03:36.105 --> 00:03:40.110 align:middle line:84%
And I wonder how a son
of mine could get to be.

00:03:40.110 --> 00:03:43.640 align:middle line:84%
Because I have nothing of
genius in me, and my husband

00:03:43.640 --> 00:03:46.120 align:middle line:90%
probably has some.

00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:49.320 align:middle line:84%
When he was a kid, yeah, he
used to do a hand written thing,

00:03:49.320 --> 00:03:49.990 align:middle line:90%
you know?

00:03:49.990 --> 00:03:51.990 align:middle line:84%
Different news that
happened to the other kids

00:03:51.990 --> 00:03:52.720 align:middle line:90%
in the neighborhood.

00:03:52.720 --> 00:03:54.803 align:middle line:84%
And around, he\'d write it
out on a sheet of paper.

00:03:54.803 --> 00:03:58.140 align:middle line:84%
And he\'d write up a few copies
and pass them out to the kids.

00:03:58.140 --> 00:04:00.060 align:middle line:90%
This is a newspaper, you know?

00:04:00.060 --> 00:04:02.750 align:middle line:84%
So I didn\'t know about
that, you know, at the time.

00:04:02.750 --> 00:04:04.770 align:middle line:90%
I learned about it later.

00:04:04.770 --> 00:04:07.860 align:middle line:84%
But I didn\'t know he was into
writing until he actually

00:04:07.860 --> 00:04:09.180 align:middle line:90%
went into service.

00:04:09.180 --> 00:04:12.110 align:middle line:84%
And I knew then that he wrote
so many different things

00:04:12.110 --> 00:04:13.890 align:middle line:90%
while he was in the service.

00:04:13.890 --> 00:04:17.770 align:middle line:84%
And he saved all of his
writings and brought them home.

00:04:17.770 --> 00:04:21.450 align:middle line:90%
[FOLK MUSIC PLAYING]

00:04:21.450 --> 00:04:27.100 align:middle line:90%

00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:33.730 align:middle line:84%
Well, that\'s a book called The
New American Poetry 1945-1960

00:04:33.730 --> 00:04:39.244 align:middle line:84%
in its first edition, which
had among it John Ashbery, Paul

00:04:39.244 --> 00:04:46.670 align:middle line:84%
Blackburn, Ray Bremser, Gregory
Corso, Robert Creeley, Ed

00:04:46.670 --> 00:04:51.242 align:middle line:84%
Dorn, Kirby Doyle, Robert
Duncan, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg,

00:04:51.242 --> 00:04:55.460 align:middle line:84%
Nora Jones, Kerouac, Kenneth
Koch, Phillip Lamantia, I think

00:04:55.460 --> 00:05:01.150 align:middle line:84%
Levertov, Loewinsohn Michael
McClure, Frank O\'Hara, Olson,

00:05:01.150 --> 00:05:04.670 align:middle line:84%
Orlowski, Oppenheimer,
Gary Sneider, Gilbert

00:05:04.670 --> 00:05:08.067 align:middle line:84%
Sorrentino, Phil Whalen, John
Weiners, Johnathan Williams.

00:05:08.067 --> 00:05:09.900 align:middle line:84%
And I think almost every
one of these people

00:05:09.900 --> 00:05:14.600 align:middle line:84%
were published before this
by Roi in Yugen magazine.

00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:16.172 align:middle line:90%
And we were all at his parties.

00:05:16.172 --> 00:05:18.260 align:middle line:84%
As it developed,
Roi had what you

00:05:18.260 --> 00:05:22.820 align:middle line:84%
might call a salon, a literary
salon, which was, I would say,

00:05:22.820 --> 00:05:25.260 align:middle line:84%
the one place in New
York where everybody met.

00:05:25.260 --> 00:05:28.280 align:middle line:84%
I can remember one party
maybe a couple years later--

00:05:28.280 --> 00:05:33.080 align:middle line:84%
\'60, \'61, maybe, I don\'t
know-- over on 14th street

00:05:33.080 --> 00:05:34.290 align:middle line:90%
when he had a big house.

00:05:34.290 --> 00:05:38.860 align:middle line:84%
And it was-- there were
musicians there playing,

00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:44.460 align:middle line:84%
I think Cecil Taylor
or [INAUDIBLE]

00:05:44.460 --> 00:05:48.280 align:middle line:84%
at other parties on 3rd
Avenue and Don Cherry

00:05:48.280 --> 00:05:50.025 align:middle line:90%
and then Langston Hughes.

00:05:50.025 --> 00:05:52.150 align:middle line:84%
That was the was one time
I met Langston Hughes was

00:05:52.150 --> 00:05:55.110 align:middle line:90%
in Roi\'s living room.

00:05:55.110 --> 00:05:57.130 align:middle line:84%
He has also had a history,
a personal history,

00:05:57.130 --> 00:05:59.190 align:middle line:90%
which can be marked by events.

00:05:59.190 --> 00:06:02.050 align:middle line:84%
You can say when
he-- on this day,

00:06:02.050 --> 00:06:03.690 align:middle line:84%
he had this kind
of confrontation

00:06:03.690 --> 00:06:05.677 align:middle line:84%
and it changed his
thinking from here to here.

00:06:05.677 --> 00:06:07.010 align:middle line:90%
You can mark that in Roi\'s life.

00:06:07.010 --> 00:06:09.340 align:middle line:84%
What you can\'t do in most
of us is sort of slide

00:06:09.340 --> 00:06:12.140 align:middle line:84%
into a direction
and struggle with it

00:06:12.140 --> 00:06:14.620 align:middle line:84%
and veer off until we
straighten out the line.

00:06:14.620 --> 00:06:16.970 align:middle line:84%
But he has always--
his is a history

00:06:16.970 --> 00:06:19.050 align:middle line:90%
of fairly radical breaks.

00:06:19.050 --> 00:06:22.580 align:middle line:84%
And the Cuban one
was one of the first.

00:06:22.580 --> 00:06:24.820 align:middle line:84%
Of the Cuban Revolution
was a big, romantic event--

00:06:24.820 --> 00:06:25.110 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:06:25.110 --> 00:06:25.630 align:middle line:90%
--for all of us.

00:06:25.630 --> 00:06:26.530 align:middle line:84%
I mean, there were
these pictures

00:06:26.530 --> 00:06:28.370 align:middle line:84%
of these guys and
these Afros, which

00:06:28.370 --> 00:06:30.110 align:middle line:84%
were unheard of in
America at the time,

00:06:30.110 --> 00:06:32.220 align:middle line:84%
riding horses-- Fidel
with his big cigar riding

00:06:32.220 --> 00:06:33.080 align:middle line:90%
his horse into town.

00:06:33.080 --> 00:06:35.190 align:middle line:84%
It was a big romantic
thing for us.

00:06:35.190 --> 00:06:36.870 align:middle line:90%
And Roi got into it.

00:06:36.870 --> 00:06:40.672 align:middle line:84%
He went down to Cuba
and presented his poetry

00:06:40.672 --> 00:06:42.380 align:middle line:84%
and was told by Cuban
poets, well, that\'s

00:06:42.380 --> 00:06:44.921 align:middle line:84%
all very beautiful, but we\'re
involved in making a revolution

00:06:44.921 --> 00:06:46.680 align:middle line:84%
and we don\'t have
time for such beauty.

00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:49.200 align:middle line:84%
And that changed his
outlook considerably

00:06:49.200 --> 00:06:51.250 align:middle line:84%
because he hadn\'t seen
that the artist might

00:06:51.250 --> 00:06:54.500 align:middle line:84%
have a different role of society
than simply producing art.

00:06:54.500 --> 00:06:56.260 align:middle line:90%
Most of us agreed with him.

00:06:56.260 --> 00:07:00.430 align:middle line:84%
What had us a little puzzled
was the notion of the poet

00:07:00.430 --> 00:07:01.850 align:middle line:90%
as political activist.

00:07:01.850 --> 00:07:03.730 align:middle line:84%
We weren\'t quite sure
how to handle that.

00:07:03.730 --> 00:07:06.120 align:middle line:84%
We weren\'t quite sure
that was our function.

00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:12.870 align:middle line:84%
We weren\'t quite sure whether,
in fact, that didn\'t-- whether,

00:07:12.870 --> 00:07:16.280 align:middle line:84%
in fact, political activism and
writing poems weren\'t mutually

00:07:16.280 --> 00:07:17.240 align:middle line:90%
exclusive.

00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:21.410 align:middle line:84%
So the climax of that
era of good feeling

00:07:21.410 --> 00:07:27.330 align:middle line:84%
was a trip that Roi and I and
Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso,

00:07:27.330 --> 00:07:29.575 align:middle line:90%
Ray Bremser-- anyone else?

00:07:29.575 --> 00:07:34.670 align:middle line:84%
A.B. Spellman took together
in a car down to Washington

00:07:34.670 --> 00:07:38.100 align:middle line:84%
to read at Howard University,
like a big, big reading.

00:07:38.100 --> 00:07:42.020 align:middle line:84%
Because we were, at the
time, kind of weirdo

00:07:42.020 --> 00:07:44.650 align:middle line:90%
celebrities in the newspaper.

00:07:44.650 --> 00:07:47.090 align:middle line:84%
So we went down to Howard,
which that time was

00:07:47.090 --> 00:07:52.230 align:middle line:84%
a bastion of what he would have
called black bourgeois culture.

00:07:52.230 --> 00:07:56.010 align:middle line:84%
And I think-- he wrote a
few poems about that kind,

00:07:56.010 --> 00:07:57.635 align:middle line:84%
about his sister
straightening her hair

00:07:57.635 --> 00:08:00.980 align:middle line:84%
and listening to Chakovsky and
her boyfriend likes Chakovsky.

00:08:00.980 --> 00:08:04.880 align:middle line:84%
And he also has a
poem about our visit

00:08:04.880 --> 00:08:08.150 align:middle line:84%
to Washington, actually,
that\'s in the Don Allen

00:08:08.150 --> 00:08:10.170 align:middle line:90%
anthology I think.

00:08:10.170 --> 00:08:12.832 align:middle line:84%
I don\'t know if you
knew about that.

00:08:12.832 --> 00:08:15.256 align:middle line:84%
Yeah. \"We entered
the city at noon.

00:08:15.256 --> 00:08:15.756 align:middle line:90%
High bells.\"

00:08:15.756 --> 00:08:17.170 align:middle line:90%
Do you know that poem?

00:08:17.170 --> 00:08:19.190 align:middle line:84%
It was one of his
early-- \"The radio on,

00:08:19.190 --> 00:08:21.930 align:middle line:84%
some kind of Prokofieff, snaring
the violent remains of the day

00:08:21.930 --> 00:08:23.750 align:middle line:90%
in sharp webs of dissonance.

00:08:23.750 --> 00:08:25.339 align:middle line:84%
We roared through
the old gates--\"

00:08:25.339 --> 00:08:26.880 align:middle line:84%
I guess that\'s at
Howard University--

00:08:26.880 --> 00:08:30.250 align:middle line:84%
\"Iron doors hanging all gray
with bricks mossed and gone

00:08:30.250 --> 00:08:30.810 align:middle line:90%
into chips.

00:08:30.810 --> 00:08:32.390 align:middle line:90%
Dogs walk through.

00:08:32.390 --> 00:08:33.559 align:middle line:90%
The river also roared.

00:08:33.559 --> 00:08:35.780 align:middle line:84%
What suddenly had
disappeared into the water

00:08:35.780 --> 00:08:39.020 align:middle line:84%
or buried itself in badly
pitched tents of the wounded

00:08:39.020 --> 00:08:40.270 align:middle line:90%
soldiers.

00:08:40.270 --> 00:08:42.250 align:middle line:84%
So fourth we came with
our incredulousness

00:08:42.250 --> 00:08:44.210 align:middle line:84%
from the south on
steely highways

00:08:44.210 --> 00:08:45.970 align:middle line:84%
from the marble
entrails of noon.

00:08:45.970 --> 00:08:49.890 align:middle line:84%
We had olives in the green
birds locked in our lutes.\"

00:08:49.890 --> 00:08:51.330 align:middle line:90%
So it ended--

00:08:51.330 --> 00:08:53.800 align:middle line:84%
\"We are foreign
seeming persons, hats

00:08:53.800 --> 00:08:55.910 align:middle line:84%
flopped to the sun
can\'t scald our beards.

00:08:55.910 --> 00:08:58.790 align:middle line:84%
Odd shoes, bags of
books and chicken.

00:08:58.790 --> 00:09:01.480 align:middle line:84%
We\'ve come a long way and are
uncertain which of the masks

00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:03.109 align:middle line:90%
is cool.\"

00:09:03.109 --> 00:09:04.900 align:middle line:84%
That was for the reading
at Ho-- but that\'s

00:09:04.900 --> 00:09:06.260 align:middle line:84%
what-- he was uncertain
which of the masks

00:09:06.260 --> 00:09:08.260 align:middle line:84%
was cool because he
wanted to be cool instead

00:09:08.260 --> 00:09:09.849 align:middle line:90%
of being just totally open.

00:09:09.849 --> 00:09:10.640 align:middle line:90%
That was a problem.

00:09:10.640 --> 00:09:12.556 align:middle line:84%
He was still looking for
an attitude, I guess.

00:09:12.556 --> 00:09:22.935 align:middle line:90%

00:09:22.935 --> 00:09:24.370 align:middle line:90%
Can I keep it?

00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:25.580 align:middle line:90%
But the dog stinks, Shani.

00:09:25.580 --> 00:09:26.110 align:middle line:90%
You got to get rid of it.

00:09:26.110 --> 00:09:27.330 align:middle line:84%
Your mother didn\'t tell you
you could have that dog.

00:09:27.330 --> 00:09:27.970 align:middle line:90%
But she did.

00:09:27.970 --> 00:09:31.085 align:middle line:84%
She said I could have it--
I could put some paper down

00:09:31.085 --> 00:09:35.140 align:middle line:84%
in the basement in the corner
and keep it down there.

00:09:35.140 --> 00:09:37.010 align:middle line:84%
Amina, you say she
could have that dog?

00:09:37.010 --> 00:09:40.030 align:middle line:90%

00:09:40.030 --> 00:09:44.608 align:middle line:84%
I have to talk to your
mother about that dog.

00:09:44.608 --> 00:09:47.524 align:middle line:90%
Shani, why do you want that dog?

00:09:47.524 --> 00:09:49.400 align:middle line:90%
I want it.

00:09:49.400 --> 00:09:51.530 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:09:51.530 --> 00:09:52.430 align:middle line:90%
The dog stink.

00:09:52.430 --> 00:09:53.610 align:middle line:90%
The dog got to eat.

00:09:53.610 --> 00:09:55.776 align:middle line:84%
And you ain\'t going to want
to take care of the dog.

00:09:55.776 --> 00:09:58.862 align:middle line:90%

00:09:58.862 --> 00:09:59.930 align:middle line:90%
I\'ll take care of it.

00:09:59.930 --> 00:10:02.026 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, OK.

00:10:02.026 --> 00:10:03.898 align:middle line:84%
I have to talk to
your mother about it.

00:10:03.898 --> 00:10:06.862 align:middle line:90%

00:10:06.862 --> 00:10:08.344 align:middle line:90%
After you are finished?

00:10:08.344 --> 00:10:18.070 align:middle line:90%
[TYPING]

00:10:18.070 --> 00:10:20.395 align:middle line:84%
I am not a dog lover,
I tell you that.

00:10:20.395 --> 00:10:21.940 align:middle line:90%
Anybody can tell that.

00:10:21.940 --> 00:10:23.140 align:middle line:90%
When I was-- when I was--

00:10:23.140 --> 00:10:24.420 align:middle line:90%
--when I got a kid.

00:10:24.420 --> 00:10:27.897 align:middle line:84%
When I was 12 years old,
Easter Sunday, my sister and I

00:10:27.897 --> 00:10:28.980 align:middle line:90%
was coming from somewhere.

00:10:28.980 --> 00:10:30.412 align:middle line:84%
The dog caught a
hold of me, boy,

00:10:30.412 --> 00:10:34.530 align:middle line:84%
and tore my suit off, but
me all over the hands.

00:10:34.530 --> 00:10:38.670 align:middle line:84%
You know, these big cuts on my
legs and my hands, you know.

00:10:38.670 --> 00:10:40.496 align:middle line:90%
And then I staggered home.

00:10:40.496 --> 00:10:41.620 align:middle line:90%
My mother got furious, man.

00:10:41.620 --> 00:10:42.050 align:middle line:90%
He came came.

00:10:42.050 --> 00:10:44.240 align:middle line:84%
If she had caught that dog, she
would have iced it right there

00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:44.860 align:middle line:90%
on the spot.

00:10:44.860 --> 00:10:47.423 align:middle line:84%
But the dog, the woman that
got the dog, had hid the dog,

00:10:47.423 --> 00:10:48.560 align:middle line:90%
yo know?

00:10:48.560 --> 00:10:51.100 align:middle line:84%
He came home crying and
carrying on about that dog.

00:10:51.100 --> 00:10:54.710 align:middle line:84%
And he said, if I ever own
a dog, the first thing I\'m

00:10:54.710 --> 00:10:58.120 align:middle line:84%
going to do is take
all of its teeth out.

00:10:58.120 --> 00:11:00.640 align:middle line:84%
So when Shani told me that
she had these two dogs,

00:11:00.640 --> 00:11:02.856 align:middle line:90%
I was very surprised.

00:11:02.856 --> 00:11:06.120 align:middle line:90%
So can she keep it here?

00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:08.820 align:middle line:84%
You\'re going to be the
one that\'s complaining.

00:11:08.820 --> 00:11:09.520 align:middle line:90%
I know I am.

00:11:09.520 --> 00:11:11.980 align:middle line:84%
But Shani, I\'m going to put
him out if Shani don\'t know.

00:11:11.980 --> 00:11:13.355 align:middle line:84%
It\'s a girl or a
boy, what is it?

00:11:13.355 --> 00:11:14.116 align:middle line:90%
A girl?

00:11:14.116 --> 00:11:16.011 align:middle line:90%
That dog will have all kind of--

00:11:16.011 --> 00:11:16.511 align:middle line:90%
No.

00:11:16.511 --> 00:11:20.350 align:middle line:90%

00:11:20.350 --> 00:11:22.870 align:middle line:84%
OK, you can keep
it in the basement.

00:11:22.870 --> 00:11:25.000 align:middle line:90%
But you have to get a a box.

00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:26.145 align:middle line:90%
And Shani, the first time--

00:11:26.145 --> 00:11:27.480 align:middle line:90%
It\'ll mess up the basement too.

00:11:27.480 --> 00:11:31.856 align:middle line:84%
But the first time, the first
time, I\'m not ever cleaning.

00:11:31.856 --> 00:11:33.323 align:middle line:90%
I got too many children.

00:11:33.323 --> 00:11:35.770 align:middle line:90%
I don\'t need a dog too.

00:11:35.770 --> 00:11:36.642 align:middle line:90%
Hear?

00:11:36.642 --> 00:11:39.192 align:middle line:90%
Yes.

00:11:39.192 --> 00:11:40.920 align:middle line:84%
The dog will be sick
of that basement.

00:11:40.920 --> 00:11:42.870 align:middle line:84%
It\'s going to pee
all over the house.

00:11:42.870 --> 00:11:44.380 align:middle line:84%
The whole house
smells right now.

00:11:44.380 --> 00:11:48.080 align:middle line:84%
Oh, don\'t-- get rid
of that thing, Shani.

00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:51.060 align:middle line:84%
I mean, when I met
him, he had already

00:11:51.060 --> 00:11:54.922 align:middle line:84%
been acclaimed as the
playwright and so forth.

00:11:54.922 --> 00:11:57.380 align:middle line:84%
And I think I admired him more
for his politics at the time

00:11:57.380 --> 00:11:59.270 align:middle line:84%
than I did for his
art, even though I

00:11:59.270 --> 00:12:02.116 align:middle line:84%
was more familiar with his
writing and his poetry.

00:12:02.116 --> 00:12:05.440 align:middle line:84%
And I had seen The
Dutchman, you know.

00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:07.060 align:middle line:84%
So I was interested
in meeting him.

00:12:07.060 --> 00:12:09.682 align:middle line:84%
I had heard a lot of things
about the black arts.

00:12:09.682 --> 00:12:11.140 align:middle line:84%
You know, people
used to make jokes

00:12:11.140 --> 00:12:11.980 align:middle line:90%
because I had a lot of kids.

00:12:11.980 --> 00:12:13.646 align:middle line:84%
When they saw me, I
was always pregnant.

00:12:13.646 --> 00:12:16.169 align:middle line:84%
They said, want to
know when this go on.

00:12:16.169 --> 00:12:17.710 align:middle line:84%
They used to always
make these jokes,

00:12:17.710 --> 00:12:19.430 align:middle line:90%
like, when\'s this happen?

00:12:19.430 --> 00:12:21.470 align:middle line:84%
Because, you know, he
works in one building.

00:12:21.470 --> 00:12:22.580 align:middle line:90%
I worked in another one.

00:12:22.580 --> 00:12:24.890 align:middle line:84%
And he was doing a
lot of traveling,

00:12:24.890 --> 00:12:26.780 align:middle line:90%
much more than he\'s doing now.

00:12:26.780 --> 00:12:29.920 align:middle line:84%
And you know, we
rarely saw-- you know,

00:12:29.920 --> 00:12:31.430 align:middle line:90%
we rarely saw each other.

00:12:31.430 --> 00:12:33.400 align:middle line:84%
And so I think that
made it easier.

00:12:33.400 --> 00:12:35.930 align:middle line:84%
You know, the problems--
it\'s more stress now

00:12:35.930 --> 00:12:38.880 align:middle line:84%
that we have to really be up
on each other all the time.

00:12:38.880 --> 00:12:41.770 align:middle line:84%
But before, we really kind of
passed each other, you know,

00:12:41.770 --> 00:12:45.620 align:middle line:84%
like-- we had a real, like,
working relationship, which

00:12:45.620 --> 00:12:49.130 align:middle line:84%
really, I think,
is the basis of,

00:12:49.130 --> 00:12:51.880 align:middle line:84%
you know, having went
through all the turmoil

00:12:51.880 --> 00:12:53.690 align:middle line:90%
of this marriage.

00:12:53.690 --> 00:12:57.190 align:middle line:84%
I don\'t think we could
have made it otherwise.

00:12:57.190 --> 00:13:01.700 align:middle line:84%
I want to write blues
lines about workers dying

00:13:01.700 --> 00:13:05.130 align:middle line:84%
of black lung, brown lung,
overworked, underpaid, blown

00:13:05.130 --> 00:13:07.160 align:middle line:84%
up, burned up, fingers
cut off, wrecked

00:13:07.160 --> 00:13:09.370 align:middle line:90%
and wretched lives in general.

00:13:09.370 --> 00:13:12.300 align:middle line:84%
I want to sing songs that
weep the pains and horrors

00:13:12.300 --> 00:13:15.830 align:middle line:84%
of monopoly capitalism,
words that paint imperialism

00:13:15.830 --> 00:13:18.310 align:middle line:84%
as the world\'s
enemy, because it is.

00:13:18.310 --> 00:13:20.710 align:middle line:84%
I want to write praise
words for the worker--

00:13:20.710 --> 00:13:24.440 align:middle line:84%
the one that lead the strike,
the one that spoke out.

00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:28.380 align:middle line:84%
I met my wife on 8th
Street right out in front

00:13:28.380 --> 00:13:31.280 align:middle line:84%
of that movie house between
you know, University and Lake

00:13:31.280 --> 00:13:32.142 align:middle line:90%
Street over.

00:13:32.142 --> 00:13:34.600 align:middle line:84%
We-- both of us sitting in a
car, four of our five children

00:13:34.600 --> 00:13:35.650 align:middle line:90%
were in there.

00:13:35.650 --> 00:13:38.340 align:middle line:84%
And we were arguing
about some shoes

00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:44.022 align:middle line:84%
that we bought-- that she\'d
bought for one of our sons.

00:13:44.022 --> 00:13:46.512 align:middle line:84%
And, you know,
they were about $30

00:13:46.512 --> 00:13:48.481 align:middle line:90%
for a pair of childrens\' shoes.

00:13:48.481 --> 00:13:51.910 align:middle line:84%
I was of the opinion that that
was a lot for childrens\' shoes.

00:13:51.910 --> 00:13:54.717 align:middle line:84%
But anyway, we started
arguing about that.

00:13:54.717 --> 00:13:56.258 align:middle line:84%
And, you know, we
were double parked.

00:13:56.258 --> 00:13:59.114 align:middle line:90%
The door was open.

00:13:59.114 --> 00:14:02.930 align:middle line:84%
We were arguing around
five, 10 minutes there.

00:14:02.930 --> 00:14:06.490 align:middle line:84%
Suddenly, there\'s the hand at
the back of my collar pulls me

00:14:06.490 --> 00:14:11.010 align:middle line:90%
out of the car onto the ground.

00:14:11.010 --> 00:14:14.840 align:middle line:84%
I try to scramble up, but
then I see it\'s a policeman.

00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:15.800 align:middle line:90%
I start asking him.

00:14:15.800 --> 00:14:17.560 align:middle line:84%
Before I get any
words out, he hits me

00:14:17.560 --> 00:14:18.810 align:middle line:90%
in the stomach with his stick.

00:14:18.810 --> 00:14:22.150 align:middle line:90%

00:14:22.150 --> 00:14:24.618 align:middle line:84%
And there were about three
or four of them there.

00:14:24.618 --> 00:14:26.492 align:middle line:84%
There were about three
or four of them there.

00:14:26.492 --> 00:14:28.340 align:middle line:84%
About three of them
from the beginning.

00:14:28.340 --> 00:14:33.190 align:middle line:84%
And about two minutes later, the
street was filled with police.

00:14:33.190 --> 00:14:35.510 align:middle line:84%
It should never
reached, you know,

00:14:35.510 --> 00:14:42.480 align:middle line:84%
the kind of mad proportions
that it has reached, you know.

00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:44.260 align:middle line:84%
You can\'t get sentenced
to 90 days in jail

00:14:44.260 --> 00:14:49.670 align:middle line:84%
for arguing in your own car,
you know, with your wife

00:14:49.670 --> 00:14:51.630 align:middle line:84%
about the price of
your child\'s shoes.

00:14:51.630 --> 00:14:54.580 align:middle line:84%
I mean, it hasn\'t
come to that yet.

00:14:54.580 --> 00:14:58.860 align:middle line:84%
Amiri Baraka, in spite
of the various variations

00:14:58.860 --> 00:15:00.700 align:middle line:84%
of his expression
of his philosophy,

00:15:00.700 --> 00:15:03.210 align:middle line:90%
was always anti-establishment.

00:15:03.210 --> 00:15:06.090 align:middle line:90%

00:15:06.090 --> 00:15:08.137 align:middle line:84%
When he was considered
just a black nationalist,

00:15:08.137 --> 00:15:09.220 align:middle line:90%
he was anti-establishment.

00:15:09.220 --> 00:15:12.020 align:middle line:90%

00:15:12.020 --> 00:15:15.540 align:middle line:84%
When he was taking part in New
York politics, New York city

00:15:15.540 --> 00:15:19.310 align:middle line:84%
politics, he was still
anti-establishment.

00:15:19.310 --> 00:15:23.740 align:middle line:84%
So that the significance
of this prosecution

00:15:23.740 --> 00:15:29.010 align:middle line:84%
is that he did not become like
the majority of intellectuals

00:15:29.010 --> 00:15:29.950 align:middle line:90%
in his country.

00:15:29.950 --> 00:15:33.650 align:middle line:84%
He didn\'t surrender
to the establishment.

00:15:33.650 --> 00:15:36.330 align:middle line:84%
At no stage has he
ever surrendered.

00:15:36.330 --> 00:15:38.140 align:middle line:84%
That\'s what they
cannot forgive him for.

00:15:38.140 --> 00:15:40.650 align:middle line:84%
He never surrendered
to the establishment.

00:15:40.650 --> 00:15:44.400 align:middle line:84%
You can disagree with certain
of his points of view.

00:15:44.400 --> 00:15:49.290 align:middle line:84%
But throughout all his
different points of view

00:15:49.290 --> 00:15:53.060 align:middle line:84%
is this basic stand against
the established order.

00:15:53.060 --> 00:15:56.890 align:middle line:90%

00:15:56.890 --> 00:16:01.090 align:middle line:84%
First, we\'re going to have a
restatement from Amiri Baraka.

00:16:01.090 --> 00:16:02.820 align:middle line:84%
Then the other panelist
will also speak.

00:16:02.820 --> 00:16:05.236 align:middle line:84%
And there will be a question
and answer period afterwards.

00:16:05.236 --> 00:16:07.370 align:middle line:84%
So please let all the
presentations happen.

00:16:07.370 --> 00:16:10.650 align:middle line:84%
And then we can deal with any
questions that people may have.

00:16:10.650 --> 00:16:12.150 align:middle line:84%
We have called this
press conference

00:16:12.150 --> 00:16:14.400 align:middle line:84%
at the site of this historic
and critically important

00:16:14.400 --> 00:16:17.130 align:middle line:84%
writers congress because
we feel that this vicious

00:16:17.130 --> 00:16:20.060 align:middle line:84%
and politically inspired
attack on my family and I

00:16:20.060 --> 00:16:22.380 align:middle line:84%
is part of the mounting
evidence of this society\'s

00:16:22.380 --> 00:16:24.760 align:middle line:84%
deadly movement
towards the right.

00:16:24.760 --> 00:16:27.170 align:middle line:84%
Why 90 days for a
so-called resisting

00:16:27.170 --> 00:16:30.780 align:middle line:84%
arrest that was even
thrown out by a grand jury

00:16:30.780 --> 00:16:32.560 align:middle line:84%
who instead indicted
two policemen

00:16:32.560 --> 00:16:35.180 align:middle line:90%
for harassing my wife and I?

00:16:35.180 --> 00:16:37.460 align:middle line:84%
Why five days of
grand jury hearings

00:16:37.460 --> 00:16:39.960 align:middle line:84%
and 28 months of
courtroom proceedings

00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:43.000 align:middle line:90%
for so-called resisting arrest?

00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.390 align:middle line:84%
Why so severe a sentence
when the probation department

00:16:45.390 --> 00:16:47.170 align:middle line:84%
of the city
recommended probation

00:16:47.170 --> 00:16:49.850 align:middle line:90%
and a non custodial sentence?

00:16:49.850 --> 00:16:52.230 align:middle line:84%
Obviously, in any other
situation of some college

00:16:52.230 --> 00:16:54.310 align:middle line:84%
professor and fairly
well known writer,

00:16:54.310 --> 00:16:57.010 align:middle line:84%
if the person were white
but also a non-activist,

00:16:57.010 --> 00:16:59.100 align:middle line:84%
the case would have
been thrown out.

00:16:59.100 --> 00:17:01.730 align:middle line:84%
But Paul Robeson
summed it up succinctly

00:17:01.730 --> 00:17:03.850 align:middle line:84%
when attacked by the House
Un-American Activities

00:17:03.850 --> 00:17:04.640 align:middle line:90%
Committee.

00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:06.950 align:middle line:84%
The two things the state
doesn\'t like about me--

00:17:06.950 --> 00:17:10.359 align:middle line:90%
my nationality and my opinions.

00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:13.190 align:middle line:84%
We intend to continue resisting
the government\'s attempt

00:17:13.190 --> 00:17:16.380 align:middle line:84%
to silence us with
police harassment

00:17:16.380 --> 00:17:19.599 align:middle line:84%
and call upon the majority
of American writers

00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:22.060 align:middle line:84%
as well as all artists
and people of good will

00:17:22.060 --> 00:17:25.410 align:middle line:84%
to struggle tirelessly against
the rightward and reactionary

00:17:25.410 --> 00:17:28.109 align:middle line:84%
trend in this country
with all our might.

00:17:28.109 --> 00:17:30.430 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:17:30.430 --> 00:17:33.160 align:middle line:84%
And I want to say this
and be clear on this

00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:35.550 align:middle line:84%
that I\'m supposed to be the
victim in this case-- in fact

00:17:35.550 --> 00:17:38.427 align:middle line:84%
that the police were
supposed to be saving me.

00:17:38.427 --> 00:17:40.260 align:middle line:84%
They\'re trying to draw
this picture of women

00:17:40.260 --> 00:17:41.210 align:middle line:90%
without consciousness.

00:17:41.210 --> 00:17:43.230 align:middle line:90%
I\'m not one of those women.

00:17:43.230 --> 00:17:46.020 align:middle line:84%
I am a woman who knows
what she wants to do.

00:17:46.020 --> 00:17:48.280 align:middle line:90%
I don\'t allow anyone to hit me.

00:17:48.280 --> 00:17:50.810 align:middle line:84%
Man, woman, or child, I
don\'t allow anyone to hit me.

00:17:50.810 --> 00:17:52.690 align:middle line:84%
And I would not protect
him if he hit me.

00:17:52.690 --> 00:17:54.398 align:middle line:84%
As a matter of fact,
they would have come

00:17:54.398 --> 00:17:55.560 align:middle line:90%
and got me off of him.

00:17:55.560 --> 00:17:57.486 align:middle line:84%
Because I am not
a passive female.

00:17:57.486 --> 00:18:06.290 align:middle line:90%

00:18:06.290 --> 00:18:08.770 align:middle line:90%
Thank you very much.

00:18:08.770 --> 00:18:09.770 align:middle line:90%
Thank you very much.

00:18:09.770 --> 00:18:10.475 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:18:10.475 --> 00:18:13.890 align:middle line:90%

00:18:13.890 --> 00:18:16.430 align:middle line:90%
Thank you very much.

00:18:16.430 --> 00:18:19.000 align:middle line:84%
I want to thank
everybody who came out.

00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.910 align:middle line:84%
I just hope that we can see each
other along the line, you know?

00:18:21.910 --> 00:18:25.090 align:middle line:84%
Things getting tight,
getting hot-- a lot of us

00:18:25.090 --> 00:18:28.960 align:middle line:84%
might not be around, you
know, 365 days from now.

00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:32.070 align:middle line:90%
We might not even be here.

00:18:32.070 --> 00:18:34.240 align:middle line:84%
This is a poem for my
father-in-law Charlie

00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:34.740 align:middle line:90%
Richardson.

00:18:34.740 --> 00:18:39.710 align:middle line:90%
It\'s called \"Bad News.\"

00:18:39.710 --> 00:18:44.260 align:middle line:84%
If you were a truck
driver paralyzed for life

00:18:44.260 --> 00:18:48.840 align:middle line:84%
by a bad road the
state had made,

00:18:48.840 --> 00:18:53.920 align:middle line:84%
if you had your back smashed
because the truck turned over

00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:58.280 align:middle line:84%
and you were six
feet six, 250 pounds,

00:18:58.280 --> 00:19:00.600 align:middle line:84%
and the steel nailed
you in and splintered

00:19:00.600 --> 00:19:04.430 align:middle line:84%
your bones because
the secretary of state

00:19:04.430 --> 00:19:07.460 align:middle line:84%
and the commissioner of roads,
the construction company

00:19:07.460 --> 00:19:13.630 align:middle line:84%
head, and the governor
himself made a deal to steal,

00:19:13.630 --> 00:19:16.230 align:middle line:84%
and instead of using
good concrete or quality

00:19:16.230 --> 00:19:20.820 align:middle line:84%
asphalt saved a nickel an
inch on the road caved in

00:19:20.820 --> 00:19:24.550 align:middle line:84%
and faulty metal plates
made the big truck flip

00:19:24.550 --> 00:19:26.830 align:middle line:84%
and it tore up your
hip and put you,

00:19:26.830 --> 00:19:30.950 align:middle line:84%
Big Mike, in bed for
life-- if that was you,

00:19:30.950 --> 00:19:33.410 align:middle line:90%
what would you do?

00:19:33.410 --> 00:19:35.090 align:middle line:90%
If that was who?

00:19:35.090 --> 00:19:35.910 align:middle line:90%
If that was who?

00:19:35.910 --> 00:19:36.820 align:middle line:90%
Was you?

00:19:36.820 --> 00:19:40.410 align:middle line:90%
Was you or you or you?

00:19:40.410 --> 00:19:42.190 align:middle line:90%
Or us?

00:19:42.190 --> 00:19:43.230 align:middle line:90%
Or me?

00:19:43.230 --> 00:19:44.140 align:middle line:90%
Or me?

00:19:44.140 --> 00:19:44.970 align:middle line:90%
What would we do?

00:19:44.970 --> 00:19:45.990 align:middle line:90%
What would we be?

00:19:45.990 --> 00:19:49.270 align:middle line:84%
And would the fire in our
brain ever come roaring out?

00:19:49.270 --> 00:19:51.080 align:middle line:90%
I mean, would we cry or shout?

00:19:51.080 --> 00:19:53.250 align:middle line:84%
What would we see
except the four walls

00:19:53.250 --> 00:19:55.940 align:middle line:84%
and flat abstract
glass-- the landscape

00:19:55.940 --> 00:19:58.400 align:middle line:84%
on Mars staring back
full of dead ash

00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:01.520 align:middle line:84%
like the streets of
the paralyzed giant?

00:20:01.520 --> 00:20:05.110 align:middle line:84%
Would quietness have bloody
teeth and blank walls,

00:20:05.110 --> 00:20:08.280 align:middle line:90%
contract like a closing fist?

00:20:08.280 --> 00:20:09.460 align:middle line:90%
Would we hate?

00:20:09.460 --> 00:20:12.810 align:middle line:84%
Would we love anything
any longer but memory?

00:20:12.810 --> 00:20:17.470 align:middle line:84%
Could we sing or follow the plot
of a complex tale like our own

00:20:17.470 --> 00:20:19.280 align:middle line:84%
to the red sunset
and the promise

00:20:19.280 --> 00:20:21.950 align:middle line:90%
of the glaring tomorrows?

00:20:21.950 --> 00:20:24.570 align:middle line:84%
And if you could see for a
moment the Secretary of State,

00:20:24.570 --> 00:20:27.435 align:middle line:84%
the Commissioner of Roads,
the construction company head,

00:20:27.435 --> 00:20:31.770 align:middle line:84%
and governor himself, would
there be any words left?

00:20:31.770 --> 00:20:35.260 align:middle line:84%
Could you imagine revenge
like an Edgar Allan Poe?

00:20:35.260 --> 00:20:39.000 align:middle line:84%
Could you wall them in
with bells on their hats?

00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:42.420 align:middle line:84%
Idle smoke song--
no place to go.

00:20:42.420 --> 00:20:43.875 align:middle line:90%
Would there be any words left?

00:20:43.875 --> 00:20:45.400 align:middle line:90%
And nothing to see.

00:20:45.400 --> 00:20:48.820 align:middle line:84%
Could you imagine revenge
like an Edgar Allan Poe?

00:20:48.820 --> 00:20:51.800 align:middle line:84%
Could you wall them in
with bells on their hats?

00:20:51.800 --> 00:20:54.675 align:middle line:84%
And claws talk is death--
I don\'t smoke, son.

00:20:54.675 --> 00:20:56.730 align:middle line:90%
No place to go.

00:20:56.730 --> 00:20:59.236 align:middle line:90%
Abstract breath, nothing to see.

00:20:59.236 --> 00:21:01.440 align:middle line:84%
Is there something
you can think of more

00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:03.170 align:middle line:90%
horrible than Capitalism?

00:21:03.170 --> 00:21:05.650 align:middle line:90%
Or the brother who it really is.

00:21:05.650 --> 00:21:07.500 align:middle line:90%
Can claws talk?

00:21:07.500 --> 00:21:09.270 align:middle line:90%
Is death a picture?

00:21:09.270 --> 00:21:10.150 align:middle line:90%
A thing?

00:21:10.150 --> 00:21:15.320 align:middle line:84%
Songless-- even as the family
gathers heaping love upon him,

00:21:15.320 --> 00:21:18.120 align:middle line:84%
is there something
you can think of more

00:21:18.120 --> 00:21:19.385 align:middle line:90%
horrible than capitalism?

00:21:19.385 --> 00:21:30.922 align:middle line:90%

00:21:30.922 --> 00:21:31.422 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:21:31.422 --> 00:21:31.922 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:21:31.922 --> 00:21:33.406 align:middle line:90%
This is WBAI in New York.

00:21:33.406 --> 00:21:37.888 align:middle line:84%
And coming up next,
\"Notes with Amiri Baraka.\"

00:21:37.888 --> 00:21:41.872 align:middle line:90%
[JAZZ MUSIC]

00:21:41.872 --> 00:22:09.360 align:middle line:90%

00:22:09.360 --> 00:22:11.860 align:middle line:84%
This is \"Notes
with Amiri Baraka.\"

00:22:11.860 --> 00:22:13.860 align:middle line:90%
This is a new edition now.

00:22:13.860 --> 00:22:18.360 align:middle line:84%
We\'re going to be coming
on every other Wednesday

00:22:18.360 --> 00:22:24.360 align:middle line:84%
10:00 to 11:30 PM Wednesday
nights, 10:00 PM to 11:30,

00:22:24.360 --> 00:22:25.825 align:middle line:84%
eventually maybe
every Wednesday.

00:22:25.825 --> 00:22:29.700 align:middle line:84%
We\'re sorry for the late
owls, the night owls who

00:22:29.700 --> 00:22:32.790 align:middle line:84%
did listen to the 12:00 to
3:00 AM alternating Thursday

00:22:32.790 --> 00:22:35.830 align:middle line:84%
program, but I\'ve
been de-night owled.

00:22:35.830 --> 00:22:37.764 align:middle line:90%
But it\'s OK.

00:22:37.764 --> 00:22:41.440 align:middle line:84%
So tell the people who used
to listen 12:00 to 3:00

00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:45.080 align:middle line:84%
that we\'ll be on
from 10:00 to 11:30.

00:22:45.080 --> 00:22:49.240 align:middle line:84%
And notes will continue to be
musical notes, aesthetic notes,

00:22:49.240 --> 00:22:53.474 align:middle line:84%
social notes, and maybe
we\'ll get some new listeners.

00:22:53.474 --> 00:22:57.610 align:middle line:84%
We\'re glad to see all you up
here running South African

00:22:57.610 --> 00:22:58.834 align:middle line:90%
Airways.

00:22:58.834 --> 00:23:01.000 align:middle line:84%
I\'m surprised it\'s still
here after all these years.

00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:04.622 align:middle line:84%
I opened my eyes and said,
what, it\'s still here?

00:23:04.622 --> 00:23:06.800 align:middle line:84%
But as long as it
is still here, we\'re

00:23:06.800 --> 00:23:09.080 align:middle line:84%
glad to see everybody
gathered in front of it.

00:23:09.080 --> 00:23:11.200 align:middle line:84%
So we thank all of
you for your unity.

00:23:11.200 --> 00:23:13.220 align:middle line:84%
We will hope that you
will oppose people going

00:23:13.220 --> 00:23:15.500 align:middle line:84%
to South Africa, people
trying to tell you

00:23:15.500 --> 00:23:17.210 align:middle line:90%
South Africa has changed.

00:23:17.210 --> 00:23:20.160 align:middle line:84%
Because finally, the struggle
is not about apartheid.

00:23:20.160 --> 00:23:22.360 align:middle line:90%
It\'s about political power.

00:23:22.360 --> 00:23:25.710 align:middle line:84%
It\'s about who will
rule in South Africa--

00:23:25.710 --> 00:23:27.980 align:middle line:90%
the majority or the minority?

00:23:27.980 --> 00:23:30.500 align:middle line:84%
Just like the struggle
in Northern Ireland--

00:23:30.500 --> 00:23:34.510 align:middle line:84%
it is not a struggle against--
a struggle between religions.

00:23:34.510 --> 00:23:38.020 align:middle line:84%
It\'s a struggle between
people versus imperialism

00:23:38.020 --> 00:23:40.320 align:middle line:84%
and the longest lived
struggle against imperialism

00:23:40.320 --> 00:23:41.040 align:middle line:90%
in the world.

00:23:41.040 --> 00:23:44.520 align:middle line:84%
So let us unite and see
ourselves as objectives allies,

00:23:44.520 --> 00:23:46.240 align:middle line:84%
see our enemies, and
fight against them.

00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:47.740 align:middle line:90%
Thank you very much.

00:23:47.740 --> 00:23:53.740 align:middle line:90%

00:23:53.740 --> 00:23:59.270 align:middle line:84%
Arthur Blythe, beautiful
new album, Blythe Spirit.

00:23:59.270 --> 00:24:01.500 align:middle line:90%
And that was \"Reverence.\"

00:24:01.500 --> 00:24:05.470 align:middle line:84%
And on that particular side,
not only Arthur on alto,

00:24:05.470 --> 00:24:08.670 align:middle line:84%
but Abdul Wadud, cello,
Calvin Bell, electric guitar,

00:24:08.670 --> 00:24:12.630 align:middle line:84%
Bob Stewart, tuba,
Bobby Battle, drums.

00:24:12.630 --> 00:24:15.196 align:middle line:90%
It\'s a Columbia recording.

00:24:15.196 --> 00:24:16.820 align:middle line:84%
Columbia is trying
to do something good

00:24:16.820 --> 00:24:18.460 align:middle line:90%
in their old age.

00:24:18.460 --> 00:24:20.700 align:middle line:90%
Arthur Blythe, Blythe Spirit.

00:24:20.700 --> 00:24:23.440 align:middle line:84%
We\'ve got a play down
at the Henry Street

00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:26.722 align:middle line:84%
Settlement, the new federal
theater down at Henry Street.

00:24:26.722 --> 00:24:28.930 align:middle line:84%
What\'s the address down in
case somebody wants to go?

00:24:28.930 --> 00:24:31.090 align:middle line:90%
466 Grand Street.

00:24:31.090 --> 00:24:33.410 align:middle line:90%
You can call 598-0400.

00:24:33.410 --> 00:24:36.630 align:middle line:84%
That\'s a New York
number-- 212-598-0400.

00:24:36.630 --> 00:24:38.850 align:middle line:84%
Play of mine called
Boy and Tarzan Appear

00:24:38.850 --> 00:24:43.690 align:middle line:84%
in a Clearing directed
by George Ferencz.

00:24:43.690 --> 00:24:47.170 align:middle line:84%
Yeah, yeah, Papa T.
But don\'t despair.

00:24:47.170 --> 00:24:48.830 align:middle line:90%
We were ready for them.

00:24:48.830 --> 00:24:50.465 align:middle line:90%
You did the right thing.

00:24:50.465 --> 00:24:52.550 align:middle line:84%
You see, you were
correct anyway.

00:24:52.550 --> 00:24:55.240 align:middle line:84%
You sent me to
post-colonial training.

00:24:55.240 --> 00:24:57.490 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, PCT.

00:24:57.490 --> 00:25:01.000 align:middle line:84%
I studied, Papa T, studied my
ass off, spent years in think

00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:03.219 align:middle line:90%
tanks, retreats, seminars.

00:25:03.219 --> 00:25:05.885 align:middle line:84%
Studied the rise and fall of the
Roman Empire, the rise and fall

00:25:05.885 --> 00:25:07.300 align:middle line:90%
of the British Empire.

00:25:07.300 --> 00:25:10.737 align:middle line:84%
I bled with Gordon at
the fall of Khartoum.

00:25:10.737 --> 00:25:12.820 align:middle line:84%
I clucked my tongue when
the Americans [INAUDIBLE]

00:25:12.820 --> 00:25:14.730 align:middle line:90%
in Chiang Kai-Shek.

00:25:14.730 --> 00:25:18.020 align:middle line:84%
And I got whipped a little
at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam,

00:25:18.020 --> 00:25:21.356 align:middle line:84%
Cambodia, Mozambique,
Guinea-Bissau--

00:25:21.356 --> 00:25:24.610 align:middle line:84%
Papa, I wept in my school
books, I\'ll tell you,

00:25:24.610 --> 00:25:28.370 align:middle line:84%
watching and digging the
mistakes that we made.

00:25:28.370 --> 00:25:31.900 align:middle line:90%
But I did dig.

00:25:31.900 --> 00:25:33.310 align:middle line:90%
But I did dig.

00:25:33.310 --> 00:25:36.280 align:middle line:84%
I rationalized,
understood what went down.

00:25:36.280 --> 00:25:38.260 align:middle line:84%
I was past the
emotional attachment

00:25:38.260 --> 00:25:39.960 align:middle line:90%
to symbols and whatnot.

00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:41.810 align:middle line:90%
And that I dug.

00:25:41.810 --> 00:25:44.794 align:middle line:90%
I dug, I dug, Tarzan Big.

00:25:44.794 --> 00:25:49.280 align:middle line:84%
I dug and do things
now, Tarzan, man.

00:25:49.280 --> 00:25:54.190 align:middle line:84%
I mean, I understood why
it was and is that we fail

00:25:54.190 --> 00:25:58.200 align:middle line:84%
and how we can reverse it--
yeah, reverse it all, Tarzan,

00:25:58.200 --> 00:26:01.140 align:middle line:84%
and climb back up to
the top of the mountain.

00:26:01.140 --> 00:26:08.960 align:middle line:84%
How we can, in fact, rule--
yeah Tarzan, rule forever.

00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:11.234 align:middle line:90%
You high, boy?

00:26:11.234 --> 00:26:16.610 align:middle line:84%
Was Tarzan totally
against the blacks,

00:26:16.610 --> 00:26:20.140 align:middle line:84%
or was it that his son
was educated and turned

00:26:20.140 --> 00:26:23.290 align:middle line:84%
his way of thinking
against blacks?

00:26:23.290 --> 00:26:26.210 align:middle line:84%
Well, you should ask then
is colonialism totally

00:26:26.210 --> 00:26:28.040 align:middle line:90%
against blacks?

00:26:28.040 --> 00:26:30.240 align:middle line:84%
Because that\'s what
Tarzan\'s supposed to be.

00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:36.360 align:middle line:84%
Now, but see, the in-- I got
from it that the whole doing

00:26:36.360 --> 00:26:37.874 align:middle line:90%
was boy\'s.

00:26:37.874 --> 00:26:40.290 align:middle line:84%
No, boy is just trying to bring
him into the modern world.

00:26:40.290 --> 00:26:40.994 align:middle line:90%
Right.

00:26:40.994 --> 00:26:43.410 align:middle line:84%
See, it would be like-- it
would be like the United States

00:26:43.410 --> 00:26:45.240 align:middle line:90%
and South Africa.

00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:48.360 align:middle line:84%
Now, the South Africans have
black and white bathrooms,

00:26:48.360 --> 00:26:50.640 align:middle line:84%
black and white water
fountains, black and white

00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:52.670 align:middle line:84%
so and so\'s
Americans got it too.

00:26:52.670 --> 00:26:56.430 align:middle line:84%
The difference is, Americans
took the signs down.

00:26:56.430 --> 00:26:58.620 align:middle line:84%
What the Americans tell the
South Africans is, look,

00:26:58.620 --> 00:27:00.402 align:middle line:90%
you can\'t have no signs up.

00:27:00.402 --> 00:27:02.090 align:middle line:90%
You know, this is 1981.

00:27:02.090 --> 00:27:03.970 align:middle line:84%
You know, you
gotta cut that out.

00:27:03.970 --> 00:27:06.460 align:middle line:84%
You can do what you want to
do but you cannot advertise it

00:27:06.460 --> 00:27:09.490 align:middle line:84%
as, quote, you
running these buds.

00:27:09.490 --> 00:27:11.500 align:middle line:90%
Now, you can do it.

00:27:11.500 --> 00:27:13.927 align:middle line:84%
But you have to stop
being so crude with it.

00:27:13.927 --> 00:27:16.010 align:middle line:84%
And that\'s essentially
what boy is telling Tarzan.

00:27:16.010 --> 00:27:18.824 align:middle line:90%
You\'re too crude.

00:27:18.824 --> 00:27:22.481 align:middle line:90%
[WHISTLING]

00:27:22.481 --> 00:27:22.980 align:middle line:90%
What?

00:27:22.980 --> 00:27:25.405 align:middle line:90%
[WHISTLING]

00:27:25.405 --> 00:27:26.380 align:middle line:90%
[GROWL]

00:27:26.380 --> 00:27:28.160 align:middle line:90%
No, pop, it\'s part of my answer.

00:27:28.160 --> 00:27:29.070 align:middle line:90%
Cool it!

00:27:29.070 --> 00:27:29.570 align:middle line:90%
[INAUDIBLE]

00:27:29.570 --> 00:27:33.395 align:middle line:90%
it\'s my man, listen.

00:27:33.395 --> 00:27:34.860 align:middle line:90%
I am somebody.

00:27:34.860 --> 00:27:36.830 align:middle line:90%
I may be in a bad [INAUDIBLE].

00:27:36.830 --> 00:27:38.200 align:middle line:90%
I may be in apartheid.

00:27:38.200 --> 00:27:41.824 align:middle line:90%
But I am somebody.

00:27:41.824 --> 00:27:45.820 align:middle line:90%
Mr. Boy, Mr. Boy, Mr. Boy.

00:27:45.820 --> 00:27:46.630 align:middle line:90%
Who this?

00:27:46.630 --> 00:27:49.096 align:middle line:84%
This is Dr. Stan Stu,
L-I-E-A-S-S-N-IG.

00:27:49.096 --> 00:27:51.780 align:middle line:90%

00:27:51.780 --> 00:27:53.894 align:middle line:90%
He look like a woogie to me.

00:27:53.894 --> 00:27:54.394 align:middle line:90%
Sir!

00:27:54.394 --> 00:28:07.270 align:middle line:90%

00:28:07.270 --> 00:28:09.090 align:middle line:90%
Blythe Spirit.

00:28:09.090 --> 00:28:11.070 align:middle line:84%
And we\'re going to
come back to that.

00:28:11.070 --> 00:28:13.380 align:middle line:84%
Like I said, we\'re
going to be featuring

00:28:13.380 --> 00:28:17.650 align:middle line:84%
this album this evening
along with a couple others.

00:28:17.650 --> 00:28:21.010 align:middle line:84%
And this will be one of the
few times that I\'ll be on tape.

00:28:21.010 --> 00:28:21.955 align:middle line:90%
And I\'m on tape now.

00:28:21.955 --> 00:28:24.330 align:middle line:84%
That\'s because next Wednesday
when this first program was

00:28:24.330 --> 00:28:27.750 align:middle line:84%
due, I\'ll be reading poetry
down at St Mark\'s church

00:28:27.750 --> 00:28:31.480 align:middle line:84%
with Miguel Algrin
and Lorenzo Thomas.

00:28:31.480 --> 00:28:35.550 align:middle line:84%
That\'s October 14 next
Wednesday or Wednesday 8:00 PM.

00:28:35.550 --> 00:28:39.148 align:middle line:84%
So this is a poem
called \"Wailers\"

00:28:39.148 --> 00:28:41.190 align:middle line:84%
for Bob Marley and
Larry Neal, Hoyt Fuller.

00:28:41.190 --> 00:28:45.110 align:middle line:90%

00:28:45.110 --> 00:28:48.430 align:middle line:90%
Wailers are we.

00:28:48.430 --> 00:28:50.370 align:middle line:90%
We are wailers Don\'t get scared.

00:28:50.370 --> 00:28:53.040 align:middle line:84%
Nothing happening
but out and way out.

00:28:53.040 --> 00:28:54.520 align:middle line:84%
Nothing happening
but the positive

00:28:54.520 --> 00:28:57.190 align:middle line:90%
unless you the negative.

00:28:57.190 --> 00:28:58.650 align:middle line:90%
Wailers.

00:28:58.650 --> 00:29:00.840 align:middle line:84%
We wailers, yeah,
wail, yeah, wailers.

00:29:00.840 --> 00:29:02.750 align:middle line:90%
We wail, we wail.

00:29:02.750 --> 00:29:04.310 align:middle line:84%
We could dig
Melville on his ship,

00:29:04.310 --> 00:29:07.550 align:middle line:84%
confronting the huge white
mad beast speeding depths

00:29:07.550 --> 00:29:09.200 align:middle line:90%
across the sea to we.

00:29:09.200 --> 00:29:11.400 align:middle line:84%
But we whalers, we
can kill whales.

00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:14.740 align:middle line:84%
We can get on top a
whale and wail, wailers.

00:29:14.740 --> 00:29:18.950 align:middle line:84%
Undersea defense hot folk, blues
babies humming when we arrive,

00:29:18.950 --> 00:29:21.490 align:middle line:84%
boogie ladies strumming
our black violet souls,

00:29:21.490 --> 00:29:24.240 align:middle line:84%
rag daddy come from the
land of never say die,

00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:27.720 align:middle line:84%
reggae workers bringing the funk
to the people of I. We wailers

00:29:27.720 --> 00:29:28.220 align:middle line:90%
are right.

00:29:28.220 --> 00:29:29.780 align:middle line:90%
Hail to you, Bob man.

00:29:29.780 --> 00:29:32.050 align:middle line:84%
We will ask your
questions all our lives.

00:29:32.050 --> 00:29:34.340 align:middle line:90%
Could you be loved?

00:29:34.340 --> 00:29:36.060 align:middle line:90%
I and I understand.

00:29:36.060 --> 00:29:37.696 align:middle line:90%
We see the world.

00:29:37.696 --> 00:29:40.570 align:middle line:84%
I\'s and I\'s say yes
to transformation.

00:29:40.570 --> 00:29:44.480 align:middle line:84%
Wailers, I-- wailers
subterranean night color magis

00:29:44.480 --> 00:29:46.920 align:middle line:84%
working inside the
soul of the world.

00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:50.150 align:middle line:84%
Wailers-- eyes seeing,
the world\'s being.

00:29:50.150 --> 00:29:50.900 align:middle line:90%
Hey, Bob.

00:29:50.900 --> 00:29:51.700 align:middle line:90%
Whale on.

00:29:51.700 --> 00:29:52.230 align:middle line:90%
Rock on.

00:29:52.230 --> 00:29:54.460 align:middle line:84%
Yeah, come into us as
real vision and action.

00:29:54.460 --> 00:29:56.920 align:middle line:84%
Hey, Larry-- wail on with
Lester and the pork pie

00:29:56.920 --> 00:29:59.200 align:middle line:90%
wailing us energy for truth.

00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:00.680 align:middle line:90%
We wailers is all.

00:30:00.680 --> 00:30:04.310 align:middle line:84%
And on past that to say
whaling for all we worth.

00:30:04.310 --> 00:30:06.230 align:middle line:84%
Rhythm folks obsessed
with stroking

00:30:06.230 --> 00:30:09.230 align:middle line:90%
what is with our sound perches.

00:30:09.230 --> 00:30:11.970 align:middle line:84%
Call me Thelonious in
my crowded wail vessel.

00:30:11.970 --> 00:30:14.260 align:middle line:84%
I hold the keys to
the funk kingdom.

00:30:14.260 --> 00:30:15.390 align:middle line:90%
Lie on me if you want to.

00:30:15.390 --> 00:30:16.380 align:middle line:90%
Tell folks it\'s yours.

00:30:16.380 --> 00:30:18.190 align:middle line:84%
But for real whaling,
not tale telling,

00:30:18.190 --> 00:30:20.980 align:middle line:84%
the sensitive know
the wailers be, be we.

00:30:20.980 --> 00:30:24.430 align:middle line:84%
Be we, we wailers, blue
blowers, the real rhythm kings.

00:30:24.430 --> 00:30:28.610 align:middle line:84%
We sing philosophy, hambone
precise findings, image masters

00:30:28.610 --> 00:30:29.650 align:middle line:90%
of the syncopated.

00:30:29.650 --> 00:30:32.700 align:middle line:84%
Wailers and drummers,
wailers and trumpet stars,

00:30:32.700 --> 00:30:35.435 align:middle line:84%
wailers and box cookers,
wailers and sax fliers,

00:30:35.435 --> 00:30:37.310 align:middle line:84%
wailers and bass thumpers,
wailers and-- hey,

00:30:37.310 --> 00:30:39.780 align:middle line:84%
where-- where we wailers,
trombone benders,

00:30:39.780 --> 00:30:42.950 align:middle line:84%
magic singers, Elingtonians,
the only trains faster

00:30:42.950 --> 00:30:44.000 align:middle line:90%
than rocket ships.

00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:46.160 align:middle line:84%
Shit, cut a rocket in
our pocket and put a cord

00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:47.260 align:middle line:90%
on the wall of the wind.

00:30:47.260 --> 00:30:49.050 align:middle line:90%
Wailers, can you dig whaling?

00:30:49.050 --> 00:30:49.929 align:middle line:90%
Call me Bud Powel.

00:30:49.929 --> 00:30:50.970 align:middle line:90%
You want to imitate this?

00:30:50.970 --> 00:30:51.470 align:middle line:90%
Listen.

00:30:51.470 --> 00:30:54.480 align:middle line:90%
[GIBBERISH]

00:30:54.480 --> 00:30:58.570 align:middle line:84%
My calling card, the dialectic
of silence, the sound approach.

00:30:58.570 --> 00:31:00.510 align:middle line:84%
Life one day will be
filled even further

00:31:00.510 --> 00:31:02.130 align:middle line:90%
with we numbers, we song.

00:31:02.130 --> 00:31:05.130 align:middle line:84%
But primitive place now we
whaling, be kept underground.

00:31:05.130 --> 00:31:06.430 align:middle line:90%
But keep it in mind.

00:31:06.430 --> 00:31:08.540 align:middle line:84%
Call me something
dukish, something sassy.

00:31:08.540 --> 00:31:09.910 align:middle line:90%
Call me by my real name.

00:31:09.910 --> 00:31:11.752 align:middle line:84%
When the world change,
we whaling be in it,

00:31:11.752 --> 00:31:12.960 align:middle line:90%
helped make it for real time.

00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:13.460 align:middle line:90%
Call me.

00:31:13.460 --> 00:31:14.021 align:middle line:90%
I call you.

00:31:14.021 --> 00:31:14.520 align:middle line:90%
We call.

00:31:14.520 --> 00:31:15.580 align:middle line:90%
We say, hey, wailers.

00:31:15.580 --> 00:31:16.340 align:middle line:90%
Hey, wailers.

00:31:16.340 --> 00:31:17.770 align:middle line:90%
Hey, hey, hey, wailers.

00:31:17.770 --> 00:31:18.543 align:middle line:90%
Whale on.

00:31:18.543 --> 00:31:23.520 align:middle line:90%

00:31:23.520 --> 00:31:25.900 align:middle line:84%
October 16, you know I
have a date with the state

00:31:25.900 --> 00:31:30.210 align:middle line:84%
like they say for the terrible
crime of resisting arrest.

00:31:30.210 --> 00:31:32.530 align:middle line:84%
This is Amiri Baraka
on \"Notes\" and we\'ll

00:31:32.530 --> 00:31:34.575 align:middle line:84%
see you two Wednesdays
from now hopefully.

00:31:34.575 --> 00:32:12.680 align:middle line:90%

00:32:12.680 --> 00:32:13.654 align:middle line:90%
What\'s going to happen?

00:32:13.654 --> 00:32:15.889 align:middle line:90%
Land going to change hands.

00:32:15.889 --> 00:32:17.274 align:middle line:90%
What\'s going to happen?

00:32:17.274 --> 00:32:19.458 align:middle line:90%
Land going to change hands.

00:32:19.458 --> 00:32:20.416 align:middle line:90%
What\'s going to happen?

00:32:20.416 --> 00:32:22.573 align:middle line:90%
Land\'s going to change hands.

00:32:22.573 --> 00:32:24.052 align:middle line:90%
What\'s going to happen?

00:32:24.052 --> 00:32:26.928 align:middle line:90%
Land\'s going to change hands.

00:32:26.928 --> 00:32:27.886 align:middle line:90%
What\'s going to happen?

00:32:27.886 --> 00:32:29.750 align:middle line:90%
Land going to change hands.

00:32:29.750 --> 00:32:31.166 align:middle line:84%
The land\'s going
to change hands.

00:32:31.166 --> 00:32:34.325 align:middle line:90%

00:32:34.325 --> 00:32:35.200 align:middle line:90%
Where pigs rule now--

00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:38.710 align:middle line:90%

00:32:38.710 --> 00:32:41.940 align:middle line:84%
The center of the
action suddenly

00:32:41.940 --> 00:32:44.330 align:middle line:84%
shifted from Greenwich
Village to Harlem,

00:32:44.330 --> 00:32:48.100 align:middle line:84%
which was still the major
black intellectual center

00:32:48.100 --> 00:32:49.800 align:middle line:90%
on a mass sense, at any rate.

00:32:49.800 --> 00:32:52.970 align:middle line:84%
There was a riot in
Harlem in the early 1960s.

00:32:52.970 --> 00:32:56.340 align:middle line:84%
Now, what that
meant to all of us

00:32:56.340 --> 00:32:59.410 align:middle line:84%
was that here who were
our own people involved--

00:32:59.410 --> 00:33:03.500 align:middle line:84%
I mean the blacks who had been
involved in Greenwich Village

00:33:03.500 --> 00:33:05.940 align:middle line:84%
literary and artistic
scene was that here

00:33:05.940 --> 00:33:09.050 align:middle line:84%
were our people who were going
off into another direction.

00:33:09.050 --> 00:33:10.740 align:middle line:84%
And we had nothing
to do with it.

00:33:10.740 --> 00:33:12.485 align:middle line:90%
We weren\'t contributing to it.

00:33:12.485 --> 00:33:17.335 align:middle line:90%

00:33:17.335 --> 00:33:19.534 align:middle line:84%
All praises due
to the black man.

00:33:19.534 --> 00:33:32.030 align:middle line:90%

00:33:32.030 --> 00:33:33.982 align:middle line:90%
All praises due to the creator.

00:33:33.982 --> 00:33:42.380 align:middle line:90%

00:33:42.380 --> 00:33:47.770 align:middle line:84%
All praises due to the
sun and the son\'s sun.

00:33:47.770 --> 00:33:49.730 align:middle line:84%
Well, that was the
summer-- the summer.

00:33:49.730 --> 00:33:53.180 align:middle line:84%
Well, we went on the streets
to the masses, to the people.

00:33:53.180 --> 00:33:56.550 align:middle line:84%
We brought the theater,
the new music, the poetry,

00:33:56.550 --> 00:33:58.670 align:middle line:84%
and the masses
just embraced us--

00:33:58.670 --> 00:34:00.990 align:middle line:84%
thousands of people
in the street.

00:34:00.990 --> 00:34:03.350 align:middle line:84%
But that all in that
same time frame.

00:34:03.350 --> 00:34:06.786 align:middle line:84%
And for some of us who
were up town, Baraka--

00:34:06.786 --> 00:34:10.280 align:middle line:84%
we considered Baraka to
be a very talented cat.

00:34:10.280 --> 00:34:14.480 align:middle line:84%
And he was-- and
politically oriented.

00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:20.440 align:middle line:84%
He would say a lot of things
that we felt were on the money.

00:34:20.440 --> 00:34:21.989 align:middle line:84%
And he wasn\'t
pulling any punches.

00:34:21.989 --> 00:34:24.246 align:middle line:84%
He wasn\'t afraid to
say it, you know?

00:34:24.246 --> 00:34:26.409 align:middle line:84%
Especially at a
time when it looked

00:34:26.409 --> 00:34:29.630 align:middle line:84%
like it was going to open
up for him as a writer.

00:34:29.630 --> 00:34:33.469 align:middle line:84%
And for many of us who
are on the threshold of,

00:34:33.469 --> 00:34:35.429 align:middle line:84%
quote unquote,
breaking through, you

00:34:35.429 --> 00:34:37.650 align:middle line:84%
know, you kind of bite
your tongue and hold back.

00:34:37.650 --> 00:34:40.580 align:middle line:84%
But Baraka seemed to be just
going in reverse, you know?

00:34:40.580 --> 00:34:43.840 align:middle line:90%
He was opening up wide.

00:34:43.840 --> 00:34:49.449 align:middle line:84%
And we kind of looked
forward when he announced up

00:34:49.449 --> 00:34:52.020 align:middle line:84%
at the Cappa house that he was
going-- that they were going

00:34:52.020 --> 00:34:55.699 align:middle line:84%
to be coming up town and
starting a black arts theater

00:34:55.699 --> 00:34:56.550 align:middle line:90%
school.

00:34:56.550 --> 00:34:58.640 align:middle line:84%
Because there wasn\'t--
as he described it,

00:34:58.640 --> 00:35:01.980 align:middle line:84%
there was nothing uptown
like that happening.

00:35:01.980 --> 00:35:04.280 align:middle line:84%
They had a massive
poetry reading.

00:35:04.280 --> 00:35:05.066 align:middle line:90%
And--

00:35:05.066 --> 00:35:05.740 align:middle line:90%
Friday night.

00:35:05.740 --> 00:35:07.340 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, that Friday night, right.

00:35:07.340 --> 00:35:10.780 align:middle line:84%
Through this
conference, we formally

00:35:10.780 --> 00:35:17.270 align:middle line:84%
introduced Amiri Baraka
and the black arts

00:35:17.270 --> 00:35:20.220 align:middle line:90%
forces to activist Harlem.

00:35:20.220 --> 00:35:25.290 align:middle line:84%
There were some of the feeling
of Baraka coming up town

00:35:25.290 --> 00:35:29.220 align:middle line:90%
and bringing the village types.

00:35:29.220 --> 00:35:31.982 align:middle line:84%
We brought our
concerns to Amiri.

00:35:31.982 --> 00:35:33.690 align:middle line:84%
We didn\'t try to do
anything underhanded.

00:35:33.690 --> 00:35:35.120 align:middle line:90%
We said, well, look.

00:35:35.120 --> 00:35:36.760 align:middle line:84%
You know, we--
LeRoi, at that time.

00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:38.780 align:middle line:84%
LeRoi, we said, we
got serious problems

00:35:38.780 --> 00:35:40.640 align:middle line:84%
with all these
white people being

00:35:40.640 --> 00:35:43.310 align:middle line:84%
in here when we\'re discussing
internal black community

00:35:43.310 --> 00:35:44.240 align:middle line:90%
business.

00:35:44.240 --> 00:35:46.230 align:middle line:84%
And so then I rose
and I said, well,

00:35:46.230 --> 00:35:47.910 align:middle line:90%
let\'s take it to the people.

00:35:47.910 --> 00:35:52.460 align:middle line:84%
And I said, do you all want
these non-Harlem white people

00:35:52.460 --> 00:35:53.790 align:middle line:90%
in the audience?

00:35:53.790 --> 00:35:56.570 align:middle line:84%
And the people answered
with a resounding no,

00:35:56.570 --> 00:35:58.475 align:middle line:90%
tell them to leave.

00:35:58.475 --> 00:36:02.980 align:middle line:84%
I don\'t think that Amiri
was ready to cut loose

00:36:02.980 --> 00:36:06.650 align:middle line:84%
his involvements in dealing
with European Americans

00:36:06.650 --> 00:36:12.950 align:middle line:84%
at that time on neither an
artistic nor political level.

00:36:12.950 --> 00:36:16.870 align:middle line:84%
You know, I mean, even though
his rhetoric was moving

00:36:16.870 --> 00:36:19.160 align:middle line:84%
towards that, I
think that pushed

00:36:19.160 --> 00:36:24.290 align:middle line:84%
them up-- pushed him to that
point that much quicker.

00:36:24.290 --> 00:36:28.170 align:middle line:84%
And suddenly, you
realized-- I realized

00:36:28.170 --> 00:36:30.500 align:middle line:90%
that somehow I was excluded.

00:36:30.500 --> 00:36:34.910 align:middle line:84%
Somehow, we didn\'t have
anything to talk about anymore.

00:36:34.910 --> 00:36:37.320 align:middle line:90%
You know, I mean, he was polite.

00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:40.842 align:middle line:84%
But somehow, we weren\'t
talking anything.

00:36:40.842 --> 00:36:44.750 align:middle line:84%
And we weren\'t running
into each other.

00:36:44.750 --> 00:36:49.830 align:middle line:84%
And for me, it was always sort
of a bewildering experience.

00:36:49.830 --> 00:36:54.050 align:middle line:84%
I think some people got
very bugged very early.

00:36:54.050 --> 00:36:59.060 align:middle line:84%
Some people just, as I did,
stayed bewildered for a while.

00:36:59.060 --> 00:37:02.280 align:middle line:90%

00:37:02.280 --> 00:37:05.570 align:middle line:84%
I know in my own case,
eventually, I said, well,

00:37:05.570 --> 00:37:10.560 align:middle line:84%
it\'s-- I understand why he\'s
doing it, why he\'s taking--

00:37:10.560 --> 00:37:14.210 align:middle line:84%
why he\'s making the
move that he has,

00:37:14.210 --> 00:37:17.650 align:middle line:90%
the emotional intellectual.

00:37:17.650 --> 00:37:22.040 align:middle line:84%
And the rest of it evidently
goes along with it.

00:37:22.040 --> 00:37:25.830 align:middle line:84%
Even when he is being
political, it is still personal

00:37:25.830 --> 00:37:28.270 align:middle line:84%
because he\'s dealing with
his personal confrontation

00:37:28.270 --> 00:37:33.740 align:middle line:84%
with a political attitude
which he is trying to absorb.

00:37:33.740 --> 00:37:35.940 align:middle line:84%
And the only way
he has ever known

00:37:35.940 --> 00:37:39.680 align:middle line:84%
to go about doing that
is by looking in himself,

00:37:39.680 --> 00:37:42.570 align:middle line:84%
if he finds contradictions
there, expose them on the page.

00:37:42.570 --> 00:37:45.220 align:middle line:84%
He is one of the most naked
poets who has ever written.

00:37:45.220 --> 00:37:47.155 align:middle line:84%
Now why you got a
jacket and a tie on.

00:37:47.155 --> 00:37:49.580 align:middle line:90%
Old [INAUDIBLE], huh?

00:37:49.580 --> 00:37:52.361 align:middle line:84%
Why are you wearing a
jacket and a tie like that?

00:37:52.361 --> 00:37:53.610 align:middle line:90%
Your people ever burn witches?

00:37:53.610 --> 00:37:56.428 align:middle line:84%
Start revolutions
over the price of tea?

00:37:56.428 --> 00:37:59.020 align:middle line:84%
Lord knows that narrow
shoulder clothes

00:37:59.020 --> 00:38:02.060 align:middle line:84%
come from the tradition you
ought to be oppressed by.

00:38:02.060 --> 00:38:04.958 align:middle line:90%
Three button suit.

00:38:04.958 --> 00:38:07.390 align:middle line:84%
What right do you have to
be wearing a three button

00:38:07.390 --> 00:38:09.360 align:middle line:90%
suit and a striped tie?

00:38:09.360 --> 00:38:11.510 align:middle line:90%
Your grandfather was a slave.

00:38:11.510 --> 00:38:13.460 align:middle line:90%
He didn\'t go to Harvard.

00:38:13.460 --> 00:38:16.470 align:middle line:84%
My grandfather was
a night watchman.

00:38:16.470 --> 00:38:18.900 align:middle line:84%
He went to a colored college
where everybody thought

00:38:18.900 --> 00:38:20.025 align:middle line:90%
they were Averell Harriman.

00:38:20.025 --> 00:38:23.495 align:middle line:90%

00:38:23.495 --> 00:38:24.465 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:38:24.465 --> 00:38:28.270 align:middle line:90%
All except me.

00:38:28.270 --> 00:38:30.780 align:middle line:90%
Who did you think you were?

00:38:30.780 --> 00:38:33.628 align:middle line:90%
Who do you think you are now?

00:38:33.628 --> 00:38:39.592 align:middle line:84%
Well, when I was in college, I
used to think I was Baudelaire.

00:38:39.592 --> 00:38:43.071 align:middle line:90%
But I slowed down since.

00:38:43.071 --> 00:38:46.053 align:middle line:84%
All right, but you
never once thought

00:38:46.053 --> 00:38:49.799 align:middle line:90%
you were a black nigger.

00:38:49.799 --> 00:38:51.340 align:middle line:84%
I think it\'s a
combination of feeling

00:38:51.340 --> 00:38:55.720 align:middle line:84%
guilty for having been
away from black people,

00:38:55.720 --> 00:39:00.770 align:middle line:84%
having, you know, lived
among white people,

00:39:00.770 --> 00:39:10.240 align:middle line:84%
and then-- you know, when you
begin to then change and begin

00:39:10.240 --> 00:39:13.360 align:middle line:84%
to identify more with
your own people, you know,

00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:16.766 align:middle line:84%
with your own national
liberation struggles,

00:39:16.766 --> 00:39:18.890 align:middle line:84%
a lot of times, the tendency
is for petty bourgeois

00:39:18.890 --> 00:39:22.390 align:middle line:84%
intellectuals to then go back
to, you know, going native,

00:39:22.390 --> 00:39:24.430 align:middle line:90%
as Fanon says and Cabral say.

00:39:24.430 --> 00:39:28.640 align:middle line:84%
You know, you really just
go to the opposite extreme.

00:39:28.640 --> 00:39:31.930 align:middle line:84%
See, the first extreme
was absolute assimilation

00:39:31.930 --> 00:39:36.515 align:middle line:90%
into the ways of the oppressor.

00:39:36.515 --> 00:39:39.700 align:middle line:84%
Then it\'s sort of
like you suddenly

00:39:39.700 --> 00:39:42.020 align:middle line:84%
see that and get
embarrassed by that

00:39:42.020 --> 00:39:46.915 align:middle line:84%
and swing all the way back
wildly in the other direction.

00:39:46.915 --> 00:39:59.640 align:middle line:90%

00:39:59.640 --> 00:40:01.510 align:middle line:84%
The organization
that I belong to,

00:40:01.510 --> 00:40:05.950 align:middle line:84%
the Black Arts Repertory
Theatre School, which I helped

00:40:05.950 --> 00:40:10.210 align:middle line:84%
found on 130th Street
in Harlem, we had done,

00:40:10.210 --> 00:40:12.100 align:middle line:90%
I thought, some positive work.

00:40:12.100 --> 00:40:17.380 align:middle line:84%
But there was a lot
of contradictions

00:40:17.380 --> 00:40:19.030 align:middle line:90%
within that organization.

00:40:19.030 --> 00:40:21.266 align:middle line:84%
Most of us didn\'t know
what our ideology was.

00:40:21.266 --> 00:40:24.142 align:middle line:90%
We were very eclectic.

00:40:24.142 --> 00:40:29.320 align:middle line:84%
And therefore, I was
supposedly the leadership.

00:40:29.320 --> 00:40:33.430 align:middle line:84%
But I could definitely not set
a real leadership direction

00:40:33.430 --> 00:40:36.112 align:middle line:84%
because my own
philosophy was too vague.

00:40:36.112 --> 00:40:46.860 align:middle line:90%

00:40:46.860 --> 00:40:53.130 align:middle line:84%
Eventually, what happened was
Amiri got run out of there.

00:40:53.130 --> 00:40:53.700 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:40:53.700 --> 00:40:55.250 align:middle line:90%
They went crazy.

00:40:55.250 --> 00:40:58.990 align:middle line:84%
A lot of people went
out around that time,

00:40:58.990 --> 00:41:01.110 align:middle line:84%
you know, who-- not
just the black arts,

00:41:01.110 --> 00:41:02.340 align:middle line:90%
but people who were going.

00:41:02.340 --> 00:41:05.469 align:middle line:84%
There was a tremendous amount
of pressure on all of us

00:41:05.469 --> 00:41:07.260 align:middle line:84%
politically because we
were looking around.

00:41:07.260 --> 00:41:08.230 align:middle line:84%
This was the center
of the movement.

00:41:08.230 --> 00:41:10.550 align:middle line:84%
You know, I mean, we
were all young people.

00:41:10.550 --> 00:41:12.900 align:middle line:84%
And see, you know,
we\'re all grown up

00:41:12.900 --> 00:41:14.760 align:middle line:84%
believing in the
American dream, you know?

00:41:14.760 --> 00:41:17.860 align:middle line:84%
You go to school,
get an education.

00:41:17.860 --> 00:41:20.790 align:middle line:84%
You learn how to dress
like the white man, talk

00:41:20.790 --> 00:41:22.440 align:middle line:90%
like the white man.

00:41:22.440 --> 00:41:24.990 align:middle line:84%
Do everything that the
white man likes you to do

00:41:24.990 --> 00:41:26.070 align:middle line:90%
and you will get ahead.

00:41:26.070 --> 00:41:28.660 align:middle line:84%
You will have a job on
Madison Avenue, you know?

00:41:28.660 --> 00:41:32.420 align:middle line:84%
On the 37tg floor with a big
office looking over the skyline

00:41:32.420 --> 00:41:33.980 align:middle line:90%
of Manhattan, right?

00:41:33.980 --> 00:41:36.740 align:middle line:84%
And then when you
became 18 years old,

00:41:36.740 --> 00:41:38.420 align:middle line:90%
the dream became a nightmare.

00:41:38.420 --> 00:41:41.460 align:middle line:84%
Looks like we won\'t be acting
out that little pageant you

00:41:41.460 --> 00:41:43.310 align:middle line:90%
outlined before.

00:41:43.310 --> 00:41:45.120 align:middle line:90%
No we must.

00:41:45.120 --> 00:41:47.570 align:middle line:90%
Not about that, at least.

00:41:47.570 --> 00:41:49.880 align:middle line:84%
I\'m sorry, baby, but I
don\'t think we can make it.

00:41:49.880 --> 00:42:37.240 align:middle line:90%

00:42:37.240 --> 00:42:38.909 align:middle line:90%
Sorry is right.

00:42:38.909 --> 00:42:43.346 align:middle line:84%
Sorry is the rightest
thing you\'ve said.

00:42:43.346 --> 00:42:46.790 align:middle line:90%
Get this man off me!

00:42:46.790 --> 00:42:47.290 align:middle line:90%
Hey!

00:42:47.290 --> 00:43:19.100 align:middle line:90%

00:43:19.100 --> 00:43:22.600 align:middle line:90%
Who will survive America?

00:43:22.600 --> 00:43:29.600 align:middle line:84%
Few Americans, very few
Negroes and no crackers at all.

00:43:29.600 --> 00:43:32.874 align:middle line:90%
Who will survive America?

00:43:32.874 --> 00:43:38.250 align:middle line:84%
Few Americans, very few
Negroes and no crackers at all.

00:43:38.250 --> 00:43:40.870 align:middle line:90%

00:43:40.870 --> 00:43:44.300 align:middle line:90%
Who will survive America?

00:43:44.300 --> 00:43:48.220 align:middle line:84%
Very few Negroes,
no crackers at all.

00:43:48.220 --> 00:43:51.650 align:middle line:90%
Who will survive America?

00:43:51.650 --> 00:43:57.060 align:middle line:84%
Very few Negroes,
no crackers at all.

00:43:57.060 --> 00:43:59.600 align:middle line:84%
The city of Newark, New
Jersey, is changing.

00:43:59.600 --> 00:44:02.560 align:middle line:84%
The once overwhelmingly
powerful white establishment

00:44:02.560 --> 00:44:04.750 align:middle line:84%
is losing its strength
through numbers.

00:44:04.750 --> 00:44:06.750 align:middle line:84%
At the same time,
brothers and sisters

00:44:06.750 --> 00:44:08.910 align:middle line:84%
want the power to control
the institutions that

00:44:08.910 --> 00:44:12.160 align:middle line:90%
govern their lives.

00:44:12.160 --> 00:44:14.220 align:middle line:84%
This year, the black
and Puerto Rican groups

00:44:14.220 --> 00:44:17.900 align:middle line:84%
worked out a plan based on
operational unity-- that is,

00:44:17.900 --> 00:44:20.600 align:middle line:90%
unity without total conformity.

00:44:20.600 --> 00:44:23.510 align:middle line:84%
Over a weekend last October
at Clinton Place Junior High

00:44:23.510 --> 00:44:25.840 align:middle line:84%
School in Newark,
representatives from the two

00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:28.480 align:middle line:84%
communities got together
and selected candidates

00:44:28.480 --> 00:44:31.170 align:middle line:84%
outside of the Democratic
or Republican parties

00:44:31.170 --> 00:44:34.281 align:middle line:84%
to be supported in the
upcoming May elections.

00:44:34.281 --> 00:44:39.150 align:middle line:84%
I\'m going to make a chart
for you now because I

00:44:39.150 --> 00:44:42.320 align:middle line:84%
wish everybody in here
would make some kind of oath

00:44:42.320 --> 00:44:47.259 align:middle line:84%
that they would go out
and work in a convention.

00:44:47.259 --> 00:44:49.467 align:middle line:84%
You\'re going to go out after
this convention and work

00:44:49.467 --> 00:44:52.329 align:middle line:90%
until you can\'t [INAUDIBLE].

00:44:52.329 --> 00:44:54.237 align:middle line:84%
But everybody in
here, this many people

00:44:54.237 --> 00:44:56.820 align:middle line:84%
could change the history of the
world, all the people in here.

00:44:56.820 --> 00:45:00.421 align:middle line:84%
Certainly we could change the
history of this little town.

00:45:00.421 --> 00:45:04.282 align:middle line:84%
If we can count on your people
to push these candidates,

00:45:04.282 --> 00:45:07.280 align:middle line:90%
we won\'t have no problems.

00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:09.620 align:middle line:84%
We\'ll be here in
may 1987 and we\'ll

00:45:09.620 --> 00:45:11.402 align:middle line:90%
be giving a big old party.

00:45:11.402 --> 00:45:14.720 align:middle line:90%

00:45:14.720 --> 00:45:17.860 align:middle line:84%
Ken Gibson was elected as
the convention\'s candidate

00:45:17.860 --> 00:45:19.330 align:middle line:90%
for mayor.

00:45:19.330 --> 00:45:21.310 align:middle line:84%
Gibson\'s candidacy
reflects the change

00:45:21.310 --> 00:45:24.240 align:middle line:84%
from a so-called spokesman
leading the community

00:45:24.240 --> 00:45:26.690 align:middle line:84%
to a situation wherein the
community selects, directs,

00:45:26.690 --> 00:45:28.610 align:middle line:90%
and leads the candidate.

00:45:28.610 --> 00:45:30.870 align:middle line:84%
This new kind of candidate
sees his campaign

00:45:30.870 --> 00:45:33.710 align:middle line:84%
as a model for all minority
coalition political movements

00:45:33.710 --> 00:45:36.106 align:middle line:90%
across the country.

00:45:36.106 --> 00:45:37.070 align:middle line:90%
This is a movement.

00:45:37.070 --> 00:45:41.408 align:middle line:84%
This is the movement,
a crusade, in addition

00:45:41.408 --> 00:45:47.200 align:middle line:84%
to a political campaign, to
get some real political power

00:45:47.200 --> 00:45:50.370 align:middle line:90%
into the hands of the people.

00:45:50.370 --> 00:45:52.060 align:middle line:84%
We organized the
united front that

00:45:52.060 --> 00:45:57.900 align:middle line:84%
helped to gain at least
formal political democracy,

00:45:57.900 --> 00:46:02.220 align:middle line:84%
and we were able to elect a
black mayor and several people

00:46:02.220 --> 00:46:03.950 align:middle line:90%
on the city council.

00:46:03.950 --> 00:46:06.290 align:middle line:84%
I mean, it proved
to me, at least,

00:46:06.290 --> 00:46:10.470 align:middle line:84%
that if you are willing to
get down with the people

00:46:10.470 --> 00:46:13.120 align:middle line:84%
and find out what
they want and then

00:46:13.120 --> 00:46:17.310 align:middle line:84%
work to see that happen and
involve them in that motion,

00:46:17.310 --> 00:46:21.190 align:middle line:90%
that anything is possible.

00:46:21.190 --> 00:46:22.760 align:middle line:84%
And then I was, at
that time, deeply

00:46:22.760 --> 00:46:24.260 align:middle line:84%
influenced by
cultural nationalism--

00:46:24.260 --> 00:46:27.230 align:middle line:84%
the fact that we had
to reorganize ourselves

00:46:27.230 --> 00:46:28.280 align:middle line:90%
culturally.

00:46:28.280 --> 00:46:32.432 align:middle line:84%
I thought that was
a principal, a step,

00:46:32.432 --> 00:46:33.890 align:middle line:84%
in trying to liberate
black people.

00:46:33.890 --> 00:46:36.120 align:middle line:84%
I don\'t believe that
anymore, although I

00:46:36.120 --> 00:46:39.350 align:middle line:84%
do believe culture is a
very important element

00:46:39.350 --> 00:46:42.070 align:middle line:90%
in the liberation struggle.

00:46:42.070 --> 00:46:44.430 align:middle line:84%
We got convinced-- at
least, you know, I did,

00:46:44.430 --> 00:46:47.010 align:middle line:84%
and the leadership at
CAT-- we were convinced

00:46:47.010 --> 00:46:49.890 align:middle line:84%
that the old culture
nationalist view

00:46:49.890 --> 00:46:54.530 align:middle line:84%
that we had been espousing,
that that was really bankrupt.

00:46:54.530 --> 00:46:56.730 align:middle line:84%
We had seen that in
our organizing day

00:46:56.730 --> 00:47:01.950 align:middle line:84%
to day that a nationalist
approach was no solution,

00:47:01.950 --> 00:47:04.890 align:middle line:84%
that finally we had elected a
whole string of black people

00:47:04.890 --> 00:47:06.050 align:middle line:90%
in Newark.

00:47:06.050 --> 00:47:10.610 align:middle line:84%
But they began to teach
us by their actions

00:47:10.610 --> 00:47:13.530 align:middle line:84%
about class and class
analysis and class struggle.

00:47:13.530 --> 00:47:16.740 align:middle line:84%
We saw a handful of
middle class Negroes

00:47:16.740 --> 00:47:18.580 align:middle line:84%
divorce themselves
from the masses.

00:47:18.580 --> 00:47:20.830 align:middle line:84%
And these are people
who we had struggled

00:47:20.830 --> 00:47:23.960 align:middle line:84%
to elect with our own
blood and our own resources

00:47:23.960 --> 00:47:25.880 align:middle line:90%
and our own time.

00:47:25.880 --> 00:47:29.226 align:middle line:90%
You see, it\'s about-- I wonder.

00:47:29.226 --> 00:47:31.100 align:middle line:84%
Should I say this with
so many children here?

00:47:31.100 --> 00:47:33.510 align:middle line:84%
I wonder, should I speak
of monstrous practices

00:47:33.510 --> 00:47:37.449 align:middle line:84%
so primitive and disgusting
the mind freezes and shakes,

00:47:37.449 --> 00:47:39.240 align:middle line:84%
frightened one day of
its witches and caves

00:47:39.240 --> 00:47:40.980 align:middle line:84%
and [INAUDIBLE] ghosts
and inquisitions

00:47:40.980 --> 00:47:43.850 align:middle line:84%
and professors of economy
mumbling over rattle

00:47:43.850 --> 00:47:45.587 align:middle line:90%
made of human fingers and hair?

00:47:45.587 --> 00:47:46.420 align:middle line:90%
Yes, yes, that\'s it.

00:47:46.420 --> 00:47:49.660 align:middle line:90%
It\'s about money.

00:47:49.660 --> 00:47:53.000 align:middle line:90%

00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:56.640 align:middle line:90%
It\'s about money.

00:47:56.640 --> 00:48:05.550 align:middle line:84%
Money, money, the
Frankenstein creatures sewn

00:48:05.550 --> 00:48:07.050 align:middle line:90%
from various dead things.

00:48:07.050 --> 00:48:10.430 align:middle line:90%

00:48:10.430 --> 00:48:15.040 align:middle line:90%
They will murder for money.

00:48:15.040 --> 00:48:18.480 align:middle line:84%
Their souls, hearts and love--
the only thing they love

00:48:18.480 --> 00:48:20.200 align:middle line:90%
is money.

00:48:20.200 --> 00:48:23.620 align:middle line:90%

00:48:23.620 --> 00:48:25.860 align:middle line:84%
They will do anything
in the prison

00:48:25.860 --> 00:48:27.856 align:middle line:90%
they have made of the world.

00:48:27.856 --> 00:48:30.662 align:middle line:90%

00:48:30.662 --> 00:48:33.070 align:middle line:90%
CIA agent Baraka exposed.

00:48:33.070 --> 00:48:37.090 align:middle line:84%
That was one of the main
methods of the CIA and the FBI

00:48:37.090 --> 00:48:40.880 align:middle line:84%
to separate the leadership
of the radical groups

00:48:40.880 --> 00:48:43.600 align:middle line:84%
or the groups wanting
social change.

00:48:43.600 --> 00:48:46.161 align:middle line:84%
Papa Doc Baraka--
fascism in Newark,

00:48:46.161 --> 00:48:47.660 align:middle line:84%
National Caucus of
Labor Committees.

00:48:47.660 --> 00:48:50.400 align:middle line:84%
Those are the same guys you
see in the airports now trying

00:48:50.400 --> 00:48:53.680 align:middle line:84%
to peddle feed Jane
Fonda to the whales.

00:48:53.680 --> 00:48:56.620 align:middle line:84%
The Fusion Party, it\'s the
same group-- Lyndon LaRouche.

00:48:56.620 --> 00:48:58.130 align:middle line:90%
And they were behind this.

00:48:58.130 --> 00:49:01.080 align:middle line:84%
And this is obvious--
this is directly

00:49:01.080 --> 00:49:08.090 align:middle line:84%
some kind of a government
counter-- COINTELPRO shot,

00:49:08.090 --> 00:49:08.962 align:middle line:90%
apparently.

00:49:08.962 --> 00:49:13.140 align:middle line:84%
And they put out this pamphlet,
\"Papa Doc Baraka-- Fascism

00:49:13.140 --> 00:49:15.530 align:middle line:90%
in Newark.\"

00:49:15.530 --> 00:49:19.700 align:middle line:84%
And of course they were feeding
on Roi\'s anger in a sense.

00:49:19.700 --> 00:49:21.870 align:middle line:84%
This is like almost, in
a sense, a karmic result

00:49:21.870 --> 00:49:26.380 align:middle line:84%
of Roi\'s own blind anger in
a way in a sort of a mirror--

00:49:26.380 --> 00:49:28.650 align:middle line:84%
not a mirror, not
this hyena-like thing.

00:49:28.650 --> 00:49:30.600 align:middle line:84%
But there\'s a--
in a way, he might

00:49:30.600 --> 00:49:32.100 align:middle line:84%
have let himself
open to it by being

00:49:32.100 --> 00:49:40.780 align:middle line:84%
so obsessed with the
ideological insistence

00:49:40.780 --> 00:49:43.053 align:middle line:84%
that blacks and whites
couldn\'t work together

00:49:43.053 --> 00:49:45.694 align:middle line:84%
or that there must be
some kind of purity

00:49:45.694 --> 00:49:47.110 align:middle line:84%
that you have to
live up to, which

00:49:47.110 --> 00:49:48.725 align:middle line:90%
is a slightly macho concept.

00:49:48.725 --> 00:49:50.850 align:middle line:84%
Because he felt that he
had to be strong because he

00:49:50.850 --> 00:49:54.936 align:middle line:84%
was being pushed by history
and by friends and by the FBI.

00:49:54.936 --> 00:50:06.850 align:middle line:90%

00:50:06.850 --> 00:50:09.450 align:middle line:84%
And so this is a message
to the folks in charge

00:50:09.450 --> 00:50:10.950 align:middle line:90%
of moving to the right.

00:50:10.950 --> 00:50:13.480 align:middle line:84%
It\'s called \"Poem for
the US Bourgeoisie

00:50:13.480 --> 00:50:14.918 align:middle line:90%
and Their Running Dogs.\"

00:50:14.918 --> 00:50:18.145 align:middle line:90%
It\'s a very specific, you know.

00:50:18.145 --> 00:50:22.025 align:middle line:90%

00:50:22.025 --> 00:50:23.290 align:middle line:90%
You know, bourgeoisie run it.

00:50:23.290 --> 00:50:25.081 align:middle line:84%
The running dogs say
what the bourgeoisie--

00:50:25.081 --> 00:50:27.390 align:middle line:84%
you know, somebody
pulling at your pants

00:50:27.390 --> 00:50:30.090 align:middle line:84%
telling you a lot of lies
is usually a running dog.

00:50:30.090 --> 00:50:32.320 align:middle line:84%
You know, just kick
him and keep going.

00:50:32.320 --> 00:50:36.630 align:middle line:90%

00:50:36.630 --> 00:50:43.080 align:middle line:84%
No, no gas chambers, not
even no concentration camps.

00:50:43.080 --> 00:50:47.200 align:middle line:84%
No, none of that horrible, ugly,
holocaust sympathy guilt future

00:50:47.200 --> 00:50:49.970 align:middle line:90%
TV tears bullshit.

00:50:49.970 --> 00:50:52.730 align:middle line:84%
Hail to Simon Wiesenthal,
the Nazi hunter.

00:50:52.730 --> 00:50:54.250 align:middle line:90%
Hunt him down forever.

00:50:54.250 --> 00:50:57.590 align:middle line:84%
Kill their shadows,
stomp out they odor.

00:50:57.590 --> 00:51:02.530 align:middle line:84%
No ovens-- no bowed, frozen
cringing-- no chattering teeth,

00:51:02.530 --> 00:51:04.020 align:middle line:90%
dull-eyed, cold deaths.

00:51:04.020 --> 00:51:05.540 align:middle line:84%
If death comes to
some one of us,

00:51:05.540 --> 00:51:08.340 align:middle line:84%
it will be hot death,
death on the fly--

00:51:08.340 --> 00:51:11.040 align:middle line:90%
wild, crazy, war death.

00:51:11.040 --> 00:51:14.580 align:middle line:84%
No silent lineup shuffle
in a blanket death.

00:51:14.580 --> 00:51:16.040 align:middle line:90%
No jail death.

00:51:16.040 --> 00:51:17.340 align:middle line:90%
No poor death.

00:51:17.340 --> 00:51:19.970 align:middle line:84%
No bare feet death
from shiny boots.

00:51:19.970 --> 00:51:23.200 align:middle line:84%
Not predetermined
carbon paper death.

00:51:23.200 --> 00:51:25.380 align:middle line:90%
Our deaths will be in struggle.

00:51:25.380 --> 00:51:28.436 align:middle line:90%
And even then, we\'ll win.

00:51:28.436 --> 00:51:30.560 align:middle line:84%
You want to wear leather
trench coats and brokedown

00:51:30.560 --> 00:51:31.671 align:middle line:90%
hats with vampire eagles?

00:51:31.671 --> 00:51:34.170 align:middle line:84%
Wear them in your coffin if
some fool can find enough of you

00:51:34.170 --> 00:51:35.090 align:middle line:90%
to bury.

00:51:35.090 --> 00:51:36.806 align:middle line:84%
You like big rallies
where you slobber

00:51:36.806 --> 00:51:38.180 align:middle line:84%
at the mouth and
foam at the eyes

00:51:38.180 --> 00:51:39.471 align:middle line:90%
and talk about killing niggers?

00:51:39.471 --> 00:51:41.860 align:middle line:84%
You ain\'t having them
except in monster heaven,

00:51:41.860 --> 00:51:45.510 align:middle line:84%
the great big concentration
camp in the sky.

00:51:45.510 --> 00:51:48.360 align:middle line:84%
Today, Vernon Mason
and Conrad Lynn,

00:51:48.360 --> 00:51:50.510 align:middle line:84%
and I appeared before
Judge Rothwax who

00:51:50.510 --> 00:51:54.340 align:middle line:84%
had granted the original
stay last June 16,

00:51:54.340 --> 00:51:57.520 align:middle line:84%
which would have expired
today, October 16.

00:51:57.520 --> 00:51:59.330 align:middle line:84%
He extended the stay
with the consent

00:51:59.330 --> 00:52:03.030 align:middle line:84%
of the district attorney
until at least December 8.

00:52:03.030 --> 00:52:06.490 align:middle line:84%
We have meanwhile filed
all of Amiri\'s appellate

00:52:06.490 --> 00:52:10.150 align:middle line:84%
with the appellate turn on the
excessiveness of his sentence

00:52:10.150 --> 00:52:11.960 align:middle line:90%
and unconstitutionality of it.

00:52:11.960 --> 00:52:15.080 align:middle line:84%
And that appeal will be heard
sometime within the next two

00:52:15.080 --> 00:52:15.760 align:middle line:90%
or three months.

00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:18.900 align:middle line:84%
If it isn\'t heard by
December 8, Judge Rothwax

00:52:18.900 --> 00:52:20.682 align:middle line:90%
will grant a further stay.

00:52:20.682 --> 00:52:22.700 align:middle line:90%
And I won\'t be at the trial.

00:52:22.700 --> 00:52:25.670 align:middle line:84%
I can\'t-- that\'s one place
I never followed and I

00:52:25.670 --> 00:52:28.120 align:middle line:90%
couldn\'t take it.

00:52:28.120 --> 00:52:30.080 align:middle line:90%
So I didn\'t go.

00:52:30.080 --> 00:52:32.530 align:middle line:84%
But it doesn\'t keep me
from worrying about it.

00:52:32.530 --> 00:52:36.930 align:middle line:90%

00:52:36.930 --> 00:52:39.820 align:middle line:84%
I just can\'t see why
they would put him

00:52:39.820 --> 00:52:41.700 align:middle line:84%
in a place like Rikers
Island when they\'re

00:52:41.700 --> 00:52:46.750 align:middle line:84%
overcrowded as it is and
they\'re letting people

00:52:46.750 --> 00:52:51.740 align:middle line:84%
who\'ve done crime, actual crime,
out of prison over in Jersey.

00:52:51.740 --> 00:52:54.342 align:middle line:84%
I suppose it\'s the
same way all over.

00:52:54.342 --> 00:52:57.250 align:middle line:84%
And why they want
to incarcerate him--

00:52:57.250 --> 00:53:01.070 align:middle line:84%
I know why, but I mean,
it\'s just not fair.

00:53:01.070 --> 00:53:02.100 align:middle line:90%
Not fair.

00:53:02.100 --> 00:53:04.920 align:middle line:84%
Well, I hope-- I
hope if they do,

00:53:04.920 --> 00:53:08.635 align:middle line:84%
it he has to serve the time,
I hope when he goes away,

00:53:08.635 --> 00:53:10.890 align:middle line:90%
he organizes the whole prison.

00:53:10.890 --> 00:53:13.440 align:middle line:84%
And I have a feeling
that he will, see.

00:53:13.440 --> 00:53:16.740 align:middle line:84%
Because he was up at
this place up here

00:53:16.740 --> 00:53:19.750 align:middle line:84%
in Ceder Grove for a day
or two days or something.

00:53:19.750 --> 00:53:23.230 align:middle line:84%
And he\'d actually
organized them up there.

00:53:23.230 --> 00:53:25.310 align:middle line:90%
So I hope he organizes them.

00:53:25.310 --> 00:53:26.660 align:middle line:90%
I hope not.

00:53:26.660 --> 00:53:29.276 align:middle line:84%
I hope he organizes
them and probably riots.

00:53:29.276 --> 00:53:31.710 align:middle line:90%
That would be all they want.

00:53:31.710 --> 00:53:33.860 align:middle line:90%
I would not like to see that.

00:53:33.860 --> 00:53:34.800 align:middle line:90%
No, well--

00:53:34.800 --> 00:53:36.260 align:middle line:84%
I would like to
see him, if he has

00:53:36.260 --> 00:53:40.120 align:middle line:84%
to do it, to try to stay
in there and stay alive.

00:53:40.120 --> 00:53:43.877 align:middle line:84%
It\'s too many opportunities
for people to do things to him.

00:53:43.877 --> 00:53:45.960 align:middle line:84%
There\'s opportunities he\'s
out here in the street.

00:53:45.960 --> 00:53:48.770 align:middle line:84%
But in the prison, you don\'t
know what they\'re going to do.

00:53:48.770 --> 00:53:53.025 align:middle line:84%
And then once he starts
that organizing and whatnot,

00:53:53.025 --> 00:53:54.900 align:middle line:84%
if they don\'t want him
to fuss with his wife,

00:53:54.900 --> 00:53:59.685 align:middle line:84%
you know they don\'t want
him to organize people.

00:53:59.685 --> 00:54:03.550 align:middle line:84%
So I just-- I just don\'t--
try not to think about it,

00:54:03.550 --> 00:54:04.550 align:middle line:90%
that\'s all.

00:54:04.550 --> 00:54:11.320 align:middle line:90%

00:54:11.320 --> 00:54:13.560 align:middle line:90%
Thank you, Thank you very much.

00:54:13.560 --> 00:54:14.593 align:middle line:90%
Thank you very much.

00:54:14.593 --> 00:54:17.330 align:middle line:90%

00:54:17.330 --> 00:54:20.770 align:middle line:84%
They said today that they
were going to put it off

00:54:20.770 --> 00:54:22.110 align:middle line:90%
until December 17.

00:54:22.110 --> 00:54:24.517 align:middle line:84%
I mean, we\'ve been coming
here almost 30 months.

00:54:24.517 --> 00:54:26.600 align:middle line:84%
And now they\'re going to
put it up to December 17.

00:54:26.600 --> 00:54:28.725 align:middle line:84%
They say they\'re going to
put it off to December 17

00:54:28.725 --> 00:54:32.180 align:middle line:84%
to decide whether I can do
the sentence on weekends

00:54:32.180 --> 00:54:32.914 align:middle line:90%
like criminals.

00:54:32.914 --> 00:54:34.580 align:middle line:84%
You know, most of the
big time criminals

00:54:34.580 --> 00:54:36.288 align:middle line:84%
get to do their
sentences on the weekends

00:54:36.288 --> 00:54:38.740 align:middle line:84%
so they can watch the
football games, right?

00:54:38.740 --> 00:54:41.560 align:middle line:84%
So now they\'re going to
give me some of the rights

00:54:41.560 --> 00:54:43.861 align:middle line:84%
that big time criminals
get, you know what I mean?

00:54:43.861 --> 00:54:45.610 align:middle line:84%
Since I\'m not actually
in organized crime,

00:54:45.610 --> 00:54:47.964 align:middle line:84%
I can\'t get all the rights
the big time criminals get.

00:54:47.964 --> 00:54:49.130 align:middle line:90%
But I can get a few of them.

00:54:49.130 --> 00:54:50.840 align:middle line:84%
So they\'re going
to make believe--

00:54:50.840 --> 00:54:53.385 align:middle line:84%
they\'re going to consider
whether I should do

00:54:53.385 --> 00:54:55.600 align:middle line:90%
the time on weekends and not.

00:54:55.600 --> 00:54:57.960 align:middle line:84%
And he\'s going to
come back December 17.

00:54:57.960 --> 00:55:00.282 align:middle line:84%
But I think it\'s
important for people

00:55:00.282 --> 00:55:02.240 align:middle line:84%
to realize that the only
reason that happened--

00:55:02.240 --> 00:55:06.650 align:middle line:84%
don\'t think that this shows the
benevolent justice of America.

00:55:06.650 --> 00:55:09.380 align:middle line:84%
The only thing this shows
is that if you organize,

00:55:09.380 --> 00:55:11.210 align:middle line:84%
you can make them
back up off you.

00:55:11.210 --> 00:55:14.000 align:middle line:84%
And if you don\'t organize,
they will crush you.

00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:17.380 align:middle line:84%
So I hope-- I hope all of you
will be back here December 17

00:55:17.380 --> 00:55:18.890 align:middle line:84%
and showed them
that the people are

00:55:18.890 --> 00:55:21.150 align:middle line:84%
more than a match
for these people--

00:55:21.150 --> 00:55:24.000 align:middle line:84%
that finally, we will beat these
people-- that we will put them

00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:27.210 align:middle line:84%
on trial one day and we will see
what the people\'s justice is.

00:55:27.210 --> 00:55:29.800 align:middle line:90%
Thank you very much.

00:55:29.800 --> 00:58:09.434 align:middle line:90%

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