GO SEE: The Black Panther - Opening Today!

Beloveds~ 

 

Lately, I have often wondered, when people would realize that the societal attitudes, conditions, events and institutional policies we are alarmed by today, are exactly the same conditions which led to the creation of the valiant Black Panther Party back in October 1966.

Yes today, October 2, 2015 America presents us, with nothing but the same.

You will find some arguing that race relations in America have changed or improved. But if this is so, why has there been the need to form an organization called Black Lives Matter? If this is so, why has Atlantic Magazine journalist Ta-Nehishi Coates, whose new book echos the words and intelligence of James Baldwin's writing, just been honored with a $625,000 MacArthur Fellowship for his writing. These awards are often called the MacArthur "Genius Grants". His award is for, "interpreting complex and challenging issues around race and racism through the lens of personal experience and nuanced historical analysis." 

Personally I think we're in a period where wholesome consciousness in America is regressing. This unending strife about RACE is the outstanding example. The cumulative actions, policies and statements of society express the bankruptcy of the collective consciousness. We are choosing to hold tight to old ideas and ways, that are symbolic of a lesser understanding of human potential. We are again, in opposition to nature, and thus stagnating evolution. That we choose not to grow and expand our understanding of life and nature only creates great problems for humanity and the well being of  planet.

 

It was these same conditions in October 1966 which led the young Black men and women of the small city of Oakland, California to declare that since no one was responding, or seemed to care about the freedom with which the local police force wantonly took lives and indiscriminately murdered and brutalized Black people in their own communities, they themselves would stand up and do something. What they did was form the Black Panther Party of Self-Defense.

Out of Oakland, California, a movement spread across the nation. The calling together of the sons and daughters raised by their parents to know that they were entitled to a life of full engagement in the rights of American citizenship was electric. For just like a message the rhythms of the drum had spelled out in Africa centuries earlier, this message was picked up by the progressive element in America's Black communities, and connected extraordinary hearts and minds. 

 

The Black lives responding to that call brought an embodied unity of qualities which was awesome: intelligence, creativity, courage, knowledge, experience and passion for a noble cause. A platform of principals known as the Ten Point Program clarified and unified what we all held in our hearts. It spoke to America's basic principals and made specific the Constitutional rights America was negligent in providing to Black and oppressed communities. It also reflected what we knew as the best of our own Black cultural experience. So the principals were fed through the arm and out of the hand our own cultural mores. 

 

That is why self-defense was our first priority. But we immediately identified other issues and attacked what we realized was needed and loved by our people. The Free Breakfast Program providing food for children to start their school day set the example for this nation's program which followed later. The Community Free Health Centers also established an example for free and low cost health centers that today permeate this country. The Black Panther Party was the first to create these institutions. But unlike the government's version, we offered our programs with love, warmth, attention to good service and respect for the recipient.

I did say extraordinary people made up the membership of the Party didn't I? Well Ta-Nehisi Coates the 2015 MacArthur Award winner who I mentioned earlier, is the son of Paul Coates, a former Baltimore Black Panther. Paul Coates is also the owner of Black Classic Press, one of the oldest Black owned publishing houses in the United States. Here is a wonderful short interview with Mr Coates, that speaks to that creativity and intelligence that characterized the consciousness in Black Panther Party members.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3pG_IGaBS4

Would you believe that I started this message just to say~

GO SEE THE MOVIE, THE BLACK PANTHER, which opens today? 

I'm laughing at myself. Yes I was a Los Angeles Black Panther. I wrote for the newspaper, The Black Panther Speaks. I was brought into the movement as a student at UCLA. Time, place, interest and attraction put me on a course to be one of the last people to see the two dynamic L A Panther leaders alive, as they walked to their ambush in a UCLA classroom. 

After the death of John Jerome Huggins and Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter, I had to learn what was so important that led to the deaths of these two very different, and exceptional young men. They were each leaders in their respective worlds ~John a product of the East Coast's most prestigious academic schools, and his partner Bunchy, the leader of the Slausons, one of L A's most feared street gangs ~ but united under the Panther organization. The great loss of the potential in their young powerful lives still cannot be measured.

And me....?

Well, I've never been the same..........

Go see the film.

All Power to the People!

Lovu,

Kendke

 

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
Message from the filmmaker
by Stanley Nelson

I was 15 years old in 1966 when the Black Panthers were formed. The Panthers were talking about problems that had to do with our lives in the North, and as a New Yorker I was naturally attracted to them. Their look, their language, their boldness—it spoke to me.
At 20, I went to see The Murder of Fred Hampton, a documentary about the Chicago Police murder of a Panther leader. The film gave me even more insight into the Panthers, but it also made me look at the power of film to move audiences. It lit a fire inside of me to make films, and I’ve been on this path ever since.
Seven years ago, I finally set out to tell the story that had been in my mind all of those years. No one had documented the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party, and I wanted to shed light on a history that had never been told in its entirety. There is so much we think we know about the Party, but I wanted to go beyond the oversimplified narrative of the Panthers as prone to violence and consumed with anger, and explore why hundreds of young people joined, what they accomplished, and why it fell apart.
I also wanted to lift up the voices of rank and file members. We often hear about the leadership, but not unlike the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement, the rank and file Party members were the lifeblood of the organization. They delivered Party newspapers, tested people for sickle cell anemia, registered voters, and fed thousands of children through their Free Breakfast programs. These were people in their teens and twenties who demonstrated an enormous amount of courage, discipline and organization. And despite their missteps and the FBI’s campaign to bring them down, what was so clear to me was that their motivation came from their undying love for their community.
Now, almost 50 years after the founding of the Panthers, we find ourselves at the start of a new movement for justice and equality led, yet again, by young people. We didn’t set out to make a film that was about today, but as we began shooting, it became painfully clear that so many things the Panthers were fighting for were things that are still issues today. From police brutality, substandard schools and substandard housing, to disenchantment with the political system.
I hope that young people come to see the film and reflect on the Black Panther Party, and consider the similarities—and differences—between what the Panthers tried to build, and the new movement that is taking shape today. I hope this history inspires young people, who may see their own desire for change reflected in the story of the Black Panther Party.
Ultimately, I wanted to bring this vibrant chapter in American history to life so that we can all understand it, learn from it, and make better decisions—personally and collectively.