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PEOPLE'S FREE CLINIC DEMANDS REBUTTAL FOR SICKLE CELL SLUR

(Berkeley, Calif.) - In a press release distributed Friday, October 31, the People's Free Health Clinic has demanded rebuttal time from KPIX-TV, Channel 5, in San Francisco for the station's vicious attack on the credibility of the Clinic's solicitation and testing program for Sickle Cell Anemia.

The Sickle Cell Anemia program of the People's Free Medical Clinic is sponsored by the Son of Man Temple, a community-based church in East Oakland. Soliciting for the program is done by unpaid volunteers who contribute their time in an effort to fight Sickle Cell Anemia, a deadly blood disease primarily affecting Black Americans.

The People's Free Medical Clinic -- which provides numerous other health services free of charge to the community -- has since 1969 tested over 45,000 Bay Area residents for Sickle Cell Anemia and through affiliated Clinics over 500,000 people nationwide.

Explaining the Clinic's Sickle Cell Anemia program, Clinic Director Henry Smith said:

"Our program is run primarily (80 per cent) on contributions from the public. These contributions are used for testing and research, not administrative salaries. Due to public's understanding of the deadliness of Sickle Cell Anemia and the vital role of the Clinic in testing and researching this disease -- for which medical science has not yet found a cure -- we have achieved a significant level of success in fund raising for Sickle Cell Anemia."

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"KPIX-TV's unwarranted public slander against our program and its volunteers will adversely affect these much needed contributions." Mr. Smith said.

Presently, two Clinic volunteers have cases pending in San Francisco on charges of soliciting without a license. These cases will be the basis of the Clinic's challenge of San Francisco solicitation laws as being un-Constitutionally "vague." Since January, 1975. 10 of the Clinic's volunteers have been arrested for soliciting only to have their charges dropped or modified. Commenting on these cases. Mr. Smith said:

"The Clinic believes these charges have been dropped or modified because of the San Francisco Police Department's unwillingness to have this unjust law challenged in court." He added, "We feel all 10 of these arrests represent harassment of our volunteers."

Just one year ago when a similar San Francisco Police Department inspired attack was made on the Clinic's Sickle Cell Anemia program, such prestigious and notable persons as Congressman Ron Dellums, Alameda County Supervisor Tom Bates, Bay Area Urban League Executive Director Percy Steele and recent Oakland City Council candidate Elaine Brown gave their unqualified support of the program at a press conference held at the Clinic's spacious facility here.

"The publicity of that support sucessfully substantiated in the public's mind the value of the Clinic's work in preventative medicine in general and Sickle Cell Anemia research and testing in particular. It is a shame that such a valuable program has again been so viciously attacked," Mr. Smith said.

For further information or for donations, the public is urged to contact: Henry Smith at the People's Free Medical Clinic, 3236 Adeline St., Berkeley, California 94703 or call (415) 653-2534.

Fight Sickle Cell
Anemia

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EDITORIAL: FORD'S SHAKE-UP

The recent Cabinet upheaval in Washington and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller's announced decision not to remain as Ford's vice-presidential running mate in the 1976 Presidential elections increases the danger of fascism at home and war abroad. Although Ford and White House spokespersons insist the changes do not reflect policy differences of any significance, in fact, the changes reflect sharp contradictions within the power structure of this country over foreign and domestic policy.

Rockefeller's press conference performance last week following the announcement of the changes made it clear that this spokes-person and representative of Eastern banking and finance capital interests intends to challenge Ford for the Presidency in 1976. The danger exists that this challenge may very well come in the form of a seizure of power, under the guise of Rockefeller's "liberal Republican" stance.

Ford and his power structure masters are less involved in and therefore less sophisticated about international finance and multinational goals and objectives than the group Rockefeller represents and is a part of. U.S. monopoly capitalism has suffered severe defeats around the world, most notably its forced expulsion from Southeast Asia, its failure to halt the advance of African liberation movements and socialist-oriented democracies in Africa, Western hemisphere rejection of the U.S.- sponsored anti-Cuba policy and the growing isolation of the U.S. within the United Nations.

Rockefeller's power structure forces are concerned about these reverses. They are the real war hawks, incensed over the policy that prevented the military from using its maximum capability to blow Vietnam out of the sea, as a means of intimidating Third World resistance to monopoly capitalism's demands.

The Ford changes will temporarily undermine the ability of the war hawks of monopoly capitalism to move toward war in Africa and the Third World while making domestic concessions at home in order to win support of such a war. Stunned, the warhawks are regrouping, preparing to seize power in this country if they deem it necessary for their survival and the realization of their dream of world control.

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Letters to the Editor

"HARLEM VOICES-FACES" PRAISED

Dear Editor.

I would like to comment briefly on the highly controversial film "Harlem Voices -- Faces" being shown here on our educational station.

I found myself coming to the same conclusion after seeing the film for the second time.

Although it was slanted -- and in need of a positive image -- I believe its intent was to show the raw, naked truth of an aspect of Harlem.

I agreed in part with all of the panelists but, finding myself more in accord with Hilton Clark. I believe he too intimated that the film should be shown.

I spent the night with Clayton Riley on Radio WBAI and believe people will ask the question -- "Is this a condition existing in the United States?"

I think it should be seen and seen and seen as it will not affect the opinion of those people who want it to exist. It won't be deleterious. I would like to see it shown in Europe. Thinking positive -- people will care once the film is exposed.

Love,
Yours in Struggle,
Ms. Deirdre Kelly
Flushing. N.Y.

FALSE RAPE CHARGE

All Power to the People.

I hope that things are going on in the Black Panther Party…

Another reason why I'm writing you is for some legal advice on my case. I know that if it was not for the power of the people, a lot of Blacks would have been railroaded to the pen, and without this power, this will happen to me. I think that my case is a common one and has been happening for a long time.

It was like this: I was on my way home and had just got my clothes out of the cleaners by the name of Up To Date on Gray Street. I met a woman by the name of Brenda. We said a few words to each other and she said she did not have a phone number. But she did give me her address. Late Saturday, about 11:00 p.m. I went to her house. A friend of mine went with me by the name of Joe Ramos. I knocked on the door and Brenda came to the door. She said she did not have any clothes on, so she left and came back and opened the door and let me and my friend in.

We sat down and talked and had a few beers. About an hour later my friend left. Then we talked for awhile and then we had sex. When we got through, we talked some more, then she asked me did I want to stay the night. I said OK, but I wanted to go home and change clothes and come back and take a bath. She asked me did I have a car but I did not have a car. Then she said she had a car and she could take me home. So we put on the light and put our clothes on.

As she got her pocketbook that was in the other room, she said she was missing some money. I thought maybe my friend had got it so I told her I would see if he did when we got to my house. So she said OK. So we walked down the stairs and she said she needed some gas money and had a friend across the street. She gave me her car keys and went across the street. She asked me to wait.

After about 15 minutes a man came out of the house and said that she had been raped. He said that Brenda was his sister. He had a gun and told me to lay down or he would kill me. I tried to explain to him what had happened but he did not understand and held me there until the police came.

When the police came I told them what had happened and they told me I had no business in the bed with a White girl anyway. So, you can see what I'm into. The police said that the door was broken into but I was the last one to come out of the house and the door was not broken.

I have been charged with aggravated rape and burglary. I know that they will railroad me if I don't get some help from someone who can help.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Willie Jones
Humble, Texas

MORE LETTERS ON PAGE 25

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COMMENT: Homage To China

By Caroline Service

In the following comment, Mrs. Caroline Service, who lived in the People's Republic of China from 1933 to 1940 with her husband, John Stewart Service -- a former leading State Department expert on People's China -- and recently returned after a three-month visit pays tribute to the phenomenal advancement the country has made in food production over the last 25 years. The article is reprinted from The New York Times.

(Berkeley, Calif.) -- It is a truism to say that without food nothing else is possible. My husband and I spent April, May and June in China. In May, as we traveled from Peking to the banks of the Mekong River in far southwestern Yunnan province, my thoughts about China centered on food growing.

We traveled by plane, boat, and minibus; but the greater part of our trip was by train -- first from Peking to Hankow, and later from Kunming to Changsha, a long circuitous route through the little-seen (by foreigners) provinces of Yunnan, Kweichow and Kwangsi.

From the train windows we could see endless cultivated fields mixed with terraced hills, uncultivated mountainsides and, occasionally, poor land with sparse crops.

In the north the winter wheat was standing green in the fields, just beginning to ripen; in central China it was ready for harvesting or was already in; and in the southwest a second crop of rice was being transplanted.

One day, looking from the train window at the people working in the fields, I said to our woman companion: "We are all riding on the backs of the food growers." As I said this, many things about China fell into place in my Western mind.

Without the mighty effort that has been made to be self-sufficient in food, the Chinese could not have made their enormous forward strides in other fields.

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This self-sufficiency has been achieved by devoted, persistent, and determined effort -- not only in the cultivation of food itself, but in the building of vast irrigation and flood-control pro- jects, and in the manufacture of' chemical fertilizers.

Mechanization is taking place all over China. There is no unemployment and the Chinese hope to keep it that way. How increased mechanization and full employment will be integrated with each other in the future is still a question for the future. Today nearly all the young people from the cities go down to the countryside when they graduate from middle school.

These young people stay in the country, usually not far from their own homes, for a few years, and then most of them return to the cities to jobs in factories, offices or government. Some go into the army, and a few go on to university. Other young people replace them in the countryside.

The vast bulk of the food raised in the United States is done by four or five per cent of the population, not 80 or 85 per cent as in China. There is no general consciousness in the United States, except when wheat is sold to the Soviet Union, of the absolute, overriding importance of food production.

WINTER WHEAT

In China it is impossible to be unaware of this importance. By the time we returned to Peking in early June the winter wheat was just on the point of being harvested. Everyone, the foreigners as well as the Chinese, talked of the harvest. To me, brought up in cities, this was a new and exciting experience.

Secondary schools dismissed their classes in rotation so that students could go to the nearby countryside to help with the harvest. The doctor who was treating my back at the hospital told me one day not to come the next day as he would be in the country "helping with the harvest."

I never met anyone in China in the 1930s who had any idea that China could advance from medieval misery to a modern state in the short space of 25 years.

But it has moved into the world of today by the heroic and selfless labors of its own people. I would think that a nation such as ours. which prides itself on its own work ethic, would understand China's great achievement and wish it well.

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OPEN TO THE COMMUNITY: B.P.P. Political Education Sessions To Begin Sunday, Nov. 16

(Oakland, Calif.) -- On Sunday, November 16, THE BLACK PANTHER Intercommunal News Service begins regular, twice monthly Community Political Education Sessions open to everyone. The Sessions will deal with local, national and world issues affecting the Black, Third World and oppressed communities of the world.

"The Black Panther Party and The Community is the topic of the initial Community Political Education Session. The community is invited to attend the 2:00 p.m. session which will be devoted to answering any and all questions about the Black Panther Party's practice in the struggle for liberation.

The sessions will be held every first and third Sundays of each month at the Central Head-quarters of the Black Panther Party at 8507 East 14th Street, on the corner of East 14th Street and 85th Avenue in East Oakland.

The decision to launch the open, community sessions was made in response to many requests from the community for an opportunity to be exposed to Black Panther Party positions on issues, to discuss those positions and increase political awareness and consciousness within the community.

Some of the scheduled topics for the Sunday afternoon Sessions are: "Survival and Liberation,"

"The Black Panther Party and the Church," "The CIA and the Black Community," "Electoral Strategy in the Black Community," "Quality Education for Our Children," "Crime and the

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Oppressed Community," "Our Unemployed Teenagers," "Black Workers and Liberation," "Africa and the Third World," "The Liberation Movements of Africa," etc.

Black Panther Party members will conduct the Sessions. Community activists will be invited from time to time to participate. Films, slides and other visual aids will be used and participants will be urged to read and study THE BLACK PANTHER newspaper.

The practice of regular community political education sessions is not new for the Black Panther Party. In the past, Chapters around the country have very successfully involved wide sections of the community in political discussions and education in similar such sessions.

THE BLACK PANTHER urges everyone in the area to note on your calendars and schedules, Sunday, November 16, and after that, every first and third Sunday of the month, at 2:00 p.m., at the B.P.P. Headquarters on East 14th Street and 85th Avenue. That will be where it's happening.

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GEORGE JACKSON MURDER RULED ADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE AT S.Q. 6 TRIAL

(San Rafael, Calif.) -- In a significant reversal, San Quentin 6 trial judge Henry Broderick last week ruled to allow defense attorneys to introduce evidence in court that prison officials engaged in a vast and long-standing conspiracy to assassinate Black Panther Party Field Marshal George Jackson.

Until November 4, Broderick, a conservative Ronald Reagan appointee, adamantly refused to permit such evidence, repeatedly exclaiming, "This trial is not an inquest into the death of George Jackson!"

Broderick, however, changed his original ruling following an offer of proof filed November 3 by attorney Joel Kirschenbaum, acting as an investigator for defendant Fleeta Drumgo.

In the carefully prepared, well documented affidavit, Kirschenbaum provided legal precedents to convince Broderick that if he did not allow the defense to show "that a San Quentin correctional officer shot and killed Jackson while he was lying wounded and defenseless on the ground," it would so bias the trial as to invalidate any jury verdict.

The offer of proof which Broderick accepted closely paralleled the brilliant opening statement by famed people's attorney Charles R. Garry, who asserted that the murder of George Jackson, plus the inhuman conditions within San Quentin's tin's notorious Adjustment Center, were the true underlying causes for the deaths of three prison guards and two White inmates on August 21, 1971.

Garry is defending Brother Johnny Larry Spain, a member of the Black Panther Party, during the tense proceedings here.

Tempers flared again at the trial last week when one of the Six, Luis Talamantez, became angered at the lies of San Quentin guard Theodore Zink. Zink, under close cross-examination by Brother Hugo Pinell, the only member of the Six defending himself, testified that he was not a member of a brutal "Anti-Nigger Club," a group of racist, sadistic San Quentin guards that terrorize the Black prison population.

"LIAR"

"You're a liar," shouted Brother Talamantez, sitting with the other defendants chained and shackled in their courtroom chairs.

Later, Zink denied beating Brother Pinell in the presence of other inmates in the shower room. "I was there," Brother Talamantez yelled out, discrediting Zink's lies. At that point, Judge Broderick, always mindful of saving the prosecution's faltering case, ejected Talamantez from the courtroom.

In other trial news, the finding of the alleged wig said by the state to have been used by George Jackson to smuggle a gun into the AC was closely questioned by several defense attorneys, disclosing several disturbing aspects of the prosecution witnesses' testimony.

San Quentin Sgt. Raymond Klein, in charge of the search conducted in the Adjustment Center between August 22 and

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August 24, 1971, testified to removing a "steel wool-like object" from the toilet of 1AC8 (the cell of Hugo Pinell) on August 24. Klein identified this object as a Black Afro wig worn by Comrade George.

AFRO WIG

Cross-examined by Charles Garry, however, Klein admitted that, "No." he had never seen an Afro wig before and just "assumed" that the object he found was the alleged hair piece in question.

Further, Klein admitted that all the toilets in the first floor of the AC were searched on August 22 and nothing unusual was uncovered. No men were housed in the AC from August 21 to August 24, leaving the state ample time to have planted the incriminating "evidence," a fact Klein could not deny.

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Fallen Comrade

SPURGEON
"JAKE"
WINTERS
Assassinated
November 13, 1969

Comrade Spurgeon "Jake" Winters was murdered on November 13, 1969, at 3:30 in the morning when 100 Chicago policemen opened fire on him and another comrade. Three policemen were killed and seven were wounded in the attack on a deserted building where the two had taken refuge.

"Jake" Winters worked on the Chicago Black Panther Party Chapter's Free Breakfast Program and the Free Health Clinic and was also a member of the Education Cadre.

While in school, Jake was an honor student. At the time of his murder he was only 19 years old, but he had already made a commitment to be a revolutionist -- and to fight and die for his people. Long Live the Spirit of Spurgeon "Jake" Winters! Long Live the People's Struggle!!

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE

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EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY ENFORCEMENT A SHAM AT OAKLAND POST OFFICE

In Part 4 of this exclusive series of exposes of the discrimination against Black workers in the U.S. Postal Service, the following article gives an up-front description of the strategy of delay and ignore that characterizes enforcement of complaints of job rights bias.

This series has been prepared specially for THE BLACK PANTHER by the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees, the country's oldest Black controlled union, which is daily engaged in a struggle with the Postal Service to gain the right to represent its membership in collective bargaining sessions.

PART 4

The third stage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Enforcement procedure is a hearing before the Civil Service Commission (CSC). After finding no relief at the counseling and investigation stages, the aggrieved person may ask for, and is entitled to, a fair and impartial hearing before a CSC appeals examiner. Basically this fair and impartial hearing takes on the form of a courtroom drama, where the aggrieved is on the one side with his representative, and the Post Office is on the other with its representative.

After all the testimony and evidence and records are in, the appeals examiner is supposed to send the complete complaint file (including the hearing transcripts) with his findings and analysis of the matter which gave rise to the complaint and the general environment out of which it arose, and his recommended decision on the merits of the complaint, to the director of Equal Employment Compliance in Washington, D.C., who will at that time render a decision. Unfortunately, however, many of these decisions are far from being fair and impartial.

In a recent decision, U.S. Circuit Judge J. Skelly Wright (who delivered the opinion of the court), and concurring Judges Harold Leventhal of the U.S. Circuit Court and U.S. Court of Claims Judge Oscar H. Davis, ruling in a racial discrimination case involving a Black man in the Veterans Administration, stated in part that: "The CSC's nonadversarial fact-finding procedures and inherent structural defects …do not guarantee federal employees a full and fair hearing on their claims of employment discrimination."

Judge Wright further stated in his 70-page opinion that:

"These persisting inadequacies at the least present an aura of unfairness and an appearance of conflict of interest which will continue to discourage federal employees from seeking to vindicate their rights before the CSC with any prospect of success."

And it goes on. Once again let us reiterate the position of the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees that there is a definite lack of EEO enforcement at all levels of the program.

The CSC is supposed to oversee the EEO activities of the

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Postal Service. But, at the hearing level there is another trick to the trip. Although the CSC conducts the hearing proceedings, it is still up to the Postal Service as to what the decision will be. Needless to say, the Postal Service isn't going to find itself guilty of any form of discrimination. There is usually nothing fair and impartial about said decisions.

We have had cases where the CSC examiner couldn't help but find the Post Office guilty of discrimination, and when his (examiner) recommended decision reached the director of Equal Employment Compliance, he did a reversal, and said he couldn't see any discrimination. This so-called director is a supposed-to-be Black man by the name of C. H. Featherson, and this particular case involved a Black woman…(We will go into this case in depth later in the series.)

We believe Featherson, like the previously mentioned Freddie Jackson stationed in the San Bruno Western Regional headquarters, to be the classic token Negro, carrying out the racist programs of the so-called "man."

To illustrate this point, the National Alliance handled a case involving a Black man at the Oakland Post Office, who came to pick up his paycheck, and was stopped by a White supervisor, who harassed him and called him a nigger for allegedly walking through his (the supervisor's) work area. After the case had gone through the usual racist inspired drawn out EEO process, the appeals examiner said he couldn't find any grounds for racial discrimination.

NEBULOUS THING

He justified this outrage by stating that racism to him was a nebulous thing that was hard to identify and recognize. He further stated that since no Black employee who had worked under this supervisor ever heard him call or refer to anyone as a "nigger," it was highly unlikely that he would use a racial epithet such as "nigger." Needless to say. Featherson acquiesced with this ridiculous recommendation, and adopted it as the Postal Service's final decision. This is merely one example of the type of work Director Featherson does, but far from the only one.

TO BE CONTINUED

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THIS WEEK IN BLACK HISTORY

November 11, 1831

On November 11, 1831, Nat "The Prophet" Turner was hanged by fearful Whites in the town Jerusalem, the county seat of Southampton County, Virginia. Earlier that year, Nat Turner had lead a famous slave rebellion beginning on Sunday, August 21, which started with 7 Black men armed only with a single broad ax and a burning desire for liberation. The insurrection started at the plantation of Turner's slave master and went from plantation to plantation, enlisting recruits and killing every White man, woman and child in sight. Before the lightning-fast advance of Turner's band could be halted, over 60 Whites were killed. Nat Turner was forced into hiding for two months, during which time terror-stricken Whites throughout the South went into panic, leaving Southampton County in drives. Turner was finally captured and hung on Friday, November 11. At his trial, Nat steadfastly refused to plead guilty, insisting that his cause of freedom was true and just.

November 13, 1839

The Liberty Party, the first anti-slavery political party, was formed on November 13, 1839. Two Black abolitionists, Samuel Ringgold and Henry Highland Garnet, were among the earliest supporters of this new political party.

November 11, 1925

Louis Armstrong recorded the first of his "Hot Five and Hot Seven" recordings on November 11, 1925. The recordings had a great influence on the future direction of jazz.

November 14, 1972

Army Private Billy Dean Smith was acquitted on November 14, 1972, of charges of "fragging" two White officers with a booby trapped handgrenade at an airbase in Vietnam. His case was the first of its kind in this country. However, Smith was given a bad conduct discharge after being judged guilty on charges of assaulting a military policeman.

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National Tenants Convention Sets Positive Goals For Poor Households

(Baltimore, Md.) - The five year old National Tenants Organization (NTO) held a highly successful convention here over the October 1st weekend. Over 1,000 delegates from predominantly Black tenant organizations -- which are affiliate members throughout the country -- attended, surprising even the organizers of the conference who had expected only a three or four hundred delegate turn out.

Speaking at the Baltimore Hilton Hotel, outgoing chairperson Rose Wiley stated enthusiastically that the convention turn out literally breathed new life into the organization, which has been experiencing extreme financial difficulties and proved that the need for a "national organization of tenants" is still very real.

The NTO is comprised of grass roots tenant organizations, many of which were formed in public housing projects around the country. The delegates exhibited the determination, wisdom and commitment that only comes from many years of day to day struggle.

Newly elected national chairperson Jesse Gray emphasized that the organization was seeking out tenants in subsidized and private housing. "The tenant movement," he said, "is growing quickly. Over 1,300 new tenant organizations have been formed in the last few years and NTO has a responsibility to give them direction and assistance."

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As delegates exchanged experiences in combating HUD's tightening "no more money" policies, they were addressed by Maryland Congressman Parren Mitchell. Congressman Mitchell emphasized the fact that the federal government is planning "to go out of the business of public housing for the poor." According to Congressman Mitchell, only a massive fight by Black and poor people, assembling all of their potential allies, will save public housing.

A representative from HUD speaking to the convention was questioned extensively about the federal housing agencies actual intentions: and his offer to give $100.000 to NTO to "insure its survival" was viewed with open suspicion.

Having proved that the tenants movement was strong and growing stronger, and after electing new national and state officers, delegates returned to the life and death struggle for decent housing in their local communities.

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5,000 AT ANN ARBOR TEACH-IN ON REPRESSION IN AMERICA

David G. Du Bois Calls For Nationwide Fight Against Racism

(Ann Arbor, Michigan) -- More than 5,000 students participated in the three-day teachin, "The Bicentennial Dilemma," here at the University of Michigan, November 2, 3 and 4, which heard an impressive list of activist speakers and panelists from around the country, including David G. Du Bois, official spokesperson of the Black Panther Party and Editor-in-Chief of THE BLACK PANTHER Intercommunal News Service.

The teach-in's focus was repression in America, with seven subject headings: Assassinations, Corporate Manipulation, Subversion of the Forces of Dissent, Police Repression, Surveillance and Dataveillance, Mind Control and Looking Towards the Future.

Outstanding speakers and panelists included the activist attorney, William Kunstler, assassination researchers and authors Mark Lane and Donald Freed. American Indian Movement member and representative of the Wounded Knee Legal Offense/Defense Committee Regina Brave Dixon, People's Bicentennial Commission Director Jeremy Rifkin, co-director of the Washington, D.C.-based Fifth Estate, Tim Butz, and many others.

In two presentations before the Teach-In, both of which received standing ovations from the highly spirited audience, David Du Bois spoke on "The Conspiracy Against the Black Liberation Movement" and "Police Repression in Oakland" (California).

In the first, Brother Du Bois emphasized that the prime target of the conspirators in America for the past two decades has been the Black liberation movement, and particularly, since its inception, the Black Panther Party.

Du Bois pointed out that it was the great civil rights movement of the early and mid Sixties that gave rise to the massive anti-Vietnam war movement that contributed to forcing the U.S. military to get out of Vietnam and Southeast Asia. He recalled that it was at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, that the first teach-in against the war in Vietnam launched the nationwide student anti-war movement, and urged the participants to repeat their historic role by making the present teach-in the first of a massive campus and community effort nationwide to expose and defeat the conspirators against people's democracy in America.

At a companion symposium on The Bicentennial Dilemma, held at the Michigan State University in East Lansing at the same time, Brother Du Bois addressed an enthusiastic assembly of MSU students on the subject "Racism, War and Revolution." Other participants in the Ann Arbor teach-in that addressed the MSU symposium were Regina Brave Dixon, Jon Frappeir of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), William Demhoff, University of California, Santa Cruz, professor and author of Higher Circles, Mark Lane and Carl Ogelsby, former president of Students for a Democratic Society and co-director of the Assassination Information Bureau.

The MSU symposium focused on four areas: Police Repression, Multinational Corporations and U.S. Foreign Policy, Assassination and Manipulation and The Invisible Government.

In his address to the MSU symposium, Brother Du Bois developed the thesis that institutional and attitudinal racism in this country is being intensified among the majority population (non-Black) with the objective of rallying that population behind aggressive war against the African continent and people, and that consequently the central struggle today in the ongoing American revolution is the struggle against racism in all its manifestations.

During the weekend Brother Du Bois also spoke to mainly automobile workers in Detroit at the Wayne State University Weekend College. On Saturday,

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November 1, Brother Du Bois lectured at the Social Science Conference at Wayne State held to consider Ethnic Groups Today: Problems and Prospects.

BLACK MOVEMENT

Brother Du Bois spoke on the Black Movement in the United States, emphasizing the growing sense of unity in the struggle against racism that is emerging from within Black communities around the country and the growing awareness of the dangers facing Black people in the USA in terms of minimal survival. He urged and encouraged the formation and development of Black caucuses in industry, and the coming together of all Black organizations of every nature in the community to fight for survival in the face of the genocidal threat that confronts Black Americans today.

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C.H.P. Slaying Of Black Woman Ruled “Justifiable Homocide”

(Oakland, Calif.) -- In a direct slap at "blind justice," the Alameda County Grand Jury ruled here last week that the September 20 murder of Betty Scott by a California highway patrolman was "justifiable homicide."

Sister Scott, 30, of Long Beach, California, was shot to death by CHP officer Curtis Engberson at 4:00 a.m. on September 20, when she and her companion, George Smith, 23, also of Long Beach, were allegedly stopped for speeding by officers Engberson and Gordon Robbins on Interstate 580 near Livermore, California. The officers claimed that Betty threatened them with a gun and that Engberson shot her in self-defense.

At a press conference held on October 2 at the Livermore-Pleasanton Municipal Court building in Livermore, the Scott-Smith Committee announced its intent to file a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the CHP for Betty's "wrongful death."

Brother Smith was scheduled to appear at a hearing in Livermore last week on a variety of charges used by the CHP to coverup its vicious murder of Betty Scott. A "Caravan for Justice" of supporters of the Scott-Smith Committee was expected to attend the hearing.

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BISHOP LAWI IMATHIU OF KENYA INTERVIEWED BY THE BLACK PANTHER

(Oakland, Calif.) -- "When Black Americans win the struggle here, we will all win."

Bishop Lawi Imathiu, a bishop of the United Methodist Church in Kenya and a member of the Kenyan Parliament, made this comment and others concerning the relationship between the African liberation struggle, the Black liberation struggle and the current political situation in Africa, during an interview last week with THE BLACK PANTHER.

Bishop Imathiu, a member of Kenya's sole political party, the Kenyan African National Union, was here at the invitation of the First United Methodist Church in downtown Oakland, which is co-pastored by Rev. Ed Bell, a well known Black community activist in Oakland. Bishop Imathiu spoke at four evening services that were part of a revival at the church, and took time out from his busy schedule to talk with THE BLACK PANTHER.

Last week's trip was Bishop Imathiu's second visit to the U.S. Pointing out the widespread belief among Africans that Black Americans are affluent because they live amidst the great wealth of the U.S., the youthful bishop -- he is 44 years old -- said. "I am shocked and saddened at the poverty in the Black community." He went on to say that by African standards, Black people in America are not poor. "Poor Blacks in America have cars. In Africa, if you say you are poor and you have a car, people can't understand it," Bishop Imathiu noted.

SOLIDARITY

Bishop Imathiu, reflecting the solidarity that progressive African politicians have for the liberation struggle being waged by American Blacks, expressed his love and concern for his brothers and sisters in the U.S., particularly the youth.

"I don't see young Black Americans being very serious (about the struggle). I understand that some have been frustrated and can never recover. But the battle is fiercer how than ever. You must seize the opportunity because it won't continue," the articulate bishop emphasized.

Bishop Imathiu went on to say that he sees a growing division within the Black community, a division he didn't see when he first visited the country several years ago.

"We (Africans) think very highly of Black Americans. We expect you to set the example," Bishop Imathiu said.

Commenting on the current situation in Africa's struggle against Western imperialism, Bishop Imathiu explained. "The time has come for the U.S. to learn what Africa is doing. The `dark continent' period is gone. Now we are in a period of growing together."

Breaking his explanation down, the bishop continued:

"Africa realized that being divided up in small groups was weakening us. Now we are struggling to unite Africa and exploit our natural resources so that Africa can catch up with the rest of the world."

Bishop Imathiu pointed out the antagonisms that have existed between English-speaking and French-speaking African countries, saying, "We have been too influenced by our former colonizers.

"African governments must cease to struggle among themselves, and the African people must learn to respect the leaders they have chosen so that they (the people) can progress. We must stop eliminating each other for nothing."

For those who seek to put Africa within the rigid, existing international political framework, the bishop advised. "Africa cannot go communistic or capitalistic. We have our own ideology and we should develop our own ideology."

Bishop Imathiu firmly stated Africa's determination to liberate southern Africa. Refuting the charges of White racists who insist that Black majority governments in Africa will oppress those of the White minority who choose to remain, Bishop Imathiu stressed:

"An oppressor is an oppressor whether he is a member of a majority or a minority. Africa will not tolerate the oppression of the majority by the minority or the oppression of the minority by the majority."

When asked how Black Americans could best help the liberation struggle going on in Africa, Bishop Imathiu explained: "Black Americans must continue to develop the struggle here. By focusing your energies on the struggle in America you will help Africa with its struggle for liberation."

-- 6 --

OUR HEALTH

Aerosol Sprays
Banned?

(Berkeley, Calif.) -- Aerosol products containing flourocarbons may be banned from store shelves in the Bay Area by January, 1977. The Bay Area Pollution Control District Board unanimously approved a proposal last week to establish the Ozone Protection Advisory Council to study the issue, The Daily Californian reports.

Scientists believe flourocarbons are destroying the irreplaceable ozone layer in the earth's stratosphere. Ozone protects the earth from dangerous ultraviolet radiation.

Alameda County Supervisor Thomas Bates and Newark City Councilman Bob Plowright authored the proposal. Bates cited the health hazard of inhaling airborne chemical particles produced by aerosol products, and the danger of increased radiation from the sun. Plowright warned of increased cases of skin cancer, damage to crops and changes in weather patterns.

Pollution Control legal advisor John Powell said he thinks the Board has the authority to ban flourocarbon sprays. Paint, deodorants, hairsprays, medications and household cleaners are among the products that would be affected.

If passed, the ban would become the first in the nation. A similar bill already passed in Oregon does not take effect until March, 1977. Bates said passage of the aerosol ban would set a precedent for the rest of the nation to follow.

According to the resolution, flourocarbons already in the atmosphere may reduce the ozone by four-and-a-half per cent by 1990. For each year of additional use, the ozone may be reduced another one per cent.

Some scientists contend that even small reductions in the earth's ozone shield will have a drastic effect, such as a great increase in skin cancer.

According to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, last year in the U.S. about 5,000 aerosol-caused injuries and 52 related deaths were reported.

The ban, according to the resolution, can be reversed at a later date if flourocarbons are proven harmless.

-- 7 --

INMATES FOR ACTION CHAIRMAN FILES PETITION TO HAVE CASE MOVED TO FEDERAL COURT

Denied William Kunstler As Lawyer of Choice

(Birmingham, Ala.) -- Last week, Gamba Mani (aka Oscar Johnson), the chairman of the Alabama prisoner organization, Inmates For Action (IFA), filed a petition to remove his upcoming trials from the state courts in Escambia County, Alabama, to the federal court in Mobile.

Brother Mani, according to a press release recently received from the Atmore-Holman Brothers Defense Committee, is being tried for the third and fourth times on charges arising from a protest by Atmore inmates in January, 1974, against the continual beatings of dissident prisoners and the inhumane conditions in the segregation unit there.

In the face of continual persecution by the office of state Attorney General William Baxley since the Atmore incident, Brother Mani filed the petition in Mobile on the basis that the state courts have consistently violated his civil rights.

On November 1, federal District Court Judge Varner denied a request in Montgomery by Brother Mani to order the state court to allow him the defense counsel of his choice, William Kunstler.

The federal order had been requested after trial Judge Douglass Webb had indicated his refusal to allow Kunstler, who is an out-of-state attorney, to practice in his court.

This denial of Brother Mani's choice of counsel is one of the grounds upon which his petition is based. The barring of Kunstler has been called by the Defense Committee, "a complete violation of Gamba's civil rights, and further evidence of the pattern of persecution against him by the state of Alabama."

Brother Mani's petition is further based on the state's refusal to allow him to receive copies of testimony from other trials which show his innocence of the charges.

Having been declared indigent by the court. Brother Mani and his defense attorneys have received no financial aid in mounting the defense. At the same time, the state of Alabama has spent thousands of dollars on special prosecutors and half a dozen investigators. This was an additional reason why attorney Kunstler's offer of assistance was important for having an effective defense.

In another development concerning Atmore-Holman Brother Johnny Harris, an appeal has been filed against his recently imposed death sentence. Brother Harris, who was convicted by an all-White jury on trumped-up charges of murdering a White prison guard, will appeal his case on the basis of discrimination in jury selection against Blacks and women.

Also among the grounds for appeal is the argument that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. A brief has been filed in the Alabama Criminal Court of Appeals by attorneys William Allison of Louisville, Kentucky, and Clint Brown of Mobile, Alabama.

-- 7 --

Kentucky Black Man In Second Rape Trial

(Louisville, Kentucky) -- A Black man, Willie Burnett, will stand trial for the second time next month on charges of raping a White woman -- a crime he did not commit.

Brother Burnett was originally convicted of the rape charge in June, 1974. He was sentenced to "life without parole" and incarcerated at Eddyville State Prison.

Last spring, the Kentucky Court of Appeals overturned his conviction. The ruling said that there was not enough evidence that Burnett was the man involved, and that the trial judge erred in allowing testimony about a previous conviction. A few months later, Burnett was released on bond pending a new trial.

PLEA BARGAIN

Officials have offered to plea bargain with Burnett. If he will plead guilty to the charge, they have promised to set the sentence at time already served. But Burnett refuses to consider this, even though he has already spent 18 months behind bars on the charge. "I won't say I did something if I didn't do it -- even if I have to go back to Eddyville," he said. He has already passed two lie detector tests, and is asking his attorney to arrange for him to take "truth serum."

At the original trial, Burnett was identified by the woman as the man who attacked her in the restroom of a laundromat. Previously, she had told police that the rapist was quite a bit shorter than her husband. Burnett is taller.

Others who were present at the laundromat at the time of the alleged attack testified that a Black man had strolled out of the washroom a few minutes before the woman did, but that she had made no outcry or comment of any kind. Instead, she continued doing her laundry. All of the witnesses except the woman stated unequivocally that Burnett was not the man who preceded her out of the washroom.

A movement to free Burnett is developing in Louisville. His supporters believe he is innocent, and should not have to stand trial a second time on the same charges. They see this case as part of a general resurgence of the racist use of the rape charge in the South.

-- 7 --

Chicago Police To Switch To “Dum-Dum” Bullets

(Chicago, Ill.) -- The Chicago Police Department is expected to make a change within the next six months to more deadly handgun ammunition. Its interest is in the hollow-point bullet which is commonly referred to as a "dumdum."

The use of deadlier ammunition also means that unless the department changes its rules about when an officer may use deadly force, the Chicago Police Department will probably be killing more than the 33 civilians it shot and killed in 1974.

The Illinois Division of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) points out, however, that the issue isn't over what type of ammunition the police use but rather over the use of deadly force.

"The kind of ammunition used by police is a spurious issue," says David Goldberger, Illinois ACLU legal director. "The issue is when is it permissible for a police officer to use his firearm? Illinois law permits such use by a peace officer to prevent death or

-- 24 --
great bodily harm to himself or another person.

"But it also permits deadly force in order to arrest someone who might escape, having committed a forcible felony." (Forcible felony can be anything from punching a policeman in the nose on up to treason.)

"With the changeover to hollow-point ammunition, there is no question that many more citizens who might just have been legally wounded will be legally killed." Goldberger stated.

For years police have complained that they were underarmed: that the standard police bullet, a .38 caliber lead round nose (LRN), was inadequate.

However, for years, more civilians have been killed by police than vice versa. This new changeover in ammunition is a step taken by police to make sure that they keep the upper hand as far as their capacity to murder civilians.

-- 8 --

MINORITY BANKS PLEDGE TO COMBAT “REDLINING” IN HOUSING

(Seattle, Wash.) -- The decision to combat the practice of discrimination in housing known as "redlining," was taken at the 48th annual convention of the National Bankers Association (a trade group of 71 minority-owned banks) held here recently.

Redlining is a scheme used by corporate banks to keep funds out of Black and poor communities by designating them "high risk" areas in order to justify their refusal to lend money for housing mortgages, repair and rehabilitation in these areas.

In the resolution dealing with this problem, the NBA said:

"As an association we will not pass up any opportunities to speak out against the practice of redlining. But more important that the rhetoric, we will fight the practice through good oldfashioned competition. Our banks lend and invest more money in our communities than we take out of these communities in the way of deposits. Our message should be loud and clear: Support the bank that supports your community. If we can succeed in getting this message across, we can strengthen the economic base of our communities and strengthen our banks at the same time."

More than 200 executives and directors of minority banks participated in this three-day meeting, described by newly elected NBA President Sharnia "Tab" Buford, president of the Douglass State Bank in Kansas City. Kansas, as one of the most substantive and successful in its history.

(THE BLACK PANTHER wishes to thank the Reporters' News Service for the information contained in this article.)

-- 8 --

PEOPLE'S PERSPECTIVE

Garry:
Courts "Degrading"

(San Diego, Calif.) - Gag orders and totalitarian policing of courts are "degrading," and contrary to "democratic principles," noted trial attorney Charles Garry recently told a meeting of concerned lawyers, judges and journalists held here.

Garry said his famed defense of Black Panther Party leader Huey P. Newton revealed "permeation of prejudice…that White Americans throughout the state of California -- at least two-thirds of them -- were racist in some form or another. He added that, "The media are not responsible for the poverty and the struggle that is going on in the United States. These are problems that belong to all of us."

Hispanic
Caucus Formed

(Washington, D.C.) -- The creation of a National Hispanic Caucus, a new organization affiliated with the Democratic Party, was announced here recently. The caucus, designed to have a degree of independence within the party, was created at a weekend conference of Spanish-surnamed elected officials which ended last week.

Overtaxed Consumers

(Washington, D.C.) -- Figures show that the nation's 150 largest privately owned utility companies charged their customers $1.4 billion for federal income taxes last year, but actually paid only $505 million. This means they overcharged the people $936 million. Fiftytwo power companies paid no federal income taxes at all last year. Instead, they received an estimated $217 million in refunds of back taxes. These same utilities, however, charged their customers for $269 million in federal income taxes that year.

Rizzo The Hun

(Philadelphia, Pa.) -- Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, following his re-election as mayor said in his victory statement. "Now that I've won, I'm gonna make Attila the Hun look like a faggot." Attila the Hun was a barbarian who ransacked Rome in ancient times.

-- 9 --

PROTEST LEADERS REMAIN IN “THE HOLE” AT NO. CAROLINA WOMEN'S PRISON

(Raleigh, N.C.) -- At this writing, three of the leaders of last June's peaceful protest at the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women (NCCCW) here have been in solitary confinement for over one month -- victims of the racist prison administration's attempts to coverup the brutal conditions inflicted upon the women inmates. (See THE BLACK PANTHER. November 1, 1975.)

The three women -- Sisters Anne Willett, Tarisha Maisha (Shirley Herlth) and Alice Wise -- "are being held hostage in this dungeon for the purpose of maintaining `control' (scapegoat tactics) of our sisters locked in Dorm C (punishment cottage), and those walking the grounds who are brave enough to call to us," writes Sister Willett in a letter to THE BLACK PANTHER.

In her moving letter, reprinted below, Sister Willett describes the loneliness and the horror of "the hole."

"The steel-barred door of my brick cell casts a shadow over my entire body: it follows me: there is no escape. The writing on the bricks indicates that many other prisoners have experienced the torture of this cold, dismal, rat-infested hole. Others have been given food too cold to consume, sat on bare mattresses listening/waiting for the keys to turn in the big steel door entrance, hoping for release.

PIPE

"Others have gone five days without a tootbrush, toothpaste, soap, wash cloth, and have water whch is cold and murky. After five days I received these items, was permitted to shower and given a complete set of pajamas. In my cell I wept that evening, not only for me, but for all prisoners who are/have experienced this cruel and barbaric treatment. Most importantly, I shed tears for the people who sit in their homes, who walk the streets and who sit down to a table filled with hot, nourishing food: but who forget the oppressed people.

"I have not forgotten I am a prisoner, but I have remembered I am a human being. On the sixteenth day, I was given sheets, my third shower and I discovered there were guards/matrons who felt my pain and attempted to ease it.

"What gives me the courage to endure this? The beautiful love and unity of my sistas who are locked in a Punishment Cottage up the hill. Why are the oppressors treating me in such a degrading manner? I am very articulate, but most importantly, I participated in a peaceful protest June 15-19, 1975, at Women's Prison, the result of which has thrown more focus on this prison system than anything in the past.

"We who protested are being punished while the prisoners who were not involved are reaping the benefits. How long will this punitive treatment be meted out to us? The answer -- until the free and the incarcerated become united in our efforts to bring about justice and equality for all.

"This is my twenty-first day in this hole. The food is still cold, I am away from everyone and

-- 25 --
powerless to get help. The guards/matrons continue to make their periodic checks to see if I am breathing; the rats still squeak, and the shadow continues to follow me. How long can I endure this torture? Death will come but I will meet it like a woman, or these walls will crumble. The shadow will disappear because someone cared and shared my pain.

"If this should sound incredible or exaggerated, there are three other prisoners who were placed in cells just like mine in this hole. And for the same reason. I cannot see them but I yell to make sure they are all right. The shadow also follows them. They have experienced the cruelty of the oppressors and they also weep. The love of our sistas up the hill and our love for each other is strong enough to crack this steel, but we need your help and support too!!

"We struggle and suffer not just for ourselves, but for oppressed people as a whole. Your/Our active participation is essential. Only through mass unity and love can the needed changes be ensured."

-- 9 --

Phillip Allen Bail Revoked

(Los Angeles, Calif.) -- A Santa Monica Superior Court judge rejected a motion on October 7 to grant bail to Phillip Allen. Brother Allen, a 20-year-old Los Angeles City College student, was convicted in August of killing a deputy sheriff and had been released on a $25,000 appeal bail bond.

Brother Allen had been free on bail prior to his sentencing and Judge Lawrence Rittenband agreed to continue bail at $25,000 during the appeal process.

When Rittenband was informed by the district attorney that Brother Allen had spoken at a rally held in his defense on October 1, and was scheduled to speak at a rally for the San Quentin 6 on October 4, the judge refused to grant further bail.

Due to a legal technicality, Brother Allen was required to stay overnight in jail following sentencing. Upon arriving at the jail on October 3, and finding that bail had been revoked, his lawyers arranged a bail hearing for October 7.

On that day, the judge, the prosecution and the defense lawyers viewed a film shot by a local TV station of the rally at Los Angeles City College where Brother Allen had spoken.

The district attorney, outraged after seeing Brother Allen's expose of the frame-up and the racist nature of the trial, called the young Black man an "agitator" and a "liar."

In denying bail, the judge said that Brother Allen had refused to "admit his guilt," even though he had been convicted by a jury of his "peers." The jury consisted of 10 elderly Whites and two Blacks.

Under California law, a defendant is entitled to 20 peremptory challenges in a case where a life sentence may result. However, Rittenband ruled that that law did not apply in Brother Allen's case and limited the number to 10. This limitation was one reason the jury was mainly middle-aged and White.

An appeal of the conviction has been filed and an appeal of the bail decision is planned. The Los Angeles Civil Liberties Union has entered the case for the defense in protest against the blatant violation of Brother Allen's right to freedom of speech.

-- 9 --

K.K.K. Pickets Appearance Of Black Country Singer

(New Orleans, La.) - Black folk singer Charlie Pride has been the darling of a virtually all White country and western audience for many years. But in a recent appearance here at the Super Dome the Ku Klux Klan was there to remind Charlie that his singing is not strong enough to stem the tide of Southern racism.

While Pride was belting out his country tunes inside the Super Dome before 20,000 fans, the Klan was outside, rallying oppostion to his being on the program. David Duke, national director of the KKK, told the small crowd outside he was "glad they chose the KKK over Charlie Pride."

-- 10 --

ON THE BLOCK

Why Do You Send Your Child To The Oakland Community School

ASKED AT THE OAKLAND COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTER

Angela Blackwell
149 Sequoia View Dr.
Law Student

I'm sending him here because the School reinforces the values we think are important; so my child will have a positive image of himself, and learn his role in relation to the world, learn how to think rather than have things forced on him, to be able to analyze problems and deal with them in a humane and correct manner.

Bettye Hackett
2325 88th Ave.
Housewife.

Because I think it's the best school around. I have one daughter in the first year, and now I have two children enrolled, a boy and a girl, teaches the children the reality of being Black, and they get to express themselves better. They 're not told to "Shut up"; ideas are explained to them; and if the teacher doesn 't know, they'll find out instead of telling them they're asking too many questions.

Junice Collins
1618 64st Ave.
Unemployed

Because I dig the people that are here. Well, they're committed and the teachers are easy to get along with. The students too.

Patrica Dudley
1615 Russell St.
Berkeley.
Unemployed/Student

I like the School's curriculum. The education here is way more advanced than in the public schools. One of my little girls just graduated from here last semester. She's now at the Odyssey and she's way ahead of other children her own age.

Justina Gibson
929 Delaware St.
Berkeley
Dental Assistant

First of all. I think he can get a better education here. He has been to public schools and I don't like the education that he was getting. He's getting a much better education here. I also like the activities that they have here. And. I like the people here.

Richard Taylor
1440 70th Ave.
General Motors Worker

I send my child here, mainly because they teach him how to learn, you know. I'm working and my wife's working, and we don't have to have a baby sitter in the evening time. But mainly for the education.

Mary Washington
5434 El Camino
Housewife

I send my daughter and my nephew here because it's a good school. They learn a lot and there's a lot of activities here that other schools don't have. They go on field trips, you know. The teachers are more patient with the children and the School is not crowded. That's the main thing.

-- 11 --

Stateville “Open Letter” Exposes Illinois Prison Repression

THE BLACK PANTHER has recently received from the inmates at Stateville Prison in Illinois "An Open Letter to the People," which gives a dynamic analysis of the alienation and isolation that prison authorities try to impose on inmates, as well as impose on us, the people, through their vicious and misleading propaganda.

Excerpts from the "Open Letter" follow.

"For the past two and one-half years, the State Ministry of Repression, better known as the Illinois Department of Corrections, has been working with other state institutions, government bodies, so-called private and/or civic organizations and the federal government, to change the state judicial/prison system.

"The public, as well as prisoners, are being led to believe that these changes are for the benefit of all concerned. But we should not continue to accept these changes without questioning them;and we should not continue to look only on the surface of these changes.

"Nothing happens in the state of Illinois that is not in some way connected to all other things happening all over the U.S. What is happening all over the U.S. at present is that it is struggling to maintain its oppressive and exploitative stranglehold on the masses of people.

STRANGLEHOLD

"The U.S. is struggling to maintain this stranglehold because the people are becoming aware of their true situation in increasing numbers, and the more conscious the people become, the more active they become in the struggle to change power relationships in the U.S.

"This is why, all over the U.S., the state and federal judicial/ prison systems are being `reformed,' which is to say that the main principles and purposes of these repressive arms of the State have not changed; what has changed is only the manner in which they are carried out.

"Some of the surface changes taking place in Stateville include the newly established privileges of TV sets, radios, tape players and record players; new rules

-- 22 --
regarding commissary privileges and noncensorship of mail: changes in disciplinary procedures and grievance procedures. These changes, and others, are not intended to `help' prisoners; neither are they intended to serve the best interests and needs of the masses of people in Illinois and throughout the U.S.

"These surface changes are intended to quiet and divert the righteous anger of prisoners and to prevent the growing awareness among prisoners and the people of the true purpose of prisons, courts, and the responsibility we all have in coming to recognize our common need to come together in struggle to change our lives.

"This can best be seen when we check out some of the changes taking place under the surface. The basements of each of the round cell houses in Stateville are being converted to `recreational' areas, complete with TV cameras, pipelines for the emission of CS tear gas. The primary purpose of these areas is to prevent contact between prisoners, not only in different cell houses, but to prevent contact between prisoners in the same cell house.

"All of the surface changes are designed to support the sub-surface changes, which are clearly for repression only. All of these changes are intended to bring to a halt all movement, all communication between prisoners. They want to make us feel more powerless, more isolated and alone.

"They want to break the bonds between us which are there by virtue of our common oppression at the hands of a common enemy. They not only want to make struggle against oppression more difficult, but they also want us to feel that struggle against oppression is useless and counter-productive.

"This Open Letter is only the first of many. Through this and future letters, the Prisoners of War presently housed at Stateville will not only explain to you, the People, what is really happening here, but why. More important than showing what is happening here is the need to explain to you, the People, the connections that exist between what happens here and what happens in your own lives out there, on the other side of the walls.

ISOLATION

"While they move to isolate those of us behind the walls from each other, they also move to isolate us from you, the People. Not content with this they are also moving to isolate you, the People, from each other.

"They encourage you to `do your own thang' without telling you that `your thang' should be joining hands with all those struggling to change their way of life by bringing to an end the rule of our common enemy. They encourage you to `make it' without telling you that what you should be about making is revolutionary change.

"They encourage you to `fight crime in the streets' without telling you that the greatest crimes being perpetrated against you take place in the White House, the Senate and House of Representatives: the greatest crimes against the people take place in the board rooms of the big corporations and the courts.

"They encourage you to report `criminals' and lead you to believe that the criminals are your sons and daughters. The real criminals are the landlords, the bosses, and the police who serve and protect them.

"While they build new walls and install cameras in Stateville, they are also building walls, fences and installing cameras inside and around the housing projects and neighborhoods that you live in -- and all for the same reasons.

"What happens in Stateville concerns YOU. And what happens to you concerns us here."

-- 11 --

ASSASSINATION PLOT DISCLOSURE: SENATE COMMITTEE REJECTS FORD DEMAND FOR SECRECY

(Washington, D.C.) -- In a move aimed at protecting the American people's right to know the extent of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) involvement in assassination attempts of foreign leaders, Senator Frank Church rejected a demand by President Gerald Ford last week to keep secret the findings of Church's Senate committee investigations of federal intelligence agencies.

Ford's demand came in a letter to Church earlier last week which claimed that publication of the committee's findings would "do grievous damage" to the nation's reputation and foreign policy efforts. Ford wrote in the letter:

"I am writing to urge the Select Committee not to make public the report on the subject of assassinations, which I understand is currently in preparation… It is my opinion that public disclosure now of information I provided to the Senate Select Committee concerning allegations of political assassination activities of the United States government will result in serious harm to the national interest and may endanger individuals."

In his reply to Ford, Idaho Senator Church reminded Ford that his committee had under-taken its investigation at the "urging" of the President himself, after a limited inquiry into the matter by a Presidential commission last June.

Church said that his committee's intention to issue a public report on its findings had "long been clear." He also said that he believed the national interest would be "better served by letting the American people know the true and complete story" behind the alleged assassination plots.

Highly substantiated charges have been made that the CIA was involved in assassinations or assassination attempts against Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Congo (now Zaire), Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, first prime minister of Ghana, Fidel Castro, prime minister of Cuba. Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic, and several other Third World leaders and heads of state.

Ron Nessen, the White House press secretary, told reporters on November 4 that the President told him he did not want to keep from the American public information about the activities of its citizens, but rather, he wanted to keep details about the attempted assassinations from those "who don't have the best interests of the United States at heart." He did not specify about whom he was speaking.

The White House intends to send to every senator a similar special appeal to keep the report secret. But Senator Church told a news conference after learning of

-- 25 --
this intention, that he did not believe sufficient votes could be mustered in the Senate to support a resolution blocking disclosure of the report, if such a resolution were introduced.

Ford's attempt to keep the assassination report secret. Senator Church reportedly said, was but one element in what the senator termed "a pattern" of attempts by the Ford administration to impede his committee's nearly concluded investigation.

Senator Church recalled the reluctance of the White House over the last few weeks to agree to the holding of public hearings by the Senate committee on the operation of the National Security Agency, and he added that the President's dismissal last week of William E. Colby as director of the CIA represented a further "impediment" to the committee's inquiry.

Such a move could "only have a disruptive effect" on the committee's working relationship with the CIA, and thus on the progress of the investigation itself, Senator Church said. He added that he was "determined to press forward and complete the work" by the end of next month, the deadline the committee has set for the conclusion of the investigative phase of its activities.

-- 12 --

…And Bid Him Sing

Exciting New Novel Examines Lives Of Black Americans In Egypt

By David G. Du Bois

The following is Part 5 of …And Bid Him Sing, the first novel of David G. Du Bois, Editor-in-Chief of THE BLACK PANTHER and official spokes-person of the Black Panther Party. The critically acclaimed novel revolves around Suliman Ibn Rashid, a self-exiled Black American poet, who, along with several other Black Americans, has fled to Cairo, Egypt, during the late 1960s to escape the degradation of U.S. racism.

PART 5

When Suliman had first seen Karima, Sayyid, and Joseph, he'd been disappointed with the nonchalant movements of the two girls, but thrilled with Joseph's performance and had joined his screams and applause with those of the audience as the group drove steadily toward its climax and the girls dropped their chorus-girl nonchalance in a hip-shaking frenzy. The long, powerful, satin smooth, chocolate brown legs of Karima, her exaggerated rump and her tiny waist had been irresistible to Suliman.

Sayyid was busy at the sink rinsing off the lettuce and tomatoes and cutting up cucumbers. A pot of steaming hot foul (red beans) sat on the table edge. Beside it lay a loosely wrapped piece of white cheese and six loaves of the circular hollow balidi (village) bread. Karima had laid out several clean newspapers on the floor in the free space in front of the closed door. She was now pouring the beans from the pot into four shallow bowls. She placed the bowls around the papers and the piece of white cheese on a plate in the center. She indicated four places with the loaves of bread -- two loaves at two places, for Joseph and Suliman, and one loaf each at places for Sayyid and herself.

This had been something Suliman had also insisted on. She was to eat with him and his friends, not after or apart from them. She had agreed because she knew that in the homes of the rich in Cairo the women often ate with the men at the same table. Of course, it had never been done in her home. But she was willing to do it, and found that she sometimes enjoyed it, especially when it was only Suliman and one or more of his American friends, or just Suliman, Sayyid and herself.

But whenever there was any other Egyptian male present she was usually uncomfortable and would either manage to withdraw a little or keep herself busy preparing and serving. Sometimes, when there were several Egyptian males, after the food had been laid out and they were settled around it, she'd find an excuse to go down the hall to a friend and would stay there until she thought they had finished or until Suliman called her. Sometimes she would manage to take a plate of food with her.

She had mixed a large bowl of salad over which she was now pouring vinegar and oil. She placed this on the floor beside the dish of cheese as Sayyid was placing glasses of water at each place.

INVITATION

"Edfuddle" Karima finally said, addressing herself to Suliman and Joseph. Suliman repeated the invitation to Joseph as he rose. Joseph protested that he would not eat, that he'd only come by to tell Suliman about the job at the Green Lantern and that he had to go now. "I have business outside," he said.

Suliman's reaction was immediate. In English he said, "Aw man, don't gimme that shit! Sit down and eat!" It was an angry outburst that jarred the atmosphere of busy calm the small room had contained a moment before. Suliman was already working his way around the papers and dishes of food on the floor to the sink to wash his hands.

As he did so Karima said quietly, in Arabic to Joseph, wihtout looking at him, a suggestion of urgency in her voice: "Never mind. Sit and eat with us. Suliman expects you to and will be very angry, truly, if you do not."

Joseph had, of course, intended to eat. He'd timed his visit so as to arrive when he was sure they would be eating or preparing to. But it was customary to refuse the offer several times, allowing one's host the opportunity to insist or to acept the refusal with honor. He knew how to engage in these subtleties with Egyptians, prised, confused, and not a little stung by the sharp way Suliman invariably reacted when an offer was refused.

Catching the urgency in Karima's plea, he checked the automatic tendency to repeat his refusal and squatted down, cross-legged at the place Karima indicated for him.

SETTLED

Sayyid was already settled at his place, waiting patiently. Suliman had washed his hands and splashed water on his face and was now arranging himself on the floor, his good leg under him, the other stretched out to the side.

He picked up one of the two loaves of bread at his place and put it on top of the single loaf in front of Sayyid. He never ate more than one loaf, and often left part of the underside. But neither Karima nor Sayyid would have thought of not placing the two loaves at his place.

They ate in almost complete silence. Each energetically tore off small pieces of bread, worked them into a scoop and, using the right hand, pressed them downward into the foul, or salad, or white cheese. With the thumb each caught up a sizable quantity, leaned forward to meet the hand half way and stuffed the contents into sometimes already full mouths. Suliman liked this intimate, communal, and business-like way of eating. He liked the absence of conversation. He'd always found talking while eating intrusive. He remembered that as a child there hadn't been much talk around his grandmother's crowded table during meals.

TO BE CONTINUED

-- 13 --

REVOLUTIONARY SUICIDE

By Huey P. Newton

"College And The Afro-American Association"

In the conclusion of the chapter, "College and the Afro-American Association," Huey P. Newton tells of how and why he left the Afro-American Association, and at the same time exposes the opportunist tactics of Donald Warden, a chosen "Black leader," Also, Brother Huey speaks briefly of one member of the Association who was later to have a deadly effect on the Black Panther Party.

PART 25

That was when I decided that my parents were right about him. Afterward, the whole City Council, including Mayor Houlihan, patted Warden on the back. He ate it up.

In our own meetings -- with no White people around -- he really took them apart. But he had little interest in Black people. He was interested in getting Barry Goldwater's daughter to contribute money to his sister's little sewing shop, which he claimed was a clothing factory. Goldwater's daughter became an honorary member of the Afro-American Association.

I was really sick when I saw what went down before the City Council. Warden talked about Black folks as if we were a lazy bunch of people who hated ourselves and had no will to better our own situation. He said nothing about causes, although in that City Council room he was speaking to some of the major causes of Black people's suffering in the city of Oakland.

Disillusioned, I left the organization, but not before I had gotten a lot out of it. For one thing, I had begun to learn about the Black past, but I could not accept Warden's refusal to deal with the Black present. He was obviously interested in building his law practice and routinely began street meetings by saying that he did not have to be there, that he was Phi Beta Kappa and a lawyer.

FOUND OUT

A lot of people who went to him for legal services found him out. They thought he would charge less money, being one of them, but he charges high fees. I went to him once, and he charged more than double the usual fee. Another attorney asked $250, but Warden wanted $750 before he even stepped into the courtroom.

He offered the community solutions that solved nothing. I could have accepted this if he had been ignorant, but I believe he knew what he was doing. At least he knew what the popular position was. That is why I tell the Black Panther Party that we must never take a stand just because it is popular. We must analyze the situation objectively and take the logically correct position, even though it may be unpopular. If we are right in the dialectics of the situation, our position will prevail.

Warden was just the opposite. He rode the tide, even if it went against the community. He talked of a mass exodus to Africa, and never believed in it. He maintained that capitalism in general, and Black capitalism in particular was the best economic system. The only thing wrong with it, he said, was the racism in the system. He never spoke of the link between capitalist exploitation and racism.

Wanting Whites to believe that Black were behind him, Warden talked up Black power and Black history, using the people to gain their support. Downtown, he looked for Whites to support him out of their fear of organized Blacks. Warden gathered the people around him to lead them like sheep. That is what he did at the City Council.

He is the only Black man I know with two weekly radio programs and one on television. The mass media, the oppressors, give him public exposure for only one reason: he will lead the people away from the truth of their situation.

DRIFTED AWAY

Others also drifted away from the Afro-American Association. Richard Thorne was in it for a while, but he left to found the Sexual Freedom League. Later, he organized a spiritual cult called Om Eternal and changed his name to Om. He is now that cult's unquestioned high priest (God).

Another member of the Afro-American Association at that time was a skinny, bright, and articulate fellow called Ron Everett. He went from the Association to Watts in Los Angeles, where he established his own cultural nationalist group, US, which eventually became a cult. He called himself Karenga -- "the original." Later, the Black Panthers had some bitter confrontations with US, and they killed two of our finest comrades.

(The Black Panther Party believes that Karenga's organization and the Los Angeles police conspired against our Los Angeles Party organizers, John Huggins and Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter, and assassinated them. The police wanted to stop the Black Panthers' organizing efforts, and Karenga's organization wanted to curtail a competitive group and buy the friendship of the police.)

"Learning"

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes, "The
Negro Speaks of Rivers"

Life was opening up for me. I was trying to relate to Donald Warden and his program, trying to stay close with my righteous partners on the block, and also attending Oakland City College on a "come-and-go" basis. My motivation had been to prove to my high school teachers that they were wrong about me. To my surprise I found myself enjoying the learning process and tremendously stimulated by ideas I encountered. Since I had studied classical piano for almost seven years, I took music appreciation, music history, music theory, and also art appreciation and art history.

Most semesters I started out with a regular load, but if something came up in class that excited my imagination, I sometimes skipped classes, gathered as many books and materials as I could find on the subject, and stayed in the library or at home in my apartment reading.

While studying psychology, for example, I became fascinated with the principle of stimulus response and the biological behaviorism of John B. Watson. I read a number of books on the subject, works by B.F. Skinner and Pavlov, and read about their studies and theories of personality and human development. By the time I was satiated with stimulus response, or whatever, the class had moved on to another unit that was of no interest to me.

TO BE CONTINUED

-- 14 --

INTERVIEW WITH SECRETARY GENERAL OF DEMOCRATIC FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE

"We Must Intensify The Struggle In The Occupied Territories"

The following is the conclusion of an in-depth interview with Naief Hawatmeh, secretary-general of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). The interview was conducted with Lotta Continua, an Italian daily, and represents Brother Hawatmeh's first interview with a non-Arab news correspondent since the signing of the treacherous Sinai "accord" -- a treaty between Israel and Egypt, mediated by roving U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, which totally ignores the Palestinian people's just demands for the right to return in peace to their now Zionist occupied homelands.

Q: According to the DFLP, what role will Syria adopt following the modifications in the inter- Arab relations after the Sinai accord, keeping in mind both the recent position on the peaceful accords and Syria's strong ties with the U.S., Jordanian, and Saudi Arabian economies?

HAWATMEH: First, it must be clear that the present Syrian regime is a national-bourgeois regime with a double personality. On one side, it is antagonistic to colonialism-imperialism-Zionism; on the other, it is disposed to accepting solutions and forms of coexistence with these forces, which are antagonistic to the Palestinian Revolution and the Arab liberation movement.

Besides, this regime is conditioned by many objective circumstances, which considerably limit its freedom of movement to the right -- more so than the Egyptian regime. The future of the Syrian situation will be determined by: the degree of antagonism on the part of the Syrian people towards imperialism-Zionism: the hostility of all national classes in the face of imperialisin-Zionism-colonialism; and the identification of the Syrian people with the Palestinian cause. All these factors play an important role in limiting the inclination of the Syrian bourgeoisie towards imperialist solutions.

This explains the difference of attitudes between the Syrian and Egyptian bourgeoisies. We, and the national and progressive forces in Syria, must support the sector of the bourgeoisie which is antagonistic to imperialism-Zionism and the Arab reactionary force, with the aim of weakening the other sector of the bourgeoisie which is inclined to coexist with imperialism.

The economic rapport between Syria. Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the beginnings of ties with the U.S. represent the policies of this part of the Syrian, bourgeoisie. We must, however, remember the ties among this regime, the Palestinian resistance, and the foreign countries friendly to us, especially the Socialist countries, in order to understand the dominant tendency of the regime. It is then clear that we face a dialectical struggle and that it is up to us and our supporters to strengthen the sector antagonistic to imperialism.

We maintain that Syria is not ready to pay the price demanded for a new accord over the Golan. This explains the surprise and indignation of the Syrians when they learned of the price paid by Sadat in the Sinai accord, and its firm opposition to such an accord. During the entire phase of "step-by-step diplomacy," the Syrian government maintained that the next step would be purely military, without any political content. When the Syrians learned of the heavy political price paid by Sadat, they immediately found themselves in the Opposition Front because they could not afford anything similar for the Golan. (The Opposition Front is the coalition which rejects the Sinai accord: Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Libya, South Yemen, the PLO, and all Arab national liberation movements.) This is why Syria is today actively participating in the general campaign against the Sinai accord.

Nonetheless, we have no illusions about the Syrian position. We analyze it accurately, as I have said, and we try to support the tendencies which are struggling against imperialist solutions, to strengthen them and defeat them so as to maintain Syria in the anti-imperialist front and in the camp of the defenders of the Rabat resoultions.

Q: Having seen the result of the Sinai accord, sponsored by imperialism, what importance do you now give to the prospect of the Geneva Conference and that of the Palestinian National Authority over the liberated territories?

HAWATMEH: We of the DFLP have never made our people's sacred right to selfdetermination and the building of their own national state on all of the Palestinian territory depend on different solutions because this is a matter of principle. It is up to the peoples of the Arab nations and to the peoples and the forces who love well-being and peace to rely on our people so that they may exericise this right of theirs over all liberated territory.

This right, moreover, cannot be realized if we do not first struggle against every imperialist solution. The U.S. and Israeli solutions deny our people the right to regain their own independence, confiscated since 1948. At that time the U.S.-Israeli-reactionary conpiracy defeated the Palestinian people and dispersed them between the Israeli state and the Hashmenite rule of Jordan. At the same time Palestinian identity was annulled, granting the refugees the identity of the Arab countries to which they fled.

What is happening today is an attempt to turn back the wheel of history to 1948. This doesn't surprise us. We of the DFLP knew from the first day of the October War (in 1973) that the U.S. plans were based on a solution of the problems at the expense of the rights of Palestinians to build their own national state and to recover their own identity. And the same holds for the Israelis. The Hashmenite rule in Jordan, the reactionary regimes like Saudi Arabia and specifically the bourgeoisie in power in Egypt, agree perfectly with this tendency of imperialism to divide and then liquidate the Palestinian entity.

-- 15 --

On the basis of all this, we have elaborated the program for the construction of the Palestinian National Authority as a program of struggle in the short and medium term against the U.S. -Israeli plans.

As for the Geneva Conference, from the beginning the DFLP has specified that this was a secondary question. The principal struggle is against the imperialist attempts to solve the problems in the interest of imperialist monopolies in the area and against their attempts to reorganize the class structure of Arab regimes benefiting the reactionary bourgeoisies. We must also struggle against the role of such a bourgeoisie protected by imperialist monopolies.

The principal question of our program is therefore the fight against imperialist Zionist solutions, and the Geneva Conference is a subordinate aspect of this struggle, linked with two factors. One is the nature of the development of the forces in the Arab region, and whose interests this development serves. If it is to the advantage of the national progressive forces, the Geneva Conference will have a different content and meaning than if the right-wing forces, slaves of imperialism- Zionism, prevail. The second factor is that the importance of the Geneva Conference depends also on the nature of the decisions and resolutions it will decide upon.

We of the DFLP have never paid much attention to the Geneva Conference because, as I said, for us this is secondary. Our maximum attention is concentrated and will be concentrated on the mobilization of the masses against the imperialist-Israeli-reactionary solutions to the contradictions between imperialism and Palestine, and between a national Arab movement and the imperialist monopolies.

Q: We would like to ask you for a judgement on the crisis of imperialism in the Mediterranean area, after the defeats in Indochina and taking into consideration the revolutionary process in Portugal, the advance of the left in Italy, the exploded imperialist contradicitions in Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey.

HAWATMEH: The conspiracies of imperialism. above all of the USA, are suffering defeats in many parts of the world: Indochina, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. These defeats have provoked acute crises at the economic level within the same imperialist camps, as for example, in the USA. Now it is a question of continuing to inflict blows on U.S. imperialism in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, at the moment in which imperialism is licking the wounds it suffered in Indochina. However, this cannot be done in a situation where, in the national Arab liberation movement, the bourgeois right-wing is more influential and pushes towards a reinforcement of its ties with U.S. imperialism. This situation offers imperialism a breath of air in the Middle East and restores to it much of its own aggressive potential.

We maintain that after the defeats suffered in the whole world, the Middle East will be the region of greatest conflict. The struggle here will become fiercer, bloodier, and more painful than in Indochina. The strategic interests of imperialism in Indochina limited themselves in general to the surrounding of the USSR and China and to impeding the spreading of the revolutionary movement. Here, in addition to those interests, there are other fundamental ones, on which the very life of the imperialist economy depends. The economic existence of imperialism is dependent on Middle East petroleum. Then there is the importance of this region to the international transportation lines, and its strategic importance. For these reasons the intensity of the struggle here will be greater than that of Indochina. We maintain that this struggle will last for a long time, perhaps more than the thirty year struggle of Indochina. And this struggle will be over the Arab-Israeli conflict, the problems of petroleum, and the security of the Mediterranean.

Imperialism seeks now to prepare the strategy in the Mediterranean; on one hand, it is trying to stabilize a situation advantageous for Israel, offering partial concessions to the Egyptian and Arab right so that Israel can catch its breath (as Kissinger himself pointed out) and recover time in order to continue its expansionist course in the Arab territories. On the other hand, it is offering to the U.S. the opportunity to interfere still more directly in the affairs of the region. At the same time, U.S. imperialism is opening fire on Cyprus, Turkey,. Greece, and Portugal, and against the Italian left, trying to turn back the wheel of history by strengthening the ties of those countries with NATO and with the general U.S. policy.

It is clear that U.S. imperialism is planning everything in general terms, while the revolutionary and left-wing forces, above all in the Mediterranean area, not withstanding their formidable victories, are not; that is, they are not able to create and put into action a global strategy that would determine the specific role of each force from its own area and under specific conditions.

INTENSIFICATION

We maintain that the intensification of the struggle will have these consequences;

1) It will lead to the expulsion or the exit of the forces of the right from the Arab liberation movement, and to their entrance into the imperialist and reactionary camp (as already happened in Egypt); on the other hand, it will promote the strengthening and cohesion of the revolutionary and progressive Arab forces;

2) It will intensify the drive of the revolutionary and progressive forces of Mediterranean Europe to unite their fights with those revolutionary Arab and Palestinian forces:

3) It will create a greater harmony and cohesion between these forces and the national and progressive forces throughout the world in order to face the imperialist plans in the Mediterranean and thus arrive at a total victory over imperialism.

The Mediterranean is the last line of defense, the last stronghold of imperialism. The conquest of imperialism here and in the Middle East, we believe, will provoke a series of dramatic developments, a series of defeats of imperialism in all the world. The acceleration of the international crisis of the imperialist system and of its self-destruction promotes the sharpening of the contradictions promotes the sharpening of the contradictions between countries of the same imperialist camp. In other words, the defeat of imperialism in the Mediterranean means the approach of the end of imperialism in the whole world.

-- 16 --

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY PROGRAM: MARCH 29, 1972 PLATFORM

WHAT WE WANT, WHAT WE BELIEVE

1. WE WANT FREEDOM, WE WANT POWER TO DETERMINE THE DESTINY OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.

We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until we are able to determine our destinies in our own communities ourselves, by fully controlling all the institutions which exist in our communities.

2. WE WANT FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR OUR PEOPLE.

We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every person employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the American businessmen will not give full employment, then the technology and means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

3. WE WANT AN END TO THE ROBBERY BY THE CAPITALIST OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.

We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people. Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make.

4. WE WANT DECENT HOUSING, FIT FOR THE SHELTER OF HUMAN BEINGS.

We believe that if the landlords will not give decent housing to our Black and oppressed communities, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people in our communities, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for the people.

5. WE WANT EDUCATION FOR OUR PEOPLE THAT EXPOSES THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS DECADENT AMERICAN SOCIETY. WE WANT EDUCATION THAT TEACHES US OUR TRUE HISTORY AND OUR ROLE IN THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIETY.

We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in the society and the world then you will have little chance to know anything else.

6. WE WANT COMPLETELY FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE.

We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventative medical programs to guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research programs must be developed to give all Black and oppressed people access to advanced scientific and medical information, so we may provide ourselves with proper medical attention and care.

7. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER OF BLACK PEOPLE, OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR, ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE INSIDE THE UNITED STATES.

We believe that the racist and fascist government of the United States uses its domestic enforcement agencies to carry out its program of oppression against Black people, other people of color and poor people inside the United States. We believe it is our right, therefore, to defend ourselves against such armed forces and that all Black and oppressed people should be armed for self-defense of our homes and communities against these fascist police forces.

8. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO ALL WARS OF AGGRESSION.

We believe that the various conflicts which exist around the world stem directly from the aggressive desires of the U.S. ruling circle and government to force its domination upon the oppressed people of the world. We believe that if the U.S. government or its Jackeys do not cease these aggressive wars that it is the right of the people to defend themselves by any means necessary against their aggressors.

9. WE WANT FREEDOM FOR ALL BLACK AND POOR OPPRESSED PEOPLE NOW HELD IN U.S. FEDERAL, STATE, COUNTY, CITY AND MILITARY PRISONS AND JAILS. WE WANT TRIALS BY A JURY OF PEERS FOR ALL PERSONS CHARGED WITH SO-CALLED CRIMES UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY.

We believe that the many Black and poor oppressed people now held in U.S. prisons and jails have not received fair and impartial trials under a racist and fascist judicial system and should be free from incarceration. We believe in the ultimate climination of all wretched, inhuman penal institutions, because the masses of men and women imprisoned inside the United States or by the U.S. military are the victims of oppressive conditions which are the real cause of their imprisonment. We believe that when persons are brought to trial that they must be guaranteed, by the United States, juries of their peers, attorneys of their choice and freedom from imprisonment while awaiting trials.

10. WE WANT LAND, BREAD, HOUSING, EDUCATION, CLOTHING, JUSTICE, PEACE AND PEOPLE'S COMMUNITY CONTROL OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

-- 17 --

Intercommunal News: Palestinians Hold People's Conference Protesting Israeli Expansion Plan

(Beirut, Lebanon) -- Palestinians in Nazareth, Upper Galilee, held a People's Conference recently in protest against the Israeli Zionists' expansionist plan to confiscate vast tracts of Palestinian land in Galilee. The Zionist plan calls for dispersion and forced removal of the Palestinians from their historic homeland in order to settle Israeli immigrants.

In a report issued by the Palestine News Agency (WAFA), the Conference is described as the first to be held to oppose the Zionist plan of expansion and settlement in the "Paris of Palestine" occupied in 1948.

The Conference was held on October 18 under the rally cry of "No Judaization. No dispersion from our lands."

Resolutions adopted by the Conference condemned the Israeli authorities for their measures to seize more Palestinian land in Galilee and called on the participants to oppose and reject all seizures of Arab land by the Zionist authorities.

WAFA reported that the Israeli paper Davar quoted the Israeli minister of agriculture as saying that the plan is estimated to include 20,000 dunums (10 dunums is equal to 2.471 acres) of Palestinian land.

In a commentary on the matter, WAFA said that the Zionist mass media is trying to cover the largest operations on land seizure which are taking place in Nagab.

The Israeli Zionists are exerting more and more pressure on the Arab citizens to give up one and a half million dunums of the land. The protest wave is spreading from Naqab to the Triangle and the Galilee Heights.

-- 17 --

NEW FOSSIL FINDINGS CONCLUSIVE PROOF HUMANS ORIGINATED IN AFRICA

Bones 3.75 Million Years Old Found In Tanzania

(Washington, D.C.) -- Further evidence that "man" or homo sapiens originated deep in Africa was announced by Dr. Mary Leakey last week at a press conference convened by the National Geographic Society here. Jaws and teeth of at least 11 individuals found in the Tanzanian region of Laetolil have been proven to be 3.75 million years old, nearly one million years older than any previous human fossils.

Dr. Mary Leakey is the widow of the late Dr. Louis Leakey, the archeologist who was responsible for many outstanding discoveries establishing the presence of the earliest known "modern humans" to be in East/Central Africa. The Leakeys have worked for several years in the Tanzanian Olduvai Gorge where most of their discoveries have been made.

Laetolil is a remote, semi-arid place 25 miles south of the Olduvai Gorge. Dr. Mary Leakey's discoveries are said to be the oldest reliably dated examples of true man. Laetolil was first explored by Louis and Mary Leakey in 1935. But they found nothing other than the remains of extinct animals.

Last December, however, Dr. Leakey returned to the area and found specimens of humanlike jaws and teeth. She again diverted her attention from Olduvai for two months last summer and turned up additional manlike remains.

"They wore very fine discoveries,' Dr. Leakey is reported to have said, "but we didn't appreciate their significance until just last month when we learned how old they were. That put them in a whole new light." Heretofore the oldest manlike fossils were no more than three million years old. They include teeth found in Ethiopia and a skull and other bones found in Kenya by Richard Leakey, son of Louis and Mary Leakey.

The work of the Leakeys, British archeologists, has for years been challenged by some Western archeologists and ignored by the general Western press. Powerful Western ideologists have for years resisted acceptance of the thesis that the origin of modern man was, in fact, in Africa.

The Leakey discoveries disprove the long-held thesis that modern man had his beginning somewhere in the Mesopotamian region around the Dead Sea, and thus in what is today Europe. The idea that modern man had his begining in "darkest Africa" upsets all previous held racist theories that Europeans are superior to Africans by reason of their long development.

Acceptance of the Leakey discoveries requires the ideologist to either reject his racist theories or reverse them. However, to reverse them would assert that

-- 18 --
African and Black people are superior to Europeans by reason of their longer development in accordance with the new evidence provided by the Leakey discoveries.

Dr. Leakey said that her new fossils share many features with the younger homo fossils from Kenya and Ethiopia. She said that as a group these fossils represented a species that is clearly different from an "ape-man" that until recently was thought to be ancestral to modern man.

Dr. F. Clark Howell, a widely respected early-man expert from Berkeley, California, who has led many fossil finding expeditions in East Africa, has seen photographs of the fossils and said he largely agrees with Dr. Leakey's interpretations.

Dr. Leakey has long been regarded among early-man experts as a leading authority on the stone tools fashioned by modern man's ancestors. She has written several books on the subject and made a number of the fossil discoveries that are popularly attributed to her husband. She said that as yet no stone tools had been found at Laetolil but that she planned further explorations to look for them.

-- 18 --

INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT MOHAMMED SAID BARRE OF SOMALIA

President Mohammed Said Barre of Somalia discusses his frank views and analysis on topics ranging from continental unity to the treacherous U.S. government lie that the strategically located East African country was secretly harboring Soviet military bases in a recent interview with Africa magazine. In 1974-75. President Barre served with distinguished ability as chairman of the Organization of African Unity.

PART 1

AFRICA: In 1974-75, you were Chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). What do you regard as the most important achievements for Africa in that year?

BARRE: First of all I wish to point out that the work under my chairmanship marked a continuation of endeavor and fulfilment that had already been in full swing when I took over. In that sense my part was merely to fit into this continuous process of African advancement.

GROUNDWORK

Yet, specifically one should recall that the past year saw the emergence of five more independent African countries, that important groundwork was done to bring the African and Arab worlds closer together, that Africa moved closer to Europe and that we were at the end of the year perhaps nearer to speaking with one voice on this continent than ever before.

Q: Does the world now understand better the aspirations of the African people? Are the Africans adopting more constructive policies towards the rest of the world?

BARRE: One can justly claim that considerable progress has been achieved on both scores. I for one tried very hard as Chairman of OAU to explain the African position, especially to people in the West. I talked at the U.N. and met the presidents of the USA. France and Italy and other statesmen urging them to appreciate the need for the liberation of those parts of Africa that are still subject to White domination. In this respect I particularly appealed to the common sense and self-interest of those concerned, because they will only do harm to their own interests if they persist in lending support to South Africa and other racist regimes.

On the other hand we have been appealing to the Africans to show a sense of responsibility and not to indulge in racism of their own. If we had been exploited and humiliated by European colonizers in the past this is no reason why we should now wish to take revenge.

On the contrary, we shall be proving our inner strength and dignity and, indeed, our superiority by showing a spirit of reconciliation and determination to work together with all nations for the benefit of mankind.

In particular, we have been successful in reconciling our African views on Europe, especially the divergences betwen the French- and English-speaking nations of our continent. It is our firm belief that Europe and Africa must cooperate. We need European technology and Europeans need our natural resources. I was glad to see that one of the results of this work was the Lome Convention last March when an association of African, Pacific and Caribbean countries with the EEC was agreed upon.

Q: What have you done to strengthen the Afro-Arab links?

BARRE: Efforts in this respect were continued and intensified over the past year and I am proud to say that Somalia undertook several initiatives in this regard. At the Arab League meeting in Rabat last October, the validity of Afro-Arab cooperation was formally endorsed, following which I visited many west and central African countries to explain the need for working together with our Arab brothers. I have also undertaken many visits to Arab countries where I put forward the African point of view. One of the results of these efforts was that the OAU conference at Kampala accepted that an Afro-Arab Summit meeting should take place at the earliest opportunity.

TO BE CONTINUED

-- 18 --

AFRICA IN FOCUS

Rhodesia

Four days before Rhodesia's White minority leader Ian Smith met with Joshua Nkomo for talks on a negotiated resolution of the question of majority rule in Rhodesia, a rally to demonstrate support for the African National Council's exiled leader, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, was so well attended that it had to be cancelled. The so-called conference /rally to proclaim Nkomo leader of the ANC held some weeks earlier had managed only to get out about 5,000 souls. The rally in support of Bishop Muzorewa brought out a reported 35,000 persons. The racist regime had placed a limit on the size of both rallies of 6,000 participants. Consequently the Muzorewa rally was prevented from taking place.

Zimbabwe

Violent revolution has to be made to achieve genuine independence in Zimbabwe, says Revolution, organ of the Zimbabwe African National Council, in its latest editorial. The magazine says: "There can never be real change in Zimbabwe without violent struggle." The Zimbabwean people are aware that the imperialists will not give up southern Africa so easily, "therefore, the oppressed and exploited people of southern African in general and of Zimbabwe in particular have to be prepared for a protracted struggle." it states.

Mozambique

Since the independence of Mozambique, religious groups have "held reactionary meetings," "established reactionary ties everywhere and engaged in secret underground activities," "attacked FRELIMO and the present government" and "created confusion in people's minds and disturbed public order," according to a message issued by the National Political Department of FRELIMO. The message calls upon the Mozambican people to heighten their vigilance and smash all counterrevolutionary plots of the enemy. The message pointed out that those groups as far back as the colonial days had been in close collusion with the colonialist regime in the killing of Mozambican people.

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African Trade Union Blasts Kidnapping Of Zimbabwe Leader

(Kinshasa, Zaire) - The recent kidnapping of Edson Sithole, publicity secretary of the African National Council (ANC) of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and his secretary, Miriam Mhlango, by the racist Rhodesian regime has been denounced here by the African Committee of Coordinated Trade Union Action Against Apartheid.

A communique issued by the African Committee and reported by Hsinhua news agency stated that all African patriots "feel indignant at this gangster act" which once again points out the magnitude of the terror imposed on the Zimbabwean people by the illegal Smith regime

"Far from weakening the action of the Zimbabwean nationalists, the incident will, on the contrary, strengthen the unity of the Zimbabwean people in their decisive struggle for liberation," the communique adds.

The communique calls on trade union organizations, political parties and youth and women movements in Africa to reinforce their support for the African National Council of Zimbabwe so as to destroy as soon as possible the illegal Smith regime.

The Committee was set up in Nairobi. Kenya in 1973, by African trade union organizations with the support of the Organization of African Unity. A protocol against apartheid and colonialism was agreed between Zaire and the Committee, on October 18, It was signed by Mandungu Bula Nyati, commissioner of state for Foreign Affiairs and International Cooperation, on behalf of Zaire.

Sithole and his secretary were mysteriously kidnapped in Salisbury. Rhodesia on October 15, by the racist Ian Smith government of Rhodesia. The kidnapping is the latest move by the Smith regime to destroy the ANC which is demanding immediate majority (Black) rule in Zimbabwe.

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5,000 CELEBRATE COMPLETION OF TANZAM RAILWAY

(Lusaka, Zambia) -- Over 5,000 people joyfully celebrated the completion of track-laying and the beginning of tral operations on the Tanzania-Zambia railway at a grand ceremony held here recently at the new Kapiri Mposhi Station, Hsinhua news agency reports.

Construction of the 1,860 kilometer (a kilometer equals five-eighths of one mile) railway was started in October, 1970, and was completed last June. The people of Tanzania and Zambia were assisted in the railroad's construction by expert technical and engineering assistance from the People's Republic of China.

African dignitaries attending the ceremony included President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia; Second Vice-President and Prime Minister Rashid Kawawa of Tanzania; Secretary General A.G. Zulu, of Zambia's National United Independence Party (UNIP); Zambian Prime Minister E.K.K. Mudenda; and members of the central committees of UNIP and the Tankanyikan African National Union as well as ministers and senior officials of the two governments.

Among the high-ranking officials from the People's Republic of China were: Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, Li Yao-won; Tang Yung, Chinese charge d'affaires and interim in Zambia; and Chin Hui, acting leader of the Chinese railway team.

Also present were Tanzanian, Zambian and Chinese workers, engineering and technical personnel who took part in the construction of the railway, as well as numerous diplomatic envoys of various countries to Zambia.

The celebration was highlighted by the colorful national dress worn by the people of Zambia who expressed their joy over the completed railway in song and dance. The national flags of Tanzania, Zambia and China fluttered over the Kapiri Mposhi railway station. Huge portraits of President Kenneth Kaunda, President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Chairman Mao Tse-tung were hung up on the station building.

Addressing the enthusiastic crowd, President Kaunda said: "Now before us is a dream come true… The Tanzam Railway is one of the weapons for the national defense, development and struggle for complete liberation.

PIPEDREAM

"The Western mass media derisively treated the Tanzam Railway as a mere pipedream. Now the railway is here. We pay tribute to the militant workers of Tanzania. China and Zambia for completing the construction of this railway ahead of schedule…

"This is an African railway. It links two independent African nations committed to African unity and African freedom. It is a further instrument for forging even stronger links between the Tanzanians and Zambians," President Kaunda said.

Tanzanian Prime Minister Rashid Kawawa repeated President Kaunda's high praise of Chairman Mao Tse-tung's leadership and the hard work,

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spirit and self-sacrifice of the Chinese engineering and technical personnel.

"(The railway) will make us stronger; it will help, indeed has already begun to help, our economic development, and it removes the physical barrier between the people of Zambia and those of Tanzania," Prime Minister Kawawa said.

Chinese ambassador to Tanzania. Li Yao-won, expressed warm congratulations to the governments and peoples of Zambia and Tanzania. He noted:

"The achievement of the Zambian and Tanzanian people has boosted the morale of the people and deflated the arrogance of the enemy. It has declared the complete bankruptcy of imperialist prophecies.

"Facts have proved that the African people are fully capable of building up their own countries independently by taking the initiative into their own hands once free from imperialist enslavement and domination." Ambassador Yao-won said.

Trial operation of the Tanzam Railway has begun with a passenger train running between Zambia and Tanzania once a week, and with freight trains running between Kapiri Mposhi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, every day.

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ERITREAN LIBERATION MOVEMENTS TO MERGE

(Eritrea) -- A merger of the two previously warring liberation movements here is expected to be completed by April, according to Gwynne Roberts writing in The Financial Times of London. The Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) and the Popular Liberation Forces (PLF) have over the last year agreed to merge field forces, share foreign aid and unite under a single leadership and a single political program.

The merger is expected to be completed on a military and political level by next April, but guerrilla leaders say it will take several years to eradicate deepseated suspicions