Face the Nation - David Hilliard (1969?)

Mr helard the clashes between the Black Panther leaders and the police are now the subject of at least three investigations one by the justice department one by a group of black congressmen one by a group headed by former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark what do you hope for from any or all of these investigations we hope that these investigations will serve as a convincing indictment against the uh oppressive United States government and this killer police uh the Black Panther Party is all along uh said that uh the police were uh the main forces of Oppression in our communities and uh also we had made a trip to New York City to the un uh last year to apply for NGO status so that it's become very uh clear that the uh government is working uh in cohorts with the uh local agencies the police and uh an a brutal attempt to try to liquidate the Black Panther Party so out of that investigation we hope to uh bring the truth to the American people so that we can have peace in our communities from CBS Washington in color Face the Nation a spontaneous and unrehearsed news interview with the chief of staff of the Black Panther Party David hilard Mr hilard will be questioned by CBS News correspondent Ike papis Bernard nser of the Washington Post and CBS News correspondent George Herman we shall continue the interview with Mr Hillard in a moment Mr hilard all three of these investigations are being conducted by people either in or very close to the establishment the justice department former officials of the federal government present members of Congress do you really think that one of these investigations will find what you claim oppression by the government against the Black Panthers I think that already the black Congressman uh headed by congressman's Diggs uh has shown uh concern for their own National salvation of course we do not have faith in uh the justice department because the justice department is a symbol of Injustice as far as its black subjects are concerned uh we refer to uh Goldberg as a fox uh that watches over the chickens so that we not expect uh any equality or we not do not expect uh justice from the other individuals but we do have faith in our own people and the Very fact that they've come forth to uh try to bring out the criminal indictments against the police and the other agencies of the United States government shows if uh nothing else it shows uh solidarity with black people so we see that as being Victorious Mr henard you speak of the criminal activities of police but don't the Panthers stock and collect guns themselves isn't this an invitation to the police to take action uh first of all the Panthers do not stock guns uh we're very uh aware of the gun laws um we Advocate uh each individual having a a shotgun in their homes is spelled out under the Constitution of the United States uh it's not our purpose to uh simulate large catch of weapons if we have weapons we would uh distribute the weapons in the community for self-defense but we do not have uh armories uh and even if we did uh we would expect uh the same treatment under the law that's given to members of the Klux Clan uh people like the thoron or the birads Mr hilard the justice department denies what you say that there is an organized attempt to destroy the Black Panthers but if what you say is true how successful has it been has this campaign been against you I don't think that we we can say that it was successful what it has done is that it brought to the attention of the American people uh the atrociousness of the American government uh in terms of uh it its subjects uh people moving uh for their freedom uh the very fact that they attack us so openly uh shows uh that they're uh very brutal people that they're a bar barbarous uh criminal element within Society but uh as far as their their successfulness is concerned they're not successful so they can never uh exterminate the Black Panther Party because the Black Panther Party is not just a party for itself but rather it's a party for the people most of your leadership has been either jailed or is an exile or uh uh some of them are dead uh there's leadership Gap obviously in your organization uh it seems to me that there if there is a campaign against you it has been successful to a certain point well most people would like to think that especially uh the enemy but but uh we're satisfied that they could never uh exterminate the Black Panther Party in order to do that they would have to commit genocide because what we're working for is already spelled out within the Constitution of the United States we're asking for the basic uh Necessities for human life so therefore uh it would be impossible for them to exterminate or to uh really have a successful uh extermination campaign against our party our part is manifested in the people Mr Hillard would you say that what you're after is manifested in the Constitution and yet you personally have said that you Advocate the very direct forceful overthrow of the government you're under indictment as I understand it for advocating the assassination of President Nixon that doesn't sound to me like it's all within the Constitution what is within the Constitution is our right to free speech Yes and uh as far as um my threatening the president uh this is a violation of uh My First Amendment right I did not uh threaten the life of the president uh in the context of a speech that I made I stated uh very uh emphatically that we would kill anyone that stands in the way of our freedom and of course uh the newsman and the news media uh is uh another instrument by which the government uh dupes and uh narcotized the people so the very fact that the newsmen themselves are ideological lackies for the system they have mouthwash the criminal elements in this society and they have made the victims look like the criminals and the criminals look like the victim I never said that uh we would assassinate the president do you feel Richard Nixon is standing in the way of your freedom I think that anybody that picks up guns against uh the oppressed people or anybody that endorses programs that maintain the oppressive uh structure as it is is in the way of our free is that Richard Nixon Richard Nixon is a chief spokesman of the American people and if the man uh is not responsible for the people in government like the FBI agencies or the local police then uh he should stand up and uh let the American people know that he do not endorse the kind of campaigns that's been waged against black World Point Clear uh are you saying that you were incorrectly quoted when you were quoted as saying we should kill President Nixon I'm saying that my whole speech was taken out of context and this is uh nothing new I think that the policy that the United States has adopted is the same policy put forth by Adolf Hitler the big life policy and the big life policy is uh to take things out of country well whether this statement was taken out of context or not was it a statement that you made Mr henard it was a statement that I made in the framework of a lot of other words so that the rhetoric uh as stated was adjoined with uh some other words but I did not specifically say that we want to assassinate the president of the United States we're not that stupid well I don't want to uh belor this point but I was in San Francisco I was at the moratorium day ceremonies and I heard you make the speech and within the context uh of of what you said uh I believe it went we will kill Richard Nixon we will kill uh anyone any blankety blank who stands in the way of our freedom and it's a very simple question do you think Richard Nixon is standing in the way of your freedom number two would you kill him I would say this I would say that Richard Nixon is the chief spokesman for the American people he's the highest official in this land if Richard Nixon stands in opposition to Freedom guaranteed to us under the alleged Constitution then the man is designated as enemy but I did not and I will not here uh designate I will not take the responsibility to say assassinate anybody well what you're suggesting Mr hediard is that this was a metap for of figure of speech out in San Francisco I'm saying that it was political rhetoric uh we can call it metaphor uh it's the language of the ghetto this is the way that we relate uh even the profanity the profanity is uh is uh within the idiom of the oppressed people so that in the context of that speech I said that and I'm not going to take that back okay well now then let me ask you this is your revolutionary um are your revolutionary slogans on these two metaphors is this also rhetoric uh or do panthers literally believe uh that a violent overthrow of the government must take place in this country let's just say this let's say that uh we could have our freedom without a shot being fired but we know that the uh imperialist that the fascist on a very local level with not would not with draw from the uh Arena uh without violence they have proven themselves uh very violent and thus far they haven't done anything to uh ensure us our freedom uh we do not ask for violence uh we were in the Forefront of uh peaceful demonstration starting with Dr Martin Luther King so the very fact that we uh even enjoined in the November 15th demonstrations for peace abroad while right here at home uh we're being victims of uh attacks Day and Night by the criminal gencies manifest in the police departments so that we do not Advocate violence our slogan is that we want an abolition to Wars but we do understand that in order to get rid of the gun it would be necessary to take up the gun you say that you don't um uh favor violence and I gather that what you're suggesting is that you only use in your view your weapons for defensive purposes is that correct that's right we have all right if this is so then why does your party newspaper and I see you have a copy of of one in front of you uh uh uh use as a repeated slogan kill the pigs doesn't this suggest to an unwary reader who isn't aware when you're being literal and when you're using metaphor that indeed it is their duty to go out and kill police there's nothing in this paper that say kill the pigs uh we only Advocate killing those that kill us and if uh we designate uh our enemies as pigs then I think that it would be justified to a Kill see what you people do you turn the terminology around what you try to do is you try to make us all violent and you people all civilized and uh peaceful but what we understand is that it's all right to use violence if you're using violence for a change a change for the better so we make a distinction between the reactionary violence manifest in the system the main oppressor of all mankind and violence used uh in behalf of the oppressed people to throw off the shackles of colonialism and oppression so that violence on our part would be justified without uh trying to put my own interpretation on it let me ask you your interpretation of this quote which I find in a newspaper attributed to you I don't know whether it is correct or not but let me read it to you when you say we Advocate the very direct overthrow of the government by way of force and violence by picking up guns and moving against it because we recognize it as being oppressive and in recognizing that we know that the only solution to it is armed struggle let's say this let's quote from your very same Constitution where you say that that when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object events as are designed to reduce the amount of absolute despotism it is their right it is their duty to throw off such governments and to provide new guards for their future security now this is from the Declaration of Independence are you saying that time is for the American people then we said that it's good for the oppressed people of the world you're saying that that time has now come that rate of Oppression is now com I'm saying I'm saying that the time is has come when the masses of the people have been uh pushed to the wall when they cannot any longer uh redress their grievances through the legal uh uh political Machinery of this country we're not uh the decision makers the masses are if the masses think that it's time to overthrow the system then there's nothing you or the president anyone else can do the CHS are there um we don't usually uh throw those figures around we can you give me a rough we said we have about 30 chapters throughout the United States that would be what to 5 or 10,000 people it might be it might be it might be more than that do you have the feeling that this small group 5 or 10,000 really represents the masses of the black people no I'm saying that the ideas spelled out in our 10-point programming platform uh represent the basic desires and needs of the people how do you know because these are ideas taken from the masses these are not just a bunch of abstract ideas that fell from the sky and ended up on our paper this is a survey what we asked for are things that were promised to us over 400 years ago but aren't some of these things that you have down on the paper and in your demands and so forth there aren't there some of them paraphrases of maong and chuar rather than the black masses there's nothing here that paraphrases per se mun or but the uh ideas the uh desires are as for the aspirations in our program are the same that all op pressed people in the world ask for and that's freedom and self-determination the ultimacy is National salvation there there are 20 million black people in this country and if you say uh you have maybe 5,000 or even 10,000 members uh that's still not 20 million how are you going to get them uh the rest of the black people over to your side uh we understand that you're having difficulty getting people to uh to join with you in in your philosophy well first of all uh I never quoted you any figure I told you that we had about 30 chapters but our program is the uh method for uh organizing the people we're organizing them around our 10-point program a program that spells out the basic desires and needs of all people and uh the very fact that the Black Panther party is a party that relates to uh internationalism as the key to uh eradicating racism in this country shows that we we're much stronger than even you imagine Mr hiard is your back really to the wall here are you on National Television here are all kinds of moderate black groups that have come to take up your cause at least on the legal side uh uh doesn't this indicate that perhaps this Society is much more responsive and much more open uh to legitimate demands than your rhetoric sometimes suggests I don't think the television is the big payoff we could ask for a lot of other things uh more so than television I would rather be in our communities uh feeding hungry children uh sitting up but trying to erect institutions that would educate the people uh the children in our community so that they would not have to wage a war in your name or his or this man's or for that matter the president of the United States what we're for is uh peace and that's the ultimacy of our goals let me go back to the guns question if I if I may if police departments the country over uh staffed the the ghettos with black policemen policemen who lived in the community would you then feel safe and would you then be willing to lay down the guns you now carry so you don't understand at all first of all we've made it clear that we don't make any distinction between black policemen and white policemen the police is the symbol of the state the police's duty is not to uh protect the people in the community but whether to protect the property owned by the Catholic class so that you have black servants and that we don't make any distinction between the black Lackey who are servants for this system or the white people that are servants for this system we don't Advocate an all black police department because we understand that in our communities uh there's uh many ethnic categories of people living within the boundaries of the community that what we do Advocate is if the people police the community therefore they should live in the community and that the people should have control over the local police in their communities that's the philosophy of the black p party all right under those conditions would you lay down your guns we would we would have uh more reason to lay them down than under the present circumstances let's say that what stage is the revolution in right now as far as you're concerned well as far as I'm concerned I see the revolution still at the educational level because the masses of the people are still being uh duped they're still being politically deformed uh by the ideological degeneration put forth by the J listen to news do you have a timetable what you revolutions are not blueprinted what are you talking about well in other words you're trying to build a popular base now is that right what we're trying to do is we're trying to wage a mass educational campaign and we recognize before any Revolution there's got to be education but I would like to say that uh there's no blueprint for the revolution we're prepared to uh struggle 40 50 years however long it takes is it this food program that you have and uh feeding uh children and so forth I'm sure that every will agree that uh children should be fed children don't have food and people who don't have Medical Aid should be given Medical Aid and so forth but don't you provide an indoctrination also with the food that the children are being indoctrinated into your philosophy and so forth that when they grow up they'll be big panthers what you call indoctrination we call education I say that they're being indoctrinated when you tell them to pick up a gun and go 10,000 miles and shoot somebody that never even call them [ __ ] what we do is educate them we educate them to their own environment we don't educate them about historians that are completely uh rejected completely removed from their environment we educate those people and those young people about the conditions in their Community we show them very physically the conditions in the white mother country as sometime referred to and the situation in the black community we show them and we point out to them the uh evildoers and the uh law Breakers supposedly manifested in the peace officers and we show them very concrete and real contradictions but we do not indoctrinate them we educate Mr the uh the party the Black Panthers are subject I think you yourself have charged of almost unexcelled un un unbeaten FBI scrutiny how badly are you infiltrated are there FBI men or whatever throughout all of your organization well see first of all let's make uh very clear what we're talking about there's uh both ideological infiltration yes sir and then there cultural infiltration I don't think that we have uh any FBI agents in our national headquarters I know that in New York City uh they wiped out uh the whole uh organizing Cadre which numbered some 21 people so I'm sure that there are some agents there but in our national headquarters uh I'm content to believe that we have a a dedicated core people working for the betterment of their black people there's been u a lot written about the attempts of the Black Panther leadership to use true serum or drugs and so forth to check the uh the honesty and the legitimacy of its high leadership doesn't that mean that you're somewhat worried um I don't know anything about uh truth serum I'm not sure that truth serum would be uh the kind of uh chemicals necessary to uh even make people uh admit if they were uh uh agents I don't know the Val truth serum I'm not a a doctor position how about the New Haven case where the police charged that black panther leadership beat up kidnapped beat up and finally executed a black panther Informer what about the R st huh what about the R st oh I'm sor of the RTO what about uh Charles po what I me was is there this kind of action against possible informers anywhere in your organization well let's say that it's not necessary for the Black Panther Party to use uh this kind of uh torture and this kind of animalization but let's say that it is a weapon that the United States government uses in order to vilify uh the Black Panther Party same as uh they use in Vietnam with the sunma massacres the same as they use uh uh in any other country where they want to uh uh first vilify the people then isolate them and commit acts of atrocities or genocide against their people we do not use those kind of uh tactics uh it's not in the uh benefit of our party our party is a party as I said that's law servants to the people we're up at 6:00 every morning feeding hungry children trying to put forth uh point seven of our program to uh remove or to control the police and our communities we don't have time to uh do the dirty work for the police I say that the police killed Alex Rackley Mr hediard in the world you want to build let's say it came about would you permit a dissident group to carry sought off shotguns to carry automatic weapons I would say that there wouldn't be any need for people to carry weapons anywhere on this planet Earth if uh the government was a government forign by the people the very fact that you have a very one-sided government that that only uh satisfies the needs of a few a ruling class click that manipulates uh uh the whole world makes it necessary for people to pick up anything they can to ensure another day of last but where in the world is there a government like the one you're talking about where there's no need to keep an eye on the people I'm sure that there's I'm sure I'm sure that there are some examples uh in my travels I think that Algeria uh would be a a more of a model type uh people's government than the present form of a tyranny no dis nobody in jail there of course they have jails and we can not imagine a society without Authority we do not say that what we do say is that as long as the people have uh some self-control as long as the people are getting three meals a day as long as they are employed then I think that it would put an end to the many robberies to the killings and you can check that out for yourself there's records uh they don't have uh near as many crimes in Algeria as they do here Mr the society that um uh uh Panthers want to build uh your colleagues frequently tell me that they draw their inspiration from marks Lenin uh do you and what does this mean to you if you do well we see Marxism leninism as being a science uh a very Advanced science and that uh we recognize that Marxism lism is not uh a dogmatic ideology but rather it's a guide to action so that the philosophy of the Black Panther Party uh is not a philosophy that reflects uh uh the history of China of Russia or Korea or um Cuba for that matter but it's the histor IAL experiences of blacks right here in this country interpreted through Marxism leninism so that we see Marxism leninism not as a dogmatic uh uh Dogma but uh as a guide to action Mr Hillard what kind of support does uh the Black Panther Party receive from such countries as Cuba uh North Vietnam and so forth uh uh resistance against a common enemy well is it in the form of money guns uh propaganda or what we haven't ever received any money from uh the people's Republic of Cuba or China or Korea and uh one of the reasons we have is because uh the intermediaries the United States government is ripped it all off how about Algeria I I don't know whether you left some out on well they well they they control the mail that comes from Algeria too so we know that it's impossible to get any money from Cuba or from Algeria or from Russia or from any other country because of the United States government have you been offer the I'm sure that those people would give us anything that we ask if it was possible for us to get it but see as though the system is set up uh and the United States government is being the uh initial recipients we would never receive that they're thieves and they put that tail lines that claws on it and we never see it they you mean to tell me that in a in a country into which morphine and heroin is smuggled in every day that you couldn't get some help in from these other countries well we don't we don't go to the extremes to do that first of all we see our struggle as being one of our self-reliance and we're not dependent upon anybody else financing our struggle we said that the best assist we can get from all the countries you mentioned is their resistance against us imperialism given the raids and the jailings of panas that have taken place really has your organization any kind of a future we see that it has more of a future than this country your minister of information uh is now in Exile ELD Cleaver uh you speak with him often on the phone is that correct you know I do they tap the phones the phone is probably hooked up to the White House can you tell me why he wants to come back to the United States or does he I can't tell you the Elder just never told me that he wanted to come back the man is completely satisfied where he is he he doesn't have to worry about for a passport why did he file for a passport because he's a right to it he's a right to a passport he's an American citizen so that he can he can travel around so he can have identification you know as he left he didn't have any identification at all because he left under does he want to go to another country perhaps besides I think that he would like to move around it would be uh in in benefit of our party and both Elders to move around the man don't have to be marooned uh on an island somewhere Mr hot as a result of all the newspaper publication about the killings of black panthers as a result of all these investigations suddenly the Black Panther has gotten the support at least verbal support of a whole group of moderate or even conservative black groups even the NAACP now seems to have some kind words to say for you do you welcome this do you Court it of course we welcome it uh we we see our struggle as being one of the reason I I want the just very little time left and I just wanted to ask you will your welcoming the support make any change in your own policies our policy is still uh self-defense and National salvation we welcome it because it shows very clearly that uh even the most moderate uh American blacks have finally realized that this is the most atrocious the most barbarous government the number one enemy of humanity so therefore they're moving with all the forces of of resistance against a common enemy and that is in this case us fascism thank you very much for being with us today on Face the Nation right on