REALLY SAID ABOUT SLAYING OF DR. KING
[A couple of statements made by Stokely Carmichael at a press conference held at the Washington headquarters of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee April 5 have been widely quoted by TV, radio and press commentators, but in such a way as to give them an invidious meaning intended to help provide an excuse for whipping up a hue and cry against the most militant black leaders.
(The following is the transcribed text of the press conference, slightly abridged, as provided by the Liberation News Service. The speakers at the conference were Lester McKinnie, Washington SNCC coordinator, and Stokely Carmichael. ]
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McKinnie: This press conference will be for only five minutes and as soon as the press conference is over you gentlemen will not leave anything here.... Your films, your cigarette butts, you take them with you. You waste any water, you will have to clean it up. We have a few questions. SNCC... Right here, immediately right, is Stokely Carmichael, who will start here in Washington, D.C., and to my left Winkie Hall, who is also a menber of the staff of Washington. Carmichael will speak to you five minutes.
Carmichael: You may or may not know that this press conference was called before Dr. King's murder. We called it then
to deal with Brother Rap Brown because we
were very upset. Brother Rap Brown had
been in jail for 41 days and Gov. Agnew
of Maryland still seems to persist with
his nonsensical charges so the Brother
can't get out of jail and we want the
Brother out of jail next week when he
comes to trial.
As for Dr. King's murder, I think
white America made its biggest mistake
when she killed Dr. King last night be-
cause when she killed Dr. King last night,
she killed all reasonable hope. When she
killed Dr. King last night, she killed
the one man of our race that this coun-
try's older generations, the militants
and the revolutionaries and the masses of
black people would still listen to. Even
though sometimes he did not agree with
them, they would still listen to hin.
When white America killed Dr. King
she opened the eyes of every black man in
this country. When white America got rid
of Marcus Garvey, she did it and said he
was an extremist, that he was crazy. When
they got rid of Brother Malcolm X, they
said he was preaching hate, that he de-
served what he got.
When they got rid of Brother Mar-
tin Luther King, they had absolutely no
reason to do so. He was the one man in
our race who was trying to teach our peo-
ple to have love, compassion and mercy
for what white people had done. When white
America killed Dr. King last night, she declared war on us. There will be no crying and there will be no funeral.
The rebellions that have been occurring around these cities and this country is just light stuff to what is about to happen.
We have to retaliate for the deaths of our leaders. The execution for those deaths will not be in the courtrooms. They're going to be in the streets of the United States of America.
The kind of man that killed Dr. King last night made it a whole lot easier for a whole lot of black people today. There no longer needs to be intellectual discussion. Black people know that they have to get guns. White America will live to cry since she killed Dr. King last night. It would have been better if she killed Rap Brown and/or Stokely Carmichael. But when she killed Dr. King, she lost it.
Question: We want a statement from the organization.
McKinnie: We, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee wish to extend our condolences to the family of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was brutally murdered in Memphis, Tenn. This is a lesson which white America has taught us many times before. This lesson was clear in the murder of our four brothers in Orangeburg. This lesson was clear in the murder of the 16-year-old Larry Payne in Memphis. This lesson was clear in the day-to-day torture of black people by white people in America and throughout the world.
It was to end this torture that Dr. King bravely faced death many times -nonviolent. Dr. King was a brother who dedicated his life to liberating his people through nonviolence. Dr. King was a symbol of nonviolence and white America shot him down.
Question: Mr. Carmichael, don't you believe that the vast majority of Americans feel just as badly as you do about what happened to Dr. King?
Carmichael: The honky [whitel, from honky Lyndon Johnson to honky Bobby Kennedy, will not co-opt Dr. Martin Luther King -- Dr. Martin Luther King or black people. It was not but four weeks ago when Johnson told King that if he came marching into the District he'd need a voice because he should bring his troubles to him and now tonight he's trying to make as if Dr. King was his hero.
He fooled no one. Bobby Kennedy pulled that trigger just as well as anybody else, because when Dr. King was down
south, Bobby Kennedy was attorney gener-
al.
Every time a black person got
killed Kennedy wouldn't move because he
wanted votes, so he is just as guilty as
all of white America who killed Dr. King.
And those who feel sorry ought to feel
sorry.
Question: Mr. Carmichael, what do
you intend to do? What action do you in-
tend to take relative to Rap Brown?
Carmichael: We decided at our cen-
tral committee meeting that if Maryland
persists with this nonsensical charge,
even though the reports said Rap did not
incite any riot in Cambridge -- well,
then, Gov. Agnew -- he ain't seen nothing
if he thinks he's done something on that
Bowie State thing.
We will take our troops back into
Maryland and all of us veterans from Cam-
bridge, Md., and from Baltimore, Md., and
we will turn that state inside out and up-
side down, and we've got Louisiana to get.
We've got some brothers working in
Florida. We've got some brothers working
in Ohio and we're going to get Richmond,
Va.
Question: Mr. Carmichael, what do
you think will happen to the Poor Peo-
ple's Campaign?
Carmichael: I understand that the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
will carry it on, and, as we said before,
we will be glad to give them any support.
Whatever the Southern Christian Leader-
ship Conference asks for today we will
give to them, except our tears. We will
give no more tears for any black man
killed.
Question: Mr. Carmichael, do you
see anybody replacing Dr. King as a non-
violent leader?
Carmichael: NO! That's why America
lost when she shot him down last night.
Question: (Inaudible. )
Carmichael: We're waiting for what
the SCLC wants to do.
Question: What do you say to black
people who have to die to do what you say?
Carmichael: That they take as many
white people with them as they can. We
die every day. We die in Vietnam for the
honkies. Why don't we come home and die
in the streets for our people? We die
every day. We die cutting and fighting
each other inside our own communities. We
cut and fight and kill each other off.
Let's kill off the real enemies!
Black people are not afraid to die. We die all the time. We die in your jails. We die in your ghettos. We die in your rat-infested homes. We die a thousand deaths every day. We're not afraid to die, because now we're gonna die for our people.
McKinnie: On Monday our chairman, Rap Brown, will be in Richmond, Va., ac-— cording to the honky Federal Government. And there will be a car caravan to Richmond, Va., on Monday morning. We're urging all our black brothers and sisters to come to Richmond.
estion: Mr. Carmichael, what's the alternative to this kind of retribution in the streets that you are talking about? Is there any way to stop it?
Carmichael: I don't think so; I do not think so. I think white America is incapable of dealing with the problen.
Question: How will Dr. King's death affect the leadership?
Carmichael: Dr. King's death will not affect our leadership. He will affect the black man, for he was my brother, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood.
You see, the mistake they made when they shot Dr. King was, even though Dr. King felt about nonviolence, he was always in the streets ready to lead a demonstration.
All the other so-called leaders who talk about nonviolence are not on the streets with their people. Many people respected Dr. King, even though they didn't agree with his philosophy, because at least he was in the streets. But now there's really no one else to respect who talks about nonviolence. The people who talk about nonviolence are not in the streets.
Question: Mr. Carmichael, are you declaring war on white America?
Carmichael: White America has de-
clared war on black people. She did so
when she stole the first black man from
Africa. The black man has been...patient,
has been resisting -- and today the final
showdown is coming.
That is clear. That is crystal
clear. And black people are going to have
to find ways to survive. The only way to
survive is to get some guns. Because
that's the only way white America keeps
us in check, because she's got the guns.
Question: What do you see this ul-
timately leading to? A blood bath in
which nobody wins?
Carmichael: First, my name is Mr.
Carmichael, and secondly black people
will survive the blood bath. Last ques-
tion.
Question: What accomplishments or
objectives do you visualize from the en-
counter? What do you think you will ac-
complish?
Carmichael: The black man can't do
nothing in this country. Then we're going
to stand up on our feet and die like men.
If that's our only act of manhood, then
Goddammit we're going to die. We're tired
of living on our stomachs.
Question: One last question: Do
you fear for your life?
Carmichael: The hell with my life!
You should fear for yours. I know I’m go-
ing to die. I know I'm leaving. (Very
loud and long applause.)
McKinnie: There will be a just
fight throughout the United States, so
that black brothers and sisters can take
off that day as slaves working for the
master and think about, realize what the
honky is doing to the black people in
this country and perhaps then something
can be done. That's the end of the press
conference.
RACIST OFFICIALS AIM NEW BLOWS AT BLACK LEADERS
By Les Evans
America's racist rulers are seeking to utilize the spontaneous outbursts of anger in the black communities that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King as a pretext for new repressive blows aimed at militant black leaders. On April 6, two days after King's death, when the wave of uprisings was building to a climax, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee succeeded in
posting the exorbitant $30,000 bail re-
quired to free their imprisoned chairman
H. Rap Brown. Brown had been held in a
Louisiana prison on a trumped-up charge
since February 21.
As soon as Brown was released, how-
ever, he was rearrested by federal author-
ities and secretly moved to the federal
reformatory in Petersburg, Virginia, where
he is now being held for extradition to
Maryland, to be tried for “inciting to
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riot" during the ghetto rebellion in Cambridge last July.
Brown is the victim of a complicated series of federal and state persecutions and frame-ups. Johnson's Commission on Civil Disorders, the so-called Riot Commission, admitted in an unofficial supplementary report that the Cambridge events of last summer were spontaneous and that Brown's presence was coincidental, yet Maryland officials refuse to drop the charges and federal authorities are assisting them in keeping Brown jailed during the long pretrial legal maneuvers. Brown must also return to New Orleans for trial May 13 for allegedly transporting a rifle on a plane, an obscure and presumably minor charge for which he had been held for weeks under $100,000 bail, only recently reduced to the still unreasonable $30,000.
The capitalist press has been carrying on a sustained campaign against Brown, Stokely Carmichael, and other militant black leaders, since the new wave of ghetto rebellions began. They have canonized Martin Luther King the better to stress the virtues of nonviolence -- for black people. King's name is invoked to brand the SNCC leaders as "subversive" instigators of violence and enemies of the cause King stood for.
This unctious propaganda has little in common with the reality. While King and the SNCC leadership had sharp differences over the efficacy of nonviolence as a strategy or tactic for the achievement of black freedom in the U.S., each recognized the other as participants in the same struggle. The capitalist rulers, and the newspapers that speak for them, are not interested in black freedom at all, but invoke King's name as a means of pacifying black people and diverting them from their just demands.
Martin Luther King's real attitude toward Rap Brown and the government's "case" against him is indicated by a strong statement which he and several other civil-rights and black-freedom spokesmen issued in defense of Brown shortly before the assassination.
King and the others called upon "all Americans who believe in the Constitution of the United States to defend the right of free speech now being denied to H. Rap Brown....Specifically, we demand . that Attorney General Ramsey Clark stop the present prosecution of Brown and secure his immediate release from prison."
In the midst of all their eulogies of Martin Iuther King and denunciations of Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael the capitalist press has not seen fit to reprint this forthright statement by Dr. King.
"The conclusion is inescapable," King and the others declared, "that the government is making a special case of Rap Brown -- that it wants to keep him in jail, although he has been convicted of no crime, that it wants to keep him from speaking, and that it has violated the most basic tenets of our Bill of Rights to accomplish this.
“Brown is symbolic of the militant black spokesmen who are now challenging this country's racism....
"Today the brunt of the attack on freedom in America is Rap Brown. We take our stand in resistance to the attack on his rights. We are convinced that at this moment our own future hangs on his fate. We call again on all Americans who value their own freedom to stand with us in this resistance."
Stokely Carmichael has also become the target of opprobrium. Currently working for SNCC in Washington, D.C., he spoke at a press conference there April 5, the day after King's murder. The conference had originally been called to protest the continued imprisonment of H. Rap Brown, but it became a forum for the first public statement by SNCC leaders. on the assassination of Martin Luther King. [The text of the press conference appears on page 340 of this issue of World Outlook.]
In a strongly worded statement, Carmichael said, "When white America killed Dr. King last night, she declared war on us."
Carmichael urged black people to make use of their constitutional right of self-defense. He said; "Black people know that they have to get guns."
The usually staid New York Times said in an April 6 editorial, "The twisted mind of the white criminal who murdered Dr. King is matched by the psychotic reaction of Stokely Carmichael who publicly urges murder in the streets."
In this monstrous amalgam the racist murderer and his victim's friend and defender are pictured as the same!
This line of slander was pushed still further by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak in their April 8 syndicated column. Posted apparently at two keyholes in Carmichael's room, they report his immediate reaction to the news of King's death: ".. the usually decisive Stokely Carmichael was in a momentary state of confusion and inaction -- until he received a mysterious telephone call from an unknown source."
The two peeping toms offer additional bits of inside dope: "The mobiliza-
~34A
tion of Carmichael by a single phone call reinforces suspicions of Negro leaders who believe he is guided through his otherwise inexplicable shifts of strategy by amseen -- and undetermined —- forces."
The innuendo in this red-baiting attack is, of course, that Stokely Carmichael is a puppet, dangling on strings, or a telephone cord, of the “international Communist conspiracy."
On April 9 Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson in their syndicated column said that "the Justice Dept. is preparing to move against Stokely Carmichael on charges of sedition because of his role in the Washington riots."
What did the "sedition" consist of? Carmichael's statements at the April 5 press conference?
In Oakland, California, a police attack on members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense April 8 left one black militant dead and two wounded. An account in the April 15 Militant said the victims "were sitting in a parked car when the police attack began. They ran to a nearby house, and the cops called in three dozen reinforcements for the ensuing battle."
Bobby James Hutton, 22, was shot. Warren Wells and Eldridge Cleaver, minister of information for the Black Panther party, were wounded by the cops. Cleaver is the author of Soul on Ice, and a contributor to Ramparts magazine.
A joint statement issued by the Black Panther party and the Peace and Freedom party declared, "...the articulate, young, and militant leadership is being systematically attacked in an attempt to destroy it; this, under the cover of pleas for nonviolence (for the blacks, that is), by the power structure, from the White House on down to the police departments of L.A., San Francisco and Oakland...
"Word has gotten out that the San Francisco and Oakland police intend to destroy the Black Panthers. Last Saturday night following a two minute gun battle, the details of which will come out later, ten Panthers were surrounded by over sixty cops in the black ghetto of Oakland. The police riddled the house with hundreds of bullets and dozens of tear~gas cannisters, and the Oakland Fire Department finally threw a fire bomb under the house. The Panthers, after negotiating their personal safety and the safety of the family of the house, laid down their arms and walked out with their hands up.
"Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information of the Black Panther Party, had been wounded and, therefore, young Bobby Hutton walked out, unarmed, and with his hands in the air. He moved slowly and into the glare of many searchlights which made the entire area as bright or brighter than daylight. He made it for over twenty feet, almost to the sidewalk, and there he was gunned down to death."
After treatment at a hospital, Eldridge Cleaver was taken to San Quentin Prison, and then moved to another jail at Vacaville, sixty miles away. Cleaver had been on parole after spending nine years in prison on a charge of assault. The authorities revoked his parole.
Ramparts magazine said in a statement in New York: "We cannot assume that Mr. Cleaver will be given fair treatment in jail or in the courts, given the climate that exists in Oakland and the open hostility of the Oakland police for black militants."