A Simple Revolution by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2021-03-24T15:35:09+00:00

BLACK PANTHER PARTY REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE’S CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, NOVEMBER 27-29,1970

The Panther conference was indeed historic, an expansive attempt to unite in dialogue and common purpose the various movements that had poured out of the Sixties. Huey Newton had reached out to both the women’s and the gay movements, declaring both to be oppressed groups. Anne and I rode down from Boston to Washington in the van, and met up with other lesbians from our West Coast Gay Women’s Liberation. They had arrived with a fresh supply of Woman to Woman, which we easily hawked to the mob of radical women who showed up for the conference. Negotiations between the Washington chapter of the BPP and Howard University over use of buildings broke down, though another space was used to house about five hundred of us radical women. We spread sleeping bags, quilts and jackets on the floor. Anne Leonard and I stayed there, wrapped in our dark multi-purpose peacoats.

The Black Panther Constitutional Convention was an ambitious and idealistic meeting that intended to draw together common interests toward a single revolutionary goal, as the Panthers attempted to expand their base, calling themselves the “vanguard” of a broad movement. Newspapers reported that somewhere between three thousand and five thousand young people, mostly white, arrived in the capital city for the convention, having learned about the open invitation through the alternative left media including the widely distributed Black Panther paper. The newly formed Washington, DC, BPP had struggled all summer to find a hall large enough to hold everyone at once, with large workshop rooms so that issues could be addressed and the fledgling People’s Constitution could be framed. Because of the violent rhetoric espoused by the party, including the phrase “Off the pigs!” and the Maoist war cry, “Power comes from the barrel of a gun,” Washington’s middle class did not trust them.

At the last moment, Howard University agreed to host the Convention, but only with a $10,000 advance payment. The Panthers were not organized to raise that amount of money. Lacking a place to gather, the Convention failed in its constitution discussions. Panther leaders delivered some speeches in smaller venues, but feminists objected to misogynist phrases, while Gay Liberation groups found homophobia in some of the rhetoric. Newton’s invitations to both groups, each highly sensitive to language, was ahead of the reality of attitudes within the party.

Local churches opened their doors to shelter the attendees, and the fact that hundreds of feminists were housed in one huge hall provided a priceless opportunity for women from all over the country to make passionate speeches to each other. Women spoke up from a variety of positions—socialist, feminist, and the new voice of lesbian militancy, which our California group was especially vocal in articulating.

In retrospect the inability of the BPP to find space large enough to hold the disparate groups reflected the range of contradictory situations we were all in; this was much too soon for people to comprehend, let alone resolve each other’s extremely diverse group needs.

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