Revolution or Death by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Throughout the summer, Cleaver intensified his Panther activities. He gave a number of provocative and inflammatory speeches. At a rally for Newton on July 14, 1968, Cleaver told the crowd, “From now on we niggers have got to stop killing other niggers and start killing police.”36 At a speech at the Barristers Club, he half joked that the Panthers would rob white people in the audience if they didn’t make contributions to the cause. “We’re very uptight for money, and I don’t think we’ll take up a collection here, but we’ll accept any donations. Because we need that, and if someone don’t give us that, we will rob you, kill you, burglarize your homes, catch you on dark streets and take your big fat wallet. Up against the wall, motherfucker!”37 He also encouraged audience members to pick up guns and shoot up courtrooms full of lawyers and judges. “I hope that you will go out in your courtroom with your gun, you dig, and shoot some of these prosecuting attorneys, some of those lying policemen; throw them off the stand.”38 When a member of the audience asked Cleaver what white people could do to help the cause, he replied, “Kill some other white people.”39

In July, Cleaver traveled with Bobby Seale and Emory Douglas to New York to appear at the United Nations. Since its creation after World War II, African American activists had viewed it as a place to protest the human-rights abuses experienced by black people in the United States. Among those was Malcolm X, who attempted to gain support among African nations to launch a UN investigation of the racist treatment of African Americans. At a news conference there, Cleaver told reporters that the Panthers would not allow Newton to be executed. “They will have to kill us first,” he stated defiantly.40 The Panthers filled out an application with the UN to become a recognized nongovernmental organization. They also met with Cuban officials to seek permission to set up a military training facility in Cuba. Cleaver had studied Che Guevara and Castro closely and was eager to learn guerrilla warfare from the Cubans. They promised both facilities and training if Cleaver came to the island.

Cleaver secured the nomination for president of the United States with the Peace and Freedom Party. He promised, if elected, to withdraw troops from Vietnam, disband the police, and promote self-determination for all racial groups. He claimed that the United States was the number-one successor to Nazi Germany and biggest obstacle to human progress. Cleaver was popular among voting white radicals. On August 3, 1968, he received the most votes by California delegates to win the nomination, beating out comedian Dick Gregory. He was only thirty-three years old and Constitutionally ineligible to win, but the party nominated him anyway.41 Cleaver was incredibly idealistic about his candidacy. In a journal entry titled, “Why I Am Running for President,” Cleaver made a list of all of the reasons he wanted America’s highest office: “To inspire the outcast and downtrodden, the poor and disinherited, the hated and the scorned.

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