NEWSLETTER

What was Eldridge like?

Eldridge was just a pure anarchist. He wanted to pull that Bakunin bullshit off, you know what I mean? I mean, to show you what I’m talking about, Eldridge put out a pamphlet called “Catechism of a Revolutionary”—this is after that shoot-out situation. This is a Black Panther Party Ministry of Information pamphlet. I had not read this shit, OK? I did not know it was all Bakunin, the 1800s anarchist. And Marlon Brando called me up, he said, “Bobby! I’m not going to send you any more money.” Because Brando would give me money. I guess he must have donated ten grand to me. But he says, “I’m not gonna work with you guys any more. You’re running around telling people to kill their mother and father for the revolution. That ain’t right.” I said, “We don’t do any such goddamn thing, what the hell’s wrong with you, Marlon?” “Here on page so-and-so!” “Of what?” He says, “Your ‘Catechism of a Revolutionary’!” So I says, “Rosemary, hand me that out of my briefcase.” I had the thing in my briefcase for two months and never read the damn thing because I’m busy, I’m organizing too much. So I got on page so-and-so, and he’s reading, “Kill their mothers and…” and I says, “Damn, I’m sorry, man…” He says, “OK, I’ll see you, bye”—click. So I lost my funding source because of Eldridge Cleaver’s bull. Later in life, I’m really taking the time to look at this and put two and two together. When I go back to speaking with Eldridge in 1992, we got a chance to get in various conversations. So I’m asking Eldridge, you had “Catechism of a Revolutionary.” I remember you called Martin Luther King a nonviolent fool. Now you’re a born-again Christian on the other side of the fence. So when Little Bobby Hutton was killed, were you operating from the standpoint of “Catechism of a Revolutionary”? He said, yeah, I was just stupid, I just thought we had to do something, boom boom boom.

What does “Catechism of a Revolutionary” say, exactly?

It’s based on Bakunin. He ran around and said kill officials of the government of all kinds, murder them, shoot them down in the street, blah blah blah. Kill the police and so on—anything that represents the state.

I was one for programmatic organizing. All those free breakfast programs, I created those programs. Huey Newton didn’t create them, he was in jail when these programs were created. Huey did not start that. I started that shit, you know what I mean? I did that shit. Because to me, you cannot go around here just standing on the street corner, talking a bunch of quote-unquote militant talk if you’re not gonna organize the people. “We need unity in the black community,” that’s what the phrase was. I said, well, you’ve got to unify people around something. That’s what I used to say to some of these guys way before the party ever started. A bunch of armchair revolutionaries, never did anything. And ultimately I created, got Huey to help me create, the Black Panther Party. I’m the one that got the office, I’m the one that painted the sign on the window, I’m the one that laid out the application to join. I did all of that shit. I was an engineer, I made good money, then I was in city government and I made good money as the director of the youth-jobs program. I invested my money and time. I wasn’t married or anything. You have to do real things. I was a carpenter and a builder. That’s what I was about, moving to build the house, a political house, a political, electoral framework to unify people around grassroots programs.

You got any more questions on barbecue?

Back then, was there ever any problem with the Muslims and Nation of Islam people who were around about people eating pork?

Please, I didn’t even relate to the Muslims at all. You don’t even come around to me, talking about “You can’t eat pork.” Like Nipsey Russell, the comedian, used to say: “Man, I thought you had a grudge against the white man oppressing you. I’ll organize against that, but I ain’t got no grudge against a ham hock.” I got no time for that. That’s ritualistic bullshit. I’m an engineer. I worked in the Gemini missile program, two years in the engineering department. I did electromagnetic-fueled black-light nondestruct testing on all engine frames for the Gemini missile program. I placed myself in the high-tech world before I even got interested in the civil rights protests. I base things on good proven scientific evidentiary fact, I don’t base things on some mythical bullshit. Nation of Islam at the time was running around calling all white folks devils. Well, that’s just bullshit. That’s some old metaphorical mythical misrepresentation. You don’t call white folks devils. You’re part of this biologically existing Homo sapiens humanity. I mean, I liked Malcolm X, you know, because he didn’t bite his tongue. But I had no time for the Nation of Islam. You don’t wanna come around my organization. I got big pork. I got pork chops, pork roast, pork ribs, and beef, chicken, and everything else.

And I know that nowadays, an excessive amount of fat in the food—not the food itself, but the fat—blocks arteries. I don’t deal with no marbleized fat of rib steaks and stuff, because they’re too fatty. But anyway, the Nation of Islam was around this college that I went to, but I wasn’t even interested in them. I would never have joined them, even though I liked Malcolm, because I didn’t believe in religious doctrine being at the helm of the human-liberation struggle. That’s the way I saw it.


TO BE CONTINUED:
LABOR DAY BOBBY-QUE | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

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