The Age of Supraliberalism: A Requiem for Neoliberalism, Capitalist Democracy, and the American Unipolar World

By Joshua Lew McDermott

The Death of Neoliberalism, The Birth of the Supraliberal Age

The present political moment is often only fully understood in hindsight. Analysts will one day look back on the Trump era, especially his second term, as marking a point of departure, the world’s entrance into a brave new world. But we don’t have to wait. To change the world, we must understand events as they unfold or, better yet, we must anticipate them given what came before. And the neoliberal age has given way to something new: the supraliberal age. 

Yet contemporary thinkers remain shackled by the norms, concepts, and logics of the past, namely the unipolar world dominated by neoliberal policy and American Empire. 

But the neoliberal age is dead. It had been dying since 2008. Yet the concept still looms large in the intellectual zeitgeist. Neoliberal fascism, authoritarian neoliberalism, post-neoliberalism, late neoliberalism, late-stage capitalism; these are just a few of the proposed concepts for understanding this moment. But these concepts have thus far failed to adequately capture the impetus for and radical nature of the historic break.

Neoliberalism was premised on two fundamental principles: the unrestrained free-market and limited but functional liberal government defined by “good governance,” efficiency, and technocratic elitism. In the supraliberal age, alternatively, the invisible hand has choked the last breaths of life from the already frail liberal polity. A zombified liberalism remains, with government institutions simultaneously rendered impotent in the service of the working class and weaponized to new heights of power and overreach in the service of the elite classes. 

The analysts were right when, in the wake of the global economic crash that began in 2008, they predicted the end of neoliberalism was near. Many assumed, in the wake of Obama’s election, that the system was destined to turn to a multi-racial Keynesian social democracy to save the world economy, the same way the world had done in the 1930s (sans the racial pluralism, of course). On this front they were wrong; financial and industry elites were too entrenched, free-market ideology too self-assured and institutionalized, the financial and tech monopolies too big and too concentrated for reform, the courts too corrupt, the government regulatory framework too brittle after decades of neoliberal onslaught, and the bulk of the American public too virulently racist, reactionary, and anti-socialist to accept even the semblance of pro-working-class policies. What we got instead was the intensification of class warfare, an escalation of essentialist identity politics, and, ultimately, the maturation of neoliberalism’s problems.

It is not just neoliberalism as an economic policy that advocates for free trade and the invisible hand that has died. We have not just reverted to protectionism or to regulation. No, it is more complicated than that. For every restriction on trade thrown up by Trump or Biden, a different sector of the U.S. economy and the American state has been deregulated, disempowered, captured, and/or privatized. As one barrier to free trade is erected, regional integration and imperial domination elsewhere continue to undermine the possibility of national economic sovereignty, especially for the smaller nations. American industry is now more unregulated than at any time since The Great Depression.

Nor is it just that we have descended into fascism. For all its lip-service against the decadence of global finance and capitalism itself, classic fascism did, of course, depend upon the support of Europe’s barons of industry and many of its liberal elites – it decimated organized labor and the socialist movements swiftly, violently, and accordingly. Yet it is also true that the classic fascist regimes did not hold the same abiding faith in the free market as the contemporary right, nor were they demonstrably subservient and beholden to oligarchs in the way that Trump, Biden, Meloni, Macron, Starmer, and the other Western leaders are to the tech, oil, defense, and finance titans of our day. Yet our age does contain undeniable fascistic elements; idiotic nationalism, fetishized militarism, censorship, anti-intellectualism, subservient and corrupt courts, impotent and dysfunctional legislatures, and an unrestrained individual executive. Trump is, in many ways, a conglomeration of Mussolini with a billionaire, a social media celebrity, and a nepotistic CEO. And that combination – the nationalism, fundamentalism, and corruption intertwined with corporate, celebrity, libertarian logic is novel and demands a novel conceptualization of its characteristics, trajectories, and roots.

So if the neoliberal age is rubble and we have not merely reverted back to a fascist one, where are we? We are in the unknown, unchartered waters of history in the making. We are in the supraliberal age, the age where even the appearance of a compatible marriage between capitalism and liberal democracy has withered away. We are in the supraliberal age where the state has not disappeared or weakened, it has transformed into a mere enforcement mechanism for brutalizing dissent, exporting arms, enabling capital accumulation, and facilitating wealth transfer from the working class to the elites. We are in the society of the spectacle, a society where propaganda, celebrity, and self-aggrandizement become a means in and of themselves.  

And while we may just be at the start of the supraliberal age, that we are in it is undeniable.

That is also not to say that liberalism is gone or that liberalism was, fundamentally, better; supraliberalism was always the destiny and true character of the neoliberal era. It is just that the hypocritical and contradictory nature of liberalism is now explicit and manifest in the heart of the imperial homeland, has finally and totally supplanted the remnants of the postwar order that It gave birth to, its free-market fundamentalism finally having displaced any guardrails, even if meager ones, it ever had to reign in the monopolies and oligarchs of the neoliberal age.  

So like the vestigial wings of a flightless bird, the liberal institutions and the rule of law they represent remain merely as ornamental and ceremonial formalities in contemporary America and Europe.

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The most jarring policies, ideological extremities, material logics, and novel institutions of the neoliberal age that undergirded its inherent contradictions and violent episodes now persist and become the defining features of the supraliberal order of today.

The authoritarian violence imposed by Pinochet and the neoliberal logic of the Chicago Boys in Chile, once thought by analysts to represent only an unfortunate but necessary far-off occurrence in the hinterlands of a U.S.-led world-order, today define the ruling class regimes in the metropole. The oligarchs imposed upon Eastern Europe by neoliberal shock therapy and animated by ethnic and nationalist sentiments enflamed by American interference were not exotic anomalies; they were a foretelling of what was to come in the West. The violent religious fundamentalism nurtured, trained, and armed in the Middle East to displace leftist movements and topple non-compliant regimes has emerged in the American heartland as violent paramilitary, white supremacist, and Christian nationalist actors turn to intimidation, violence, terrorism, and suppression to impose their extremist worldviews on their neighbors.

The embarrassing contradictions of the liberal capitalist system are no longer able to be exported abroad or glossed over with ideology; in the supraliberal age, the brutality comes home and intensifies. In the process, the entire geopolitical economic order is transformed, starting with America.

The Neoliberal Age

The foundations upon which the neoliberal era was erected can be traced to the U.S.’s emergence from World War Two as the world’s clear economic and military leader, a position the U.S. used to give itself, and its vassal states in Europe, commanding control in the new international governance and financial institutions such as the U.N. Security Council and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Apart from U.S. domination of the international institutional system, the postwar era was defined by robust welfare states in the West that were erected thanks to class struggle and assented to by elites to head off the attractiveness of socialism to workers. The era also saw successful anticolonial movements throughout the Third World (led often by socialist and communist parties), rising competition for Western industry due to an industrializing world, and the entrenchment of powerful trade union movements in the Western democracies.

Throughout this period, the U.S. (and its allies) attempted to assert its dominance, undermining radical elements in the anticolonial movements and using all means necessary to prevent the emergence of an economically independent third world that would challenge the existing order. However, given countervailing dynamics, and along with the oil shocks of the day, the contradictions of the postwar Keynesian order came to a head; the economic boom years devolved into crisis. In response, the U.S. ruling class leapt at the chance to again remake the world order even more to its liking. The new system it constructed was built in response to the power of labor domestically and socialist and anti-imperial resistance internationally, e.g. neoliberalism.

Neoclassical economic theory, tied to a contradictory ideological commitment to liberal governance, would become the justification for U.S. economic policy and imperial dominance of this new era. The birth of neoliberalism was cemented with the transformation of the Breton Woods Institutions into technocratic neoliberal machines as the new Washington Consensus imposed free trade and austerity policies around most of the globe (often in return for predatory loans or political support for corrupt regimes) to bolster U.S. dominance and transnational capitalist class power (a transnational capitalist class that was, nonetheless, always beholden to the mighty dollar and the U.S. banking system).

The U.S. also abandoned the gold standard in the shift from the postwar to the neoliberal era, giving it the ability to use the dollar, the global reserve currency, to fund an immense and meaningless national deficit in the face of deindustrialization and impose brutal unilateral sanctions on adversarial nations. In the new era it also doubled down on its training of paramilitaries, funding of proxy wars, and destabilization efforts around the globe in the name of combatting socialism (and subsequently drugs and terrorism). It financialized its economy to procure a fictitious economic growth in the face of the decline of American manufacturing, working class living standards, and declining economic dominance. The rest of this history of this era is more-or-less well known today: the Chilean Coup and the larger Dirty Wars in Latin America, the Wars on Terror, the deregulation of industry, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the crushing of the labor movement, the passage of NAFTA, the intensification of globalization, the explosion of consumer debt, the opioid epidemic, the rise of inequality, declining living standards in the West, etc. etc.

The Eleven Features of Supraliberalism

The past does not disappear, it echoes. But as it echoes, it is transformed and molded to fit the realities of the present moment. Accumulative quantitative change eventually reaches an inflection point, and qualitative ruptures occur.

Despite the obvious democratic deficiencies and hypocrisy of U.S. claims to upholding liberal values like human rights, equality, transparency, democracy, a free press, etc. in the neoliberal era, the claims could nonetheless be made with an air of plausible deniability and sincerity that, at the very least, provided a semblance of ideological cover. In the supraliberal age, not only are such claims objectively absurd, but such values are actively maligned – if not in rhetoric then cynically in practice.

Supraliberalism is defined by eleven features, all of them emergent from the trends and ruins of neoliberalism and all of them intertwined, inseparable, and mutually reinforcing: First, the return of multipolarity in the global sphere. Second, the implementation of pragmatic hodgepodge of free-trade and protectionist policies enacted by, and for, the benefit of the oligarchy of the various multipolar blocs. Third, the rule of economic elites and the end of any form semblance of legitimate democratic government. Fourth, the private sphere and the state become indistinguishable, the capture of the regulatory state finalized and total. Fifth, postmodern, post-truth identity essentialism (of both supposed progressive and reactionary varieties) becomes the defining inter-and-intrapersonal worldview of the age. Sixth, the total militarization and securitization of society. Seventh, the commodification of all aspects of life and nature as they become subject to market dynamics. Eighth, a blowback of the violence once reserved for the hinterland of empire deep within its metropoles. Ninth, the dominance of tech/platform capitalism and the normalization of its social engineering and surveillance appetites. Tenth, the intensification and leveraging of the climate catastrophe for the benefit of elites. And eleventh, a fundamental anti-communist, anti-socialist, and anti-humanist ideology that underlies and justifies it all.

1. Multipolarity: It is not just that we have entered a new multipolar world, but that is certainly an important piece of the puzzle. For all the superficial similarities to the interwar period or to the imperial competition and arms race of the early 20th century, 2025 is not 1910. Nor does the New Cold War promise to be a meaningful battle of ideologies, socialism vs. capitalism, like the Old Cold War. No, the supraliberal age will be defined, first and foremost, by neo-imperialist global blocs competing for the loot of a permanent global periphery defined by urbanization-without-industrialization. It remains an open question if the class struggle within China can and will revitalize an actual socialist character that could, hypothetically, give meaning and direction to the New Cold War. The first real hope for a socialist resistance to the American supraliberal bloc lies in a new non-aligned movement and whether the leftist governments of Latin America can solidify their positions and overcome the contradictions of their present part-way socialism. The second real hope lies in new anti-capitalist struggles emerging victorious across Africa, Asia, and even within the metropole itself.

2. Cynical Free Trade: To an extent, the free trade of neoliberalism was always free-trade for me, not for thee; free trade for the working class and small nations, protectionism for elites and for the critical industries of the metropole. In the supraliberal age this is truer than ever: protectionism becomes widespread and celebrated as a backlash to neoliberal free trade agreements that decimated the working classes of the world. But the question becomes: protectionism for who and to what end? Protectionism for the oligarchs, of course. Protectionism for the entrenchment of nationalist, anti-working-class elites like Trump, Musk, and their ilk. Now that behemoth America cannot compete on the unfair grounds with the developing world like it once did, thanks to the rise of China, it turns its back on the ideolog of Free trade; Chinese technology and EVs must be stopped at all costs in the name of national security. But make no mistake: free trade continue to be forced down the throats of countries in Latin America and Africa and American workers will be expected to compete with the working classes of the international order as their meager unions and welfare protections are finally stripped away.

3. Oligarchy: The supraliberal age is oligarchy manifest. The supposed genius and merit of oligarchic influencers like Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, and Sundar Pichai become the animating logic of popular culture and popular politics. Citizens United is just the tip of the iceberg in the role of moneyed interests will play, both publicly/proudly and clandestinely/nefariously, in the supraliberal age; any semblance of republican elections free of the corrupting influence of money are a thing of the past. Democracy, in any meaningful sense, is dead.

4. Regulatory Captured: The supraliberal age is also defined by the total capture of the regulatory state by industry. Not only that, but the dividing line between private industry and the state disappears; in its place, a Frankenstein emerges, an abomination comprised of corporate and public mixture of arms, legs, eyes. The Chevron Environmental Protection Agency is legitimized, the Department of Labor is managed like the Chamber of Commerce, the courts and justice itself becomes the subject of power and ideology. Every function of government is run as a business for the profit of private stakeholders. 

5. Identity and Cultural Essentialism: The postmodern displacement of universality, humanism, and truth becomes absolute in the supraliberal age; identity essentialism and the death of truth reach their apex, with one’s nation, culture, and race/ethnicity becoming the undisputed measure of morality, truth, and individual character. This aspect has supposed progressive and reactionary wings, but the underlying logic remains the same: identity is everything. Anti-intellectualism, identity politics, cultural literalism, fundamentalism, outrage, and puritanism reign. 

6. Militarization and Securitization: In the supraliberal age, all aspects of social and political life become militarized and securitized. Economic policy is a matter of national security; the border is a matter of national security; education policy is a matter of national security. Municipal police are armed and trained in the logic and practice of occupying militaries, consumer culture and capital accumulation themselves become the end goal of military conflict. Everything is war, and war is about making money.

7. Commodification: The trend of the commodification of all aspects of life, human, social, natural, becomes intensified to previously unimagine levels in the supraliberal age. Animal life, nature, human intellect, love, empathy, spirituality; all become subject to the profitizing logic of the market. A mother holds her child after giving birth – a fee is charged. You send your love a poem which is then shared to social media and monetized. You attend church and your tithing is used to invest in real estate ventures. You call your father on Father’s Day and your call data is recorded, leveraged, and sold to an advertising firm. The ecosystem itself is given a dollar amount, human and animal life measured in terms of dollars. Alienation, isolation, and objectification become the beating hearts of our social existence.

8. Blowback: A defining feature of the supraliberal age in the United States is the boomerang of America’s previously exported wars, war crimes, austerity, genocide, authoritarianism into its own living room. America itself becomes the criminal narco-state, the kleptocracy, the military dictatorship, the religious fundamentalist regime it once used to control Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia, Afghanistan. Protestors are treated as enemy combatants, environmental activists as terrorists, labor unions as violent heretics.

9. Social Engineering, Ubiquitous Surveillance, and the Worship of Tech: In the supraliberal age, the tech industry and technology generally, especially information and communications technology, become the saviors of the world, the panacea to all social problems, the utopian horizon. The world will become unlivable? Technology will take us to distant stars. People can’t afford to eat? Technology will devise a pill to give us all necessary nutrition. Under supraliberalism, the power of technology begats more powerful technology; our social interactions, our sense of self, our political sensibilities become filtered through the algorithms of communications technology. Our thoughts and dreams are anticipated and summarized with Artificial Intelligence programs before we even express them. Technology is used to commodify us and to train us: buy this now, buy this then, here is a news headline for you, here is your favorite genre of music. Our personalities are no so much born of our volition as given to us from on high, from the Gods in the Cloud.

10. The Monetization and Leveraging of the Climate Catastrophe: In the supraliberal age, the climate crisis becomes the climate catastrophe. The warnings of disastrous ecological future become the present reality. Why was this not avoided? Because it was profitable, and it because it could be leveraged by the ruling class to cement and entrench their rule. Los Angeles burns and the real estate private equity firms descend; New Orleans sinks and the French Quarter gentrifiers circle like sharks. Mark Zuckerburg is safe in his bunker in the cool mountains. The segregation and securitization of elite life is completed. The rich watch the last forests burn from their golden helicopter.

11. Anti-communism: The supraliberal age is defined by an ideological madness which is, first and foremost, anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-Marxist. In the supraliberal age, all kinds of dissent, protest, and personal eccentricities are acceptable in the name of personal and market freedom: the freedom to shop, the freedom to discriminate, the freedom to worship God, the freedom to kill anyone deemed a threat to your property. What cannot be abided, though, is an organized, radical, and effective movement of the people against the logic of capital accumulation and the rule by elites. Thus, a rabid anti-communism abides. And not just anti-communism in the sense of the vilification of any and all real-world attempts to supplant or even just to reform capitalism, whether domestically or internationally, but an anti-communism which reviles, crushes, and mobilizes against communism as an idea and an ideal; communism as a rationally planned democratic society wherein social class has been eliminated – this is the true enemy and only sustained bogeyman of the supraliberal age. Any violation of elite sensibilities – be it religious heresy, gender nonconformity, feminism, racial justice, etc., is but a manifestation of the deeper and more nefarious sin of Marxism.

Only the Working Class 

The only force on Earth capable of challenging the dystopia of the superaliberal age is a united and broadly defined working-class (aka all those not aligned to profit or benefit from the ongoing and coming destruction). United, only they have the power to overthrow the supraliberal ruling class and the society they have built for their benefit. Only they have the power to arrest the climate crisis with rational, eco-responsive policies and technologies. Only they have the power to end inequality and immiseration forever with humanist, universal policies that equitably share the abundant resources produced by the cumulative history of human labor, knowledge, and sacrifice. Only they, as a class, can provide the vision and the practice for achieving a new kind of society – one that is not a utopia, but an actual and concrete effort that learns, develops, and evolves over time. Only they can imagine and implement a society wherein not just human beings but all living beings, even nature itself, is afforded value. A society driven by rationality, cooperation, and equality. In short: working class revolution is our only hope.

It remains to be seen, of course, if the ravages of supraliberalism will give way to such an attempt and vision. But that we have no other choice if we are to save the planet, our own humanity, and civilization is clear.

Alligator Alcatraz Was Already Here

By Aaron Kirshenbaum and Grace Siegelman

In the middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve in Ochopee, Florida, and almost dead center of the Florida Everglades, surrounded by alligators and pythons, is the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. For years, plans to expand the airport’s infrastructure have been stalled in an attempt to preserve the surrounding marshlands and a critical freshwater source. On July 3, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, per the request of President Donald Trump and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem, used emergency powers to seize the abandoned airport and open Alligator Alcatraz, named for Trump’s twisted fantasy to reopen the deadly Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay. The makeshift prison is currently capable of detaining up to 5,000 migrants (with capacity expected to double) and celebrated for being inexpensive due to its ‘natural’ barriers.

Recent news reports have documented the horrific conditions: tents that provide no protection from rising summer temperatures, maggot-infested food, little access to clean drinking water, flooding near electrical cables, and bedding. Prominent environmental organizations like the Center for Biological Diversity have sued Noem for the environmental impacts the detention center will have on the surrounding marshlands, water sources, and sacred land of the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes. Five Florida state lawmakers have also sued Governor DeSantis over being denied entry into the detention facility.

We must break down the divisions between movements to fight against Alligator Alcatraz and to prevent similar facilities from opening in the future. This facility is the natural culmination of decades of build-up of the war economy, of the prison system, and of policy prioritizing money above human needs. Its opening is activating environmentalists, anti-war advocates, and immigration organizers alike. Alligator Alcatraz is a catalyst for us to stand together to call for the destruction of detention centers in the US and the divestment from militarism here and everywhere.

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The funding sources for this detention center are absurdly symbolic. In a statement to the Associated Press, Noem stated that the facility was projected to cost $450 million. Yet leaked documents reveal that the total grant awarded to the project is worth $608 million —  all from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

FEMA is the same organization responsible for providing emergency relief after natural disasters, like the recent catastrophic flooding in Texas — and like the type that could emerge from this facility, contaminating the drinking water of the eight million people served by the aquifer adjacent to Alligator Alcatraz. Recent cuts have resulted in an inadequate early warning system in states like Texas, which left residents helpless during the catastrophic and deadly flooding. This prioritization of a war-economy budget over a people’s economy turns all areas impacted by the militarism-induced climate crisis into sacrifice zones of human and ecological life.

The timing of the opening coincides with President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which gives tax breaks to the U.S.’s wealthiest five percent and $150 billion to further militarization here and abroad, all while cutting social programs like Medicaid, SNAP benefits, and student loan assistance.

This sacrifice of life is the function of prisons, the build-up of which emerged through disinvestment in the public sector as a catch-all solution to social issues. Instead of investing in schools, housing, education, or jobs, local and federal governments elected to build prisons as a way to contain poverty and extract people from their communities — in turn extracting their time, their autonomy, and the money that otherwise could have gone toward their lives, instead throwing it into brutality, confinement, and militarization of the police to enforce this financial arrangement.

The same answer rings true whether you are talking about Alligator Alcatraz. U.S. funds and intelligence aiding the Israeli bombing of Palestinian hospitals, homes of doctors and lawyers, or U.S. taxpayer dollars being stripped from education, housing, and healthcare. The United States government is not in the business of sustaining life, but rather sustaining profits, control, and more profits. Our money is being used to illegally detain thousands of people every day for existing, and Alligator Alcatraz is a jarring example of what is already here. Thirteen thousand people have died in U.S. prisons due to summer heat waves in the past twenty years. Nearly half of the drinking water in U.S. prisons is contaminated with forever chemicals; like Alligator Alcatraz, most prisons and jails are built on abandoned industrial sites linked to disease, cancers, and death. Prisons are especially vulnerable during natural disasters. Last October, for instance, several prisons were not evacuated in Hurricane Milton’s Zone A Evacuation Center. Additionally, during Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of incarcerated folks were left locked in prison for four days without food and water while their cells flooded with water and other elements.

Whether it be prisons, FEMA-funded ICE detention facilities, or increased funding for the Pentagon, the extractive motivation is always the same. We need to approach prisons as a form of militarization at home — taking people out of their communities, not to extract their labor in the prison in most cases, but so that the State can extract their lives and “save” resources outside of the prison. This facility is funded for a PR campaign, and condemns those incarcerated to an early death. This murder is accelerated by the climate crisis, which has been accelerated by our warmaking, all for the sake of continuing to extract labor and resources across the world.

Whether it’s the over 800 U.S. military bases leaking toxic chemicals and jet fuel, prisons and cop cities, or ICE detention facilities, our targets are the same, and the reasons for their funding are a common thread. These deadly facilities are being built on sacred indigenous land, decimating the health and water sources of local communities, and extracting the lives of people who our economic and political systems have discarded.

Alligator Alcatraz, Alligator Auschwitz, is a brutal reminder of the daily happenings here in the belly of the beast. Trump and Congress continue to find pay cuts in government spending for life-affirming resources while piling money into starving and incarcerating its own people and funding the ecocide and genocide of people outside its borders. Our money is being filtered away from the things we need most and toward systems that will kill us and the planet. We cannot allow our struggle against all forms of domestic and international militarism to be siloed.  We must push forward and never look away.

If we want an end to ICE detention centers and deportations, if we want our money invested in things that matter to our survival, we must cut the one trillion-dollar war budget today. Find out how to get started in your local community now.

Aaron Kirshenbaum is CODEPINK's War is Not Green campaigner and East Coast regional organizer. Based in and originally from Brooklyn, New York, Aaron holds an M.A. in Community Development and Planning from Clark University. They also have a B.A. in Human-Environmental and Urban-Economic Geography from Clark. During their time in school, Aaron worked on internationalist climate justice organizing, educational program development, and Palestine, tenant, and abolitionist organizing.

Grace Siegelman is CODEPINK's Engagement Manager. Grace completed her Master's Degree in Women and Gender Studies and Bachelor's Degree in Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies at DePaul University. She has been organizing for over 6 years in Chicago. Her organizing and research focus on prison and police abolition, queer theory, gendered violence and anti-war efforts. She has led youth campaigns on Ban the Box, a national movement to remove the question of criminal history from college applications and led letter writing and education initiatives to incarcerated survivors of domestic violence. Her writing can be found in Common Dreams, CounterPunch, LA Progressive and more.

Hard Truths About the US Labor Movement: An Interview with Chris Townsend

By Michael D. Yates

Republished from Monthly Review.

hris Townsend has been organizing workers, conducting political work for labor unions, and teaching young workers to organize for almost all his adult life. He is, as we say, “the real deal.” While most of us opine and pontificate about labor, Chris does the dirty work. He organizes. His contributions over several decades have played a key role in rebuilding the United Electrical Workers (UE), rekindling new organizing and campaigning in the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), helping to initiate what has become the Starbucks movement, and contributing in countless other ways to the work of the labor movement. He declares without hesitation that, “the workplace in the United States is a dictatorship,” and proposes dramatically expanded union organizing as one antidote. Chris is also a committed socialist, someone who understands that the labor movement must be much more than just disconnected and isolated labor unions, politically adrift, organizationally stagnant, and taking blows from all sides. Organized labor must return to its roots, when bringing capitalism to an end was the ultimate goal. —- Michael D. Yates

Michael D. Yates: Chris, how and when did you first become active in the labor movement?

Chris Townsend: I joined the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) in Tampa, Florida, just after I got out of high school. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and in 1979 the economy was at a dead stop. Every mill, mine, railroad and other employer had a layoff list a mile long. A young kid like me had zero chance of finding any job. Mass unemployment was a scary thing to see when hundreds of people would line up for a handful of jobs. I was on my own and took off for Florida where I had an Uncle I could stay with. He said there were at least a few jobs down there. I got hired as a sanitation worker and I found out that the ATU was organizing the entire municipal workforce of the City of Tampa. I fell into it by accident. ATU took the lead because for twenty years they had represented the bus operations which were eventually run by the city. By the time I arrived the public sector had been allowed to officially organize through a State of Florida process. The organizing drive included over 3,600 workers in every city classification, from Accounting Clerk 1’s to Zookeeper 2’s, and everything in-between. I jumped into the union with both feet, doing just about everything you could think of. Some of the old-timers who ran the local were Cuban Americans, but they were communists and sympathizers who had fled the Batista regime. The Cuban Revolution was their political North Star so to speak. These guys trained me and put me to work. I was a volunteer organizer who did anything they needed me to do in just about every corner of the city. I became a shop steward for a while, then was elected to the local Executive Board in late 1981. Somehow, I got nicknamed, “the kid,” and I hated it. There were lots of other young workers there, but I guess at 17 and 18 and 19, I was the youngest who was that active.

MY: Did you move to the left before or after your entry into the labor movement?

CT: I became a leftist in high school, by listening to shortwave radio and reading. One of the things I read was Monthly Review, it was carried by the Franklin and Marshall college library. They put it out with the newspapers and magazines, and their library was open to the public. I saw my future prospects declining day by day under the Nixon regime, then Jimmy Carter. I figured out bit by bit that this “system” we have is not our system, it’s the bosses’ system. It robs people, oppresses people, torments people, and crushes them. And it does not hesitate to massacre on a gigantic scale when it wants to. The U.S. genocide on Vietnam was sickening. When our puppet regime in the South finally collapsed at the end of April, 1975, we all saw it on live TV. It was the way that we abandoned and just ditched most of our supporters and hangers-on in the final bug-out that ironically convinced me that I was a socialist. If these people were dumped so fast, why on earth would I think that these same ruling forces would ever help me if I was in a jam? This rotten boss system is in it for the money, the power, the bloodlust. They don’t give a damn about workers.

Once I learned about the class system, the class struggle, and class interests, my loyalty became crystal clear. I owe my allegiance to my class, the working class. Period. I’m lucky I learned that when I was young. I suppose there are more complicated ways to become a Marxist, but that was mine. I didn’t need to read Marx’s Capital to realize as a worker that I was at the bottom, always at the mercy of the boss and his gang. I have read plenty of socialist literature over the decades and it doesn’t take a 400-page textbook to explain all this to a worker. I thought then, and I still think, that the constant tendency to grossly overthink these basic realities is one of our greatest and most debilitating diseases on the left. As I turned left, I was also pushed along by Carter’s revival of military draft registration, which I flatly refused. My family also lived twenty-four miles from the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown in March of 1979. Seeing the nuclear industry in cahoots with our government and endangering everyone for their superprofits just put me over the top. I also read Lenin’s article, “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism” about that time, and the door opened for me. Every worker needs to read that short article.

MY: You worked for many years with the United Electrical Workers (UE). Tell us about this time in your life. What is special about the UE? What lessons did you take from your work there?

CT: I was recruited to work for UE in 1988. I joined a squad of organizers who were assigned to try to organize the plastics division of General Electric (GE). There was no bigger, more powerful, or more anti-union corporation than GE. UE was the original union that organized huge portions of that conglomerate in the 1930s. But by the time I joined UE, the combined forces of GE, Westinghouse, Congress, the FBI, the CIO, the AFL, practically all the Democrats and Republicans, and the news media had thrown every punch there was to try to kill them off. While enormous damage was done, they failed to completely liquidate UE. It really is a “rank and file” union, a “democratic” union, a “militant” union. The salaries of union leaders and staff are very modest. Militance is encouraged, not crushed. New organizing is a top priority of the union, not just an afterthought. Political positions are arrived at democratically, by the members. I saw all that up close. Go to the UE web page and read their Constitution. That’s the document that mandates how the union is run. You won’t see anything like it anywhere else, sadly. UE represents today a living fragment of William Z. Foster’s TUEL (Trade Union Educational League), the TUUL (Trade Union Unity League), and the early CIO. There were other unions similar to UE in many ways, but they were the unions wrecked and destroyed by employer and state repression in the 1940s and 50s. The business unions were also eager to feast on the wrecked left-led unions, but UE and ILWU managed somehow to survive.

After four years in the field as an organizer, UE sent me to Washington, DC, to run their Washington Office. It was quite an assignment for a guy like me. No other union would have ever, I mean ever, selected a guy like me to staff their political action work. That’s another UE “difference”. Being “just a worker” really meant something. For twenty-one years I conducted the federal and state level political work of UE, its political education work, and I also kept a big hand in organizing and bargaining. As the political staffer I still participated in new organizing, independent union affiliations, strike struggles, and bargaining. I joined the General Electric UE bargaining committee at that time. During this assignment I was also able to work closely with Bernie Sanders. The AFL-CIO had banned him, wanted to oust him from his House seat, but he was extraordinarily supportive of our UE locals in Vermont, and our new organizing. We were happy to work with him, and I had five or six years where UE was practically the only union who would deal with him in DC. I am considerably to the left of Sanders, and it was always fun for me when I was introducing him to a UE group as “My conservative friend from Vermont.”

In those years UE was grappling with the need to diversify from being a strictly manufacturing union. Plant closings and layoffs were draining away tens of thousands of members, and new organizing in factories was at a low ebb. Where it remains today. We continued to try to organize in manufacturing, but practically all the results were found in other sectors. When I retired from UE in 2013 after twenty-five years, we were already a majority non-manufacturing union. There was no alternative.

Today, UE has experienced a major rebirth with the addition of more than 35,000 workers in the higher education field. We first organized graduate and research workers in 1996 in Iowa, and today UE is composed of workers in seven different industrial sectors with the higher ed grouping now the largest by far. And I have to point out that today, in mid-2025, UE is once again larger than the IUE, the right-wing union started in 1949 with the sole goal of destroying UE. The dwindling IUE fragments merged with the CWA about twenty years ago. They have rejected significant new organizing, and it was sometime in the past two or three years that UE passed them up. I wish that the tens of thousands of IUE victims, now gone, could see this day.

UE is known today for lots of things, its left character perhaps one of the most widely known aspects. But the really amazing thing is that UE has survived and is rebuilding. Most embattled unions just fold up and merge with another union, never to be heard from again. We were determined to survive and preserve as best we could the member-run and left principles of the union. All serious labor students should examine UE for its history, its character, its methods of bargaining with and dealing with employers, and its political stands. If you are in a union today, looking at our current moment, I would say that you had better study how UE suffered immense blows for decades and has still somehow survived. And now grown again, without resorting to gimmicks like union mergers that get labeled as “new organizing.” UE defies convention, and they prove over and over again that there really is an alternative to the failing business union model that we are all saddled with today.

MY: You have belonged to and worked for other labor unions, and you have been a successful organizer everywhere you went. You have also trained many organizers. Give readers a rundown of your organizing activities, including recently through your union organizing schools. How is it that you have succeeded? What is your secret, so to speak? Why are workers receptive to what you do? Why aren’t there many more of you out there, because if there were, we might now see our labor movement being revitalized?

CT: I have belonged to four unions over forty-six years in the labor movement; ATU, UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers), SEIU, and UE. All very different kinds of unions. My short time in UFCW was as a successful salt, and my brief stint at SEIU was characterized by my jerking the local union forward by restarting its new organizing and adding almost 500 new members. In 2013 I retired from UE and rejoined ATU after a break of twenty-nine years since I had been a member in Florida. Larry Hanley, a bus operator from New York City and a force determined to revitalize ATU, was elected ATU President and recruited me to start his mobilization department and restart their new organizing. My time at ATU was a whirlwind. I kicked new organizing into gear and today ATU is at its largest membership ever in 133 years. Almost 10,000 new members have been added by winning more than 235 campaigns in the U.S. and Canada. And we built a campaign apparatus that now allows the union to conduct bargaining support and strike struggle, and to defend transit workers from political attacks.

Almost one-third of that organizing success has been in the South. The AFL-CIO is well aware of this success, but they sit camped-out today in several southern states, claiming to “organize.” They should take a look at ATU’s experiences in the south, but they won’t. They are busy spending a lot of money, organizing little, and diligently carrying on the AFL-CIO tradition of organizing failure. In my time at ATU we also engineered one of the greatest victories against transit privatization when we defeated the privatization of 175 bus operators here in Washington, DC. And won their return to the public transit agency. We did this after an 84-day strike in 2019, in Lorton, Virginia, of all places. We followed an initial game plan devised by ATU President Larry Hanley, myself, and my co-worker Todd Brogan. Big ATU Local 689 in Washington, DC, was won over after initial resistance. Hanley’s bold goal was to try to win a reversal of privatization someplace and then launch this movement in other places to combat and turn back the spreading privatization cancer in the transit industry. But he passed away before the final success of the campaign, and his successor regime immediately abandoned any notion of continuing this work. Today it’s as if this remarkable victory never happened. When I decided to retire from ATU in 2022, this was one of the reasons. The post-Hanley leadership is quite content with privatization. Business union lethargy and small-mindedness comes in many flavors, always at the expense of the rank-and-file.

My most remarkable feat at ATU was when Larry Hanley, myself, and longtime organizer Richard Bensinger started a union organizing school in late 2017. We needed a means to train ATU leaders and local officers to expand the new organizing program. Bensinger raised the idea of the training work being done in the context of a multi-union collaboration to encourage “salting” as an organizing tool. Each participating union could rely on the overall experience of the volunteer collective as they engineered their own campaigns. A number of unions including ATU were able to organize new shops through the school, and in 2020, even under the cloud of the pandemic, Bensinger and the Workers United, Rochester, New York, Joint Board launched what became Starbucks Workers United. Salts were recruited and deployed to three Starbucks stores in Buffalo, New York, where the first three NLRB elections were won in later 2020. As of mid-2025 more than 600 Starbucks stores have been organized through NLRB elections. It is still amazing for me to think about how that drive is in large measure an outgrowth of the homemade organizing school that we had constructed under the ATU umbrella. I worked to get William Z. Foster’s collected works, American Trade Unionism, back into print to use with the school. Nearly a thousand copies of Foster’s book have been used with the Starbucks workers and in 250 other workplace campaigns since then.

What is even more amazing than the historic success of the Starbucks movement is the near complete lack of interest in this actual upsurge by the rest of the labor movement. The AFL-CIO is thoroughly disinterested in listening to the details of how the school, the salting, and the early campaign was put together. I have personally spoken to the top leaders of 15 unions to try to coax them to sit for an hour and listen to how the school was started and how the salting was conducted. No takers. This same near-total lack of interest goes for the academic labor programs and the labor nonprofit world. You might think that the story of how one of the most successful campaigns in recent decades was started would be a curiosity. Not at all. I have, thankfully, had considerable success with young workers, some local unions from a variety of unions, and left organizations who have listened to the story of how we started the organizing school and by extension the Starbucks movement. Through probably 125 different Zoom sessions and meetings, I spread the story and have promoted Foster’s book. Many of the participants go on to attend one of the organizing schools I run, or teach at, and dozens have become volunteer salts in campaigns in ten different industries.

MY: Following the previous question, the labor movement continues to lose ground and most unions do little organizing. Nor do they do anything to educate their members, especially to teach workers the truth about the political economy in which labor has to operate. Yet, some academics and popular organizations and magazines continue to claim that there is taking place a resurgence of the US labor movement. Every strike, every time a “dissident” wins high office in a union, every new contract is greeted with unadulterated joy and a sign of good things to come. What is your assessment of the US labor movement? Why, given that the facts do not match this optimism, do we keep seeing what we might call “the good news only” school of reporting and commentaries?

CT: We have slid into a period in our labor movement where decline, decay, stagnation, and timid leadership have become formalized. The “leadership” today in many unions is at best an administrative layer: functionaries carefully tending to the decline, keeping things on-track as we are pushed towards oblivion. There are examples to the contrary, but not very many in my experience. Our left and labor press also suffers during this period, as increasing numbers of writers come forward who have virtually no substantial experience in labor work. We have to be careful not to blame the inexperienced, especially in an era when getting any real experience is difficult, and sometimes impossible. But we should not excuse the editors of these publications, who dutifully cram all sorts of “good news only” stories into the publications. We have folks writing articles and even entire books on new organizing today who have organized few, if any, new workers in their own careers. I use the example of someone with a car repair issue; How many of us take our cars to the shop and then tell the service manager to assign the least experienced “mechanic” to fix our problem? That’s patently absurd when we think of it that way, but this is today how labor staffs most of it organizing work, and it certainly applies to how many of our left writers are selected. And to top off this problem, there seems to be little to no curiosity or desire to go out and find the people who are, or who have, done the difficult organizing work. And really debrief how they are actually winning the campaigns they are. Our movement leadership just puts the “organizer” hat on almost anyone, offers little guidance and even less training, and then hires another crop of “organizers” when they quit—or are fired.

This state of labor journalism also doesn’t inform very well. Who is Liz Shuler, the head of the AFL-CIO? Of course, that’s a trick question, since she is one of the absolutely least experienced labor “leaders”—ever— at her level. She was given the top spot in the labor movement with virtually no trade union experience to speak of. Writing about that I suppose might explain a lot of how we got into the jams we are in, but god forbid we would say something unkind about “the first woman” to run the labor federation. The reality is there are 10,000 women unionists out there, toughing it out in the shops, winning grievances, leading, bargaining, striking, and organizing. But none of those things are requirements for holding the top spot in the labor federation today apparently. Any one of them could outrun Shuler.

Everyone oohs and ahhs when some new progressive looking or sounding labor face pops up, but who are they? What have they actually done in their labor careers? Half of the labor articles written today are just fluff, tiny episodic reports on the passing of resolutions, quickie advertisements of one-off events with little context for readers, or labor travelogs repeating the obvious. I blame the editors—if there are any—for this low-calorie offering. Of course, let’s not let the unions off the hook. Their reporting and writing, if it exists in any substantial way at all, is frequently an embarrassment. No substantial reporting or researching is produced by most unions. The web sites are bare minimum on content. This history of unions who have struggled for more than 100 years are covered in two paragraphs—maybe.

I am a vigorous promoter of labor books and deeper reading on our rich history of labor movement struggle, and I’ll say that 95 percent of the books I sell and promote are completely unknown to the readers. The unions, with only a few exceptions, do nothing to educate their members in any significant way. And there is certainly no discussion about the disasters we are experiencing, and no explanation about how the Democratic Party has systematically participated in our destruction—by literally setting the stage for Trump. Union conventions and meetings are few and far between today and cut to minimum to allow a platform for the incumbent leaders only. And let’s not forget the generous socializing and casino time. The money spent on any one major union Convention these days could double the new organizing of dozens of unions. This is a disaster in so many ways, and one not to be minimized. It is no wonder that we have lots of members wandering around in a daze, or if they are not in a daze they might actually think that we are moving forward because they read an internet blurb about some incidental win someplace. The facts are that organized labor in the United States continues to be ground-down across all fronts. We cannot face our many crises for many reasons, including that there is little understanding of the real gravity of our situation.

MY: Needless to say, there are many unions that could use new leadership, However, those who champion union dissidents almost never ask themselves, change for what? The same goes for organizing. Cesar Chavez and the UFW leaders had periods of success, and they taught others to organize. But then what? What about building a radical labor movement as a goal, even as you fight for better working conditions, better pay, shorter hours, etc.? How can we avoid creating institutions and elevating leaderships that, in the end, refuse or fail to challenge the most critical foundations of capitalist society? Capitalism tends to create and shape, in effect, the people and institutions it needs to reproduce itself. How can this be challenged?

CT: Many top labor leaders are largely content, smug, immune to challenge in most cases. They construct staff and crony machineries to stay in office. They make 2-3-4 hundred thousand dollars year upon year, and pretty soon they are millionaires. They will do anything, and I mean anything to keep those jobs. Even the better labor leaders all strike me as overwhelmed, isolated from outside ideas, and just plodding forward reacting and not leading. Grinding away until their own retirement arrives. The so-called “Change-to-Win” movement of twenty years ago was led by some of the labor millionaires. Whatever that was, it was a monumental fizzle. We all had to witness that huge multi-year uproar just to re-learn that highly paid leadership and staff regimes are incapable of self-reform. There is more political life at the local level, and for the honest elements and the left that is where time must be spent. We need the left to dive-in and learn how these unions really work and then run for office. Staff jobs at a certain level can allow for influence, but not nearly enough to really alter the disastrous course of things. We also need to reach the “center” elements in the labor leadership, that large layer that is uneasy, worried about the decline, have some basic trade union principles, and are willing at times to put their support to attempts to correct course. The path to power in these unions has always been a principled left-center alliance. The members overwhelmingly support change, forward motion, and frequently even hard struggle. But the conservative elements, the corrupt elements, the self-serving elements in the leadership want to hang on to that power and money. And we won’t build the momentum needed to drive those elements out of the unions by running around yelling about political issues remote from the workplace, passing endless resolutions, or by not doing any of the work required. Our unions are in desperate need of a revival of new organizing and recruitment, something the existing leadership largely wants to avoid at all costs. If they even think of it at all. The members instinctively see the need to bring the unorganized into the unions, not to do them a favor but to defend our weakening situation. A center-left alliance in the union is the only path forward for the required new organizing. I run new union organizing schools regularly and there is huge and expanding interest out there from workers. The problem is that most of the unions are inward-focused, some are asleep, and most are structured to ignore outsiders such as the unorganized. And when was the last time that left elements raised the call to “organize the unorganized!”? Never.

The same goes for what we ultimately want from this labor movement. What do we want at the end of this ordeal? A slightly better deal in this rigged game? Or how about “A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work?” the old AFL beggary? What the hell does “fair” mean, anyway? Don’t we want something bigger, something to upend this rotten system? It astonishes me how timid, how narrow, and how docile the unions are. How will we get through the coming 80 percent of Trump’s term with this mindset? By trying to reason with unchecked corporate power? Relying on suspect judges and failed Democrats? We better think harder about the need to not just challenge this system, but replace it.

MY: As one example of the struggles of a prominent union today, you and I have had correspondence about the state of the United Auto Workers union. How do you explain its current difficulties? Shawn Fain, the union president, has been a hero of the social democratic left. According to The Nation’s president, Bhaskar Sunkara, who also owns Jacobin magazine, has declared Fain “labor’s greatest voice,” and he applauded Fain’s support for Trump’s simple-minded tariff policy. Yet, Fain is now accused by some of running the UAW in a dictatorial manner, with not much to show for his leadership in terms of new organizing and member education. What is your take on all of this?

CT: The UAW was delivered to its current dilemma on account of a federal government takeover and a leadership election that was compelled by government decree. The ideological corruption of runaway “labor management cooperation” eventually created a corruption rot that permeated entire layers of the auto union leadership. Is the U.S. government the best force to address a mess like that? Of course not. But like in many unions there was zero chance that the membership would ever find the means to get things cleaned up. And let’s note that the federal government control mechanism is paid for by the UAW members, another price to be paid by the membership for the miserable leadership of past decades. Millions and millions of dollars each year are paid out for this government monitor. Imagine this; the corruption gets found out and is prosecuted, and the “remedy” is for this federal government to meddle for as long as they want, and it’s all paid for by the members!

Shawn Fain was elected several years ago in this huge mess, and he defeated the old guard – but just barely. He takes over running a union afflicted with all sorts of corruption, a staff where many had been associated with all that, and with a membership that has never, ever, in living memory had to face playing much role in running their union. I think he did as well as could be expected with the Big 3 auto negotiations and strike in his very first months, and the union was able to organize the VW plant down south. These are significant things for any labor leader today. As for the left media and all of its chatter on the union, I would dismiss most of that out of hand. Most of these writers have no experience running a union, nor do very many of them have any idea of the dynamics in this – or any union. A few of them who thought Shawn Fain was some sort of far-left force are just lost in their own fumes. The intrusive and perpetual federal monitor rarely even gets mentioned. His job is to run around and collect incidental complaints and grievances, and then report it all as something substantial. This is ludicrous. One thing the federal monitor – or the left reporters – will not investigate is the fact that the UAW has lost 80% of its membership in the last 50 years. All in just the time I have been active in this labor movement. Is that an issue we need to consider? Or is it some ridiculous he-said-she-said jotted-down by the federal monitor, so he can allege some sinister activity is afoot? We have to consider the unaccountable roles of these federal monitors in any thinking we do about the state of the auto union today.

Yes, I have some opinions about how Fain has operated, of course I do. But I am rooting for the union to get back on something like a sustainable and relevant course, so the UAW can play a far larger role in a positive way. We need that. We need the UAW to get back heavy on the organizing front. But I don’t see that yet. I see some odd staffing decisions and not a lot of results, at least so far. I would counsel Fain to not get roped-in to the staff-driven habit of commenting on everything. So far as Trump’s tariff frenzy, let’s get a few things down for the record. Tariffs are a federal tax on imports to supposedly protect domestic manufacturing. One problem is, what is “domestic” manufacturing? And we all know— Shawn Fain most of all knows—that the “domestic” companies like the rest will lie, scheme, collude with competitor companies and governments, and do anything to squeeze more profits. That is how the U.S. auto industry was reduced to the fragment that it is today. Trump has made so many claims on tariffs that it’s safe to say that nobody knows where it is at. They are on, off, up, down, this is his deliberate style of bamboozling. The fact is it will be months and years before this calms down and it will be possible to see their real impact. Brother Fain is also in an epic jam. Democrats have imposed free trade for forty years. Look at the obvious destruction visited on our manufacturing sector. How many jobs lost, fifty million in fifty years maybe? Then along comes Trump, and he tells the working class he is going to reverse that. If you want to know how Trump was elected twice just read the last page of Karl Marx’s speech on free trade from 1848.

Can our auto industry be defended and rebuilt? And if it is rebuilt, even a little, will it be organized, or unorganized? And doesn’t the UAW have to deal with Trump’s tariffs no matter their opinion of them? A too-big section of UAW members support Trump. Or they did for last year’s election. Is the union addressing that? How? And as for the “reform” forces in the UAW, the two opposing trends have fallen out, the organization which was a part of the election of Fain is now dissolved. Where does all this go now? There are a lot of questions here. It is time for all of us to spend more time considering the entire puzzle here with the ongoing UAW story, as opposed to falling for cheap internet click bait based on the federal monitor’s skullduggery. That’s good counsel on a lot of things.

MY: When the left-led unions, which included the UE, were disastrously expelled from the CIO in the late 1940s, the US labor movement lost its most progressive forces. Those that favored the extension and deepening of the best features of the New Deal, organizing workers in the South, and promoting international working-class solidarity. There has been no recovery from this. You have always maintained your radical, communist, and anti-capitalist principles, whether it has been playing your role in building a left bloc in the unions, resurrecting the organizing thinking of William Z. Foster, or relentlessly promoting new and expanded union organizing. Global solidarity has been strikingly absent from the labor movement ever since the expulsion of the left-led unions. Which, by the way, had the most progressive collective bargaining agreements. Why is it that today’s AFL-CIO is, to put it bluntly, so politically backward?

CT: William Z. Foster observed 100 years ago that the U.S. labor movement was small, weak, industrially scattered, and politically backward. Yet he saw that it possessed immense possibilities for forward movement—if it could be stirred to action. I see the identical situation today. He also observed that, “The left wing must do the work.” I have been a mostly out-of-the closet communist in my many years in labor, although I was always careful. You have to be. I want people who work with me to know that the largest part of why I have been successful, and have made whatever contributions I have, is because of my underlying Marxist understanding of how things really work. I find it curious that so many leftists manage to exclude “communism” from their list of approved beliefs, yet in case after case they have to confess that it’s the communist movement that must be credited for so much. They harken back to the 1930s and the explosive growth years of the communist movement, yet refuse to adopt the same methodologies for their work today. They daydream about those decades of great working-class advance, and then apply the same loose, fuzzy, and unscientific methods in their struggles that communists reject. This is not a specific U.S. defect, but we do face it. And in my opinion, it’s why our left today is incapable of crystallizing out of the several million people who would hold communist or socialist views any organizational form that possesses coherent structure or power. Our movement is also weakened, and finds its vigor and discipline sapped, by an addiction to a myriad of identity politics. And with the bulk of the left today unconnected to workplaces we have little contact with the working class that is all around us. Everyone wants to glory in what divides us, but rarely does anyone care to explain what it is that unites us—the class system, and the class struggle. As for the AFL-CIO, last year the federation paid a consultant lots of money to dream up a new slogan. They came up with, “It’s Better In A Union.” Now they are driving around the country in a big bus emblazoned with the same label. I presume AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Secretary Treasurer Fred Redmond, with assorted staff and functionaries are out meeting members in different places. Ok, the members appreciate a visit from the top brass, but since “it is better in a union,” what is the Federation doing to reach out to the more than 100+ million workers who are unorganized? Who labor increasingly for dictatorial bosses. Who work with few, if any, benefits. Working to pay for their health care. Have no retirement pensions. But who overwhelmingly support unions, as public opinion polls have shown for years? Well, the AFL-CIO does virtually nothing to organize the unorganized masses. That’s the job of the affiliate unions. What if they refuse to do it? Then it doesn’t get done, like it has not gotten done for many decades. The union bigs will however talk about one thing on their bus trips, which is “Elect Democrats!” Never mind that this corrupt and collapsed Democratic “Party” is in large measure what delivered Trump to us not once, but twice.

MY: One final question: There can be little doubt that the United States is moving steadily toward fascism. Yet, organized labor has done little to actively resist what has been and will be a disaster for workers. The presidents of two labor unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers (AFSCME), recently quit the Democratic National Committee (DNC), presumably in protest against the weak response of the Democratic Party to Trump’s predations. Now, we might ask why any union president would be a member of the DNC. But beyond that, these two labor “leaders” have salaries well in excess of $400,000 a year. And to the best of my knowledge, neither ever organized a single worker. I couldn’t find any evidence that either one has endorsed Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of New York City. The AFL-CIO hierarchy has shown little intention of a no holds barred battle with Trump and his legion of fascists. Seriously, how can this be?

CT: When I retired from UE in 2013, in my final Convention report as their Political Action Director—for twwenty-one years—I told the members point-blank that Obama had already been overthrown. His governance was no longer his own. He was a stuffed-suit giving speech after speech, but the big moneyed interests, military and intelligence agencies were clearly operating to suit themselves. I mention that because Trump now returns to power in that environment where many of the firewalls and safety valves that might protect our weak democratic processes are already shut off. For labor, what have we done so far to resist? Wrung hands with Democrats, paid for an endless stream of lawsuits, posted things on social media, and… what else? We have lost at least half a million union members in the federal service alone. When is the new organizing and recruiting program to be launched? It doesn’t exist. It’s not coming. Not from this labor leadership. As for the Washington, DC, tempest in a teacup recently when the AFT and AFSCME union leaders quit the Democratic National Committee (DNC), I expect they will be back shortly. Labor has nothing without the Democrats, and that’s the way the Democrats like it. The New Jersey and Virginia elections this November may provide a Democratic Party boost, but Trump couldn’t care less. He obviously plans to expand his unilateral war on working people, and the courts are going to allow it. This guy is governing like any crazy boss that the unions see all the time. Bosses who ignore the contract and do illegal things. Because they know that it is unlikely that you will rise up. They know that time is on their side, not our side. They control most aspects of the situation. So just like when this happens in a union context, we need to reconsider our entire position, our response, our tactics. We need union leadership who will consider bold responses, militant responses, tactics that defy conventional wisdom.

My last thoughts are again on the dire need to mobilize the unorganized, to move them to organize, and put them in direct confrontation with the employers. Bringing new blood into the unions will act as a catalyst in many ways, it will destabilize the ossified unions and open the door to a possible revitalization. Enormous new openings for the left are in sight, if we choose to move into that territory. But our current left is largely allergic to workplace and union work. We are instead drawn over and over and over again into harmless and feel-good projects far removed from the shops, garages, stores, and offices. If we see the trade union realm as the means to confront the economic powers while at the same time reaching the masses of working-class people, we might make progress in rebuilding a substantial socialist movement.

That’s where we are at, in my opinion. Thanks for asking.

MY: Thanks, Chris. I hope readers will take the truths you have told to heart and begin to do the work that needs to be done. Private sector union membership as a proportion of wage laborers was more than twice as high 100 years ago than it is now. And the public sector unions are now under ruthless attack. The future looks bleak, unless reality is faced. We owe you a great debt of gratitude for trying to open our eyes.

The South Caucasus After the Dance

By Ibrahim Can Eraslan

There is an ongoing debate among internet users from the South Caucasus nations about the origin of the Sabre Dance, one of the most iconic sequences in Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian’s 1941 Gayane Ballet. Some argue that it reflects Armenian motifs, given that Khachaturian was ethnically Armenian. Others insist that no such Armenian dance tradition exists. It is indeed true that Khachaturian was Armenian, born and raised in Tbilisi—now the capital of Georgia—and later educated in Moscow[1]. Thus, he was a Soviet artist, and if the Sabre Dance signifies anything, it is the fraternity of the peoples of the Caucasus. This explains why so many see themselves reflected in it.

However, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this region—where peoples and cultures were historically intertwined—plunged into bloody instability. The same nations that once danced together in Gayane turned on one another. As in many other post-Soviet countries, imperialism rapidly asserted itself in the region, bringing with it various propaganda apparatuses, mafia-capitalist networks, and fierce competition over natural resources.

While regional nations still maintain deep ties with Russia—including widespread Russian-language fluency—these historical connections do little to simplify the present complexities. The most recent episode in this unfolding situation began with a police operation in Yekaterinburg, targeting a group connected to the Azerbaijani diaspora, known as the Seferov brothers. According to Russian authorities, they were operating as a criminal organization. Over the years, multiple incidents—including murders and illegal alcohol sales—had occurred around their restaurant.[2]

Following this, Azerbaijan conducted its own raid on the Baku office of Sputnik, the Russian state media outlet, based on similar allegations.[3] It is important to note that, much like in Yekaterinburg, none of the Azerbaijani charges were based on newly discovered evidence. This clearly suggests that the operations are political in nature. While some argue over the technicalities—such as the fact that the individuals arrested in Russia are Russian citizens and therefore the issue is not international—such legalistic distractions obscure the political character of the events. In summary: Russia claims it is cracking down on organized crime, while Azerbaijan accuses Russia of targeting its nationals.

Notably, one of the first leaders to contact Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev after the incident was Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. This raises questions about the evolution of recent tensions.[4]

However, relationships weren’t always bad. When Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Azerbaijan, he stayed at Aliyev’s residence.[5] This gesture carried many meanings—trust, fraternity, continuity. After all, Ilham Aliyev's father, Heydar Aliyev, was appointed Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers in 1982, rising to become the Soviet Union’s “third man.” The last decade has seen significant shifts in the South Caucasus. Though this article does not focus on Georgia or Armenia, recent developments—European Union-aligned protests in Georgia (which some describe as a “color revolution”), Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan’s visit to Turkey, internal disputes involving the Armenian Church, and now the Azerbaijan–Russia confrontation—all reflect a pattern.

The real rupture in Azerbaijan–Russia relations likely occurred in 2024, when a plane traveling from Baku to Grozny was reportedly downed, with suspicions pointing to Russia. Since then, Azerbaijan has awaited an apology, and subsequently shut down the Russian cultural centers known as Russkiy Dom—key institutions in countries where Russian embassies operate.[6]

During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russia refrained from providing direct military aid to Armenia, a move interpreted by some as tacit approval of Azerbaijan’s military operations. It was also seen as a response to Pashinyan’s pro-Western orientation. Armenia, in turn, suspended its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).[7] While Azerbaijan may have viewed these developments favorably, it is significant that Putin hosted both Pashinyan and Aliyev after the first war—and that these meetings were held in Russian, underscoring Moscow’s symbolic role.

However, a new phase began when Azerbaijan started receiving support from Turkey and Israel. Since then, Putin has not hosted any more trilateral meetings. Russia increasingly found itself sidelined. Pashinyan’s Western alignment strained relations with Moscow, while Aliyev—buoyed by military victory—deepened ties with Turkey and Israel, effectively replacing Russia's role in the region. After the full retaking of Karabakh, the presence of Russian peacekeepers lost its rationale.

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Where is Azerbaijan turning its gaze?

The fact that Azerbaijani fuel is transported to Israel via Turkey helps clarify matters[8]. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline also offers a potential alternative to Russian energy routes. The European Union's renewed interest in Central Asia is not coincidental—it is directly tied to its broader strategy of sidelining Russia in all strategic domains. And we must remember: the ultimate target of this project is China.

The political landscape of post-Soviet countries often takes shape around being “pro-Russia” or “anti-Russia.” This has been evident in Moldova, Central Asia, Georgia, and Armenia. In Armenia, recent events include not only Pashinyan’s confrontation with the church but also the arrest of Karapetyan—one of the country's wealthiest figures, a Russian citizen, and someone outside the traditional ecclesiastical elite. But Azerbaijan does not fit into this binary pattern. There is no pro-Russian opposition figure or faction that can be mobilized internally. This is due to both Azerbaijan’s internal political dynamics and its external alliances.

Power in Azerbaijan is not easily challenged. Ilham Aliyev is not only the son of Heydar Aliyev but also the victor of the Karabakh War, with no significant rival in sight. Thus, while it is reasonable to speak of coup plots by pro-Russian forces in Armenia or pro-European uprisings in Georgia, such frameworks do not apply to Azerbaijan. As a result, Russia has turned to one of the few tools available in its arsenal: intervening in criminal networks and informal economic circuits linked to Azerbaijani actors within its borders. This is where the heart of the story lies.

Has the encirclement of Russia in the South Caucasus begun?

The region is a crucial corridor for energy transit and holds potential as a logistical hub via the Black Sea in the Belt and Road Initiative. After the Soviet collapse, the region roughly split into two camps: Turkey–Azerbaijan and Iran–Armenia. But the 2008 Georgia crisis, NATO’s Black Sea partnership with Georgia, and the color revolution that brought Pashinyan to power have complicated this landscape.

Azerbaijan, for a long time, resisted being drawn into this encirclement. The main reason was persistent Western pressure over the Karabakh issue.

What changed this equation?

The logic is simple. For decades, European development depended on three key factors: cheap energy from Russia, market access to China, and surplus labor from war-torn Yugoslavia and peripheral regions like Turkey. After Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, Europe’s industrial sector has suffered from energy shortages. Meanwhile, the Chinese market is no longer as accessible—Chinese goods are more affordable and digitally advanced than their European counterparts. While some have proposed a new India–Europe trade corridor, when it comes to energy, the South Caucasus presents itself as a viable alternative.

It must be emphasized: Azerbaijanis and Turks speak mutually intelligible Turkic languages and belong to the same ethno-linguistic family. This makes their cooperation natural. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s public appeal to the people of Iran, and the presence of 30 million Azerbaijanis in Iran*[9], also deserve attention in this context. Pashinyan’s visit to Turkey should be interpreted in this light—and we must not forget that Turkey possesses NATO’s second-largest army after the United States.

Thus, Azerbaijan occupies a position that somewhat diverges from the typical post-Soviet portrait. Its potential role in transporting Central Asian energy to Europe, its ability to leverage ties with NATO-member Turkey, its relevance to Iran due to its large Azerbaijani population, and its energy relations with Israel all place Azerbaijan in a key position—perhaps even a decisive one.

Today’s Russia is not the Soviet Union. The Gayane Ballet is no longer performed. Once, this dance embodied the harmony of fraternal Caucasian peoples. But now, the dancing has stopped, and only the sabres remain.

The essential question is this: will those sabres be turned against imperialism, or will they become instruments of a new imperialist project to expand markets and exploit labor?

Notes

[1] https://www.therightnotes.org/aram-khachaturian.html

[2] https://mash.ru/news/207599/

[3] https://report.az/hadise/din-in-sputnik-azerbaycan-agentliyinin-ofisinde-emeliyyatdan-fotoreportaj/

[4] https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/prezident-ukrayini-proviv-rozmovu-z-prezidentom-azerbajdzhan-98773

[5] https://president.az/en/articles/view/66701

[6] https://azerbaijan.rs.gov.ru/news/priostanovleno-2/

[7] https://www.specialeurasia.com/2025/03/10/armenia-csto-analysis/

[8] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/azerbaijan-maintains-oil-sales-israel-despite-turkish-backlash-says-report

[9] I used an Azerbaijani source because I couldn't find a complete bibliography. In other words, whether it is a completely accurate number or not can be compared within the framework of different sources, but here, Azerbaijan's claim will be important within the scope of various future claims. As a result, Azerbaijan may enter into a process based on its own claim.

Capitalism, Fascism, and the First American Dictatorship

By Jeremy Cloward

“Neither blindness nor ignorance corrupts people and governments. They soon realize where the path they have taken is leading them…Most see their ruin before their eyes; but they go on into it.”

 - German historian Leopold von Ranke

Introduction: Capitalism & Fascism

Capitalism generates two classes – the working class and the owning class. Either you own the productive forces of society or you work for someone that does. Profits are “made” in a capitalist economy by the owning class paying the working class less than the value of the product the working class produces. The business or industry may differ but the method of capital extraction is always the same. It is a zero-sum game with basic arithmetic explaining the dizzying heights of wealth that the owning class has been able to extract from what is often the grinding labor of the working class. When fascist states develop in a capitalist economy, historically the state has always come down on the side of the owning class. Conversely, while fascist regimes have advanced the class interests of the owning class – namely, capital accumulation – the very rich have used their class power to help carry out the policy aims of the ruling class. Which has always included the destruction of any kind of political opposition or attempt at economic gain by the working class.

The Historical Examples of Chile & Argentina

This was certainly true in Chile during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). With the secret support of the CIA and the Nixon Administration as well as the obvious support of the business classes of the US and Chile through their massive “investments” in the Chilean economy, Pinochet and his traitorous officers ordered the outrageous bombing of the Chilean “White House” La Moneda with the democratically-elected socialist president of Chile, Dr. Salvador Allende, still inside the presidential palace. The attack led both to the death of Allende – one of the brightest figures ever to grace the political stage in the history of the world – and the collapse of his emerging socialist government. After taking power, the Pinochet regime ripped away all of the productive forces of the Chilean economy from the working class and poor. Including more than 350 factories as well as the powerful mining and copper industries which had been primarily owned by US corporations before they had been nationalized under Allende which were then returned by Pinochet to the US and Chilean owning classes.

The Pinochet regime then went about reorganizing the Chilean economy along neoliberal lines (i.e., slashing the social welfare state, privatizing state-owned enterprises, deregulation of commerce, and growing the military in general) as developed by the “Chicago Boys” which was, if nothing else, the exact type of politico-economic theory that was hoped for to be imposed on the Chilean economy by the US and Chilean rich. To fully lock-in his rule and the owning class’s place back atop the politico-economic and social order, in the days immediately after the coup and in the years to come, Pinochet brutally repressed all dissent through arbitrary arrests, torture, murder, and “disappearances” of tens of thousands of Chileans with the full support of the US government.

A similar story took place in Argentina from 1974-1983 when a military junta took power and waged a Dirty War against the Argentinian people as part of Operation Condor which was a program initiated by Pinochet and backed by the US to destroy leftist opposition throughout Latin America. In following the brutal example set by Pinochet, the junta in Argentina, led most prominently by General Jorge Rafael Videla, initiated a state-sponsored war on Argentinian-leftists with its own abductions, torture, murder, and disappearance program which they carried-out with merciless cruelty. Today, the junta’s rule remains one of the most brutal examples in Latin America of the terrible achievements of Operation Condor for Argentina’s near unmatched record of human rights atrocities. Which included, among other horrors, throwing leftist opponents and “dissident nuns and mothers” from helicopters and planes into the ocean to be disappeared for all-time.

A number of multinational corporations worked with the Videla regime in carrying out its “terror campaign”. Most notably, Ford and Mercedez-Benz. In assisting Videla and his officers with their nearly unspeakable repression program, Ford assisted the junta by providing the military with a list of workers to kill, how to identify them, an incarceration center on its grounds, and the company’s head of security to torture workers that the military had arrested. In fact, the regime’s death squads car of choice during its Dirty War was the Ford Falcon which it used to disappear people off the streets of Buenos Aires.

Nazi Germany of the 1930s & the United States Today

In Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler’s time, it was Porsche, General Motors, Prescott Bush (i.e., the Bush Family patriarch), Deutsche Bank, and Mercedes-Benz who did business with Hitler, including weapons manufacturing, loaning funds to help build Auschwitz, and developing his touring car. While in the US today, it is the pathetic looking “tech-leaders” of Amazon, Meta, and Tesla who helped bring Donald Trump to power and then stood side-by-side each other and him on inauguration day. In fact, the titans of commerce of nearly every significant sector of the American economy, from the oil industry to the NFL, lined up behind Trump to get him reelected in 2024 by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on his presidential campaign.

Why? Because, they agreed with his views on abortion? No. Instead, because they agreed with his views on capitalism and stood to benefit from his deregulation of almost everything as well as their appreciation for his decidedly hyper pro-business personal and political history. A thoroughly frustrated American working class may have been fooled by his antics for the last eight years but the American rich never were. They knew a class-confederate when they saw one. No matter how grotesque he may appear in manner or as the living embodiment of the economic system they rule over, he is still better than the alternative – a rational president (i.e., Kamala Harris or Joe Biden) who would have placed some guardrails on the never-ending pursuit of the accumulation of capital by the American owning class.

Moreover and just as telling, there is not one politically significant difference between Nazi Germany of the early 1930s and the United States today with the exception of Adolf Hitler having vastly more talent than Donald Trump and Hitler receiving less of the popular vote for president in Germany in 1932 (i.e., 36.8%) than did Trump in the US in 2024 (i.e., 49.8%). Indeed, consider the following:

Rule by decree by a convicted felon; dismantling the state to concentrate power in the hands of the executive branch; arrests and deportations of “undesirables;” white supremacy and segregation; undermining women’s rights as well as a civil sexual assault conviction against Trump (though not Hitler); anti-LGBT, anti-communist, and anti-immigrant policies which include a national registry for “unfavored groups” (i.e., Jews in Germany vs. undocumented workers in the US with the IRS now working with ICE to identify migrant workers for deportation); anti-union and anti-working class policies; ultra-nationalism; forcing institutions such as universities to adopt the regime’s racist ideology including the suppression of dissent; attempting to control the arts; book banning or book burning; the ever-present and extreme-valuing of the military; and each regime’s contempt  for science, the Truth, the rule of law, the people in general, and most importantly, democracy itself.

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Yet, unbelievably, the whole world is staring down the destructive power of an American regime that is potentially worse than the hell the Nazis and Adolf Hitler brought to Earth eighty years ago with their initiating of a world war that brought about the deaths of some 80 million people. However, the German military of the 1930s was not even close to possessing the military power of the United States today – the most powerful military in the history of the world – with troops stationed in over 150 countries and a nuclear arsenal powerful enough to bring about the sudden sixth mass global extinction of virtually every living thing on the planet. While the Nazi’s motto may well have been, “We will rule the world or bring half of the world down with us,” the Trump regime can actually do it.

Indeed, in just the first 100 days with the fate of the world in his hands, Trump has begun to dismantle the republic by destroying nearly every federal department, program, and agency from the Department of Education to the Environmental Protection Agency. He has cut tens of billions of dollars from the social welfare state for the poor, children, minority groups, the sick and disabled, and the very old. All the while firing tens of thousands of federal workers. And, like a mob boss, extorted law firms to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars that have been deemed political enemies and who must now work for him for free.

At the same time, Trump is threatening to expand the empire – and distort it – to heights never seen before in American history. His imperial aims now include taking by force if necessary, Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal, and the Gaza Strip. What’s more, almost unbelievably, he has now sided with North Korea and the murderous dictator of Russia in the United Nations against the West; sanctioned the International Criminal Court; withdrawn from the WHO, the Paris Agreement, the UN Human Rights Council, USAID, and continues to threaten to pull the US out of NATO. Doing so would guarantee a global realignment of power creating a US vs. the world state of affairs with new international alignments that may not be easy to predict nor be beneficial geo-politically for the United States. Finally, he has imposed chaotic global tariffs on nearly every country in the world, with the notable exception of Russia, which make no sense to any thoughtful person. Taken all together, the decisions made by this shockingly ignorant, thin-skinned, and impulsive ruler who is unable to admit to making a mistake make clear the Caligulan madness (and stupidity) the whole world is now facing.

The Psychological Component & Neoliberalism

If Hitler was an intelligent psychopath with a dark charisma as most historians agree, then Trump is a destructive psychopath who is unable to learn as many psychiatrists have concluded. In fact, the noted Yale expert on violence, psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee, has commented that his mental pathology is easy to predict and not difficult to know. What is it? To destroy. To force a death spiral. For her there is no real political ideology coming from him so much as a “dangerous” disorganization of the mind. Moreover, Lee argues that not only does Trump exhibit “dangerousness” but is unfit for almost any job and much less the president of United States, as “he could not meet the most basic criteria for [mental] fitness for making decisions” which real political leadership is based almost solely upon. Indeed, for Lee, the US and the world are not facing a political problem so much as a public health problem where an individual with a highly disordered mind has been placed in a position of power and whose symptoms have now spread to weak-minded, childhood-traumatized, and societally stressed individuals.

The creation of a significant number of these socially stressed people are not only largely from the American working class but have been made so as a result of 45 years of the societal stresses of neoliberalism that have been imposed on the United States, western society, and in fact, the world in general. Worse still, the United States is experiencing the most extreme formulation of neoliberalism the world has ever seen with the consequences not entirely predictable. But to even speculate, one cannot help but imagine a dystopian future that may not benefit anyone except the rich and powerful. For instance, we may find in a coming American society that is not so far off, “social unrest” which has been created by the Trump regime through its destruction of the republic which is then suppressed by the state and key sectors within the US owning class. As things stand now, those in line to benefit the most from future government contracts to control segments of American society who are out-of-step with the Trump regime are the tech industry for surveillance and identification of “unfavored groups,” the private security and transportation industries for the arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants, and the prison-industrial-complex to incarcerate political opponents and migrant workers.

The Institutional Creation of the Dictatorship and a Dark Future?

Yet, what is just as dangerous as Trump’s personality disorders (whatever they might be) and the ongoing impact of neoliberalism is that he is the beneficiary of the most important case to ever come before the once highly-respected Supreme Court in Trump v. United States (2024). The case addressed the question of “presidential immunity” in the overturning of the presidential election of 2020. In Trump, the Court held that, “the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.” With those words, these great practitioners of law from the best the Ivy League has to offer, shot a poison bullet right through the heart of what was already the staggering American republic, elevating the presidency to that of a ruler without restraint.

Indeed, the Court created an American dictatorship that is protected by the institutional powers of that institution itself. Now with the complete acquiescence of the Trump-Republican dominated congress there is no need for a “Reichstag fire.” With the final check, the courts, which he ignores, who or what is to stop him from anything including imprisoning, torturing, murdering, or disappearing US citizens whom he considers to be political enemies as was the case in Chile, Argentina, or Nazi Germany? The current regime is already arresting and deporting foreign nationals with legal standing who oppose the politics of this mad king by daring to call the massacre in the West Bank by the US-backed Israeli government, a massacre. As well as deporting some who are not “political” at all.

In fact today, in trying to bring that future dystopian society into existence, the Trump regime now wants to contract out “round-ups” of undocumented workers to corporations and run the program like “Amazon Prime.” This, of course, would enormously increase the amount of people that the regime can return to decidedly poor or violent countries for what is still no discernible reason at all. Will the arrests of American citizens be next? Certainly, it is the hallmark of a tyrant if there is one. What horror or atrocity could come afterward? Will we have our own “Kristallnacht” carried out by some of the regime’s loyalists against our own scapegoats? If the US continues down this dark path, will it finally fall into the abyss of mass murder? We don’t know. But if we are to look to Nazi Germany as our guide down this Dantian-road into Hell then the final outcome is only too clear. Without question, driven by his basest instincts, the powers of this (or any) dictatorship are tailor-made to go wrong for a criminal like Trump.

The Way Forward…

The ruling and owning classes of any society can never be trusted. If for no other reason, it has always been the rich and powerful who have sent everyone else to their deaths against the sword and the machine gun for their benefit. When the political power of the state and the class power of the rich bind together and slip into fascism, then the true enemy of the people, if not obvious already, becomes clear – the owning class and the state, itself. In a capitalist-fascist state there is no turning back. There is no redemption of the social order without an outright removal from power of the ruling class and rich.

This has always been true in history as was the case in Chile, Argentina, and Nazi Germany. The collapse of the government and prosecution of the criminals that ran the state (i.e., Pinochet in Chile, Videla in Argentina, and the Nazi politico-military high command at Nuremburg) was required to restore any kind of faith in government. Even if none of these societies ever moved economically farther to the left than the progressive fiscal policies made possible by the new liberal states that had replaced the fascist regimes. This was not possible because the owning classes were never removed from power in any of these societies that emerged from the ashes of the collapsed or defeated fascist governments.

With the truth of today now staring us squarely in the face maybe we can all see the coming death of our republic – if it hasn’t died already with our mad dictator on the loose now saying that he thinks he can run for a third presidential term. Regardless, hopefully we can all see what has to be done – the death of the dictatorship and the restoration of the republic. Only formulated in a way unlike it has ever existed. A true republic governed by the people and for the people; by the working class and for the working class. Not merely a return to the outlines of the republic that was founded by the ruling class and the rich of the late 1700s with its built-in social, political, and economic inequalities which have brought us to this hour in history. Instead, today the American republic requires that we respond in a totally original manner with a complete reorganization of the state, economic system, and society where each is rooted in justice and complete equality. It is the only way forward.

For this to happen the American working class needs to awaken to its class position within the national capitalist order, and in fact, the global capitalist economic system itself. In so doing, it will then understand not only its class interests but the true dimensions of its class power and see that the political concerns of the working class have nothing to do with the politics of a billionaire president or any of his class in the United States or the world over. Once done so, the American working class can then take aim at bringing to an end an economic system, and its most horrifying political overlord, fascism, which from their inception promised to reap only a bitter harvest for the many while providing power and riches for the very few.

Indeed, they will emerge from the “motor force of history” as the new creators of a better society for all. It will truly take a Herculean-effort to do so but one that is not without historical precedent. However, if we deny it or choose not to do anything about it instead of facing the painful truths made clear by the dark light shining from this new American dictatorship, then our downfall is inevitable. For certain, our country will be just one more nation on the pages of history that rose and fell according to what should be the timeless maxim of all countries – “In the end, all nations get the government that they deserve.”

Jeremy Cloward, Ph.D. is a political science professor and author living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area.  He has taught at the junior college and university level for the past 19 years and is the author of three books and multiple articles that have been published in the Oakland Post, the Hampton Institute, Socialist Worker, Project Censored, and the East Bay Times. His college-level American politics textbook, Class Power and the Political Economy of the American Political System, is now in its third edition and has been endorsed by the progressive author Michael Parenti, the director of Project Censored, Mickey Huff, and the professor and former Central Committee member of the Black Panther Party, Phyllis Jackson. The book is currently being marketed to a national audience of political science professors throughout the country. In addition, Dr. Cloward has run for public office on three separate occasions (Congress 2009, 2010, and City Council 2012) and has appeared in a variety of media outlets, including FOX and the Pacifica Radio Network (KPFA).  Today, he continues to remain involved in the politics of peace, justice, and equality for all.

Where Do We Go From Here: The Future of Black Studies

[Photo credit: The Washington Post/Getty Images]

By Kemuel Benyehudah

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on April 17, 2019.

Globalization, immigration and intermarriage have led to contemporary black identity becoming more complex. Black Studies emphasis on the nationalist perspectives in the discipline may be causing it to limit broader discussions around the black experience. Shockley and Cleveland (2011) exhorts black students to connect to a “larger struggle” rooted in Afrocentrism, but they don’t describe the benefits of looking at three emerging trends. The discipline faces the following challenges: 1) How to maintain relevance within an increasingly neoliberal higher education culture? 2) How to meet the needs of a black student body which has seen its interethnic diversity grow? 3) How to respond to declining Black Studies degrees awarded and subsequent threats of defunding? This paper critically examines the aforementioned three trends which are changing black identity.

To address these trends, this paper posits a conceptual framework utilizing epistemic privilege, inquiry, and multiplicity. Kuhn (1962) argued that a “paradigm shift” occurs when the persons in the field agree on the conceptual model to solve a particular problem. In the past the discipline of Black Studies relied on foregrounding whiteness for analysis and integration from the margins (Butler, 2011). Whereas today, the field is faced with addressing the growing state of hybridity among black students. Glick (2012) argued that “contemporary identity studies cannot adequately speak to the challenges that have begun to emerge” (p. 520). Due to these rapid changes occurring in the black community, this paper proposes a reconceptualization of the field of Black Studies to address this rising emergence..

Why must new black voices rise from the margins in higher education and be heard?

On any given day, multiple conversations are taking place in higher education related to the diverse experiences shaping black students' lives. Often, these experiences originated in black students communities and then moved to academic disciplines for validation. However, some  experiences have not been properly documented and catalogued in the records of higher education. Harding (2004) a feminist scholar argued that the conditions of “oppression and marginalization” occur in academic disciplines when there is “unequal access to epistemic resources” to theorize and explain phenomena (p. 348). Black Studies emerged as a critique of higher education’s oppression of black epistemic privileges during the civil rights era (Okafor, 2014). However, for many black students living in the post-civil rights era, the Black Studies nationalist framework offers constraints which may make the discipline unappealing. One which stands out, is a perceived lack of sensitivity towards the cultural, social, and historical differences of black students in higher education. 

According to Giroux (2004) “despite the growing cultural diversity of students in higher education, there are few examples of curricular sensitivity to the multiplicity of economic, social, and cultural factors bearing on students’ lives” (p. 101). Black students falling outside of the historical lineage of the Black Studies discipline may not see themselves in the traditional scholarship and may choose not to enroll because of this reason. When considering the growing neoliberal agenda of modern universities today, declines in Black Studies degrees earned is a vector that the discipline can ill afford (Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2014). According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2011 - 2015) the number of Bachelor’s degrees awarded in Black Studies fell by 37% percent between 2010-11 and 2014-15, while the number of master’s degrees dropped by 32%.

This is problematic since mainstream disciplines rarely apply sustained critical inquiry into systemic racism and the historical forces that have shaped black identity (Jones, 2011). More to the point, supporters of Black Studies argued that racially neutral stances are examples of institutional racism (Phillips, 2010). According to Rojas (2007) black scholars have argued that institutional autonomy is necessary if black students are to be afforded the opportunity to make deeper meaning about their lived experiences. However, if black students do not have access to “critical communities” that provide them with opportunities to unpack their experiences, then it may be difficult for them to form bonds of trust and solidarity outside of their insider groups (Bettez, 2011). Adding to this point, Douglas and Peck (2013) said that the black diaspora includes many subcultures within it, and should not oversimplify all people of African descent within one narrative. As such, honoring “difference” would provide an opportunity for a more robust discussion of blackness in higher education. In the section below, we will look at the particular set of historical circumstances which Black Studies was situated within, and discuss how this differs from the post-civil rights era.

Historical overview of Black Studies during the civil rights to the post-civil rights era

Before we can enter into a meaningful discussion around Black Studies, it is important to briefly look at the field from an historical context. After the Plessy vs. Ferguson Supreme Court ruling in 1896, de jure segregation barred black people from higher education. Until the civil rights era, segregation left black people with very few tertiary options except for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (Allen & Jewell, 2002). The pre-civil rights era didn’t close until the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 ended de jure segregation (Smith, 2014). Yet, even after this legal victory, black students’ experiences were still mostly excluded from the dominant higher education curriculum.

According to Rogers (2012) “students developed and first presented the Black Studies idea to a group of professors in 1966” (p. 22). However, Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968 helped motivate a conviction in black students to challenge the status quo in higher education (Rojas, 2007). Following this tragic event, the San Francisco State student strike in 1968 was one of the first legitimate attempts to integrate Black Studies into higher education. The documentary Agents of Change (2016) argued that Black Studies’ institutionalization at San Francisco State was the Brown vs. the Board of Education moment for black students in higher education. Although San Francisco State’s student strike helped integrate the discipline, it also brought the ire of conservatives.

Ever since, Black Studies has been constrained by limited funding opportunities, and an existential preoccupation with fighting back racist practices that pose a threat to the black community.  This historical tradition of defining black students within the context of community arose from demand for a more inclusive curriculum (Pellerin, 2009). Rogers (2010) claimed that the field should retain its connection to the black community, but he doesn’t fully elaborate on who constitutes the community. However, federal, institutional, and neoliberal policies today are complicating the notion of a fixed idea of black community. Meaning, these aforementioned policies are stretching the black community into a more expansive type requiring more border crossing. Hollinger (2006) explored “community” in another way and argued that it became a way of establishing circles of “we” and “they” or who is in and who is out (p. 189). Although Hollinger is not a traditional scholar in Black Studies, his ideas on “suppression of diversity” amongst ethnic “blocs” provides useful perspectives for re-thinking Black Studies mindsets and traditional policies.

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Intermarriage, immigration, and globalization of higher education

As mentioned earlier, there are three trends expanding black identity in the United States. These trends are immigration, intermarriage, and the globalization of higher education. Each of these trends have worked separately and together to expand the notion of the black community. In the sub-sections below we will more closely analyze each trend, and discuss further how each is complicating our traditional constructions of blackness.

Intermarriage

According to Wang (2015) “fully a quarter of black men who got married in 2013 married someone who was not black. While on the other hand, half a quarter of black women married outside of their race.” Anderson (2015) also argued that black immigrants are more likely to be married than native born blacks. Cokely et al. (2015) said, black students are not a monolithic group, but are part of multiple ethnic groups who increasingly identify as biracial or multiracial. Considering these trends, not only are black students diversifying in terms of identity, but they also display distinct levels of educational achievement (Page, 2007). In order to better accommodate interethnic stratification occurring out in the black student population, higher education will need to address these shifts. As higher education continues to become more global, and admit more international students these trends will only continue to grow. This is important to note as higher education learns to better integrate more students of color in the future.   

Immigration

During the Civil Rights era, the black population was less ethnically diverse according to the Pew Research center (2015). According to Anderson (2015) “black immigrants are a diverse group with notable differences in demographic, economic and geographic characteristics, often tied to the regions of their birth countries.” As recently as 1980, only 3.1 % of the black population was foreign born (Kent, 2007).  However, during the post-civil rights era, U.S. immigration policy has caused changes in the black population. The passage of The Immigration act of 1965 and subsequent revisions in 1976, 1980, 1986, and 1990 have led to a tripling of immigrant blacks between 1980 and 2005 (Kent, 2007). According to Trostle and Zheng (2014) “the Census Bureau projects that by 2060, 16.5% of America’s black population will be foreign-born (p. 11 ).” The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, “loosened” and afforded opportunities for family reunification and skilled labor (Kent, 2007, p. 6). Whereas, the U.S. Immigration Act of 1990 increased the number of immigrants from underrepresented nations (Anderson, 2015). Many recent immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean (where this writer’s mother hails from) benefited from these policies (Kent, 2007). The story here is that U.S. immigration policy has not only changed black identity today, but will also do so in the foreseeable future. This is important to note because black immigrants are also more likely than U.S. born blacks to have a college degree or to be married (Anderson, 2015). Therefore, higher education must account for intra-racial differences and not construct all black students as a monolithic identity group.

Globalization of higher education

According to Kent (2007) “higher education has been a favored route for Africans coming to the United States” (p. 9). Education and social mobility is strongly favored by not only immigrant black students, but also by most immigrant students who leave their countries of origin. As a result, Massey et al. (2007) argued that black immigrants are more likely to be overrepresented in the most selective schools. This phenomenon has caused some tensions with U.S. born blacks who argue that foreign born blacks are benefiting from affirmative action policies instead of the descendants of slaves which the policy was designed to redress (Kent, 2007). For this reason (Cokely et al., 2015) said, “addressing only the traditional barriers to higher education is no longer sufficient given the emerging challenges related to the conflation of black ethnic groups and the increasing numbers of biracial and multiracial identification” (p. 48). Hence, in order to more fully capture the diverse narratives of black students in higher education, proposed below is an interdisciplinary framework addressing these trends.

Reconceptualizing Black Studies in higher education

Applying interdisciplinary frameworks would allow Black Studies to move away from the white/black binary and conduct further self examination of the discipline’s scholarship. Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality provide useful frameworks for critically analyzing race relations but not so much for analyzing growing black hybridity. Munoz et al. (2008) argued that “transdisciplinarity” or interdisciplinary scholarship provides ‘fertile ground’ to ‘explode the arbitrary categorical restraints of discipline” (p. 297). In order to respond to these constraints, scholars will need to look outside of their disciplines for inspiration to create new theories. Some of the popular conceptual frameworks for analyzing racial oppression of the “black community” – such as CRT, intersectionality, and disability studies  – fall short in accounting for black students' complexity due to an overreliance on structuralism. To move beyond structuralism and its essentializing tendencies, a more self-reflexive approach is needed in Black Studies (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2002). Making such a move would allow students to engage in critical inquiry with themselves, the Black Studies discipline would provide them with a framework to find their voice in the higher education curriculum. The frameworks proposed for dealing with black identity in the post-civil rights era is epistemic privilege as emerged from Women's Studies, inquiry as influenced by critical theory, and multiplicity as presented by realist accounts of identity.

Identifying epistemic privilege in Black Studies

According to Kotzee (2010) epistemic privilege advantages members of marginalized social groups to describe their oppression. This is because the oppressed “have a systematically clearer view on political reality than their oppressors” (p. 274). As is the case, black students emerging from intermarriage, globalization, and immigration also should have the privilege to assert their knowledge claims and push back on grand narratives of blackness. Borrowing again from Women's Studies, Janack (1997) argued:

“Members of oppressed groups, including all women, have a perspective on the

world that is not just different from the perspective available to members of the

ruling class, but is also epistemically advantageous” (p. 126).

For the purposes of this essay, “ruling class” is defined as the gatekeepers of the Black Studies discipline in higher education. Esteemed black scholars should use their academic power to improve the lives of all black students no matter from where they hail.  Feminist scholar Alcoff (2013) writes that epistemic privilege was appropriated from Marxist thought as a means of empowering the socially marginalized. As such, Black Studies must use its privileged position within the academy to once again empower the marginalized, and not only serve the interest of the neoliberal plutocracy. Meaning, Black Studies must prioritize the black student community’s empirical needs and resist higher education’s tendency to reify black students into racialized stereotypes. Further probing and inquiry is needed to better understand their individual needs.

Inquiry

Structuralism is heavily valued in the civil rights tradition of Black Studies, including higher education. Meaning, the higher education industry’s preoccupation with race in the aggregate often ignores and loses the opportunity to study nuance. Therefore, critiquing and going beyond the white/black binary dominance in education research requires critical inquiry within the discipline, and critical engagement with sister disciplines. For example, Crowley (1999) argued that the construction of the oppressor/oppressed binary within Women’s Studies had to be reconfigured in order to prevent “undertheorization” about the experiences and knowledge about women. Black Studies will need to make a similar move to prevent marginalization of phenomena happening amongst black students.

According to Douglas (2017) inquiry or “searching” involves three interrelated concepts which are research, “mesearch” and “wesearch (p. 22). Mesearch involves interrogating the inner core of who you are; while wesearch searches involves asking questions about what is needed for those we serve; research investigates available research (p. 22). Douglas (2017) said that asking questions would help black students to harness their story, as well as engage in critical dialog with other students bringing their personal histories into the classroom. Therefore, the discipline should accept that some of the questions posed by students will not lead to support of the traditional framework, but to questions of problematizing. Problematizing will help black students to better understand their positionality and relationships and to choose frameworks which makes sense when trying to understand their experiences in the world.

Moving from intersectionality to multiplicity

Intersectionality was coined by Crenshaw (1989) to provide a deeper understanding of how race, class, and gender worked together as an interconnected system of oppression on people of color. However, intersectionality was conceived in the 1980s before recent societal trends started to make a more visible mark in the black student population. As such, Hames-Garcia (2011) said we should rethink our “overextension” of intersectionality, and instead used “multiplicity as a theory of identity rather than a theory of oppression” (preface, 11). As mentioned earlier, waves of new black narratives have entered the conversation, therefore accommodating and integrating these perspectives are crucial for establishing greater solidarity within the discipline, and with students.

According to Choo and Ferree (2010) intersectionality has been essentialized as a framework to study oppression. Whereas, multiplicity is described as the self in relation to social identity, because understanding the self only as the sum of discrete parts is inadequate (p. 5). Borrowing from Hames Garcia, black students must steadily find the commonalities, connections, and similarities of their experiences to “coexist within a complex multiplicity” (p. 34). Meaning, mutual bonds of trust and respect must be re-affirmed within the discipline to ensure that all black students are made to feel welcome to express their right to generate knowledge.

Discussion and Implications of the Counter-Public

If the field hopes to survive, it will require building not only interethnic coalitions but also cross-racial allyship built on mutual dialog and solidarity. According to Chavez (2011) “a significant function of rhetoric within contexts of movement activity is to generate coalitions” (p. 2). As Chavez discussed, these multicultural coalitions can function as “counterpublics” to support black students scholarship and activism on their campuses. Adding to the ideas on counter publics mentioned earlier, Frazer (1995) said:

“Historically…. members of subordinated social groups - women, workers, peoples of color, and gays and lesbians - have repeatedly found it advantageous to constitute alternative publics. I have called these “subaltern counterpublics” in order to signal that they are parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses.” (p. 291)

During the civil rights era, institutionalization of Black Studies brought the conversation from the margins and into the center of the academy. Whereas today, Black Studies is resisting displacement from the center of higher education and subsequent banishment back to the margins. To prevent this from happening, Black Studies must widen its appeal to the black students in/outside of higher education. According to Douglas and Peck (2013) references to blackness must remain diligent in not reducing or oversimplifying black people. Rebranding and expanding the field as welcoming to a community of heterogenous voices of African descent will require an active ground up strategy recruiting Black students from wider backgrounds into an active counter-public.

Fraser (1992) said counterpublics are ‘‘spaces of withdrawal and regroupment’’ and operate as ‘‘bases and training grounds for agitational activities directed toward wider publics’’ (p. 124). Black scholars and students should work together to identify the issues in the mainstream higher education publics that require scholarship to support their activist goals. Some of the issues that black students and scholars can begin to map as areas of concern are: 1. increasing student enrollment rates in Black Studies, 2. meeting the diverse needs of students in higher education by generating relevant scholarship and 3. Challenging grand narratives which attempt to dehumanize black students and essentialize them as stereotypes and monolithic communities. 

Reconstituting the field of Black Studies as a site of resistance and praxis during the post civil rights era will require multi-vocal scholarship (Bakhtin, 1995). By multi-vocal scholarship, I mean a more democratic inclusive accounting of black experiences. A multivocal discipline would allow for multiple narratives which include a broad range of student perspectives. This type of participatory practice might increase demand for the discipline, and act as a bulwark against further possible defunding (Rhodes, 2011). As higher education continues to supply less funding for humanities education programs like Black Studies, students and scholars of all backgrounds will need to advocate for its existence. To this point, Shockley (2011) said fragmentation along the border lines of black ethnic identity politics risks imperiling the viability of Black Studies to solve modern black problems.

In order to move beyond these institutional constraints, black scholars will need to make the case that the traditional civil rights framework is no longer sufficient to move the field of Black Studies forward or to serve its expanded community needs. Santos (2015) said “rearguard theory” is “craftsmanship rather than architecture, committed testimony rather than clairvoyant leadership and intercultural approximation to what is new for some and old for others” (p. 44). One way to validate this idea is to empower black students to make knowledge claims grounded in their own unique experiences and not in the high towers of the academy.

Conclusion

Black studies needs to be reconceptualized to meet the changing needs of the black student population in the post-civil rights era. Globalization, immigration, and intermarriage are trends that are changing black identity, and can no longer be ignored. Innovating new conceptual frameworks in the post-civil rights era is necessary for ensuring that a fuller picture is provided of black students' experiences in higher education. Otherwise, disregarding these trends pose an ominous future for the field of Black Studies and black students in higher education. 

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The Nakba Never Ended

[Pictured: A mural by Emmalene Blake in Dublin expresses solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza [Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters]

By Eyad Alkurabi

Last month, as the state of Israel continued to starve and exterminate the people of the Gaza strip, massacre Palestinians in the west bank, and gaslight and delegitimize Palestinians in the diaspora and our friends and allies worldwide, Palestinians marked the 77th commemoration of the Nakba – our catastrophe, the founding of Zionist state. But the Nakba has never ended. In fact, it has been ongoing.

It has been 77 years of ongoing agony. With every step we take, Palestinians remind ourselves that we stand on the shoulders of giants. In my own family, we have been freedom fighters on both sides since the 1920’s – because our people’s catastrophe did not begin in 1948, it began decades before with the arrival of Zionism, bringing many massacres even before the time we commemorate as Nakba.  Beginning in the 1920’s entire villages were ethnically cleansed, sometimes entire family lines wiped out. The Zionist settlers and militias did to us exactly what had once been done to indigenous Americans. Untold thousands were killed between the 1920’s and the Nakba, when 750,000 Palestinians were ultimately and forcibly expelled from their lands. Today, we carry our parents’ and grandparents’ keys, and we carry their hopes that the next generation can one day return home.  Until then, we as their descendants must continue showing up for our people wherever we are and whoever we are, no matter how high the personal cost or how difficult the work may be for us.

Every Palestinian family has its stories. On my mother’s side, they tell of sheltering a family of Jewish Holocaust refugees who eventually intermarried with our family. And when the Nakba came, those Holocaust survivors had to flee again to Syria, where many of our family then died in the Syrian civil war. One of my father’s earliest memories is from the age of four, when he was playing on the floor of his home while his mother made rice pudding. When a bomb suddenly landed next door, he fell into the pot of rice pudding and scalded his arms.

And our Nakba, our mass catastrophe that we were forced to swallow, reared its ugly head again in 2023. But it never actually ended, because Israel is addicted to killing Palestinians. Every year, they need a refill on the script — a refill that is perpetually funded by the United States of America with seemingly no limits. We need to take the corrupt doctor’s license away and achieve an arms embargo now!

I hope you will educate yourselves about places like Al-Tira ’Haifa and Dar Yasin to better understand how the genocide of our people began. I ask you to visit the website Palestine Remembered where Nakba survivors document the stories of their lands, their homes, and their families.

Palestinians are so often asked to condemn violence and terrorism, perhaps because we are assumed to be violent and terroristic people. So, I also hope that you will also ask yourself what you would do in our shoes?

What would you do if your entire family had been killed by the time you were 18 years old?

What would you do if you’d been blockaded your entire life?

What would you do if you were just a fisherman trying to catch something to eat only to be shot at for fishing? Or if the only food you could get had to be approved, had to be allowed in, had to be given to you by the calorie?

What if you had no clean water for yourself or your family, and it was deemed illegal for you to even collect rainwater from your own rooftop?

If your political leaders, even the most peaceful among them, were in constant danger of being imprisoned, often with no charges, for years on end? And what would you do if every form of peaceful resistance that you tried was met with violent suppression?

The best time to get involved in the struggle for Palestinian liberation was before October 7th. But the second best time is now. We hope you will join us by showing up and getting involved in the Palestinian Rights Committee and/or the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and by educating yourself about the facts of our struggle so that you can educate others.

Being a Neurodivergent Palestinian Gay man is a journey. However, through the amazing sumud and love of my communities, we are steadfast and pushing through. Although we carry our own individual trauma and our collective trauma, we as Palestinians and our friends love each other so much that we carry on and through.

If you wish to push for change, I ask that you consider the following steps:

• Persuade your local city and county to have binding BDS resolutions.

• Encourage your representative in congress to demand that AIPAC gets audited and gets labeled as a foreign entity.

• Demand an end to the siege, genocide, and blockade.

• Demand an immediate release of all Palestinian hostages, which are in the thousands.

• Write letters to editors to combat propaganda and provide a differing viewpoint.

• Bring up the Palestinian struggle and story at the kitchen table! Talk to your friends and loved ones.

• Get involved, protest, agitate, educate, and organize

We have the ability to make an impact — big and small and in between. Let’s utilize our abilities and, since we are in the belly of the beast, let’s get together and bring more peace and justice on this earth. 

No boots on the ground, no bombs in the air, US out of everywhere.

The Sordid History of US Intervention in Iran

[Pictured: Protesters hold a portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the 1979 revolution.]

By Joyce Chediac

Republished from Liberation News.

Washington just staged an unsuccessful attempt at regime change in Iran. The U.S. continues to call out the Islamic Republic as “dangerous” and “repressive.” What would the U.S. want for Iran? For 26 years the U.S. actually ruled that country. An examination of the period reveals what the U.S.  might really wish today for the Iranian people.

Iran is a formidable country. With 92 million people, it has the largest population in West Asia. Iran has 10% of the world’s oil reserves and 15% of its gas reserves, the third and second largest world reserves respectively. It has many key minerals and great tracts of arable land. It borders eight countries, and has coastlines on two key waterways. Its territorial waters extend 12 miles into the 21-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, one of the most strategic waterways in the world, where a fifth of the world’s ships carrying oil and natural gas pass through.

Iran was long regarded by the Western colonial powers not as a country with people who have rights and needs, but as a prize to be snatched. For decades it was dominated by Britain, and its oil syphoned off by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP), leaving the people of Iran in poverty and underdevelopment.

The CIA’s very first coup was in Iran

After fighting themselves to exhaustion in World War II, the European colonial powers were much weakened, providing a space for many in the Global South to assert independence. Iran was one of these countries.

 In 1951 Iran’s Parliament voted to nationalize the oil industry controlled by Britain and elected the leading proponent of nationalization, Mohammed Mossadegh, as Prime Minister.  The nationalization was very popular. It reflected the population’s widespread dissatisfaction with foreign exploitation and desire for greater sovereignty.

Other forces were at work, however. With the European colonialist regimes weakened, the U.S. emerged as the strongest imperialist power after World War II, hungry to assert itself as the new world colonizer. 

To aid in this effort the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was formed  in 1947 to function outside the law and exempt from congressional oversight. In 1953 the covert agency cut its teeth by overthrowing the Iranian government of Mohammed Mossadegh and seizing the nationalized Iranian oil.

 The CIA actually bragged that the coup was “an American project from beginning to end.”  It was first of many CIA coups, launching what Washinton rulers and their Wall Street backers named “The American Century.”  

The New York Times wrote its colonialist view of the coup on Aug. 6, 1954:

“Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism. It is perhaps too much to hope that Iran’s experience will prevent the rise of Mossadeghs in other countries, but that experience may at least strengthen the hands of more reasonable and more far-seeing leaders.”

The “more reasonable and more far-seeing leader” that Washington chose to replace Mossadegh was Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, a Swiss-educated aristocrat. Pahlavi was installed as an absolute monarch, the Shah of Iran.

To keep their new client in power the U.S. then financed, formed and trained SAVAK, the notorious and deadly secret police, to destroy the significant opposition to the coup.

Five CIA officers, including specialists in covert operations, intelligence analysis, and counterintelligence, “trained virtually all of the first generation of SAVAK personnel,” according to the Iran Encyclopedia. The trainers included Major General Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, whose son, Norman Schwartzkopf Jr.,  was to lead the murderous the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Operation Desert Storm, in 1991.

SAVAK was given the power to make arbitrary arrests, detain indefinitely without charges and to extract confessions through torture.  It decimated  an entire generation of militants, revolutionaries and progressives.

Mosaddegh’s group, the National Front, was outlawed and most of its leaders arrested. The Tudah (Masses) Party, Iran’s communist party, was virtually destroyed. Over 4000 members were arrested, at least 14 killed by torture and over 200 sentenced to life imprisonment.

But the U.S. was doing fine. With Iran’s oil controlled by a consortium of Western companies, American firms gained considerable control over Iranian oil production. U.S. companies took  around 40% of the profits. Politically, Iran acted as an important counterweight to the Soviet Union, which it bordered.

The Nixon Doctrine, announced in 1969, called for Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia to be the guardians of Washington’s interests in the Middle East at a time when the U.S. military was bogged down in a losing war in Vietnam. 

U.S. aid to Israel soared to billions of dollars annually. The Pentagon built Iran’s military into one of the largest in the world, growing Iran’s defense budget some 800% over four to five years.  By 1977 it was ranked fifth globally.  Its job was to be Washington’s policemen in the Persian Gulf.

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Economic development lines pockets of rich, hurts the workers

The Shah’s 1963 “White Revolution,” a plan for economic development much acclaimed in the U.S. at the time, would be called pure neoliberalism today. 

The economy grew significantly during these years primarily due to oil proceeds that were finally coming into the country’s economy. Prior to the nationalization of oil, the British gave Iran virtually nothing for the oil they were plundering. The CIA coup of 1953 violently defeated the movement for the nationalization of oil. But the new arrangement under the US-installed system did give Iran approximately half of the oil proceeds, a concession in hopes of preventing future anti-imperialist mass movements.

Economic development was uneven as projects prioritized what brought profits to foreign companies, not to mention the huge military spending that syphoned much of the oil profits right back to the US and its defense contractors.

Some 85% of the of wealth that remained in the country went to a small elite. The majority of the population remained untouched. In the poorest areas in the southeast, where by UN data 55% of the population lived below the poverty line, Iranians were dying of hunger.

Rapid militarization and foreign economic penetration brought inflation which decreased the purchasing power of the poor. Many small farmers unable to make a living migrated into the cities and joined the ranks of the unemployed there where rapid urbanization had created housing shortages and poor living conditions.

The Shah’s secret alliance with Israel

Israeli Foreign Ministry documents declassified in recent years reveal that Israel had extensive and exceptional relations with the Shah’s regime. The documents reveal that on Feb. 23, 1966, Mordechai Gazit, Director of the the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Department wrote, “Iran-Israel relations are a kind of unwritten secret alliance that gives Israel a range of advantages in the fields of the economy, security, the Middle East and anti-Nasserism.”

Over the years Israel purchased a significant part of, and sometimes all, of its oil from the Shah’s regime, while Iran used Israel as a middleman to sell its oil to third countries.

There was much military cooperation. Israel had close ties to SAVAK.  While Iran never officially recognized Israel, the Shah had secret representation in Tel Aviv since 1961, while Israel had permanent representation in Tehran which, at one point, was an embassy with military attachés. In 1967 the Iranian prime minister asked the Israeli military attache to train  the head of his bodyguards. Iranian police received training in operating communications equipment at Motorola in Israel. Between 1968 and 1972 Iran bought some $63 million in military equipment from Israel.        

The Shah throws ‘the most expensive party in modern history’ while Iranians starve

Instead of using Iran’s petrodollars to address poverty and inequality, the Shah threw for himself what was then called “the most expensive party in modern history.”

In 1971 he flew in 18 tons of food prepared by the French restaurant Maxims to celebrate what he called the 2,500 anniversary of his dynasty, and to celebrate himself. For days he entertained 60 kings, queens and heads of state at luxury tents in the desert at the ancient ruins of Persepolis. This waste of resources while people were hungry became a symbol of his total detachment from his people and a rallying cry for a need for major change.

Meanwhile, the Shah’s regime grew even more repressive. After 1972 those committing alleged political crimes were tried before secret military tribunals, without witnesses or defense lawyers, and with guilt determined solely based on SAVAK’s evidence.

There was no such thing as freedom of speech or association. The press was strictly censored, with the Shah decreeing that every newspaper with a circulation of less than 3,000 and periodicals with a circulation of less than 5,000 be shut down. From 1975 to 1978, political activity was restricted to participation in the Rastakhiz Party, the Shan’s party, membership in which was mandatory for everyone.

Trade unions were outlawed and workers who protested for better conditions could be imprisoned or killed. Academic freedom was  restricted and students and university teachers were subjected to surveillance by SAVAK.

‘A history of torture which is beyond belief’

Human rights groups charged Iran with having the worst record of political repression in the world.  Amnesty International reported in 1975 that Iran had “the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief.”

A 1976 New York Times article said, “There are 100,000 political prisoners and there have been 300 official executions in the last three years in Iran, according to figures of Amnesty International, Le Monde, and other European newspapers, and the international Federation of Human Rights.”

By the late 1970s the anger of the people of Iran at their U.S. imperialist exploiters and their repressive puppet Shah was at a boiling point. People look to those who were  the most militant and intransigent against U.S. imperialism for leadership. They turned to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shia cleric exiled by the Shah in 1964. For years he had been recording on cassette tapes fiery messages excoriating U.S. imperialism and calling for the arrest and trial of the Shah.  These tapes were circulated throughout Iran. At one point,  90,000 mosques were duplicating and distributing them.

Anti-government demonstrations began in October 1977. Protests even reached the U.S., as Iranian students at U.S. universities lost no opportunity to confront visiting Iranian officials and members of the Shah’s family with picket lines and chants of “The Shah is a U.S. puppet, down with the Shah!

The movement brought together a wide array of groups, including radical clerics, left activists, people from various social groups, including clergy, intellectuals, and merchants, ethnic minorities and millions of workers. Economic demands were made, though the protests also raised the political demands of an end to martial law and the release of political prisoners.

In 1978 the revolution grew into a broad-based uprising that paralyzed the country. Labor strikes began with oil workers in five cities taking to the streets. They spread everywhere until they immobilized the economy. Giant demonstrations took place in every city.

Troops on rooftops opened fire on the crowds, committing many massacres. But the killings only further infuriated the population. Some actually came to protests wearing white Islamic burial shrouds in defiance of the troops and signaling that they were willing to die to liberate their country.

By the end of the year the hated Shah was a prisoner in his own palace, backed only by his generals and the hated SAVAK. On Jan. 16, 1979, the U.S  quickly whisked him out of the country.

After 14 years of exile, Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran on Feb. 1, 1979 to jubilant supporters. A referendum on creating an Islamic Republic was held on March 30 and 31, 1979 and overwhelmingly approved. Khomeini became the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

‘We used to run this country … Now we don’t even run our own embassy’

Days after Khomeini returned, and after a demonstration briefly attacked  the U.S. embassy in Tehran,  an American diplomat  preparing to leave bitterly commented, “We used to run this country…Now we don’t even run our own embassy.”  His astonishment was typical of flabbergasted U.S. officials.

Never concerned about the plight of the Iranian people, the Shah’s U.S. backers were oblivious to the significant internal struggle taking place. Only a year before the Shah had to run from the country he was praised by then-President Jimmy Carter in a New Year’s Eve toast that called Iran “an island of stability in a turbulent corner of the world.”

A New York Times article of March 11, 1979  expressed the astonishment of the political establishment here and their total underestimation of the Iranian people:

 “How could Iran, with its oil and its strategic situation between the Soviet Union and the Persian Gulf, between Europe and the Middle East, fall under the sway of a holy man out of the mists of the 13th century? How could the shah, a monarch who commanded more tanks than the British Army, more helicopters than the United States First Cavalry in Vietnam, be pressured so neatly out of power?”

Iranian Revolution changed West Asia

The Iranian Revolution was a game-changer. Its demonstration of the power of mass uprisings to overthrow colonial regimes inspired oppressed people in the Muslim world and throughout the Global South.

It not only kicked the U.S. out, it also changed the geopolitical landscape and power balance in West Asia. For 46 years now, despite severe economic sanctions imposed by Washington and the whole imperialist camp, the Iranian people still assert their right to self-determination and are aiding others in the region to do so as well.  

To this day, where the people of the world see the Iranian Revolution as a taking back of natural resources and a restoration of rights and dignity, the U.S. government just sees the loss of a very strategic and lucrative asset. This is why regime change has been the State Department’s goal in Iran ever since 1979.

On the Limits of Legalism Against Empire

By Ibrahim Can Eraslan

It is well known that imperialism has long maintained an aggressive stance toward Iran. This includes periodic attacks on Iranian territories, the assassination of personnel, economic sanctions, and even the use of propaganda tools aimed at regime change. The reasons behind these actions by imperialist powers are beyond the scope of this article, but it is evident that the ultimate target is China. On the other hand, Iran also holds significant importance for Russia. The Caucasus region, after all, is crucial to Russia’s security interests.

In order to achieve all these objectives, imperialism carries out its dirty work through Israel — as even German Chancellor Merz has stated — and the West responds to this with so-called “respect.”[1] Israel is able to carry out these actions in front of the entire world. All of this is framed by the West as a kind of civilizational war against Arabs or Muslims, with Israel cast as the protagonist.

What makes this possible is, of course, the fact that Israel is not merely a nation-state acting on its own. It is an indispensable tool of imperialism in the region. Moreover, the global reach of Zionist media propaganda and the immense financial support it receives from the West (which Trump himself actually criticized during his election campaign) provide Israel both the courage and the means to construct its own narrative.

In other words, Israel is acting with a specific mission. It serves as a battering ram for Western imperialism in the region, aiming at the destruction of anti-imperialist forces and the redrawing of borders. In this context, the increasingly aggressive stance toward Pakistan also gains significance, and it is meaningful to highlight the close ties between India and Israel. After all, without such a comprehensive campaign, halting China's economic rise becomes an extremely difficult scenario for Western imperialists. The elimination of anti-imperialist forces in the region simultaneously opens up new centers of exploitation for the West. This is why the targeting of China and Israel's role as the battering ram gains strategic importance for imperialism.

Thus, Israel’s assignment here goes beyond the ontological foundations of the Zionist narrative. Israel’s history —and its deep entanglement with imperialist powers — reveals that the matter at hand is not one of religion or culture, but fundamentally a class struggle. Accordingly, the stance of international legal mechanisms toward Israel should also be interpreted through the lens of class struggle, and the hypocrisy of international law must be understood in this context as well.

In its recent conflicts with Iran, it is clear that Israel is the aggressor. From the perspective of international law, this is not a disputable claim. Moreover, within the last six months, Israel has launched attacks on Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria — and in three of these cases, it continues to maintain a de facto occupation. What is being done in Gaza and the West Bank is evident to all.

So then, why do the United Nations and its conventions not apply equally to all states? Why is there discrimination?

Undoubtedly, the concept of “humanity” as referred to in United Nations rhetoric is a costly one. In a world dominated by capitalism, this means that, whether under the label of “humanitarian intervention/aid” or “the fight against international terrorism,” imperialism can intervene in any conflict, rebellion, or — as in the case of Iran — against an official government, using any method it chooses. Or, as recalled from the Iraq invasion, it’s not merely about seeking authorization from the UN, but about CIA agents obtaining “diplomatic or other official identities”.[2]

Of course, the principles laid out in various international legal texts regarding human rights or the use of force by states may initially create a positive impression for many. However, as I mentioned above, these are concepts lacking in substance and are costly within the capitalist system. The universalization of these costly concepts is problematic precisely because of their Western origin. In capitalism, if you invest in something, you expect to profit from it. Therefore, investment in “humanity” is only measured in terms of its profitability. In this sense, a set of principles that emerged in a particular historical context and in response to specific social developments — and that bear the cultural and political imprint of that environment — being declared valid for all humanity is ethically questionable from many angles.

Imperialism reveals itself even within the principles of international law, as international law is fundamentally shaped by the logic of unipolarity.

From this, it can be said that Israel and the unipolar essence of international law are mutually compatible. It follows logically that international law would not punish a “child” born from its own core — or if it does, the punishment would still serve to protect that same core.

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However, a core issue here is that Israel’s actions cannot be justified even within the narrative of capitalist legality. Israel’s defense relies on the doctrine of “preemptive self-defense,” or in other words, “preventive attack.” To understand what these terms mean, one must examine Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which regulates the right to self-defense. Article 51 is the exception to the prohibition on the use of force as established in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.

So, what is preemptive self-defense?

In short, preemptive self-defense is an expanded interpretation of the traditional right to self-defense. Let us take a look at Article 51 of the Charter:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”[3]

It can thus be seen that this right is not one that entirely sidelines the United Nations or turns warfare into a fundamental exception to general international legal norms. Rather, it is a provision intended to address potential defense gaps in situations where the UN is unable to intervene immediately.

Of course, the use of force in self-defense is a legitimate right. However, as the term “self-defense” itself implies, this right must first be triggered — it must be born out of a concrete threat. The primary condition for the emergence of this right is that an armed attack must be directed against the state. In other words, Israel cannot invoke the right of self-defense based on a mere suspicion of nuclear weapons and the hysteria that “Iran might use them” — especially when the only nuclear arsenal in the region belongs to them.

It is also important to emphasize that Iran is a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), whereas Israel is not. Israel is estimated to possess between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads.[4] If there is no attack to be defended against, then there is also nothing to defend, meaning that in such circumstances, “preemptive self-defense” does not fall within the scope of Article 51.

Of course, since the term “armed attack” does not have a universally accepted definition, this issue remains open to debate. However, the relevant provision in the UN General Assembly’s Resolution A/3314 of 14 December 1974, titled “Definition of Aggression”, is as follows:

“Aggression is the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations, as set out in this Definition.’’[5]

Therefore, as can be seen, this is not a general right but an exceptional one. Iran is also not acting in violation of the relevant regulations and resolutions. In other words, this exceptional right does not grant states the authority to strike others simply because of hostile relations; it is merely a provision designed to address a potential gap in defense.

One might argue, as part of Israel’s defense, that Iran supports terrorist attacks against Israel. However, in this regard, the Nicaragua Case offers a clarifying precedent. In its judgment, the International Court of Justice ruled that a state’s support for armed groups operating in another state does not amount to an armed attack and therefore is not equivalent to one.

“The Court has already indicated (paragraph 238) its conclusion that the conduct of the United States towards Nicaragua cannot be justified by the right of collective self defence in response to an alleged armed attack on one or other of Nicaragua's neighbours. So far as regards the allegations of supply of arms by Nicaragua to the armed opposition in El Salvador, the Court has indicated that while the concept of an armed attack includes the despatch by one State of armed bands into the territory of another State, the supply of arms and other support to such bands cannot be equated with armed attack.’’[6]

It is clear that this situation has not been considered equivalent to an armed attack. In fact, it would be more appropriate for Iran — rather than Israel — to invoke such a defense.

Therefore, putting aside the vast ocean of doctrinal debates and legal terminology, the truth is that imperialist powers are able to cast aside the very laws they wrote, the international legal principles and norms they themselves defined, whenever it suits them. This same defense once appeared in the form of the Bush Doctrine, and we all know the consequences. In short, the concept of preemptive self-defense can be described as a notion fabricated by imperialism to override its own legal order.

The concept is better understood not by looking at processes through the lens of law, but by looking at the law through the lens of political processes. For example, Trump once threatened to intervene in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) under the pretext of preemptive self-defense.[7] But perhaps, unlike Iran, maybe the reason such an intervention was never carried out against DPRK is that DPRK actually possess nuclear weapons…

Finally, what I want to emphasize is this: attempting to challenge imperialism through existing legal norms is a well-intentioned effort, but believing that international legal mechanisms can take real and concrete steps against imperialism is, frankly, naïve. What South Africa has done should be applauded by all of humanity, and such examples must be multiplied. Only then can international law shed its one-sided character and begin to embody a multipolar structure — and once again, in today’s conditions, international law can only gain real applicability through a stance taken against imperialism.

Notes

[1]  Germany's Merz says Israel doing 'dirty work for us' in Iran – DW – 06/18/2025

[2] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/022399ritter-book.html

[3] https://legal.un.org/repertory/art51.shtml

[4] https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-leaked-emails-colin-powell-says-israel-has-200-nukes/

[5] A/RES/29/3314 - Definition of Aggression - UN Documents: Gathering a body of global agreements

[6] Nicaragua v. United States of America, ICJ Decision of 27 June 1986 p.12

[7] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/9/19/trump-threatens-to-destroy-north-korea-if-necessary

No Breakfast For the Children: A Concise History of the FBI’s War on the Black Panther Party

[Pictured: The Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for Children Program in action, New York, 1969. Photo by Bev Grant/Getty Images]

By Samatha Pleasants

The first chapter of The Black Panther Party came out of Oakland, CA, in October 1966. From then on, the party spread like wildfire across the nation, from Oakland to New Haven, CT. The Oakland Chapter compiled the Black Panther Party Ten-Point Program, detailing the Black Panthers’ purpose and intentions. The program cites freedom, equal employment, equal opportunities, an end to capitalism, equal housing, exemption from military service, an end to police brutality, freedom for the incarcerated, etc. The party implemented social services, including The Free Ambulance Program, health clinics, The Black Panther Newspaper, youth institutes, and legal aid offices. Some of these, like The Children’s Free Breakfast Program, exist today. The Black Panther Party was not a fly-by-night organization. According to the Party’s own history: “The Black Panther Party at one point of time or another, between 1966 to 1971, had official chapters with the same name or affiliated organizations under other names in at least 61 cities in 26 states and the District of Columbia”.[1] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) followed behind Black organizers quickly with a Counterintelligence Program initiative (COINTELPRO) to eradicate the potential threat of Black Nationalism. Though the BPP lasted into the 1980s, the FBI completed its objective by rendering them ineffective. The COINTELPRO was a multi-dimensional effort that was ultimately very successful in marginalizing the Black Panther Party from the populace of the United States without completely taking the party out.

The 1960s were a politically charged decade and a pivotal time for Civil Rights. Nearly a century after the ratification of the 13th Amendment, Black Americans still faced life-threatening prejudice. As the decade went on, the Civil Rights movement flourished. Uprisings across the country, from Detroit to Newark, spoke to the angry Black populous fighting for equality. Unrest in the community continued to grow, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's concern about organized revolution grew along with it. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the revisions made to the Civil Rights Act in 1968 were not enough of a gesture from the United States Government to rectify the injustices faced by the Black Population. This, in turn, created a more radical approach to gaining equality- the Civil Rights Movement shifted into Black Power. The FBI's greatest fear was Black leaders engendering a sense of freedom within their community. The Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) was a campaign conducted by the FBI and created by its director, J. Edgar Hoover, from 1956 to 1971. Through COINTELPRO, the FBI targeted groups that it deemed subversive. The FBI's goal was to dismantle these groups and to destroy their public perception as much as possible. The first group targeted by COINTELPRO was the U.S. Communist Party during the Red Scare of the 1950s. The program eventually expanded to target more groups during the 1960's. In August 1967, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover expanded the bureau's Counterintelligence Program to tackle Black Nationalism.

Did the FBI target the Black Panther Party because they were a "black extremist organization… advocating the use of violence and guerrilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government"[2]? Or was it actually because of their "free breakfast program," which FBI director J. Edgar Hoover feared brought about a sense of unity and strength in the Black Community? In the film A Huey P Newton Story, Roger Guenveur Smith states:

If you read the FBI files, you will see that even Mr. J. Edgar Hoover himself had to say that it was not the guns that were the greatest threat to the International security of the United States of America; it was not the guns, it was the Free Children's Breakfast Program that was the greatest threat to the international security of the United States of America. [3]

In 1971, a robbery conducted by the Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI led to a leak of the COINTELPRO files to the media. The backlash from politicians and the public caused the FBI to discontinue the Counterintelligence Program. Later, more information would be discovered through Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits filed by BPP members. Next came information obtained from federal agents who came forward and confessed their wrongdoings and involvement in the COINTELPRO. In 1976, the Senate formed a special Senate committee- The Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence (later nicknamed the "Church Committee"). Unfortunately, many documents from the COINTELPRO went unreleased, and parts of the documents released were blacked out. The investigation concluded that the FBI wrongfully targeted, surveilled, and violated the rights of average citizens.

The Black Panther Party experienced significant splits in 1971; from that point on, the party started to decline. According to political scientist Ollie A. Johnson: “From 1970-1974, the party changed from a large, decentralized, revolutionary organization to a small, highly centralized reformist group.”[4] All the chapters, besides Oakland, were shut down. Though the Black Panther Party went on into the early 1980s, the party as it was no longer existed. The FBI may not have diminished them entirely, but they crippled the Panthers so severely that the party could never recover- thereby achieving their goal. This was accomplished through consistent harassment, surveillance, covert operations that used illegal tactics and infiltration, multiple coalitions with local law enforcement, and reinforcement from the Panther's negative perception in the media.

Historiography

The Federal Bureau of Investigations’ Counterintelligence Program spanned from 1956 to 1971 and has remained controversial. The program involved the illegal surveillance of numerous U.S. citizens, covert and illegal operations, and the production of false narratives. The program, in turn, significantly impacted various political movements in the United States- especially the Civil Rights Movement. The FBI stated that “the purpose of this new counterintelligence program is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, and otherwise neutralize the activities of Black Nationalist organizations and groupings and their leadership, spokesmen, made, and supporters.”[5] The COINTELRO focused significantly on Black Liberation groups. This period of history has garnered substantial attention from historians due to its profound impact on groups like the Black Panther Party. Though the consensus of the program is that it had a negative effect, some historians argue that the program was not the cause of the demise of the BPP. Historians Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, for instance, argued that “To what extent federal counterintelligence measures may have contributed to the unraveling of… the Oakland Party in the 1970’s is difficult to determine.” [6] Also, most historians have concluded that, even after the exposure of COINTELPRO to the public, the general population still saw the FBI positively.

One of the first notable books on the topic is Racial Matters: the FBI's Secret War on Black America, 1960-1972, published in 1989. Author Kenneth O'Reilly received his Ph.D. in American history from Marquette University. He has published several books on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is a professor specializing in 20th-century U.S. history. Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 of O'Reilly's book focus on the relationship between the FBI and the Black Panther Party. Here, O'Reilly tears into the FBI and its intentions with COINTELPRO, debunking the portrayal of the Bureau as one that made great strides toward racial justice. O’Reilly highlights the racist ideals that FBI director J Edgar Hoover shared with white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. O'Reilly’s take on President Johnson and his administration’s role in enabling the Bureau’s illegal actions, however, is confusing. This point was brought up in Robert Justin Goldstein’s review of O’Reilly’s book as “another example of overreaching”[7]. He asserts that Johnson enabled the FBI’s attacks on the Black Panther Party. O’Reilly states that Hoover and his aides "interpreted the president's obsession with militants and nationalists, and as well with those civil rights leaders who opposed the Vietnam war, as an Oval Office grant of authority to do whatever was necessary to neutralize them"[8]. Right after that,  O'Reilly admits that it is uncertain how much Lyndon B Johnson knew about the FBI's counterintelligence. Goldstein does agree with O’Reilly “that not only Johnson but John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon… were directly responsible for encouraging massive FBI intelligence gathering”. Goldstein and O’Reilly agree that the lack of control and supervision of the FBI puts much of the responsibility on these presidential administrations.  Though Goldstein’s review of O’Reilly’s work was not all praise, he gives credit where it is due, deeming this book as “the most comprehensive account yet published concerning the FBI and the civil rights movement” [9]. O’Reilly concludes that the nation's congressional leaders overwhelmingly favored the dismantling of Black Power groups and the jailing of their prominent members.

At the beginning of a review of O'Reilly's book, Steven F. Lawson agrees with O’Reilly’s assertion that, even after the exposure of the illegal and unethical Counterintelligence Program, the public still admired the FBI. Lawson seems to disdain J. Edgar Hoover, which is something to consider when reading the book review. Nevertheless, facts support his disdain concerning Hoover's character. He goes on to emphasize Hoover's fear of racial equality and his sympathizing with white supremacy groups.

O’Reilly notes the impact that Attorney General Clark had on the FBI's operations — adding another actor to the list of those who enabled the FBI’s mentions. Though Clark was not the most loved official by Hoover, he was a part of introducing surveillance to the United States government. According to the text, J. Edgar Hoover called Attorney General Clark "a coddler of crooks and Black terrorists and an enemy of law-and-order values."[10] Many people in Washington viewed Clark negatively. AG Clark supported recruiting informants, but Hoover clarified that he would do it on his terms. Once the "communist menace" was replaced with a new Black one, the FBI began targeting Black Power organizations. 

In 2001, Bettye Collier-Thomas and V.P. Franklin put together Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement- a compilation of separate essays. This book addresses the many instances where the FBI targeted an African American woman—going as far back as 1940 when the FBI targeted Ella Baker. In the essay "No One Ever Asks a Mans Roll in The Revolution," the author Tracey A Matthews mentions the BPP, highlighting the "competing gender ideologies"[11] within the Black Power Movement and the BPP. Not only did the party have external forces depleting them, but there were internal forces as well. The struggle with gender roles took its toll, and the FBI took advantage of any division it discovered within the party. Both Matthews and O'Reilly would agree that the Panther's various social programs, including the Free Children's Breakfast Program, horrified the FBI. The programs they implemented went neck and neck with the destruction campaigns implemented by the Bureau.  Matthews, like O'Reilly, discusses the importance of FBI destruction campaigns, like using informants to achieve their goal. These informants gathered information for the FBI and incited activity that would put the party at risk. Matthews states that "many of the FBI's activities against the Party were designed to undermine the free breakfast for children operations." The motive behind the FBI's covert operations were to destroy the party; it could not achieve its goal if the party were doing credible things for the community.

In 2011, Ryan J. Kirby wrote an article titled, “Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Community Activism and the Black Panther Party”. This article examines the activism of the Black Panther Party from 1966 to 1971, focusing on the relationship between the FBI and the BPP. 1968 was a big year for the party; the "Free Huey" campaign took the party from Oakland all across the country. The growth of the party and the surprising amount of support it engendered was a significant concern to the FBI. The larger the party got, the more the Counterintelligence Program expanded. The Bureau matched every move the party made. According to Kirby, in these four years, the COINTELPRO attacks on the BPP led to "violent confrontations, arrests, and fines that depleted the party's funds and strength."[12] This quote made me consider the primary sources I examined at Yale Sterling Memorial Library and the National Archives in D.C. The John R. Williams Papers contains subpoenas of the party's finances, and so do the congressional records in D.C. Kirby's article also mentions a point made in the Matthews's article from Sisters in the Struggle[13]- the party had internal issues that impacted them- they were hindered more by the FBI's interference.

Jakobi Williams published the book From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago in 2013. William’s is currently a professor in African American Studies and African diaspora at Indiana University. Williams dives into the tumultuous but significant relationship between the Chicago BPP (ILBPP- Illinois Black Panther Party) and the FBI. Williams and O’Reilly (among other historians) have come to the same conclusions about J. Edgar Hoover’s motives and his character. On page 172, Williams states that J. Edgar Hoover “disliked political leftists, believed in white supremacy, and aligned his position with U.S. elites to maintain blacks in subordinate economic positions.”[14] Where there is smoke, there is fire- most historians who have written about J. Edgar Hoover have articulated the same things.

William’s highlighting of the ILBPP allows for a new perspective of the party. Scholarship about the BPP was often centered around its Oakland chapter, putting the focus on Chicago adds more pieces to the puzzle. Williams credits the FBI's particular interest in the Chicago chapter to its leader, Fred Hampton. Due to the political climate in Chicago and across the nation, Chicago BPP concluded that partnering with the Black Stone Rangers (another Black Liberation group) would help increase their rank and file. One of the first things on the FBI's to-do list was to destroy the relationship between the Black Panthers and Black Stone Rangers in Chicago. Historians writing about COINTELPRO consistently bring up the FBI's strategy of causing strife within Black liberation movements to weaken them. Williams finds, like many others, that the interferences made by the FBI heightened the rift between the groups.

The book is perfectly separated into well-thought-out chapters breaking down the strategy the FBI, in partnership with law enforcement, used to dismantle the ILBPP. Chapter Five is titled Law Enforcement Repressions and the Assassination of Chairman Fred Hampton. The mention of using local media to help heighten the public’s fear of the party is a common theme in all of the sources cited so far- going back to O’Reilly’s book. At the chapter's start, Williams states, “Both the Chicago Police Department, intelligence arm, the Red Squad, and FBI agents enlisted the local media in efforts to discredit the Panthers.” [15] Williams emphasizes an essential fact about the relationship between the FBI and the local Chicago Police. Judson Jefferies raves in a book review about how Williams unpacked the BPP’s campaign against the Mayor of Chicago.[16] The relationship between the Mayor and the Chicago Police speaks to how deep the fight was to destroy the BPP. The fact is that the FBI could not complete the task alone, and it was not the only group that wanted something to be done about the Panthers. The protests at Chicago’s Democratic National Convention increased the Party’s attention. Williams refers to the mayor’s “stranglehold on political protest, the brutality of the city’s police force, and (though this did not come to light for many years) the city government’s infiltration of protest groups.”[17]

Though the FBI cooperated with various departments nationwide, their relationship with Chicago was profound. The Chicago police were thoroughly intertwined with the Bureau, as stated in the text, “to an extent not duplicated in any other city.”[18] The two forces worked closely together to deplete the BPP of their resources and instill fear and paranoia. Raids and arrests happened often, and the BPP did not have the money to back up the costs of bail or lawyers. Also, spending money on bail and lawyers meant less funding for their community programs.

As mentioned earlier, in 2013, Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr. wrote an informative study of the Oakland Party, discussing the impact of surveillance and COINTELPRO in particular. Bloom and Martin argue that the state's repression did not significantly impact the BPP in Oakland, or at least not to the degree that other historians thought. This take is not common, but the points made throughout the book are valid. For example, the party’s involvement with so-called enemies of the state and third-world nations greatly hindered them. However, this book fails to mention many key factors, as noted in a book review by Navid Farnia. Farnia states that they overlook the “ruthlessness of what Judson L. Jeffries calls the repressive government apparatus.”[19]

In 2020, Brian Mullgardt wrote an article in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1998-), further delving into the story of the ILBPP. Here, he quotes Bloom and Martin’s piece, citing their indecisiveness on the impact of COINTELPRO on the BPP. What stands out to in Mullgardt’s piece is his mention of COINTELPRO’s ineffectiveness in completing specific tasks. He explains ‘that the Panthers, along with the Puerto Rican organization the Young Lords and the white groups the Young Patriots and Rising Up Angry, formed the Rainbow Coalition in 1969, further indicating COINTELPRO’s ineffectiveness at sowing discord in Illinois.”[20]. That does not mean the Rainbow Coalition was a huge success- the coalition did not last, but its impact did. That is noted in Ana Durkin Keating’s review of Williams’s work. She mentions the importance of the book’s conclusion, looking at the lasting impact of the ILBPP-noting the Rainbow Coalition's effect on electing Chicago’s first Black mayor in 1983. [21]

Each monograph and essay examined reaffirms my choice of primary sources. These primary sources include the Freedom of Information Act, congressional records, first-hand accounts from Black Panthers and Bureau members, and newspaper articles. The only concern with the primary sources is the FOIA documents- some are hard to interpret due to the redacted pieces. However, that does not mean they aren't valuable. Even looking as far back as O'Reilly's book Racial Matters: the FBI's Secret War on Black America, 1960-1972 from 1989, most historians researching the topic used what they could from the Freedom-of-Information Act FBI documents. These files, combined with Congressional records, first-hand accounts, and newspaper articles, give a well-informed view of the strategies used by the FBI to dismantle the BPP.

Main Body

The FBI’s nationwide coalition with local law enforcement was its most potent COINTELPRO weapon. Black Panther Déqui Kioni-Sadiki asserts that the length and extent of the FBI's surveillance wasn't common knowledge, that "almost from its inception, J. Edgar Hoover  engaged in an undeclared and clandestine Counter Intelligence Program war- on the BPP in particular and on the whole Black Power Movement in general.”[22] By the end of 1967, the COINTELPRO Black Power initiative had commenced and was implemented with the help of police precincts across the country, from Oakland, CA, to New Haven, CT. Those in local law enforcement working alongside the FBI would be referred to in correspondence as SAC (special agents in charge). From the beginning of the creation of the Black Panther Party's first chapter in Oakland, CA, in 1966, the FBI was on its tail.

The released Counterintelligence Program records include memorandums, letters, "Airtels," and other forms of correspondence. An Airtel communication was to be sent the same day it was composed. Correspondence's being marked Airtel hinted at a sense of urgency. These communications were sometimes made between the Director of the FBI and SACs in various police offices across the country. By 1967, the COINTELPRO operation was in 43 cities across the United States. On February 29, 1968, an Airtel correspondence from G. C. Moore (FBI Associate Director) to William C. Sullivan (Assistant FBI Director, leader of domestic intelligence operations) affirmed that the program was in full force. The subject of the Airtel: COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAM /BLACK NATIONALIST-HATE GROUPS. Moore starts the Airtel by laying out the purpose of the initiative, "to extend the Counterintelligence Program designed to neutralize militant black nationalist groups from 23 to 41 field divisions to cover the great majority of black nationalist activity in this country". This Airtel was in reference to another Airtel sent on August 25, 1967, that held instructions regarding the COINTELPRO Black nationalist operation. At the time, the Airtel went to twenty-three different cities nationwide. Moore referred to the "tremendous increase in black nationalist activity," asserting that a sense of urgency needed to be behind the implementation of the FBI's COINTELPRO initiative. This Airtel established guidelines that the SACs should follow. One is that all SACs submit progress reports periodically and have any COINTELPRO initiatives approved before implementation. Though it is apparent looking through the records that these guidelines aren’t as stringent.

The post haste feel of the Airtel proved that the FBI was concerned. They no longer saw Black resistance as unorganized and lacking in leadership; they started to see it as an actual threat. How could it not be? The Black Panther Party had stretched across the country, coast to coast. They had legitimate parties in major cities like Chicago, IL, and Charleston, NC; the FBI was on top of the growing "problem." An Airtel dated March 4, 1968, from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to SAC Albany lists all the FBI field offices that were participating in the initiative to take down Black “extremist” groups. A few locations listed include Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MA; Detroit, MI; Memphis, TN; Los Angeles, CA; New Orleans, LA; New York, NY. The Airtel stated that "the Counterintelligence Program is now being expanded to include 41 offices. Each office added to this program should designate an agent familiar with black nationalist activity… this agent will be responsible for the periodic progress letters being requested."  [23] The Airtel also laid out a list of goals set by the Bureau, which each field office was required to follow. Though the Black Panther Party wasn't the only Black Nationalist group on the FBI's radar, it was at the top of the list.

Another Airtel correspondence dated May 27, 1969, from J. Edgar Hoover to SAC, San Francisco, displays the blatant push to distort the image of the Black Panther Party. This Airtel was in response to another Airtel made to the Director by SAC, San Francisco, on May 14, 1969. One in which SAC San Francisco expressed their hesitance to pursue the Black Panther Party. The DOJ sees the BPP as a Black Nationalist group intending to overthrow the government; San Francisco disagreed, writing that though the Black Panther Party is seen as a subversive, violent organization, “there seems to be little likelihood of this.”  The director's response starts with a defensive tone, arguing that the Airtel sent by the San Francisco office expresses a negative outlook on COINTELPRO and is unacceptable to the Bureau, stating that “your (SAC, San Francisco) reasoning is not in line with Bureau objectives…”[24]. The Airtel starts with counterarguments to statements made by SAC, San Francisco. According to the Airtel, SAC, San Francisco was not urgently ensuring the FBI COINTELPRO objectives were met in their jurisdiction. Hoover then lists the various concerns the BPP poses to San Francisco and its surrounding area. Throughout the Airtel, the director continuously emphasized keeping the BPP away from "moderate" Black and white community members who might support them. Hoovers' next topic of concern was The Breakfast for Children Program. The FBI feared that The Breakfast For Children Program, a program that gave free food to children before they went to school, would likely appeal to moderate Black and white community members. This food wasn't only intended for Black and brown children, but it was also for poor white children. Hoover insists that The Breakfast for Children Program was developed with malicious intent. This implies that the Panthers conducted programs like this simply to build their public image and recruit youth for their cause. Hoover informed SAC, San Francisco, that their COINTELPRO operations needed re-evaluation. Suggesting that San Francisco pick other agents better suited for COINTELPRO operations. This correspondence made it clear that Hoover and the FBI had little tolerance for those in the COINTELPRO network questioning their orders and the motives behind them. From the beginning of the COINTELPRO Black Nationalist initiative, the goal was to establish a strong allegiance between the FBI and the SAC offices. Local police needed to prove their loyalty to the FBI and the COINTELPRO. These connections would play a key role in the FBI’s initiative and the ultimate downfall of the Black Panther Party.

The SAC at work: various cases from city to city

Different objectives made in cities nationwide by law enforcement were key to getting at the weak points of the Black Panther Party’s infrastructure.  At the end of Huey Newton's Revolutionary Suicide, he states, "A revolutionary party is under continual stress from both internal and external forces. By its very nature, a political organization dedicated to social change invites attack from the established order, constantly vigilant to destroy it." The FBI had the time, the resources, and the grit to continually attack and infiltrate the Black Panther Party at any chance it could get.

Fighting within political groups, especially ones garnered around the motivation of revolution, was inevitable. The FBI wanted to heighten their chances of things going awry within the confines of the Black Panther Party, so they strategized. Inserting informants and agent provocateurs was a standard method used by the FBI to infiltrate BPP chapters. Direct and indirect action from the FBI's COINTELPRO initiative weighed heavy on the party.

SAC, San Diego cites their accomplishments in an AIRTEL from August 20, 1969, "Shootings, beatings, and high degree of unrest continues to prevail in the ghetto area of Southeast San Diego although no specific counterintelligence action can be credited with contributing to this over-all situation, it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest is directly attributed to this program…”[25] Straight from the horse's mouth, law enforcement took responsibility for destroying local communities through the COINTELPRO initiative. The Black revolutionaries of San Diego were victims of the FBI’s manipulation, which would lead to infighting and eventually the death of two of the BPP San Diego Chapter’s leaders.

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The FBI intended to destroy the morale of the BPP and its members; attacking leadership could have a domino effect. The FBI and local law enforcement knew it was necessary to get into the minds of the youth. This was made evident in an Airtel from SAC, San Francisco, stating that "The Negro youth and moderate must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries." The Black Panther Party was being made an example of by local and federal law enforcement. Many BPP members were incarcerated, some of whom remained behind bars for a long time. Being tangled up in the carceral system was mentally and physically exhausting and a great way to deplete morale. It was also a way to rob the party of their funding stashed away for community purposes.

From its formation, the BPP saw the FBI as an immediate threat which had no mercy.  Former Panther Sundiata Acoli (former Panther) recalls the beginning of the COINTELPRO initiative against the BPP in "An Updated History of the New Afrikan Prison Struggle" from the book Look For Me in The Whirlwind. Acoli writes:

It began with the mass arrest of Lumumba Shakur and the New York Panther 21. It followed with a series of military raids on the Black Panther Party offices in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Haven, Jersey City, Detroit, Chicago, Denver, Omaha, Sacramento, and San Diego, and was capped off with an early-morning four-hour siege that poured thousands of rounds into the Los Angeles BPP office.[26]

Chicago, Illinois

The case of the Black Panther Party in Chicago exemplifies the devastating tactics used in COINTELPRO. An Airtel, from the FBI Director to SAC, Chicago, gives the SAC office authority to carry out an operation they detailed to the FBI. The letter states, "Authority is granted" for the mailing of anonymous letters, a tactic often used by the SAC offices. The bureau directed the SAC office to "utilize a commercially purchased envelope for this letter and ensure that the mailing is not traced to the source.”[27] Informants were to take every step to ensure that no one suspected law enforcement of composing the letters. That letter was for Black Stone Rangers leader Jeff Fort, another Black community organization founded in Chicago . The bureau hoped this letter would create strife between the Black Stone Rangers and the BPP. Fred Hampton’s willingness and intention to work with other organizations scared the FBI and bogus letters like this prevented those coalitions that Fred Hampton hoped to form and ruined those the BPP already had.  After the letters were sent, the conflict between both parties arose, and there was no hope of working with the Black Stone Rangers. Using this tactic, along with others, dissolved Fred Hampton’s dream of a “rainbow coalition,” giving the Bureau what it wanted.

Like fake letters, informants were frequent during the height of the COINTELPRO objective. The most notable use being with William O’Neal in Chicago, IL. O’Neal was the informant who infiltrated the Chicago Black Panther Party in 1969, leading to the death of revered leader Fred Hampton. FBI informants did not follow any code of conduct- the mission was for them to get as much information as possible and hopefully cause some trouble in the process. Fred Hampton's case was gruesome and unjustifiable, but a great example of the extent to which the FBI went to achieve its goals. You can see the threat he posed to the FBI just by looking at the files dedicated to Fred Hampton. In the FOIA COINTELPRO records, Fred Hampton Part 1 file is compiled of 100 pages. [28] The file includes newspaper articles around the death of Fred Hampton, transcripts from a news conference held by the Maywood Human Relations Commission, Airtel’s, and other records.

The FBI informant William O’Neal tells his story in The Eyes on the Prize series documentary.  [29] William O’Neal became an FBI informant after a run-in with the law. O’Neal and a friend stole a car, drove around Chicago, and left to visit a relative out of state. They stopped at a pool hall, where visitors were required to leave their names and addresses. After playing a few games, the gentlemen left the pool hall, got into an accident outside, and fled. They managed to get back to Chicago, and "about three, four months later," O’Neal was contacted by FBI agent Roy Mitchell. Mitchell let O’Neal know that the FBI knew of the accident in the stolen car, playing a game of cat and mouse back and forth with O’Neal for several minutes. Mitchell assured O’Neal that though his lies weren't believable, he had nothing to worry about- if he helped him out. Something is troubling about the circumstances O’Neal faced- a man encounters legal issues, and the police approach him with a quid pro quo situation to buy his freedom. In the interview, O’Neal details the authority that Chicago’s SAC gave him. He explained that FBI agent Roy Mitchell "gave me a lot of room, a lot of leash, in order to be a Panther. He wanted me to become a Panther before I became an FBI agent."[30] The tone in O’Neal’s voice throughout the interview and the constant self-assurance that he was not responsible for the assassination of Fred Hampton spoke to his guilt.

O’Neal got close to the party, gained its members' trust, and obtained secrets vital to the Chicago PD's operations. O’Neal became Hampton’s bodyguard and eventually the head of BPP security in Chicago. He was so close to Fred Hampton that he was able to create a map of Hampton's home. This map considered every detail, from the purpose of each room down to the location of furniture. Chicago PD used this to plan the assassination, disguised as a so-called arms raid of Fred Hampton’s residence on December 3, 1969. That evening, O’Neal drugged Hampton, assuring that he would be subdued during the planned raid. Finally, at 4 am the Chicago PD busted into the Hampton residence, achieving their goal of killing Fred Hampton.

California to Connecticut

The case of Ericka Huggins exemplifies how depleting it was to be a part of the Black Panther Party and constantly under the microscope of the FBI. Huggins is known for participating in the New Haven, CT chapter. But, Huggins roots are in Los Angeles, where she lived with her husband, Jon Huggins. Huggins was murdered, not directly by the FBI or any informants, but he did die due to the FBI’s actions through their COINTELPRO initiative. The bureau had clandestine, indirect ways of getting what it wanted. In an Airtel communication from SAC, Los Angeles, to the FBI Director, SAC agents lay out operations "under consideration."[31] The operations bore a resemblance to those implemented in Chicago. The Airtel discusses a series of anonymous letters that the SAC office will send out—one to the BPP from a member of the US organization (a rival Black nationalist organization). The letter would go on to state that members of the group US are aware of "plans" that the BPP had to kill their leader, Ron Karenga. SAC, Los Angeles, hoped this would "result in a US and BPP vendetta." [32] Next, a letter was sent to the party's donor, The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP). The intention of the letter was for the PFP to cut ties with the BPP. The letter warned that "when the armed rebellion comes, the whites in the PFP will be lined up against the wall with the rest of the whites."[33] The anonymous letter would indefinitely cause a stir and cripple the relationship that both organizations had.  This was proven on January 17, 1969, when Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter and Jon Huggins were killed by members of the US. A tragedy that would forever tarnish the relationship between both groups and reassured the FBI that their initiative was working.

As stated before, BPP leader Ericka Huggins moved to New Haven after her husband's death to be close to his family.   June 4, 1971, an Airtel was sent to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover from SAC, New Haven[34].  A monthly summary from New Haven, reporting to headquarters and keeping everyone updated. Part 1 of the summary lists the informants involved in SAC New Haven operations, but the actual list is deleted from the file. Here, the informants laid out every piece of information they received from their deceptive fieldwork. The document included the branch's name, national leaders, local leaders, headquarters location, and support groups. They knew everything the party and its members did, down to the last detail. In that same Airtel, SAC New Haven lists the party's "public appearances," mainly referring to their various demonstrations, how unorganized they were, how many people were in attendance, etc. The case of the New Haven Black Panthers involved Ericka Huggins and Bobby Seale. Both Panthers were charged with conspiracy involving the murder of Alex Rackley in 1969 after a tape of Huggins interrogating the victim was released. The trial was less than a year long, from October 1970 to May 1971, but Huggins was imprisoned for two years. Due to the controversy surrounding the case, the jury selection process was the most prolonged in the history of Connecticut. Ericka was in prison, away from a tiny baby, as well as dealing with the death of her husband- living in a mentally exhausted state. This was all intentional- everything worked out as planned.

In an Airtel, the New Haven SAC mentioned the release of Ericka Huggins on May 25, 1971, "the case against the Panthers was dismissed, and ERICKA HUGGINS was immediately freed.” [35] Though Huggins was freed, it did not take away the trauma that she endured throughout the process. The work became grueling and the continual interaction with law enforcement was life-altering. Another Airtel from SAC New Haven from June 11, 1971, contains a transcript from a telephone conversation. This conversation shows the very real impact all this legal trouble had on the Black Panther Party. Panther Millie Farmer calls George Edwards in the transcript, stating that she "exhausted all of her sources in New Haven" [36] and needed to borrow $380 before the 15th when she goes to a court hearing. The FBI's plan was working; they were exhausting the members of the BPP in every way possible. All those involved in the COINTELPRO initiative knew it was necessary to get into the minds of the youth. In a correspondence to the FBI, SAC San Francisco stated that, "The Negro youth and moderate must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries." Many BPP members were incarcerated, some of whom remained behind bars for quite some time. Dealing with the carceral system is exhausting and a great way to deplete morale. It is mentally and physically exhausting and could rob a party of a good portion of their funding stashed away for community purposes.

North Carolina

The case of The Black Panther Party in North Carolina also speaks directly to the FBI's devastating impact. So, it seems that wherever a chapter popped up, the FBI followed. SAC Charlotte reported back to the FBI that on April 21, 1969, a man (whose name was deleted) from Greensboro contacted the BPP in Oakland to get the okay to form their own chapter. The Oakland chapter gave them “no authority at this time to organize”. [37] On May 8, 1969, SAC, Charlotte contacted the FBI Director via Airtel. The Airtel states that after reviewing information through investigation, they had determined “that a charter has not been issued to a Black Panther unit in North Carolina... informants report that the Charlotte, N.C., and Greensboro, N. C. Both have hopes of receiving charters…” [38] There is another COINTELPRO correspondence in this FBI file where the sender and receiver have been blacked out. However, the correspondence starts by informing us that on May 21, 1969, posters were being passed around Charlotte. The next page of the file contains a copy of the flyer for a rally that will last from 12 to 4 pm at a restaurant called Chicken and Ribs. The flyer cited the organizers as “Citizens of the Black Community who are interested in organizing. A Black Panther Party”[39]. The FBI knew every single move of Black organizers, whether they were officially affiliated with the Black Panther Party or not.

In a memorandum on August 25, 1969, the FBI in Charlotte stated that "this group (Afro-American Unity Organization) has since the fall of 1968 been unsuccessfully attempting to affiliate nationally with the Black Panther Party… advised that this group even though they are not affiliated nationally with the BPP do wear the garb of the BPP and study from books supplied by the BPP.”[40]  The purpose of the memorandum is to investigate the possibility of a BPP chapter being formed, due to a meeting of "the potential BPP" in Charlotte. That is six months of investigation, and there is still no assurance of any affiliation. Nevertheless, the SAC office was established in Charlotte; the agents began documenting every single step made by those active in Charlotte. Even if they weren't affiliated, this proactiveness on the part of the FBI put them one step ahead.

The FBI North Carolina Files are extensive; the focus isn’t just on one city in North Carolina. Greensboro, Charlotte, and Winston-Salem are the three cities most frequently mentioned. On the FOIA archive, there is a section listed as “Black Panther Party, Winston Salem, NC.” some of these are duplicate files as the ones in the FBI vault and on the Internet Archive website.[41] In Part 01 file, a document details the BPP’s activity in North Carolina. In the heading of this document, it says UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION. Bellow that title says, “copy to:” and then lists several army bases. The report of date lists SA, something blacked out, May 23, 1969. The next page lists a table of Contents and Part 1 is Charlotte. Subsection A starts on page 4, titled Organizational Activities and Connections with the Black Panther Party Headquarters, Berkley, California. First notation, December 13, 1968, an individual (name blacked out) had recently contacted the BPP headquarters in Oakland, referring to themself as a member of the Charlotte-based group Afro-American Unity Organization. The person was inquiring about affiliating with the Black Panther Party, stating that he was told “it would be necessary for him to forward the amount of $300.00 to the national headquarters so that a representative of the national office… could travel to Charlotte, North Carolina, to indoctrinate the new members”.[42] Further on in the document it states that on December 30, a blacked-out name advised that Jerome Clifton Johnson, known as “The Fox” held a meeting at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, claiming to be a member of the Black Panther Party.[43] This subsection of the document concludes that Jerome Johnson wasn’t able to “establish affiliation with the BPP of California”. Apparently, the reasoning behind the delay in receiving national accreditation is due to “a purge being conducted within the national party to get rid of informants and undesirable characters.”[44] It was confirmed on May 13, 1969, that Charlotte did not have a “charter group of the BPP”. The paranoia and fear that came over BPP members indicated that the FBI’s strategies were hard at work. This made it clear that the constant interference from law enforcement hindered the party’s expansion and ultimately trust with one another. Without a strong rank and file, the BPP had nothing.

Local police thoroughly documented the activities of anyone associated with the BPP.   Looking to correspondence from SAC, Charlotte, to the FBI director labeled 5:31 PM URGENT, stamped for March 17, 1969, though the incident detailed occurred on February 8. The agent composing the letter goes on to describe a “plot to bomb” a local market by the Black Panthers in Greensboro. Even if there is no evidence to back up claims, the SAC office delivers the claims to the bureau. The very first sentence of the correspondence is blacked out. Still, the following sentence says “members of the Black Panther Party (BPP), Greensboro, NC are discussing the possibility of bombing the Thrifty Curb Market in Greensboro NC”.  No matter who did it, if it talked like a Panther and walked like a Panther, the FBI was on top of them. The surveillance that came along with the COINTELPRO initiative was constant and excessive.

New York, NY

The Collective Autobiography of the New York 21 (1971) gives great insight into the extent of the harassment the Black Panther Party faced at the hands of local law enforcement and the FBI. The Case is one of great significance; not only did it deplete the resources of the New York Panthers, but it also tarnished the relationship between the New York Panthers and the National Chapter (Oakland, CA). The New York 21 trial was one of the costliest New York had seen at the time and quickly became a prominent topic in the media. According to Déqui Kioni-Sadiki the expensive and prolonged trial was "never about justice or protecting people or places from Panthers allegedly conspiring to harm or destroy them”[45] The group known as the New York Panther 21 had been charged with an array of crimes, 186 counts including attempted arson and conspiracy to blow up police precincts, schools, and other locations, including the New York Botanical Garden[46] It seemed that "almost the entire" Harlem-Bronx chapter of the party was tied up in the web. On May 13, 1971, the jury found those Black Panthers not guilty. This might seem like a win for the BPP, but the impact of the trial left a more significant mark.

The legal issues that the New York chapter faced led to a need for more support for incarcerated members. They called on the national leadership to step up and aid their chapter- unfortunately, Oakland did not answer their calls for help. The New York chapter did not appreciate the lack of support they received from Oakland and parted ways from them in 1971. Slowly, the cracks in the party became bigger and bigger, breaking up coalitions and giving the FBI what it wanted.

The Committee on Internal Security of the United States House of Representatives Hearings on the Black Panther Party

Another outcome of the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign was formal House of Representative investigations into the Black Panther Party- these did not help the Party maintain its durability and optimism. In 1970, The Committee on Internal Security of the House of Representatives held a series of hearings concerning various chapters of the BPP. On Tuesday, March 3, 1970, the committee started its investigation discussing the Kansas City Chapters and its activities. Day two was led by Chairman, Representative Richard H. Ichard. He begins by discussing claims of the party’s activity (referring to the press) and the contradictory claims from The Black Panther Party and its supporters. Ichard states that “It's effects and supposed successes in the communities throughout the Nation, the amount of police work that has been consumed because of it, and the attention it has been afforded by the press seems to me to be inordinately disproportionate to the size of the Black Panthers.[47] Representative Ichard points out that the party did not present a significant threat. Then why the hearings? Though the party appeared unorganized and small in scale, the hearings alone prove that the BPP posed a threat. Unfortunately, false narratives about the party ignited the fear held by many Americans at the time. This lead to local representatives taking action under the pressure of their constituents.

The revolutionary vocabulary and statements used by Black Panther leaders rubbed many people the wrong way. Richard explains his reasoning for voting yes for the investigation, citing the Panther’s 10-point program as a concern. He continues to assert that though the words of Panther leaders could be rhetoric, there is enough evidence around those words that they pose a threat; “… In view of these statements and in view of the depth of specific and comprehensive data and in order to ascertain if there are deficiencies in the law which are in need of remedy. Order to permit society to contend to such organizations, this committee has authorized an investigation and hearings.”[48] What Representative Ichard said next really strikes a chord. If the Federal Government was responsible for keeping law and order in Kansas City, "then we (the United States) must have a national police force. Very few people in the Congress, very few people in this Nation, want a national police force."[49] The mention of this concern reassures the fact that Congress, to a certain extent, was aware of the FBI's plans. Nevertheless, the local government was taking its own measures to examine the party and its intentions. Probing the Black Panther Party, subpoenaing witnesses, and collecting evidence "until we are satisfied that enough is known to make an intelligent evaluation.”

In part two of the hearings, the committee examined the Seattle, WA, chapter of the BPP. This was referred to as a “continuation of the series of hearings concerning the Black Panther Party.” [50] The committee subpoenaed witnesses who would testify, along with committee investigators. Representative Richardson Preyer of North Carolina proclaimed that these testimonies pertained to the BPP Seattle chapter and “the general reaction of the Seattle community to the Black Panther Party”[51] The community’s perception was key for the Black Panther’s survival, if the community did not show support success would be hard to achieve. The first witness is a special investigator from the Seattle Police Department. Officer Porter concluded that the Black Panther Party in Seattle was dying off, and turnout was dropping. He estimated that the chapter’s membership decreased from around “12 to 15” to “8 to 11” members.  The officer blames this decline in membership on the party’s radicalism, stating, “They felt that the party had nothing to offer them. To quote several of those youngsters, they didn’t feel like going to a meeting and listening to lectures and studying out of Chairman Mao’s “red book”. This is a bold statement, without actual evidence but his account and estimations. Knowing how corrupt the police were when dealing with the BPP, these words don’t hold as much weight. Representative Ichord asked the same question, “How do you know that?”. He wants to know how accurate the testimony of this officer is. The officer also credits the various arrests, charges, and convictions that party members have received as another reason why membership declined.

Part three of the hearings lasted from July 21, to the 24. In this hearing, the committee examined three cities: Detroit, MI, Philadelphia, PA, and Indianapolis, IN. Representative Pryor states that “the subjects that we will inquire into today relate to the history, the origin, the organization, character, the objectives, and activities of the Black Panther Party.”[52] Three of the four witnesses were formally BPP members, one from either of the three cities. The fourth is the Philadelphia Police Sergeant. The first witness was from Detroit. Representative Pryror asked a variety of questions regarding the promotion and education of self-defense. The party’s use of weapons and self-defense courses worried U.S. officials. Berry recalled the death of the BPP's defense captain being the reason that the chapter briefly closed. Though he was not present, he recalls what was conveyed to him- stating that he was killed in a Black Panther home with twelve other members present. Calls from the Chicago chapter, which held seniority over Detroit, pressured the party to disperse. Berry asserts that though the death of the captain was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the Black Panther Party is no longer in Detroit for various reasons. Barry painted a clear picture of the BPP as a corrupt, unorganized, and violent organization. According to Barry, Chief of Staff (BPP Chicago chapter), David Hilliard contacted him after hearing that the BPP was still active in Detroit. Berry claimed that Hilliard threatened him, “he told me that we could get in trouble for posing as Panthers because there were no Black Panthers in Detroit.” Those left of the BPP in Detroit who still wanted to organize created, what Berry refers to as, an organizing branch titled The National Committee to Combat Fascism. Berry never joined that branch, and by his testimony, it was clear the biases he had toward radical dissent. Barry bragged about his harmony with law enforcement; then he claimed that the national party called him “chicken.” These claims help paint the narrative that the BPP is corrupt and violence prone. The three witnesses being former Panthers make those testimony’s biased- they separated from the party for a reason, there was going to be negative feedback. Therefor, these testimonies would not represent the party fairly.

Part four, the final part of the Congressional hearings, involved an examination of the National Office and of the Des Moines, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska branches of the BPP. These hearings took place on October 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15 and November 17 of 1970. Representative Richardson Preyer, again, started by stating that the hearigs were a “continuation of hearings concerning the Black Panther Party”. [53] But, more specifically, he states that the purpose of this fourth part of the hearings is” to develop information on the activities and objectives of the national office of the Black Panther Party” emphasizing statements made by the party about “revolutionary violence” that emanated from “national leaders or printed in the Black Panther Party newspaper”. They would like to conclude, are these statements simply rhetoric? Or is the BPP the real deal, ready to take “revolutionary action”? Again, one of the witnesses is a former Black Panther. Another is Quinn Tamm, executive director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police; Sheriff Frank Madigan, Alameda County sheriff’s office, representing the National Sheriffs Association; and John J. Harrington, national president of Fraternal Order of Police.[54] Representative Preyer believed that these witnesses, “representing three levels of local law enforcement, are in an excellent position to relate to the committee the problems facing the local law enforcement officers in this area and discuss the need for Federal legislation”. It seems that speaking only to law enforcement is biased, showing one side of the argument and not that of the BPP. The first witness called is Investigator Robert M. Horner, chief investigator for the Committee on Internal Security. Investigator Horner answers most of the representatives’ questions in great detail- laying out the activities of the BPP, related groups, affiliated groups, the number of members, the percentage of female members, the age group of the average leader, etc. Then he goes on to state that, “thirty-six out of forty-two groups reported upon were said to have been in possession of firearms” and that “seventeen groups having active chapters and five having inactive chapters were reported to have been in possession of explosives.” Each of those statements was made with no examples nor evidence presented.

Investigator Horner then mentions that “most cities reported that the relationship between the police and the Negro communities is good; that community support of the Panthers is small; and that few, if any, benefits have accrued to the Negro communities through the efforts of the Black Panthers.” The information that the investigator presented was acquired through surveys. These surveys were based upon inquiries directed to seventy-seven law enforcement agencies with active BPP chapters in their jurisdiction. There are going to be biased responses.

The witness, Mr. De Patten, was a former Black Panther as a member of both the Des Moines and Kansas City Chapter. He refers to his actions after joining the BPP, how he came up “with some off the wall theory of marching downtown, destroying it..[55]” Though this is a former member, he wasn’t as dismissive of the BPP belief system as the BPP member cited in the Seattle hearing.  Patten began to describe how he was taught to deal with “right-wingers” when out in public, representing the BPP. He detailed an incident when a white woman came up to him, behaving erratically, stating that she is a “poor white working woman and that they are doing everything for those black people; they even passed a law in Kansas where if they rioted and robbed the stores, nothing would happen to them. I didn’t know anything about any such law and I still don’t.. I told her if she was a white working woman, then we should ally ourselves; that she should be my normal ally… because we were talking about not a race struggle, we were talking about a class struggle…” Patten articulated that, by speaking to her and relating their struggles, he got her to listen. The questioning continued, as if Representative Romines did not want to hear that response; that wasn’t enough to make the party look bad.

The representative continued to question the former Panther. He hounded him about the existence of a BPP in Des Moines, whether it was actually disbanded, and if the National Chapter was the one that ordered the disbanding. He then asked a couple of questions, to which the witness outright said that he “isn’t sure” in response. For example, when representative Romines says, “You made the statement that the des moines Black Panther chapter wanted to relate more on a hard-core community level, is that right?” But, he told Representative Rominespreviously that he “believe(d), they wanted to relate more on a cultural level; that is from my understanding. I have not been to Kansas City, I don’t know for sure about Kansas City”[56]. However, the representative is taking these statements as truth, and in no way does he fact-check these responses. These investigations and those statements made so matter-of-factly applied more pressure on the Black Panther Party.

The media as a catalyst of negative public perception

The mainstream media played an essential role in assisting the FBI in its plan to destroy the Black Panther Party. Though the newspaper articles were not being put out directly by the FBI, it was clear what side the mainstream media resided on. Yes, there were underground revolutionary periodicals like the Black Panther Newspaper, which spoke on the oppression that the party faced at the hands of the police. Despite that, the public was mostly fed negativity concering  the BPP. During the congressional hearing on the Investigation of the Black Panther Party's Kansas City Chapter Representative Ichard addressed those in attendance, stating that "a great number of my colleagues in the House have expressed concerns about the intentions and the capabilities of the Black Panther Party. Citizens throughout the country, and my own constituency included, have been alarmed by press accounts of open incitement to kill, destroy, and revolt.”[57] The constant outpouring of horror stories surrounding the actions and motives of the Black Panther Party plagued public perception.

The New York Times

The New York Times played a role in perpetuating a negative narrative of the Black Panther Party. April 8, 1969, The New York Times published an article titled "Former Members Liken Black Panthers to the Klan". In 1969, The New York Times had 800,000 subscribers. It has been a major news outlet since its founding in 1851.[58]  The black Panther Party was covered by other major newspapers like the Chicago-Sun Times, The Seattle Times, etc. People were reading what was being put out about the party- good or bad, those articles shaped public opinion. The New York Times in particular, whether they knew it or not, played a major role in the public's ongoing fear of the Black Panthers.

Even mainstream media that incorporated the Black Panthers voice in news story’s still inserted police propaganda into the mix. Before the assassination of Fred Hampton, The New York Times published an article titled "Panther Toll Is Now 28" regarding the Chicago Panther's chapter. The start of the article relays a cry out from the Chicago Black Panthers, delivering to the public their claims of a "national conspiracy to wipe out their leadership and destroy their organization."  [59]  The article then goes on to make some obvious and somewhat pointless statements- reinforcing that the audience knows the Black Panthers are “Black” and what type of attire they sport. Once that is over, the journalist lists the Chicago Black Panther's Death Toll, the latest being on January 1, 1968. Twenty-eight people dead, that's quite the toll on a small organization that is up against local police and the federal government of a world superpower. But then, the article shifts to the point of view of the police officers involved in the murders, describing the last shootout as a "furious gun battle which ensued after a woman opened up on the officers with a shotgun." [60] Generally, police across the country were revered as respectable and honest citizens who kept communities safe. In 1968, Gallup took a survey and found that seventy-seven percent of Americans had respect for the police[61]They would be more likely to take the word of one officer over that of a group of radical Black Nationalists.

In New York City, May 1968, the Fillmore East Theater set the stage for a Black Panther Benefit Performance. This Benefit was detailed in a New York Times article on May 22, 1968, titled Black Panthers Stage a Benefit: 3 Theater Troupes Perform to Aid 7 Jailed Members. The journalist Dan Sullivan starts off by describing the event as "a rhetoric composed of racial paranoia, political jargon, Utopian idealism, unprintable threats, gutty 'soul' talk and shrewd humor"[62]  He was very careful about how he spoke regarding the police, the FBI, and local government. Though the author holds nothing back when delivering his opinions about the Black Panther Party from a self-proclaimed "mild-mannered white liberal". Sullivan referred to the event as a "depressing indication of just how deep the chasm between the white community and the militant black community really is."   [63] Now, what does that even mean? What about the gap between the white community and the Black community in general? There continued to be a push to separate the Black Panther Party from the Civil Rights movement- labeling them as a rogue and radical Black Nationalist group with a separate agenda. That narrative is what made it easier for "mild-mannered white liberals" to condemn the actions of the Black Panther Party but support the actions of peaceful civil rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr. The article went on to use language that was guaranteed to scare the white populous, quoting speeches calling "white men … 'devils'… Policeman  was 'Gestapo pigs'… the Black Panther Party 'hates you, white people".[64] Wording like this fed the propaganda machine which influenced the majority of the American. As stated in the article, for "civil libertarians”, the arrest of the 'Panther 21' appeared to be a case of the government engaging in preventive, political detention and ignoring due process.[65] After word of the Bernstein’s support got to law enforcement, they became a target of the FBI's smear campaign, using the media as their catalyst. They were painted as villains, making a mockery of those who were "actually" fighting for civil rights and equality. As stated in The New York Times,

“Emergence of the Black Panthers as the romanticized darlings of the politico-cultural jet set is an affront to the majority of black Americans. ...The group therapy plus fund-raising soirée at the home of Leonard Bernstein... represents the sort of elegant slumming that degrades patrons and patronized alike. It might be dismissed as guilt-relieving fun spiked with social consciousness, except for its impact on those blacks and whites seriously working for complete equality and social justice. It mocked the memory of Martin Luther King Jr…."[66]

Media on behalf of the Black Panther Party

The Worker, considered a communist newspaper, appealed to a very niche group ofpeople and often published articles about the Black Panther Party. On June 28, 1968, The Worker released an article titled “Demand Fair Jury For Huey Newton.” The article mentioned a group of white liberals who were raising money for Huey, the Huey P. Newton Defense Committee, once known as “Honkies for Huey.” That group of white people were quote, “also involved in fundraising and educational programs in the white community.” This was the fear of the Bureau coming true- the Black Panther Party was infiltrating the surrounding white communities through their white liberal supporters. Fear of underground media use was apparent in an Airtel from FBI Director to SAC San Francisco on May 27, 1969. Director Hoover stated that “activities of the BPP have reached the black and white communities as evidenced by their weekly newspaper, which has reached a circulation of 45,000.”[67]

The Black Panther Party’s coalition with the white left was one of the reasons Stokely Carmichael left the party, but he did not oppose the coalition for the same reason that the FBI did. Carmichael not only saw organizing with whites as an off-kilter approach, but he thought it was not wise to seek out their support in any way. Carmichael noted that being friendly with white folks, radical or liberal, had its faults. Especially in terms of dealing with the white press. In his book Ready for a Revolution, Carmichael writes that “Ramparts began to run features on the Panther leadership and proclaimed the party the ‘revolutionary vanguard.’ The establishment media followed suit, presenting the Panthers as the militant black wing of the American youth rebellion, the black shock troops of the white New Left and the ‘counterculture’… whether it’s the left’s revolutionary fantasy or the right’s racist nightmare: angry young Negroes with guns”.[68] Various articles from the height of the Black Panther Party’s tenure support Carmichaels argument. Look as far back as December 6, 1968.  The New York Times put out an article from San Francisco titled “Black Panthers Growing, but Their Troubles Rise”. Earl Caldwell is the journalist who wrote the article, starting off by observing a storefront that the “Black Panther movement occupies.”[69] He goes on to describe the ongoings outside of the store- the “noisy teen-aged youths” that were “hustling newspapers”. It is important to look at the language Caldwell used. Instead of referring to them as “noisy” teens, he could have said “energetic young people”; instead of “hustling,” he simply could have used the term “selling.” Unfortunately, that specific wording would help paint a negative narrative for the public. During the field investigation done for the article, Caldwell stopped and asked a random man about the Panther’s activity on that block; the man replied, “You’re damn right they sell a lot of those papers…a lot of people are afraid not to buy it…”. Again, this is another example of Caldwell painting a narrative. Though these words did not come out of Caldwell’s mouth, he chose to publish them.

Conclusion

By the end of 1971, the damage had already been done- irreversible events that had a long-lasting impact transpired. The harassment from police, along with internal party struggles, backlash in the media, and loss of resources, began to take its toll on the Party. As Dhoruba Bin Wahad writes in Excluding the Nightmare after the Dream, “resources were depleted, and programs cut back due to the relentless overt and covert police attacks and prosecutions.”[70] In just two years, from December 1967 to December 1969, the Black Panther Party put out over two hundred thousand dollars in bail for members[71]. The ruthlessness of the FBI and local law enforcement tactics created hostile environments, with party members constantly on edge. The funding collected by the party was being used for legal aid and survival instead of implementing community programs. Every time the BPP made a step forward, the actions of the FBI and local law enforcement set them two steps backward. The actions and motives of the police appeared to be endorsed by the mass media, which aided the COINTELPRO efforts. The Black Panther Party was not immune to the tricks of the media, even after adapting to the art of propaganda. According to former Panther Acoli Sundiat, “too many Panthers fell into the habit of making boisterous claims in the public media…”[72] Members were losing patience and became emboldened when being interviewed- often writing checks they couldn’t cash and making promises to the public that were unrealistic, thereby bringing down morale and community support. It is safe to say that 1971 was the year that the Black Panther Party ceased to exist as it was. They started to see a very swift drop in numbers, and people were becoming less and less enamored with the revolution; as Sundiat stated in a brief History of the BPP, “COINTELPRO eventually intimidated and corrupted all three of the BPP’s top leaders: Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver. Each, in his way, caved into the pressures and began acting in a manner that was designed deliberately to destroy the BPP.” [73]

The COINTELPRO initiative was finally exposed, thanks to a group known as the Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI. [74] They managed to steal an assortment of the COINTELPRO files from an FBI office in Media, PA. They then gave these files to the media. The backlash the FBI faced led to an official “dismissal” of the program. However, the FBI continued operations not under the official COINTELPRO name from 1972 to around 1974.  This is apparent from the countless COINTELPRO documents from after 1971. For example, in the FBI Vault Black Panther Party Part 30 of 34, an Airtel is sent from SAC, Charlotte, to the FBI director concerning “Black Panther Party Finances and Extremist Matters,” dated August 21, 1972. [75]People started coming forward and talking, especially former agents and informants with stories from inside the COINTELPRO. Irreversible damage had been done to citizens who now intended to hold the bureau accountable in court. Finally, in 1976, the Church Committee concluded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation wrongfully targeted, surveilled, and violated the rights of average citizens. Also, after the hearings, the Senate created The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to provide “vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States.”[76] After, in 1977, The House of Representatives created the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Even after the end of the COINTELPRO, the pieces left of the BPP crumbled. As stated by former BPP member Sekou Odinga, “The illegal Counterintelligence Program of the U.S. government seemed so effective that work above ground was no longer strategic. We couldn’t work under the banner of the Black Panther Party, which was at war with itself.”[77] The Black Panther Party as it was had disappeared, and though COINTELPRO was put to an abrupt stop, they accomplished what they set out to. Eventually, the Church Committee hearings concluded wrongdoing and condemned the actions of the FBI through the illegal COINTELPRO operation. However, no formal investigation has been implemented to hold the federal government accountable.

There have been no investigations into the criminal convictions, and there have been no attempts to free “political prisoners” who are victims of COINTELPRO. On September 14, 2000, Representative Cynthia McKinney ‘convened a ‘brain trust” on this subject (COINTELPRO) as part of the Congressional Black Caucus’ Legislative Conference, a yearly series of forums and panel discussions on issues of importance to the communities represented by the Caucus.” [78] . The first speaker on the panel was Professor Nkechi Taifa, whose record is more than impressive, ranging from director of the Howard University Law School Equal Justice Program to staff attorney for the National Prison Project, having worked with “issues involving COINTELPRO and political prisoners since 1975.” [79] Professor Taifa highlights the hypocrisy of the FBI’s campaign, stating that “we have to remember that it was actually the FBI who was fomenting the violence (not the BPP).” The next speaker was Kathleen Cleaver, communications secretary of the Black Panther Party from 1967 to 1971. Cleaver starts by detailing her history with the Black Liberation Movement, particularly the Black Panther Party. Cleaver highlights the egregious number of cases involving the Black Panther Party, which turned members into political prisoners. She mentioned Romain Fitzgerald, “who after 30 years is still serving time in California for killing a policeman and it is known that he did not do the shooting. He is very ill”.  There are many former Panthers, victims of the FBI’s illegal COINTELPRO, who are still facing consequences for things they did not do. Cleaver was in the trenches, at the forefront of the battle between the FBI and the BPP. She states that, “The issue is always human rights. The government tried to redefine our struggle for us, to minimize the international broad concept of human rights that motivated us and turn it into something smaller and less threatening.” Cleaver and other leaders knew that the FBI planned to cripple the party, shrink them, and render them incapable of achieving any of their goals. The FBI’s COINTELPRO initiative was ultimately a success, leaving a mark on the Black revolutionaries it victimized.

Notes

[1] NYPL, Black Panther Party Harlem Branch Files 1969-1970. https://archives.nypl.org/scm/20948

[2] Federal Bureau of Investigation, “The Vault, The Black Panther Party”, https://vault.fbi.gov/Black%20Panther%20Party%20

[3] Smith, Roger Guenveur, Spike Lee, and U.S Public Broadcasting Service. A Huey P. Newton story. [Alexandria, Va.: PBS, 2002).

[4] Johnson, Ollie A. (1998) Explaining the Demise of The Black Panther Party The Role of Internal Factors. theanarchistlibrary.org pp. 8

[5] Day, Susie and Whitehorn, Laura. (2001). “Human Rights in the United States: The Unfinished Story of Political Prisoners and COINTELPRO”, New Political Science, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2001) 8.

[6]Bloom, Joshua, Waldo E. Martin, Jr. (2013) Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party. Berkley: University of California Press. P. 382.

[7] Goldstein, Robert Justin. 1990. Reviewed Work(s): “Racial Matters”: The FBI’s Secret File on       Black America, 1960-1972. The Journal of American History, Vol. 77, No. 1. Oxford University Press on behalf of Organization of American History.

[8] O’Reilly, K. (1989). Racial Matters: the FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972. Free  Press.

[9] Goldstein, Reviewed Work(s): “Racial Matters”.

[10] O’Reilly, Racial Matters, P. 265

[11] Collier-Thomas, Bettye and V.P. Franklin. (2001). “No One Ever Asks a Mans Roll in The Revolution”. Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Cilvil Rights-Black Power Movement. New York University Press. P. 230.

[12] Kirby, Ryan J. (2011). “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” Community Activism and the Black Panther Party, 1966-1971.

[13] Collier-Thomas, Bettye and V.P. Franklin. (2001). “No One Ever Asks a Mans Roll in The Revolution”. Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Cilvil Rights-Black Power Movement. New York University Press, 230.

[14]Williams, Jakobi. (2013). From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 172

[15]Williams, Jakobi.From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago. The University of North Carolina Press, 161

[16] Jeffries, Judson L. Reviewed Work(s): From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago.

[17] Williams, Jakobi.From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago. The University of North Carolina Press, 107

[18] Williams, From the Bullet to the Ballot, 174

[19] Farnia, Navid. State Repression and the Black Panther Party: Analyzing Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin’s Black against Empire.

[20] Mullgardt, Brian. (2020). “Further Harassment and Neutralization”: The FBI’s counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) in Illinois, 107

[21] Keating, Ann Drukin. From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago by Jakobi Williams (review). 127.

[22] Kioni-Sadiki, Dequi, “The Past Catches Up to The Present,” Look For Me in The Whirlwind: From the Panther 21 to 21st Century Revolutions, edited by Dequi Kioni-Sadiki and Matt Meyer, 21-35. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2017.

[23] Churchill, Ward. The Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Domestic Dissent. Boston, MA: South End Press, 109.

[24] Churchill, The Cointelpro Papers, 144

[25] Churchill, Ward. The Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Domestic Dissent. Boston, MA: South End Press, 133

[26] Sundiata Acoli, “An Updated History of the New African Prison Struggle,” Look For Me in The Whirl wind, edited by Dequi Kioni-Sadiki and Matt Meyer, 41-79. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2017.

[27] Churchill, W., & Vander Wall, J. (1990). The COINTELPRO papers: Documents from the FBI's secret wars against domestic dissent. Boston, MA: South End Press, 138.

[28] Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts. FBI. Fred Hampton. 44-HQ-44202. Part 1.

[29]A production of Blackside, Inc. ; [ creator and executive producer, Henry Hampton]. Eyes on the Prize [ Alexandria, Va.] : PBS Video, 2006. William O’Neil interview Part 1

[30] FBI: The Vault. Black Panther Party. Fred Hampton. 44-HQ-44202. Part 2.

[31] Churchill, W., & Vander Wall, J. (1990). The Cointelpro Papers: Documents From the FBI's Secret Wars Against Domestic Dissent. Boston: South End Press, 132

[32]Churchill, The COINTELPRO Papers, 132

[33] Churchill, The Cointelpro Papers, 132

[34] SAC, New Haven Airtel to FBI Director, 4 June 1971, Box 10, John R. Williams Papers.

[35]“SAC, New Haven Airtel to FBI Director, 4 June 1971,” Box 10, Folder 71, John R. Williams Papers.

[36] “Airtel SAC San Francisco to FBI Director, 17 June 1971,” Box 10, Folder 66, John R. Williams Papers.

[37]FBI Files, 1968-1976 Black Panther Party, North Carolina, Vol. 2-15. Federal (various) Bureau of Investigations Electronic Reading Room, P 28 (https://archive.org/details/FBI-BPP-North-Carolina/105-HQ-165706-8-01/page/n49/mode/2up).

[38] FBI Files, Vol. 2-15, 74

[39] FBI Files, 1968-1976 Black Panther Party, North Carolina, Vol. 2-15. Federal (various) Bureau of Investigations Electronic Reading Room, pp. 75 (https://archive.org/details/FBI-BPP-North-Carolina/105-HQ-165706-8-01/page/n49/mode/2up).

[40] FBI Files, 1968-1976 Black Panther Party, North Carolina, Vol. 1-15. Federal Bureau of Investigations Electronic Reading Room. Pp. 48

[41] FBI Files, Black Panther Party, Winston Salem, Vol. 1. Freedom of Information Act. Pp. 30 https://webharvest.gov/peth04/20041019154956/http://foia.fbi.gov/bpanther/bpanther1.pdf .

[42] FBI Files, Black Panther Party, Winston Salem, Vol. 1. Freedom of Information Act. Pp. 30

[43] FBI Files, Black Panther Party, Winston Salem, Vol. 1. Freedom of Information Act. https://webharvest.gov/peth04/20041019154956/http://foia.fbi.gov/bpanther/bpanther1.pdf Page 30 of PDF.

[44]FBI Files, Black Panther Party, Winston Salem Vol. 1. Page 30

[45] Kioni-Sadiki, Dequi, “The Past Catches Up to The Present,” Look For Me in The Whirlwind: From the Panther 21 to 21st-Century Revolutions, edited by Dequi Kioni-Sadiki and Matt Meyer, 21-35. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 201. (23).

[46]Kioni-Sadiki, Dequi, pp. 21-35.

[47] United States House of Representatives. Black Panther Party Part 1: Investigation of Activities in Kansas City, Missouri.; and Indianapolis, Ind. Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives. Ninety-first Congress. 2nd Session July 21-24, 1970.
(http://blackfreedom.proquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/blackpanther19.pdf)

[48] United States House of Representatives, Kansas City, pp. 2616

[49] United States House of Representatives, Kansas City, pp. 2616

[50] United States House of Representatives. Black Panther Party Part 2: Investigation of Activities in Seattle, Washington.; and Indianapolis, Ind. Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives. Ninety-first Congress. 2nd Session July 21-24, 1970.
(http://blackfreedom.proquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/blackpanther20.pdf)

[51] United States House of Representatives, Seattle, pp. 4298.

[52] United States House of Representatives. Black Panther Party Part 3: Investigation of Activities in Detroit, Mich; Philadelphia, Pa.; and Indianapolis,  Hearings Before Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives. Ninety-first Congress. 2nd Session July 21-24, 1970. (http://blackfreedom.proquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/blackpanther21.pdf)

[53] United States House of Representatives. Black Panther Party Part 4 Investigation of Des Moines, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska: Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives. Ninety-first Congress, second session. Washington D.C. (1970)

[54] United States House of Representatives. Black Panther Party Part 4: National Office and Investigation of Activities in Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebr. . Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives. Ninety-first Congress. 2nd Session July 21-24, 1970, P 4718 (http://blackfreedom.proquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/blackpanther22.pdf)

[55]United States House of Representatives. Black Panther Party Part 4: National Office and Investigation of Activities in Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebr. . Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives. Ninety-first Congress. 2nd Session July 21-24, 1970, P 4792 (http://blackfreedom.proquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/blackpanther22.pdf)

[56] United States House of Representatives. Black Panther Party Part 4: National Office and Investigation of Activities in Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebr. . Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives. Ninety-first Congress. 2nd Session July 21-24, 1970, P 4795 (http://blackfreedom.proquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/blackpanther22.pdf)

[57] United States House of Representatives. Black Panther Party Part 1: Investigation of Activities in Kansas City, Missouri.; and Indianapolis, Ind. Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives. Ninety-first Congress. 2nd Session July 21-24, 1970. (http://blackfreedom.proquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/blackpanther19.pdf)

[58] New York Times. https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-New-York-Times. Britannica (2024)

[59]Kifner, John. “The Black Panther Toll is Now 28”. The New York Times. December 7, 1969.

[60] Kifner, “The Black Panther Toll is Now 28”

[61] Gallop. “Americans Respect For Police Surges”. https://news.gallup.com/poll/196610/americans-respect-police-surges.aspx

[62]”Black Panthers Stage a Benefit”233.20. NARA- Washington, D.C.

[63] ”Black Panthers Stage a Benefit” 233.20. NARA- Washington, D.C.

[64] ”Black Panthers Stage a Benefit” 233.20. NARA- Washington, D.C.

[65] Chisholm, The Panther 21 Fundraiser and “Radical Chic”.Leonard Bernstein Office.

[66] Chisholm, The Panther 21 Fundraiser and “Radical Chic”.Leonard Bernstein Office.

[67]Churchill, W., & Vander Wall, J. (1990). The COINTELPRO papers: Documents from the FBI's secret wars against domestic dissent. Boston: South End Press. 148

[68]Carmichael, Stokely. Ready For Revolution: the Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York, NY. Scribner, 2003. 663

[69] Caldwell, Earl. (1968). “Black Panthers Growing, but Their Troubles Rise”. New York Times

[70] Bin Wahad, Dhoruba“Assata Shakur, Excluding the Nightmare after the Dream: The Terrorist Label and the Criminalization of Revolutionary Black Movements in the USA,”Look For Me in The Whirl wind, edited by Dequi Kioni-Sadiki and Matt Meyer, 103-125.Oakland,CA: PM Press, 2017.

[71] Charles R. Garry, “A Survey of the Persecution of the Black Panther Party,”

The Black Panthers Speak, edited by Philip S. Foner (New York: Da Capo Press, 1995), 257–258.

[72] Sundiata Acoli, “A Brief History of the Black Panther Party and its Place in the Black Liberation Movement,” Look For Me in The Whirl wind, edited by Dequi Kioni-Sadiki and Matt Meyer, 79-85. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2017

[73] Sundiat,“A Brief History of the Black Panther Party and its Place in the Black Liberation Movement,” , P 79-85.

[74] Stealing J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret. January 7, 2014. Retro Report for the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000002635482/stealing-j-edgar-hoovers-secrets.html?searchResultPosition=22

[75] Federal Bureau of Investigation, Part 30 of 34, “The Vault, The Black Panther Party”, 30. (https://vault.fbi.gov/Black%20Panther%20Party%20)

[76] Senate Resolution 400. Church Committee. 1976.

[77] Bin Wahad, Dhoruba“Assata Shakur, Excluding the Nightmare after the Dream: The Terrorist Label and the Criminalization of Revolutionary Black Movements in the USA,”Look ForMe in The Whirl wind, edited by Dequi Kioni-Sadiki and Matt Meyer, pp. 91.Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2017.

[78] Day, S., & Whitehorn, L. (2001). Human Rights in the United States: The Unfinished Story of Political Prisoners and Cointelpro. New Political Science,  pp. 23(2), 286. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393140120056009

[79] Day, Human Rights in the United States, 287