"Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black"

[Keith Millea]

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government?

The Black Panther Party actually brought weapons into the California State House in 1967.Here is a small excerpt from that action.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/dis...118x263537

....Until 2 May 1967, the Black Panthers were a local organisation, whose political extremism, drawing on Marxist and Maoist ideology as well as the writings of Malcolm X and Frantz Fanon, was typical of the times and unsettled many older, more traditional black community leaders. It was on that day, though, that the Panthers first showed off their talent for carefully choreographed and provocative public protest. With the local press and TV in tow, 30 Black Panthers, including Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver, travelled from their headquarters in Oakland to the State Capitol building in Sacramento to protest against a bill being debated that would prohibit the carrying of loaded firearms by anyone other than members of the police, army and security guards.

A young black journalist from New York, Gilbert Moore, had been commissioned by Life to write the story that would accompany Bingham's images. In his illuminating foreword to Bingham's new book of photographs, Black Panthers1968, Moore describes the events of that day.

"They came with .45-calibre pistols and 9mm Lugers. They showed up with M1 rifles, America's favourite companion in three wars. They came with .357 Magnums. (They say when a bullet from a Magnum hits you, you feel like you've been struck by lightning.) They came with 12-gauge pump-action shotguns. They came with bandoliers strapped across their chests… Six women and 24 men, all dressed in black, head to toe – black berets, black leather jackets, black pants, black shoes, or black combat boots."

Though the Black Panthers were lined up against the bill alongside extreme Republicans and the right-wing rank and file of the National Rifle Association, the ironies of the event were overlooked in the subsequent media furore that ensued – one precipitated by the Panthers' staged invasion of the State Capitol building, where the Assembly was in session. "The proceedings came to a screeching halt," writes Moore, "as some of the Panthers took up 'combat' positions in the aisles."....