The First Lesson A Revolutionary Must Learn

I Expected To Die. At No Time Before The Trial Did I Expect To Escape With My Life. Yet Being Executed In The Gas Chamber Did Not Necessarily Mean Defeat. It Could Be One More Step To Bring The Community To A Higher Level Of Consciousness.

During Those Long Years In Oakland Public Schools, I Did Not Have One Teacher Who Taught Me Anything Relevant To My Own Life Or Experience. Not One Instructor Ever Awoke In Me A Desire To Learn More Or To Question Or To Explore The Worlds Of Literature, Science, And History. All They Did Was Try To Rob Me Of The Sense Of My Own Uniqueness And Worth, And In The Process Nearly Killed My Urge To Inquire.

I Don't Like To Just Talk Of Africa, And South Of The Sahara In General. No, I'll Talk About The Third World In General. I'll Like To Say This - We In The United States Would Never Believe That Another Form Of Goverment - I Don't Care Even If It's Against The Racism, Etc. - It Is Hard To Get The Masses Of People To Believe Or Accept That A Socialist Government Will Relieve Them Of Most Of The Problems.

I Always Said This And The People Think It's A Cute Answer, But I Say We Have Always Been In The System And That's Why We Fight Because We Don't Like The System. We Are Trying To Transform It.

I Think The Time Is Right For Organizing And To Give Blacks More Political - The Progressive Blacks, You Have To Make A Distinction - Participation, More Blacks In More Authoritative Positions, In More Electoral Political Positions. But We Want The Right Ones.