Part 5 - DW63 DB101 004 005

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Black people must lead and run their own organizations. Only black people can convey the revolutionary idea - and it is a revolutionary idea - that black people are able to do things themselves. ... Black people must come together and do things for themselves. They must achieve self-identity and self-determination ... The adoption of the concept of Black Power is one of the most legitimate and healthy developments in American politics and race relations in our time. ... It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heri- tage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to begin to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations and to support those organizations. It is a call to reject the racist institutions and values of this society. (Kwame Ture, Black Power) Historically, Black people as a group have exhibited a greater potential for resistance than any other part of the population. (Angela Davis, If They Come in the Morning) The call for Black Consciousness is the most positive call to come from any group in the black world for a long time. ... The philosophy of Black Conscious- ness ... expresses group pride and the determination by the blacks to rise and attain the envisaged self. ... Not only have the whites been guilty of being on the offensive but, by some skilful manoeuvres, they have managed to control the responses of the blacks to the provocation. Not only have they kicked the black but they have also told him how to react to the kick. For a long time the black has been listening with patience to the advice he has been receiving on how best to respond to the kick. ... He is now beginning to show signs that it is his right and duty to respond to the kick in the way he sees fit. (Steve Biko, I Write What I Want) No one will undertake to aid us unless they sense the power of our movement. (George Jackson, Blood in My Eye) BLACK PEOPLES' STRUGGLES IN THE OPPRESSOR COUNTRIES The U.S. imperialists are now encountering powerful resistance on the part of broad sectors of people throughout the world. They are also meeting opposi- tion from the people of their own country. ...The black people's revolts touched off by the assassination of Dr. King, one of their leaders, are now sweeping all parts of the United States. (Kim Il Sung) In the history of human society, capitalism is the last exploiting system which tramples upon the masses' aspirations and demand for Chajusong. It is a violently oppressive system which combines class domination with national oppression. (OJI 21) The resolution ... spoke directly against those who held that the Black rebellion was contingent upon the maturing of the revolutionary situation in the country as a whole or that it could only develop at the same pace as the overall class struggle. This assumption, widespread in the Party at the time, reflected an underestimation of the inherently explosive character of the liber- ation struggle in the South. ... The struggle for equality is in and of itself a revolutionary question, because the special oppression of Black people is a main prop of imperialist domination over the entire working class and the masses of exploited American people. ... The slogan of self-determination is a slogan of unity. Its overriding pur- pose was and still is to unite the white and Black exploited masses, working 3

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