[music ♪]
>>Frances: These are really high ceilings.
This house was nice and cool in the summertime.
My husband picked me up from work, we came to the door
and there were young people lined up, all in the house.
So we just kind of looked at each other and went, "What's going on?"
Like, they were in the living room, they wese in the dining room,
they were sitting on the steps all the way up, in the kitchen.
Everywhere they could get a space to sit, that's where they were, or stand.
They were as curious as we were, so that was when it first started,
and then they formed, and then they used to march over at the park.
[music ♪]
>>Frances: We left Chicago and ended up in Champaign.
That's taken in Champaign, Illinois.
This was taken here in Seattle, after we moved here.
Boeing moved us here.
My husband, the good part, he had a job,
so his job was a graphic illustrator at Boeing.
But this is the kind of stuff that they drew on.
Apparently someone-- anyway, he tore this off, and wrote this poem,
and I kept it all this time.
[music ♪]
See, this is-- when you wet this stuff, this paper, it turns into cloth.
Anyway, the poem says, "Deep in the Heart of Dixie where the cotton blooms
in June an old black man tills the field humming a sad old tune.
His heart was heavy, his eyes were full, his body aching and sore.
I wish I was dead, I wish I was dead, my heart can't take no more.
They took a little Negro boy and chopped and smashed his eye.
They tormented, teased, and cut him up just to make him die.
They tore off an ear, when he shed a tear and they beat him in the face.
Each mark and scar was so symbolic of suffering by the Negro race.
They threw him in the river his hands and legs all bound,
hoping that his body never would be found.
The river current surged and splashed to free its mangled prey.
But it didn't matter anymore, for it was Emmett's Judgment Day.
The two White men who did this thing are free to lynch and now my God,
we pray to you, revenge poor Emmett Till.
The hate and evil in this world is something sad to see.
Why, oh Lord, do they hate us so?
Why can't we all be free?
The children played on the courtroom floor.
The grownups drank cold beer.
They laughed and joked and enjoyed themselves,
like they had no God to fear.
I'll never forget you, Emmett Till, and how you horribly died."
>>Frances: I've never done this before.
>>Poem resumes: "I'll never forget the smiling jurors and how the lawyers lied.
Well, Emmett, he's gone, ain't nothing to do but push this White man's plow.
I guess little Emmett's made his peace
'cause he's with his father now."
Elmer signed it, Elmer Dixon, Junior, Champaign, Illinois,
October, nineteen fifty-five.
You know, I've never cried.
[music ♪]
>>Frances: Yep. I want to go and look at--
someone's just written a newspaper article about that boy.
This was taken here in Seattle, after we moved here.
These are all high school pictures.
It was very hard finding a place for us because of, you know, our color.
With a family and four kids, you wonder where you're going to live,
and so we had kind of told our parents
that we had a place, though we really did not.
So we stayed in a motel, out on Highway Ninety-Nine, I think it was.
We stayed there for a good week, and then my husband went to work.
[music ♪]
>>Frances: We really couldn't find a place to stay.
Somebody told us about a minister.
That house is still sitting there in Hiawatha.
We went in there and I thought, "Oh my gosh, we got to stay here?"
They had mouse droppings on the bed, and I said, "Mm-mm."
So we just got in the car and drove around until we went
across the floating bridge and back, and then finally,
I don't know how he found it.
I think maybe this minister might have told him about a place that was vacant.
It was a Japanese guy that owned the house, Mister Nakiyui,
which I will never forget his name as long as I live,
and he had a daylight basement, and so that's where we moved, down there,
and it only had four rooms.
My husband's sister came out with her two boys to visit, and she said--
she called my husband "brother"--
"Brother, if you don't find something better to live in,"
she says, "I'm going to tell Didi."
That was their mother's name.
So they went looking, and sure enough, they found a place on Twenty-Fourth,
right off of Norman, Twenty-Fourth Avenue South.
We stayed there for a little over a year,
and my husband definitely knew we had to buy a place
so we could get out of that house.
So that's when he found this place.
This area was fine.
It was more of us living here at the time, well,
I'd say people of color, Blacks, we were Black.
Because our neighbor next door was an old elderly lady, German lady,
and then next door on the other side, there was a Filipino family, and then,
finally, everybody was Black in this neighborhood.
[music ♪]
You know, the revolution was starting there, and they were starting
to mess some of these houses up.
There was a Chinese store, they called it Joe's Market,
and they were very nice people.
We never did bother Joe's.
I say "we," we did not, and so they were always very nice to us.
[music ♪]
When Boeing was shut down, things were pretty rough.
There was no place to work for Coloreds, Negros, downtown at all, like Penney's.
I tried Penney's, I tried the telephone company.
They said, "Well, you have too much education."
The grocery stores, they were all segregated.
There weren't any Black help in any of their grocery stores back then.
But things were quite hard for Black people to get jobs, so I was fortunate
to get a job at the hospital, Virginia Mason Hospital.
The head nurse, Miss Kennerman, I'll never forget her name, she said, "Oh,"
she says, "We don't have anything.
We do have something in the kitchen."
"I have too much education," I said, "I went to college for five years,
and I'm not working in anybody's kitchen."
So she said, "Well, if we hear anything, I've got your application."
Well, she called me in about a week and said that they had something.
Then I later got a job at Group Health because of my work
at the clinic, Mason Clinic.
That's one reason why they kept me there.
They said, "Oh, we belong to the Black Panthers."
So, and Aaron had to go to court
and it was pretty hard seeing Aaron come to court handcuffed.
His lawyer said, "I want you to wear your white uniforms, you know,
when you have to testify," like that.
But whenever they called me, the people at Group Health would let me go,
yeah, whenever I needed to go.
[music ♪]
>>Frances: Elmer had some problems too.
They were trying to say that Elmer had stolen a leather jacket
when he had made a trip to Portland, and they were waiting for him
at the bus when he got off.
He had to serve time for that.
[music ♪]
>>Frances: I still have all the letters.
Yeah, I kept every letter he wrote us.
But anyway, here they all are.
See, he was quite a writer, like his dad.
It just says, "Hello.
Just another quick note to say hello."
See, he didn't want to-- well we didn't want my mother
to know that he was locked up.
[music ♪]
>>Frances: We were real supporters of them, the both of them.
You would see the boys downtown selling papers.
They all learned how to write very well, all three of the boys.
He was usually-- Aaron writes-- he used to write poems and all that stuff.
Their goodness about giving free breakfasts, and driving them to prison
to visit some of their relatives, and they did a lot of good things like that,
the clothing program, the clinic.
That's where most of them stayed, in this house.
I guess you'd say the Black Panther office, but when they were
in their place, when the FBI was after them, to get in and out of there,
you had-- it was all sandbagged inside.
You had to hop over.
They used to come here.
They could listen to what we were saying, so a lot of times,
we would just kind of write a note or whisper, you know.
One night, I guess it was during dinner time, I answered the phone.
Someone said, "We're going to kill your son," and I
remember saying, "Okay, try it." That was the MF.
Yeah, they said, "We're going to kill your son."
We'd get calls like that.
I did. It didn't really bother me.
It felt, I don't know, I felt kind of tough.
We were young and whatever they did, we supported them,
because we knew they were no criminals.
It was legitimate. They had a legitimate reason to do what they did.
[music ♪]
>>Youlanda: My name is Youlanda Givens.
I grew up on Twenty-Fifth Avenue between Marion and Spring,
and then later transitioned to Leschi area.
You know, I come from a family of service-oriented people,
and that's something that I always had a passion for, is working with others.
You know, working with the Panthers gave me that opportunity
to do some work with regard to that.
My main focus was selling Panther papers downtown Seattle, getting the word
out about the organization.
Having that interaction, I think, downtown Seattle, having a presence,
allowing people to have the opportunity to ask questions
and be curious about what the Party does.
Then my involvement in the free breakfast program,
which I really enjoyed doing.
We were at the Yesler Terrace Community Center, is where I worked
in the free breakfast program.
We were responsible for setting things up,
for cooking the meals, for buying the supplies.
For example, if we were going to do pancakes and bacon and,
you know, make sure we had milk.
And we would do cereal, because kids, you know, they're hungry
and they can't wait for things to get done.
So you can have some cereal or some fruit to tide you
over until you get the main bits.
We were responsible for cooking those meals.
A lot of those kids, that might have been their only meal for the day.
We never know, but certainly wanted to make sure that they had plenty to eat,
and they were just always so excited to come.
They were just full and happy when they left on the way to school,
so you know they're going to have a good day.
There's nothing better than to have a full stomach to start your day,
and carry through, so yeah, I really enjoyed that.
I got my hands on a leather jacket for a while too.
That was another part of the uniform.
I had a beret, but I didn't like to wear it.
I guess because when you take it off, I had to fool with my hair,
and you had to have your coif just so.
[music ♪]
>>Youlanda: Certainly I remember that, you know,
the way that I dressed changed.
A lot of fatigues and boots and natural, and hoop earrings and just, you know,
feeling kind of revolutionary, I guess.
I would say so, I certainly changed in that way.
I haven't seen the picture of Carolyn Downs in a long time.
I do remember how beautiful she was in school, and as younger kids growing up,
you just kind of remember people, older people that you looked up to,
older classmen when we were at Garfield.
But I hadn't seen a picture of her in a long time.
I really didn't know other women Panthers, except by sight, by name.
But personally, I didn't have a relationship
with any female Panther members, which I didn't think was anything wrong
with that, because I was tomboy at heart.
So I felt more comfortable in the company
of male people that I grew up with.
I felt comfortable with Ron Johnson,
who was kind of like my comrade in arms and mentor.
But not to say that I wasn't aware of their presence,
and respected where they were coming from, the ideas that we shared.
I felt like the male was more the leadership role
and that the female role was more like of support.
But I mean, I think it depends on the female too.
If you felt like you wanted to have a more stronger role or presence
in the Party, I think that there was openness for that as well.
There certainly were some strong women presence in the Party and I felt like,
if they were kind of like a glass ceiling in that way,
I wasn't aware of it at that time.
I was looking at the chair actually, I have one at home just like it.
Back in the day, we used to have the poster.
That was the beginning of the awareness of the Party.
[music ♪]
>>Youlanda: I can remember formation of Black Student Union
out at the University of Washington.
Some of the marches and things that were going on there,
so those things were starting to bubble up to the surface.
So you're just trying to figure out, what does it all mean,
and try to get an understanding.
Where do I fit into that?
What side should I be on, and how do I participate in that?
So I think maybe that was the focus at that time, for me.
This probably was the speech that stirred us up.
Remember, I was telling you about that, yeah.
I remember that he actually spoke at Garfield, and at that time,
we were over at Washington Junior High.
So it was like, it was just like, the news spread like wildfire, so to speak.
Next thing I know, people were all fired up
and there was a lot going on at the U-W.
I don't know, it was just the start, I think it was the spark of everything.
I think for me, I was always kind of a nosy type person, you know,
but things that I didn't understand or wanted to know more about,
I put myself out there to try to learn more.
So hence when I-- after listening to the preachings of my Brother Wayneman,
I was like, oh, this sounds
like something I really want to get involved in.
I'd say my experience was good up until the point
where I decided I was going to leave.
[music ♪]
>>Youlanda: The reason why I left the Party was, there were some mandates
that were coming out of California, some kind of reflection as to the role
of the women in the Party, and their interaction with male counterparts,
and frankly, I wasn't comfortable with that message.
So I decided that our values didn't line up and it was time for me to go.
[music ♪]
>>Youlanda: I think what it's kind of left, kind of like an open hole.
I think if you felt injustices, before you had some sort of base
where you could go and check in, and at least voice your opinions and talk
about how you were feeling and listen to others.
So it was kind of like a community base.
Once the Party disbanded it's like, okay, where do I go now?
Where do I go with these feelings that I have?
I'm sure people had friends or family
that they can share the feeling, but it wasn't the same.
That was my interest in being able to come and do the interview,
because it was like a Party of life.
You kind of compartmentalized and you don't think
about it until somebody asks you.
What I do now is I do social work in the community.
Before that, I worked with kids in therapeutic foster care.
One of my friends said, "Now you can get paid for running your mouth."
I think I used to get in trouble for that all the time,
but I enjoy talking to people, meeting people.
So I continue that legacy and I think definitely participating
in the Party gave me the opportunity to get my feet wet, and feel what that's
like to give back and see the pleasure that it gives others.
So I'm kind of really proud that I spearheaded some
of the programs that we have now.
I think that a lot of people carry that spirit of what they've gone through,
what they've experienced, where they've been.
That showed when we came out for the fiftieth anniversary.
It was good to see people that you hadn't seen in a long time,
but also find out what they were into, and how they're contributing,
continuing to contribute to the community in other ways.
That passion is still there and it probably always will be.
[music ♪]
>>Phyllis: My name is Phyllis Noble Mobley.
I am a graduate of Franklin High School.
Just had so many good experiences being in this hallway,
thinking of being a student here at Franklin.
This is my granddaughter, Mia, who is a--
>>Mia: I am the current Black Student Union president here at Franklin.
>>Phyllis: This is my yearbook and in here is a picture of me when I was
in the Black Student Union.
>>Mia: So that's you? >>Phyllis: That's me.
[music ♪]
>>Phyllis: And this is my brother, who was a Black Panther,
and also the first president of the Black Student Union.
But it's just interesting how long the Black Student Union has been
in existence.
We were from the south end, which was Holly Park.
Well, actually, Beacon Hill, and then the battle
of the bands was from the Central area.
It was held at the community center at Garfield.
With the battle of the bands, no one is going to be a loser.
Everybody's going to be a winner, but with the battle,
one band thought they'd won, the other thought they'd won.
So that's where the conflict came in.
I don't know how or why, but it ended up being a pretty sad night.
So right after the battle of the bands, there was some altercation.
Rocks were being thrown, and so the police were called.
They came in and they began to just fight with the people that were there.
One of the police officers grabbed my brother round the neck and had him
in a choke hold, while my mother was there.
So she saw that, and he knocked my mother down.
At that point, then it got really bad,
because my brothers were trying to protect my mother.
It was really a rough time.
I never had been maced before,
and so that was something very different, to have tear gas.
It was tear gas, actually.
My brother, he went to jail, but I think
that was probably the first time my brother said that he met Elmer and Aaron
and talked to them about the Black Panther Party.
I really thought that they were a group of young men and women
that were making visible changes in the community.
I thought they were definitely of benefit.
My brothers and sisters were in the Black Panther Party.
They were very involved, and my parents were accepting of the fact.
Just because they were involved, I became involved.
Before they accepted me into the Panthers, I had to tell them
about the ten point program.
[music ♪]
>>Phyllis: It was exciting, because I passed that and they accepted me in.
I became involved just about when I was fifteen and a half.
I was allowed to go with my brothers, but I was really young.
Lots of things that happened was just
because they were older, and I could go with them.
A couple that stood out for me were the sit-in here at Franklin
and also we marched on Rainier Beach for injustices for the students.
I'm sure that the sit-in was in sixty-nine.
I was in the tenth grade.
There was an altercation with a young Black guy and a White guy.
The Black man, he was kicked out.
He was not going to be able to graduate.
But the other, the young White guy, was able to continue.
So we followed our Black Student Union president out of the auditorium
and we just decided that we weren't going back to class.
The Black Panthers heard about that injustice and so the came to our aid.
[music ♪]
>>Phyllis: I was feeling excited.
It was something new and it was something different.
I think my brothers as well realized that there was a lot
of injustice being done, because they had never been beat up by police before.
So their reaction was just to fight back, which they did.
For the Rainier Beach incident, they actually carried guns.
There were so many injustices done to the Black students down there,
and they wanted to let the world know that they were present,
and we weren't going to tolerate that in the schools, any longer,
any injustices for the children.
[music ♪]
>>Phyllis: After school, I would catch the bus on Thirty-Fourth Avenue,
and I would go there and I would help out.
Answer phones and just talk to some of the people who were there,
finding out what was happening in the community,
what was our next move, what we would be doing.
After I became a Black Panther,
trying to fight injustice made me a target for the police.
Leaving the office, that I would be ticketed or stopped.
I was active in the breakfast feeding program.
We would go door to door, just making people aware of what was happening
in the community and the program as well.
I met lots of friends, lots of young, strong women,
very encouraging, you know, very protective.
People became more aware of social and economic injustices.
The people felt protected by the Black Panthers,
like their voices were being heard.
They saw the children being fed,
the need for doctors, they were being helped.
People were being held accountable for their decisions.
Even at Franklin, when I went to school here,
I was told that I was going to be a secretary.
From the time that I joined the organization, it gave me strength.
I had strength, they really were instrumental
in giving me a mindset that I could do anything.
Nothing was impossible.
They influenced me by just telling me that I was Black, I was strong.
We're beautiful, we're queens, we can do just about anything.
We just don't have to settle for what the status quo is.
We can go bigger and beyond that.
I opened up my shop, our first Black hair weavers in Seattle.
I got my license and I became an owner or a business for over thirty years.
I didn't leave the Black Panthers.
It's a lifestyle, you know, it really is a lifestyle.
I may not wear the hat or the jacket,
but I still am very involved with social issues.
>>George: I am excited for the opportunity to stand with you today.
Where's my sister, Phyllis, where's she at?
Okay, I want to recognize her, because she does mean so very, very much to me.
That's my sister. She's the one that used to take a bunch
of whoopings for me when we were kids.
>>Phyllis: I'm associate minister at my church
and I'm still trying to help our community.
Social and economic injustice is still alive and it's not as visible,
but it's still very present.
I believed then, and I believe now, that the Party stood
up to be a help to the community.
What they did fifty years ago is still being implemented,
impacting our families.
They stood up against all forms of injustice.
We were our brothers' keepers, willing to go down, to lay down our lives,
even give up our freedom for our brothers and our sisters.
They still have feeding programs, still they have the Black Student Union here.
The mindset of the people have changed a little,
because of what the Panthers had done.
>>Mia: I feel like power, I feel like now I can make a change.
Knowing that my grandmother did all of that, that I can do that too,
actually carry on what she was doing in high school.
Even though I'm going to graduate this year,
I can still fight injustice, just like she did.
>>Phyllis: What I just want to say is, reach high, reach for your goals.
Never take no for an answer, that's what I would say.
Never take no, there's always a yes in there.
Go to school, get an education and by all means, when you're able to, vote.
[music ♪]
>>Vanetta: I wanted to show you this, what my son bought
for me for Christmas last year.
It's so precious. I was really impressed with the kids at Franklin,
the awesome club that built this mural.
My son went and took a picture of where I was,
and then they made this awesome thousand-piece puzzle.
[music ♪]
>>Vanetta: I started working with the Black Panther Party back
in nineteen sixty-nine, seventy.
I was in Seattle Central Community College at the time.
I had been working with the free breakfast programs and just loving it,
and appreciating that the Black Panthers cared so much.
So they weren't just a Black, leather jacket, beret,
stomping, gun-toting Party.
They cared about the community, and it was what I wanted.
Things needed to change.
[music ♪]
>>Vanetta: I lived in the CD, and I went to seven different elementary schools.
That was mostly because my stepfather moved us
around so much, it was grueling.
Then we lived in the projects.
I thought I was a middle class person when I was living in the projects,
because we had so much space.
Hills of grass, you know, we can run and play on it.
My own bedroom, and there were four of us kids.
Curvy lanes, and couldn't tell me we weren't middle class,
because my teacher told me that most of the people
in this country are middle class.
So, and those were all the people I knew.
We weren't so sad about having to eat government cheese, or beans a lot.
That was the way of life, and my mother was awesome.
She would take us to every free event that popped up in the city.
My mom was a day worker, washing toilets, ooh and I hated,
hated the welfare office coming over to the house and wanting
to look through the closets.
I didn't like that our rights weren't being respected.
I didn't like police brutality.
But as I got older and saw more real poverty,
I didn't like the poverty the most.
It was horrible, I didn't like that at all.
It's got to change, and Black Panthers were
about revolution, which means change.
[music ♪]
>>Vanetta: After I left college, I lived here, seven days a week.
We would sit in a perch and look out just slits.
There would just be a lever, you'd raise it up
and you can look down on the street.
I always get that question, what was it like to be a woman
in the Black Panther Party?
I believe that women joined the Black Panther Party
because of the survival programs.
More so, because we are willing to do the work,
we are willing to help our folks, our kids
and we want everyone's lives to be better.
So we join, and we do the work.
But surprisingly, we weren't pushed into the kitchen to cook, clean,
polish, none of that stuff.
We had duties and we had a list of duties and we rotated between all of us.
Women did the cooking, men did the cooking.
Men did the cleaning, women did the cleaning.
It was shared duties, including being a security guard.
Everyone would do the jobs.
We did take lessons in cleaning guns, taking them apart, of course,
putting them back together.
We had some of that almost every night, so that we'd get very comfortable
with it, very polished with it.
Then we knew how to take care of the weapons and safety.
[music ♪]
>>Vanetta: Oh yeah, that's a pig.
It wasn't like that, the pigs were not caring.
This does not represent that era.
They were afraid of the Black Panthers
and so they were hostile towards the Black Panthers.
J. Edgar Hoover did not want any citizens to like us or support us,
or think that we're doing anything good, because he wanted
to dismantle everything we did, to kill off people if they have to,
or felt they had to, and they made it hard.
Actually, the FBI led raid, they talked to the mayor and said, you know,
"Get ready, we're coming to town and we're going to take that office out."
The mayor says, "No, you can't do that."
That was Wes Olman, and he stopped them from coming in, but we were ready.
I remember shaking a little.
[music ♪]
>>Vanetta: In seventy-one, and for the seventy-two election,
we moved down to California, to Oakland, to help with the campaign
to run Bobby Seale for mayor, and Elaine Brown for city councilwoman.
Many of the chapters sent most of their members to Oakland,
so it was a big number of people that were down there, going door to door,
talking to people, working with the programs there, and it was a good time.
We didn't win, but we made a mark.
What we believe, to love, to unite, to respect, to build,
build our communities, build our health, build our lives.
We started procuring our furniture for the free clinic,
because we'd been talking to Doctor John Green
and he was going to help us get equipment.
We moved in, we were living in this house here between Twenty-First
and Twenty-Second and Union.
[music ♪]
>>Vanetta: We never would have imagined that we had grown to this and to that,
you won't close the door on anybody coming in to the clinic,
that you served everybody and you served them with a great deal of respect.
I can't say that there'd be anything more.
I went to school and became a nurse for thirty some years.
I was doing my thing with the union
and with the nurses' organization, but wasn't real political.
I wasn't out on the street, but the young people, I like what they've done.
They've got connected to the changes in the prisons, the injustice there.
That's major, and they've done a lot more protesting and it shows.
They're becoming leaders themselves.
[music ♪]
>>Winona: Music and idea, ninety-one three, KBCSW,
a listener-supported public service of Bellevue College.
This is Winona Hollins-Hauge and you are tuned to the gospel highway.
That's what we do here, we bring you the very best
of our own homegrown talent, as I like to call it.
Speaking of that, today here a tribute to the Charleston Nine.
These were the church members that were murdered
in the church at a prayer service.
There's a local person by the name of Paula Boggs, with the Paula Boggs Band,
who did a dedication in memory of those slain parishioners.
[music ♪]
>>Winona: Songs like Paula Boggs Band's song, dedication to the Charleston Nine,
speak to how the early teachings of understanding why it's important
to exercise your rights, why it's important to stand up,
why it's important to show up and speak up.
All that was training that I got from the Black Panthers.
[music ♪]
>>Winona: I grew up in the Central Area of Seattle, Washington.
I was in the White schools and I left there and decided, I'm going to go right
down the street to my own school.
I'm not going to get on a bus and go to school anymore.
So being immersed back in the Black community,
I had a sense of, I needed to reconnect.
So I was gravitating and looking for friends, and at that point,
that's when I met Carolyn, which is our famous Carolyn Downs.
She educated us, she told us that she was a member of the Black Panther Party,
and that the Black Panther Party was going to be the savior
for African American children and for the future of the community,
and that they really cared about people.
It was more than just coming to school, getting an education and,
as she said, go work for the White man.
It was bigger than that, she said, her purpose and her sense
of purpose was more than that.
So we got intrigued, I guess we'd have to say,
and we said, "Well, where do you go?
Where do you get this information from?"
She said, "I go up to Thirty-Fourth and Union."
We said, "Okay," so at that point, it was kind of a challenge.
We were more or less just curious, got up there
and saw those handsome leaders and we were like, "O-kay."
We were young girls, and we filled out information cards.
[music ♪]
>>Winona: And we became members, card-carrying members
of the Black Panther Party.
We'd listen and hear all of the rhetoric and learn information.
Basically, my goal was, from that day on, was to just learn
that there were other things to do, besides just be about yourself.
Be caring about what you look like, what you had on,
at that time, we were teenagers.
Our life revolved around the dances, the parties, the clubs at school.
I have to admit personally, we were not as inspired as Carolyn was.
So a couple of times, we went down with her, after school.
We didn't go during school.
Went down to Kress's, which was on the corner, it was a big store downtown.
She'd have a tin can and she'd be there
and it would say Black Panther breakfast program.
She'd be there shaking that can.
[music ♪]
>>Winona: There were some people that were very central to the movement,
and I wasn't one of those that's central to the movement.
Jesse Wineberry has this really interested story that I always remember,
because one night, he was in a car with some kids, and they were driving.
All of a sudden, the police stopped them and the lady came out of her house
and said, "What are you police doing out there?"
We didn't call the police "police" then, we called them "pigs",
I'm sorry, but that's the truth.
They said, "What are you doing out there to those kids?"
This lady was screaming, you know, and she said,
"I'm going to call the Black Panthers."
She went back in her house and she called them.
Jesse said, before you knew it, they were there, they showed up.
They said, "Do you have a warrant?"
Jesse said they were asking all the questions that young boys at that age,
sixteen, would not be asking.
As a result of that, they said, "You'd better put those seats back
in that car," because they had torn out the seats
of the car, just looking for drugs.
So I guess the police got intimidated.
They didn't worry about the boundary of trouble.
If it was the right thing to do, and I think back to Carolyn,
that's exactly the persona that she had.
I'm doing the right thing, so I'm going to keep doing the right thing.
I think that was my very first experience with learning
about the Black Panthers and living on purpose and on mission,
and trying to do something outside of just the realm of what you can do
as an individual, but what you can do as a collective.
For six months was probably about as long as I was active, going to meetings.
That was about it for me, I got kind of gun shy.
I definitely recall one evening when things got really serious.
We were down by Jordan's Drug and Grocery,
and there were Black Panthers and other people there.
But a crowd of people, when a man that lived in an apartment right next
to Jordan's came out with a gun, I think he was trying to scare us.
So he was shooting a gun, up, I assume, up in the air, I don't know.
We didn't stay around to see, but we all scattered and ran.
I guess it was his way of saying, I'm White, I'm living here next to Jordan's
and don't you kids get on my property and don't you people come near me.
That was a very scary, scary experience and from then,
I started to see a different side.
I was worried, I began to be more worried about,
now what am I actually doing?
What is this?
It wasn't so much about the Black Panthers at that moment.
It was about our world at that moment.
It became a very scary time in my young, teenage life to know that--
it seemed to me like the whole world was exploding, that things were happening
that we had no control over.
[crowd chanting]
>>Winona: So that was a period of time that I look back on
and saw the crossroads of, I want to be an advocate, but I want to be safe too.
So I turned to being in student government.
One other thing that I remember us doing is collecting at the games.
We would help Carolyn get money, but we wouldn't go out of school to do it.
We would help collect money for the free breakfast program,
because we really believed in that.
I believe that at the very core of my being, that the influence,
early influence of the Black Panthers made a difference on how I show up,
how I speak up and how I stand up in my life.
I'm a much better person.
But I think the heart for the people is still reflected
in whatever it is that we do.
I know it's reflected in my life, like Grandmothers Against Gun Violence.
All the different things with my sorority, Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
I'm the social justice chair for the National Council of Negro Women.
We're here in this relocated clinic, and I look back today and I think,
I'm so sorry she's not here to see the fruits of her labor,
to see all the children that have been served
between Odessa Brown Children's Clinic and Carolyn Brown's.
Now, the reason I know that is because I was a director of social work here
at Odessa Brown Children's Clinic.
Through our church, Mount Zion Baptist Church,
I'm very active there with the health ministry.
[music ♪]
>>Winona: This is Winona Hollins-Hauge and you are tuned to the gospel highway.
It's actually our fourteenth year of being on the air.
I might consider that my fun ministry.
I love bringing the very best religious gospel music to people.
It's not like putting a bible in someone's face.
It's kind of like saying, listen to the words
of this song and you will be convicted.
If you are to be convicted, you will be convicted.
The Black Panthers took it upon themselves to create that movement.
But here we are, fast forward, in now, to a Black Lives Matter type movement.
But there's going to be a movement, and who the leaders will be,
I hope my children will be out there.
I hope my children's children will be out there.
But I think we're all in it for the long haul.
I don't think that any one group
or any one organization can shoulder the burden.
I think it's about all of us using whatever power of influence
and affluence that we have to make a difference in somebody else's life,
beyond just what we're living here for ourselves.
It's bigger than who we are.
[music ♪]