Will Berson
Fred Hampton Monologues
Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
America's on fire right now and until the fire is extinguished don't nothin' else mean a goddamn thing.
Anywhere there is people, there is power.
I am a revolutionary!
Reform - it's just the masters teaching the slaves how to be better slaves.
Housing, justice, peaceā¦ Life, liberty, happiness. I mean, it's all right there in the Declaration of Independence. But when poor people demand it, it's a contradiction -- it's not Democracy, it's Socialism.
My feet cold, your feet cold.
But that's Socialism, man. Well, you gotta warm 'em up, though. How you think Mao did the Long March, huh? The Chinese would warm these feet left and right.
It's not a question of violence or non-violence. It's a question of resistance to fascism or non-existence within fascism! You can murder a liberator, but you can't murder liberation. You can murder a revolutionary, but you can't murder a revolution. And you can murder a freedom fighter but you can't murder freedom! I am a revolutionary! I am a revolutionary! I am a revolutionary! I am a revolutionary!
I don't believe I'm gonna die in no car wreck! I don't believe I'm gonna die slippin' on no ice! I don't believe I'm gonna die 'cause I got a bad heart! I believe I'm gonna die doing what I was born for! I believe I'm gonna die high off the people! I'm gonna die for the people, 'cause I live for the people! I live for the people, 'cause I love the people!
Drummer, lemme hear the people beat! This is what we call the people beat. Started in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. It's the beat that manifests in you, the people. They can't never stop the party, unless they stop the people!
There's strength in numbers. Power anywhere there's people.
You don't fight racism with racism. We gonna fight with solidarity.
We ain't gonna fight capitalism with Black capitalism, we gonna fight capitalism with socialism.
So, if you were asked to make a commitment at age 20, and you said, 'I'm too young to die,' then you're dead already! If you dare to struggle, you dare to win! If you dare not struggle, then, God damn it, you don't deserve to win!
Malcolm X College, I can dig it. Dr. Charles Hurst, direct from Howard. Right on. So, what? You think the students over there gonna be free now? Oh, they'll let you change the name of your college, or your own name, throw on a dashiki. 'Cause guess what? They still gonna drag your Black ass to Vietnam to shoot a poor rice farmer or get shot your damn self. That's the difference between revolution and the candy-coated facade of gradual reform. Reform is just the masters teaching the slaves how to be better slaves. Under reform, you could take the motherfucking masters out, and the slaves still be doin' all the work for 'em. There's a man called a capitalist. Don't matter what color he is, black, white, brown, red, don't matter. Because the capitalist has one goal. And that is to exploit the people. He can have on a three-piece suit or a dashiki, 'cause political power doesn't flow from the sleeve of a dashiki. Political power flows from the barrel of a gun. We in the Black Panther Party don't believe in no culture except revolutionary culture. What we mean by that is a culture that will free you! Don't give me no five-and-dime costume of a medicine man or a witch doctor, or whatever you think the motherland look like. Give me the righteous threads of a Mozambican FRELIMO fighter.
When I look at that, I don't see no flag hanging. I see my uncle hanging from a tree. And a bunch of white devils like y'all, smiling around his body.
We don't fight fire with fire, we fight fire with water.
The pigs do everything in their power to keep us isolated. Because they know, the day we get organized, it's over for their asses.
What if the overseer had banded with the slaves and cut the master's throat? What then, comrade? We might not be in this funky-ass ghetto right now.
Our job as the Black Panther Party is to heighten the contradictions.
The poet. What a pleasant surprise.
Well, that must have been a misprint. See, I don't write speeches, sister. I just get up on stage and speak truth to the people.
A dashiki ain't gonna help you when they come up in here with them tanks, like they did in Henry Horner.
Put a fist in the air for Comrade Jimmy Palmer. Jimmy Palmer died a revolutionary death. He stood face-to-face and toe-to-toe with pig Daley's henchmen, and made the greatest sacrifice one could ever make.