Getting It Together in the 70's:

COPYRICHT, 1970, BY THE HARVARD CRIMSON

(The author, a Nieman Fellow this year at Harvard, has reported the Black Revolution for the Washington Post and Time Magazine since 1960. In 1967, he joined Time's Saigon Bureau, becoming Deputy Bureau Chief in the following year.

Terry recently interviewed four of America's leading black spokesmen-Julian Bond, 30, member of the Georgia House of Representatives since 1965: Jesse Jackson, 28, director of the Chicago based Operation Breadbasket; Bobby Seale, 33, chairman of the Black Panther Party: and Whitney Young, 48, executive director of the National Urban League.

Portions of those interviews appeared in a special issue of Time Magazine devoted to Black America in 1970. Terry asked the black leaders an identical set of questions on the current state and future of American race relations.

This is the first of a two-part series. The second part will appear in Wednesday's CRIMSON.)

TERRY: Where does the black American go from here in his drive for a racially equal society? If hat should he do?

JULIAN BOND: We should develop greater unity in the black community. There ought to be at least a community-wide consensus of what ought to be done, politically, socially, economically and educationally.

In Atlanta, we're going to have two black candidates running in the same Congressional district. Two black candidates can only hurt the prospect of one being elected. The black percentage is 81 percent. The winner has to get all of the black vote plus a sizeable white vote.

The multiplicity of groups in a Harlem is good, but there ought to be at least the most general kind of consensus of what's desirable for the whole community.

JESSE JACKSON: The first thing we must do during this period of repression is not panic, spend all of our time reacting to Nixon, Moynihan, and that crowd. and spend no time acting upon our own problems.

If we become economic liabilities, the computer will make a decision to wipe us out because we're not needed. Seeing ourselves as economic entities, we become one of the most potentially potent forces relative to the American economy. We are the margin of profit of every major item produced in America from General Motors cars down to Kellogg's Corn Fakes. We have the power to cut their margin of profit, which is their very reason for being.

"Black people, moving in fifty cities simultaneously and collectively-that's where nationalism comes in-against General Motors with a work slow-down can jam America's biggest industry-its auto industry. China can't do that. Cuba can't do that, of course. Russia can't do it. The European Common Market can't do it. That's a helluva lot of power if you realize that you've got that power.

We must deal with black history long enough to get psychological self-esteem and some sense of self-appreciation, but we must move immediately into an analysis of the black present and see it as colonialism built on economic prerogatives rather than moral prerogatives and then spend most of our energy on the black future. And black studies should study the nature of the enemy, not just the nature of the brother.

If we're going to control the institutions in our community, we must not only displace whites, we must be able to replace whites. We can't get trapped into a condition where we need an airplane and have to beg the enemy to fly it for us. We can't take over the bank and then have to be a listener rather than a teller, because we don't have the science of finance.

The real challenge for black students is to come back to the black community with some ability to help lead us in the black future and not just remind us of the black past, which, by and large, ain't written down in the books they're studying now.

Our case in the court has to be fought by black lawyers, our case in the redistribution of power has to be fought by intelligent black politicians with some sense of sociology and some sense of economics. Our fight in the hospitals has to be led by black doctors.

YOUNG: I think it's clear that a slightly new strategy is called for. Any further riots will be met with swift massive law enforcement, so riots as a possible tool certainly quickly outlived their usefulness. I think the tactic of violence or at least the expression of violent intent was dramatically shown to be totally inadequate and useless as dramatized in the case of the Panthers more recently.

There are three or four viable techniques. There is economic power which can be mobilized to reward one's friends and punish one's enemies. There is brain power, where one can, through sheer competence and excellence, move into strategic places in the Establishment, the corporate world, the political world and from that vantage point have an influence on policy And there is political power.

I feel economic and brain power are both the best long-range instruments, but it takes some time for those to be mobilized for people who have a history of being denied opportunities for education and for economic power. The political can be mobilized immediately and I think therein lies the hope for rapid change.

I don't think this can be handled by blacks: I think it's necessary to form an alliance with others who. I believe, will form alliances, not out of a feeling of great compassion or because they are overly moralistic, but because it is to their own enlightened self-interest to seek stable communities free of disorder and violence, to gain the credibility with their young.

BOBBY SEALE: Black people, brothers and sisters in this country, have to move to a level of a revolutionary struggle in terms of what we understand to be the true enemy, the enemy who perpetuates tyranny and oppression, the enemy who perpetuates poverty and the wretched conditions that we're subjected to in the black community.

This enemy, as Eldridge always puts it. is at three levels of oppression, known as the big-time, tycooning, avaricious businessman, lying, demagogic, tricky politicians, and the Fascist pig cops, militia, and pig agents who work for the avaricious demagogic ruling class.

Black people's direction would be to wage a relentless revolutionary struggle against the three levels of oppression. Our direction will be alliance with other peoples of color who are poor and oppressed or subjected to poverty and wretched oppression. Our direction as a black people will be that of a massive, 30 million or more-which is what I believe the real population of black America is-thirty million or more black people being a vanguard type people of a revolutionary struggle.

We already know we're black and beautiful and that black people are going to a higher level as human beings to defend themselves and align themselves with other peoples in the same common poverty and oppression.

TERRY: What will happen in the next decade to the black drive for a racially equal society?

BOND: I tend to be pessimistic, rather than optimistic. While income for black has been increasing, it has not been increasing apace with whites. We're not moving up fast enough, so the gap is getting wider. I think that's going to continue.

The physical aspects of poverty may be eliminated in the next several decades. Slum housing might disappear. But poverty itself would still be here. Then people would find it easier to ignore poverty because it won't be an eyesore.

Politically, you're going to see many more black elected city officials. Baltimore could have a black mayor. So could Detroit. Newark, Los Angeles and Kansas City. We're coming into politics the same way the Irish did. We're a group with a lot in common with each other. The Irish used politics to lift themselves up as a group, controlling New York at one time. Boston at another.

The difficulty is that in that car it was attractive to run Boston. You had jobs to give away under the patronage system. Now patronage is disappearing in American government and being replaced by civil service. Moreover, the city itself is just not a healthy animal anymore. So we are taking it over at a time when no one wants it. We are seizing on a dead horse.

It is a mixed blessing. It would be good to have a black mayor of Baltimore, but like other cities, its tax base is fading. It can't supply its citizens with all the services it should. So unless there is some kind of state and federal help, these political gains will not be what we think they are.

The police forces in this country are too well organized. They have too many armaments, like helicopters and tanks that shoot through whole rows of buildings. The same techniques learned in Vietnam are brought back to this country, ready for use against the local insurgents. But you are going to have sporadic incidents of violence. You'll see more clashes like the ones between the Black Panthers and the police in Chicago. It won't always be initiated by the police. You will see a sudden and very quick clash between the black community and the police.

The black community has discovered that the percentage in a riot, although I think that it is a very fine political expression of discontent, is a losing one. How many people were killed in Watts and how much property destroyed? The only loss is a loss to us.

JACKSON: You are going to see blacks begin to rely more upon their own political power than you did two years ago. But you've got more blacks doing it now. In all levels. Even the gradualism guys are trying to use muscle now, as they begin to take over the institutions. Even the black politicians are beginning to demand more, even those trapped in party machines.

YOUNG: Historically, we have reacted to tragedy and to crisis. I don't believe at this point the majority of the American public, or the political leadership in most places, feels that race and poverty is of a sufficient threat to the society and that anything significant will come. This means that invariably you will have an escalation of tension and/or protest in which not just blacks but young whites will participate, particularly if we ever get out of Vietnam. The young white whose energies and concerns are now directed at Vietnam will then turn back to the domestic area.

At the same time, you will have dumped into the American community life young black veterans from Vietnam who have reached a very high point of bitterness and despair and who, having suffered for what they felt were dubious reasons, now are going to be impatient and refuse to accept injustice. They are coming back with skills in warfare, with a new confidence and with no feelings of inferiority.

I doubt that returning veterans will turn to riots. But, with white revolutionaries, they may encourage blacks to engage in things like guerrilla warfare and sabotage, disruption of power services, things that can paralyze the city. It doesn't take a large number of people to do it. I think the initial reaction to this will be attempts at massive suppression and vindictiveness and making an example of people. I think we'll have that for a period until people recognize that containment of blacks will not be the answer.

SEALE: First, you have no pat blueprint for revolution. Second, I see the power structure moving into a Fascist state, a 1984, George Orwell's 1984, where they say. "Big Brother is watching you."

As a whole, I see the power structure moving to take away Constitutional rights, not only with black people but, as we can see with the Chicago 7, and many other peoples, they aim to take away white people's, too. I see more Fascist oppression to be meted out upon the heads of Afro-America, Latino peoples, Chinese peoples, brown peoples, poor white peoples, progressive and liberal white peoples, revolutionary organizations of all kinds. And at the same time, I see a lot of black people, white people, red and brown people becoming politically educated and moving to organize to oppose the Fascist regime that's being built.

I know that the people are going to have to move for community control, what the Panther Party's program calls decentralization of the police departments-when the people in the community control them. The people in the community are going to have to move for control over the guns in the hands of these bigoted fools.

TERRY: What are your recommendations for achieving black goals in the next decade?

BOND: We should end the war first. We should not only redirect the money-which President Nixon says won't happen-but redirect the minds that are used to plot the war.

Second, Congress has to make good on its promises of almost 30 years ago when the first public housing act was passed, that every American will live in a decent home.

Third, you must guarantee full employment. You have to provide income maintenance for those who cannot earn an income. You need to make work programs, diversion of the war economy into the civilian economy. We should break the control of the unions over the skilled trades. It's ridiculous that in a city like New York you have so much difficulty getting a plumber. Why couldn't the plumbers union let some blacks in? It's not going to hurt their pocketbook.

You can reduce the work week. Guarantee income. Improve the welfare system. All sorts of techniques for putting money in people's