Rally for Huey P. Newton (February 17, 1968)
First of all, I'd like to start out by thanking brother Cleaver and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. See, unlike America would have us believe, the greatest problem confronting this country today is not pollution and bad breath. [laughter] It's black people. It's black people. See, that's just one of the big lies that America tells you and that you go for 'cause you chumps. You go for it. One of the lies that we tell ourselves is that we're making progress; but Huey's chair's empty. We're not making progress. We tend to equate progress with concessions. We can no longer make that mistake. You see, when they gave us that black astronaut, you say we were making progress, but I told you they were going to lose him in space. He didn't get that far. [applause] They gave you Thorgood Marshall, and you said we were making progress. Thorgood Marshall is a tom of the highest order. Anybody who sits down before...anybody who sits before James O. Eastland--a camel-breath, peckerwood nasty honkey from Mississippi...[applause]...and lets James O. Eastland subject him to the type of questioning that he did, he's a strange breed of man. You put Adam Clayton Powell in office and you couldn't keep him; what you think they gonna do with Thorgood Marshall when they get tired of him? They gave you Walter Washington, of Washingtom DC, and you said we were making progress; that's not progress. See, it's no in between: you're either free or you're a slave. There's no such thing as second class citizenship. That's like telling me you can be a little bit pregnant.
