Former Georgia Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney delivered the following speech in New York
City, December 9. We consider it one her best, ever.
I want to thank The Coalition
to Save BUF New York for inviting me to be here this evening.
You know that when you call, I try my best to be available. How can
anyone say "no" to New York City!
In politics, I've learned that friendship is a very rare thing. The
temptation to sell out friends sometimes is very high. Likewise, the
temptation to sell out conscience is also very high.
That's because tremendous profits can be made if shaving around the margins
of conscience is permitted; if shaving around the margins of ethics is permitted;
if reshaping the law to unlevel the playing field is committed – huge profits
can be had. And so, it is in the interest of the powers that be who
stand to make those profits to share a bit of it with those in a position
to change the environment so that the shaving can become possible or acceptable.
So, we shouldn't take it lightly when a sitting Member of Congress says that
he was bribed on
the House floor – a crime, to be sure – to ensure that he violated his conscience
and voted for the President's Medicare bill. The leaders in the Republican
Party told the retiring Congressman that $100,000 could flow into his son's
campaign coffers if the Congressman were to vote right. Now, you can
imagine that more than anything else, this Congressman would want his son
to follow him into the world's most powerful parliament. But this particular
Congressman had a conscience. He had ethics. He didn't want an
unlevel playing field for our nation's seniors. And so, he voted no
despite the bribe.
But when that Congressman voted his conscience, he was told that his son
could kiss help from the Republicans goodbye.
Now, the question is, how much will Republicans get from their corporate
friends if one vote in the Congress was worth a hundred thousand dollars? And
what exactly does that Medicare bill do to us? And what does it give
to the corporations?
This scenario bears resemblance to the problem that we are here to discuss
tonight, and that is, the attack on black leadership.
Now, if they would do that to one of their own, just imagine what they do
to us.
But we don't have to imagine what they do to us. We know.
On December 4th, we commemorated the life and the murder
of Fred Hampton, Chair of the Chicago Chapter of the Black
Panther Party - or at least we
tried to, but the videotaped beating murder of Nathaniel Jones by Cincinnati
police kept distracting us. We commemorate Fred Hampton's life because
he was young, articulate, charismatic – he could have been a Congressman
from Chicago. And should have been. Except that he was black
and he had a conscience and he wanted to better the conditions of his people. And
so, instead of a promising political career, Fred Hampton was executed by
Chicago police with two point-blank shots fired into his head. His
pregnant fiancée was lying in the bed next to him.
But by this time, remember, the FBI had already articulated its
policy that there would be no other Martin Luther King Jr.-type
black leader
who had
not been pre-selected by them. In 1965 the CIA wrote that somewhere
at the top there must be a clean Negro who could step into the vacuum and
chaos if Martin Luther King Jr. were either exposed or assassinated. But
just like Dr. King before him, Fred Hampton was that kind of unbuyable, unbossable
black leader who might just ignite the black and white masses to unite and
overthrow the regime that had so corrupted American politics. And interestingly,
in both of those cases, there was a black man, planted beside these two giants,
but who was doing the bidding of the political elites – for a buck. In
the case of Fred Hampton, the black man who assisted the FBI in Hampton's
murder was Fred's own bodyguard, William O'Neal, who after Hampton's murder
was given a "bonus" from the FBI for his work. As for
Dr. King, it is now documented that his own SCLC accountant, Mr. James
Harrison,
was a paid informant for the FBI.
Yes, friendship and principle and conviction are rare things in
politics.
But our leaders weren't only targeted in these two somewhat recent
cases. Government
documents reveal that our leaders have been targeted as far back as Marcus
Garvey. In a Justice Department memo dated October 11, 1919, J. Edgar
Hoover writes that Marcus Garvey is "an exceptionally fine orator, creating
much excitement among the negroes" and at another point in the same
document Hoover writes, "Unfortunately, however, he has not as yet violated
any federal law whereby he could be proceeded against on the grounds of being
an undesirable alien, from the point of view of deportation." The
Justice Department then paid a black man, a Mr. James Wormley Jones, to work
his way into a position of trust at UNIA. The resultant "mail
fraud" charges were all that could be cooked up against Garvey,
but were enough to land him in the Atlanta federal prison and then
deported as
an undesirable alien.
Now in each of these three cases, someone close to the person in
question was secretly working for the other side. And while Garvey might be
counted among the first to be targeted in such a way that we know about,
certainly King and Hampton weren't the last. But seemingly, all it
took to earn a "bullseye" was fine oratory skills, charisma, a
plan, and some action on behalf of our people. In the meantime, I wonder
whatever happened to Wormley, Harrison, and O'Neal. Did they
live long lives in prosperity after their betrayal of our leaders?
And if they did, what a metaphor for the state of black leadership
today. To
shake the tree is to make the fruit drop, but also is to suffer.
To come along and pick up the fruit makes one fat, wealthy, and wise.
But what becomes of a community that rewards only those whose only
function is to pick up the fruit somebody else shook to the ground? What happens
when there ain't no more fruit laying on the ground to be picked up? What
does the community then do? In other words, if the Cincinnati power
structure has managed to buy off all the black leaders who will come to the
defense of the next Nathaniel Jones? Or pick any city? What does
a people do when it has allowed all of its leaders to be "neutralized" or
picked by the opposing side?
In the face of stiff, at times illegal, government action, it has
become clear that to be a tree shaker is a difficult if not outright
deadly occupation. But
what do we do now that all the fruit is just about gone?
The fruit that's already on the ground is Brown versus Board of
Education; The 1964 Civil Rights Act; the 1965 Voting Rights Act;
the Fair Housing
Act; Motor Voter. All various forms of affirmative action. It's protection
from police brutality and capricious government or government-sanctioned
actions against us individually or as a group. That's the fruit that
Malcolm and Martin and Garvey and Hampton and millions of others
struggled for.
Oh well, school boards across the country have declared Brown dead
and resegregation is almost a fait accompli. After a few rounds against Denny's, Cracker
Barrel, Adams Mark Hotels the Civil Rights Act is still intact, but without
its sister act for economic affirmative action, only a few – perhaps the
few who pick up the fruit – can afford the services or to fight back if the
services are not provided. My 1996 redistricting case dealt a severe
blow to the authority of the Voting Rights Section of the Justice Department
to correct offending behavior by states and local jurisdictions wanting to
discriminate against black voters. And the Supreme Court just about
took care of the rest by defining down what could trigger an infringement
on black voting power. Of course, every time we fail to vote
we further seal our disfranchisement and give the other side exactly
what they want.
You could say that the tree shakers of the Civil Rights moment in
our country's history gave us the America and the rights that we
enjoy today.
However, while we were celebrating those who were picking up that
wonderful fruit – and I've been one of them – our community forgot to celebrate those
who shook it down in the first place. And what a pity we don't even
know about those who betrayed the brave men and women who fought so hard
for us to be able to enjoy this country as full citizens. We
don't know about them, but we can see what they did to our movement.
Today, our children struggle to gain admission to college while
we fight off attempts to privatize elementary education; we struggle
to get equal
health care from a system of unequal access to doctors; our businesses
struggle to get government contracts although we all pay taxes; and the districts
that once elected us have been diluted so that white political parties share
the spoils of black voting patterns. And instead of rigorous
examination of the challenges before us, increasingly we have elected
representatives
who run away from us.
Now, I want to fast forward to Election Day in November of this
year, in the city of Philadelphia. The black incumbent mayor who joyfully exclaimed
one day that "black folks are running this town" – kinda the way
Charles Barron talks now – is up for reelection against Republican
Stan Katz.
Now, I don't know John Street, but I do know that when I was in my
redistricting problem, despite the fact that he didn't know me, he
sent help to Georgia
because he knew that the attack on me was not an attack just on me, but
an attack on black political power and independence.
But something happened along the way to John Street's reelection. Can
you imagine the FBI sitting around a table trying to figure out a way to
entrap Mayor Street? Well, that's exactly what happened. The
FBI, as you probably now know, planted bugs in Mayor Street's office because
the campaign season was approaching and they hoped to find him doing something
wrong. They said, we have to act now to get the bugs in
while he needs to raise money.
Can you believe that?
But what's also unbelievable is that a black man in the Street
Administration was targeted and lost his job along with his
reputation, because he wanted
to get more city contracts to black businesses in a town that's
50% black.
Can you believe that?
In other words, if we have to give you the seat, don't mess with
who gets the
money. Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice, Ward Connerly, Colin Powell and
others whose names might be more local, parade around our communities,
this
country, and the world carrying out policies that betray the very
movement of the
people we say we revere. And they do that in our name.
Can you believe that?
It is past time for us to take stock of our situation and understand
the critical role that tree shakers play in our community.
Just because the big downtown newspapers excoriate them doesn't
mean we should too.
And conversely, if those same big downtown newspapers praise
them, it certainly doesn't mean that we should too.
More than likely, if they are being excoriated it is for
a reason. And
all too often that reason is because they are charismatic, energetic,
have a plan, and are acting on behalf of our people.
We cannot listen to people and institutions whose agenda runs
counter to ours and be swayed by their public statements without
critical
analysis of
their motivation.
I'm sick of seeing black man after black man after black man
after black man sleeping on our city streets and no one in high
office
doing anything
about it.
I'm tired of reading story after story about the young Latino
men and women in the military who hope to become American citizens
by
offering up their
bodies on the frontlines of an illegal war.
And I'm sick and tired of seeing the people who are trying
to make our communities and our country better mistreated
sometimes
even
by us, the people they are
trying to help.
Instead of real leaders like Garvey, Malcolm, King, and
Hampton, COINTELPRO offers us handpicked "court priests" who
are more loyal to the power-wielders than to the people.
Today they have plied our community full of these COINTELPRO "court
priests" and they are given the airwaves to make you
believe in them, to make you look up to them, so that your
children want
to be
just like them.
Finally, the news media will make all kinds of outrageous
and outlandish statements about anyone who fights for justice
and who is not afraid
to stand up and speak out. And as for black leaders, some would rather have
us seen and not heard. They'd love for us to just sit down and shut
up. But I posit to you today that that is not what
Garvey was deported for or Malcolm, Martin, or Hampton
died for.
In fact, silence is consent. And that's not leadership at all. That's
selling out.
But if the objective is to have real leadership, and not
just somebody leading, then we – the community – must be
prepared to walk that lonely, friendless road with our
leaders who
have the courage to
stand up.
So every time you read a scorching article about Alton
Maddox – although
he writes them himself now – know that he has struck a nerve that makes him
a target. The powers that be just wish that he would go away. Just
like me. But he won't. He's made of sterner stuff. Alton
Maddox just goes on and on and on and on.
And when something unflattering is aired over the radio
about BUF New York, just recognize that BUF New York must've
done something for the
community
that the power structure didn't want and so they struck
back
in such a way as to make you lose confidence in their
leadership. Just
like we saw with Garvey and until today with Mayor
Street, they will even make up stuff
to turn you against your true leaders.
Now is not the time for us to run away from the people
who make things happen for our community and our country. Now is the time for us to run toward
them and to give them the one thing that is in such short supply these days
in our mean-spirited, lop-sided struggle for justice in this country and
in our policies around the world. We must give them
true friendship.
And while we all lament the plight of Cincinnati blacks who
have seen 16 unarmed black men murdered by their police over
these
past 6 years, let's
also pause to celebrate the lives of the people who take the
front line every day in defense of our community.
Thank you for inviting me to be here to celebrate the active
vision of Betty Dopson, Viola Plummer, Bob Law, Alton
Maddox, Kermit Eady,
Dr.
McIntosh,
Leonard Dunston, and Mr. Powell. Let's show these
folks our love.