~

we also label these with the same designa-tion of enemy. The distinction betweenthe struggle for survival against the physi-cal environment, and the struggle againstthe antagonistic forces and situations inthe social realm is a very important distinc-tion to make, because often the strugglein the social realm is really the onlystruggle that many people are caught upin. They are not directly involved in strug-gling against the physical environment, buttheir survival does depend upon strugglingwithin the social realm, in terms of howthe economy is organized, how the politicalsystem is organized, and how the socialsystem itself is organized, so that manylives are played out against this back-ground of struggling against the way civil-ization is presently organized.

The struggle against the physical en-vironment, of course, is primary. We haveorganized our social situation in order tocope with the physical environment. Theway that we organize agriculture, the waythat we organize industry, the way that weorganize the economy as a whole, the waythat we organize the political situation, allhistorically have been towards facilitatingand better enabling us to cope with thenhv~i~al environment.

A T THIS POINT I think it would be usefulto establish some terminology .The bestterminology I know of, for discussing thisdistinction between the struggle withinthe physical environment and the struggle

~ ~ ..A.-.'~..8~B .B~B

O NE WAY OF UNDERSTANDING what'sgoing on, on the college and the

high school campuses in the UnitedStates today, is to examine the essenceof education. Basically an education passesthe heritage, learning, the wisdom and thetechnology of human history to the cominggenerations. We want this information tobe passed on to enable and to help man-kind continue to survive and cope with theenvironment. In terms of surviving andcoping with our environment, basically,we have two worlds to deal with. We havethe natural world -the task of survivingagainst the given world, the task of ekinga living from the earth itself, for whichtechnology has been designed. On theother hand we have the social world, thesocial situation. We have an antagonisticorientation to both of these worlds. Wespeak about the natural enemies of man,including everything from animals to theweather, and these elements have beengiven the label of enemy because they cankill people. We have to be able to harnessthese forces, we have to be able to adaptto the natural situation so that our survivalwill be enhanced, and for this purpose, sci-ence and technology , agriculture and in-dustry , all of these tools have been devel-oped by mankind through practice in cop-ing with this physical environment.

We are in the habit of speaking aboutcertain things that happen in the socialsituation that are hostile and inimical tothe nro.-:nect of survival for mankind. and

~.-r ..

ELDRIDGE CLEAVER is Minister of Infonnation forthe Black Panther Party and author of the best-selling book, Soul On Ice. He is a product of theSan Quentin Prison, where he served nine years.While still on parole, Cleaver was implicated in ashootout between fellow Panthers and Oaklandpolicemen. When his parole was revoked, he fledthe country for Africa and is now exiled in Algiers.He is currently International Editor for Rampartsmagazine.

by ELDRIDGE CLEAVER

within the social environment, is the tenni-nology developed by Karl Marx. He desig-nates the struggle against or within thephysical environment as taking place with-in the economic base of society .And, uponthe economic base of society is erectedthe superstructure of society .Thus thestruggle within the social realm takes placewithin the superstructure and the strugglein the physical realm takes places withinthe economic base. In the economic basewe find the natural resources, the technol-ogy , the industry , all the machines andthe tools and the means that mankind hasdeveloped for coping with the physicalenvironment. They are designated as themeans of production, the means of produc-ing material wealth, goods and commodi-ties from the natural resources themselves.But all of the institutions of society, every-thing from the educational facilities to thehospitals and the postal service, everythingbelonging to the organized aspect of soci-ety , exist within the social superstructure,which has been built and sustained by ourmeans of producing material wealth.

Let's get to the essence of an education.In a very simple-structured social organiza-tion, where technology and learning havenot become complex, it would be possiblefor one's 'father or one's uncle to pass onthe technology. Your father could teachyou how to fish or your father could teachyou how to fann at a rudimentary agricul-turallevel. He could teach you how to huntwith a spear or a rock, or bow and arrow.

THE SLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

But as the economic condition becomesmore complex, and as the level of informa-tion and knowledge and understanding ofthe environment increases, to the extentthat society requires people to specializein passing on this information, then theproblem of education really sets in. Whenit was necessary for people to be desig-nated as teachers and to specialize in, ordevote all their time to, passing on thisinformation, the learning situation itselfhad to be centralized as an institution.Schools, universities, etc., were developedso that the ~aximum productive use of aman's time and energy could be made.Now you can readily understand how in avery complex social situation it would beunderstood by the community, by every-body involved in the social unit, that theseplaces or institutions of learning were thereto serve and to benefit the community asa whole. It would be absurd for a teacheror one who is charged with administeringthe learning process as a whole, it wouldbe absurd for him to alienate himself fromthe community as a whole or to claim thathe owns the body of information that is aheritage to mankind; this would be absurd,it would not be tolerated by the commu-

nity.Of course I have been writing as though

society was an organism in which peoplewere in harmony with each other, in whichthey cooperated with each other and inwhich they were not waging wars of ag-gression against each other and were not

PAGE 45

class college students, all find ourselves

in the position wherein our lives are

manipulated and controlled by those who

have this advantaged social position.

We have to struggle in order to survive.

But we're not struggling against the natural

environment, our struggle is not in reality

taking place against nature itself, but we

are struggling against the way society has

been organized. We are struggling against

those who have organized society to their

advantage, in order to continue their con-

trol and rule of the entire social unit. It is

very important for us to understand that

we are called upon to wage this struggle

with the same desperation and the same

"do or die" necessity that a caveman in

some forgotten time in human history had

to struggle against the natural elements. In

reality, our adversaries are other men,

other women and other social classes. In

terms of the racial strife within the United

States our class struggle is often hidden by

our ethnic struggle. We are manipulated

along the color line as well as along the

class line. We are exploited economically,

and we are discriminated against racially,

also.

T ODAY, AS ALWAYS, the struggle of the

exploited people within the United States

is taking place on all fronts, but the most

sensational and explosive clashes are being

centered and focussed more and more on

the college campuses and on the high

school campuses. We understand that those

who control the mind can control the body,

so that those who are interested in keeping

people in oppressed positions and then

dominating their perspective and their out-

look on life, know that it is necessary for

them to control the learning process in

order to brainwash people, in order to

camouflage the true nature of the society.In order to sanctify their system, they

teach the exploited people and the op-

pressed people to virtually love the systemthat is exploiting and oppressing them.

This oligarchy has an interest in seeing to

it that the content of the curriculum is to

its liking, and that it does not expose the

THE SLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

in conflict with each other. But in actualfact and in terms of human history suchharmony has not been the case.

In human history, we see that society hasbeen broken up into classes, into antagonis-tic ethnic and economic groups that strug-gle against each other for survival as eachsees it. They enslave each other and maketheir living at the expense of other groups,special interest groups are formed, etc. Sothat in reality we have to look at our ownsituation, have to look at the situation thatexists in the economic base in terms of theclass struggle, also in terms of the ethnicstruggles that have gone on. When we lookat our own situation today in the UnitedStates, we find that those who are verypowedul in our society are powedul be-cause of their relationship to the means ofproduction, because they are rich, becausethey own the factories and because theyown the natural resources. With this eco-nomic power they are able to gain controlof all the institutions in society, they areable to appoint people who themselvesmay not be rich, or may not O\VD stock, orhave any control over the means of produc-tion of the natural resources, but becauseof their extensive education are able tobe appointed to positions of managingsociety.

But at the top of the social organizationin the United States, we have the rulingclass mentioned; and because of the wealthof this ruling class, it is able to domillateAmerican society and control Americansociety, able to determine what judges areappointed to the judicial system, able todetermine who is appointed to the Boardof Regents to administer the colleges, andable even to determine who is elected tooffice, because it controls the wealth, andhas vast amounts of money at its disposalto wage a political campaign.

Those who control the economy of theUnited States are able to control the restof society .Those of us who are not in thisadvantaged position, black people, Mexi-can-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Indians,Eskimos, virtually every ethnic group in-cluding poor white people and also middle

PAGE 46

T HE PROCESS of breaking out of slavery,the process of breaking out of a set ofsocial arrangements, out of a social organ-ization that is killing us, this process isnamed revolution; we are revolting andrebelling and moving against a system thatis our enemy. For us the word "revolution"should be a beautiful word because it's aword that promises us hope, that promisesus a better life and we should not beashamed to call ourselves revolutionaries.We are a revolutionary people, our verysocial situation forces us to be a revolu-tionary people. If we are not going to berevolutionary people, we have to acceptthe designation of satisfied slaves; if wearen't satisfied, then that means we havea revolutionary consciousness. It is impor-tant for us to be consciously revolutionary ,to understand that we are revolutionaries,and to understand that it is right for usto be revolutionaries and that in fact theenemies are the ones who are wrong.

The enemy uses words against us, talksabout "crime in the streets," talks about"disorders," talks about "law and order,"all of these words are smoke screens, aresmoke screens to confuse us, to create con-flicts between the various exploited groupsand to turn them against each other. It isthe old technique of divide and conquer .What we need and what -if we had anysense at all -what we would be workingfor is to create an alliance between all theexploited people within the society so thatwe could join together to create machinery ,coordinate our struggle, and coordinateour attack against the capitalist system anddestroy it. Because as along as the capital-ist system exists, by its very nature somepeople will have to be exploited in orderfor others to be rich and powedul, so thatthe exploited are powerless and in an op-pressed position. Therefore revolution is aglorious term, it is a tenn to be proud ofand we should know that we are morallyright, we are right in every sense of theterm and that the oppressor is the one whois wrong and that the oppressor has norights which the oppressed are bound to

respect.

true nature of the decadent and racist soci-ety that we live in.

On the other hand, the exploited andoppressed people have the opposite inter-est in exposing the true nature of thesociety and in educating ourselves and ourchildren on the nature of the struggle andin transferring to them the means for wag-ing the struggle so they can be aware ofthe level of the struggle, of the progressand the history of the struggle and thenature of the enemy and the true vulner-ability of the enemy. In other words, wewant to be able to teach ourselves and ourchildren the necessity for strugglingagainst this ruling class.

What we have to realize above all elseis that our enemy and that which we infact are struggling against is not an in-dividual college president or high schoolprincipal or a board of regents or a boardof education, but the entire social structure.We are struggling against the capitalist sys-tem which organized itself in a way thatpurchases our lives, that exploits us andforces us into a position wherein we haveto wage a struggle against the social organ-ization in order to survive.

One of the techniques or one of theweapons that the enemy uses against usin our struggle is to turn words against us,to define our struggle in terms that placeour struggle in a bad light, so that the word"revolution" is given a bad name, is lookedupon as a negative term.

But what revolution means and what itmeans to us is that we are trying to changea system that has historically enslaved ourpeople, has continually exploited us, hasdiscriminated against us and made ourlives miserable and kept us underdevel-oped and kept us blind and kept us in aform of slavery , one form of slavery oranother. Of course, our struggle has con-tinually forced the slavemaster to modifythe terms of the slavery, but every modifi-cation that has been made has only beenmade because the slavemaster found itnecessary to make a few minor adjustmentsin order to continue his exploitation of uson a new level.

PAGE 47NOVEMBER "6'THE 8~ACK SCHOLAR

History is on our side and justice is onour side and it is only a question of remov-ing from positions of power those who areable to judge our struggle and to pass outjudgements that denounce us and thatdeny us the right to survive. If we hadrevolutionary members from the exploitedclasses sitting on the Supreme Court, in thehalls of Congress and in the ExecutiveBranch of the Government, then theserevolutionaries in office would give outrevolutionary decisions, the revolutionarieson the benches of the court would give outrevolutionary decisions on the court casesand the capitalists and the racist policewould be judged wrong.

They would be the ones who wouldbe sent to prison. They would be the oneswho would be penalized. They would bethe ones who would be forced to raise ahundred thousand dollars in order to getout on bail. In other words, the oppressedpeople have to take control of the govern-ment, they have to take control of the state,so that in their hands these instruments ofpower would be turned against the ex-ploiters. The exploitative system would bedismantled and we could build anothersystem that would be based on coopera-tion, not on a "dog-eat-dog" epic of compe-tition, of corrupt methods of exploitingpeople. It would be based oh how best toorganize the industries, the means of pro-duction, in order to give everybody a goodlife.

white students in harmony with this sys-

tem, to keep them supporting the system,

to indoctrinate them to fight the wars that

protect the system, and that extend the in-

fluence and the power of the system. We

are all becoming conscious of the evil of

the system, concious of the fact that this

system can no longer survive, that we have

a historic opportunity for attacking the

system and destroying it at its root. Thus

all of the manipulations that the capitalists

and the watchdogs of the capitalists go

through are designed to destroy the thrust

of the movement, to designate as criminals

those who are in the forefront of the strug-

gle and those who are guiding the struggle.

Historically the struggle in the educa-

tional arena, in terms of black people, has

been waged from, on the one hand the

slavemaster not even wanting black people

to learn how to read and write, to black

people wanting to learn how to read and

write on the other. The struggle then trans-

posed itself over into what black people

were allowed to read and write, until to-

day black people have reached a point

where they want to control totally what

they read and write.

This has been a steady struggle against

the opposition of the slavemaster, it has

been defeat after defeat for the slave-

master, until now we have burst into con-

sciousness, until now we have realized

the necessity of taking control of our edu-

cation. When we see this long line of

progression from the struggle to become

literate to the struggle today to control

totally the education, we can see the true

nature of the opposition that we face now

and faced then. All of these racists and

liberals who are opposing our moves to-

day to gain control of our education, are

nothing but the descendants of the outright

racist slavemasters who opposed us in our

attempts to learn how to read and write

on the plantations during the days of

slavery .Hence all of their rhetoric, all of

their arguments, all of the changes that

they go through, in the last analysis, are

a continuation of the desire and the neces-

sity of the slavemaster to keep us ignorant

rHE BlACK SCHOlAR NOVEMBER '969

O UR STRUGGLE to gain black sh1dies de-partments on college campuses, our strug-gle to have black sh1dies added to thecurriculum across the nation is a strugglethat the enemy sees as a grave danger. Theenemy also recognizes the struggle ofyoung white people on the college cam-poses and high schools as a grave dangerand he is right. It is a grave danger be-cause what we realize is that the educa-tion that is given is designed to perpeh1atea system of exploitation. On the one handit is designed to keep black people and so-called minorities ignorant, and on the otherhand it is designed to keep the masses of

PAGE 48

and unable to manipulate ideas; because inorder to organize a revolutionary struggle,we must be able to manipulate ideas. Wemust have knowledge of ourselves and ofour enemy, and of the situations that wefind ourselves in, in order to organize atrue revolution to move against the op-

pressor.

ONE OF THE GREAT DANGERS that our revo-lutionary struggle faces, perhaps the great-est danger, is that we historically havetended to compartmentalize our struggle;that is, we get hung up on one aspect ofthe struggle, without having an "overallrevolutionary perspective and without rea-lizing that the struggle that we wage isagainst the total social organism. We focusall of our attention and all of our energyon the educational system, and we don'trealize -or our tactics and our strategywould seem to indicate that we don'trealize -that this is only one aspect ofour struggle and that the same people whocontrol the educational facilities, controlthe rest of the social structure. Everything,the economy, the judiciary, the politicalparties, the political instruments, everyaspect of society is in the same hands. Weneed a broader strategy, a revolutionarystrategy that aims at overthrowing the ruleof this class as a whole, so we will not justbe going through changes on the college

campuses.The repression against the movement

that the United States is now mobilizing isnot a sign of strength on the part of theruling class, but rather the sign of weak-ness of the ruling class, and a sign of thestrength and effectiveness of the move-ment. All of the lies, the subterfuges, thehypocrisy of the ruling class has been ex-posed, for it can no longer hope to controlor manipulate the movement by wordsalone. It: has to resort to the brutal, re-pressive forces of the police department.The movement itself has drawn severallessons from this reaction of repression bythe ruling class. The clear cut nature ofpower in the United States and the racistpolicies of the ruling class are revealed.

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

O N 'I1IE ONE HAND the rebellion of blackstudents and black people thoroughly ex-poses the racist policies of the administra-tions of the various colleges and highschools, and on the other hand there is therepression that the blacks and the alliesof blacks are receiving. It's really incor-rect to speak of the white section of themovement as being the allies of blacks,because in reality there is no such thingas a black movement and a white move-ment in the United States. These aremerely categories of thought, that onlyhave reality in terms of the lines that theruling class itself has drawn and is en-forcing among the people.

Because the United States is controlledby one ruling class, one single structure,and the whole drama of the black libera-tion struggle, and the revolutionary strug-gle in the white community is being playedon one stage. Because of the division thatthe ruling class has historically implantedamongst the people, because of the differ-ent experiences of black people from whitepeople, the reality of the division is moreapparent than real, because at the top op-posed to both black people and white revo-lutionaries is a single ruling class, there'snot a ruling class for blacks and a rulingclass for whites, but there's one singleruling class that rules all, that controls all,and that manipulates all, that has a differ-ent set of tactics for each group, dependingupon the tactics used by the groups, in thestruggle for liberation.

One of the great weaknesses in themovement at this particular time is in thecampus aspect of the attack upon the rul-ing class and the power of the ruling class.In the compartmentalized thinking of thetraditional American society, the collegecommunity and the college campus isviewed as something separate and distinctfrom the rest of the community. The col-lege is not really looked upon as a partof the community. People who are not con-cerned with themselves going to college orwho have no children in college feel thatwhat's going on, on the campus is none oftheir business. But nothing could be farther

PAGE 49

students and there is not solid and mas-sive community support, then they will beable to get away with it, and slowly butsurely they will be able to grind the move-ment to a halt by cutting off wave afterwave of leadership, by expelling the lead-ership, and hounding the leadership outof existence.

from the truth, because in reality they arethe people's colleges, institutions that havebeen set aside to perpetuate the humanheritage, and to pass on human wisdom,the, knowledge and technical skills for thefurther development of society and civiliza-tio~. And every single individual living ina given society has a stake in what goes onin them; he has a stake in seeing to it thatwhat happens on the campus is proper,and that the best interest of all the com-munity is being served.

On the other hand, the attacks focussedon the college campuses serve to exposethe nature of power in the United States.When we look at the composition of theboard of regents and administrations, andcouncils that control the colleges, we findthem replete with military men, retiredgenerals, foundation personnel, , and big

businessmen. We could say that the boardsthat administer the universities are a goodbarometer, or a clear diagram of the strati-fication of power in the society as a whole.We don't see poor people represented onthe boards of administration of the institu-tions of learning, for in the society beyondthe college campus, poor people do notexercise or possess any power. If they didhave the power, they would be in a posi-tion to see to it that some of their memberswere appointed to these boards.

But those who control the economy,those who control the various sources andlevels of power in the community andaround it, are able to have their lackeysand their flunkies appointed to administerthese institutions of learning. The composi-tion of the boards of administration of theinstitutions of learning indicate clearly, thepowerlessness of the various sectors ofsociety and this fact needs to be broughtout much more clearly and brought hometo the community .A connection needs tobe made between the college campus andthe community so that the repression andthe tactics of the ruling class can be de-feated by the total community being in-volved. As long as the pigs are able tovamp on the college campuses and to'" com-mit mass arrests and brutality against the

It's a mistake to think that the ruling

class cannot be successful if a proper re-

sponse is not made from the movement, a

mistake that has been made time and time

again in the various revolutionary strugglesaround the world. There have been cases

of the revolutionary movement being very

highly advanced, very well organized,

much more organized than we are in the

United States, with a higher theoretical

understanding, and with very good party

machinery, .etc. and they have been

crushed because the power structure would

resort to unlimited brutality -it would

kill, it would imprison. It had the mass

media in its control, and it could use the

mass media to justify this, and to brain-

wash other people who were not organ.izedenough to do anything about their re-

pressors.So that it's a question of time. The move-

ment is always behind, the movement has

the initiative. The power structure, byover-reacting seeks to buy time for itself,

and the pressure that the movement putson the power structure determines the

amount of time that is left. Because if the

struggle progresses slowly enough to allow

the ruling class to devise means of coping

with the movement, then all is lost and

the movement itself is doomed. to failure.

So that a broadening of those involved, or

those concerned, and those whose support

is now latent is what is required.

Poor black people and poor white peo-

ple and middle class people who are not

themselves directly involved in the college

situation, need to be made to understand

that something of their own precious lib-

erty , which either they never had or they

thought .i1ey had, is being decisively de-

termined in the struggles that are going

THE BLACK SCHOLAI NOVEMBER 1969PAGE SO

rhole. These facilities can no longer servele interests of the crosswork monopolieslat are being administered by racists andy pigs who only want to exploit people1d sentence people to be cogs in a wheel.1 the final analysis, the struggle that is)W going on on the college campuses can-)t be settled on the college campuses. It1S to be settled in the community, be-ruse those that sit on the boards of ad-inistration of the colleges do not deriveleir power from the fact that they are sit-19 on the board, but rather, they sit one board because they have power in the

Immunity.Their power is based on the economic in-tutions of society and other institutionsat form the power structure, and be-use of their relation to these sources ofIWer, they're able to be appointed toese positions of administration.We have to- destroy their power in themmunity, and we're not reformists, we'ret in the movement to reform the curricu-n of a given university or a given collegeto have a Black Students Union recog-

~ed at a given high school. We are revo-ionaries, and as revolutionaries, our goalthe transformation of the American so-J orcJpr

, ORDER TO TRANSFORM the American

::ialorder, we have to destroy the presentucture of power in the United States,: have to overthrow the government. For) long we've been intimidated into not~aking out clearly what our task is, ourk is the overthrow of the government,lich has to be understood as be~gthing but the instrument of the rulingss. The court, the congress, the legisla-'e and the executive branches of thete and federal government are nothingt instruments in the hands of the rulingss, to see after the affairs of the rulingss, and to conduct the life of societythe interest of the ruling class. So we're.to destroy this, to smash this machinery1 to erect new machinery. But new

chinery cannot be erected until the pres-machinery is destroved. It is nnt thp

own on the campuses today. Every blacklother, every black father, every Mexicanlother, every Mexican father, every fatherad every mother in every group, white,uerto Rican, Indian, Eskimo, Arab, J ew ,:hinese, Japanese, whatever ethnic groupley happen to be in, in the United States,eed to be made to understand, that if theyave no child or teenager involved in the:lucational process today because theyere not able to afford to send them to)lIege or something of that nature, thatlis in itself is a criticism of the structure: education in the United States.

T IS rnE DUTY of any society to see to itat every individual in that society isvested with the human heritage and pro-ded with the technology, the skills, ande knowledge that will enable him to 'copeith his environment, to survive and tore a good life. It is the duty of the societyprovide this education, just as it is the

lty of the society to provide the highestvel of medical assistance, housing andlployment, of every benefit that existssociety, it's the duty of the governmentprovide that. As long as the state is notoviding these benefits, it is not worthyexisting, and under our kind of state

lich is called a representative democracy,is not possible for a capitalistic economyprovide a universal education for the

ople. What it has been providing isiversal brainwashing that masqueradesuniversal education. The quality of thellcation is contemptible, it is inhumane,d it is only geared to provide a level ofelligence or a level of competence thatII enable the product of the educational:tern to become war material, to be>Ioited by the capitalistic economic enti-; within the United States.;0 what we're into today is not only sit-9 back and criticizing, but activelyching out and challenging the authoritythose who control the various institu-)S in society, not simply challenging thishority, but by actively moving to dis-It the functioning of these facilities inbest interests of the community as a

BLACK SCHOLAR ~ 'EMBER 1969 c CI

rhole. These facilities can no longer servele interests of the crosswork monopolieslat are being administered by racists andy pigs who only want to exploit people1d sentence people to be cogs in a wheel.1 the final analysis, the struggle that is)W going on on the college campuses can-)t be settled on the college campuses. It1S to be settled in the community, be-ruse those that sit on the boards of ad-inistration of the colleges do not deriveleir power from the fact that they are sit-19 on the board, but rather, they sit one board because they have power in the

Immunity.Their power is based on the economic in-tutions of society and other institutionsat form the power structure, and be-use of their relation to these sources ofIWer, they're able to be appointed toese positions of administration.We have to- destroy their power in themmunity, and we're not reformists, we'ret in the movement to reform the curricu-n of a given university or a given collegeto have a Black Students Union recog-

~ed at a given high school. We are revo-ionaries, and as revolutionaries, our goalthe transformation of the American so-J orcJpr

, ORDER TO TRANSFORM the American

::ialorder, we have to destroy the presentucture of power in the United States,: have to overthrow the government. For) long we've been intimidated into not~aking out clearly what our task is, ourk is the overthrow of the government,lich has to be understood as be~gthing but the instrument of the rulingss. The court, the congress, the legisla-'e and the executive branches of thete and federal government are nothingt instruments in the hands of the rulingss, to see after the affairs of the rulingss, and to conduct the life of societythe interest of the ruling class. So we're.to destroy this, to smash this machinery1 to erect new machinery. But new

chinery cannot be erected until the pres-machinery is destroved. It is nnt thp

own on the campuses today. Every blacklother, every black father, every Mexicanlother, every Mexican father, every fatherad every mother in every group, white,uerto Rican, Indian, Eskimo, Arab, J ew ,:hinese, Japanese, whatever ethnic groupley happen to be in, in the United States,eed to be made to understand, that if theyave no child or teenager involved in the:lucational process today because theyere not able to afford to send them to)lIege or something of that nature, thatlis in itself is a criticism of the structure: education in the United States.

T IS rnE DUTY of any society to see to itat every individual in that society isvested with the human heritage and pro-ded with the technology, the skills, ande knowledge that will enable him to 'copeith his environment, to survive and tore a good life. It is the duty of the societyprovide this education, just as it is the

lty of the society to provide the highestvel of medical assistance, housing andlployment, of every benefit that existssociety, it's the duty of the governmentprovide that. As long as the state is notoviding these benefits, it is not worthyexisting, and under our kind of state

lich is called a representative democracy,is not possible for a capitalistic economyprovide a universal education for the

ople. What it has been providing isiversal brainwashing that masqueradesuniversal education. The quality of thellcation is contemptible, it is inhumane,d it is only geared to provide a level ofelligence or a level of competence thatII enable the product of the educational:tern to become war material, to be>Ioited by the capitalistic economic enti-; within the United States.;0 what we're into today is not only sit-9 back and criticizing, but activelyching out and challenging the authoritythose who control the various institu-)S in society, not simply challenging thishority, but by actively moving to dis-It the functioning of these facilities inbest interests of the community as a

BLACK SCHOLAR ~ 'EMBER 1969 c CI