By Linda Y. Brown
 Elaine Brown, the only woman to lead the Black Panther Party while Huey Newton was exiled in Cuba, spoke before an overflowing crowd at Regis University in Denver last month. In the crowd was Denver’s legendary Walter Gerash, a former Panther attorney, and several Baby Boomers reliving their own memories of the Black Panther Party. At 64 years old, Brown has not slowed her pace in fighting for the liberation of Black people, which she contends will ultimately result in the liberation of all people and make way for a humane society, where people don’t have to struggle for basic human rights, such as housing, medical care and education.
Brown, an activist, songwriter/singer, pianist and author, published her first book, A Taste of Power, in 1992, which tells of her life with the Black Panther Party and her ultimate role as chairman in 1974. Film producer Suzanne De Passe, who befriended Brown during her time with the Black Panther Party and who produced her first album with Motown on the Black Forum label, is planning a movie version of the book. Her current book, New Age Racism in America: The Condemnation of Little B, is the story about a young African-American male who was tried and convicted as an adult in the murder of another young African-American male in Atlanta. Brown contends that Little B, who lived on his own from the age of 11 to 13, is innocent and she tirelessly works towards gaining his freedom.
“I called it The Condemnation of Little B because he was condemned from the day he was born, simply because he was Black and poor in America. And there are millions of him. He was convicted in 1997. All these years I’ve been trying to get the law changed that allows children to be tried as adults in the state of Georgia,” says Brown.
Brown is currently seeking the nomination for president through the Green Party. If she receives the nomination, Brown does not expect to win. However, Brown sees this as a step to get the poor, disenfranchised and oppressed people involved in the electoral process.
“It is a moment, a window of hope, of opportunity, that brings a lot of possibilities.” Brown further stated, “When the American people showed they were willing, in mass, to reject Bush in this last election, at a level that nobody anticipated, … and given that people are seriously considering Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton as candidates for the presidency, … it tells me that the country is ready for a lot more and there are large pockets of people who are not voting.”
Brown continues, “The real issue is I believe at this point, given the absence of any real mass movement in this country, … I think this national campaign can be used to galvanize people across a variety of tendencies to realize they can use the ballot to replace some of these horrible people who are occupying space, sitting in places like the state legislatures and congress, and that are making the laws that we are all upset about, because at the end of the day, that is what we’re all upset about. It’s like No Child Left Behind. Somebody voted for that. Those people need to go. The three strikes crime bill (the law that Bill Clinton helped put into effect that has doubled the Black population in the prisons), they need to go.”
Also high on Brown’s list of issues are homelessness, health care, education, the wayward prison system and the war in Iraq. “But you cannot have no homelessness and think everything will be alright. All these things are important. For example, I wouldn’t be happy if we had no homelessness but war in Iraq. Or we could say we have no more gang fighting in America but we don’t mind killing people in Iraq. All these issues have to do with having a humane society, and that’s the goal. And in the context of that, a humane society will bring about the freedom of Black people.”
Editor’s note: To learn more about Elaine Brown, visit www.elainebrown.org. |
