Bobby Seale, Black Panther Party chairman, called last night for Congress to eliminate the power of the presidency, with impeachment of President Nixon as a first step.
Exactly four years after 15,000 demonstrators massed in New Haven to protest his trial for the murder of Alex Rackley, Seale--more recently a Democratic candidate for mayor of Oakland, Calif.--spoke to about 700 subdued but friendly students at Tufts.
"Those cats are outright, stump-down, two-bit fascists," Seale said of Nixon's administration.
Seale also denounced what he called the "comic-book politics" of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the "capitalist corporate power structure," and what he described as "some news media people running around saying, 'Bobby Seale, the new moderate liberal candidate.'"
Zebra Tactics
In particular, he denounced San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto, whose city's police stopped and questioned hundreds of black men last week in what Alioto said was an attempt to solve a number of murders with white victims.
"Some stupid ignorant police is gonna start in some shooting before he does some explaining," Seale predicted of Oakland, "and then we gonna start shooting back. Only this time I want you to know what the shootings are about."
"We will die for the right to hammer one nail into the wall of the people's research health center," Seale explained. "That is what revolution is about."
Free Services
Seale cited Oakland Panthers' providing free food, free health clinics, and escort services for old people as programs that helped account for his 40,000 votes in the Oakland election. He predicted Pantherbacked candidates would win an election next year, with the help of better precinct organization.
"We registered 10,000 people to vote just with the groceries," Seale said, "cause they needed that food. And the police got helicopters flying up there in the sky while the senior citizens are getting mugged down here on the ground."
Oldsters' Support
"Well, if it hadn't been for the senior citizens we wouldn't have been here in the first place, so we organized this escort service," Seale said. "And we got 63 per cent of the vote in satellite senior citizens' homes--old white racists changed their minds and voted for two black revolutionaries."
"Some people say these are reformist programs," Seale said. "They're not reformist programs--they're means by which we organize people for their future liberation. I'm married, I got children, I like to cook, I'm a human being like anyone else--it's not so much me that's radical and militant, it's the masses of the people. The senior citizen being mugged wants a radical change--where they're not being mugged any more."
Read more in News
Judge Upholds Councillor's Inquest, Rules Violation of Voting Procedure