- Did you personally know your bodyguards,
or were they just two random people?
- Yes.
No, no, I knew my bodyguards.
Well, at least I thought I did.
One of them turned out to be an FBI agent.
(lighthearted music)
- Hi, I'm Talbot.
- Hi Talbot, I'm Elmer.
Pleased to meet you - Nice to meet you, Elmer.
- Hi, I'm Vanessa, it's nice to meet you.
- Hi, Vanessa, you guys look like brother and sister.
- We're twins. - We're twins.
- You're kidding?
- Hi, I'm Josh.
- I'm Marsha.
- Nice to meet you, Marsha. - Good to meet you, too.
- So you were apparently a former Black Panther?
- Yes, I was a former Black Panther.
What do you know about the Black Panthers?
- They were founded in 1966, I think.
And a thing that initiated it was the shooting of Malcolm X.
- Okay, that's good stuff.
What did you know?
- I think I read the same webpage as she did.
(laughing) - Okay.
- I think so, too. - The same stuff.
- What is the Black Panthers?
- The Black Panther Party was an organization,
because we are no longer an organization,
that was formed to fight against racism in this country.
- What made you wanna join?
- What made me wanna join was the civil rights movement.
A lot of young people had grown up into activism.
I marched with Dr. King when I was your age.
There was another gentleman by the name of Malcolm X
who said that we were going to get our freedom
by whatever means necessary.
So if you hit us, we're gonna hit you back.
If you shoot at us, we're gonna shoot back.
And so the Black Panther Party took on that philosophy
and so because we dared to stand up and defend ourselves,
we were named the number one threat to the internal security
of the United States by the director of the FBI.
- That's not good.
- Did you ever feel scared to join a community
where the FBI and stuff probably didn't like it that much?
- Of course there are those elements, you know,
people who were like, "These are militant people,
"they should be off the street."
But the average person really admired what we were doing.
We did things like the sickle cell anemia testing.
- Really?
- It was the Black Panther Party that created
national attention that this is a disease
that has to be cured.
- And if you go to school,
do you get a breakfast in school now?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- That's because of what the Black Panther Party did.
We fed thousands of kids here in Seattle,
every day a hot breakfast before they went to school.
- Did you get paid for working for the Black Panther
or was it just volunteer? - Let me think.
Never got paid.
- Did you have to be black to be a Black Panther?
- The answer is kind of yes and no.
We actually had a couple of white folks
who were honorary members of the Black Panther Party,
but what we always encouraged young white students
to do was to organize within their own community.
- Were there kids in Black Panther Party?
- There were Black Panther kids that were the children
of Black Panthers.
We called them Panther Cubs.
(laughing)
- Why do you think the party ended?
- There was a lot of violence and the people who really
sacrificed their lives did not get a lot of gain from it.
Elmer Dixon, himself, was one of them.
- Has anybody tried to harm where you stayed?
- When I was a Black Panther?
- Yeah. - Yes.
We had many Black Panthers that were murdered
through the FBI operations.
- Oh my gosh, they actually killed you guys?
- Oh, they were trying to kill us in our sleep
and kill us every opportunity they had.
At 17 and 18 years old, I had two bodyguards.
- Did you personally know your bodyguards,
or were they just two random people?
- Yes, I knew my bodyguards.
Well, at least I thought I did.
One of them turned out to be an FBI agent.
It wasn't until 40 years later,
through the Freedom of Information Act,
we had gotten a hold of our FBI files and all the names
of people that were agents were in there,
and my bodyguard's name was in there.
- Did you have any attempts on your life personally,
'cause I know you said that-- - Yes, I did.
One occasion I didn't go with my brother
to target practice that day.
I was out on another assignment and my brother went to fire
his shotgun, and when he fired it, it exploded.
- Oh my--
- Someone had doctored the bullets that went
into his shotgun and almost blew his arm off.
- So they were directly trying to kill you guys?
- Oh, yes, they were definitely trying to kill us.
There's no if, ands, or buts about it.
- If one of your places, the FBI came in
and threatened with guns, did you ever fight back?
- Oh, yes. - With guns?
- Well, not in my time,
but they definitely defended themselves with guns.
- What do you think about violence
and its role in solving problems?
- If someone's violent to you, you have to defend yourself,
but it's best to be less violent, I think.
- [Woman] What do you guys think hearing these stories
of violence and bloodshed?
- We're all really familiar with Dr. Martin Luther King,
so it's interesting to hear kind of the most violent side.
- Yeah, you know, we weren't the violent ones.
The violence was being targeted at us.
We thought it was violent
to deny people the right to health care.
When you had babies that couldn't get medicine,
that was violent.
When you had kids that couldn't eat in the morning,
we thought that was violent.
So our philosophy was to stand up and not allow ourselves
to be attacked by the conditions within our community.
That's self-defense.
- Do you think that we could benefit in the present
right now from Black Panthers?
- Yes, but you don't have to call it
the Black Panther Party.
It could be any organization.
Stay collective, stay together.
You know "Power to the people?"
- Yes, "Power to the people," yeah.
- Your hand together cannot be divided.
If you're like this, you know, the wind goes through
and all that, you have no power.
This way, the Black Panther Party always had power
because they moved in groups.
Now do you see how people are being killed?
Like Trayvon Martin, do you remember Trayvon Martin?
- Yeah.
- He was walking alone down the street.
As a mother, I'm more concerned for my child
if they're alone than if they're with a group.
- [Woman] All right, anything else?
Elmer, do you want to ask the kids anything?
- No, I just, you guys are living in a very exciting time.
Believe in yourself.
- That's what I always do.
- Good, good for you.
- Thank you so much.
- My pleasure, it was so good to meet you!
- You too.