Bobby Seale Quotes

The first point was we wanted power to determine our own destiny in our own black community. And what we had done is, we wanted to write a program that was straightforward to the people. We didn't want to give a long dissertation.

We were not talking about the average white person: we was talking about the corporate money rich and the racist jive politicians and the lackeys, as we used to call them, for the government who perpetuate all this exploitation and racism.

My father was a master carpenter and builder. Architectural design, engineering design, mechanical design, three-dimensional views, that was my shtick, my forte.

There is an entire generation of young people who know nothing about how viciously the FBI attacked The Black Panther Party, and why.

I think the American Dream should be about a greater progressive legislation that allows for what I call a necessary future world of cooperational humanism.

I'd have no trouble being the barbecue kingpin of America. I'd just add it to all the other things I am: jazz musician, carpenter, architect, engineer and revolutionary.

There's nothing wrong with being a cop. There's nothing wrong with being a white person. It's about where your heart is...We've got to get everyone beyond the xenophobic isolationism.

I'm still a political revolutionary. The fire never went out of me, but perceptions and realizations change.

The Black Panther party of Self-Defense is a revolutionary party.

I am not a hoodlum. I'm a community organizer.

The only solution to pollution is a people's humane revolution!

I have quite a few good friends in Philadelphia who were police officers.

Money is the medium of exchange, and it's how you make things happen. To say you hate it is some farfetched, idealistic crap.

The people have now come to realize that the only way to deal with the oppressor is to deal on our own terms and this was done.

A people who have suffered so much for so long at the hands of a racist society must draw the line somewhere.

The Black Panther Party were not revenge nationalists.

I always tried to raise money for the Black Panthers through business schemes.

On the one hand, the guns were there to help capture the imagination of the people. But more important, since we knew that you couldn't observe the police without guns, we took our guns with us to let the police know that we have an equalizer.

A people who have suffered so much for so long at hands of a racist society must draw the line somewhere.... the black communities of America must rise up as one man to halt the progression of a trend that leads inevitably to their total destruction.

Fox News never calls up Bobby Seale to articulate a stance in opposition to right-wing conservatives. To me, giving the New Black Panthers a platform on Fox is a subtle tactic to scare people.

You don't fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity.

To develop political and economic power in a capitalist society, you need capital.

Our position was: If you don't attack us, there won't be any violence; if you bring violence to us, we will defend ourselves.

We jumped into the protest of Vietnam before the Black Panther Party ever started, before the Black Panther Party was even thought of. In fact, it was late 1965 and 1966 that the anti-Vietnam War, anti-draft to the Vietnam War protest started at University of California, Berkeley.

We were like heroes, to stand there and observe the police, and the police were scared to move upon us.

Electoral politics was always an objective of the Black Panther party, so Barack Obama is a part of what we dreamed and struggled and died for.