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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.