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.

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.

The Black Panther Party were not revenge nationalists.

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

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.

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.