THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH vs. Gerald Horne

THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH, VOL.3, ISSUE#21,DEC/2024-FEB/2025

 

Gerald Horne is a historian, radical intellectual, professor, political activist and the prolific author of over thirty books dealing with questions of Black liberation, race, imperialism, settler-colonialism, labor and radical geopolitics.  Dr. Horne holds the Moores Professorship of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.  The following questions are in reference to his latest work entitled Armed Struggle? (International Publishers, 2024).

 

Brotherwise Dispatch – Although in the very title you situate your latest work, Armed Struggle?, in Southern California, how would you describe the concerns which prompted you to begin in your introduction with the Black Panther Party and their international connections with Algeria and socialist Czechoslovakia?

Gerald Horne – Well, first of all, Kathleen Cleaver, who is mentioned in the first paragraph, is also known as the spouse of Eldridge Cleaver, who as aforementioned, had roots in the Southland.  Kathleen had roots all over.  Donald Cox, her comrade at the meeting with the Czechs, actually had roots in the US Midwest and Northern California.  But with regard to that vignette from Algeria, I think it points to a number of themes.  One of course, is where they are getting the arms from.  They were getting the arms from dissident soldiers in Fort Ord and in Oceanside due south of Los Angeles.  Of course, this is the context of soldier dissidents in light of the anti-war movement around the war in Vietnam.  A war which is throwing off dissidents quite significantly. 

And I also wanted to introduce something that I don’t think previous literature has stressed sufficiently – which is the Panther’s international connections.  As you can tell, internationalism is a major theme of this book.  And I wanted to establish that right out of the shoot, so to speak.  And you might have noticed the footnote that accompanies the first paragraph of the introduction, where I also introduce a comparative analysis, that is to say, comparing the experience of our South African comrades and their armed struggle.  And their experience in getting arms from Eastern Europe. 

And I also wanted to be provocative, with regard to the title and the content.  Although not necessarily inaccurate, because, this is history.  I mean, well just as a footnote, you may know, there is a trend amongst certain scholars, to talk about what they call creative fabulation.  That is to say, if you can’t find it in the archive, you should let your imagination do the trick.  And interestingly, JD Vance, has apparently adopted that postmodernist style.  Because he says, it doesn’t matter if I can’t document what we were talking about with regards to Haitians.  They are eating the pets.  They are eating the dogs.  It’s really wild.  I mean, like a postmodernist at Columbia University, he was saying, you have to look at, the essence of what I was saying was true.  Whether or not I could document it.  So, I’m not sure who’s influencing whom.  If the scholars are influencing Vance or if the scholars are being influenced by the political atmosphere of the United States of America. 

But in any case, I say all that to say, that out of the shoot, I wanted to establish the international connections of the Panthers.  I think in light of the current conflict between west Asian comrades and Lebanon, Gaza for example.  I thought it was important to introduce the Algerian question because Algeria has been so heavily involved in those affairs.  And also, I’m also trying to introduce the Black community, that’s been one of my missions,  and sort of grab the Black community by the collar, and say: “hey folks, we really need to be more internationally minded”.  That’s how we have advanced this far. 

And so that opening paragraph, it’s doing a lot of work.  It’s trying to intervene in a number of different areas.

BD – In what sense do you feel the uncritical “ministrations of current scholarship” veil if not deform the actual theoretical contributions to Black liberation discourse made by the Black Panther Party by considering them as just another manifestation of cultural nationalist Black power?

GH – Well, I think what comes through, albeit not strongly perhaps, is a critique of certain scholarly productions concerning Black nationalism and Black Power.  As your comment tends to suggest, a blanket is thrown over diverse and even divergent trends.  I mean you had the cultural nationalists and the Panthers shooting at each other, and killing each other.  But then the scholars, they feel that they have to bring them all together again. 

You see the same thing with regards to Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam.  Where, there is a discomfort, in terms of discussing the conflict between the latter-day Malcolm and the organization from which he emerged, the Nation of Islam.  And, actually, you would not be mistaken to think that the Nation of Islam had nothing to do with the killing of Malcolm.  Because the finger of accusation is pointed at the State.  And of course, the State was complicit, but I’m not sure what we gain ideologically by erasing that difficult history. 

And, likewise, with regard to the scholarship on the Black Panthers, as I’ve already suggested.  I don’t think the scholarship deals enough with their internationalism.  For whatever reason, I don’t think the scholarship deals enough with the antecedent socialist and communist roots of the Black Panther Party.  For example, even though they talked about it at length.  And I think what that winds up doing is it does a disservice.  It does a disservice to the readers who are looking for historical understandings so they can plot a way forward.  It does a disservice to history, because it provides an inadequate rendering, rendition of history.  So, I would like to think that I have tried to overcome those pre-existing hurdles.  But of course, the critics usually get the last word on such matters.

BD – This has been another one of our BROTHERWISE FIVE interview series, during which THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH interrogates intellectuals, artists and activists with five probing questions to the delight of our readers.  Although in this case, because of the constraints of the Zoom meeting group discussion, we were only able to ask two questions, with the other three possibly forthcoming.

On behalf of Gerald Horne and THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH,

Peace.

-A. Shahid Stover

 

(this interview of Gerald Horne for THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH was conducted by A. Shahid Stover as part of a broader Group Discussion during a Socialist Study Group Zoom meeting on October 6^th, 2024.)