(Editor’s note: This tape was transcribed by Adrian Whicker. The editors gratefully acknowledge his invaluable assistance.)
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Young boy 1: I’d like to thank Dad, ‘cause [unintelligible word] Dad that he is, and I like to thank Dad for– for saving me, even though my [unintelligible balance of sentence]
Crowd: Applause
[tape edit]
Young boy 2: I thank Dad, and Dad– he’s a dad to me, and I thank Dad that all my comrades down here, like to thank Dad for his love [unintelligible word]. Thank you, Dad.
Crowd: Applause
[tape edit]
Young girl 1: Like to thank Dad for saving Ellihue [Dennis, I assume] from going to jail. Like to thank Dad for saving my mama of cancer. I like to thank Dad for saving me from falling off the trapeze and busting my head open.
Crowd: Applause
[tape edit]
Young boy 3: I’d like to thank Dad for saving my brother from being shot. I’d like to thank Dad for, uh, saving me from getting hit by a truck. I’d like to thank Dad, ‘cause if it wasn’t for Lynetta [Jones], we wouldn’t be here. Thank you, Dad.
Crowd: Applause, calls of “That’s right.”
[tape edit]
Young boy 4: –thank Dad, ‘cause a long time ago the dump truck was coming from the boat and it had some food on it, and tipped over on the side of the road, and– and we only lost a couple of bags of flour and paint, and I thank Dad that nobody got hurt. Thank you, Dad.
[tape edit]
Woman singing [tape edit]
Young child: [too soft] –and I’d like to thank Dad for being the Dad that he is.
Voice in crowd: Thank you, Dad!
Crowd: Applause
[tape edit]
Woman 1: –the accident that I had a couple of days ago, I fell by the washateria which would have cracked my kneecap, but it did not. When I fell down, it kinda stung and stiffened my legs for a little bit, and after that, I got up and I went on my way, so I want to thank Dad, he keeps doing great things for us. Thank you.
Crowd: Applause
[tape edit]
Jones: [opening too soft] –in that situation, and I think we leave it just that way. Children should not ask if anyone’s– is dead, for there is indeed no death, and uh, someone, the daughter, seems to want to block that out, and that’s what we will be privileged to allow her to do, and if that’s the case, then that’s the way we will leave it. So, uh, no child is to ask if anybody is dead, no matter who. ‘Cause none dead. None dead in the true sense of the word. So, I want that clearly understood. I would– Uh, Bessie [Lee] Dickson, you make some lovely suggestions about the name of the road. Uh, where is Bessie Dickson? I wanna get–
[tape edit]
Man: –messed her all up.
[faint voices in the crowd]
Jones: [talking to Thomas Partak who had attempted suicide and wanted to return to live with his mother in Joliet, IL]: You think you’re more important than you are. Why don’t you realize that you’re not any more important? [Hushed] Why don’t you look at these precious black people? Why don’t you turn around and look at them?
Crowd: Voices and murmuring
Jones: What makes you think you have a right in life? [Pause] Maybe your mother will die soon. You keep this up and she will.
Partak: Well–
Jones: You think you– you’re better because you think you’re more important because you got a mother that’ll take you in? These blacks have lost their mothers and their dads. And I have lost mine because of some of the likes of this kind of carryings on.
Crowd: Right!
Jones: You think you got a place to go to. You won’t have a place to go to. [Pause] So you have a thought you want to go back to the States? It makes you commit suicide? I have thoughts I want to die every second. That wouldn’t make me commit suicide. I wouldn’t hurt a soul, I wouldn’t do that to a soul, not a soul. You don’t want to hurt people. What do you want to hurt people for?
Partak: [Heavy breathing into mic] I don’t want to hurt `em, I just–
Jones: Well, you did. You do as if you obviously knew it’d hurt them. So you love your mother?
Partak: Yes.
Jones: Well, you didn’t very much out there, if you tried to kill yourself. What do you– How do you think she’s gonna react to that? What did you think that would do for her? [Pause] You are a very selfish person, do you know that?
Partak: Well, yes.
Jones: Hmmm?
Partak: Yes, I do.
Jones: Well, then, why don’t you just recognize that you’re selfish, and quit it? Or if you can’t quit it, just go on and work.
Partak: I just can’t [Pause] seem to control my mind and–
Jones: You can control your hands to work, can’t you?
Voice in crowd: [too soft]
Jones: What is it?
Voice in crowd: [too soft, something about Partak’s work habits]
Jones: That’s true. You work fast, huh? What’s the difference whether you forget or not? Why do you have a right to worry whether you do forget or you don’t forget? [Indignant] What’s the difference? You’re nothing more important than any of the rest of us. We have to go on doing what we’re doing.
Voice in crowd: Right!
Jones: Because it’s in the– [stumbles over words] it hurts too many people. If we didn’t have this place, every young man here will face what Chris [Lewis] did.
Crowd: Right, right!
Jones: They’re mostly black, and many of them that’re white would face that. What a helluva life. To be preyed on. How many times Chris has been shot? How many times I’ve drug him in that church and treated him in the middle of the night, and risked going to jail for him.
Voice in crowd: [too soft]
Jones: Not over this matter. And it wouldna happened over this matter, wouldn’t have been because of us, if he’da listened to me. But this is his own foolishness. How many times he was drug in that church– You, some of you were there, you’d see the doors shut,and see us going from place to place treating his wounds, ‘cause we didn’t dare go– let him go to police, ‘cause he was doing things that he shouldn’t be doing. That’s how much I love, how much I cared. [Pause] Always in difficulty, because he come on the wrong side of the track. Any black person, they get the shaft, they get in trouble by living.
Crowd: Murmurs
Jones: Try to get a job, he’s ambitious and intelligent, he’d get a job and uh, couldn’t hold a job legally, couldn’t hold one. Couldn’t hold a job, always race prejudice. He was too intelligent to take that. And too proud, and too rebellious. He couldn’t stand that kind of p– that pressure. [Dick] Tropp wrote a very good poem that I– it touched me as I was reading the dozens and hundreds of letters this day and all night about Chris. [To Partak] You– You shoulda been black. You– you wouldn’t take the privilege of suicide. You shoulda been black. You wouldn’t take so much time worrying about yourself, if you were a nigger like us.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: You’d know that’s what you expect. It’s better at least, to not have to worry who’s gonna come on your back and stab you, who is gonna paralyze you.
[Someone in crowd asks to speak]
Jones: Yes. Yes, yes.
Voice in crowd: [too soft]
Jones: [high pitched] Where you come off this– all this whiteness? [Long pause] Do you like pain?
Partak: Uh, no. No, Dad–
Jones: Well, don’t you think a cutlass was gonna cause you some pain? [long pause]
Partak: Well, I thought I’d just– Well, that the– shorter than the pain I’m going through every day, I’d just– The mental pain.
Jones: You don’t– you don’t believe your mind’s gonna exist on beyond here? [Long pause] Communists or atheists believe you now, they don’t believe in occultism and metaphysics and astrology or any other of these kinds of uh, uh, religious sciences, they don’t believe in that. But they are very much, very much concerned about the fact that mind does not have an existence confined to this body. And they want to get advanced study in that field, and the only time they ever, ever deported and arrested first, a newsman [Robert C. Toth], a Los Angeles Times uh, news representative, in Moscow, they were getting– he was getting into their parapsychological studies, into the dimension of what was happening with mind, that the Soviets were doing with mind. And they arrested his ass, and those communist atheists throwed him in jail in nothing flat, and had his ass, they deprogrammed him, and had him till he didn’t know his uh, first or last name, and be– be sure that his brain was cleared of any information he had, and back he went. Now there’ve been people that got close to their nu– mis– missiles, there’ve been people that’ve gotten close to their scientific discoveries that are far advanced than the United States, but– Thank you, you may restroom, restroom, restroom. But this was just a man who got close to some studies in their mind discoveries. [Pause] Very, very, very, very convincing to me, that if you didn’t see all the things that I’ve seen, which make me believe, make me believe. I don’t believe in any or– loving order, but I believe that there’s a curse of immortality. [Pause] I saw it with the [Rose] Pearson woman. Give birth to a child of a woman who committed suicide, and I said she’d come back as a man, and she’d be deserted by her parent, and that– her own mother, and that’s what exactly happened. And you were there. You were probably there.
Partak: Yes, I was, Dad.
Jones: So, you think you’re gonna stop pain by one act of sui– uh, of killing yourself, huh?
Partak: Well, I [Pause] just wanted to get out of the particular situation, and–
Jones: You think this situation’s all that bad, eh? [long pause] How many situations in the world do you think are worse than this? I can take you to– in places in Chicago that wouldn’t be far from you, that are much worse than this. After the needle man, that they got you down and jabbed you full of– every time you took a walk home from your job, and hooked you on heroin, and then finally you’d have to buy it, and go through the horror of withdrawal. Never know whether you’re gonna get down the street without being castrated, as I told you, eight, was it, in Portland, Oregon school, a white school, eight boys castrated one day. Nobody– nobody bothering you, molesting you, or hurting you. You’re getting to eat. You have shelter. You’re not cold. Chicago gets ablizzardly cold. You people are amazing to me. Your inability to think. Your inability to– You’re able to be quite selfish, quite selfish, but your total inability to think how it could be so much worse. [Long pause] You’re conditioned to go back, because that’s your brain, you been brainw– programmed like a bro– robot, you’re gonna have the thoughts to go back, that’s all you knew. [pause] Have you ever considered the blessings of this place? Did you hear what I read uh, from Carol Dennis today? Did any of you? You idiots that were always causing this trouble? [long pause] Did you hear what Carol Dennis wrote?
Partak: Yes, I did, Dad.
Jones: Well, how’d that take– She’s white. How’d that– how’d that– uh, how did you reflect on what she said?
Partak: Well, I’m grateful for, you know, I mean, that people who find happiness and contentment here, I’m– I’m glad– happy that that’s the case. [Heavy breathing] Sorry, but it just hasn’t been able to work for me.
Jones: Hmm? [raises voice, suddenly becomes angry] Do you know why, sir, it doesn’t work for you?! I am tired, tired of 25 years of selfish sons of bitches like you.
Crowd: Stirs
Jones: Listening to the likes of you make me sick, and yet I’d love you enough to die for you. Tonight, you had a medical emergency, I’d break my body to carry you through the jungle to get you treatment, but God damn you. I’m sorry, you say. This poor white man says he’s sorry that he uh, has so inconvenienced by this place. You’re glad for that poor white bitch [Carol Dennis], whose contentment evidently she found, but you’re superior to her, you’re a little higher than her, you’re not a communist, you’re an elitist, you’re a fuckin’ miserable capitalist, you’re a stench in the nostrils, you should be shot! I suggest that.
Crowd: Scattered cheers
Jones: How do you react to that? Not– not shot like you want, shot through the hip. Shot through the hip, so you can lay, [Cries with anger] lay and suffer and feel because you know no pain, you’re a protected bigot, a spoiled child of middle class petit bourgeoisie, you’re an elitist, you’re a goddamnable stench, [moderates voice] and yet I love you enough to live for you. You’re miserable.
Crowd: That’s right! [Applause]
Jones: Hmm?
[Someone speaking off mic]
Voice in crowd directed to Partak: Respond to what Dad said, Tom.
Jones: With all the other fuckers. [Yells] Wake up, bitch!
Partak: I think what he says is true, uh.
Voice off mic: [unintelligible request to “motherfuckin’ shoot him”]
Jones: Through the hips.
Voice off mic: –through the hips–
Jones: [barely controlled anger] So you can lay! So you can feel pain! You who feel you have so much pain! You, who never suffered for nobody or give a goddamn about anybody, or wouldn’t lift a finger to save one of us. You should know pain, and I know a million ways to give it to you. [moderates] It’s a good thing I’m a loving savior–
Crowd: No! [Applause]
Voice in crowd: Speaks to Partak asking for a response
Jones: He better respond, [Enraged fervor] because you will. We’ll get you out of your goddamned petit bourgeois silence, we’ll bring you out of your fuckin’ protective shell and your goddamned capitalist game, your mental, emotional insanity, we don’t believe in insanity!
Crowd: No! [Applause]
Jones: We’re not privileged, we’re niggers. We don’t have the privilege to go insane. Be on expensive tranquilizers and have some stupid shrink stand over us, and tell us why we wanted to fuck our mother.
Partak: [Mumbles] I don’t think I want to be shot through the hips like that, Jim.
Jones: You don’t?
Voice in crowd: Mocks Partak about being shot in the hips
Partak: I said I don’t think I would like that.
Jones: [Chuckles] Of course you wouldn’t like that.
Voice in crowd: [unintelligible]
Jones: Thank you, sister! You hear them– the black comrade say? That sister say? What’d she say?
Partak: [mumbles] She doesn’t like me taking up [unintelligible word] your time.
Jones: Uh-uh [No], we don’t.
Crowd: Jeers at Partak
Jones: [Long pause] We could get some rest. No, we have to deal with this shit every night. Boy, you’re gonna– gonna– we– we can’t let this get by, you’re just gonna go and do an act like this and take up our time, shit, we just patch over it like some little sick person. We don’t believe in sickness. China’s proved that mental illness doesn’t exist. All the mental cases were sh– let out, as I told you, the captain says, well, they wouldn’t work and they were all shittin’ on themselves and rubbin’ shit on each– themselves and each other, and they said well, now, if that’s the case, you’re not gonna be of any benefit to the revolution, we’re gonna shoot you. And all of them went to work that day. You too! If you thought you didn’t have an easy way out. If you thought you were gonna have to suffer. You’ve been playing with our mercy.
Crowd: Right. [Long pause]
Jones: Talk!
Partak: [mumbles] Well– [heavy breathing]
Jones: For the sake of this collective, I’ll crush your ego, unless you come out of this goddamned game. I’ll crumble you in the ground and make you a nigger. Just like us, only you will be a little bit worse shape, because we’re strong–
Crowd: Right! [Applause]
Voices in crowd: Asks Partak questions, unintelligible
Voice in crowd: Speak up!
Jones: Answer some of these questions, sir.
Partak: [mumbles] I guess I just, uh– I don’t like the structure, and uh–
Jones: [through clenched teeth] I don’t give a fuck what you don’t like. I’m tired of hearing what you don’t like. I want to hear what you’re gonna do about changing your miserable, goddamned self. [Pause] I don’t give a fuck. You want to leave tonight? Would you like to go tonight? How would you like to leave tonight? Just say you would like to. We got a path we’ll send you through. Any path you wanna take. Do you want to leave tonight!
Partak: [meekly] No–
Jones: [enraged] Miserable goddamned person, look at these people that you’re draining dry, if you don’t have any compassion on me, I’ve lost my mother, God damn you! [Physically attacks Partak]
Crowd: Calls
Jones: You miserable, self-centered son of a bitch [Jones seething, speaking though his teeth]. Enough, Chris.
[Partak groans]
Jones: Yes, and I’ll give you more, and more, you’re gonna walk, you’re gonna stay awake for 24 hours [Jones continues to rough up Partak] [off mic] You’re gonna be crazy!
Voice in crowd: That’s right!
Jones: God damn you!
Crowd: Cheers
Jones: That’s what I think of his insanity, don’t believe in this shit.
[Partak breathing heavily into mic, crowd jeering and yelling]
Jones: My son just died. One of my black sons was shot for the likes of you.
Crowd: [violently hostile, jeering, “what do you got to say?!”]
Jones: [seething] What did I just say to you, prick? You better talk carefully tonight, because I’ve dealt with your insanity for the last fuckin’ time! I don’t give a shit what you do! How you can commit suicide and come back like a goddamned fish worm, and let fish eat you–
Crowd: Right!
Jones: See if I give a goddamn. You better get your ass together, tonight! [Pause] This miserable prick.
Multiple people in crowd yelling at Partak: Say something!
Partak: I’ll change and [unintelligible] I have a socialist consciousness.
Jones: Why you gonna have a socialist consciousness?
Partak: So I can help, uh–
Jones: Because you’re scared to death.
Voice in crowd: That’s right!
Jones: That’s all right.
Same voice in crowd: That’s exactly right.
Jones: I don’t give a shit. I want you on– not on the floor. You hear me? Twice you’ve tried this shit.
Man: –He’ll try it again too, because they brought him up there, he was actin’ all goofy and shit, and brought him up there–
Jones: He acts goofy– How would he like to stand in the sun all day? You people think– You want us to make you goofy tonight?
Partak : [mumbles]
Jones: Miserable prick. All these black people have no right to be goofy. They can’t go goofy. They’re not permitted, from the time they’re born to think enough of themselves to go goofy.
Crowd: Right!
Jones: Wouldn’t dream of thinking of suicide because they got a child or somebody that they care about. (Pause) You test me. You fuckers are making a revolutionary out of me every day.
Black male: We got the most brilliant mind in the world and we have to spend alla time on pricks like you. We can’t even learn the teachings that we need. You ass– asshole–
White male: And it’s bad enough we have to be white, and bear the brunt of having white skin, knowing that all of the suffering in the world’s going on because of white mother fuckers like you, who bleed black, brown, yellow, and red people all over the world. White people! White people, mother fucker! And you were in Vietnam, mother fucker, you saw what the white man does, you saw what the white man does [attacks Partak]. You piss me off, fucker–
Crowd: [Sounds of shock]
White male: Now look at them and apologize [unintelligible]
Jones: You’ll be guarded night and death [day], and I dare you to try suicide, [seething] God damn you! Take up my time [Strikes Partak]
Male: Look at him! Look at him! Right in the eye!
Jones: [enraged as he thrashes Partak] I have– You’ve made me a violent revolutionary. I despise the look of your weakness, in your miserable weakness. Look at these black people. Look at them! You goddamned cursing scourge! [Pause] You ought to have to live under fascism. I wish to fuck you could live under fascism. Pricks like you oughta have to live under it. [Pause] Look at her and her babies that she dropped in the cotton fields.
Crowd: That’s right.
Voice in crowd: [unintelligible] Look at her.
Jones: Look at her, fucker! Go look at her. Look at her. [Pause] And see if you got a right to go to Chicago. See you right– if you got a go– right to go nurse your mama. Look at her! When they didn’t give her a right to drop her baby, and the baby had to die. Look at her! And you keep looking at her, and for 10 fuckin’ minutes you look at her. You sit down and rest your s– body and you look at her and don’t you take your fuckin’ white eyes off of her.
Voices in crowd: [too soft]
Woman: He told Pe–
Jones: You keep looking at her, you watch her.
Woman: He told Penny [Kerns] and I that he’d like to go back to the States and get his job back. And the job he had was working for a multi-million dollar corporation as a security guard, so that he could protect them from any poor person that would try to break in there.
Crowd: [Jeers and yells]
Patty [Cartmell]: And today I said, Don’t you care about the people, can’t you care about someone else? If you attempt suicide, you’re gonna hurt this cause and you’re gonna hurt Jim. I said, Don’t you care? He said, Evidently not.
Crowd: [Jeers]
Black woman: You are scum!
Voice in crowd: White trash– [Pause] That’s an example of white trash.
Jones: Speak, sir, give us a spee– give us a lecture.
Partak: [slurred] Uh, what Patty said was– It’s– it’s true, uh, I–
Voices in crowd: [too soft]
Jones: [away from mic] You tell us about yourself, let’s tell– you tell us how you feel now.
Partak: [heavy breathing]All right. Uh, I mean I’ve come to realize since I was over here, when I was in the States, uh, [heavy breathing] you know, as long as I was able to like, uh, uh, devote part time to the church, and go out and do– do my thing.
Jones: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Partak: But the rest of the time, I was–
Jones: So all you people and your liberal psychiatric shit, and your bullshit intellectualism, all you intellectuals listen. He’s talking rational. Every way opposite of what modern psychiatry would say to do. Say lay on the couch and we’ll get some truth. Uh-uh. He didn’t get no truth on the couch. [Pause] Go ahead. Go ahead.
Partak: I was never sure, just where I was at, I mean, it all look– you know, I was caught up in– in what I’d been born in, all capitalist desires and stuff around me, you know, I was–
Jones: Yep.
Partak: Good food and–
Jones: Do you realize how many people are paying for so-called good food. You think about the Steve Biko’s that were naked and brutalized every day, and now eight of his family? You think about the millions that were killed over in Vietnam? What about all those millions?
Partak: [Attempts to speak, but Jones speaks over him]
Jones: What– what did you do in Vietnam? Play checkers? What’d you do over in Vietnam?
Partak: [stumbles]
Jones: You didn’t get to see all the mess then. The orders– Did you know something about the orders, throw a hand grenade in every house, ‘cause they were colored. Level every city to save them from communism. Kill the people, in order so they wouldn’t go– be– be allowed to be free and be communist. You saw all the television pictures, didn’t you? The poor Vietnamese coming out, burned half alive, and they’d still throw more, or shoot in uh, more, a flamethrower, or whatever their goddamned weapons, their personnel– anti-personnel weapons were. You surely knew the stories. Bombing whole cities to killing every last person.
Partak: [slurred] That was the original reasoning I– I was attracted to the Temple when I– I–
Jones: Well, why don’t you keep in mind that? Do you really want to eat the blood of your human brothers and sisters? There’s whites that have suffered under this terrible, terrible oppression too. White Virginia miners that look a lot like you. You look like a Virginian. They die at an average age of 45, silicosis of the blood– of their lungs. Spitting out their lungs because of some white, fuckin’ capitalist that you’re gonna be a security guard to, to protect. Would you have shot one of those white Virginia miners coming in to get some money for bread for his family? Would you have shot the black man that woulda come through that rich capitalist you were gonna protect?
Crowd: Stirs
Partak: No. One night when I was on my job there, the three men were broke into a truck and I could see– I mean we weren’t to the place looking too far from Hunter’s Point, so I– I beeped my horn and everything, you know–
Jones: To get them to go?
Partak: –they made a lot of noise, so that they’d, you know– that they’d know I had seen `em, before I called–
Jones: Well, why don’t you – you got a lot of goodness in you – why don’t you encourage that goodness, son?
Partak: [exhales heavily]
Jones: The fuck do you want from that system? That you feel– fuck, much more guilty than you do, up– upset because you don’t have it, walking around in that goddamned society that kills people like Chris, just because they’re trying to help other black people. He was killed, he was assassinated this time, because he was trying to do what was right. [Pause] That bother you?
Partak: Uh, I– I knew, I mean, because I had all these [pause] capitalistic urges within me–
Jones: [raises voice] So you have these urges, ‘cept you said you were conditioned. Think about them, why don’t you follow them through?
Partak: I just knew the first few months that I’d done, I’d been over here, I’d go through this real conflict within myself–
Jones: Well, how many more have?
Partak: When this– I mean, I made the choice to come over here and– and–
Voice in crowd: [Unintelligible statement about arrogance]
Jones: After– well, you finish some of that McDonald’s hamburger, what the hell different do you feel, living– eating a cutlass bean?
Crowd: [Lightly stirs]
Partak: Uh-huh [yes], it’s true–
Jones: And you don’t get as cold here.
Voice in crowd: That’s right.
Jones: You don’t have to worry about somebody stabbing you. You’da never come under this wrath, but you’ve come in a time of [emphatic] desperation. You heap more pain on us. Is it not enough that we lost a heroine of the faith, and my mom, and then I lose a son? I fought him through co– court battles, if I’da been there, all the guilt, conflict in my mind, I could’ve saved him again, no doubt. But he wouldn’t stay here, where I coulda saved him. All that pain, and then you put more pain on me? How would you think I’da felt going up there, because you’re another one of my family, if I had found you wounded or dead? [Pause]
Partak: [Breathes heavily into the mic] Sorry, Jim, I was just– it was completely selfish of me.
Jones: It’s true.
Partak: I’ll make it up to you and work as hard as I can.
Jones: If you did that, you’d get in the line of work that you could do and like. So you don’t have to be in a structure tighter than a– a cage. It’s this kind of shit that keeps you there. You’re almost ready to get out, and then you do this kinda shit. Keep your word and see. Keep your word. Because we– we are loving. It’s a– it’s a love, it’s a rage of love that ca– a fury, it’s hurt, it’s pain that causes all this. And then it’s a second thing, more important, you couldn’t dare let this kinda thing get by. If we did, all society would break down. Every indulgent act would be endorsed. You understand that?
Partak: Yes, I’m gonna– I’m– I’m glad, when, uh, karate group first started, and I got beat up by Don and Sebastian [McMurry], I had the feeling, you know, that people–
Jones: [interrupts, unintelligible under Partak]
Partak: –black people had gone– gone through at the hands of the police–
Jones: Yeah, it’s, it’s– [mumbles]
Partak: It’s like you said one time, that we look like the chain gang, that’s–
Jones: Yeah.
Partak: –what, I tried– I tried [Unintelligible], you know? [Unintelligible] experience–
Jones: But son, you’re not– Son, you’re not ever gonna get over feeling that you don’t like pain and work, and there not every kind of work’s gonna appeal to you. Life’s not gonna appeal to you. Let’s just think that we have a blessing that [Unintelligible], there’s uh, several hundred of us, and we can make a helluva noise for socialism.
Crowd: Stirs
Jones: We can make a helluva noise.
Crowd: [becomes raucous]
Jones: Peace. If they come, we can do a fuckin’ good, a lot of good. And if they wanna keep pushing us, we can do it here, we can do it over in the United States. That’s– Nobody says you’re gonna hafta like everything you do, but look at the benefits of it. Look at the faces of black mothers who won’t have to have any more children dropped in the fields. Think of children that won’t get the police beat on them like this, every day worse, not with hands, miserable clubs, butts of guns, and then other embarrassing and horrible things, stick things up their anus. Police do it, in every city in America.
Voice in crowd: [Unintelligible]
Jones: Yes, it’s in the [San Francisco] Chronicle.
Same voice in crowd: [Unintelligible]
Jones: It won’t last. That’s the important thing to realize, too, I rea– Did you heard the news tonight, that the Near East is near a war, and that the Soviets is lining up on one side, and then America on the other, and the nuclear missiles will come into play, and it’s either that one night, it’s that, it’s other night, that it’s in Turkey, someplace else, all the goddamned time. Your future is on a fingertip, on a hair. You’re thinkin’ like that’s gonna last forever. It can’t. The fuckin’ country’s gone crazy. Racist dogs runnin’ loose in the streets. All kinds of confusion, joblessness, economic problems, [President Jimmy] Carter doesn’t have control of things, he’s in a– in a whirlwind. You’re acting like it’s gonna go on forever. It’s not gonna go on forever. Even people in your category or background are gonna feel the pain of what it is, of hunger. There ain’t no pain like that. We don’t have to go hungry if these dear black la– ladies. Look at the pride in them, planting bananas, we can plant enough bananas– Ever eat a banana like these bananas? Best goddamned bananas you ever eat–
Partak: No, they’re very good–
Jones: We could live on bananas if we had to.
Crowd: Right!
Jones: And that’s why every fucker oughta be planting a banana.
Crowd: Right!
Jones: Everywhere. Knowing what they’re doing and I hope that agro– agronomists are telling– the agricultural people are telling them what to do. What is it you plant of the banana so they’ll know? [To Partak] Stand up, you– you go back to your routine, it’s no more, we just wanted you to know that we can’t tolerate this behavior. It’s not that we hate you. We love you. I love you. I’d die for you. This very second, I’d die for you. What uh– what is, uh– we– we got to teach that this kind of behavior can’t be, because this would be a tragedy to our movement.
Crowd: Right!
Partak: Oh, thank you.
Jones: Not only a tragedy to you, you need to have an impression– impression on your mind, that mind is not to be messed with. You can be a lot hellish, worse condition than you are in right now. [To crowd] What is the uh, thing that you plant the bananas? [To Partak] Dismissed.
Partak: Thank you, Jim.
Jones: Thank you. What is– what is the, uh, that you plant, so you can tell these people, some people still planting the whole– the whole thing.
Voice in crowd: [Unintelligible]
Jones: The sucker.
End of tape.