The Meaning of Black Power

(Cont'd.) We call on our Black brothers fighting with the American forces in Vietnam to rethink their position. You have no business being there because the Vietnamese have neither enslaved us nor called us niggers. You have more in common with the Vietnamese peasants than you have with your generals. You are not fighting an enemy but a friend. But don't let our recriminations today make you feel we don't appreciate your plight. We know you have been reduced to a level of ghetto subsistence where you have to pick up the gun and shoot for Pentagon capitalism as an alternative to living with rets in your slums back home. We know you are not in Vietnam of your own choosing but under economic duress. This is a shame. And now that you are already there, our message today is that you must make the most of it. You must see the jungles of Asia not as a killing ground for Asian peasants but as a military university to prepare yourselves for the great war ahead. You must learn to use the gun, learn to use the bayonet, learn to use the bomb and learn to use the boot so that, when you go back to America, your one mission must be to kick the American imperialism straight in the groin. Secondly, we call on our Black brothers yet in America to stay put where they are. When Pentagon calls upon you to go to Vietnam, tell them to go to hell. If they tell you to go to Asia and fight for democracy, tell them that your battle for democracy is at home in the States. If they lay their hands on you to draft you by force, send them to the cemetery. If they imprison you in consequence, teach your little brothers at home the old hymn of "Burn, baby, burn", and the significance of that hymn in Detroit, Cleveland and Newark. If they tell you that "Burn, baby, burn" is wrong for America, tell them that "Bomb, baby, bomb" is worse still for Vietnam. If violence is wrong at home, then violence is wrong abroad. If they point at Cardinal Spellman for a spiritual model, point at Elijah Muhammad for your own. If they declare some White general a hero, show them your hero whom the whole world has already proclaimed the greatest, Muhammad Ali. Brother Ali is the greatest and, from now onwards, you must make him your model. He is the greatest not just by virtue of his ability to box, but also by virtue of his integrity as a man. They talk about taking his World Championship away from him, but we know that that is a tissue of meaningless drivel. How can they take away from him something they never gave to him in the first place? If Lyndon Johnson wants that title that bad, the only way he can get it is to put on his gloves and get into the ring to confront Ali. And if that fight ever takes place, you and I know what the result will be. That is the one fight I will never miss. It is the one fight I'll give anything to watch from the ringside. Lyndon Johnson won't bother to show us his scar on television this time. He'll have enought pieces of broken jaw and ribs to send the entire world as souvenirs. And this brings us to our third message today which is to Lyndon Johnson himself. Lyndon Johnson has a dream. His dream is to dominate the world, to make the world dangle up like a little puppy every time he pulls it by the ears, to reduce the rest of the world to a mere economic, cultural and political vacuum in which America swells up. Our message today to Lyndon is that we, the members of the Third World, have a historic mission to turn his dream into a nightmare. China has already begun. The Old Man of China has taught us that political power only grows out of the barrel of a gun. The only way to learn to make revolution is by making revolution. The only way to make an omelette is by cracking the egg. China today has made a nuclear omelette and the West doesn't like the Chinese cooking. This is Lyndon's nightmare. His