All language subtitles for Underground.1976.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX].eng

We're five people

from the
Weather Underground Organization

We're in a house...

it... you could call it
a safe house.

We're here
with a group of filmmakers

and together,
we're gonna make a film.

We're underground
in this country.

We've been underground
for five years.

Those of us here today
are fugitives.

We've been asked to come here
by our organization

to speak for the organization.

My name is Jeff Jones.

And around the table
is Kathy Boudin,

Cathy Wilkerson,

Bernardine Dohrn,

and Billy Ayers.

You could say that this screen,
that's between us,

is a result
of the war in Vietnam,

or is a result of racism
in this society.

It's, it's, it's an act,
it's an important act,

to overcome this, this barrier.

And we're gonna try to...

reach through it,
talk through it.

♪ There's a new world comin'

♪ And it's just around
The bend ♪

♪ There's a new world comin'

♪ This one's comin' to an end

♪ There's a new voice callin'

♪ And you can hear it
If you try ♪

♪ And its growin' stronger

♪ With every day
That passes by ♪

You know,
the reason why we're underground

is that...

we believe that
we have to overthrow...

US imperialism.

And replace it
with a different society.

And that's why
we're underground,

because it's gonna take
a long fight.

And the reason
it's gonna take a fight

is 'cause they're
gonna make it be a fight

We, we want to make
a revolution.

We think there has to be
a revolution.

Many people think
that we went underground

because we had
to go underground,

because we were fugitives
and there's some truth in that.

But we also went underground
because we believe in the,

in the necessity
for building it underground.

This was a move
that was offensive,

that wasn't simply
a defensive move.

And we feel like this is
a very important thing to say,

because...

Because most people think
of underground as being...

Like being forced to hide.

We're forced
underground, hiding and we're...

- And constantly on the run.
- Exactly.

You know, they're after you,
so that's why you went under...

You know, we think of building

an underground organization,

building
an underground movement,

in that way,

we don't think of it as
a particularly defensive action.

We think of it
as a base to study,

a base to think,
a base to survive,

a base from which to fight.

Not just in the early stages

where the fighting
is small and selective,

but along the way
as it develops and grows,

and as the fight becomes...

a really massive...

social upheaval.

We're a group of people

who are committed to each other
on a certain level.

We're committed to study,
studying with each other,

to arguing about
what's right and what's wrong,

about deciding as a whole
what to do,

and then going forward,
and carrying it out.

That's the only way we can
find out whether or not we've...

what we've decided
is right or wrong.

And in that...
that's, that's the contribution

that we have to make
and that the, uh...

that the revolutionary movement
as a whole has to make

to the people in this country.

We all were produced
by massive social situations

Um, our revolutionary
consciousness was a result of

growing up in the age
of the atomic bomb,

by growing up in the '60s.

We are who we are
because Malcolm X...

was around teaching,
or Rap Brown.

Um, we're trying to draw out
our own particularity

and yet we feel completely tied
into the particularity

of all these other struggles.

That's the kind of web
we're trying to spin.

My name is Cathy Wilkerson.

My political history began
in 1962.

I went to a, a dem...
a picket line outside

Woolworth's
in Cambridge, Maryland,

and heard
Gloria Richardson speak.

And for me,
that was the beginning

of realizing there was
a struggle going on that had...

um, deep importance
for everybody's life.

Um, and including mine.

Uh, but I was still somewhat
of a spectator until '64

when I went on a picket line
against segregated schools

in Chester, Pennsylvania.

And was arrested
for the first time

and found out that
even the jails were segregated.

I say violence is necessary.

Violence is a part
of America's culture.

It is as American as cherry pie.

Americans taught
the black people to be violent.

We will use that violence

to rid ourselves of oppression
if necessary.

We will be free
by any means necessary.

I remember, really distinctly,

the day that I walked down
a hall at school

and there was a, a poster
on the bulletin board

and it was a leaflet
that had been put out

by a, a black community group
in Chester, Pennsylvania,

that was fighting for
integrating the schools.

The word around was that
people were gonna be arrested.

And I remember standing
and staring at that leaflet,

and knowing, absolutely,
that this was the time

when I had to make a decision
in my life.

If I got arrested, I knew
what the consequences were.

I knew in terms of everything
I had been programmed to do

for the rest of my life.

I hope I haven't put anybody
on the spot.

I'm not intending
to try and stir you up

and make you do something

that you wouldn't have done
anyway.

I pray that God will bless you
in everything that you do.

I pray that you will grow
intellectually,

so that you can understand
the problems of the world

and where you fit into,
in that world picture.

And I pray that all the fear
that has ever been in your heart

will be taken out.

And when you look,
when you look at that man,

if you know he's nothing
but a coward,

you won't fear him.

If he wasn't a coward,
he wouldn't gang up on us.

He wouldn't need
to sneak around here.

This is how they function.

They function in mobs,
that's a coward.

They put on a sheet,
so you won't know who they are,

that's a coward.

The time will come when
that sheet will be ripped off.

If the federal government
doesn't take it off,

we'll take it off.

Thank you.

My name is Bernardine Dohrn.

One of the first, um,
political things

I remember growing up,

is watching
the Army-McCarthy hearings

on television.

Watching my mother
ironing day after day

and watching these hearings.

My parents
were Midwest Republicans.

They voted for Joe McCarthy

and it wasn't until
eight years later

um, that these ideas began
to be really challenged for me.

But I knew that taking
the first step

would change my life.

And I hesitated for a long time.

The first demonstration
I took part in

was an anti-US demonstration.

And then increasingly,

I became involved
in organizing work in Chicago

and joined
the open housing drives

for equal housing rights

that took place on the west side
of Chicago in 1966.

We're gonna march
with the force of our souls.

Mobilize bodies
in concern for justice.

And somehow, we're gonna
step out here tomorrow,

and we're gonna take
the ammunition of determination.

We're gonna move out
with the weapons of courage.

We're gonna put on
the breastplate of righteousness

and the whole armor of God,

and we're gonna march
over this city!

And this is it.

Black people
of Chicago demonstrated

day after day
and weekend after weekend...

Go home, you niggers!

By marching into neighborhoods

that they were not allowed
to live in all over Chicago.

And what they elicited
from these marches

was the kind of blatant,
open, violent racism

that you see today in Boston

and any city
in the United States.

And, uh, by this time,
I was a law student

and I joined
the National Lawyers Guild.

At the height
of the student movement,

I joined SDS.

This was long after
I was a student myself.

I was elected
national officer of SDS

and had the opportunity
of meeting

with the Vietnamese
and the Cubans.

This experience in particular...

made me a full-time
revolutionary

and really changed
my own idea of myself

and what the revolution
was gonna be.

My name is Kathy Boudin.

I grew up in New York
in a family that...

was a left family
and taught me a lot

about the questions
of justice and injustice

in the United States.

Even though I had understood
a lot about the problems

of the United States,
if you only know the problems

you can become very cynical.

And when I went to Cuba,
I was very skeptical.

I was very skeptical

that any kind of society
would be possible and...

The day I felt
a tremendous enthusiasm

and possibilities and hope
that socialism means

for the people in Cuba
and for people around the world.

I remember,
on January 2nd, 1960... 1961,

I was 17 years old,
standing in downtown Havana

surrounded by a million people,

a million Cubans
that have come to Havana

to celebrate
the Cuban Revolution.

At the end
of the six or seven hours

of people celebrating,
came a long military parade

with guns and weapons and tanks.

I had been cheering,
along with everybody else,

and suddenly I realized

that I was cheering for tanks
and for guns

which is something
that was completely opposite

to what I had been
brought up to do.

My Cuban friend
that was standing next to me

saw my eyes fill up with tears

and he looked at me and he said,

"I understand
what you're feeling.

We don't like to have guns
and weapons either.

But it's your country
that makes us have to do this."

Three months later,

the Bay of Pigs Invasion
occurred,

and I understood what he meant.

My name is Billy Ayers.

My political history begins
in the Student Movement

and the Youth Movement.

The Anti-war Movement
and the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1965,
when the Anti-war Movement

was just beginning shortly
after Johnson invaded Vietnam,

some of us who were students,
uh, made a decision

along with, I think, really,
hundreds and thousands of people

at that point that, uh...

the Anti-war Movement
had to apply the tactics

and the,
and the confrontational methods

of the Civil Rights Movement.

Peace now! Peace now!

Peace now! Peace now! Peace now!

As long as we've been
organizers and revolutionaries,

people, one of the main things
that people have asked us is,

are, are upset because it...

you can't win, it can't work.

What, what can you accomplish?

There's nothing we can do.
This...

The United States government
is so powerful.

Just think back two months.

Think back two years,
think back five years.

We used to chant
the "Right on, Take Saigon"

or "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh,
the NLF is gonna win."

Who believed it?
Who could believe it?

Who had the...
Who had been educated?

Who had the tools to believe it?

It just happened.

♪ I declare the war is over

♪ It's over

Comrades and friends,

what amongst the worst crimes

the US imperialist
have committed on our shore.

Our entire people,
from North to South,

rose to be united.

Have raised up

to defend their freedom
and independence.

We are absolutely sure
of our victory.

Since our cause is strength,

we are still
with our entire people.

And we see growing support
of people of the world,

including Vietnamese people.

Long live the friendship

between the Vietnamese
and the US peoples.

♪ It's over

♪ It's over

Today, America can regain
a sense of pride

that existed before Vietnam.

But it cannot be achieved

by refighting a war
that is finished,

as far as America is concerned.

We are not going to let...

the war in Vietnam be over.

Everything the US had to throw

at Vietnam was thrown.

Technology, invasion,

limited war, special war,
search and destroy,

hearts and minds,
Vietnamization, everything.

Break the will of the people,
make the cost too great.

And every one of
those strategies was understood

and a strategy was developed

that let everybody
in Vietnam participate

in one way or another
to defeat that strategy.

Well, I think...
I do think

that the most important, uh,
the most important lesson

that people can go off from it
is that people make history.

That history isn't something
that happens...

far away and long ago.

History is something
that's made by people.

It's made by Vietnamese people

and it's made
by American people.

Tomorrow, we'll only be
what the people make it.

This belief in people

rather than in technology,

we've all been taught
to be jaded about,

- cynical about.
- Right.

How could it possibly be?

Especially here in the middle

of a technological wonder,
you know?

What you do
doesn't make any difference.

You don't matter.

Um, and I think
the revolutionary lesson

is just the opposite.

What people do
makes all the difference.

What people do or don't do

determines
the outcome of things.

Well, the lessons
of the war are subversive.

I mean, and that's why they have
to be covered up immediately.

And that's why all the effort
goes into reconstructing

one false lesson
after the other.

A tremendous amount
of energy goes into

trying to bring back the POWs
with the big brass band

where there's no jobs for vets
and no welcome.

If you understand what happened
in the Vietnamese War

and why the Vietnamese defeated
the United States,

it makes the possibility
and the inevitability

of revolution
in the United States very clear.

The United States government
is not invincible.

It didn't exist for all time

and it's not gonna exist
for all time.

It's full of weaknesses.

"You need this war,"

they said
to the American people.

"You need this war
in order to have enough food,

in order to have housing,

in order to have the materials
that you need,

to have a good society.

This war is gonna bring this
to you."

And I think what people learned,

is the war didn't bring
those things.

Who was it that made profits
from the war and who suffered?

Both political parties

supported the war in Vietnam.

Both political parties support

the continuation
of a war economy.

That the cause of the war
wasn't a policy.

Or it wasn't a bad president,

or a bad string of presidents,
or even five bad presidents.

People were forced
over the years to see

that it was the whole
organization of society.

And to call it something
that we've been taught

all of our lives,
was just rhetoric.

And communist slogans,
imperialism, capitalism.

That's what it was.

That's why we were fighting
the war.

And what starts to be revealed

more and more...
with more and more suffering,

is that, of course,
it's a class society here.

Really no different,
subject to the same laws

that you see operating
in the rest of the world.

And that lesson,
is a very powerful lesson.

That lesson is a,
is an explosive lesson

for the people to grasp
and make their own.

I belong to the young people

and the black people
in this country.

We're gonna remake this country
in the streets!

Don't get hung up
in the sports party bullshit.

Don't get hung up
at peace candidates.

Come on, we gotta fight it out.

We're the only power,
we can do this.

That's the beast.

We gotta build a strong base
and someday,

we're gonna knock
those motherfuckers

that control this thing
right on their ass.

♪ Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine ♪

♪ I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government ♪

♪ The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off ♪

♪ Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off ♪

♪ Look out kid
It's somethin' you did ♪

♪ God knows when
But you're doing it again ♪

♪ You better duck down
The alley way ♪

♪ Lookin' for a new friend

♪ A man in the coonskin cap
In the pig pen ♪

♪ Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten ♪

SDS came out
of conditions that were genuine

and the struggle was genuine,
the reality was genuine.

They had to make the transition
from being a student movement

and a resistance movement
and a protest movement

into becoming
a revolutionary movement

that was broader than students,
that took the student base

and exploded it into the whole
of the American people.

♪ You don't need a weatherman

♪ To know which way
The wind blows ♪

That was a change
and a transition

that demanded a lot
of political maturity

and most everybody
was not adequate enough

to make that transition without
a lot of mistakes being made.

We no longer
simply resist the pigs.

We no longer trap ourselves
so that the only possible motion

is in response to pig attacks.

We have gone on the offensive.

It is we who call the shots now.

You tried
everything that you could do.

You organized everybody
you could do,

you became obsessed with it,

you put the pictures up
on your wall,

protested and wrote
and demonstrated and...

spoke and...

I think it happened
when we strike for peace.

It happened in a million sectors
of the society

that people stood out there
and felt outraged.

It is correctly called
the "Days of Rage."

And felt like we had to do more.

We weren't doing enough,

the American people
were not doing enough

There were the Chicago police

who knew us well and harassed us

and followed us around
and broke into our apartments.

Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh,

the NLF is gonna win!

Well, we, we grew up

and we didn't learn anything
about history,

and we didn't understand
very much about...

how you can't always see
on the surface.

What you see immediately

is not necessarily
what's at work

and what's happening.

And so, growing up,
everybody's feeling...

small and isolated,

and made to feel that way
their whole lives.

We felt that way, then.
But we felt determined...

to carry out an action
that would reveal

how passionately we felt

and that we were
on the other side.

Not letting yourself

be passively carried off
by the Chicago police or...

fighting,
being willing to fight...

was a shocking idea and, uh...

didn't come naturally at all.

I believe that there's
a feeling among the people

who participated
in the Days of Rage.

A commonality,
a brotherhood, a sisterhood.

Because it was probably
the most terrifying thing

that any of us
were ever involved in.

Does that make us feel separate
from other people

who were not
in the demonstration,

who were not
in the Days of Rage?

It is the case that
when it happened,

and in the period
after it happened,

there was that kind of feeling.

Um, and it was quite
a while ago.

It was five years ago,

that demonstration
was six year ago

and it was five years ago
that we understood

that that was wrong.

That feeling toward other people

for not participating in it.

See, I don't, I...

I would say
that we weren't wrong

to want to fight

and we aren't wrong to know now
that we have to fight.

But...

And, and it's for
a pretty simple reason

because what we saw
by that point in time,

and I think what
a lot of people have,

have reckoned within themselves

is that to not act,
to not do anything,

or to not do
as much as you can do,

whatever it is,
is, uh, as violent...

as criminal, as complicit, as...

doing everything you can do

and some of it'll be right
and some of it'll be wrong.

And you'll have to change
and do better.

What right does anyone

to walk down
the street with a...

a chain in their hands?
Or a club?

Which we saw last night
used on the police.

Or an iron pipe?

You know quite well
if they're not playing hockey

with those kind of outfits.

Unless they're playing hockey
with someone's head.

I think Rap Brown was right.

Violence is as American
as cherry pie,

and this is a violent,
bloody country and...

I mean, the people's violence
is a teeny percentage of that.

It's mainly the violence
inflicted on the people.

What, what the transforming
experience is,

is being willing
to put your life on the line.

And there was plenty of examples
of that long before a lot of us,

myself, ever figured out
what was happening at all.

Black students,
armed black people,

uprisings in every major city
in the country.

These were the results
of the conditions and of course,

this had been true all along.

It was just that a lot of people

don't know
that it's true all along.

It's interesting,
because very quickly

after the Days of Rage,

around the country,
it was as if a lot of people

who were feeling as angry
as we were feeling,

are feeling the need to express
that anger at the state.

And to build the strength

of the people's movement
in this country did express it.

All around the country,

there were demonstrations
that were very angry.

It definitely wasn't just us.

It was really much, much bigger.

Not only was it not just us,

but we weren't the first.

- No.
- And we...

I mean, we didn't feel
and don't feel like some...

vanguard line of this question

of resisting the violence
that goes on all the time.

We feel like,
and certainly felt like

in the Days of Rage,

and by the time
the town has happened,

like we were running to catch up
with the real...

with the reality
of the situation

in the United States.

Mary and I had found in, uh...

in looking at early footage
of your group,

an almost arrogant,
male posturing.

There was a period of time

when we put forward
a vision of ourselves

and a vision of revolution
that was hard and mean

and somewhat anti-human.

You know, on one side,
it's because revolutionaries

and, and, and progressive people
should be militant.

But they shouldn't be
militaristic.

And they should be
challenging to people.

But they shouldn't be
condescending.

We became arrogant
in our behavior.

I think that it's important
to also put it into context

which is not an apology for it,
but a context,

and that is that we live
in a really decadent society.

Like Russia
before the revolution,

or China before the revolution
or Cuba before the revolution.

Like a sewer,

there's a tremendous amount
of crime,

a tremendous amount
of backwardness,

tremendous amount
of individualism, competition,

hatred of people.

And in this environment,

male chauvinism, or sexism,

plays as a value,
plays a dominant...

an important, a leading role.

One of the things
that the government tries

to separate the most,

that you can't be
a strong person

and also a gentle person
at the same time.

And that one of the reasons

why the Vietnamese
have been inspiring

is that that's
a revolutionary characteristic.

Being strong does not mean
shutting everything out

and being a blockhouse,
you know?

Which is sort of
the American image of strength.

Being strong means
being able to draw in the best.

Imperialism has,
as one of its underpinnings,

male supremacy.

It's based on a system
in which men are taught

to think of themselves
as superior.

It's, uh, bred into all these
institutions of society,

into work, into the family,
into schools, into hospitals,

into medical care,
into education.

One of the hardest things
was building a new culture.

There's not
an obvious alternative

to sexist attitudes

for men, for women,
for children,

for the whole society.

It was really the women
inside the organization

who brought about these changes

by being really challenging
and firm and strong

in demanding change,

and at the same time loving
and open and encouraging

about the process of change.

The Days of Rage was
an act of political violence.

What, what was your next act?

The next acts
were all by the state.

I mean, 300 of us were arrested.

The Conspiracy Trial
was going on.

Bobby Seale
was chained and gagged

and dragged out
of the courtroom.

And, uh...

three weeks later,
Fred Hampton was murdered.

And Mark Clark, in Chicago.

Bobby Seale is going through

all types of physical
and mental torture.

But that's all right,

because we said
even before this happened,

and we're gonna say it
after this

and after I'm locked up,
and after everybody's locked up

that you can
jail revolutionaries,

but you can't
jail the revolution.

Right.

You might run a liberator

like Eldridge Cleaver
out of the country,

but you can't run liberation
out of the country.

You might murder

a freedom fighter
like Bobby Hutton,

but you can't murder
freedom fighting,

and if you do,

you'll come up with
answers that don't answer

explanations that don't explain,

you'll come up with
conclusions that don't conclude,

and you'll come up
with people that you thought

should be acting like pigs

that's acting like people
and moving on pigs.

And that's what we've got to do.

So we're going to see
about Bobby regardless

of what these people think
we should do,

because school is not important
and work is not important.

Nothing's more important
than stopping fascism,

because fascism
will stop us all.

Someone came into the room,

started shaking the Chairman,

said, "Chairman, Chairman,
wake up, pigs was laughing."

Still half asleep, I looked up
and I saw bullets coming

from, it looked like,
the front of the apartment.

Um...

When he looked up,
he just looked up.

He didn't say a word,
he didn't move,

except for moving his head up.

He laid his head back down...

to his side like that.

He never said a word,
he never got up off the bed.

The immediate,
violent, criminal reaction

of the occupants

in shooting at
announced police officers,

emphasizes
the extreme viciousness

of the Black Panther Party.

So does their refusal

to cease firing
at the police officers

when urged
to do so several times.

Heard a pig say,

"He's barely alive,
he'll barely make it."

I assumed they were talking
about Chairman Fred.

And then, they started
shooting at the pigs.

They started shootin' at...
shootin' again.

I heard a sister scream.

They stopped shootin'.

Pigs said,

"He's good as dead now."

Sergeant Groth
describes the raid

as 15 minutes of hell
and a miracle.

A miracle because
not one policeman was killed.

A miracle because
not more policemen were shot.

It's two and a half weeks
since Fred Hampton was murdered

by the pigs who own this city.

It's almost a year
since the massacres in Vietnam

and the daily massacres
that go on

against the people
of the world have occurred.

And we want to announce

that we're coming back
to the loop.

That for people to be able
to enjoy Christmastime

in this country,

without remembering
and without making a choice,

about the struggle
that's going on in the world,

without taking action

about a blatant murder
that takes place in the city

against a revolutionary
black leader, is an obscenity.

At that time,

we were talking earlier
about the corruption and, uh...

acquiescence
of the American people

as well as
the revolutionary traditions.

And at that point,

our political judgement
was only to see the corruption.

Only to see the acquiescence.

Where are you going to march?

Well, we'll march down
State Street with the crowd

I mean, we live here in America
so you know,

we're born here
in this country, too.

And the notion
that we're outlaws

has got to be put together

with the fact
that America created us.

And we're going to State Street
where the rest of it...

rest of the people think
they can, they can go

and, and be safe...

If there's no room
on the sidewalk,

would they go out
onto the street?

Sure.

I think that we're...
we made plenty mistakes

and we're not
a terrorist organization

and we're not
an adventurist organization.

And it's irresponsible of people
to make that accusation.

Of course, we make mistakes.

Of course...

partial rebellions don't lead
immediately to revolution.

And to, to call those things,

to flatten those things out
or to single them out

and blow them up and say,
"This is it.

No progress, you lost.

You made this mistake.
You're irrevocably branded,"

is to strip revolution
of the fact that it's a process.

And the process is everything.

And that's
what we're involved in.

Do you think there ever was a...

an accurate criticism?

I think that
we believe in self-criticism.

And we believe
that it's a major way

in which the revolution
moves forward.

We have responsibility

to have a strategy
that takes into account

the ups and downs
that it's gonna go through,

and doesn't see only
in the down, an endless down,

or only in the up,
an endless up.

It's gonna be a struggle
that peaks and then rests

and gathers back its strength,

and learns from its mistakes,
and rises up again.

And that's inevitable
because of the violence

that's imbedded in the system.

So the mistake was
not taking into account

the long road, the whole thing,

and understanding how much work

was gonna have to go in
to organizing the people

through every form of struggle,

and every form of resistance,
and every form of fighting back,

and focusing it on one means
of the struggle.

We don't agree with
the criticisms of us that say

"You go too fast,
you go too far,

you're too violent."

Because we feel like
that's all we said

of people who were fighting back

and that's all we said
of the many accusation

made against revolutionaries.

We feel our actions have been

responsible and accountable
to the, to the struggles

and to the legitimate demands
for freedom

and for liberation
of most people.

For a successful revolution

to take place, um...

the vast majority of people
have to be involved in it

and support it and, uh,
fighting in it.

With some people doing...

Within that structure,
different people doing,

doing different types
of fighting,

some people leading
mass struggles,

some people leading
the armed struggle, um...

and those things very...
being very closely related.

So that means
that everything that we do

is built around a strategy
of trying to mobilize, lead,

and/or participate
in those struggles.

Our actions have been against

the property and the symbols
and the institutions

of the ruling class.

At this stage of the struggle,
it's our own propaganda.

One copy was

addressed to
the Associated Press,

one copy was addressed
to, uh, NBC,

and one copy was addressed
to New York Post.

I'm going to give you copies
of the letters if you'd like.

They have a logo.

They say this morning
we attacked the Banco de Ponce

in Rockefeller Center.

A bank controlled
by the multimillion-dollar

Ferré Enterprises
of Puerto Rico.

Then it goes on
about the cement strike,

directly challenges
the Ferré family

which owns Ironworks,
hotels, newspapers, banks,

and construction companies.

Puerto Rico is
a colony of the United States.

What does it mean
to be a colony?

It means that the wealth
of the island,

its resources,
and the labor of its people

are brought back
to the United States.

To the profit
of the big corporations.

Eighty-five percent
of all the industrial capital

in Puerto Rico

is in the hands
of North Americans.

Thirteen percent
of the good land in Puerto Rico

is taken up
by US military bases.

The United States imposes
on Puerto Rico its own language,

a tourist culture
of prostitution,

big hotels, gambling.

The destruction of agriculture

which forces people
off the land.

It makes them unemployed
in the cities

or in search for employment
in the United States.

Sterilization programs.

A third
of the Puerto Rican women

of child-bearing age
have been sterilized.

Viejo que has visto

la isla perder sus hijos.

Are there guns

to deal with genocide,
expatriation?

Are there arms
to hold the exodus

of Borinqueños from Borinquen?

We have been moved,

we have been shipped,

we have been parcel posted
first by water, then by air.

El Correo has special prices

for the "low island element"
to be removed,

then dumped
into the inner-city ghettos.

Viejo.

Viejo, we are the minority here
in Borinquen.

We, the Puerto Rican,

the original man of this island
is in the minority.

I writhe with pain,

I jump with anger.

I know. I see.

I am "la minoría de la isla."

Viejo, viejo anciano,
do you hear me?

There are no more
Puerto Ricans in Borinquen.

Puerto Rico has a long history

of great fighters
for independence.

So the working class
and the poor people

of the United States,
to free themselves,

we must link up
with mass liberation struggles,

such as the Puerto Rican
movement for independence.

We must join in full solidarity,
embrace it as our own,

for we have a common enemy.

The letters were recovered

at 10th Street and Greenwich.

At this time,
we have no arrests.

We've got the CBS offers,

we get them frequently enough,

and we don't know
how to make a film or do TV.

And don't want
to be cutting between two ads

and the evening news, you know?

Because...

then it's all appearance.

And it's not, you know,
it's not uh...

it's not
what's really happening.

It's not how people feel.

It certainly seemed
to us, um, last night,

that it was more complicated
and more difficult

than we thought it was gonna be.

It was not so much
having to do with the, uh...

difficulty of the, uh,
strange equipment

or even, um,
that we're in a space which, uh,

which we're not used
to being in.

I don't really feel like these,
the words which we...

which we're shying away from
are really rhetoric.

Just because large,
large numbers of people

are not, uh, comfortable

with saying a word
like "imperialism,"

doesn't mean it's rhetoric.

It means we have, we have a job

over the long run, which is...

to find some way to explain
what imperialism is.

We have no choice
but to use the word.

The same is true for racism.

So, so rhetoric
is, uh, is only rhetoric

if you can't find a way
to explain it.

To make it make sense.

I find all of this, you know,

incredibly constricting
and false for us

to be able to express who we are

and I think it could be better

if we were talking
to each other, um,

with, probably with
the tape machine running,

but not the cameras running.

Because it requires us
to get into these postures

that are, um,
incredibly uncomfortable.

If that machine were off,

you could come and join us
on the floor, we could...

Except, the problem is,
we're making a film

and every time that you say,
"Okay, now we're ready,

we're gonna start
to film again, it'll be...

the same thing'll happen again.

And it seems to me,
each time we do this, you know,

we're struggling to find
the form of what we're doing,

and as we sit and we do that

hopefully,
we're getting better at it

and we're beginning
to get an idea of...

And relaxing
and getting to know each other

within this context,

'cause this is the context
that is gonna go out.

I feel like I've learned
something the last day

which is that I now know
that I'm gonna be uncomfortable

through this whole project.

From beginning to end.
And I thought I wasn't gonna be.

I thought I was gonna be
uncomfortable

yesterday morning, like,
when we, we started, um...

Everyone has sort of
given me some sympathy

for being in a,
in a difficult situation

but it didn't bother me at all

because I knew
it was gonna be like that.

What I didn't realize
was that later in the afternoon

it was still gonna be like that.
Now, my right leg is asleep.

That's the way it's gonna be.

And, um, all of these,

all of this equipment
is contradictory.

Um, it can be used
by the ruling class

or it can be used
by the working class.

Just because we happen to be

on the revolutionary side
of the class struggle

doesn't mean that it's gonna be
comfortable for us.

Here we are.
We're in a house,

the windows are boarded up.

We're all sitting around,
it's very awkward,

but we're trying to deal with
the discipline of the situation.

You have accepted
the discipline of the situation.

And we are willing
to take the risk of doing this

because it seemed like...

we could speak
to a lot of people.

And we do wanna do that.

And we, no matter how political
and revolutionary

we think we might be,

are people
who are making a film.

There is that lens
that stands between you

- and between us.
- Right.

There's no question
that we're special.

We're professional
revolutionaries

and most people are not
professional revolutionaries

and we're also fugitives.

And, so, that's true.

You're what makes

- the special situation?
- Yeah, of course.

You, yourselves, know
that you're a minority.

As professional revolutionaries
always are

at a certain stage
in the development of history.

What is the best way
for us to make a film

that moves other people?

That moves many people?

To feel that they can
make a revolution

in this country?

By telling us how you got there.

You, a woman of a certain age,
in the United States,

under these conditions,
under these events,

you reacted in this way.

You have these fears,

you have these strengths,
you have these ideas.

And so,
you've come to this place

in, in, in American society,

which I happen to think
is a very good place to be

in American society today.

And, how did you get there?

You can't say, "Miss X,

born of middle-class parents
in New York,

etcetera, etcetera."

Who the hell cares about Miss X?

We're, we're scientists,

we're professional,
full-time revolutionaries

and, and we got this way

for very specific reasons,
political reasons,

we study a lot,

we think all the time
about certain kinds of things.

Anybody else could do that too.
Anytime they wanted.

But, the point of view

of television, of textbooks,
of all of that,

is the point of view
of the people who make money,

who govern,
who rule the country.

Um, and so,
we're taught to identify

with their successes
or their failures.

What we're saying is that

it's the success or failure
of masses of people.

So it definitely is
the combination

of the pushing and pulling
between us.

I think that's the only chance
of making it work.

I think that
what we agreed about last night

is that, we would try
to understand and get deeper

into the questions
that you want answered.

That's why we're gonna go
into the explosion

at Greenwich,
in Greenwich Village,

and several other things
that you think are important.

We want you to be able to make
a good film.

You think that
to be able to make a good film

this is the kind of thing
that's necessary.

So that, we should do.

It's not what we would portray

if we were making
a film ourselves.

There's a poem written
that's called,

that was written
after the townhouse.

It was called What It Feels Like
to Be Inside an Explosion.

How long an explosion goes on.

Rumble of it.

It's that kind of time

that can't be counted
on a clock.

It's that kind of time
that seems to go on forever

and you have a chance
to see your whole life

in that moment,

and also the lives
of your friends.

As far as we can determine,

the fire was caused
by an explosion

down in the cellar

that blew out the front
and side walls,

collapsed three of the floors,

and it uh, uh, caused
a severe fire and engaged...

involved the whole building.

We have two people
who got out safely

and there's one reported
still in there.

It was a long
dynamite explosion.

And it tore the basement
and the first floor

of the house apart.

We all could've been there.

And we've all talked about it
and know what happened.

And we're part of what happened
to the three people who died.

So, the story
of what happened there, really,

is the history
of the whole organization.

The people who were
inside, who survived,

um, fought their way out
through, uh,

a collapsed floor
that fell into a 20-foot hole.

Uh...

pitch black, dust everywhere,
out onto the street.

And soon, the fire started.

- The fire...
- The fire

was just starting
as they got out of the house.

And a crowd
was already gathering.

They had really only one,
uh, thing to do.

And that was to get away
from the area, fast.

So they went down
into the subway,

and they were broke,
completely broke, had nothing,

went through the turnstile
two at a time,

the way people do in New York
when they can't afford a token.

And got on the subway
and immediately began

panhandling enough money
to get to the next stop.

Everybody looked
at the situation that night

and decided "this is it,"

and that happened
in ten different cities,

fifteen different cities.

And from that point on,
we were able to disappear.

Even though our pictures were
on the front page of the paper

every day for days after that.

One of the amazing things

in the days following

was riding the subways
or watching TV

and seeing our pictures
all around,

knowing that
we were being looked for.

And knowing that
they weren't able to find us.

People that we went to for help

all took us in immediately

and were really happy to see
whoever knocked on the door.

And that part of it was actually
a lesson to us

about what we were
talking about before,

about to the extent
that we underestimated people.

Or thought that people
couldn't sort out

the main things
that were going on.

That was...

started to be proven wrong
right away.

Can you tell us
a little bit about

the people that were
in the townhouse?

Ted Gold, Terry Robbins,
and Diana Oughton

were three very courageous
and beautiful comrades.

And they exemplify the intensity
of the struggle at that point.

The fact that people
in this country have died

for the struggle, for freedom.

Also, that people
were willing to die,

were putting their lives
on the line around

and in the war in Vietnam.

Diane was a teacher.

She, um, that's what
she was primarily.

She was that
in a lot of different places.

In Philadelphia,

in a remote Indian village,
Chichicastenango,

in Guatemala.

She was also part
of the Women's Movement.

She's a person who knew
her own mind.

I thought she was
a very, uh, disciplined person.

She also was
a very strong-willed person.

And she made her decisions
about her life

thoughtfully and carefully.

And she did things
with her eyes wide open.

They all three did.

And they had decided
at that point in their lives

to begin armed struggle
in the United States.

This was as thoughtful
and as careful a decision

on their part as anybody,
as any revolutionary ever makes.

That's where it becomes
a soap opera about their lives.

That's what's torn away from it,

is the fact that people
do make decisions like that

and take their destiny
into their own hands

Who chose Dylan's song?

- Terry chose it.
- Terry?

Yeah, Terry
was a, an aficionado of Dylan.

A real fan.

And, uh, he picked that name.

He knew every word
to every song Dylan ever wrote.

Terry had dropped out
of college at 16

to do community organizing
in Cleveland, Ohio.

Teddy had fought at Columbia,

and been involved
in the Columbia struggle.

Teddy was a New York-raised kid.

Played street basketball
in New York,

grew up in the New York
public school system.

A red diaper baby.

He founded Teachers
for a Democratic Society, TDS.

You can still see today,
five years later in New York,

um, Teddy's handwriting
all over New York.

And a very distinctive, um,

"Bring the war home.
End the war in Vietnam,"

uh, on the subways and walls
in the Lower East Side.

- "The NLF has won."
- Oh, yeah.

It wasn't
the first thing anybody did.

And it wasn't out of the blue.

So people had become
revolutionaries slowly,

one step at a time,
had gone to jail,

had done all kinds
of other actions before that.

It's not mysterious
in that sense.

It came out
of real people's changes.

And real people's lives.

Every year on March 6th,
we, uh...

We stop and remember.

Because this is, this is
of signal importance to us.

It, uh...

it marks the beginning for us

of, of, of period
of being underground

and in active combat.

And it marks the ending
of, uh...

three people's lives
who we loved

and were intimate with.

One of the, uh, errors
that I think was made

among the people who were there
that caused the explosion

was that people
didn't take their own safety

into account enough

and didn't see that as
an essential part

of doing any action
or any struggle in this country.

And it's falling into a trap

that's laid
by the state of pe...

of making people not feel like
they're worthy or worthwhile.

Each person
has the responsibility

for taking care.

For being careful.

They were trying to state
their commitment

in a total way
without being careful.

And that was a mistake.

Mistakes were made

but we don't think
that it should be used

as repudiation of the necessity
for armed struggle,

in order, in the long run,

to, uh, build a successful
revolutionary movement.

We saw going underground
as part of building

and diversifying
and deepening the struggle

and giving it a new aspect
and element,

which was the capacity
to live and work

from a space
that wasn't under attack

and wasn't under the eyes
of the state day to day.

This is a poem
for Assata Shakur.

She says it herself,

"I'm a black revolutionary
and by definition,

that makes me part
of the Black Liberation Army."

For Assata Shakur.

"Underground"
is not the right word.

It makes it seem too simple.

As if there is
an easy way to disappear,

a place to go.

Beneath the city streets,
there is no safe passage.

You moved among your people,
a gentle wind.

Invisibly winding
into their lives.

Constrained a normal human
response to daily injustice

with an exhausting effort.

A ballooning breath of anger
caged inside.

Carefully choosing
the moment of attack.

And with muscles taut,

like the stretched skin
of a drum,

will the subways
between two businessmen

studying your picture
in The New York Times.

Although we had never seen
one another,

I wondered how you liked
to spend those moments.

When freedom meant
you knew they didn't know.

And during those last months
when they hunted you hard,

I was an invisible supporter
working on another front

knowing of those
tearing-apart times

when the days are like
the flashes of a strobe light.

And the Earth turns
with a racing rhythm.

Running the guerrilla

through the changes
of a normal lifetime

in a single month.

And when
you were captured, sister.

I wept for all of us.

What about
a specific act of violence

that you people
have been involved in,

like the Capitol bombing?

Why did you bomb the Capitol?

A person, a voice that sounded
to her like a male voice

who stated in a low,
hard tone, uh, that,

"You will get many calls
like this,

but this is real.

This building will blow up
in 30 minutes.

Evacuate the building.

This is in protest

of the Nixon involvement
in Laos."

We put a lot of work
into, um, our timing

and our choice of target

and our explanation
for why we did it.

And, uh...

And making sure that, uh,
that it would be an action

that would reflect
the sentiments and the views

of the people who are
in Washington at the time,

demonstrating and, uh...

And also,
in particular to call attention

to the fact that Congress

was just completely
in Nixon's pocket.

There was no...

there was nobody in Congress

that was taking an honest
or a principled

or a humane position on...

and doing anything
about ending the war in Vietnam.

Can you give us any specifics
about that action?

How many people were involved
and, uh...

Anything about the way
you operated?

I think it's important
to say that people volunteer

to carry out actions like this.

Um...

And people are chosen
on the basis

of political consciousness,
primarily.

- Did you catch my face just now?
- No, I didn't.

- Are you sure?
- Don't worry.

We'll find out what happened.

Several people
volunteered to do it.

To get past security,

they, they, they had
to carry it on their body

in a certain kind of way.

And then, as they were putting,

putting it in the place
where it was supposed to go,

it fell.

There was a, a lead
where the people who did it

thought there had been a shelf
and it fell several feet.

And, uh...

When the people who were there
realized what had happened

and that they were still there,

they took a couple
of deep breaths and came out.

And that evening,

uh, members of the organization
made calls

and, uh, alerted the press

that this action
was gonna take place.

And then it didn't happen.

It didn't go off.

The fall had, in some way,
affected it,

and there was no,
there was no explosion.

So the organization had

a series of quick calls
around the country.

And came up with a plan
which was to, uh...

take a much smaller device,
and go back in.

And put it on top of the one

that had been put there
the day before.

Sort of like
a little starter motor.

And the same people
went back in again.

Because the people
who did it called in

and already claimed
that we're gonna do it.

The second time in

was tremendously more dangerous
and more difficult.

So they went back in
and they put the little one in,

and it worked,
and it ignited the big one.

The Weather Underground
bombed the Capitol.

They bombed the Capitol
to bring joy.

To bring joy to America.

To bring a smile and a wink

to all the kids who hate
the American government.

We didn't do it, but we dug it.

It was outrageous, I think.

It looks to me as if it was
a planned explosion

on the basis of where and how
it was evidently placed.

And I think
it was a sacrilege because,

I speak not
in a religious sense,

but in a public sense,

because this is
the house of the people.

My name is Bruce,
I'm from New York

and I have a Vietnamese
Campaign ribbon,

Vietnamese Service ribbon,
National Defense ribbon,

and a Purple Heart.

My name is Peter Brannigan

and I got a Purple Heart here

and I hope I get another one
fighting these motherfuckers.

Robert Jones, New York,
I symbolically return

all Vietnam medals,
and all the service medals

given me, given to me
by the power structure

that has genocidal policies
against non-white peoples

- of the world.
- Right on, brother!

More power to the people!

This is for the brothers
and sisters at Kent.

What if we've respect
for our army?

Retired.
I'm taking in my Purple Heart,

Distinguished Service Cross,
Silver Star, Bronze Star,

army combination,
and a lot of other shit.

This is for my brothers!

Right on!

We don't wanna fight anymore,

but if we have to fight again
it'll be to take these steps.

I mean,
what I would like to know,

and I would like to know
if people go around

and are afraid that...

some cop or some FBI man
or some CIA man

is gonna, is gonna grab...

I just wanna know if you
walk around with that fear.

Fear? Yes.

Every time,
I think for all of us,

I know for me,
every time I see a policeman,

I have this rush of adrenaline.

And I take a defensive stance

in a, in a martial art
type of sense.

I mean, not a,
not a fighting posture,

but an alert posture.

I remind myself who I am,

what my name is,
what my various numbers are,

where I'm going,
where I've been.

That's an interesting way
to live.

Um, nervous...

Every day, you wake up
in the morning and say,

"I wonder how many times
I'm gonna be nervous today,"

'cause it happens every day.

I mean,
it's been five and a half years.

We've all been stopped by
the police.

I... One time,

a policeman commented
that my hand was shaking.

My... This was the first time,
my hand was definitely shaking.

And, uh,
he was really apologetic

about it because he...

his consciousness was
that people hate the cops.

And, "I'm not so bad"
and "don't be afraid."

So he, like, apologized to me,
you know?

For my hand shaking.

I don't know, I had
an experience I'd like to tell.

Walking down the street
at, uh, at night,

about 10 o'clock at night
and by a counter.

I went to buy, you know,
fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Suddenly, the police cars
come screaming up

and four cops jumped out
with their guns drawn.

And then
the Paddy Wagon pulls up

and, um...

You know, I go.

And we go about five blocks,

and the back of the door
is thrown open and, uh...

somebody's head sticks in
and says, "That's not him."

And, uh, it was... it was,

I just happened to fit
the description of someone

who was being looked for,

for an alleged robbery.

And, so then, the police offered
to drive me home,

which, of course, I declined.

We have a very strong ethic that

fear is an open subject.

And that when somebody's afraid
in a situation,

Um, they have an obligation
to say so,

because it's often real.

We assume it's based
on a real thing.

And we'll figure out later
if it was right or not right.

The other thing to say about

that fear thing, I think,

is that because of the nature
of American society

a lot of people wake up
that way.

The state is around,
it's everywhere.

And the government, uh,
means no good by the people.

Only means bad,

it only means hurt
and exploitation.

I was a much more fearful person

growing up in this society,
than I am now.

Now, the fear is real fear.

It's not paranoia,
it's not myths,

it's not the fear
of the unknown.

People are made to be afraid
of the wrong,

of unreal fears, you know?

"This person is threatening me
for a job," you know?

"My wife's freedom
is my defeat."

Your children become
a threat to you, old people.

And that kind of fear
is much more terrifying.

In the, in the underground

as a whole, um,

there has to be a high level
of commitment

to each other as people

even while
we're working out differences.

Because, uh, 'cause lives
are on the line.

And the ability to live
a normal life is gone.

Um...

And that has to be true

for the revolutionary movement
as a whole, um...

and, and it has to become true
for everybody.

And then it's
the other side of it,

which is that we definitely...

Um, we definitely feel good
about what we're doing,

about what we've done.

And right now, it would be
pretty hard to feel any better

because we say it, that, uh,

that we feel that the victory
in Vietnam

is a victory
for the American people.

And we certainly identify it
as a victory for ourselves.

It's something that
we fought for for ten years.

And, um...

I don't know, I'd have to have
my foot run over

by a police car
to feel bad today.

I mean,
what the hell is, essentially,

a white, middle-class
revolutionary group doing

in America in the year 1975?

Well,
there's two things involved.

One is class origin
and one is class stand.

The class origin of many of us
is intellectual.

And that means that we have
a lot of barriers to overcome

in terms of developing full
revolutionary consciousness.

That's true of anyone

who wants to become
a revolutionary

in any country at any time.

There's a constant
struggle to...

It's a lifetime struggle
to remake yourself,

to take on the awesome task
of revolution-making.

The other thing is class stance.

And our class stance
as revolutionaries

is solidly
with the working class.

We came out
of the student movement.

And we came
from the working class,

and from petty bourgeoisie.

And a few people came
from the ruling class

and left the ruling class
background.

But the overwhelming reality

about who are the people
in the United States,

is that the people work.

People work for a living.

And they have to work
for a living

and it's the only way
they can survive.

We're a white organization
for historical reasons.

And it won't,
it won't always be that way

and certainly, the people
who make the revolution,

the organizations,
and the forces

that make the revolution

will be multi-racial
and multi-national.

On a little press,

a half a million pieces of paper
went through that press.

We kept the press running

the way people used
to keep Model Ts running.

It's a 156-paged book.

We did 5,000 copies

and every page
was collated by hand.

Gloved hands.

And that was a piece of work.

So our attempt was
to try to describe United States

as we saw it

and underneath that,
to explain the forces at work.

Which made sense out of that.

So it didn't seem
like pure chaos.

But actually,
you could understand

that there were forces
in the struggle

and change happening
in the world.

And that the people
in the United States

were a major part of that.

And that their government
was a major part of that.

The other thing about it

is that we felt
if we could describe that,

write down the ideas
as best we understood them,

and put them out,

that they would get changed
by putting them out.

We knew that if we could
just risk putting out

what we did understand,

then we would learn
a lot more from it,

it would be changed,

it would be criticized,
it would grow.

Three quarters
of the copies were distributed

across the country in one night.

So we had to set dates.

I just remember the feeling,
I remember feeling as excited

about that last week of July,
last year,

when Prairie Fire came out,

as I did about the time
of the National Action.

The Days of Rage.

Because it was that total
immobilization of our forces.

Uh...

And when you reach a point
where the entire group

is mobilized to act in concert,
it's a very stimulating time.

And it's one in which
you really feel your power.

And rather than
working for somebody else,

and trying to see how much
you could lay down on the job,

you were working for yourself.

And it was
a tremendous experience,

the coming together of this
Red Dragon Print Collective.

We just started
our own newspaper.

It's called Osawatomie.

Osawatomie is the name
that was given to John Brown.

I mean,
it wasn't just a one-shot thing

'cause we want to put out
our own propaganda.

I think one of the things

that makes our printshop
a communist printshop

besides the work methods

and the way
we have organized production

and the fact that
no one's making any profit,

is, uh, is the, is the unity
of the whole thing.

We wrote it.

We figured out
how to make a book.

We made a book,
and then we got it out.

When we started,

we had never done
any of those things.

So we had to learn how to do
all of that in order to, uh,

in order to get the copies
that we put out.

We spent a lot of time writing

and a lot of time
licking stamps.

And some of it is particular
to the Underground.

We don't have an address
where people can write to us.

So we try to get it out
as widely as we can

by mailing it
and leaving it around in places

where we think
people would like to see it.

And hope that it'll be reprinted
and used by people

in their organizing work

and talking to their family,

their friends,
the people that they work with.

When you're putting forward

the idea of revolution,

you have a responsibility
to build in

from the very beginning

the realization that

no revolution
can take place successfully

without an armed confrontation
with the, with the state.

The imperialist power
will fight as long as it can

with the most advanced

technological weapons
that it has.

And I, I feel that pacifism
and non-violence

becomes an excuse
for not struggling.

For not fulfilling what I feel
is a human obligation

in this world to, uh...

to bring about
revolutionary change

and to destroy
the imperialist system.

I think it's
a common mistake to think

that violence is a choice
in political matters.

Violence exists
in certain social situations

and it's not a question
of choosing to be violent

and non-violent.

I think you could start

by saying who created
this wealth, you know?

Where did this incredible,

technological
and industrial power

and potential come from?

Because that's one
of the best kept secrets,

you know?

Rockefeller acts as if
his family made this wealth.

Um...

Of course, it's...

the people that made the wealth.

People built the railroad
and died building the railroad.

People opened up the farmland
and people produced the food.

People created the giant
industrial capacity that exists.

And at every stage of that work,

the wealth was stolen
from the people.

And gathered
in fewer and fewer hands.

♪ Solidarity forever

♪ Solidarity forever

♪ For the union makes us

♪ Strong

If there were any way

to make a revolution
without violence,

we would be for it.

But nothing in history,

nothing that you see
in society around you

would lead you
to that conclusion.

This society
is organized on profit.

That's the assumption.

And that profit
doesn't just come

because some people
are smarter than others.

That's a theft.

There's the violence,

that's the roots
of the violence.

And I think the only way

of ending a violent system

is by tearing it out
by the roots.

That's a radical solution.

♪ When the union's inspiration

♪ Through the workers' blood
Shall run ♪

♪ There can be no power greater
Anywhere beneath the sun ♪

♪ Yet what force
On earth is weaker ♪

♪ Than the feeble strength
Of one ♪

♪ But the union makes us
Strong ♪

♪ Solidarity forever

♪ Solidarity forever

♪ For the union makes us
Strong ♪

♪ It is we who plowed
The prairies ♪

♪ Built the cities
Where they trade ♪

♪ Dug the mines
And built the workshops ♪

♪ Endless miles
Of railroad laid ♪

♪ Now we stand outcast
And starving ♪

♪ Midst the wonders
We have made ♪

♪ But the union makes us
Strong ♪

♪ Solidarity forever

We do think
there's a tremendous distinction

between the American people
and the US government.

A tremendous distinction.

We believe
the American people can...

confront all the backward ideas
and the backward things

about this culture
and this society.

Overcome them,
become a force for change,

and bring about that change.

But it won't happen

by wishing it were so,
or by proclaiming it.

It will only happen through

direct struggle
and confrontation.

We no longer wish
to be treated as statistics.

We want to be treated
as human beings.

You can hear the people.

One of the most beautiful
movements

has been
the Prison Movement here.

When you see Ruchell Magee

stand up day after day

and refuse to be broken,

although he spent ten years
in prison

for a completely
trumped up crime,

he speaks for black people,

he speaks for oppressed people,
he speaks for me,

he speaks for everybody
in the world.

He refuses to be broken

and in the most incredibly
repressive situations,

this kind of spirit coming out,
and demanding dignity

ends up being a demand
for the whole thing.

Ends up being a demand
that we abolish this system,

this society altogether
and build a new one.

We are men! We are not beasts!

And we do not intend
to be driven or beaten as such.

The entire prison populace
has set forth

to change forever
the ruthless brutalization

and disregard for the lives
of the prisoners here

and throughout
the United States.

What has happened here
is but the sound before the fury

of those who are oppressed.

We are not advocating violence.

We are advocating communication
and understanding.

The Attica brothers themselves

uh, were generous in every way

to the guards
who were incredibly racist.

And, you know, these are not
token gestures, these are...

reflect the whole fabric
of the difference

between the future society

that's really trying
to eliminate

institutionalized violence.

In a necessarily
violent confrontation.

Put your hands

on top of your head...

and surrender to an officer.

I repeat,
you will not be harmed...

I find I agree with an awful lot

of what everybody's been saying

as far as the violence
of this society and...

But it's very hard
to say anything

when you haven't...

done anything about it.

Well,
it's not a personal question.

I mean, I guess that's what
we had to figure out.

It seems, somehow,
like a personal question.

And everybody does have

an individual reckoning
with themselves

and the question of human life.

But it isn't
a personal question.

There are many levels
on which to, uh,

people can connect,
evade themselves and resist.

And, and there's not only
one way to oppose things,

and in fact, um,

in order for it
to be successful,

it has to be sustained.

And that means building a...

a process of struggle
and a lifetime of resistance.

Not just a single flashy act
or a single moral statement.

But a long consistent
commitment.

Well,
I think the revolutionary forces

have an obligation

to be ruthlessly honest
with themselves

and not put forward that

we're bigger
or we're stronger than we are.

And also, to have
an accurate understanding

of the strengths and weaknesses
of the enemy.

So that we're not afraid to act.

How many people
are in your organization?

Well,
we're a very small organization

relative to the task to be done.

Um, and we can't discuss,
exactly, the size.

But as you know, we're small.

But we don't feel weak.

As we have moved
around the country,

we've been helped
in many, many ways

by many people.

It's not a trick,
you know, we're not...

we don't exactly outwit the FBI.

So if people didn't support
there being an Underground,

we wouldn't be here
five years later.

We feel that
it's part of what our job is...

is, uh...

And this is a job
that's gonna take

our whole lifetime and longer,

is to help people
have a clear understanding

in order to, to be armed
through politics

to create a revolution
in the United States.

I want to ask you
about the war in Vietnam.

Do you think that
that contributed to the, uh...

the unemployment
that exists at present?

Yes, I think it does.

How?

And all these people
that they're bringing in

from over there,
Cambodia and Vietnam.

Hell, they're giving them checks
right over...

A bed and a place to live
and everything else.

Why don't they take care
of their people right here

at home, first?

They've got people right here
not eatin'... eatin' dog food.

Our job as revolutionaries

is to be involved

in the day-to-day
struggles of people

for survival, for simple things.

As well as implanting the idea
and the possibility

and helping to take shape

the necessity
for complete revolution,

for socialism.

That's the only way, really,

to solve that day-to-day
struggle for survival.

The things I want
out of life, they're so small.

I can't even have them,
you know?

Eighty dollars every two weeks,

what can you do
with 80 dollars every two weeks?

What do you do to survive?

Survive?

You're borrowing money,

when you get this
you owe everybody, you know,

so I don't... You know, I wonder

in the next five, six years,
you know,

- what's gonna really happen?
- What do you think?

Do you think that people
are going to begin

- to get together here?
- I do,

you know, eventually, I believe
there will be a revolution.

I really do.

I hope I'll be around to see it.

I hope that you do.

Well, uh, it's coming!
I can feel it.

It's coming, I can see it.

If this country had been
more like what it was before,

I wouldn't think
about socialism.

But the way things have,
you know, progressed now,

this is what's getting me
to think a little bit about it.

What does socialism mean to you?

What do you think about
when you think of socialism?

Well, unless I'm mistaken,
'cause as I said,

I don't know too much
about these things,

uh, but it means that people
will be more balanced out.

You know, instead of having...

There so many people

who are making so much money,
here, there, and everywhere.

They have their fingers
in all the pies, you know?

And some people just can't seem
to do anything.

They, they don't have
the opportunity, I guess.

Maybe we weren't smart enough,
I don't know.

But sometimes, you just
don't have the opportunity...

When you look
for an explanation,

there's only one explanation.

Some people work

and barely get enough
to survive.

And some people make a profit
off of other people's work.

This is a class society.

When is a class society

inevitably are gonna have
class struggle?

And that class struggle

may not always be apparent
and visible,

and it may not always unite
with its true allies.

But it can't go away.
It won't go away.

It keeps coming back.

We're not fortune tellers

and I don't know how soon
the revolution will happen here

or exactly how it will happen.

But it does reveal itself
more and more, every year.

So that you can...

The forces at work

that are gonna make
a revolution become clear

and more conscious of themselves
and their interests.

I can't take no two-dollar job.

I can't. I cannot live on that.

No two fifty job,
I can't live on that.

And nobody can make, you know,

nobody can live on a two-dollar,

two-dollar fifty cent
an hour job.

That's why I've been so long
without a job.

More and more people

are embracing
the question of dignity.

And how is work organized?
For whom is it organized?

Embracing the question

about the disorganization
of capitalism.

That it's inefficient,
that it's cruel,

that it's violent
and it's wasteful.

And we can envision,
and millions of people are...

are at a place
where they can envision

that things
could be organized differently.

A political revolution,
that's what we need.

What we're seeing,
rumblings all over the country,

although these rumblings
are localized, and, and, uh,

isolated from each other
at this point,

is the beginnings

of an organized attempt
to fight back.

And what we see in the future

is, really,
a torrent of rebellion

leading to an organized ability
to resist and fight back.

And ultimately,
to the organized ability

of the working class
to take power in this country.

And reorganize the whole society
in their interests.

Socialism.

Why haven't
the popular struggles

in this country been
more successful?

Why hasn't there been
a revolution?

One of the main reasons,
well, the main reason,

is that the people are divided
against each other.

The people who run the country
are very good at this.

They've managed to turn
men against women,

they've managed to turn
white-collar workers

against blue-collar workers,

but mainly, for 400 years,
they've managed to turn

white people
against black people.

Nowhere is this more clear
than in Boston.

Venom.

I wonder about the tight-faced,

work-worried women
in cloth coats and curlers

who collect
in surly women crowds,

spitting hate
in Birmingham or Boston.

I worry about their sons' spite
collected in years

of shabby schools
and sometimes jobs

poisoned and prodded
by habits, by fears.

By landlords and leaders
who revile them.

Provoked and pitted
against their enemy's enemy.

What turns class hatred
inside out?

Freezes a longing for freedom
into splintered cries of ice

to pierce the heart
of those black people

who properly are allies.

What is the bridge to you?

Our struggle must reveal it.

If you really have confidence

that revolutionary change
is a possibility,

a full upheaval, revolutionary
change is a possibility,

then you have to believe

that there's this tremendous
potential and promise

that people can be better.

People can be better
and can change,

and can transform themselves

from all the backward,
negative values

that are imposed upon them
and that are handed down

generation to generation
through the culture

and in several other ways.

They can change

and become revolutionized
and become better.

But that doesn't happen
by wishing it were so.

It happens
by a challenge to that.

You know, if you look at it

purely in a pragmatic sense,
you could look at it and say,

"Schools are worse."

Black children are beaten up
and attacked now

just like they were 15 years ago
on their way to school.

Now it's just moved
from the south to the north.

But, the other way
of looking at it,

is that a black child
growing up today

has an incredible advantage

compared to a black child
15 years ago.

The difference is,
I am somebody.

The difference is, we are people

and we have dignity
and we have this history

and we know it.

And, uh, consciousness.

A real obligation
of revolutionaries,

and perhaps the major job,

is to wake people up
to their own strengths

and their own possibilities.

The deadliest weapons
are the weapons that convince

that you can do nothing,

and that you can't change,
and that you can't move forward.

The revolution
in Vietnam was won

long before the US got out.

Long before France was defeated
at the Dien Bien Phu.

The revolution was won

when the people became
a people for themselves.

♪ There's a new world comin'

And that same process
will be true here.

Before it's obvious
on the face of it,

or on the surface,

that a giant transformation
is going to happen,

it will have
already been concluded

in terms of the hearts and minds
of the masses of people.

♪ There's a new voice callin'

♪ And you can hear it
If you try ♪

♪ And it's growin' stronger

♪ With every day
That passes by, yeah ♪

There's a relationship between,

an important relationship,

between having a vision
of revolution.

And a vision of the future,

and an understanding
of what human beings

are capable of
and what's possible.

And the grasp of the work
that goes into making it happen.

Not skipping any steps,
organizing people,

bringing people together,
forging demands,

making a revolutionary program,
identifying the enemy.

Mao talks about this,
as he says,

"Without dreams,
there would be no work.

There would be no toil.

And without toil and work,
there would be no dreams."

Both dreams and toil

are part of what make up
human beings.

And the dreams of...
that people have,

the visions that people have
of what could be better,

affects their work.

Changes their work.
Transforms their work.

And the work that they do
makes possible their dreams.

We think of communism

as the highest aspiration
of people.

Because we don't think
of communism as

the loss of self in the mass.

We think of communism

as the discovery of self
in society.

And it's inconceivable,
to me, that there...

that any advanced notion
of human capabilities

and human possibilities
would conceive of human beings

isolated from each other
or living on islands.

We are, after all,
in a social world.

And we realize ourselves,
we become our best selves

in relationship to other people.

And communism to us represents

opposition to
the atomization of people,

the ripping of people off
from each other,

and the coming together
of sister and brothers, really.

That's why, that's why we keep
using the word "communism"

and that's why
we call ourselves "communists."

And the reason we're
an organization,

and the reason
we keep insisting on that,

and the reason we keep
insisting that

we're not speaking here
as five individuals,

but are speaking
from a collective,

is because
organization embodies,

within itself, collectivity,

and embodies opposition
to individualism.

♪ There's a new world comin'

♪ And it's just around
The bend ♪

♪ There's a new world comin'

♪ This one's comin' to an end

♪ There's a new voice callin'

♪ And you can hear it if
You would just give it a try ♪

♪ And its growin' stronger
With every day that passes by ♪

♪ There's a brand new mornin'

♪ Rising clear
And sweet and free ♪

♪ There's a new day dawnin'
That belongs to you and me ♪

♪ Yes, a new world's comin'
The one we've had visions of ♪

♪ Coming in peace

♪ Coming in joy

♪ Coming in peace now, yeah

♪ Coming in love now, yeah