Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color

PROLOGUE

1. Paul Jacobs, “Watts vs. Israel: Black Nationalists and an Israeli Diplomat,” Commonweal, March 1, 1968, 649–51, 654.

2. Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (New York: Vintage, 1967), 179.

3. The text of the speech is available in George Breitman, ed., Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements (New York: Grove, 1990), 3–17; and at the History Is a Weapon website: www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/malcgrass.html.

CHAPTER 1

1. Regarding the idea that black Americans were permanent exiles, Malcolm X said in 1964, “Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren’t Americans yet.” Lewis V. Baldwin and Amiri YaSin Al-Hadid, Between Cross and Crescent: Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Malcolm and Martin (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 317.

2. Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 2007), 134–35.

3. See Yvonne D. Newsome, “Transnationalism in Black-Jewish Conflict: A Study of Global Identification Among Established Americans,” Race and Society 4 (2001): 89–107.

4. Louis A. DeCaro Jr. On the Side of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X (New York: New York University Press, 1996), 150, 153; E. U. Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism: A Search for an Identity in America (1962; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 238; C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America (Boston: Beacon, 1961), 26, 170.

5. New York Amsterdam News, May 3, 1958, quoted in Lincoln, Black Muslims in America, 172, 96; see also the Los Angeles Herald Dispatch, April 10, 1958, cited in Karl Evanzz, The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad (New York: Pantheon, 1999), 185–86; and Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (New York: Viking, 2011), 149n517.

6. There is practically nothing in the historical record about Malcolm’s trip to the holy city; I could find only one reference, in a file that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) kept on Malcolm X. See FBI File 100-399321 (Malcolm X Little), “FBI New York Office Report,” May 17, 1960, https://vault.fbi.gov/malcolm-little-malcolm-x/malcolm-little-malcolm-x-hq-file-05-of-27.

7. FBI File 105-24822, sec. 10 (Elijah Muhammad), document: SAC, WFO to Director, FBI, memorandum, June 1, 1965, https://vault.fbi.gov/elijah-muhammad/elijah-muhammad-part-10-of-20/view.

8. Quoted in George Breitman, ed., Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements (New York: Grove, 1990), 47.

9. Ibid., 48, 49–50.

10. Ibid., 5, 10.

11. Ibid., 36.

12. Pittsburgh Courier, August 15, 1959, cited in Lincoln, Black Muslims in America, 225.

13. Lincoln, Black Muslims in America, 166.

14. “Playboy Interview: Malcolm X,” Playboy, May 1963, 53–63.

15. Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, with the assistance of Alex Haley (New York: Ballantine, 1973), 345; Marable, Malcolm X, 310.

16. Egyptian Gazette, August 23, 1964, http://malcolmxfiles.blogspot.com/2013/07/speech-to-second-african-summit.html.

17. The Egyptians had maintained a military occupation of Gaza since 1948 but were willing to let him travel there just as they earlier had arranged for the famous Argentine revolutionary figure Ernesto “Che” Guevara to visit Gaza in June of 1959, no doubt in the hopes that it would further hone their pro-Palestinian sentiments.

18. Malcolm X Collection: Papers, 1948–1965, box 5, folder 14: Public Meetings, 1963–64 (microfilm roll 5), document: typed copy of Malcolm’s travel diary, entries for Sept. 4–6, 1964, New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

19. Muhammad Ahmad (Maxwell Stanford Jr.), We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations, 1960–1975 (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 2007), 31.

20. Malcolm X, “Zionist Logic,” Egyptian Gazette, Sept. 17, 1964.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, 89.

24. Ibid., 130.

25. Julian Bond, “SNCC: What We Did,” at Like the Dew, April 27, 2010, http://likethedew.com/2010/04/27/sncc-what-we-did.

26. Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, 85.

27. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Papers, 1959–1972 (Sanford, NC: Microfilming Corporation of America, 1981), microfilm (hereafter SNCCP): Subgroup A: Atlanta Office, 1959–1972, ser. 3, Staff Meetings, 1960–68, reel 3, sec. 1: Minutes, Aug. 1, ’60–Oct. 30, ’68, “Press Release” (May 1967).

28. Casey King and Linda Barrett Osborne, Oh, Freedom! Kids Talk About the Civil Rights Movement with the People Who Made It Happen (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 94–96.

29. Courtland Cox, telephone interview by the author, Oct. 15, 2015.

30. Stokely Carmichael, with Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) (New York: Scribner, 2003), 558–59 (emphasis in original).

31. Don Jelinek, “SNCC: Vietnam, Israel, & Violence,” interview by Bruce Hartford, 2005, www.crmvet.org/nars/jelinek.htm#snccvietnam.

32. American Jewish Committee, Arab Appeals to American Public Opinion (New York: American Jewish Committee, Institute of Human Relations, 1969), 9.

33. SNCCP, Subgroup A: Atlanta Office, 1959–1972, ser. 3, Staff Meetings, 1960–68, reel 3, sec. 1: Minutes, Aug. 1, ’60–Oct. 30, ’68, “Research Department to Staff” (June 5, 1967).

34. Clayborne Carson, “Blacks and Jews in the Civil Rights Movement: The Case of SNCC,” in Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews, ed. Jack Salzman, Adina Back, and Gretchen Sullivan Sorin (New York: George Braziller, in association with the Jewish Museum, 1992), 42–43.

35. SNCCP, Subgroup A: Atlanta Office, 1959–1972, ser. 3, Staff Meetings, 1960–68, reel 3, sec. 1: Minutes, Aug. 1, ’60–Oct. 30, ’68, “National Office Report” (May 5, 1967), by Fay D. Bellamy.

36. Carmichael, Ready for Revolution, 558–59.

37. Two such SNCC staffers were Kathleen Neal and Philip Hutchings. See the interview with Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Sept. 16, 2011, conducted for the Civil Rights History Project under contract to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture: https://cdn.loc.gov/service/afc/afc2010039/afc2010039_crhp0051_cleaver_transcript/afc2010039_crhp0051_cleaver_transcript.pdf. See also the interview with Philip Hutchings, Sept. 1, 2011, conducted for the same project: https://cdn.loc.gov/service/afc/afc2010039/afc2010039_crhp0042_hutchings_transcript/afc2010039_crhp0042_hutchings_transcript.pdf.

38. Karen Edmonds Spellman, telephone interview by the author, Sept. 24, 2015.

39. Ibid.

40. Carmichael, Ready for Revolution, 560.

41. James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries: A Personal Account (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 494.

42. Ibid., 494–96.

43. Ibid., 496 (emphasis in original).

44. “The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge,” SNCC Newsletter 1, no. 2 (June-July 1967): 4.

45. Ibid., 5.

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid. (all-caps preserved from original).

48. Ibid.

49. Philip Hutchings, interview (see note 37 above).

50. See Cynthia A. Young, Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006); and Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).

51. McAlister, Epic Encounters, 115; Newsome, “Transnationalism in Black-Jewish Conflict,” 89–107.

52. E. U. Essien-Udom, “From Black Nationalism: A Search for Identity,” in Racism: A Casebook, ed. Frederick R. Lapides and David J. Burrows (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971), 167. Essien-Udom’s Black Nationalism: A Search for Identity was originally published by the University of Chicago Press in 1962.

53. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove, 1968), 213.

54. Simon Hall, “On the Tail of the Panther: Black Power and the 1967 Convention of the National Conference for New Politics,” Journal of American Studies 37, no. 1 (2003): 61; Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Papers of David McReynolds, ser. 1, box 12, Business Correspondence, Aug. 1967 (3), advertisement in New Politics News (emphasis in original).

55. Hall, “On the Tail of the Panther,” 67.

56. The committee had been formed in June of 1967 by an Old Left Marxist party, the Workers World Party. See Mike Rubin, An Israeli Worker’s Answer to M. S. Arnoni (New York: Ad Hoc Committee on the Middle East, 1968).

57. Carson, “Blacks and Jews in the Civil Rights Movement,” 45.

58. Sid Lens, “The New Politics Convention: Confusion and Promise,” New Politics 6, no. 1 (1967): 10.

59. American Jewish Committee Archives, Bertram H. Gold Executive Papers, Black-Jewish Relations File (1967), document: King to Abram, Sept. 28, 1967.

60. Federal Bureau of Investigation, The Martin Luther King, Jr., FBI File, pt. 2, The King-Levison File, ed. August Meier and John H. Bracey Jr. (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1987), microfilm: reel 7, 602, conversation of Sept. 19, 1967, and reel 7, 610, conversation of Sept. 21, 1967.

61. Frank Lynn, “New Left Hits Israel, Viet War, Draft,” Newsday, Sept. 5, 1967.

CHAPTER 2

1. Gene Roberts, “S.N.C.C. Charges Israel Atrocities,” New York Times, August 15, 1967.

2. “Anti-Semitic Attack in Organ of Extremist Negro Organization Evokes Jewish Protests,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 16, 1967, 1, http://pdfs.jta.org/1967/1967-08-16_158.pdf.

3. American Jewish Committee (AJC) online archives (hereafter AJCOA), Subject Files Collection, file: Race Relations/Jewish-Negro Relations, Correspondence and Reports on Jewish-Negro Relations (6), document: “Jewish Contributions to Negro Welfare,” Feb. 27, 1942.

4. See, e.g., James Baldwin, “The Harlem Ghetto, Winter 1948: The Vicious Circle of Frustration and Prejudice,” Commentary, Feb. 1948, 165–70.

5. A June 1958 report drawn up for the American Jewish Committee about black attitudes toward Jews in Newark, New Jersey, offers an insightful and early examination of these complaints. See AJCOA, AJC Subject Files Collection, file: Race Relations/Jewish-Negro Relations, Correspondence and Reports on Jewish-Negro Relations (6), document: Kellner to Dawidowicz, June 9, 1958.

6. C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America (Boston: Beacon, 1961), 167.

7. James Baldwin, “Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They Are Anti-White,” New York Times, April 9, 1967.

8. AJCOA, file: The Many Faces of Anti-Semitism, 1967, document [book]: Rose Feitelson and George Salomon, The Many Faces of Anti-Semitism, foreword by Nathan Glazer (n.p.: American Jewish Committee, 1967), 29.

9. See Baraka’s own retrospective explanation of some of these poems in “Confessions of a Former Anti-Semite,” Village Voice, Dec. 17–23, 1980, 18–22.

10. Baldwin, “Negroes Are Anti-Semitic.”

11. Ibid.

12. Norman Podhoretz, “My Negro Problem—and Ours,” Commentary, Feb. 1, 1963, 93–101.

13. Seymour Martin Lipset, “‘The Socialism of Fools’: The Left, the Jews, and Israel,” Encounter, Dec. 1969, 31.

14. Ibid.

15. Karen Edmonds Spellman, telephone interview by the author, Sept. 24, 2015.

16. Charles Cobb Jr., telephone interview by the author, Sept. 16, 2015.

17. Courtland Cox, telephone interview by the author, Oct. 15, 2015.

18. Roberts, “S.N.C.C. Charges Israel Atrocities.”

19. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Papers, 1959–1972 (Sanford, NC: Microfilming Corporation of America, 1981), microfilm (hereafter SNCCP): Subgroup B: New York, ser. 2, International Affairs Commission, reel 51, sec. 36: Middle East Crisis, document: “The Big Lie Gets Bigger and Dirtier.”

20. Chicago Daily Defender, August 17, 1967, cited in Keith P. Feldman, “Racing the Question: Israel/Palestine and U.S. Imperial Culture” (PhD diss., University of Washington, 2008), 185.

21. SNCCP, Subgroup B: New York, ser. 2, International Affairs Commission, reel 51, sec. 36: Middle East Crisis, document: “The Middle-East Crisis.” This press release is also found in United States Library of Congress, James Forman Papers (JFP), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee file, 1950–2003, box 45, file: Press, General, 1961–68.

22. SNCCP, Subgroup B: New York, ser. 2, International Affairs Commission, reel 51, sec. 36: Middle East Crisis, document: “The Middle-East Crisis.” This press release is also found in JFP, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee file, 1950–2003, box 45, file: Press, General, 1961–68.

23. Clayborne Carson, “Blacks and Jews in the Civil Rights Movement: The Case of SNCC.” In Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews, ed. Jack Salzman, Adina Back, and Gretchen Sullivan Sorin (New York: George Braziller, in association with the Jewish Museum, 1992), 43; see also Clayborne Carson “Blacks and Jews in the Civil Rights Movement: The Case of SNCC,” in Maurianne Adams and John Bracey, Strangers & Neighbors: Relations Between Blacks & Jews in the United States (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 583.

24. Douglas Robinson, “New Carmichael Trip,” New York Times, August 19, 1967.

25. H. Rap Brown, Die Nigger Die! (New York: Dial, 1969), 44.

26. Robinson, “New Carmichael Trip.”

27. “Anti-Semitic Attack in Organ of Extremist Negro Organization Evokes Jewish Protests,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 16, 1967, www.jta.org/1967/08/16/archive/anti-semitic-attack-in-organ-of-extremist-negro-organization-evokes-jewish-protests.

28. “How Racists, Black and White, Used Arab Propaganda Sources,” Facts 17, no. 5 (1967): 421–32.

29. Do You Know? Twenty Basic Questions About the Palestine Problem (Beirut: Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, 1965).

30. Izzat Tannous, The Enraging Story of Palestine and Its People (New York: Palestine Liberation Organization, 1965).

31. SNCCP, Subgroup B: New York, ser. 2, International Affairs Commission, reel 51, sec. 36: Middle East Crisis, document: unsigned and undated memorandum.

32. SNCCP, Subgroup A: Atlanta Office, 1959–1972, ser. 4, Executive Secretary Files, reel 11, “Stanley Wise,” sec. 424: SNCC Press Releases, 1/27/67–3/15/70, document: “Suggested Response to Questions Dealing with SNCC and Israel.”

33. Editor’s note, SNCC Newsletter (Sept.–Oct. 1967).

34. Mary Hamilton, “SNCC Leader Asks for Guns,” National Guardian, Sept. 9, 1967.

35. Editorial, “SNCC and the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” The Movement 3, no. 9 (Sept. 1967): 2.

36. Junebug Jabo Jones, “The Mid-East and the Liberal Reaction,” SNCC Newsletter (Sept.–Oct. 1967): 5–6.

37. Editorial, “SNCC and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”

38. Julius Lester, SNCC Newsletter, quoted in the Atlanta Constitution, Dec. 28, 1967, according to an FBI report of May 14, 1968: FBI file 100-6488 (p. 74 of 102), https://archive.org/stream/StudentNonviolentCoordinatingCommitteeSNCCFBIFiles/Student%20Nonviolent%20Coordinating%20Committee%20%28SNCC%29%20FBI%20FILES/sncc2b#page/n73/mode/2up/search/atlanta+constitution.

39. SNCCP, Subgroup B: New York, ser. 2, International Affairs Commission, reel 51, sec. 36: Middle East Crisis, document: “The Big Lie Gets Bigger and Dirtier.”

40. Editorial, “SNCC and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”

41. Dorothy Zellner, telephone interview by the author, Feb. 28, 2012.

42. Cleveland Sellers, The River of No Return: The Autobiography of a Black Militant and the Life and Death of SNCC (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990), 203.

43. “Selected Racial Developments and Disturbances,” Dec. 1, 1967, FBI document reproduced online in Gale Cengage’s Declassified Documents Reference System, https://www.gale.com/c/us-declassified-documents-online (subscription required).

44. Sellers, The River of No Return, 203.

45. Stokely Carmichael, with Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Ready for Revolution: The Life and Times of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) (New York: Scribner, 2003), 560–61.

46. James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries: A Personal Account (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 496–97.

47. Stokely Carmichael [Kwame Ture], Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan Africanism (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 2007), 199.

48. CIA memorandum, Nov. 1, 1967, reproduced in Gale Cengage Declassified Documents Reference System online, www.gale.com/c/us-declassified-documents-online (subscription required).

49. JFP, box 18, Correspondence, Nov.-Dec. 1967, document: Carmichael to “Black Brother” [James Forman?], Sept. 1, 1967.

50. CIA memorandum, Nov. 1, 1967, reproduced in Gale Cengage Declassified Documents Reference System online, www.gale.com/c/us-declassified-documents-online (subscription required). See also National Guardian, Sept. 16, 1967.

51. Robert G. Weisbord, Bittersweet Encounter: The Afro-Americans and the American Jews (Westport, CT: Negro Universities Press, 1970), 101.

52. Randa Khalidi al-Fattal, interview by the author, Beirut, Lebanon, June 24, 2012.

53. Carmichael, Stokely Speaks, 161.

54. JFP, box 18, Correspondence, Nov.-Dec. 1967, document: Carmichael to Minor, Oct. 25, 1967.

55. Ibid., document: Carmichael to Ethel [Minor], Sept. 24, 1967 (emphasis in original).

56. “Drawing Lessons: H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael Addresses at Newton Rally.” Transcript of Feb. 17, 1968, speeches based on the sound recording of the Pacifica Radio/UC Berkeley Social Activism Sound Recording Project, www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/carmichael.html.

57. Carmichael, Stokely Speaks, 139, 143.

58. Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, 494.

59. AJCOA, Bertram H. Gold Executive Papers, Black Manifesto File (1967), document: “Total Control as the Only Solution to the Economic Problems of Black People” (April 26, 1969).

60. James Forman, 1967: High Tide of Black Resistance (n.p: n.p., [1967?]), 1.

61. Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, 496–97.

62. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove, 1968), 36.

CHAPTER 3

1. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers (hereafter NAACPP), pt. 28, Special Subject Files, 1966–1970: Series A: “Africa” through “Poor People’s Campaign” (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 2001), microfilm: reel 21, group 4, ser. A, Administrative File, General Office File, group 4, box A-44, Leagues and Organizations, Con–Cu [1966–1969], document: Decter to “Dear Friend,” May 31, 1967; ibid., Wilkins to Decter, June 1, 1967.

2. Ibid., reel 14, group 4, ser. A, Administrative File, General Office File, group 4, box A-36, Israel, 1967, document: “Special Notice, Israel-Arab Dispute.”

3. Ibid., documents: Wilkin’s telegram, June 6, 1967; “Special Notice” (n.d.); Darden to Wilkins, telegram, June 7, 1967; “Replies Received re Poll of Entire Board” (n.d.). I could not locate a statement in the historical record.

4. Malcolm X, “The Black Revolution (April 8, 1964),” http://malcolmxfiles.blogspot.ca/2013/07/the-black-revolution-april-8-1964.html.

5. NAACPP, reel 14, group 4, ser. A, Administrative File, General Office File, group 4, box A-36, Israel, 1967, document: Draft statement on the War.

6. American Jewish Congress, Israel, Africa, Colonialism and Racism: A Reply to Certain Slanders (New York: American Jewish Congress, Commission on International Affairs, 1967), 11.

7. NAACPP, pt. 28: Special Subject Files, 1966–1970, reel 14, group 4, ser. A, Administrative Files, General Office File, group 4, box A-36, Israel, 1967, document: Wilkins to Rittenberg, July 18, 1967.

8. Ibid., reel 15, group 4, ser. A, Administrative Files, General Office File, group 4, box A-37, Jews, 1966–1969, document: “Statement by NAACP Executive Director Roy Wilkins,” August 17, 1967.

9. “Prejudiced Negroes Scored by Wilkins,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1967.

10. Kathleen Teltsch, “S.N.C.C. Criticized for Israel Stand; Rights Leaders Score Attack on Jews as ‘Anti-Semitism,’” New York Times, August 16, 1967.

11. Israel Horizons and Labour Israel 17, no. 7 (August–September 1969): 17–18. The journal was published by Americans for Progressive Israel—Hashomer Hatzair.

12. “Whitney Young Rejects Myth of Arab-Black Amity; Calls for U.S. Aid to Israel,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Nov. 2, 1970, www.jta.org/1970/11/02/archive/whitney-young-rejects-myth-of-arab-black-amity-calls-for-u-s-aid-to-israel.

13. Thomas A. Johnson, “McKissick Derides Nonviolent Ghetto Protests,” New York Times, August 18, 1967.

14. “CORE Executive Repudiates ‘New Politics’ Attack on Israel,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Sept. 7, 1967, www.jta.org/1967/09/07/archive/core-executive-repudiates-new-politics-attack-on-israel.

15. Long Beach (CA) Press Telegram, Feb. 14, 1969.

16. Black Panther, Feb. 28, 1970.

17. C. Gerald Fraser, “CORE Head Assails Arab Guerrillas,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 1970.

18. Daniel Levine, Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999), 225.

19. David McReynolds, telephone interview by the author, Dec. 20, 2010.

20. Ibid.

21. Eugene Guerrero, telephone interview by the author, May 27, 2011.

22. Teltsch, “S.N.C.C. Criticized for Israel Stand.”

23.” Jacques Torczyner and Rep. Podell Assail US and French Middle East Policies,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jan. 25, 1970, www.jta.org/1970/01/26/archive/jacques-torczyner-and-rep-podell-assail-us-and-french-middle-east-policies.

24. The Bayard Rustin Papers, ed. John H. Bracey Jr. and August Meier (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1988), microfilm (hereafter BRP): Subject Files, reel 15: Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, 1970 ad—Pre-BASIC, document: Randolph letter, June 12, 1970; BRP, Subject Files, reel 15: Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, 1970 ad—Pre-BASIC, document: “Black Americans Urge Support to Israel,” press release, June 26, 1970.

25. “An Appeal by Black Americans for United States Support to Israel,” New York Times, June 28, 1970, advertisement.

26. Ibid. (emphasis in original).

27. Ibid.

28. BRP, Subject File, reel 18: Jews and Anti-Semitism, document: “Israel: A Beleaguered Bastion of Democracy and Socialism” (emphasis in original).

29. Henry M. Winston, “Black Americans and the Middle East Conflict,” World Marxist Review, Nov. 1970, 13.

30. BRP, Subject File, reel 14, Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, Subgroup: Support Letters [1970], document: Kenen to Rustin, July 1, 1970.

31. BRP, Subject Files, reel 14, Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, Subgroup: Golda Meir [1970], document: Rustin to Meir, July 7, 1970.

32. “Lewis of SNCC Angered over Pro-Zionist Ad,” Muhammad Speaks, July 24, 1970.

33. BRP, reel 14, Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, Subgroup: Correspondence [1970], document: Rustin to Silberman, Sept. 21, 1970; “Black Leaders Muddy Middle East Waters,” San Francisco Sun Reporter, July 18, 1970, repr. in Daily World, July 28, 1970.

34. BRP, Subject Files, box 9, reel 16, Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, Subgroup: Hostile Letters—Israeli Ad, document: Browne to BASIC, June 29, 1970.

35. Ibid., document: Grimes and Nixon to Rustin, n.d.

36. St. Louis American, August 13, 1970 (emphasis in original); text found in Black World 19, no. 12 (1970): 40–41. It is also found in BRP, Subject File, reel 15, Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel [1970], Subfile: Ad—Pre-BASIC.

37. “An Appeal to Reason: A Message to the Negroes Who Support Israel,” Blacknews 1, no. 18 (1970): 11–12.

38. BRP, Subject Files, box 9, reel 16, Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, Subgroup: Hostile Letters—Israeli Ad, document: Harlem Council for Economic Development, Bulletin no. 224 (July 4, 1970).

CHAPTER 4

1. Federal Bureau of Investigation, The Martin Luther King, Jr., FBI File, pt. 2, The King-Levison File (hereafter K-LF), edited by August Meier and John H. Bracey Jr. (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1987), microfilm: reel 7, 447-52, conversation of July 24, 1967.

2. Ibid.

3. Clayborne Carson, senior ed., The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 6, Advocate of the Social Gospel, September 1948–March 1963, ed. Susan Carson, Susan Englander, Troy Jackson, and Gerald L. Smith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 323.

4. For an excerpt of the speech see “Martin Luther King’s Last Speech: ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,’” www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oehry1JC9Rk.

5. Vicken Kalbian, interview by the author, Winchester, VA, July 14, 2011.

6. Ibid.

7. Time, Feb. 18, 1957.

8. Dr. Kalbian would not indicate what ailment was afflicting King, nor did I ask him. When relating the story, however, he mentioned that most of the American tourists and dignitaries he treated in Jerusalem were suffering from various sorts of travelers’ ailments.

9. Kalbian, interview.

10. Clayborne Carson, senior ed., The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 5, Threshold of a New Decade, January 1959–December 1960, ed. Tenisha Armstrong, Susan Carson, Adrienne Clay, and Kieran Taylor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 169, 176.

11. Ibid., 169–76.

12. Records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1954–1970 (microfilm) (hereafter SCLCM) (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1995), pt. 1, Records of the President’s Office, ser. 1, Correspondence, 1958–1968, subseries 3, Secondary Correspondence, 1958, 1960–1967, reel 9, 12:27, Sept. 1964, document: Krech to King, Oct. 9, 1964.

13. Israel, Prime Minister’s Office, Israel State Archives (hereafter ISA), file RG 93.8/MFA/6531/8, document: Dover to Bar-On, August 14, 1962.

14. ISA, file RG 93.8/MFA/6531/8, document: Ilan to King, Feb. 27, 1963; see also Marc Schneier, “Remembering Martin Luther King’s Ties to Israel,” Chicago Jewish News, Jan. 15, 2010.

15. ISA, file RG 93.8/MFA/6531/8, documents: Harmon to King, March 30, 1965; Engel to King, June 2, 1965; King to Engel, July 12, 1965. See also SCLCM, pt. 1, Records of the President’s Office, ser. 1, Correspondence, 1958–1968, subseries 1, Primary Correspondence, 1958–1960, reel 1, 2:6, April-May 1966; Harman to King, May 19, 1966; and SCLCM, pt. 2, Records of the Executive Director and Treasurer, subgroup 2, Executive Director, ser. 4, Andrew Young, subseries 1, Correspondence, reel 7, 42:6, American Jewish Committee—Israel Trip, 1966–67.

16. The King Center online archives (hereafter KCOA), Fortson to King, June 29, 1966; Draft letter by Ray, April 28, 1967; press release: “The Martin Luther King Holy Land Pilgrimage,” May 15, 1967; pamphlet: “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Invites YOU to Join Him on a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in November 1967.” The latter pamphlet can also be found at Emory University, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Records, Printed Material, Printed Material by SCLC, subseries 17.1, box 798, folder 6.

17. SCLCM, pt. 2, Records of the Executive Director and Treasurer, subgroup 2, Executive Director, ser. 4, Andrew Young, subseries 1, Correspondence, reel 7, 42:6, American Jewish Committee—Israel Trip, 1966–67, documents: Engel to Young, June 8, 1966, and Dec. 12, 1966, itinerary.

18. Vicken Kalbian, interview by the author, Winchester, VA, May 21, 2011.

19. Ibid; SCLCM, pt. 2, Records of the Executive Director and Treasurer, subgroup 2, Executive Director, ser. 4, Andrew Young, subseries 1, Correspondence, reel 7, 42:6, American Jewish Committee—Israel Trip, 1966–67, document: Young to King, Dec. 12, 1966; see also K-LF, reel 6, 436, conversation of Dec. 1, 1966.

20. K-LF, reel 6, 412–13, conversation of Nov. 23, 1966.

21. Ibid., 434–37, conversation of Dec. 1, 1966.

22. KCOA, document: Burns to King, Jan. 23, 1967.

23. Ibid., documents: Ray to “Dear Friend,” July 17, 1967; transcript of tape recording with Mr. Hanna Nazzal, June 21, 1967.

24. Silberman’s group placed a second pro-Israeli advertisement in the New York Times three days later.

25. Americans for Democracy in the Middle East, “The Moral Responsibility in the Middle East,” New York Times, June 4, 1967 (advertisement).

26. Murray Friedman, with the assistance of Peter Binzen, What Went Wrong? The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance (New York: Free Press, 1995), 250–51; K-LF, reel 7, 287, 290, conversation of June 6, 1967.

27. K-LF, reel 7, 290, conversation of June 6, 1967.

28. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) online archives, file 100-392452, document: Director, FBI to Attorney General, Sept. 22, 1967, 2B; file 100-111181, document: summary of telephone conversations held by Stanley Levison; K-LF, reel 7, 295–99, conversation of June 8, 1967; K-LF, reel 7, 309, conversation of June 11, 1967.

29. K-LF, reel 6, 435, conversation of Dec. 1, 1966.

30. K-LF, reel 7, 295, conversation of June 8, 1967.

31. KCOA, draft of telegram by H. Wachtel, June 18, 1967.

32. KCOA, “MLK Interview,” Issues and Answers, ABC, June 18, 1967.

33. K-LF, reel 7, 274, conversation of May 31, 1967; K-LF, reel 7, 291, conversation of June 6, 1967.

34. K-LF, reel 7, 333, conversation of June 15, 1967.

35. K-LF, reel 17, 447–52, conversation of July 24, 1967.

36. KCOA, Burns to King, Jan. 23, 1967; King to Ray, Sept. 6, 1967; King to Ben Ari, Sept. 22, 1967.

37. K-LF, reel 7, 544, conversation of August 24, 1967. Like fellow Ramparts co-owner Martin Peretz, Russell soon sold his shares in the magazine because he was angry that an editorial the magazine ran was not pro-Israeli enough for his taste.

38. K-LF, reel 7, 290–91, conversation of June 6, 1967.

39. AJCOA, Bertram H. Gold Executive Papers, Black-Jewish Relations File (1967), document: King to Abram, Sept. 28, 1967 (emphasis in original).

40. KCOA, document: “Anti-Semitism, Israel, and SCLC: A Statement on Press Distortions” (1967) (emphases in original).

41. KCOA, document: Walker to King, August 24, 1967. Walker later shifted his allegiance and became quite pro-Palestinian.

42. Quoted in Marshall Frady, Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson (New York: Random House, 1996), 347.

43. James Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper One, 1990), 670–71.

44. Fadi Kiblawi and Will Youmans, “Desperation and Drastic Measures: The Use and Abuse of Martin Luther King Jr. by Israel’s Apologists,” Counterpunch, Jan. 17–18, 2004, http://willzuzak.ca/lp/morgan/morgan01.html. See also the January 22, 2002, statement issued by the pro-Israeli group CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting: www.camera.org/index.asp?x_article=369&x_context=8. The letter allegedly written by King is found in Marc Schneier, Shared Dreams: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Jewish Community (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 1999).

CHAPTER 5

1. Askia Muhammad Touré, “A Song in Blood and Tears,” Negro Digest/Black World, Nov. 1971, 20.

2. Emory Douglas, “On Revolutionary Culture,” in New Black Voices: An Anthology of Contemporary Afro-American Literature, ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Penguin, 1972), 490.

3. William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965–1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 27.

4. For treatments of the Black Arts Movement see Amy Abugo Ongiri, Spectacular Blackness: The Cultural Politics of the Black Power Movement and the Search for a Black Aesthetic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010); and James Edward Smethhurst, The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).

5. William Jelani Cobb, ed., The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 76–77.

6. Harold Cruse, Rebellion or Revolution? (New York: William Morrow, 1968), 75.

7. Cobb, The Essential Harold Cruse, 83 (emphasis in original).

8. He later added Imamu, the Kiswahili variant of the Arabic imam as his title, thereby becoming Imamu Amiri Baraka.

9. Charles Anderson, “Finger Pop’in,” in Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing, ed. Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal (1968; Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 2007). The “monster” that was put on the stage and used by Israel to buy bombs to use against Egypt was Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann, who was captured by Israeli secret agents in Argentina in May of 1960 and put on trial in Israel.

10. Unity and Struggle, Oct.–Dec. 1974; Unity and Struggle Nov. 1975.

11. The establishment by SNCC of a political party called the Black Panthers in Lowndes County, Alabama, occurred even before the formation of the famous Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on the West Coast.

12. Lawrence P. Neal, “Black Power in the International Context,” in Black Power Revolt: A Collection of Essays, ed. Floyd B. Barbour (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1968), 143.

13. Haki R. Madhubuti, Groundwork: New and Selected Poems of Don L. Lee/Haki R. Madhubuti from 1966–1996 (Chicago: Third World Press, 1996), 88.

14. “See Sammy Run in the Wrong Direction,” in ibid, 104–5 (emphasis and brackets in original).

15. Hoyt W. Fuller, “Algiers Journal,” Negro Digest/Black World, Oct. 1969, 84 (ellipses and italics in the original).

16. Hoyt W. Fuller, “Possible Israeli Attack on Africa?” Negro Digest/Black World, July 1973, 89.

17. Kiarri Cheatwood, “Stokely Speaks,” Negro Digest/Black World, Nov. 1974, 83.

18. Hoyt W. Fuller, “Oil, Pressure and Black Lives and Loyalties,” Negro Digest/Black World, Feb. 1975, 79.

19. Ronald Walters, “The Future of Pan-Africanism,” Negro Digest/Black World, Oct. 1975, 4.

20. For an analysis sympathetic to the claim that Fuller was pushed out for his stance on Zionism, see Woodie King, The Impact of Race: Theater and Culture (New York: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2003), 174. For an opinion that disputes this claim, see Jerry Gafio Watts, Amiri Baraka: The Politics and Art of a Black Intellectual (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 215.

21. Shirley Graham Du Bois, “Confrontation in the Middle East,” Black Scholar, Nov. 1973, 32–37.

22. W. E. B. Du Bois’s own views on the Arab-Israeli conflict changed over time. Despite his initial admiration of Zionism during the first half of the twentieth century, Du Bois later became disenchanted with Israel. After the 1956 Suez War he published a poem titled “Suez” in December of that year in which he called Israelis “the shock troops of two knaves / Who steal the Negros’ land.” The poem also advised the West: “Beware, white world, that great black hand / Which Nasser’s power waves.” The poem was published in Mainstream 9, no. 11 (1956). See Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 85.

23. “Why I Left America: Conversation: Ida Lewis and James Baldwin,” in New Black Voices: An Anthology of Contemporary Afro-American Literature, ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Penguin, 1972), 412. The Fire Next Time was a major book Baldwin published in 1962 that described a coming explosion of racial unrest in America.

24. “Why Nasser and the New World Sees America as the Number One Villain,” Muhammad Speaks, June 2, 1967, 3.

25. “Arabs: By Proxy the West Sows New Colonialism in Our Midst,” Muhammad Speaks, June 23, 1967, 2.

26. Charles Simmons, personal communication, Sept. 11, 2013.

27. Nick Medvecky, “Revolution Until Victory—Palestine al-Fatah,” Inner City Voice 2, no. 2 (1969): 5–6, 17.

28. Nick Medvecky, personal communication, April 9, 2011.

29. Wayne State University, Walter P. Reuther Library, Manuscripts and Records Collection, Dan Georgakas Collection, Papers, 1958–1980, ser. 1: Subject Files, box 1, folder 8: BSP Correspondence, document: Watson to Such, n.d. (emphasis in original).

30. “How the Palestinian People Were Driven from Their Lands,” African World 3, no. 24 (1973): n.p.; “A Reply to Muhammad Speaks,” African World 4, no. 5 (1974): 9, 29.

31. “The Israeli Land Grab,” Jihad News (volume and issue not indicated but believed to be vol. 1, no. 3 [October 1973]).

32. “The Middle East: An Editorial Comment,” Jihad News (volume and issue not indicated but believed to be vol. 1, no. 3 [October 1973]).

33. Naseer Aruri and Edmund Ghareeb, eds., Enemy of the Sun: Poetry of Palestinian Resistance (Washington: Drum and Spear Press, 1970).

34. Charles Cobb Jr., telephone interview by the author, Sept. 16, 2015.

35. Courtland Cox, telephone interview by the author, Oct. 15, 2015.

36. Ibid.

37. Aruri and Ghareeb, Enemy of the Sun, xv.

38. Black Nationalism and the Revolutionary Action Movement: The Papers of Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford), Archives Unbound Series, Gale Cengage, file: Black Power Conference 1968, 1969, document: Black Power Conference Reports, “Politics, Minority Report, Omar Ahmed,” 9: http://gdc.gale.com/archivesunbound/archives-unbound-black-nationalism-and-the-revolutionary-action-movement-the-papers-of-muhammad-ahmad-max-stanford/ (subscription required).

39. Resolution, as contained in Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein, The New Anti-Semitism (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), 197.

40. “Sub-resolution on Israel Adopted by the Continuations Committee of the National Black Political Convention, March 24, 1972,” in ibid., 198–99.

41. Paul Delaney, “Black Convention Eases Busing and Israeli Stands,” New York Times, May 20, 1972.

42. Congressional Black Caucus press release, March 21, 1972, cited in William L. Clay, Just Permanent Interests: Black Americans in Congress, 1870–1991 (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), 209.

43. Boutelle later changed his name to Kwame Montsho Ajamu Somburu.

44. Kwame Somburu (formerly Paul Boutelle), telephone interview by the author, Oct. 19, 2010.

45. COBATAME, “An Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support of the Zionist Government of Israel,” New York Times, Nov. 1, 1970, advertisement (all-caps in original).

46. The Black Power Movement, pt. 2, The Papers of Robert F. Williams, ed. John H. Bracey Jr. and Sharon Harley (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 2000), microfilm: reel 4, group 1, ser. 1, Correspondence, 1956–1979, Correspondence, July–December 1970, document: Boutelle to “Dear Friend,” Dec. 22, 1970.

47. University of Utah, J. Willard Marriott Library, Special Collections, Fayez Sayigh Papers, box 233, folder 2, document: “Proposals for a Book or Pamphlet to Be Titled ‘Black Americans, Jews and the Middle East Crisis.’”

CHAPTER 6

1. Eric Pace, “Cleaver Is Cheered in Algiers as He Denounces Israel as an American Puppet,” New York Times, July 23, 1969; Kathleen Neal Cleaver, “Back to Africa: The Evolution of the International Section of the Black Panther Party (1969–1972),” in The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered], ed. Charles E. Jones (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), 213.

2. Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York: Dell, 1968), 111.

3. Peking Review, June 9, 1967, repr. in Black Panther, July 20, 1967.

4. “Israel Military Aggression: Mao Condemns U.S.-Israeli Link,” Black Panther, Nov. 16, 1968.

5. P. Schoner, “Palestine Guerillas vs Israeli Pigs,” Black Panther, Jan. 4, 1969.

6. See the Black Panther, April 20, 1969. The paper did not give a date for the rally.

7. As counted by the FBI. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, “The Fedayeen Impact—Middle East and United States,” June 1970, 39.

8. Dhoruba bin Wahad, interview by Hard Knock Radio, August 1, 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=atZVqscw6PI.

9. According to Cleaver, this turned out to be untrue; the Algerians were not insisting that he leave, but the Cubans had their own reasons for wanting him to leave for Jordan. See Eldridge Cleaver and Henry Louis Gates Jr., “Eldridge Cleaver on Ice,” in “The Anniversary Issue: Selections from Transition, 1961–1976,” special issue, Transition 75/76 (1997): 304; Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 218–19. See also Frank J. Rafalko, MH/CHAOS: The CIA’s Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011), 100–104.

10. Pace, “Cleaver Is Cheered”; Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 213; “Cleaver, Panthers Cheered in Algeria,” Black Panther, July 26, 1969.

11. Kathleen Cleaver, personal communication, March 19, 2015.

12. Al-Fateh, “To Our African Brothers,” Black Panther, October 11, 1969. Al-Fateh’s statement can also be found at University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Social History Collection, ser. 6, Miscellaneous: 1954–82, container 27, reel 100, folder 14: Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1969–73.

13. Cleaver and Gates, “Eldridge Cleaver on Ice,” 307.

14. “Conference on Palestine,” Black Panther, Jan. 17, 1970.

15. University of California at Berkeley, Bancroft Library. Eldridge Cleaver Papers BANC MSS91/213/C (hereafter ECP), carton 5, folder 9, document: “Black Panther Party Statement on Palestine,” Sept. 18, 1970.

16. ECP, carton 5, folder 46, Black Panther Party Daily Reports, document: Daily Reports of February 12 and 19, 1971.

17. Statement of the Black Panther Party to Palestinian Student Conference, Kuwait, Feb. 13–17, 1971, in Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein, The New Anti-Semitism (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), 204.

18. Black Panther, July 5, 1969, quoted in United States House of Representatives, The Black Panther Party: Its Origins and Development as Reflected in Its Official Weekly Newspaper, “The Black Panther Black Community News Service,” Staff Study by the Committee on Internal Security, Oct. 6, 1970 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1970), 55.

19. Connie Matthews, “Will Racism or International Proletarian Solidarity Conquer?” Black Panther, April 25, 1970. The author would like to thank Robyn Spencer for providing me with a copy of this particular issue of the Black Panther.

20. “Yasser Arafat—Commander of Al Fat’h, Palestine: Voices of Rebellion,” Black Panther, Dec. 20, 1969.

21. Berkeley Barb, August 15, 1969, cited in American Jewish Congress, “The Black Panther Party: The Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel Component,” 5 (Document contained in FBI Files on Black Extremist Organizations, pt. 1, COINTELPRO Files on Black Hate Groups and Investigation of the Deacons of Defense and Justice, ed. Robert E. Lester (A UPA Collection from LexisNexis, 2005), microfilm: reel 5, COINTELPRO Black Extremist File 100-448006, sec. 20 (June–August 1970).

22. Rita Freed, “Panthers: Vanguard Supporters of Arab Liberation,” Workers World, May 1, 1970, repr. in Free Palestine 2, no. 2 (1970): n.p.; Steve D. McCutcheon, “Selections from a Panther Diary,” in The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered], ed. Charles E. Jones (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), 125.

23. Cleaver, “Back to Africa,” 223–24.

24. Huey P. Newton, To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton (New York: Random House, 1972), 201. This was an interesting statement given that most Palestinian guerrillas were not socialists at all.

25. “Zionism (Kosher Nationalism) + Imperialism = Fascism,” Black Panther, Jan. 3, 1970; the article is dated August 30, 1969, however, and may have been written by one of the Panthers in Algeria.

26. Emory Douglas, “On Revolutionary Culture,” in New Black Voices: An Anthology of Contemporary Afro-American Literature, ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Penguin, 1972), 489–90.

27. Black Panther, March 21, 1970, n.p.

28. Gary Yanker, Prop Art: Over 1000 Contemporary Political Posters (New York: Darien House, 1972), 76.

29. The BPP used the experiences of other Third World revolutionaries besides Palestinians in formulating a new, revolutionary identity for blacks. Rychetta Watkins has noted how the Black Panthers created an identity that intersected with that of Asian revolutionaries. See her Black Power, Yellow Power, and the Making of Revolutionary Identities (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012).

30. Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation (New York: Vintage, 1967), 17.

31. Newton, To Die for the People, 193–99. The book gives the date of the press conference as September 5, 1970, but according to an FBI transcription of a radio broadcast of the event, it took place on August 26, 1970. See file 105-165429 (Huey Percy Newton), document: SAC, San Francisco to Director, Sept. 14, 1970.

32. Newton, To Die for the People, 195–96.

33. Much has been written about COINTELPRO. See, e.g., Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom (New York: Pathfinder, 1988); and John Drabble, “Fighting Black Power–New Left Coalitions: Covert FBI Media Campaigns and American Cultural Discourse, 1967–1971,” European Journal of American Culture 27, no. 2 (2008): 65–91. For an official United States Senate study of COINTELPRO in general, and its activities against the Black Panther Party in particular, see United States Senate Select Committee (Church Committee), Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (popularly known as the Church Committee Report) (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1976), https://archive.org/details/ChurchCommittee_FullReport.

34. Elaine Brown interview, in The Black Power Mixtape, 1967–1975, dir. Göran Hugo Olsson (San Francisco: Independent Television Service, 2011).

35. Black Nationalism and the Revolutionary Action Movement: The Papers of Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford), Archives Unbound Series, Gale Cengage, file: Black Panthers—Recollections, document: interview with Austin Allen, 43–44.

36. Akbar Muhammad Ahmad, We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960–1975 (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 2007), 207–8.

37. By the early 1980s Horowitz’s politics had veered sharply right.

38. David Horowitz, Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey (New York: Touchstone, 1998), 227–28.

39. Du Bois interviewed Malcolm X for the Egyptian Gazette when the latter was in Egypt.

40. Huey P. Newton Foundation Papers, Stanford University, Hoover Institution, ser. 2, Black Panther Party Records, subseries 9, Manuscripts, box 58, folder 7, Black Panther Party Position Paper on the Middle East, 1974, document: Du Bois to Newton, May 2, 1974.

41. Editorial, “For Human Rights in the Middle East,” Black Panther, May 25, 1974.

42. This and the following quotations are from “The Issue Is Not Territory: Black Panther Party Position Paper on the Middle East Conflict,” Black Panther, May 25, 1974.

43. Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story (New York: Pantheon, 1992), 254–55.

44. Ibid.

45. Hugh Pearson, The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994), 292.

46. Emory Douglas, interview by Block Report Radio, May 25, 2015, www.stashmedia.tv/emory-douglas-art-black-panthers.

47. “Toward Peace in the Middle East,” Black Panther, July 1980, repr. in The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service, 1967–1980, ed. David Hilliard (New York: Atria, 2007), 146–49.

48. Mumia Abu-Jamal, We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2004), 113.

CHAPTER 7

1. Sami Shalom Chetrit, “The Black Panthers in Israel—The First and Last Social Intifada in Israel,” Manifesta Journal, no. 15 (n.d.): www.manifestajournal.org/issues/i-forgot-remember-forget/black-panthers-israel-first-and-last-social-intifada-israel#. See also Israel State Archives, RG 77/A56/5, Minutes of Meeting of April 18, 1971 (in Hebrew): www.golda.gov.il/archive/home/he/1/1150633350/1199352757/panterim-_part1.PDF.pdf.

2. Al ha-Mishmar, Jan. 13, 1971, cited in Oz Frankel, “The Black Panthers of Israel and the Politics of the Radical Analogy,” in Black Power Beyond Borders: The Global Dimensions of the Black Power Movement, ed. Nico Slate (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 81.

3. Israeleft 6 (Nov. 1972), repr. in Shalom Cohen and Kokhavi Shemesh, “The Origin and Development of the Israeli Black Panther Movement,” Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), no. 49 (July 1976): 21.

4. Yosef Waksmann, “The Panthers Dream to Fight Together with the Arabs Against the Establishment,” in Ma‘ariv, April 11, 1972, repr. in Documents from Israel, 1967–1973: Readings for a Critique of Zionism, ed. Uri Davis and Norton Mezvinsky (London: Ithaca Press, 1975), 122.

5. Michel Warschawski, On the Border, trans. Levi Laub (Cambridge, MA: South End, 2005), 42. The man may have been Shimshon Wigoder.

6. The informant may have been Ya‘akov Elbaz, one of the delegation that met Prime Minister Golda Meir in April of 1971 but who, according to the research of historian Oz Frankel, was in fact a police informant. The Matzpen activist in question may once again have been “Shimshon.” Frankel, “The Black Panthers of Israel,” 89.

7. Sami Shalom Chetrit, Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews (London: Routledge, 2010), 109. There is a street in East Jerusalem named after Kies.

8. Meir often is quoted today as having said, in Hebrew, “Hem lo bahurim nehmadim” (“They are not nice guys”). An alley in today’s Musrara district of West Jerusalem is named “Hem Lo Nehmadim Alley” to commemorate the Panthers and Meir’s statement of disgust. In fact, her actual words were a different, slightly more formal way to say the same thing: “hem einam bahurim nehmadim.” This is evident from a film clip of her press conference: “Black Panthers Israel,” www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc17wBfFreE.

9. Yediot Aharonot, June 1, 1971, cited in Frankel, “The Black Panthers of Israel,” 97.

10. Chetrit, Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel, 110.

11. Frankel writes of how the Israeli Panthers’ identification with the BPP in America “fused Israeli and American history.” See Frankel, “The Black Panthers of Israel,” 102.

12. Sami Shalom Chetrit, “30 Years to the Black Panthers in Israel,” www.authorsden.com/visit/viewArticle.asp?id=6831.

13. Waksmann, “Panthers Dream to Fight,” 120.

14. Kokhavi Shemesh, “This Is My Opinion,” Matzpen, Jan. 1973, repr. in Documents from Israel, 1967–1973: Readings for a Critique of Zionism, ed. Uri Davis and Norton Mezvinsky (London: Ithaca Press, 1975), 115–16.

15. Yale University, Beinicke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Leon F. Litwack Collection of Berkeley, California, Protest Literature, ser. 1, files, box 2, folder 29, document: “Zionism, Western Imperialism, and the Liberation of Palestine.”

16. American Jewish Committee, Arab Appeals to American Public Opinion (New York: American Jewish Committee, Institute of Human Relations, 1969), 9.

17. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Papers, 1959–1972 (Sanford, NC: Microfilming Corporation of America, 1981), microfilm: Subgroup B: New York, ser. 2, International Affairs Commission, reel 51, sec. 36: Middle East Crisis, document: Elmessiri to Forman, Sept. 20, 1967, and attached “Resolutions”; Muhammad Speaks, Sept. 8, 1967.

18. Stokely Carmichael [Kwame Ture], Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan Africanism (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 2007), 142–43.

19. “Randa Khalidi on Palestinians, Black Panthers and Dramaturgy,” Daily Star, Feb. 16, 2013, www.dailystar.com.lb/Culture/Performance/2013/Feb-16/206682-randa-khalidi-on-palestinians-black-panthers-and-dramaturgy.ashx (subscription required).

20. Richard P. Stevens, Zionism, South Africa and Apartheid: The Paradoxical Triangle (Beirut: PLO Research Center, 1969), 37.

21. “The Sky’s the Limit,” Black Panther, Oct. 24, 1970 (emphasis in original); see also Sgt. Pepper, “Oy Veh,” Berkeley Barb, Jan. 30–Feb. 6, 1970.

22. Diane C. Fujino, Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 160.

23. “Ali Belts Zionism,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 8, 1974.

24. Ibid.; and Black Panther, March 18, 1974.

25. Gerald Early, “Muhammad Ali as Third-World Hero,” Ideas from the National Humanities Center 9, no. 1 (2002): 1–35.

26. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, P-Reel Printouts, box 20B, document: P740020 0786, Beirut to Secretary of State, March 7, 1974.

27. In 1979 Boutelle changed his name to Kwame Montsho Ajamu Somburu.

28. Ibrahim Shukrallah of the Arab League paid for the transportation, and the group’s expenses in the Middle East were covered by the General Union of Palestine Students.

29. Kwame Somburu (formerly Paul Boutelle), telephone interview by the author, Oct. 19, 2010; Randa Khalidi al-Fattal, interview by the author, Beirut, Lebanon, June 24, 2012.

30. Quoted in al-Fateh, Sept. 29, 1970.

31. “No Easy Victories Interview: Robert Van Lierop,” interview by William Minter, New York, April 16, 2004, No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists Over a Half Century, 1950–2000, ed. William Minter, Gail Hovey, and Charles Cobb, www.noeasyvictories.org/interviews/int07_vanlierop.php; David Raab, Terror in Black September: The First Eyewitness Account of the Infamous 1970 Hijackings (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 135–37, 172–73; Associated Press, “Air Hostages Cheer Release,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 28, 1970.

32. “El Fatah Investigated,” Near East Report, May 14, 1969.

33. Newsweek, Aug. 18, 1969; see also Near East Report, Oct. 29, 1969; C. C. Aronsfeld, “New Left Germans and El Fatah,” Jewish Frontier, Oct. 1969, 21–23.

34. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “The Fedayeen Impact—Middle East and United States,” June 1970, iii, www.governmentattic.org/2docs/FBI_Monograph_Fedayeen-Impact_1970.pdf.

35. CIA Intelligence Report, “ESAU L: The Fedayeen (Annex to ESAU XLVIII: Fedayeen—‘Men of Sacrifice’),” Jan. 1971, 25, http://www.theblackvault.com/documents/esau-49.pdf.

36. FBI, “The Fedayeen Terrorist—A Profile,” June 1970. The document contained the man’s name, but it was redacted in the version that the FBI declassified in 2008. See www.governmentattic.org/docs/FBI_Monograph_Fedayeen_Terrorist_June-1970.pdf.

37. FBI, “The Fedayeen Impact,” 51.

38. See Rita Freed, “Panthers: Vanguard Supporters of Arab Liberation,” Workers World, May 1, 1970, repr. in Free Palestine 2, no. 2 (1970): n.p.; Steve D. McCutcheon, “Selections from a Panther Diary,” in The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered], ed. Charles E. Jones (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), 125.

39. “The Black Panthers,” Facts [Anti-Defamation League] 19, no. 2 (1970): 514. A classified June 1970 FBI report also mentioned this alleged incident. See FBI, “The Fedayeen Impact,” 26; Eric Pace, “Arab Guerrillas Seek Other Militants’ Aid,” New York Times, August 27, 1970.

40. FBI, “The Fedayeen Impact,” 26, 43.

41. Frank J. Rafalko, MH/CHAOS: The CIA’s Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011), 120.

42. FBI, “The Fedayeen Impact,” 43, 50.

43. FBI file 65-73268, document: 65-73268-115, FBI to President, May 14, 1970, and attached FBI Intelligence Letter of May 14, 1970, published by Paperless Archive Collection, DVD-ROM, disc 2, “FBI-Nixon Intelligence Letter Program, FBI Files.”

44. FBI, “The Fedayeen Impact,” iii, 38, 43.

45. Pace, “Arab Guerrillas.”

46. FBI Files on “Operation Boulder,” file 105-233838, document: 105-233838-2662, Director, FBI, to Attorney General, Feb. 22, 1974, http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/Operation-Boulder-SM.pdf.

47. “Al-Nasr li’l-Sha‘b al-Filastini—al-Fuhud al-Sud” [Victory to the Palestinian People—The Black Panthers], Al-Fateh, August 30, 1970.

48. “Randa Khalidi on Palestinians, Black Panthers and Dramaturgy.”

49. See, e.g., FBI domestic intelligence division document, “Memorandum for Inspector Miller Re: Administrative Memoranda and/or Work Papers,” August 31, 1972, 168, https://archive.org/details/foia_FBI_Domestic_Intelligence_Division-HQ-4.

50. Osborn to executive secretary, CIA Management Committee, May 16, 1973. This document is on page 283 of the “Family Jewels” as published online by the CIA at www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0001451843.pdf. It is also available at https://archive.org/details/CIA-Family-Jewels. The “Family Jewels” were some seven hundred pages of CIA documents that were generated by CIA employees in 1973 after receiving a directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking his staff for reports on any CIA activities that may have been inconsistent with the agency’s charter. Schlesinger requested this in light of Watergate-era revelations about illegal CIA activities.

CHAPTER 8

1. For more on Rustin’s letter see Chapter 3.

2. The Bayard Rustin Papers (hereafter BRP), ed. John H. Bracey Jr. and August Meier (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1988), microfilm: Subject Files, reel 14, “Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel,” subgroup: American Committee on Africa [1970], document: Hightower to Stokes, July 28, 1970. Hightower’s letter can also be found in the American Committee on Africa Records, pt. 1, ACOA Executive Committee Minutes and National Office Memoranda, 1952–1975 (hereafter ACOAR), ed. John Bracey Jr. and August Meier (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1991), microfilm: ser. 1, Administration, box 1, reel 3, interoffice memoranda, Aug.–Sept. 1970, document: Hightower to Diggs, July 28, 1970. See also ibid., interoffice memoranda, June–July 1970, document: Hightower to Musukwa, July 30, 1970, and other memoranda.

3.” Ticker Tape U.S.A.,” Jet, August 27, 1970.

4. ACOAR, ser. 1, Administration, box 2, reel 6, Steering Committee Minutes, 1970–71, document: Minutes of August 6, 1970 Steering Committee Meeting.

5. ACOAR, ser. 1, Administration, box 1, reel 3, interoffice memoranda, Aug.–Sept. 1970, document: Weiss to Hightower, August 7, 1970; see also ibid., Hooper to ACOA executive board, August 17, 1970.

6. Ibid., Weiss to Hightower, August 7, 1970.

7. BRP, reel 14, Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, subgroup: American Committee on Africa [1970], document: Rustin to “Dear Friend,” August 28, 1970; the letter is also found in ibid., subgroup: Memos to Signatories [1970].

8. ACOAR, ser. 1, Administration, box 1, reel 3, interoffice memoranda, Aug.–Sept. 1970, document: Nesbitt to ACOA Staff and Board, Sept. 14, 1970.

9. Ibid., document: Stevens to ACOA Staff and Board, Sept. 27, 1970.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. ACOAR, ser. 1, Administration, box 1, reel 3, interoffice memoranda, Aug.–Sept. 1970, document: Houser to Executive Board, Sept. 29, 1970.

14. Ibid., box 2, reel 5, Executive Committee Minutes, June–Dec. 1970, document: Minutes of ACOA Special Executive Board Meeting, Oct. 8, 1970.

15. Williams also cochaired the Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East, along with Paul Boutelle.

16. Van Lierop also was secretary treasurer of the Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East.

17. ACOAR, ser. 1, Administration, box 2, reel 5, Executive Committee Minutes, June–Dec. 1970, document: Minutes of ACOA Special Executive Board Meeting, Oct. 8, 1970.

18. Henry M. Winston, “Black Americans and the Middle East Conflict,” World Marxist Review, Nov. 1970, 19, 23. The CPUSA reprinted an amended version of the article as a pamphlet. See Henry Winston, Black Americans and the Middle East Conflict (New York: New Outlook, 1970).

19. People’s World, August 17, 1974, cited in Harvey Klehr, Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1991), 52n30.

20. “Arab Mayor Claims ‘Blockade’ by Israel,” San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 15, 1976.

21. People’s World, Feb. 12, 1977, cited in Klehr, Far Left of Center, 52n32.

22. James Feron, “Turmoil Continues at Brink’s Hearing,” New York Times, Sept. 21, 1981.

23. See Akinyele O. Umoja, “The Black Liberation Army and the Radical Legacy of the Black Panther Party,” in Black Power in the Belly of the Beast, ed. Judson L. Jeffries (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 224–51.

24. See a transcript of the press conference in the FBI’s file on Huey Newton: file 105-165429 (Huey Percy Newton), document: SAC, San Francisco to Director, Sept. 14, 1970.

25. Kathleen Cleaver, personal communication, March 19, 2015.

26. “Zionist Attack on Harlem Office Foiled by Community,” Black Panther, May 19, 1970.

27. FBI File 1126840-000—157-HQ-10555, sec. 15, May 16, 1973–May 25, 1973, Black Liberation Army Collection, FBI Library, Gale Cengage’s “Archives Unbound” online documents series, document: Miller to Moore, May 17, 1973. The claim was probably a reference to a February 1972 FBI claim that the Cleaver faction was trying to obtain weapons and ammunition for two or three al-Fateh operatives in the United States who were planning to attack an American airport somewhere in the eastern part of the country. Among other sources, see FBI domestic intelligence division document “Memorandum for Inspector Miller Re: Administrative Memoranda and/or Work Papers,” August 31, 1972, 168, https://archive.org/details/foia_FBI_Domestic_Intelligence_Division-HQ-4.

28. Bryan Burrough, Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence (New York: Penguin, 2015), 454.

29. It is not clear whether the document was drafted by Odinga and the others awaiting trial in New York or other militants still underground.

30. “Communiqué from the Revolutionary Armed Task Force of the Black Liberation Army,” Arm the Spirit, no. 14 (1982): 16 (emphasis in original).

31. FBI File 1126840–000—157-HQ-10555, sec. 39, July 14, 1982–May 10, 1983, Black Liberation Army Collection, FBI Library, Gale Cengage’s “Archives Unbound” online documents series, document: SAC Albany to Director, FBI, Nov. 17, 1982.

32. National Committee to Defend New Afrikan Freedom Fighters, “Zionism Is Racism: Palestine Will Win! New Afrika and Palestine Linked in a Common Struggle,” Arm the Spirit, no. 14 (1982): 10, 14.

33. “Statement from David Gilbert,” Arm the Spirit, no. 14 (1982): 9.

34. Kuwasi Balagoon, “Brink’s Trial Opening Statement,” Anarchist Library, http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kuwasi-balagoon-brink-s-trial-opening-statement.

35. “Why Isn’t the Whole World Dancin’?” in Kuwasi Balagoon, Kuwasi Balagoon, a Soldier’s Story: Writings by a Revolutionary New Afrikan Anarchist (Montreal: Solidarity, 2001), 88.

36. Burrough, Days of Rage, 279.

37. Freedom Archives, Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) Collection, “The Last SLA Statement: An Interview with Russ, Joe, Bill and Emily,” 37.

38. Mae Brussell, “Why was Patty Hearst Kidnapped?” The Realist, no. 98 (Feb. 1974): 5.

39. Freedom Archives, Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) Collection, Dragon Supplement, Nov. 3, 1975.

40. American Jewish Committee online archives, Bertrand H. Gold Executive Papers, Black-Jewish Relations File (1972), document: “Shirley Chisholm Speaks Out: Presidential Campaign Position Paper No. 2, the Middle East Crisis.”

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid., document: Chisholm to Mehdi, April 18, 1972.

44. Paul Delaney, “Black Convention Eases Busing and Israeli Stands,” New York Times, May 20, 1972.

45. Congressional Black Caucus press release, March 21, 1972, cited in William L. Clay, Just Permanent Interests: Black Americans in Congress, 1870–1991 (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), 209.

46. Bayard Rustin, “American Negroes and Israel,” The Crisis, April 1974, 115.

47. Jake C. Miller, “Black Viewpoints on the Mid-East Conflict,” Journal of Palestine Studies 10, no. 2 (1981): 39–40.

48. United States House of Representatives, Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 94th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1976), debates of April 14, 1976.

CHAPTER 9

1. The Papers of A. Philip Randolph, ed. John H. Bracey Jr. and August Meier (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1990), microfilm: Subject file, 1908–1973, box 23, reel 19: Israel, 1964–1975, document: “Black Americans to Support Israel Committee: Statement of Principles.”

2. Ibid.

3. Rustin became chair of the Socialist Party of America in 1972. Later that year the party changed its name to the Social Democrats USA, a move that came in the midst of a three-way split within the party.

4. Bayard Rustin Papers (hereafter BRP), Subject file, reel 18: Jews and Anti-Semitism, document: “Israel: A Beleaguered Bastion of Democracy and Socialism.”

5. Bayard Rustin, “Black Links to Israel,” Amsterdam News, March 29, 1972. The article appeared in twenty-five other black papers, as well as twelve union papers.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.; “American Negroes and Israel,” The Crisis, April 1974, 115–18; repr. in Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin, ed. Devon W. Carrado and Donald Weise (San Francisco: Cleis, 2003), 319–26.

8. “American Negroes and Israel,” The Crisis, April 1974, 115–18; “The PLO: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?” Miami Times, Dec. 19, 1974.

9. American Jewish Committee Archives (hereafter AJCA), Bertram H. Gold Executive Papers, box 190, file: Race Relations: Black-Jewish, 1974–75, document: Fleischman to Area Directors, May 7, 1975.

10. “Randolph Initiates Committee of Black Americans to Support Israel,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 28, 1975.

11. AJCA, Bertram H. Gold Executive Papers, box 190, file: Race Relations: Black-Jewish, 1974–75, press release: “Leading Black Americans Affirm Support for Israel,” Sept. 11 [1975].

12. Murray Friedman, with the assistance of Peter Binzen, What Went Wrong? The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance (New York: Free Press, 1995), 321; BRP, reel 15, Subject Files, Black Americans to Support Israel Committee (BASIC), BASIC 501(c)(4) Application, document: IRS Form 1024, Application for Recognition of Exemption, Dec. 2, 1977.

13. “BASIC: Black Americans to Support Israel Committee,” New York Times, Nov. 23, 1975, advertisement; AJCA, Bertram H. Gold Executive Papers, box 190, file: Race Relations: Black-Jewish, 1974–75, document: Black Americans to Support Israel Committee Members as of Sept. 9, 1975.

14. AJCA, Bertram H. Gold Executive Papers, box 190, file: Race Relations: Black-Jewish, 1974–75, document: Fleischman to Area Directors, May 7, 1975.

15. BRP, Subject Files, reel 15: Black Americans to Support Israel Committee (BASIC), 501 (c)(4) Application, document: IRS Form 1024, Application for Recognition of Exemption, Dec. 2, 1977.

16. Ibid., documents: handwritten notes about implementing an educational program through the A. Philip Randolph Educational Fund; ibid., Activities and Prospects.

17. “Dinners Honoring Black Unionists Net Some $1.4 M for Israel Bonds,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 5, 1977.

18. BRP, Subject Files, reel 15: Black Americans to Support Israel Committee (BASIC), Statement of Purpose, document: Statement of Purpose.

19. Bayard Rustin papers, cited in Michael G. Long, ed., I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters (San Francisco: City Lights, 2012), 411–12.

20. See his comments in the opinion piece “Blacks and the PLO: Setting Back Peace and Civil Rights,” Washington Post, Oct. 7, 1979.

21. “Senate in All-Day Debate on Middle East Planes Sale Deal,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 16, 1978.

22. BRP, Subject Files, reel 15: Black Americans to Support Israel Committee (BASIC), BASIC Taxes, document: Gessay to BASIC, Jan. 5, 1978; Black Americans in Support of Israel Committee, Inc., Balance Sheet, August 31, 1977; Rustin to Shaffer, Nov. 8, 1985.

23. BRP, Subject Files, reel 15: Black Americans to Support Israel Committee (BASIC), Meetings (BASIC), document: BASIC Meeting, Nov. 24, 1980.

24. BRP, Subject Files, reel 15: Black Americans to Support Israel Committee (BASIC), BASIC 1982—Telegram to Begin re: Lebanon, documents: Mailgram of Rustin to Perlmutter, June 21, 1982, and Begin to Rustin, June 25, 1982.

25. Ibid., PLO pamphlet, document: Bloomstein and Rustin to Bar-Ner, Oct. 19, 1982.

26. Bayard Rustin, “The PLO: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?” Miami Times, Dec. 19, 1974.

27. Rustin, “The PLO: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?”

28. Bayard Rustin, “Arabs Must Be Persuaded to Bend; Peace Won’t Be Achieved Until They Recognize Israel,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1983.

29. Ibid.

30. BRP, Subject Files, reel 15: Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, BASIC Op-Ed. piece on Israel, documents: Gersten to Rustin, August 10, 1983; Perlmutter to Rustin, August 10, 1983; Podhoretz to Rustin, August 9, 1983.

31. Andrew J. Young Papers (hereafter AYP), ser. 4B: Correspondence, box 201, folder 6, document: “Ambassador Andrew Young’s Personal Statement to the United Nations Security Council, August 24, 1979,” Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta, GA.

32. See my abbreviated biography of Young in Chapter 4.

33. AYP, ser. 3: Community Relations Commission and Congress, 1964–80, box 65, folder 8, document: Williams to Young, July 31, 1970.

34. BRP, Subject Files, reel 14: Black Americans for U.S. Support to Israel, subgroup: Correspondence [1970], document: Andrew Young, “Statement on Israel,” September 1970. The document is also located at AYP, ser. 2: Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Civil Rights, 1957–2003, box 68, folder 4.

35. See Chapter 4 for more about his 1966 trip to Israel and East Jerusalem.

36. “Jewish Leaders, Congressmen Call for Dismissal of Young,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 16, 1979.

37. Jimmy Carter, White House Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 351 (diary entry for August 14, 1979).

38. Ibid., 352 (diary entry for August 15, 1979).

39. Ibid.

40. AYP, ser. 4B: Correspondence, box 201, folder 6, document: “Ambassador Andrew Young’s Personal Statement to the United Nations Security Council, August 24, 1979.”

41. Ibid.

42. Jerusalem Post, Sept. 27, 1979.

43. “The Fall of Andy Young,” Time, August 27, 1979.

44. Ronald Walters, “The Resignation of Andrew Young: What Does It Mean?” New Directions: The Howard University Magazine, Fall 1979, 7.

45. Ibid., 10.

46. Quoted in “The Fall of Andy Young.”

47. Washington Star, August 16, 1979, cited in Walters, “The Resignation of Andrew Young,” 10, 12.

48. Walters, “The Resignation of Andrew Young,” 12.

49. “NAACP Sponsors Black Leadership Meeting,” The Crisis, Nov. 1979, 365, 367.

50. Ibid.

51. James Zogby and Jack O’Dell, eds., Afro-Americans Stand Up for Middle East Peace (Washington: Palestine Human Rights Campaign, 1980), xii.

52. “NAACP Sponsors Black Leadership Meeting,” 366.

53. Ibid., 366, 368, 370, 371.

CHAPTER 10

1. Jerusalem Post, Sept. 28, 1979; see also Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1985), 61.

2. Emory University, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Records (hereafter SCLCR), series: Department of Communications, Press Releases, 1963–2010, box 377, file 10, document: “SCLC Seeks World Peace” (undated, but August 1979).

3. “Black Leaders Meet PLO Leader,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 21, 1979.

4. American Jewish Committee Archives, Bertram H. Gold Executive Papers, box 189, file: Race Relations, 1978–79, document: Southern Christian Leadership Conference Agenda, August 21, 1979.

5. “Blum to Black Leaders: Any Encouragement to the PLO Will Discourage the Peace Process,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 22, 1979.

6. SCLCR, series: Department of Communications, Press Releases, 1963–2010, box 377, file 10, document: “SCLC Meets with PLO and Israeli Leaders” (undated, but August 1979).

7. Comments of Delegate Walter E. Fauntroy (D-DC) to House of Representatives, Oct. 11, 1979. “SCLC Fact-Finding Mission to Lebanon,” Journal of Palestine Studies 10, no. 2 (1981): 159.

8. “Black Delegation Meets Lebanese Premier,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, Sept. 19, 1979.

9. Ronald W. Walters, “The Black Initiatives in the Middle East,” Journal of Palestine Studies 10, no. 2 (1981): 5–6. Walters was part of the SCLC delegation to Lebanon; see also Carla Hall, “The Peaceful Preacher and the Palestinians: Joseph Lowery’s Divine Mission to the Middle East,” Palestine Digest 9, no. 6 (1979): 4–5; and Washington Post, Sept. 20, 1979.

10. Walters, “Black Initiatives,” 5–6; Hall, “The Peaceful Preacher,” 4–5; Washington Post, Sept. 20, 1979; “SCLC Fact-Finding Mission to Lebanon,” 68.

11. Walters, “Black Initiatives,” 5 (brackets in original).

12. Ibid., 9.

13. Jake C. Miller, “Black Viewpoints on the Mid-East Conflict,” Journal of Palestine Studies 10, no. 2 (1981): 44; Jerusalem Post, Sept. 24, 1979.

14. Jerusalem Post, Sept. 24, 1979.

15. SCLCR, series: Office of the President Records, Joseph E. Lowery Files, box 136, file 32, document: “Statement by Dr. Lowery Following SCLC’s Middle East Peace Initiative.”

16. SCLCR, series: Department of Communications, Press Releases, 1963–2010, box 377, file 10, document: “PLO Calls for Cease Fire After Meeting with SCLC,” Oct. 5, 1979; “SCLC Fact-Finding Mission to Lebanon,” 157–68; University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library, Abdeen Jabara Papers, box 9, folder: Activities—Black/Arab Coalition, 1979–1983, document: “Statement of the Honorable Walter E. Fauntry [sic] (D-DC) Regarding Criticism of the SCLC Middle East Peace Initiative,” Oct. 15, 1979.

17. James Zogby and Jack O’Dell, eds., Afro-Americans Stand Up for Middle East Peace (Washington: Palestine Human Rights Campaign, 1980), 9.

18. Joseph Lowery, “All Children of Abraham,” in ibid., 16.

19. Simeon Booker, “Rep. Fauntroy Follows in Dr. M. L. King’s Footsteps for Born-Again Politics,” Jet, Nov. 1, 1979, 6–7; “Jordan Denounces Black Leaders Who Have Voiced Support for the PLO,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Oct. 17, 1979.

20. Zogby and O’Dell, Afro-Americans Stand Up, 7–9.

21. Ibid.

22. “SCLC Delegation in Mideast to Meet Arafat and ‘Hopefully’ Begin,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Sept. 18, 1979.

23. Ibid.

24. Zogby and O’Dell, Afro-Americans Stand Up, 13–14 (emphasis in original).

25. Palestine: P.L.O. Information Bulletin 5, no. 12 (1979); Karin L. Stanford, Beyond the Boundaries: Reverend Jesse Jackson in International Affairs (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 56–57; Nikhil Pal Singh, Climbin’ Jacob’s Ladder: The Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O’Dell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 43; Marshall Frady, Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson, 1st pbk. ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 164–65.

26. Quoted in Singh, Climbin’ Jacob’s Ladder, 44.

27. Zogby and O’Dell, Afro-Americans Stand Up, 3, 5.

28. Jerusalem Post, Sept. 26 and 27, 1979.

29. Jerusalem Post, Sept. 27, 1979; Frady, Jesse, 297–98 (pbk. ed.).

30. Frady, Jesse, 439 (emphasis in original).

31. Stanford, Beyond the Boundaries, 59.

32. BRP, Subject File, 1942–1987, reel 15: Black Americans to Support Israel Cte. (BASIC), Black-Jewish Relations, document: “Excerpts from the Address of James Farmer at the Conference of the National Association of Human Rights Workers (NAHRW), Portland, Main, October 15, 1979.”

33. “Jordan Denounces Black Leaders Who Have Voiced Support for the PLO,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Oct. 17, 1979; Booker, “Rep. Fauntroy,” 8; “SCLC, PUSH Leaders Hit by Other Black Leaders for Meetings with PLO,” Jet, Nov. 1, 1979.

34. “Interview with the Rev. Jesse Jackson,” Ebony, June 1981, 158.

35. SCLCR, series: Department of Communications, Press Releases, 1963–2010, box 377, file 10, document: “Statement by Dr. Joseph E. Lowery: Reaction to Criticism of Black Leaders,” Oct. 16, 1979.

36. Wyatt Tee Walker, A Prophet from Harlem Speaks: Sermons and Essays (New York: Martin Luther King Fellows Press, 1997), 67; Wilfred Arnett Moore, “Wyatt Tee Walker: Theologian, Civil Rights Activist, and Former Chief of Staff to Martin Luther King, Jr.” (PhD diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 2009), 134–35.

37. “Black Leaders Continue to Discuss the Mideast Issue,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 23, 1979.

38. “SCLC, PUSH Leaders Hit by Other Black Leaders for Meetings with PLO,” Jet, Nov. 1, 1979, 9.

39. The call was issued by the Palestine Human Rights Campaign at a press conference in Washington on February 9, 1979. See “State Dept. Report on Israel Seen as More Balanced Than Media Reports,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Feb. 12, 1979.

40. “Resolution on Palestinian Rights and Middle East Peace,” in Afro-Americans Stand Up for Middle East Peace, ed. James Zogby and Jack O’Dell (Washington: Palestine Human Rights Campaign, 1980), 25–26.

41. Ibid., 26.

42. “Black Clergy Unites for Voice in Foreign Policy,” Jet, Dec. 13, 1979, 18.

43. “The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Black Pastors’ Conference,” in Afro-Americans Stand Up for Middle East Peace, ed. James Zogby and Jack O’Dell (Washington: Palestine Human Rights Campaign, 1980), 32–33.

44. “Message to the President on the Resignation of Ambassador Andrew Young and on United States Relations with the Middle East and Africa,” in Afro-Americans Stand Up for Middle East Peace, ed. James Zogby and Jack O’Dell (Washington: Palestine Human Rights Campaign, 1980), 35–37.

45. BRP, Subject File, 1947–1987, reel 15: Black Americans to Support Israel Committee (BASIC), Black-Jewish Relations, document: NAACP statement; see also John Herbers, “Leaders of 2 Black Groups Seek Amity with Jews on P.L.O. Issue,” New York Times, Oct. 12, 1979.

46. “Black-Jewish Relations: U.S. Civil Rights Leaders to Visit Israel; 2 Civil Rights Leaders Rap Blacks,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Oct. 15, 1979.

47. “U.S. Black Delegation Promises to Work to Improve Relations with Jews,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Oct. 18, 1979.

EPILOGUE

1. Bassem Masri, “The Fascinating Story of How the Ferguson-Palestine Solidarity Movement Came Together,” Alternet, Feb. 18, 2015, www.alternet.org/activism/frontline-ferguson-protester-and-palestinian-american-bassem-masri-how-ferguson2palestine.

2. Quoted in David Palumbo-Liu, “Black Americans Send Clear Message to Palestinians: ‘Now Is the Time for Palestinian Liberation, Just as Now Is the Time for Our Own in the United States,” Salon, August 18, 2015, www.salon.com/2015/08/18/black_activists_send_clear_message_to_palestinians_now_is_the_time_for_palestinian_liberation_just_as_now_is_the_time_for_our_own_in_the_united_states/.

3. Jasiri X, “‘This Is Apartheid’: Rapper Jasiri X on Visit to Palestine,” interview by Amira Asad, Electronic Intifada, https://electronicintifada.net/content/apartheid-rapper-jasiri-x-visit-palestine/13149.

4. “Method Man Talks ‘P.L.O. Style,’” Feb. 16, 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOQ19IQxeA.

5. Robert I. Friedman, “Confessions of an Israeli Press Officer,” Mother Jones 12, no. 2 (1987): 24.

6. Dana Weiler-Polak, “Israel Enacts Law Allowing Authorities to Detain Illegal Migrants for Up to 3 Years,” Haaretz (English-language internet edition), June 3, 2012, www.haaretz.com/israel-s-new-infiltrators-law-comes-into-effect-1.5167886.

7. William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 27.

8. “Black Leaders Continue to Discuss the Mideast Issue,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 23, 1979.