Burn Motherfucker, Burn!

Everyone knew years ago

that the Negro would have to be given equality,

but in the South,

knowing Negroes as we think we do,

we realized it would take time.

It's...it's been compared to--

to straightening teeth.

It takes a slow, steady pressure.

You can't do it with a hammer.

Mr. Hastie, what did you think we were

before you began to think of us as human beings?

Well, in a--in a way,

we thought of you almost as a very superior pet,

something we had to take care of.

White power!

Backcountry refugees...

"We're here to keep the niggers in place."

Seventy-five police killed--

of my followers.

And if you think I'm going down there

and pleading with a bunch of hoodlums

to obey the law...no.

The United States government

out to systematically commit genocide

on the Black Panther Party.

We have got to rebel.

You a gang member.

The video camera revolution.

A modern-day lynching.

The best three days of my fuckin' life.

[indistinct police radio chatter]

We gonna burn the goddamn city down.

All right!

Damn, though.

He's still tasing him, babe.

- Hell, no! -

- Whoa! -

Whoa! Oh, my God!

God damn.

- Oh, fuck. -

Oh, fuck.

- Oh, my God. - Fuck.

- Oh, shit. - Motherfucker.

- Oh, my God. - Motherfucker.

Oh, my God.

Motherfucker. Motherfucker.

Motherfucker.

Motherfucker.

They just killed that man.

They just shot that motherfuckin' man like that.

Hey! Hey!

Y'all shot that man.

So do you know much about the history

of the Los Angeles Police Department?

You know, I--Sacha, I do know a little bit about it.

LA, actually all of the West Coast,

is really bad about keeping its history,

so you know, some of it is-- some of it's a little bit lost.

We're an organization with about 145 years of history.

You know, this was a small pueblo, Los Angeles,

built on a river not very far from where we sit right now.

Originally it was a very Western town.

It had a very violent beginning.

Homicide rates in early Los Angeles

were much higher than they ever have been since,

and so it was from the start a very violent place.

I'm still terrified by the LAPD.

The institution itself is

a fundamentally evil institution

that is only in this day partially reformed.

It was rebuilt explicitly after the Second World War

to enforce racial restrictions.

When I was 17 years old,

the Los Angeles Police Department changed my life.

This man is the symbol of the finest police officer

in the world.

It was at a Halloween dance,

and a fight broke out.

LAPD came, and I guess

I wasn't moving fast enough or whatever,

but the guy hit me with the billy club.

Remember, as police officers,

we may only use that amount of force necessary

to make an arrest.

I was beat by maybe nine police,

worse than Rodney King.

I must have stayed in the hospital

for maybe a couple of months

before I even went to court.

They didn't want any judge to see the

condition that I was in.

When I got out of juvenile hall,

I was saying "Yes, sir.

No, ma'am. Thank you."

My--my family didn't recognize me, you know?

It changed me.

I was wrong,

so I got what I deserved.

But you think you deserved to get beat

worse than Rodney King for moving a little bit slow?

Well...no, I don't,

but I was resisting.

Let us remember that we are not brutalized

because we're Baptists.

We're not brutalized because we're Methodists.

We're not brutalized because we're Muslims.

We're not brutalized because we're Catholics.

We're brutalized because we are black people in America.

In the spring of 1962,

a gun battle between Negroes and police

outside the Los Angeles Mosque of the Muslims,

a sect built around the belief

that complete separation of the races

is the only hope for America.

In that gunfight, one Negro was killed,

14 wounded.

In the early '60s, friends of Malcolm X

set up a mosque in Los Angeles.

One of the leading members of the mosque worked in a laundry,

so he would bring clothes in the trunk of his car.

He was parked about a block away from the mosque,

and he was getting out,

and somebody came over to help him,

and the LAPD stopped them, harassed them,

and then began to knock them around.

More cops came.

The cops invaded the mosque itself,

and one cop was shot by another cop accidentally.

The cops went mad.

They lined Muslims up,

and they shot them in the genitals,

and people were killed,

including one of the acquaintances of Malcolm X.

Malcolm X wanted to retaliate

and take out cops.

Elijah Muhammad thought

that the nation would lose everything

if it did that.

Seventy-five police came over

to kill all that they could

of my--of my followers

in Mosque Number 27.

Think over that.

Some Los Angeles citizens

believe the Muslim shootings

so crystallized Negro feelings

that from that point, April 1962,

big trouble was inevitable.

Two of the brothers were shot in the back.

Two of them were shot--

excuse the expression--

through the penis.

And I, for one, as a Muslim, believe

that the white man is intelligent enough.

If he were made to realize

how black people really feel and how fed up we are,

without that old compromising sweet talk--

stop sweet-talking him.

Tell him how you feel, and let him know

that if he's not ready to clean his house up...

If he's not ready to clean his house up,

he shouldn't have a house.

It should catch on fire and burn down.