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• 1 2019-12-04T22:09:08-05:00 "Know Your Rights" 8 "Know Your Rights" (undated) -- A Poster by the Black Panther Party plain 2020-03-17T21:57:30-04:00

  In 1966, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, a revolutionary organization originating in Oakland, California that initially made a name for itself by taking advantage of open-carry gun laws and orchestrating armed patrols aimed at protecting black people from police persecution. While the group later simplified its name to the Black Panther Party and expanded its mission, the underlying advocacy for self-defense in the face of unfair institutions remained.

  The undated and anonymously authored poster produced by the Party and displayed here attests to this fact. It urges readers to “know [their] rights,” offering a list of ten tips for interacting with police in such a way as to reduce the risk of self-incrimination or suffering physical harm. For example, the document encourages the audience to prepare for potential police encounters by carrying identification and to refuse to provide information beyond name and address if questioned; the poster also warns people against suddenly moving or reaching into their pockets in front of a police officer since “he is only looking for an excuse to shoot.” Beyond these more passive measures, the Party additionally instructs people to assert themselves if their civil liberties are infringed upon in course of being detained, recommending that they “keep requesting” the right to make a phone call and the right to have an attorney present if these are denied (“(and they probably will be”) the text notes) and insist on being processed speedily. In this way, the poster gives practical advice intended to help readers survive.

  Beyond these short-term measures, though, the Party alludes in this document to its more radical long-term goals of eradicating injustice by actively dismantling systems of oppression. The list of suggestions here is prominently prefaced by a parenthetical note reminding readers that “(The oppressed have no rights that the oppressor is bound to respect),” making it clear that more substantive action will ultimately be required in order to ensure people’s safety in a more lasting way. The poster stresses the importance of decisive self-defense, literally underscoring the necessity of protecting oneself “by any means necessary.” In this way, the document can be seen as a contribution to the ceaseless conversation surrounding the ethics and efficacy of violence that was so essential to radical discourse in the era of the Black Panther Party and in which so many of the authors read in this class—from Frantz Fanon to James Baldwin to George Jackson—participated. To quote Baldwin’s No Name in the Street, “People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.”