MIM NOTES No. 196 October 15, 1999 Self-criticism: MIM Notes 193 ignored BPP, Malcolm X in James Farmer obit by MC45 MIM Notes made a number of serious errors in its obituary of James Farmer in MN193 (September 1, 1999). The article was a combination of revising MIM's own line on the movement for Black national liberation from Amerika, incorrectly overwriting Huey Newton's analysis of Black history, ignoring Malcolm X's role in galvanizing Black nationalism in the early 1960s and tailing the middle and upper classes on issues of anti-colonial struggle. James Farmer was a leader of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) until 1966, coincidentally the year the Panthers formed. Not coincidentally, when the BPP formed it cited the "spirit" of Malcolm X, not James Farmer. The MN193 article incorrectly credited Farmer and CORE with being leaders of the Black struggle up to that time. MIM claims as its predecessors in North Amerika the Black Panther Party of 1966-1970. Our official line is that we have not surpassed Huey Newton in our work in the united $nakes. The Farmer obituary backpedaled on the Panthers' own verdicts on the petty- bourgeois civil rights movement organizations led by Farmer and others. Malcolm X as early as 1960 and the BPP beginning in 1966 clearly exposed these liberal organizations for misleading the masses of the Black nation and consequently losing their trust. "At one point in the Harlem riots, the same people who booed Bayard Rustin and James Farmer of CORE shouted, 'We want Malcolm.'" (1) The big leaders including both Farmer and Martin Luther King, Jr. effectively constrained the masses' efforts at struggle for liberation. At the root of this question is the historical formation of the Black Panther Party and its ability to lead the plurality of the Black Nation for the years 1966-1970. MIM has often noted that while other major Amerikan cities were burning with the righteous anger of young Blacks at political and police repression, this spontaneous rebellion did not erupt in the BPP center of organizing in Oakand, CA. We wrote of the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion: " The fact that people acted spontaneously and collectively demonstrates a practical feel for who their enemies are -- the media, liberal politicians and cops."(2) In the summers of 1967 and 1968, urban rebellions demonstrated the same national consciousness among young Blacks, which says something more about the supposed leadership of the Black nation outside of Malcolm X and the Panthers. The masses of the Black nation were far ahead of the leaders of the large civil rights organizations. Throughout the earlier 1960s the NAACP, SCLC, CORE, were still looking for ways to bring the masses out for nonviolent demonstrations when the Black nation youth were willing to follow Malcolm X in defending themselves from Amerika. The MN193 article incorrectly referred to lessons to be learned from CORE's work in fundraising and professionalism, yet Farmer himself admitted that his initial work in CORE was as pretty much as a lackey with white liberal financial backing that constrained his actions. On the issue of correctly giving credit for organizing work, MIM also praised Farmer when we should not have. This is related to the matter of finances, in that making himself a lackey to white liberals in exchange for little bits of money incorrectly discounted the masses of Black people who would give shelter, food and their blood to a struggle that represented their anti-colonial interests. But Malcolm X also explicitly criticized Farmer for taking credit for work Malcolm X was doing or that the other more radical masses were doing in Harlem. Finally, in recounting Farmer's tactics of consistent nonviolence MIM implied that activists should be accountable to "Hoover, President John Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the Interstate Commerce Commission." Such people are the enemy of the international proletariat and as Maoists we are entitled to lie to them in our organizing; we certainly plan to give them no say-so over how we do our work. The point we should make here (and should have made in the MN193 article) is that a dogmatic non-violent strategy will lead to such basic compromises of principle as looking to the imperialist cheiftains for organizing support. Malcolm X explicitly mentioned Farmer as one of the people "bought off" by Kennedy. Farmer was fairly intellectually open about what he was doing. After the March on Washington, Kennedy put Farmer in charge of Harlem demos too. At the time James Farmer was sending people on-violently on busrides that were to see some of them beaten to permanent brain damage, Malcolm X was saying that agents of the Ku Klux Klan were the ones telling these Freedom Riders to be non-violent. Malcolm X offered his military help to defend the Freedom Rides and Farmer rejected that help. In practice, upholding the legacy of the Black Panther Party means that for organizing work going on in Amerika when the BPP was around, if the BPP didn't mention it prominently there was a reason: it was not important and had nothing to do with the vanguard of the struggle for Black liberation. MIM will continue to write on aspects of Black national history as it is our duty to inform readers of past events and their relevance to Maoism in the present. We will assure our readers deeper study of the most advanced elements of Black national struggle in this century. Historical materialists must not be caught revising our predecessors without explanation, we cannot degrade their contributions in this way. Notes: 1. E. Tani & Ka’ Sera, ITAL False Nationalism False Internationalism. END A Seeds Beneath the Snow Publication, 1985. p. 110. 2. MIM Notes 84.