- Did you personally know your bodyguards, or were they just two random people? - Yes. No, no, I knew my bodyguards. Well, at least I thought I did. One of them turned out to be an FBI agent. (lighthearted music) - Hi, I'm Talbot. - Hi Talbot, I'm Elmer. Pleased to meet you
- Nice to meet you, Elmer. - Hi, I'm Vanessa, it's nice to meet you. - Hi, Vanessa, you guys look
like brother and sister. - We're twins.
- We're twins. - You're kidding? - Hi, I'm Josh. - I'm Marsha. - Nice to meet you, Marsha.
- Good to meet you, too. - So you were apparently
a former Black Panther? - Yes, I was a former Black Panther. What do you know about the Black Panthers? - They were founded in 1966, I think. And a thing that initiated it
was the shooting of Malcolm X. - Okay, that's good stuff. What did you know? - I think I read the
same webpage as she did. (laughing)
- Okay. - I think so, too.
- The same stuff. - What is the Black Panthers? - The Black Panther Party
was an organization, because we are no longer an organization, that was formed to fight
against racism in this country. - What made you wanna join? - What made me wanna join was
the civil rights movement. A lot of young people had
grown up into activism. I marched with Dr. King
when I was your age. There was another gentleman
by the name of Malcolm X who said that we were
going to get our freedom by whatever means necessary. So if you hit us, we're
gonna hit you back. If you shoot at us,
we're gonna shoot back. And so the Black Panther
Party took on that philosophy and so because we dared to
stand up and defend ourselves, we were named the number one
threat to the internal security of the United States by
the director of the FBI. - That's not good. - Did you ever feel
scared to join a community where the FBI and stuff probably
didn't like it that much? - Of course there are
those elements, you know, people who were like,
"These are militant people, "they should be off the street." But the average person really
admired what we were doing. We did things like the
sickle cell anemia testing. - Really? - It was the Black
Panther Party that created national attention that this is a disease that has to be cured. - And if you go to school, do you get a breakfast in school now? - Yeah.
- Yeah. - That's because of what
the Black Panther Party did. We fed thousands of kids here in Seattle, every day a hot breakfast
before they went to school. - Did you get paid for
working for the Black Panther or was it just volunteer?
- Let me think. Never got paid. - Did you have to be black
to be a Black Panther? - The answer is kind of yes and no. We actually had a couple of white folks who were honorary members
of the Black Panther Party, but what we always encouraged
young white students to do was to organize
within their own community. - Were there kids in Black Panther Party? - There were Black Panther
kids that were the children of Black Panthers. We called them Panther Cubs. (laughing) - Why do you think the party ended? - There was a lot of violence
and the people who really sacrificed their lives did
not get a lot of gain from it. Elmer Dixon, himself, was one of them. - Has anybody tried to
harm where you stayed? - When I was a Black Panther? - Yeah.
- Yes. We had many Black Panthers
that were murdered through the FBI operations. - Oh my gosh, they
actually killed you guys? - Oh, they were trying
to kill us in our sleep and kill us every opportunity they had. At 17 and 18 years old,
I had two bodyguards. - Did you personally know your bodyguards, or were they just two random people? - Yes, I knew my bodyguards. Well, at least I thought I did. One of them turned out to be an FBI agent. It wasn't until 40 years later, through the Freedom of Information Act, we had gotten a hold of our
FBI files and all the names of people that were agents were in there, and my bodyguard's name was in there. - Did you have any attempts
on your life personally, 'cause I know you said that--
- Yes, I did. One occasion I didn't go with my brother to target practice that day. I was out on another assignment
and my brother went to fire his shotgun, and when he
fired it, it exploded. - Oh my-- - Someone had doctored
the bullets that went into his shotgun and
almost blew his arm off. - So they were directly
trying to kill you guys? - Oh, yes, they were
definitely trying to kill us. There's no if, ands, or buts about it. - If one of your places, the FBI came in and threatened with guns,
did you ever fight back? - Oh, yes.
- With guns? - Well, not in my time, but they definitely defended
themselves with guns. - What do you think about violence and its role in solving problems? - If someone's violent to you,
you have to defend yourself, but it's best to be less violent, I think. - [Woman] What do you guys
think hearing these stories of violence and bloodshed? - We're all really familiar
with Dr. Martin Luther King, so it's interesting to hear
kind of the most violent side. - Yeah, you know, we
weren't the violent ones. The violence was being targeted at us. We thought it was violent to deny people the right to health care. When you had babies that
couldn't get medicine, that was violent. When you had kids that
couldn't eat in the morning, we thought that was violent. So our philosophy was to stand
up and not allow ourselves to be attacked by the
conditions within our community. That's self-defense. - Do you think that we
could benefit in the present right now from Black Panthers? - Yes, but you don't have to call it the Black Panther Party. It could be any organization. Stay collective, stay together. You know "Power to the people?" - Yes, "Power to the people," yeah. - Your hand together cannot be divided. If you're like this, you
know, the wind goes through and all that, you have no power. This way, the Black Panther
Party always had power because they moved in groups. Now do you see how
people are being killed? Like Trayvon Martin, do you
remember Trayvon Martin? - Yeah. - He was walking alone down the street. As a mother, I'm more
concerned for my child if they're alone than
if they're with a group. - [Woman] All right, anything else? Elmer, do you want to
ask the kids anything? - No, I just, you guys are
living in a very exciting time. Believe in yourself. - That's what I always do. - Good, good for you. - Thank you so much. - My pleasure, it was so good to meet you! - You too.
