The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Mansa Musa:

I was reading Huey’s dissertation for his doctoral called War Against the Black Panther Party: A Study in Oppression in America. And in that, he outlined one COINTELPRO and COINTELPRO systematic attack on the party to the point of Eddie Conway wrote the book called The Greatest Threat Ever, outlining how the federal government systematically targeted anybody, but more specifically members of the Black Panther Party to either isolate them or kill them or send them to prison where they served death of a thousand cuts and then they ultimately die. Talk about once that information came out about COINTELPRO and its involvement in destroying the party, how did that change your views or how did that impact the political landscape as you seen it when it come to organizing and revolutionary ideology?

Billy X Jennings:

It wasn’t till 1970 that people officially found out what COINTELPRO was. We always knew there was some kind of program out there that wiretapped us, how the FBI followed us and set us up for different charges like that. But on a personal basis, COINTELPRO helped me stay out of jail. Now, COINTELPRO is not something they invented for the Black Panther Party. It’s something they always had going on, but they ramped it up three degrees because of the party, how the party came out or how effective the party was. So in 1970, when these young anti-war people broke into this post office in Pennsylvania, it helped me out because at that time, Huey P. Newton was on Nixon’s enemy list. I am Huey P. Newton’s personal aid. So when FBI sees Huey, they see me.

And so I’m a much easier target than Huey. So they started using the draft to gift me, the selective service. Now, this is the same method they used against members of SNCC, another organization that preceded us. They would get the selective service to start sending them letters to have them drafted. And you only got three choices. Either you’re going to leave and go to Canada, you’re going to go underground, or you’re going to jail. Any one of them stopped you from being affected, and that’s what they wanted. They wanted to stop people from being affected so they would hold this selective service thing over their head. So what happened when they did the same thing to me, right? They arrested me when I was with Huey after coming to court. So I went to court for this draft evasion thing. The federal government had three of their attorneys on my case.

And so what happened was this, they wanted to charge me for draft evasion, but my attorney pointed out they wanted all the documents, film, phone, anything connected with Bill Jennings. And they immediately dropped my case on the spot because they were still trying to hide the fact that they had a program called COINTEL PRO and they didn’t want to reveal it because of me.

So they just dropped my case. So I walked away from that whole case because COINTEL PRO was discovered and they didn’t want to dispose all the footage they had of me and Huey together because that’s what they were doing, compiling stuff on Huey. I just happened to be there.

So that’s how COINTEL PRO affected me, but a lot of party members went to jail. Geronimo G Jaga did 27 years. They pulled him off the street. The FBI lied on him. They said he helped kill someone in the LA, but at the same time, the FBI was watching him while he was in Oakland attending meetings. They lied on the brother, just like they did. Maybe about 35 or 40 Panthers went to jail, maybe 35 Panthers were killed through COINTEL PRO. And many like Fred Hampton were victims, minding their own business. The next thing you know, law enforcement has them in their clutches one way or another. So it was not easy being a party member during those times.

Mansa Musa:

And they knew Eddie Conway was at work when this incident happened. They went to where he worked at in the post office and told the people to say that he wasn’t at work. And then they planted a snitch in his cell or they had one of them snitchers come up and say that Eddie said something. They had coerced people to lie against. So to your point, that was their methodology during that time. Like you say, they going to get you through selective service. They’re going to get you through income tax. They’re going to get you any way, shape, form or fashion. But talk about what do you think about this recent group in Philly that call themselves the Black Panther and then switch their name to the Black Lions and they’re doing some organizing. They got a large presence on social media. They can be seen, engaged in mutual and exercising their rights through confrontation with the police.

Basically, their strategy is being more confrontational. Are you familiar with them and what you think about

Billy X Jennings:

Them? Well, I am somewhat familiar with them. I get emails from them, messages. But just recently there was a meeting held in Philadelphia with Panthers, real Panthers, original Panther members and members of the Black Lions. We suggested then that they change their name because our legacy was built on positive direct action in the community. This is our legacy. We can’t have any young group. We don’t even know what you believe. Come and say you’re party members. The Black Panther Party stopped existing in 1982. So you should come up with a name for your own legacy so people can identify you because what you’re doing, we don’t know who you are. COINTELPRO and all that, you might be good at heart, but we don’t know you. Start your own legacy. Start from ground one, change your name because our name is built on our legacy of what we’ve done and we don’t know what you’re going to do.

The Black Panther Party had 14 different medical facilities. Two are still open to this very day, one in Seattle and one in Portland.

Mansa Musa:

You

Billy X Jennings:

Can see Black Party still alive in groups like the Gray Panthers. They took up where the Black Panther Party left off with the senior citizens. The Black Panther Party had a senior escort service. All these different services the party provided, free buses to prison program. And the main purpose for that program was to keep the family unit together

Mansa Musa:

Because

Billy X Jennings:

People have cars, but many of the state prisons are far, far away. You might have a car that’s good for getting around the city, but getting on the freeway, your car might not make it. So we provide these services to keep the family unit together. It’s good that the Black Lives change their name. It’s good they’re doing social work in the community, but they also have to understand that longevity. Dealing with the police is good to have people who deal with the police who the police know they can’t run and rub shot it in our community. I don’t have anything bad about that, but that shouldn’t be your main focus. That should not be what you’re all about. The party blossom out past that, that’s how we started getting community support, breakfast programs, liberation school, providing services for people. That’s how you get people to change their mind, their attitudes about you.

They see what you do through your social

Mansa Musa:

Practice. In that regard, Billy, talk about what would be your message to youth because you got a lot of young people that’s learning about the party. You got a lot of young people that’s through social media becoming informed about it. And what would you tell them when they come up and say, okay, to your point, no, you’re not original member of the Black Panther Party. No, you don’t have the right to say that in terms of and then saying that’s what you are. But what would you tell them when they come up and say, we want to change the condition, social conditions, we want to do it in the same light that the Black Panther Party did it. What would you tell them to do?

Billy X Jennings:

I would tell them the Black Panther Party were operating in the 1960s and we’re in the 2026 era right now. So we can’t go back and keep doing stuff in the past. We had to come up with new ways of doing things, a new attitude of doing things. We set the table for all these social programs to be embraced in the community, but they have to take it from there. They have to take where we started and bring it into their conditions now. And I would say to young people, get with another group that has your same ideology, your same philosophy. If they’re serving the community or working in the community, work with them because we need to unify all our efforts and come together. Educating young people, having political education classes, taking people outside of the community, outside of their environment so they can see the bigger world and see where they fit in.

All those things are things that are doable things, job training, telling people how to write a resume. Those are those small things, but those things that help because we have a lot of hardcore brothers who get out of jail who are not educated in the educational system. They need that kind of nourishment to bring them up. That’s what we should be doing, community service to bring our people up and not run away from the people. The Black Panther Party, when we had social programs, we invited people to come back to work. We provided a place for doctors and nurses to, if you wanted to give back to the community, we have a clinic here. You could donate four to six hours a week to have those facilities there or people in the community or have a community meeting around issues in the community. That’s how you bring interested people together, unifying people.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, that’s a good point because they got what they call the Malcolm X Grassroots Collective. I’m in DC and what they do every second and fourth Wednesday of the month, they have political education class and their political education. They’re not calling themselves some other than what they are organizing, but what they do, they have political education class and then the materials that they use, they using materials that they learned about from the Black Panther Party. But talk about the 60th and what you got planned with some of the things that you’ll be organizing for the 60th.

Billy X Jennings:

Well, that’s a lot. Well, I would say the 60th is what my particular role is, is I’m sponsoring a couple workshops on chapter history. Black Panther Party had over 40 different offices of the Black Panther Party. And there’s a lot of history in these different cities and geographical areas that we don’t know about that only the local people there knew about. So we’re trying to bring that history together so that people in Chicago would know what the people in Portland, Oregon was doing or the people in Seattle will find out who were some of the people that started the party down in Houston, Texas. And some of the programs, Salem, some of the problems the Winston-Salem chapter deal with because they were a chapter of the Black Panther Party that was actually in the South because they had problems that a lot of us didn’t have in California,

So forth. But chapter history, I’m doing some tours of Oakland, like I said, to educate a lot of people who’ve never been there before. A lot of people come to the reunions, they bring their grandkids or their great-grands. They want to show them what they was involved in, how all this thing originated. I have doing tours. I got a couple exhibits at the main library in Oakland about Black Panther Party rank and file. I have an exhibit open October 5th at the Alameda Law Library, which is across the street from the Oakland main library. Oh,

It’s across the street from the Oakland Main Museum. So that exhibit’s going to focus on the impact of the Black Panther Party on the law because of the political prisoners, clientele pro, racism in the police department, all those kind of things. So I got my hands full and on the 18th, which is the last day of the conference, I’m in charge of a day in Bobby Hutton Park. Local hip hop artists, poets, a couple bands will live music and we have speakers come, going to do it like we did back in the 1960s. Treat music, food, a joyful day in the community. Don’t caution that and all you have to do is bring your blanket, sit out and hear some speeches and hear some music and unify in the community.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. Thank you, Billy. Thank you. And Billy, we really appreciate you taking your time out to come on and educate our audience about all things the Black Panther Party. More importantly, clearing up a lot of misconcepts about the party, what it stood for, some of the more subtleties of it as opposed to, to your point, a lot of the things that was distorted primarily for the purpose of disassociating it from people, getting people to look at it in a different light. You came on today and educated us on how the party really operated as, like y’all said, the Vanguard intercommunal with us.

Billy X Jennings:

The party’s whole thing is to educate people. I had a young lady who worked in my campaign office when Bobby Seal ran for mayor. She is now the mayor of Oakland. So I know that she knows about the 10 point program and all those things. So the party is about growth and development and stuff like that. The Black Police Officers Association of Oakland was started because of the Black Panther Party, right? Because when they shut up our office on 45th and Grove in September 1968, the Black officers refused to help the white officers who was suspended from their job for shooting at that office. And they started an organization, which is one of the biggest Black organizations in Oakland. But a lot of people don’t know that history, but when we have chapter histories, a lot of this history that happened in those cities come up.

Who were now in charge of state health facilities work at the medical clinic and stuff like that. So there’s a lot of roots where people came from. We just have to talk about it, dig it up and document it for future generations because 17 years ago, when I was 17, I joined the party. Today I talked to people from all over the world. I just got off the phone talking to the New Zealand Panthers who are going to send some representatives out here. They have 15 members that came for our 50th. We have people from all over the world. We have Charlotte O’Neill coming in from Tanzania.

Mansa Musa:

Okay.

Billy X Jennings:

For over 50 years. Charlotte’s going through our libations. She has a film. She travels the world. We have all type of Panthers coming in, so this is going to be a event.

Mansa Musa:

There you have it. There you have the bars today. Look, you gave that row out. And we thank you for coming and sharing this information because like you said, at the end of the day, after everything all is said and done, the party was about educating our people about getting them to understand their right to self-determination and how to go about getting self-determination, understanding the contradictions, understanding social conditions, and more importantly, organizing to change conditions. And it’s a tribute to the party. No matter what people say about the party, that is the lasting legacy of the party is educate, educate, educate. Thank you, Billy. We appreciate you. All right. How do you want people to get in touch with you if they want to get in touch with you? They

Billy X Jennings:

Can get in touch with me by going to our website, itsabouttimebpp.com, which there’s a phone number and an address on that website. But for the 60th, you can go to bpp60.org for your latest update information on what’s happening with the 60th.

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Kim Kelly:

We are here, Power of the People. First festival sold out immediately. People are excited about it. What kind of power are we bringing? When you’re an artist, you talk about politics. A lot of folks here are not shy about sharing their political opinions. Sure. We’re dealing with fascism. It’s here.

Tom Morello:

Yes.

Kim Kelly:

What can an event like this do? What potential does an event like this do?

Tom Morello:

Yeah. I think the first thing I can do is prove something that I know to be true, which is that courage is contagious. And without even speaking hyperbolically, this is a festival of peace, love, justice, and music. It is a festival of peace in a time where war is celebrated. It is a festival of love and solidarity in a time where hatred and division are rife. It is a festival of justice in a time where injustice is the norm, both on our city streets and abroad. And in a time where artists are censoring themselves or being censored on this stage today, the artists are going to play exactly what they want to play and they’re going to say exactly what they want to say.

Kim Kelly:

Now, for someone who saw this line and was like, “Oh, cool. It’s all my favorite bands, but I don’t really care about politics. I’m not a politics person. Somehow they’ve managed to get to 2026.” What do you want them to take away from this? What’s the ask?

Tom Morello:

Well, first of all, the first thing we have to do is put on a great fucking show and people can enjoy that and take away my experience over the course of doing shows like this and making music. Compelling music with a political message for decades is that people sometimes are drawn to the experience. They’re drawn to the spectacle. They’re drawn to the rock. And then they’re exposed to a different set of ideas than they have been otherwise. Some of them will, and sometimes you’re preaching to the choir. The choir needs preaching to. The choir needs their spines strengthened, steeled, and wind in their sails. Sometimes you’re talking to people who now finally recognize their own anger and their suspicions about what they think about the world reflected back to them. And then sometimes people are just there for a good time. But you know what?

This is one more piece on their chessboard they’re going to have to contend with.

Kim Kelly:

Little Trojan horse situation. Now the artists here, I guess people are kind of coming from all over the place, but clearly there’s not a lot of people on stage who are going to be… They’d probably be happy to play with Macklemore.

Tom Morello:

Some stuff might happen today you might be surprised by on that front.

Kim Kelly:

Why do you think so many big artists are still so scared to speak out for what’s right? They just saw this unfold.

Tom Morello:

Yeah, yeah. I would not say, first of all, I don’t think it’s fair to sort of ghettoize artists as different from any other category of worker. People are scared to speak out as students. They’re scared to speak out as journalists. They’re scared to speak out as carpenters, et cetera, et cetera. Artists also are sometimes afraid to speak out. A concert like this, I got to say that one of the things, the real turning point in booking the show was sometimes it’s hard when you’re making your way through managers. This is a show where people are not being paid money. This is a show where it’s inconvenient. Oh, now you can’t play the DC market because you’ve done this already. But it was the ice murders of Alex Pretty and Renee Good that really turned the tide and artists started calling me and going, “I heard you’re doing a fest.

Can I be involved in some way?” Where I think there was a real feeling that their preconceived notions of stuff they could take for granted, their own safety, their family safety, democracy were really being threatened in a significant way. They’re like, “We want to do what we can with what we’ve got.” The good news is what we’ve got is a lot of great rock and roll, a lot of great hip hop, a lot of great folk music, and a lot of great heavy metal.

Kim Kelly:

Man. Okay. So I was looking through the lineup. I was like, “This is all the bands that Tom likes to hang out with.”

Tom Morello:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You try to

Kim Kelly:

Hang out with your

Tom Morello:

Buddies. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah. Over the course of time, these are the people that say yes when you ask them to play a charity show, yes when you ask them to play at the barricades or some sort of protest. So those are the ones that raised their hand. We’re happy and honored to have them here.

Kim Kelly:

And for folks who were maybe a little bit more on the hardcore, heavy metal, a few more decibels. Who’s more familiar with your other work?

Tom Morello:

Sure, sure, sure, sure. Plenty of that today. I mean, don’t worry. Yeah, don’t worry.

Kim Kelly:

I’m here for a reason.

Tom Morello:

For

Kim Kelly:

Folks who are involved in those scenes and maybe didn’t get tickets to this or didn’t speak to them, but they’re still, they’re down. What do you want to see people in the broader music

Tom Morello:

Space? Yeah. Well, first of all, we have a global free live stream that people can watch everywhere right on. It’s not 10 hours of free for you to watch it. You can tune in and out as you choose. But for people in those scenes, again, I wouldn’t get wise. I’d say the people who own and control this world do not deserve to. And the only way that change happens is average ordinary everyday people who have had enough standing up in their place and time. Sometimes music can remind you of that, and that’s what we’re hoping to do on a day like Power of the People. I

Kim Kelly:

Have never felt safer at a concert in my life because there are 40,000 people here who think the same way I do.

Concert goer:

Power to the People. We don’t like Donald Trump. He can kiss my ass and their asses as well. And we love Bruce and we love Tom Morello and we love good music and we’re thrilled to be here.

Tom Morello:

Another thing we’re doing today, which I try to do at my own shows too, is on this day and on this night, creating a little bit of the world that we’d like to one day see. A world of joy and solidarity and celebrating resistance and fun and people from 15 years old to 85 years old, having a communal experience that makes you glad that you’re alive and feel that this is worth fighting for.

Kim Kelly:

Why does it feel important to you as someone who’s been on the left in the progressive world for a long time to focus on joy? Because we don’t always have a lot of fun. Sure. We’re not known

Tom Morello:

For – Lord knows we don’t have a lot of fun. We’ve all been to. Well, I mean every inch of the Power of the People Festival, we’ve emphasized that there are no long dreary speeches. I’ve had to turn away hundreds of dreary speakers, well-intentioned, but dreary speakers. And even the Freedom Village, we’ve tailored it in a way with some incredible local organizations and national organizations. There’s also free ice cream. There’s also Shepherd Fairy DJing. We want that to be a place that feels welcome and awesome and realizing these are the people who are doing the real work, but there’s community in that and it’s a welcome place. And like I said, the reason we concentrate on joy and fun and rock and roll and kick ass music, because that’s the world that we want to make. We want to make it so it can be like that beyond the confines of this concert.

Kim Kelly:

And to you, what does a successful result look like? Do you want a specific amount of people registered to vote? Do you want a specific amount of people buying stuff from Red Emmos? You got to shout them

Tom Morello:

Out. I think that whether or not the concert’s successful, first of all, let’s hope nobody falls off the stage. Really look at the basics. There’s 17 members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame playing on the stage today. It’s a concert. It is a once in forever lineup. It is a once and forever lineup. So one thing I’m hoping is that people have a fulfilling artistic experience, whether you’re on the stage or you’re off the stage. And then if you’re not careful, you just might learn something. If you’re not careful, you just might be motivated to do something tomorrow. If you’re not careful, you might be motivated to do something more than just vote in three weeks. As my dear departed mom, Mary Morello, who passed away at 102 years old lately, she said, “You got to fight the fascist every which way you can.” She voted at a hundred.

She voted at 102, but she was like, “Voting is just one day and that’s easy enough to do. The real work starts the next day where you begin organizing and acting in concert with like-minded people to create the world that you’d like to one day see.”

Kim Kelly:

She was a union woman, you’re a union man. We’re all union folks here. What would you like to see the labor movement doing right now as we’re dealing with… I mean, I’m getting every email in the world, “Go knock doors, go vote, go vote. Okay, sure.”

Tom Morello:

Yes.

Kim Kelly:

And then what?

Tom Morello:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, I think that there still is a lot of hope in the labor movement because the thing that we can do in the labor movement is stop the world. I think that people don’t realize what a powerful, powerful tool solidarity is. And you can create any kind of world you want when people just stop working, when the gears stop, when the university stop, when the carpenters stop, whatever, when the truck drivers stop, all of a sudden your demands really, really matter because you can stop the economy, you can cost shareholders millions and billions of dollars by withholding your labor, a radical labor movement. I still think there’s a room for that to be something that can be very, very important in creating a better world.

Kim Kelly:

So is this Tom Morello officially coming out in favor of the 2028 general strike?

Tom Morello:

Coming out in favor, please. How about the 2026 general strike, the 2027 general strike, the tomorrow afternoon general strike?

Kim Kelly:

No, I got to let you get out of here, get back to rocking, but just mentioning this great local co-op we got here, Red Emmos, what are you reading right now that keeps you excited, keeps you hopeful?

Tom Morello:

That’s a good question. I’ve got two books back at the hotel. One of them is that I’ve been reading with my son. It’s comprehensive, like the ideas of human beings. So from chardism to a narcosyndicalism, et cetera. It’s like a paragraph on each, which we read together and sometimes he’s bored and sometimes he’s more enthusiastic about it, but that’s what I’ve got brought to the hotel with the family now.

Kim Kelly:

Really? All right. I was not fishing for you to mention my book. It’s fine.

Tom Morello:

Yes. Your book features prominently in his library.

Kim Kelly:

Well, thank you so much, Robert.

Tom Morello:

It’s always great to have you. Thank you for your service and I appreciate you. This

Kim Kelly:

Has been Kim Kelly.

Tom Morello:

Tom Morello.

Kim Kelly:

For the Real News Network.