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SR MAREE Io Rite pO, ee gae “4 CO a eS aes Wi SAS Oe Taf ST Ree oe,” 6a ‘ 2 RE: COUNTERORIENTATION WEEK So therefore, black people, I think, now are deciding, and I agree with this wholeheartedly, that our commitment is to our ownselves first, foremost, and to other oppressed people if, in fact, we want to show our own humanity in some sense or another. Okay, secondly, and I think this is another crucial problem (next few words unintelligible), is that we had simply lost all sophistocation regarding radical movements in this country. And this is another reason why the book by CRUSE (phonetic) is so very important. Because we did not have, here again, a critical perspective, and in some cases we just didn’t know what people had been doing. And this held both for disordered history of the white left, white radicals, but also for the great black people who did dissent, and I do not mean dissent in MARTIN LUTHER KING fashion (rest of sentence unintelligible.) Fundamental dissents from the nature of this whole culture and readiness to leave it and get out of it. Okay, so we have had these great critics and we have not been aware of these people, and it seems to me it would be quite necessary now to deal with these people. I think Lester, I'm sorry, ha ha, there's a slip. I think that the point was made quite clear in (unintelligible). If we are going to sit here and say that these damn slave owners such as GEORGE WASHINGTON and ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and THOMAS JEFFERSON, and various Other racists, cut and out low-down racists, are our heroes, if these are the people we're going to pick for heroes, if we're going to tell black kids that they must memorize the list of the presidents of the United States, then what we're telling them that they're doing actually is memorizing, I suppose there may be some benefits to this too, memorizing from the main perpetrators of the very Oppression that we are faced with today. This kind of thing has to be turned around. We got to come to see that when we l00k at history we got to select as heroes those people who have, in fact, given their lives for the liberation of black people in particular, and for the advancement of humanity in general. And that is not GEORGE WASHINGTON, that is not ABRAHAM LINCOLN, that is not WILLIAM MC KINLEY or TEDDY ROOSEVELT. I got serious 17 nas eneronee es > ae Sr - >. ” SY Nee ~ wee nee ae eeetemar cm tee