{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/z89280693z/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Samuel Anderson Oral History"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/010/original/Aviary_QPLlogo_192x192.png?1578574261","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSummary of Full Interview\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn part one of the interview, which took place on April 6, 2021, Samuel Anderson recounts his memories of growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Long Island, Panama, and Connecticut and being exposed to deep segregation and racism from an early age. Brown v. Board of Education passed shortly before his father brought Anderson and his family to Panama, where he was stationed at Fort Davis and promoted to Major, a field-grade military officer rank. Back in the states, Anderson went to high school in New Britain, Connecticut. For college, he initially attended Pratt Institute, commuting from his family’s home in Brooklyn. Then, at the suggestion of his family’s minister in Brooklyn, Reverend Galamison, Anderson attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the nation's first degree-granting Historically Black College and University (HBCU). After graduating in 1966, in New York City, Anderson worked with the Black Arts Movement and Black Student Movement. In 1968 he was hired to work in the Queens College SEEK program, along with William Sales and several others who had taken part in the takeover of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University in 1968. Anderson described the early efforts of this group to formulate a SEEK program that encompassed ideals of Black liberation and service to the community.  \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn part two of the interview, which took place on April 13, 2021, Samuel Anderson discusses the early history of the Black Panther Party in New York City, including the group’s founding in a May 1966 meeting of about 12-14 people in St. Nicholas Park in Manhattan, and the group’s subsequent formulation of the Party’s 10-point program. He discusses the Black Panther Party’s roots in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Lowndes County, Alabama, as well as the influence of Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity, and how police infiltration disrupted the group. Anderson then discusses his experience organizing the Black Student Congress (an attempt to bring together Black students from across private and public universities of New York City) and the takeover of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University in 1968. From there, he describes the climate, goals, and character of the Queens College SEEK program circa 1968-1969. Anderson discusses several protests led by Black and Puerto Rican students in Queens College SEEK, and how the CUNY administration framed him as the instigator/leader of the protests, ultimately firing him. Around this time, Anderson was also arrested and targeted by the FBI.  \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Source"]},"value":{"en":["Interview conducted as part of the Queens College SEEK History Project."]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["1940s-1960s (temporal)","Panama; Lowndes County, Alabama; Pennsylvania; Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens College, Queens, NY (spatial)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2021-04-06 (Created)","2021-04-13 (Created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Samuel Anderson (Interviewee)","Obden Mondésir (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCC BY-NC-SA Contact digitalarchives@queenslibrary.org for research and reproduction requests.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Video"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSummary of Full Interview\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn part one of the interview, which took place on April 6, 2021, Samuel Anderson recounts his memories of growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Long Island, Panama, and Connecticut and being exposed to deep segregation and racism from an early age. Brown v. Board of Education passed shortly before his father brought Anderson and his family to Panama, where he was stationed at Fort Davis and promoted to Major, a field-grade military officer rank. Back in the states, Anderson went to high school in New Britain, Connecticut. For college, he initially attended Pratt Institute, commuting from his family\u0026rsquo;s home in Brooklyn. Then, at the suggestion of his family\u0026rsquo;s minister in Brooklyn, Reverend Galamison, Anderson attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the nation's first degree-granting Historically Black College and University (HBCU). After graduating in 1966, in New York City, Anderson worked with the Black Arts Movement and Black Student Movement. In 1968 he was hired to work in the Queens College SEEK program, along with William Sales and several others who had taken part in the takeover of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University in 1968. Anderson described the early efforts of this group to formulate a SEEK program that encompassed ideals of Black liberation and service to the community. \u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn part two of the interview, which took place on April 13, 2021, Samuel Anderson discusses the early history of the Black Panther Party in New York City, including the group\u0026rsquo;s founding in a May 1966 meeting of about 12-14 people in St. Nicholas Park in Manhattan, and the group\u0026rsquo;s subsequent formulation of the Party\u0026rsquo;s 10-point program. He discusses the Black Panther Party\u0026rsquo;s roots in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Lowndes County, Alabama, as well as the influence of Malcolm X\u0026rsquo;s Organization of Afro-American Unity, and how police infiltration disrupted the group. Anderson then discusses his experience organizing the Black Student Congress (an attempt to bring together Black students from across private and public universities of New York City) and the takeover of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University in 1968. From there, he describes the climate, goals, and character of the Queens College SEEK program circa 1968-1969. Anderson discusses several protests led by Black and Puerto Rican students in Queens College SEEK, and how the CUNY administration framed him as the instigator/leader of the protests, ultimately firing him. Around this time, Anderson was also arrested and targeted by the FBI. \u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCC BY-NC-SA Contact digitalarchives@queenslibrary.org for research and reproduction requests.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Queens Public Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Queens Public Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/010/original/Aviary_QPLlogo_192x192.png?1578574261","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/174/041/small/Screenshot_%28166%29.png?1674670187","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 2 - Anderson__Sam_AudiovisualPT1.mp4"]},"duration":4224.08,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/174/041/small/Screenshot_%28166%29.png?1674670187","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-queenslibrary.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/174/041/original/Anderson__Sam_AudiovisualPT1.mp4?1674670092","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":4224.08,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Full Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Is April 6th, 2021. My name is Obden Mondésir. I am in Brooklyn, New York collecting this oral history for the Queens College Special Collections and Archive in regards to the SEEK History Project and the SEEK Oral History Project. I am with Samuel Anderson. Mr. Anderson, could you please spell your first and last name?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3.0,29.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, Samuel S A M U E L. Last name Anderson A N D E R S O N.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=29.0,40.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And could you tell me the year that you were born?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=40.0,43.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e 1943.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=43.0,46.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And where were you born?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=46.0,49.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Brooklyn, Bed-Stuy [laughter].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=49.0,52.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay. And so one of the first questions I wanted to ask is, could you briefly tell me about your parents?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=52.0,59.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e My parents were also Brooklynites. My mother was born in a diasporic family. That is to say her mother was Jamaican and her father was Basian. My father was from North Carolina and they met in New York City, in Brooklyn.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=59.0,98.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And they met in New York City. And could you tell me about the first home that you grew up in?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=98.0,107.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e The first what?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=107.0,108.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Home.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=108.0,110.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, the first home I grew up in was on 460 Greene Avenue in between Bedford and Nostrand. It was a home owned by my maternal grandfather and grandmother, in which. I would say, I'm trying to remember now. Two other were still living in the house. At least two other sisters were still living in the house when I grew up, when I was born in the place. It was a brownstone. And so, they got the brownstone because I think my grandmother hit the numbers [laughs]. They were able to purchase a brownstone, you know. It was a lot of money back in those days, but I think they paid $3,000 for it or something like that, you know, for the brownstone. So it was extended family, living quarters for a number of years until my mother's sisters and brothers grew up and got their own places and what have you. But that's where I was at birth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=110.0,192.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Could","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=192.0,198.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e tell me what you remember about the neighborhood at the time? Let's see. At the end of World War II, at the very end, I must've been about four years old or so, when my father was stationed in Germany. So the first four years or so of my existence, it was in the house, and I don't remember the details, but we moved to Germany and then we came back some two and a half, three years later. And then I'm old enough to remember the neighborhood, the friends, my cousins, you know. We played skully and a number of other games in the street, going to school, going to elementary school. Now it's crazy and it didn't make any sense to me at that point, but I went to elementary school, I can't remember which number the school was, but that was walking distance, like three, four blocks away from the home. But I was in elementary school and was put into what we consider today special ed program for language issues. Why? Because I spoke English with a German accent [laughs].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=198.0,289.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e I mean, I grew up, you know, in my formative, linguistic years, bilingual, speaking German and English in Germany. Right? So coming back, I had a German accent. See what happened is a whole bunch of psychological game-playing. Most of our teachers in that period were Jewish. Here's a black kid coming into school, speaking English with a German accent, and also knowing German right after World War II. That's crazy, right? So there's something- we got to do something. So all I remember- it was sort of traumatic. All I remember was I had to get a shoe box and fill it with pencils and stuff and something else. And I would take that with me to the speech therapy class and, you know, to get rid of my German accent [laughs]. In those days, they didn't realize that young children can adapt linguistically within a matter of months, you know, lose an accent from one area of the world and come up with a local accent.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=289.0,370.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e They didn't realize that. So they had to exorcise this German accent out of me. And so that was one of the things, but, you know, I didn't have any problems with my cousins who live with me in that 460 Greene or the friends in the neighborhood. You know they didn't see anything strange because I adapted, you know, in a matter of a few weeks, I would assume. And so nothing strange about it. So, yeah, that's my recollection of 460 Greene. We moved to Long Island in '53 I think it was. I think it was 1953 we moved to Long Island to Amityville because that was one of the- again, I had to go back and put it in context. The GI Bill excluded Black soldiers in terms of the housing issue with the GI Bill after World War II. And there was a lot of push by the handful of Black politicians and Black soldiers themselves to be included within- to have access to mortgages within the GI Bill, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=370.0,468.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e So that happened. Then Black folk all across the country, soldiers, were trying to move into these newly developing suburban communities. Like that was the place, picket fence and little house and that was the thing in the '50s and what have you. And they were being excluded everywhere. And in New York City- Levittown, I'm sorry. Levittown, in Nassau County, was the place to be. That was the new, modern way of living in suburbia. No Black people could get into Levittown. There was just, said no. You know, it was in your face. No, no Levittown. So, a enterprising white developer said we could do the same thing and cheaply out on Suffolk County, which is further out on the Island, right? And the land is cheaper. We can get some cheap land and build these cheap ass homes and Black folk will come.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=468.0,546.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e And that's how we went. We went to this town, Amityville, and then inside Amityville was this development called Ronek Park, R O N E K, Ronek Park. And these homes were cheap and [laughs] the way they would cut corners, one of the fundamental ways, the way they cut corners was the homes did not have a peaked roof. That was extra wood that you'd have to put up, right, and construct. So they just had a flat roof, one story flat roof home, two or three bedrooms. You had your new kitchen, small, new refrigerator, small, new stove, right? I don't think we had, I think we had to buy a washing machine. And you had some grounds, you had a backyard and a front yard kind of thing, but the house was cheaply built. Barely insulated, you know. the roof was flattened and therefore in the first year, half the homes had leaks [laughs]. So my father had to invest in pitching a roof, you know how the roof- put a roof on the house. A pitched roof on the house. So that was all Black people in this community. So that was the suburban experience, '53. I believe it was '53 to definitely '56, because that was another episode.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=546.0,625.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And, I guess what was so unique about 1956?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=625.0,661.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e My father was stationed in Panama and so we went to Panama and went to the canal zone and went to Colón, was the first place we stayed was a military base called Fort Davis on the Atlantic side. And in '56, this was an integration experiment. I did not know that, I didn't understand that at the time, but we were the first Black American family to be on a military base in Panama, right? And my father was, when he came, when he got there, he was a captain. So he was an officer and the officers had privileged housing and these white officers really, really, really resented the whole idea of this Black family moving into the houses on Fort Davis. Fort Davis, literally was a Fort built around a golf course, an 18 hole golf course. [Laughs] Literally. You know, for the officers to have fun time, you know, every day.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=661.0,755.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e So, the first place we lived at Fort Davis, the house overlooked the fairway for hole number one. And then, you know, I got interested in golf, you know, and I said, \"Yeah, I'm getting interested.\" And all the caddies were Black, right? Black Panamanians. And so, you know, a couple of caddies, said, \"You know, we could teach you how to play golf\", you know, [unclear] come on. 'Cause golf course didn't cost anything, just walk out there with a club and what have you. And my father joined the club and that was like an absolute, mind blowing thing. You know, this Black man joining the club and he was strapping, as they say in those days, strapping. But, you know, he was 6'2\", dark skin, muscular, you know [laughs]. They just had [unclear] through changes, but the caddies loved him, right? 'Cause he's, you know, he wasn't an elitist at all, you know, a regular guy. And so all the caddies fought to be his caddy and he would tip, right? So yeah, that was '56 to '59 in Panama and most of the time on the Atlantic side and the other time, about a year or so on the Pacific side. But it introduced me to straight up, in your face segregation, okay?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=755.0,861.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Because Brown v Board was 1954, okay? Schools are desegregated. The culture of the military in Panama is Southern cracker culture from the private all the way up to the general, these crackers, right? And they had the colonial life, right? They had, you know, your classic colonial life. A sergeant's family would have maids, right? Because, you know, you pay the maid maybe $15 a month or something like that, you know, real cheap. You know, we had a maid, that's another story. We had a maid. But we flipped the script on that [laughs].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=861.0,926.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e My mother says [laughs], \"We don't know if she's family or not. So, you know, we gonna be nice.\" Anyway, the segregation aspect was very, very, very strong. My first report card. And I know- I looked for it in my family's home, but I'm pretty sure it's long gone. But my first report card I got had stamped out, but it was poorly stamped, so you could see through the stamp. White student, right? Because the elite Panamanian who were not considered white by the Americans, who we would say were white, they're light-skinned, you know, Panamanian, would pay to send their children to the high school, um, in Colón and Panama City. And so they would get a separate report card that would say Panamanian.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=926.0,999.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e So I'm not white, I'm not Panamanian, [laughs] so they had to try stamp out, you know, on the report card, white student, you know, kind of thing. That was my first take on this, said \"this is interesting, yeah.\" Very interesting. And then there was always political strife between the progressive Panamanians and the United States, you know, the whole anti-colonial movement throughout Panama. And so the U.S. would, every once in awhile, shut down to say, you can't go into Cristóbal, you can't go into Colón. You know, these are forbidden areas and stuff like that. So my father, he brought his own car with him, right? It was brand new, a 1956 Oldsmobile, you know, and he got it shipped, right? And so we, you know, we were the only Black family in Panama and had a brand new American car. That's how poor Black folk were, right?. He would drive into town and park and we would wear our guayabera. You know what a guayabera is, right? Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=999.0,1085.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1085.0,1085.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Well then you would see it a lot more in Cuba. Four pocket shirt. Four pocket shirt with a sort of light embroidery down front. You would see that with- Fidel would wear it. But it's a popular, formal dress shirt that would be used throughout Latin America. So, you know, we would put that on. So we Panamanian then, you know, we'd wear the guayabera, and we would walk around all these off-limits places [laughs]. You see no white folks, it's off-limits. And then the thing that I noticed was, in the tourist district, when it was shut down and, you know, white folks were not allowed to go into the area, the prices on items in the window were much, much, much cheaper, right? You would see an item in a window, let's say a pair of shoes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1085.0,1117.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e They would be $25 for the tourists. But when there were no tourists, they're down to 10. Mm.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1117.0,1157.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Mm.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1157.0,1157.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Mm. [Laughs] You know, my father was showing me that. And then one day we went and went into the railroad station, which was apartheid. You know, you had your Black seating and your white seating, but Brown v Board desegregated, began to desegregate everything after that. You know, '56, '57, you had the, you know, the desegregation thing. And so we, my father would take me, we would sit in the train station in the white people only. [Laughs] People would look at us. They couldn't do anything, right? [Laughter] We're not Panamanian.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1157.0,1209.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e And then the other thing we would do, he would take me to the canal itself, right? And we would walk along the canal. In those days, you know, anybody could walk along the canal, where the workers are and the ships are coming through and the workers are guiding these things. And then we have a water fountain there. We have the gold and the silver water fountain, one for Black people, one for white, and my father would go up and take a drink out of a white fountain in the midst all these people around, nothing can do about it. He's an American citizen, plus he's a military officer, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1209.0,1249.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e So that was my beginning lessons in defying the segregation, in that point. And then the last thing I wanted to point out, when we were in our last year over in the Panama City area, the high school didn't have a cafeteria so we would eat across the street in a large popular cafeteria, you know, a lineup in that. And one day this little white boy tried to bum rush the line, right, and get in front of me. And I pushed him away and he called me a [n-word], so I slapped him, you know, rather than punch. Humiliated, I just slapped him. And then he ran to the military police. And so the military police, when they found that my last name was Anderson, they knew exactly who I was, right? [laughs]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1249.0,1287.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e 'Cause, I think by that time, my father was promoted. He was- yeah, he was a major at that time. So he was a field grade officer. And so they took us to the military police prison and sat the white boy down and said to him, \"You have to apologize to Mr. Anderson for calling him that name.\" This is 1958, I think, 1958 or so, right? And, you know, teenagers, right? He didn't want to do it. He did not, you know, and he finally did it. And then he says, \"I'm going to get my father to get after your father.\" Right? Thinking that his father outranked mine. [Laughs] No way, that didn't go anywhere [laughs]. But that was a big incident that they had to keep on the downlow. They had to hush that up and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1287.0,1369.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e So they made sure that there was no big hullabaloo around that. And, you know, I was treated much better after that by everybody, right? So those are some of the incidences that happened in Panama. My father had, you know, other experiences that were like crazy and he became, at one point, to make a long story short, he became a local hero to Black Panamanians because of- well, a plane didn't- and my father was in charge of the artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, okay? At Fort Davis. And a plane did not identify itself when they picked it up on radar flying low and did not identify itself. None of the other white officers wanted to make a move on the plane. Well, my father said, you know, he decided to make this move because we don't know where the plane is coming from, what kind of, you know, all of that, because they didn't have that kind of technology back in the- just had radar and that kind of thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1369.0,1462.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e So what he did in order to use the anti-aircraft cannons, you have to first fire what they call settling rounds to get the cannon settle, even in the ground, so it would be more accurate. So he started firing these settling rounds out of Fort Davis, [unclear] boom, boom. And these rounds wound up landing in farm land outside of Colón, right? Fortunately, nobody was injured or killed and a couple animals might've been hurt, but the military said, you know, after the incident happened, and it was clear that the plane finally identified itself when you started seeing these anti-aircraft ballistics coming near it, they said to my father, he had to go and make sure that the people in Panama understood what was going on, people in the outer-lying community, so understood what was going on, right? So he went out and, when they saw that it was a Black person coming to explain what was going on, he became a heroic figure in their eyes, you know, he was very, very important. And so local newspapers played him up And so forth. So that was some of those experiences in that point.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1462.0,1570.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. And then, you know, you were in Panama from-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1570.0,1574.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e 3 Years, '56 to '59.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1574.0,1579.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e 3 years, '56, '59. And then you found yourself in Connecticut, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1579.0,1584.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Yeah. Shortly thereafter, we wound up in New Britain, Connecticut. In the high school, I think I spent, yeah, the last two years at New Britain High.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1584.0,1606.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And I guess, what was those last two years like?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1606.0,1608.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Uh, I would say uneventful, you know, nothing, no- there was a working class, primarily working class high school, primarily a white high school with a critical mass of Black students. Most of the Black students, I would say not most, I would say everybody but two or three of us were channeled into non-college orientation in the school, right? The bigger brothers were groomed into playing football. They had one of the biggest football, in terms of size, football teams in the state. The white, mainly Polish students, male students, were also recruited into the football team, onto the football team. So it was a formidable force there, but I was not into sports. I was a skinny person, skinny Black person going into these pre-college kind of courses. The college counselors, discouraging, you know, why are you applying to MIT? You know [laughs].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1608.0,1703.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And I guess, like, what was that process of applying to schools like, 'cause you know, you eventually attend Pratt.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1703.0,1709.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, it was, um, you know, you were there in this working class town and you, you know, your family has no college background, so you start looking at what other people are saying in the schools and so forth, right? And that's your, you know, I was initially interested in chemical engineering and so MIT was supposedly the place to be, or, you know, another technical school. Rensselaer, another technical school, in terms of chemical engineering, would have been way out in California, you know. That you would knew about, you know, Stanford and University of California at Berkeley. But those are the, you know, you didn't have that much knowledge, so that's where the college counselor, the high school college counselor or the high school counselor would be your guide, and the one at New Britain, it was discouraging me from even thinking about going to college, much less MIT.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1709.0,1791.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e And so Pratt was a good idea because my family was then moving back to New York City area and in 1961 ish, 1960, '61, and Pratt would have been, you know, in Brooklyn and just could commute, which I did. Commute for a little bit from home. But my father encouraged me to have the full college experience and to, you know, to live on campus at Pratt, you know, one of the little dorms there. However, he decided to retire and in that retirement, he lost a good chunk of his income, you know, once you retire. It had not much of an income on the whole, but, you know, then wind up [unclear]. I didn't have a scholarship, not able to afford to stay there, so our minister in Brooklyn, Reverend Galamison, who was a liberation theologist-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1791.0,1871.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. And, like, led one of the largest protests in New York. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1871.0,1879.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Right. He suggested that I go to his alma mater, which was Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. And so I applied and, you know, got in. It was a no brainer, coming from Pratt to Lincoln. That was a whole [laughs] traumatic experience going out into the countryside to Lincoln University. But, at Lincoln, when I was going through the process of selecting courses and stuff like that, it just happened- it's a small school, okay? Then, it was small. 400 to 500, mainly Black male students at the time in '62, 1962. And the math professor was my guide, my counselor in terms of what courses to take. And so he just deliberately signed me up to these advanced classes and stuff [laughs]. He said, \"I know you can handle it.\" You know, he had confidence and he said, \"I know you can handle it.\" You know? And we became good friends over the years. At one point, I became his office assistant, but that was a major, major shift in my political, cultural life being at Lincoln in the 1960s, the height of the civil rights movement.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1879.0,1946.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Could you give any examples of experiences while you were at Lincoln that, like, kind of developed your political attitudes?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1946.0,1993.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, there were many, there were many. One is that I met a lot of brothers from different parts of the U.S., right, who had different experiences, different accents and so forth that, you know, broadened my understanding of Black folk, right? It's broadened that. And then, you know, many of them were dirt poor, but got scholarships. And there were a handful who were relatively wealthy, third, second and third generation college students, second and third generation Lincoln students, that kind of thing. So, you know, you had this class division and then the critical mass of brothers from the Caribbean, two types of brothers from Africa, one from the newly developed nations, or soon to be newly developed nations like Uganda, Rwanda, and Ghana and Nigeria, you know, you name it. These are newly developed nations. And then the other from the war torn or the newly on-struggled areas of South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, you know, all coming into Lincoln University. The latter was a state department initiative, which turned out, they realized, was a fundamental mistake [laughs] to bring all the revolutionary brothers into one spot in a Black college, in the midst of the civil rights movement with a white, liberal president, you know. It would be different if it was your typical conservative Negro college president, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=1993.0,2133.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e It'd be much more restrictive, number of people expelled would [gestures], you know, who were politically active and what have you, but with Wachman- Wachman was the president at the time. He was much more open, much more liberal kind of- in fact, he accepted, invited Charles Hamilton, Charles V. Hamilton, to teach at Lincoln when nobody else wanted this Black communist pariah to teach political science anywhere, right? So with Hamilton, he had to spend some time in Mexico during the whole McCarthy period. Once they deemed Roosevelt University in Chicago a hotbed of communism, you know, and where he was teaching, you know, he opted to go, to leave and go to Mexico but was wooed back during the early part of the civil rights movement to Tougaloo. But the relationship between the Tougaloo, excuse me, president and administration, and the crackers who ran Alabama- uh, Tougaloo, Mississippi, right? Mississippi?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2133.0,2227.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] Anyway, who ran the state said, \"You know, you can't have this guy here.\" So that's when he came. That's when Wachman invited him to Lincoln. So you had him, you had a number of other progressive- plus Wachman inherited from Horace Mann Bond, Julian Bond's father, who was president prior to Wachman, he inherited this whole concept of Lincoln being a place where the diaspora, young men from the diaspora would come and learn. And Horace Mann Bond had set up very good relationships with the new leaders and the new nations and so forth and had Lincoln being one of their places. And plus, in the Caribbean, also. [Unclear] in the Caribbean, primarily. It would have that relationship, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, Antigua, The Bahamas, you know, just a number of brothers from all over in it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2227.0,2303.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e So we had a very, very interesting mix on the campus. And, you know, you're on a campus with these extraordinarily brilliant young men, right? And on a campus that had a history and you began to know the history, you know, the history- who was here, who went through here. Nkrumah, Azikiwe, Thurgood Marshall, Cab Calloway, Langston Hughes, you know. And the librarian was an archivist and he kept all kinds of stuff. And so you got to know all these famous Black men, the doctors and the lawyers who pass through, the engineers, like one of the graduates is a mathematician who became one of the prominent mathematicians and Professor of Math at Howard University, you know. And then you had a Harvard professor who came out of Lincoln and he would come back, you know, and talk and so forth. So, you know, you had this deep, rich intellectual history and also an intellectual history that is tied to various forms of activism. So you couldn't help- [laughs] at that period, you couldn't help but be, you know, an activist of one way, shape, or form.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2303.0,2405.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Mmm. Yeah. Okay. And then, so you're at Lincoln and you would have graduated in around '66, '67?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2405.0,2421.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e '66.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2421.0,2422.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e '66. And I know that Dr. Bill Sales, he's from Philadelphia. Yeah, from Philly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2422.0,2429.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, from Philly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2429.0,2429.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, from Philly. I guess one question I wanted to ask is, did you meet him before you began working at SEEK?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2429.0,2437.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e No, we met in New York.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2437.0,2438.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e You met in New York. So I guess my question is, like, from attending university at Lincoln, like, how did you find yourself at SEEK?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2438.0,2452.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e SEEK is 1968, that's two years coming out of Lincoln, trying to look for a job in '66. I wound up- there were a number of anti-poverty programs all over Harlem, right? Number of anti-poverty programs burgeoning and I found one job in an anti-poverty program headed up by a brother named Charlie Wilson, who's [unclear] still alive. He's still around, Charlie. He turned out to be one of my mentors, you know, we hit it off very well. And it was a state run education program that was in Harlem and he was head of it. And I was teaching math to adults in this state run education- it was like an adult education- if you come off the street, you want to learn something and move beyond into some high school diploma or college or something, come into this program. It was really open kind of thing. And so, you know, we had all kinds of folk coming. And it was doing very well and it was not supposed to do well. It was a anti-poverty program, that's supposed to pacify people [laughter]. And so he got fired and I got reassigned to Staten Island [laughs].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2452.0,2553.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e So I had to travel from Harlem to Staten Island. I had no car, you know, public transportation. And I said, \"No, I ain't doin' this man.\" I went once, right? I had to take subway to the Staten Island ferry and then two buses to the place, right? I had to be there like 9:00 AM. You know, I said, no, no. I said, \"forget this.\" So I was unemployed for a bit, for a little while, but I was politically active at the same time, you know, trying to form the Black Arts Movement, the Black Panther Party takin' up a lot of the time, but I'm trying to remember what job did I do on the [unclear]. Some little thing until the Queens College thing happened with- see Sales and I knew each other from '67, when we met at some student activists happening. I think it was around the beginnings of the Columbia University- he would remember better- of the Columbia University struggle to get rid of the gym, the segregated gym that they were building in Harlem, where the gym was not open to the community. But it was in Harlem, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2553.0,2655.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e So Sales was a graduate student at Columbia at the time and my first wife was was the undergraduate student at Barnard. And so they were politically involved in this whole struggle and I think that's how Sales and I met at that time, you know? We hit it off and we helped to form the- it was a Black student organization. We were trying to form a citywide Black student organization that would include all the Black students from the public schools, City University of New York, as well as the private Columbia, Pratt, NYU, you name it, right, coming together. And we sat down, think it was still in '67. We sat down with, uh, I'm just drawing a blank on his name. [Unclear] student movement head, head of [unclear] student movement, just drawing a blank on his name. Brother who had, he had an office on 126th Street off of Amsterdam Avenue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2655.0,2746.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e And, you know, he gave us advice and he even gave us a little space to meet, kind of thing in the place. So, you know, we built a good comradeship from that point on to today, you know, kind of thing. So Sales, I think Sales was the one who heard about the SEEK program, meeting teachers in Queens College. And so I went out, my first wife and I went out and, you know, applied and got the positions and it was very, very interesting 'cause it was a handful of progressive whites and a handful of Black teachers. Some of whom were African, right? Alem Habtu was one, Ethiopian brother, very progressive. We had a number of progressive African teachers, and we all were young. We're all like in our twenties, you know, the old man was Ofuatey. He was like 30 [laughter].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2746.0,2825.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e I mean, you would have been around, what, 26 at the time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2825.0,2829.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Right, right, right, right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2829.0,2830.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. But could you spell that person's last name?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2830.0,2836.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Ofuatey, O- I'm trying to do it from memory. O F A D- Ofuatey- U T E Y or something to that effect. And he was a Canadian brother and he stayed in the CUNY system, longer [laughs] than any of us. He wound up being a professor in CUNY Grad, as a matter of fact. But I don't know what happened, I don't know if he passed or he went back to Ghana. I just, we just lost track, but Sales might know where he is. But it was, you know, a very energetic, very enthusiastic group of young folk who were beginning to teach literally our peers, you know, 'cause we weren't that much older than most of the students who were coming through the SEEK program. 'Cause they were comin' through in their early twenties, right? Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2836.0,2926.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And then I guess before we go a little further into SEEK, when we spoke earlier, like, you did mention being part of like, the Black student movement, but you also mentioned- I guess, could you talk more about your involvement and understanding of the Black arts movement, as well as your involvement with, well, let's stick with the Black arts movement first.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2926.0,2955.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. The Black- I consider myself, fleetingly, as a poet, a writer. And I did some, you know, did some poetry, did some public readings and got published in a number of different magazines, Black magazines, and got published in Black Fire, the anthology, and got bits and pieces of here and there writing in a Black World magazine out of, you know, Negro Digest becoming Black World. So, you know, I had dreams of taking this short story that was sort of like a science fiction that only a piece of it got- the short story got published in Black World about the Vietnam War. Well, about future war and the Vietnam War from the perspective of a Black soldier and, you know, I wound up spending a lot of time editing, being an editor.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=2955.0,3037.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e I was with Nikki Giovanni and editing The Journal of Black Poetry and was- Ed Spriggs was the editor-in-chief and for a year or so, you know, he got us- you know, Nikki was living in New York at the time and myself and a couple others were editing that journal. And then the other journals, a number of other journals came about where I wound up being one of the editors. And that was one of the things that continued over the years in terms of editing work. Tony [unclear] and I, for example, edited work in defense of Lumia book, collection of various writers from all over, speaking, contributing their art, artwork, photography, literature of various genre to pay homages, solidarity to Lumia. That was one.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3037.0,3125.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e And did another piece with a French physicist, [unclear] Maurice [unclear], the late Maurice [unclear], who was a radical French physicist, who was the number three person in the Einstein chair at Princeton. And he left that chair. He got radicalized by the Vietnam War, the responses of the Vietnam War. And we met in '74 or so, '75, nearing the end of the Vietnam- must've been 70- the Vietnam War was still going on. It must have been like '73, '74. And, you know, we started talking, collaborating on doing stuff about science in Africa, Asia, Latin America. Project, you know, which took us to a number of [laughs] inventions, but we finally got it. We finally got it done. We did it, it was a two volume- it turned out to be a two volume work that was only published in Portugal by a small company, which probably doesn't exist anymore.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3125.0,3215.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Livros do Horizonte, Horizon Books. And we had by '70- I don't remember exactly, but by the '70s, we had the possibility, a strong possibility of getting the book published in English at Penguin. The Penguin people were very interested, but Thatcherism came in. Margaret Thatcher bringing in this whole conservative, right-wing culture into England. Penguin just flipped, literally in a matter of a couple of months, just flipped and the only stuff that they were publishing that was \"left\"- and that's only because it was so popular- were the works of Marx, Karl Marx. All the other stuff that they had published that was left was discontinued and all the projects that they were promised like ours was, like, finished. And we could not get a U.S. left publisher to do what we had published. It went to Monthly Review, alright. And Monthly Review turned us down. They said [laughs], \"Nobody knows who you are.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3215.0,3314.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay... But that was the excuse, right? You know, here's a French physicist, formerly at the Albert Einstein chair at Princeton. Nobody knew who he was, right? But it was cognitive dissonance. They could not fathom that this French physicist would be hooked up with me and doing something in science, right? Could not fathom that. When we were doing our research and we went to Yale, 'cause Yale has a lot of archival stuff on Egyptian manuscripts. You know, I mean, from the time of [unclear]. We went to the Egyptology department and the mistake we did, we both walked into the department and Maurice introduced himself and so forth and they were impressed. They just thought I was just like his body guard or valet or something. And then when he introduced me and then we started having a conversation about the materials that, the specific materials that we were looking for in terms of the mathematical and scientific material that they had, \"Oh no, we don't have that, that doesn't exist.\" [Laughs] Just got shut down, right? Shut down. So on that same day, we just went over to the library and said, \"Let's see what we could find in the library.\" And there was a white woman librarian who was in charge of the ancient, you know, books, all the archives, all that old stuff, right? And she was more open, \"she said, Oh yeah, we have it here. This is it. Look, come on in, just be careful.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3314.0,3432.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e You know, she brought out these multi-thousand year old stuff for us to look at. And in those days, we didn't have, you know, camera phones and stuff, because otherwise we would taken some pictures of the documents. And some of the documents, you know, you can only look at under glass, but then there were others that were done by the French when Napoleon had his expedition down there that were very meticulously drawn documents of documents, right? And so that was helpful. But anyway, we could not find in an English speaking, English language publisher for our work. So it died on the vine, but we said, \"That's okay.\" We said, \"That's fine because Livros do Horizonte publishing house in Portugal said, you know, Angola, Mozambique, Brazil.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3432.0,3508.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Tens of millions of Black people speak Portuguese. And so we will just help distribute the book in those areas. And there were a few- you know, we didn't get any royalties or anything, but there were a few, how would you say, acknowledgements, you know, in those for Mozambique and Brazil. A few acknowledgements, particularly in Brazil when Paulo Freire was- when the government was a little more liberal in that period, right, and Paulo Freire was around. So, you know, we got some distribution of the book [unclear].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3508.0,3559.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And I do want to get back this, but I should mention that we are at two o'clock, and that I will ask, like, if we could, like, just briefly have you discuss, 'cause before we talked about your work with this physicist, we were talking about, you and Dr. Sales and how you began working at SEEK. So, like, for maybe for about five minutes, could you just, like, set the context of, like, what was it like very early on? Or, like, just your time in '68, like in the beginning of working in the SEEK program, as I think, like, the next time we have this session, we'll talk about, like, the protest and the Black student and faculty coalitions and a lot of the active engagements that they participated in.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3559.0,3620.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1968 was one of the most exciting years on the planet for those of us who were activists because every day, in every part of the planet, there was some struggles going on, some demos, some whatever, you know, happening. And it was never a dull moment. And, you know, the students, our students' consciousness was at its peak I think in that period. And, you know, all that was, we felt, important to bring into the SEEK program, that you're not just here to learn so you can get a better job. That you're here to learn to further develop the struggle and help improve the communities that you come from. And that there's unity between the Blacks and, in those days, Blacks and Puerto Ricans, 'cause it was a handful of Cuban and Dominican young people at that time. It was overwhelmingly Puerto Rican and Black folk. And Black in New York City was inclusive of the diaspora in that period.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3620.0,3703.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e You know, we helped to encourage people to not put down somebody because they came from Jamaica and you came from Barbados, or you came from Mississippi and they came from, you know, Ohio, that kind of thing. And we, you know, we really had to struggle with that. But that was not that difficult because this was the peak period of \"I'm Black and I'm Proud\", you know, afros. In New York, you know, African attire, dashikis, and [unclear] and what have you, were becoming the norm. You know, learning your history, that was something that was infused within, reluctantly in many cases, but there, within the public school system and within communities, you know, you had afterschool programs, a number of them. So, you know, it was good. And then see '68 was also Columbia University.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3703.0,3777.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e And Sales was one of the key leaders in that whole uprising. And I participated as a \"person from the outside\", outside liaison person in the takeover of Hamilton Hall. The comradeship, the sisters and brothers who were in that building, those of us were not students and those who were students became, you know, very close, lifelong, very, very close. We had friends there, [unclear], who were there, were close with my first wife, who was, like I said, at Barnard in this period. You know, it's just a number of things that happened that brought us closer together. And so that, when some of us, four, five of us joined Queens College SEEK, we were already a collective. We were already operating as, more or less, as a collective right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3777.0,3863.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e That we had very similar ideological positions and, you know, this is our goal in working in Queens College SEEK. And then we would try to encourage others to come into the other parts, SEEK programs on other campuses to do something similar. And we were fortunate that we had the more liberal administrative aspect at Queens College to allow us to develop this structure, right? That City College didn't have, that Hunter College did not have, and forget Brooklyn College. Brooklyn College [unclear] dominated that, you know, just dominate that. But so you had minimal, I don't even think there was a minimal presence of SEEK in that period at Brooklyn College, even though, you know, you had the strong Caribbean community on this border, in terms of the Flatbush area. Even though you had African-American presence in Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, you know, people would not look to Brooklyn College. My aunt went to Brooklyn college and she got radicalized [laughs] by the racism that she faced at Brooklyn College in the late 19- what was it? Mid to late- no, late 1950s to the early '60s, I think it was. And it was rough on her, rough. But she learned a lot from that reality.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3863.0,3988.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And I guess I have two questions, so like, and then we'll stop. So in regards to when you say like liberal administration, are you talking about, like, President McMurray? And then, like what was it like being on campus at the time?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=3988.0,4006.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, you know, he was tolerant, initially tolerant of this concept of the SEEK program and sort of initially parallel education. He saw it as do-good, you know, these are teachers who are helping the students get up to speed to be college material. We saw it as we are giving them college material [laughs] and preparing them to be challenging a lot of the stuff in academia, you know, [laughs] big difference. What was the other part of the question?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=4006.0,4044.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e And then, just because you were talking about your aunt's experience at Brooklyn College, I was thinking, like, when you got on campus at Queens College, like, what do you remember it being like in the beginning, like just interacting with other folks and like being in the SEEK program?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=4044.0,4063.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e From my recollection, we had minimal presence, interaction, with people, the white folks on the campus, because we had our own separate building off campus. We were not invited to faculty meetings. We were not seen as really part of their faculty. We didn't care, you know, but, you know, we weren't invited. And our presence brought consternation to the overwhelmingly white student population and white faculty population. And in the student newspaper, one of the student reporters interviewed the chair of the math department and asked him, what do you think of, you know, these Black teachers teaching math? And he said to them, and I hope you can find this, the newspapers. He basically said, you know, \"Black people are incapable of teaching mathematics, unless they have some white blood in them.\" [Laughs} And that was, I believe that was 1968 when one of those student newspapers there that [unclear] interview and that really galvanized a lot of students, you know, to see that this- \"I'm going to Queens College, eventually I'm going to have to take a math class from one of these professors and this is the chair who's saying this. I'm going to be sitting in this classroom, you know, and they see me as an F student on day one?\" You know? Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=4063.0,4187.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you think this was in the Phoenix paper?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=4187.0,4191.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, I believe so. I think that was the only student newspaper in that period, right? Phoenix? Yeah, I believe so.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=4191.0,4202.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Maybe, I'll double check.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=4202.0,4204.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Anderson:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, you can double check on that, yeah. That would be '68, I believe. So [unclear] '68 or in '69.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=4204.0,4220.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041/transcript/41501/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eObden Mondésir:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, I'm going to-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174041#t=4220.0,4222.0"}]}]},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 2 - Anderson_-Sam-full-2021-04-13.mp4"]},"duration":4657.7333,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/174/042/small/Screenshot_%28166%29.png?1674671156","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-queenslibrary.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/174/042/original/Anderson_-Sam-full-2021-04-13.mp4?1674670094","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":4657.7333,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Full Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Of Queens College, right? So [unclear] yeah, that commencement aspect. So I don't remember the specifics, though. I really-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1.0,14.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay and then I guess the other thing I wanted to discuss was your involvement in the Black Panther Party and then the confrontation that led to you leaving SEEK at the end of 1969, like in September?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=14.0,36.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Uh, yes. Yeah I made it through the school year, '69. And then the CUNY Board of Higher Education, you know, had me on trial for inciting the riot for the, I think January, February of '69 when it was the big rally. Um, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=36.0,69.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay. So, I'm wondering the best place to start-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=69.0,75.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: The Panter Party was '66 to- for me it was '66 to '67. It was about a year and a half in terms of the first incarnation of the Black Panther Party. So you might want to start there, but, you know, work up.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=75.0,95.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay, cool. Let's do it that way. Let's start with the Black Panther Party, continue with SEEK and then get towards 1969. And then I guess, does it make sense to ask you about Mulholland, as well?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=95.0,112.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Uh, no, because [laughs] I was not directly involved in the \"ransacking\" of his office. You know, that was one of the flying squads of students primarily who were organizing that kind of thing. So I was not familiar with that and, you know, the students made sure that a lot of the faculty were insulated from those kinds of actions. You know what I mean? You know, so that you won't be implicated as aiding and abetting, but it didn't make any difference because, you know, the CUNY big shots had- they assumed that it had to be one of the teachers who was orchestrating brainwashing the students. And because of my Black Panther background, they just zeroed in on me. And it was all a fabrication that occurred.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=112.0,188.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay. All right. So that's good to know. And then there was also the effigy where, like, we kind of talked about it last week, and then you mentioned the word hawk, which I was hung up on, but, like, I think it happened in February [laughter] and it was like a very short ceremony, but, like, it was like, what I saw in this [unclear] memoir was like, you know, there's this Buddha effigy. And you mentioned that it was like this, like, a really short ceremony that happened.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=188.0,224.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yeah, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=224.0,225.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=225.0,225.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Well, I don't remember if there were any photographs and some way that they're able to find, you know. But anyway, yeah, that was, it was short. Powerful, but was short.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=225.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: What made it so powerful?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=240.0,244.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: The effigy, the students commenting, you know, it was- and the number of students that turned out for that, yes, was what made it a very powerful thing, in spite of the cold weather. Came out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=244.0,264.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: So I guess let's get started. I'll give the date and the slate and we'll start with your involvement with the Black Panter Party in 1966, and just, like, move forward. Today's date is April 13th, 2021. My name is Obden Mondésir. I'm with Samuel Anderson. I'm collecting this oral history for the Queens College Special Collections and Archives, the SEEK History Project and the SEEK Oral History Project. And last week, we kind of discussed you growing up in multiple places, like Brooklyn and being in Panama and also [unclear] in Lincoln University and where we left off was you starting at SEEK and what that experience was like. But as we were discussing earlier, we both agree that it would be really great for you to begin discussing your involvement in the Black Panther Party in 1966.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=264.0,333.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Right. Yeah, it's a fascinating history in terms of the Panther Party that 99% of the history of the Panther Party gets it wrong. And that's, when we trace it, that goes back to a couple historians and a few articles in The New YorkTimes and maybe a Life Magazine, Time Magazine kind of thing about the origins of the Black Panther Party. Sometimes they get it half right, but most of the time, they don't get it right at all. For the record, the Black Panther Party originated in Lowndes County, Alabama in 1965, organized, conceived of by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had a retreat after the disasterous convention in Atlantic City in 1964, where the Democratic Party had promised to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and Johnson bum-rushed and said no way that they're going to be seated.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=333.0,433.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Fannie Lou Hamer was the leading sister of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and that was supposed to represent, for the Democratic Party nationwide, the most equitable thing to do, was to seat them. And it was too much pressure from all of the traditional crackers that were within the Democratic Party and then Johnson stepped in and said, \"No way, we're going to do this\" in '64, understanding that he was not elected as the president. He was the vice-president that came into a presidency because of the year before, the assassination of JFK, John F. Kennedy. Okay. SNCC had did a lot of organizing and did a lot of work with the Democratic Party in Mississippi and across the country. And they got knocked down. So after the convention, SNCC forces gathered and, you know, had criticism, self criticism, \"where do we go from here\" kind of thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=433.0,506.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And they were convinced that the electoral process is still important, but we cannot depend on the Democratic Party. What we need to do is to establish a Black, independent, Black political .organization within the South. Where do we do this? And so it was a debate, discussion in SNCC whether to continue to do it in Mississippi or to find another location. And, to make a long story short, Lowndes County, then being 80% Black and also being right near Tuskegee, so you had a recruitment ground, students to do organizing, and plus Lowndes County had a small \"civil rights organization\" called the Lowndes County Christian Organization that eventually became the Lowndes County Freedom organization in 1965. SNCC, at the same time, were beginning to do anti-war work among young people, anti-draft anti-war. You know, don't resist the draft, the war in Vietnam is a racist, Imperial war.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=506.0,594.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And, you know, \"You go in there to fight for democracy when you don't have it here\", et cetera. So that was bubbling up at the same time in Mississippi, in Georgia, in Alabama, where the SNCC forces were very small. So you had this political radicalization, this political awakening within the rank and file of SNCC and within the leadership of SNCC. John Lewis was the most conservative in SNCC at that time. And you had, you know, Kwame Ture, Rap Brown and- I mean, Kwame Ture- Stokely Carmichael- and Rap Brown- Jamil, brother Jamil- in the leadership along with Forman, James Forman, and Gwen Patton-Woods. And there were couple others- Courtland Cox and a number of young Black- all of them are young- young, Black sisters and brothers who were in the leadership of SNCC who were radicalized, okay?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=594.0,672.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And their goal was to create this political organization and run candidates for offices within Lowndes County. Run Black candidates for offices within Lowndes County. And they needed a symbol to counter the rooster. The rooster in Alabama was symbolic of the cracker, the Dixiecrats, the Democratic Party of Alabama. And in a brainstorming session one evening- they had a little office in Lowndes County- they came up with the Panther, the Black Panther, and it resonated with young folk. It resonated with them and they got somebody to do a billboard, a big billboard. You know, Vote Panther. And they created the Panther symbol, logo, and went around and so forth. So those of us who were in SNCC, who were doing support work in the North and sometimes going South, but mainly doing support work in the North, particularly in New York City, came together in May of 1966 and said that we should do something similar using the Panther symbol. But it would have to have an urban flavor because Lowndes County was rural and you're dealing with, you know, tenant farmers and trying to organize them is a whole different level organizing than what would be happening in urban center.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=672.0,791.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: The other part of this context is that if- let me put it this way. If Malcolm was not assassinated in February of '65 and his Organization of Afro-American Unity was able to be born- because it was stillborn when he was assassinated, because it was only a few months old- I don't think the Panther Party would have come into existence. I think that- because the Organization of Afro-American Unity had attracted many of us young people to be part of it, to be a part of the youth body of it, to be part of the whole building of this. Not just in New York, but in Detroit, in Philadelphia, in Chicago, you know, and to a lesser extent in Atlanta, Philly, and Boston, definitely. So that kind of trend, a thread, would have most likely evolved into thousands of young Black people, joining in the Organization of Afro-American Unity and pushing the program, its 13-point program forward.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=791.0,882.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And that, most likely, the radical elements in SNCC would have eventually within, I would say, 12 to 18 months, become part of that united front effort that Malcolm was trying to pull together before his assassination. So we were influenced by that, you know. We meaning those of us in New York City who also happened to be in SNCC. We were influenced by that. We were also influenced by the rise of the Black Arts Movement, the Black cultural movement. We were part of that. Many of us were part of that. Larry Neal, who was one of the founding members of the party, was also a key person within the Black Arts Movement. He was a writer, a poet, and a literary critic and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=882.0,949.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Another brilliant brother, Eddie Ellis, who was a journalist and a writer. He was also very much part of the Black Arts Movement. And I was involved in the Black Arts Movement in a form. So, you know, here we are, young people pulling together this body that we felt was going to take up the mantle of what brother Malcolm was trying to do with the Organization of Afro-American Unity. And we were going to try to fuse or merge the spirit and purpose that comes out of SNCC's Lowndes County Freedom Organization with what we were trying to do within the urban setting. The urban setting where the electoral politics was a component of that, but the primary objective was organizing in Harlem and throughout New York City, Black New York, and raising consciousness to people, both in terms of political and cultural conscience.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=949.0,1028.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And [unclear] people and getting them organized to fight against all of the various aspects of racism, police brutality, and so forth and so on down the line. So we felt that in May of '66, I believe it was 12 to 14 of us met outdoors in St. Nicholas Park. And basically, you know, formed the party. We, you know, we said, we're going to form this party. And about a month later, we sat down at sister Yuri Kochiyama's house. Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese American survivor of the concentration camps in World War Two. She and her husband moved to Harlem and they were very active in the Harlem community and befriended Malcolm, and she opened her house to the Black liberation struggle.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1028.0,1100.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And we went to her house because she had a typewriter and we didn't [laughs]. So we knew that we will get some food and we were gonna get a typewriter, and we'd be able to type up this program that we wanted. And to make a long story short, we distilled the program that Malcolm had laid out, it was more or less a 13-point program that he laid out. We distilled it into the 10 points. We said that would resonate like the 10 commandments, you know, the 10-point program and used that. Once we finalized it, we made copies of it and mailed it to many of our comrades across the country in different organizations and so forth and so on. You know, including Bobby Seale and Huey Newton and a whole bunch of other people across the country. And that was our principles of unity, the program, the 10-point program. If you support this 10-point program, then you can establish a chapter of the Black Panther Party.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1100.0,1180.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: We had established an office on, then called Seventh Avenue or Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in like about 140th street, or so. We established an office, it was a basement office that we had established. And we had a lot of support in the community even from the outlaws, you know, people who are outside the law, not necessarily gangsters, but outside the law, you know, who had political consciousness and they saw what we were doing, and they supported us financially to keep us going. But at the same time, we were infiltrated by the police. We were naive, believed in the rhetoric of people rather than following through and finding out who they really were, you know, like paying the- \"Oh, you work there?\" And so one day you should pay a visit to see if they really work there. \"Oh you live there?\" One day, you pay a visit unannounced to see if they really live there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1180.0,1246.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: We didn't do that. And that was two basic things that you must do in order to, you know, try to minimize, you know, the state coming in and having people run your organization into the ground. Alright, so we were infiltrated and the secretary was a cop, the treasurer was a cop. So we had no money, even though money was coming in, we had no money. We had miscommunications between us, compliments of the secretary, sending documents, information to one person contradicting the other. So we wound up, you know, arguing with each other and so forth and so on. And then Eddie Ellis gets arrested on trumped up charges around murder and he winds up spending, I think something like 27 years in prison for a crime he did not do.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1246.0,1311.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: He's no longer with us, but he came out and he was very active when he came out and before he came out, he was very active. He was the one that exposed the reality that eight neighborhoods in New York City populated the prisons upstate, only eight neighborhoods in New York City populated the prisons upstate. And where those prisons were got federal money based on the prison population that existed and therefore defunded the community, the eight communities in which these thousands of brothers were coming from, right? And so he laid that out, it was a very good piece, a piece of work that he did that even the New York Times picked up on it. So by the time he got out, Eddie got out, he was known and he was eventually able to get a job at Medgar Evers College, doing work, you know, post-prison kind of work there. But anyway, I drift off, but that's the essence.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1311.0,1396.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: '66, May, Panther Party forms coming out of Lowndes County Alabama, Lowndes County Freedom Organization, inspiration. And our demise happened sometime, I think, in the fall of '67 or so, but then a few months later, a new chapter forms based on the Bobby Seale, Huey Newton formation coming in and becoming the dominant, leading Party or chapter in the whole thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1396.0,1446.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: And I guess one question I wanted to follow up with was, like, how are you able to realize that folks like the secretary and the treasurer were plants or-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1446.0,1462.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Oh, uh, after the demise of the Party, our chapter, we found out through different people, initially through different people that they were cops. And then the Freedom of Information Act, you know, allowed us to get documents and through cross referencing in those documents, you see that, oh, this person, you know, who was at this meeting, you know- because their names were redacted, or they might've been saying whatever phrase they use, agent 27 or something like that, right? But, you know, you were able to piece it together, it's like a puzzle, be able to piece it together through the Freedom of Information Act that these two guys were, in fact, part of the police. In fact, the interesting [laughs] side note is that, the New York City Police Department recruited Blacks in Vietnam, they went to Vietnam. They literally went to Vietnam and recruited Blacks- you come back, you got a job, okay? And I know that because two of my cousins were in Vietnam and they came back and they became police. And one of them was scheduled to be an undercover cop within the Black liberation movement. But when the cops found out that he was my cousin, they reassigned him to narcotics. And so he spent a number of years undercover in narcotics [laughs].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1462.0,1579.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Wow, okay. And so, as you mentioned, there's the demise of the Party, or your section of the Party in 1967. And what happens after that?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1579.0,1596.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: For me, what happens?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1596.0,1600.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Mhm.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1600.0,1600.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: '67, I'm trying- you know, last week I was trying to figure out what job did I have then. I know I was jobless for a little bit then, because I had a job working for the state, teaching with Charlie Wilson being the director.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1600.0,1625.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1625.0,1630.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Once the state realized how [unclear] and Charlie Wilson were really progressive, radical Black people in charge of the program, [laughs] they literally shut the program down. So got fired, I got fired. So I don't know. I think I drifted jobless for a few months. I had a job- I was literally homeless there for a bit. I had a job with Jesse Gray, who was a big time tenant organizer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1630.0,1674.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And there was a jazz musician that also had a job with Jesse. Pianist. I see the album, Black Fire, and I'm just drawing a blank on his name, but he was one of the top young jazz musicians- huh? No, no, no, no, not Randy. No, no, no, not Randy.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1674.0,1705.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Not Andrew Hill?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1705.0,1708.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yes, Andrew Hill, right. Andrew. Briefly Andrew and I were roommates in an apartment that Jesse had in Harlem. Briefly, 'cause we were both working for him, but to make a long story short, we never got paid [laughs]. We did organizing work. We did some tenant organizing work, but we never got paid. And I just don't remember what happened in the interim until, you know, maybe- I just don't remember that. But, I wound up working in September of '68, right, at Queens College. But between '67 and '68, it was sporadic, sporadic work. I wasn't, really wasn't- it was all in-between stuff. Anti-poverty work, yes, I did some anti-poverty work, but it was summer and then not, you know, that kind of thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1708.0,1798.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay. And then you did some anti-poverty work and then in '68 you're at SEEK and you mentioned that there was like a collective that's already formed and like-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1798.0,1821.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yeah. The Black Student Congress we formed in either late '67 or '68, early 68. My gut feeling, it might've been '67. And that was an attempt to unite Black students throughout the city colleges, but throughout the colleges, private and public in New York City. And that was Bill Sales, myself, and several other people. So that was an attempt- meanwhile, Sales and eventually my first wife, as I mentioned before, were in the leadership of the Columbia University fight against the gym being built, the segregated gym being built in Morningside Park. And that was, well, I would say fall, summer, fall '67. And it came to a head in April, I would say March, April of '68 when the Black students decided that nothing, no dialogue was coming, making any headway.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1821.0,1919.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: So they said that we should go in and take over the administrative building for undergraduates, Hamilton Hall. And so, Black students on the whole, were both in terms of Barnard, the sisters at Barnard and- handful of sisters at Barnard- and the brothers at Columbia, made that move, they did. They went in and took over. Immediately on that day, Mark Rudd, one of the activists, white students, anti-war activist white students, said that they wanted to join in solidarity in coming into Hamilton Hall and Sales and the others said, no, this is a Black thing. If you want to do something, you take over some other buildings, but this is, you know, we gonna be focused on the demands towards Columbia about their encroachment in Harlem and the racist structure of the gym and so forth and so on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1919.0,1986.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: So that's how the student takeover at Columbia University began. And, I think it was five or six days of a takeover. And, the leadership, the white leadership, was in constant communication with the Black leadership at Hamilton Hall. And the Black students were much more organized, much more sophisticated, and the white leadership knew that. And so they would ask, \"What should we do here?\" We had this situation where, you know, I use the term wilding [laughs]. White students were, they would just go and- doin' all kinds of crazy- it was the undisciplined, orgy, whatever, you know, going on. And the Black students were disciplined, right? And so Sales and what's his name? He's a lawyer now. Anyway, it was Bill Sales and another- brother's a lawyer now- Brown would, you know, talk with Mark Rudd and some of other leaders and make suggestions and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=1986.0,2072.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And so that was the glue that held the whole thing together. Otherwise, that student takeover probably would have disintegrated on day two or day three, right? Given the anarchy and the madness that was going on among the white students. I came in as a community liaison person into Hamilton Hall, along with a couple other sisters and brothers from the community. And we would go into the community, into various meetings, and explain what's going on, what the needs that the students would need. Food, some blankets, stuff like that, and the community responded tremendously. And then we also said the community needs to be physically present on Amsterdam Avenue and 116th Street, because that's where Hamilton Hall is located near, and, you know, have that physical presence there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2072.0,2143.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And, you know, people did- there was a vigilance. People did do that. So that was where comradery among us really solidified, right? The Black Student Congress was, let's say an abstraction idea, but then this real thing about Hamilton Hall and holding onto the building and what to do when the cops come. And they had a whole sophisticated plan that they worked out that nobody from the community should be in the building when the cops come, that it'll just be the students and their lawyers, you know, and one of the lawyers was David Dinkins. The other was Percy Sutton and they negotiated with the police about having the Black students leave, not in the public light, but in one of the underground, many underground, tunnels that existed on the campus so that, you know, it was done in a way that was not confrontational with what was going on above ground, in terms of the white students confronting the cops and so forth and so on, the presence there and what have you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2143.0,2223.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: So that worked out, you know, and the arrests, the charges were eventually dropped. I mean, Ray Brown, that's his name. Ray Brown would not be an attorney if it wasn't [laughs]. But, you know, it was dropped and sealed and so forth, you know. Interesting about Ray Brown is that his father was the attorney for Mohammad Ali and his whole case against, you know, resisting the draft. You know, so that was a- Ray came from a progressive family. He came to Harlem, to Columbia and, you know, just logic at that period. You know, you joined, you know, on the struggle. So yeah, that was the thing. And a lot of people came out of that. A lot of good sisters and brothers came out of that who would be, you know, lifelong activists in one way, shape, or form.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2223.0,2301.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: From that, do you feel like those use of tactics transitioned into, like, some of the things that began happening at SEEK, in regards to the demands?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2301.0,2316.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Absolutely. You know, we had that kind of activist experience, and also it merged with- there were a handful of students at Queens who were also active in the community, right? Before they became college students, who were active in the community and doing organizing. Then there were others who were coming out of street organizations, i.e. gangs, right? And moving forward on that. And like, one of them was [unclear], you know, was one. So that, yes, things merged at Queens College that probably would not have merged at any other, at City College, or Hofstra, or at Brooklyn College, you know, in terms of the SEEK program. Just the dynamics of who came into the SEEK program at Queens College, both in terms of the faculty and in terms of the student, the quality of students that came there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2316.0,2417.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Sound, sound [laughs]. You're off again. You're off, you're on mute.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2417.0,2429.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay. Okay. So I'm good now. I guess what I was asking, like, it's good to know that, like, a lot of those tactics from the Hamilton Hall occupation and protest transferred to, like, a lot of what was happening at SEEK at Queens College. And could you, I know that there was a demand for more diversity and autonomy. Do you want to discuss that, as well?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2429.0,2461.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yeah. Uh, yes. I think one of the wild ideas that we had at Queens College SEEK was that we should create a parallel college [laughs], at least two years or something like that, if not four. Because of the hostility, the palpable hostility that we felt from the students and from the administration and from most of the faculty there on the campus.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2461.0,2504.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And the whole issue was, you have this physical space with the administrative office and meeting rooms and so forth in this house off campus, you're part of the CUNY system, why not- you know, and because you're part of the CUNY system, you have access to the physical components of Queens College campus. Why not develop a parallel, a alternative, maybe two year program, if not four year program curriculum, you know, expand your curriculum, um, beyond what we have and do that. That was the push. That was the urge. And, you know, we realized it would be massive, massive pushback on that, right? And trying to get an alliance with other SEEK programs, you know, to support this effort where even their students could come out was very difficult because the administrative components of the other SEEK programs were not as liberal as the administrative component of the Queens College.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2504.0,2602.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: It's just one of those things that you have the convergence of a liberal, white administrative component with a significant number of Black and Puerto Rican administrative people converging with a very progressive handful of Black, Puerto Rican, African, and white progressives faculty in one place. And, you know, the other campuses didn't have that. They maybe had one or two radical teachers or counselors, stuff like that, but not to that critical mass that existed. And so it was like, \"You're doing what?\" [Laughter] \"You got to be kidding. No, we don't want any part of that. That's madness.\" So, you know, it was a dream, it was a push, but it didn't- we got a lot of pushback inside SEEK and outside.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2602.0,2686.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Yeah. And then, like, I mean, you know, there's some dates here, like, you know, so, like, I guess, could you talk about, like, earlier before you were discussing- could you describe the black coalition that existed? So, like, that was a combination of students and teachers?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2686.0,2708.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2708.0,2709.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2709.0,2709.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yeah, it was [unclear] and counselors. You know, the counselors definitely part of that, you know, 'cause the counseling component of SEEK was a central component all across the city. The secondary component, in terms of the design of SEEK, the original design of SEEK, the secondary component were the teaching of these- what do you call them? What they conceived them as pre-college classes, no credit pre-college classes that you would, you know, that sort of students can be up to speed when they get into the real classes on the campus, kind of thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2709.0,2760.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And we just flipped the script on that, right? And said, we're teaching- you know, our students are intelligent. You know, we are teaching college level courses and we have the ability to develop people who are not as literate when they come in, within a matter of a few months, they become literate because of the type of teaching that was going on. It was very, very inspirational, very good in moving a person from one level of illiteracy to a level of literacy. And that was utilizing the cultural components.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2760.0,2809.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: You know, students read Manchild in the Promised Land, you know, and discuss that. Was that related to their lives? And they read The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin. And, you know, you had all these different things, Zora Neale Hurston's work, which was just beginning to be republished, you know, that was part of the bibliography for students to read and, you know, just current events discussions, study the African liberation movements that were just beginning to bubble up, the Cuban Revolution. You know, all of those things are just, like, really inspiring for the students that came. Interesting thing happened. This is the time when Angela Davis was on the lam, right? I'm trying to exactly remember which year that was when she was- was it '68 or was it '69 when she was being hunted?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2809.0,2889.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: In any event [laughs], you know, sisters across the country were being stopped by the cops everywhere. You know, you could be a dark skinned sister, four foot tall, and you'd be stopped because, for them, you look like Angela Davis [laughter]. So one day, one of the sisters who lived not too far from where we lived came running up to us, you know, all proud and everything. \"Guess what happened! Guess what happened! Guess what happened!\" [Laughs] I said, \"What happened?\" \"I got stopped. The cops pulled me over. They stopped and interrogated me. They thought I was Angela Davis. Can you believe that?\" That was a badge of honor for her [laughter].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2889.0,2939.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: That was like, you know, \"Oh, yes, this was great.\" That made her day, her month, her year. You know, it was really, she was very proud, you know, about that. So that was, I would say that that captured the typical spirit of a lot of the students that were in the SEEK program, not just at Queens College, but, you know, across the city. The consciousness was there because of one or two faculty members doing something or a counselor suggesting maybe you should read this, maybe we should go to that meeting and see what's going on. You know, that that kind of thing. Student activism became a very, very powerful component in the entire CUNY system. It was also, I believe in 1969, that City College was taken over by Black and Puerto Rican students, you know, just taken over and shut down, demands were made and so forth, for that school. And subsequently, other student takeovers happened, you know, Hofstra, I think Bronx Community College also happening, you know, rapid succession between '68 and let's say 1971. I think the last takeover might've been '72, again at City, I may be wrong. But, you know, the times were much, in terms of student consciousness and activism, much different than 50 years from there to here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=2939.0,3061.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Yeah, and, like, speaking of like the student activism, in early January of 1969, like, we were talking about how the students like ransacked the office. And I would like to just, like, talk about whatever you can recollect from that. And then also, you know, that, I don't know, like, talk about the moments where there is a transition from Mulholland to the first Black director of SEEK.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3061.0,3100.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: I don't, like I said earlier, I don't remember the details, but I do remember the negative publicity, you know, rowdy students, criminal students. This is what you get when you bring in students who were in gangs and came out of prison, you know, all that kind of stuff, you know, really criminalizing the students and not really addressing why they did what they did, right? And then seeking out organizations or individuals who must have trained and taught the students to do these things, right? So it had to be a communist plot, a radical plot, a Black Panther party plot, a revolutionary action movement plot, some, you know, outside Black group or communist group that brainwashed these students to do what they did. But the specifics on that, I just don't remember because I know I was not privy to that movement, you know, not movement, that action. Bill Sales might have been a little more privy to it. I'm not certain if you talked to him about that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3100.0,3202.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: He mentions it. He goes into detail into some of the actions of the Flying Squad, 'cause he was like, \"Well, we're past the statute of limitations.\" And yeah, he does discuss it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3202.0,3218.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yeah. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3218.0,3224.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: And I guess, did you know Lloyd Delany?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3224.0,3231.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3231.0,3232.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3232.0,3233.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yes. I knew Delany, definitely. He was the one introduced me to James Baldwin.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3233.0,3242.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Oh.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3242.0,3243.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yeah. And Maya Angelou, as a matter of fact, also.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3243.0,3253.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: So I guess, Lloyd Delany knew of James Baldwin and Maya Angelou and then there's Jessica Harris, who also knew James Baldwin. I mean, I guess, was he just like a very- I guess what was it like meeting him?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3253.0,3267.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Well, he was coming in from, I believe he was living in Spain at that time or maybe France, you know, and it was interesting, you know? I mean, his work, The Fire Next Time was my inspiration in terms of seeing myself how to write essays and stuff like that. So, you know, it was like meeting a superstar. You're speechless [laughs], you know, you're in awe in being in his company and what have you. And they were in discussion about some things and so forth, but I was there as their chauffeur, if you will, you know, that kind of thing. But, Maya, the same with Maya, you know. I picked up my Maya at the airport at that time, it was called Idlewild. Maybe, was it called Kennedy- anyway, it was at the airport. She was coming in from West Africa. And, you know, you saw that she was royalty. She made sure that everybody knew, you know, 'cause she was very tall, she had a afro, and she had on a regal African dress and, you know, she strode, she didn't walk [laughs]. She strode. And, so, you know, got to meet her, talk to her. And then later, over the years, ran into her through Larry Neal 'cause Larry knew all of these people. And, anyway, that's a whole other story.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3267.0,3382.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: And I guess the other part of this interview I wanted to, like, get into was, like, you know, towards the end of 1969, you lead a protest that, like, puts you on trial. So would you like to describe, like, kind of the timeline of that experience and what that was like?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3382.0,3405.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Yeah. First and foremost, I did not lead a protest [laughter].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3405.0,3411.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay, sorry.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3411.0,3411.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: The students felt the racist hostility on the campus, and this is day one. So there was a big meeting, students, staff got together and it came from the reaction that the white students locked the gate that would allow us to go in from our building off campus onto the campus. They locked the gate, said that, you know, didn't want students, Black, Latino students on the campus. So the discussion went on about what to do and, you know, people agreed, the students, for the most part, agreed that we should go and, you know, go to the gate and make sure we could get the gate open and attend school, go to classes. And that morning, you know, that's what they did. And all the faculty members were there, you know, supporting the students. We were in the background and they were in the foreground in terms of who would come to the gate and do the confrontation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3411.0,3498.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: It just so happened that media, particularly, I believe it was CBS or NBC was there because, you know, they got wind of this confrontation possibility happening with Black students and Puerto Rican students who are going to be confronting white students at Queens College. Queens College supposed to be this idyllic, you know, aspect of the City University of New York, you know, school and so forth. And this is all upsetting with what was going on during the previous school year. And so the students got there and the front of the- the brothers that were in the front of the line, suddenly- you know, let me put it this way. The baseball bats that existed in the hands of white students was suddenly in the hands of Black and Puerto students [laughs].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3498.0,3563.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: You know, like I said before, you have brothers and sisters coming from gangs and from, you know, from street, from Harlem, from Bed-Stuy, you know, you name it, from the Bronx. And they know how to fight and the whites didn't know how to do that. So in a matter of a few seconds, it was over, it was finished, you know, students just poured right on in ont the campuses. But, the thing was, it was captured on the media, the national media. And it was played that evening where one of the anchor people, famous anchor people like Walter Cronkite, it might not have been him, open up his news program. And he said, \"I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to show you what happened today.\" And then you see this clash, right? Hundreds of Black and Latino students clashing with these, not a large number of white students, but, you know, 50, 60 of them and then confrontations and then, you know, rushing onto the campus, you know?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3563.0,3641.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And so that was, for the CUNY administration and for Queens College administration, absolutely embarrassing. Okay? So they had to do something, they had to do a lot of things. They had to find a person to blame. They had to try to push for the SEEK program to be disbanded. They had to find ways of arresting the students who did the confrontation, you know, the Black students [laughs] and the Latino students, not the white students with baseball bats and so forth, you know, that kind of thing. So, you know, all of that stuff, because it made national news, the CUNY system and the administration at Queens College had to do a number of things. And that was the major turning point in terms of the SEEK program, having a significant number of courses as part of the program, right? Because, you know, they did a whole analysis.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3641.0,3719.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: \"Oh, you had a bunch of teachers there who were radical. Okay. So we had no classes or one or two classes. Oh. And you had a bunch of counselors who were also radical. Alright. Now we'll do a screening process and we'll start recruiting counselors from Montana and Southern California\", you know, so you try to change, what they're trying to do is that the SEEK program was mandated, but you change the political, cultural climate over time. And it was a lot of pushback within the SEEK programs across the city, a lot of pushback on that. And so they were able to hold on to some of the more progressive aspects of counseling and hold on to the whole idea of expanding the number of students coming into the SEEK program, but the actual curricular component and the quality of counseling slowly devolved. The counseling slowly devolved, but what quickly could devolve was the number of courses being taught within SEEK programs. So it's important to understand that the confrontation at the gate was initiated by white students who were armed, who were there- in their heads, they're there to protect the campus from criminals that, you know, coming on to campus and destroying it. That's in their heads.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3719.0,3841.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: And I guess, you've described before about, like, what happens after this confrontation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3841.0,3860.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: What happens before?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3860.0,3862.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Afterwards.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3862.0,3863.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: After. Well, we went on to do whatever we had to do in terms of teaching and counseling for that school year. I can't remember when I went before the board, but I believe it might've been in November or December before I went before the Board of Higher Dducation, the CUNY board. And, as I said before, my landlord was my lawyer there, and they were trying to paint me, initially, paint me as the instigator of the whole rebellion by going back to a speech I did in the winter, in February, I believe was February of '69 or January of '69, it was a big rally, outdoor rally, it was. And they recorded it and played a recording of it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3863.0,3943.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And landlord laughed. Basically, he was saying, \"Is that what you're getting him on? With talking to students about the Haitian Revolution and the importance of the Haitian Revolution and the fight against slavery and the importance of not only studying what the teachers give you, but also study your history, is that what you-\" [laughs] and they couldn't say anything about- you know, 'cause they had no physical evidence of me being the leader, you know, of the whole movement of Black and Puerto Rican students in Queens College and the leader of the radical teachers and so forth. They had nothing to go on, but they had the power to, you know, say, okay, we will vote, you know, thank you for your position, we'll vote, you know, I'm out, you know, voted me out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=3943.0,4015.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: I said that my lawyer, his name was Eastman. You know, the landlord, I said, Mr. Eastman, they are hell bent on getting be fired. And, you know, no matter what you present, no matter what type of logic you present to them, racism has its own logic and they will follow through with that, right? \"Oh no, no, no. We have a solid case.\" [Laughs] I said, \"Yeah, you'll see.\" Right? And it was a learning curve for him because he was one of your traditional Black Republicans from way back, you know, the party of Lincoln and so forth. And, he really felt that, you know, white people operate on principle and logic, right? And I would say to him, \"Yeah, they work on logic, but it's a racist logic and they are unprincipled\", [laughs] you know, and we, you know, we have evidence of that in terms of all of the treaties that were made between white folks and the Native Americans that were broken. I'm not even talking about what they did in terms of us, right? Okay. So, you know, eventually, he'd slowly but surely be coming around to understanding the dynamics of racism in the United States, because he was originally from Guyana.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4015.0,4111.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Yeah, I was about to mention, and I guess for you at the time, what emotions were you going through in regards to this-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4111.0,4121.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Hold on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4121.0,4122.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4122.0,4128.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: All right. I got seven more minutes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4128.0,4130.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Okay, cool [laughter]. So I guess like the question I had was, retrospectively, what did it feel like to be going through that experience of having your case against the board and, like, realizing that you'd be leaving SEEK?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4130.0,4153.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: It was another, how would you say, moment in the struggle for me. Just a few months- let me get it right, now. October, I believe might have a few months, October of '69... The incident, I was teaching at a community college and it was in October. I'm at home, grading papers on 147th Street off of St. Nick. And I hear this knocking on my door. We lived on the top floor of Mr. Eastman's brownstone. Hear the knocking on my door and I said, \"That's strange\", you know, \"Nobody rang the bell.\" and it be turned out to be two nervous FBI agents coming to arrest me. And they came through the ground floor. They came through Mr. Eastman's part of the house. They had the layout of the house and they came through, guns drawn, and so forth. Came up to our apartment and said that \"We have a warrant for your arrest.\" And I said, \"Let me see the warrant\", you know, so they showed me the warrant and I started reading it and they're nervous. These are white guys in the middle of the hall, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4153.0,4270.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: With suits on, everybody knew who they were, right? And what I did not know was that my good friend, went to college with me, Gloria [unclear] was outside. She was trying to yell upstairs that they're coming, they're coming, they're coming. And, you know, but the windows were closed because it was October, the windows were closed, so I didn't hear. Anyway, they took me down to their headquarters in Manhattan and they had one Negro FBI agent, probably the one and only in the whole city at that time, right? And he began to interview me, right? And he saw my ring, which was a Liberian friendship ring, right? And he assumed that this was a secret club that I belong to with this ring which identified who I am and so forth. To make a long story short, they did a whole disinformation campaign in a little piece in The Daily News and a little piece in The New York Times, saying that the FBI had captured the key link between communist China and the Soviet Union and the Black Panther Party, in that I was part of this super clandestine underground group called The Black Rhythms of the Universe [laughs].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4270.0,4381.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: So Mr. Eastman, you know, was my lawyer, you know, I gave him a call. He said, I got you and so forth. Fortunately, you know, I went to the federal prison at that time in Manhattan and only had to spend a night there, you know, and the brothers saw me coming in and said, \"Hey man, what you in for?\" \"They think that I am the link between the Black Panther Party and China and Russia.\" And they all cracked up, man, they all cracked up. Went to court and they had the courtroom, was a small courtroom, and all of my friends, Panther friends, college friends, you know, all of them packed in the courtroom, right? And you can imagine, this is 1969. So everybody had an Afro.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4381.0,4449.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: And the judge, you know, started, you know, asking, you know, Mr.Eastman, certain things. And Mr. Eastman started talking about me and who I was and, you know, professor and so forth and so on. He lives with me and what have you, he went on, he just went on and on and the judge said, \"Okay, okay, look. He'll be- whatever the term is- be in your custody.\" Right? And I looked over at the FBI agents and they were pissed. They were upset, right, that they couldn't do anything. And the charge was that I was evading the draft. That was the charge. But all these other things were disinformation they sent out, right? I was a draft evader and that charge could not stick because, in those days, if you were teaching in math and science, or you were working in the science and engineering field, you're automatically exempt from being in a draft. I was teaching in math. So I was automatically exempt, but their dumb racist selves assumed that- hold on a minute.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4449.0,4549.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: All right, I really got to go now, but, you know, [laughs] the whole thing took about 18 months to get it all clear, because what happened was I went- because Mr. Eastman was not a draft resistor lawyer, I went to the draft resistor law group, Rabinowitz and Boudin, at that time. And they took up the case pro bono and worked on it. In 18 months, got it all cleared up, you know, it's clear. So that was sort of- those two things happened within the space of a matter of months, right? The whole thing. And I think that's another reason why the Queens College administration said this guy, he's the one.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4549.0,4612.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: Wow. Okay. Well, I mean, I know we're at time. I do want to take this moment to really thank you for sharing all of that. I will reach out to you to share the transcripts and just follow up in general. I would love to have you in conversation with Dr. Sales and possibly the [unclear], because there's been a discussion of like having a couple of people, part of the SEEK program, this all in a group session. So, I'll let you know, how that works out, but again, thank you so much for your time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4612.0,4649.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: Alright, thank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4649.0,4649.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: And yeah, I'll just follow up with you through email.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4649.0,4652.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Samuel Anderson: All right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4652.0,4653.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042/transcript/41502/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Obden Mondésir: All right. All right, bye.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/85850/file/174042#t=4653.0,4657.7333"}]}]}]}