*Tima*
This film consists of images recorded by the Swedish reporters 1967-1975.
The film does not try to tell the entire history about the Black Power movement,
but to show how it appeared to Swedish filmmakers.
This seashore is in Hallandale a few miles north of Miami, Florida.
Fair skinned, maybe a bit naive, and very Swedish,
we disembarked on this shore 1972 to try to understand
and portray America through sound and image as it really is.
But there are about as many opinions as there are Americans. 210 million.
One is Al. 50-years old.
Today he runs a small diner by the beach.
It's not far from there to the police station in the middle of town.
And it's the same distance to a whole other side of America.
Another side that people on the beach know very little about.
But 200 of the town's citizens live there. For example, John and Roger.
22 years old. Both as American as the people on the beach.
1967 - The US have more than 525,000 soldiers in Vietnam.
1968 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Evening before the murder.
The assassination of Robert Kennedy has shaken the US.
This is outside St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York,
as Robert Kennedy is lying in state.
Many fear that the US is too late in introducing social reforms,
that could have given the 30 million poor people in the slums
a more humane existence.
That it's too late to stem the rising tide of alarm in the Negro community
and to avoid new conflicts and further political assassinations.
7.00 am, a new day in the dark, worn-out rooms on Hopkinson Ave.
Margie Mayle dresses her 10 kids.
Two have colds, one can't find his shoes. All are sleepy, and hungry.
A day like any other. The older kids don't even get any breakfast.
The small children get what is left. This morning it is just cornflakes.
1968 - Richard Nixon is elected the 37th president of the US.
This is the Black Panthers' Central Head quarters.
From here, the party's 44 divisions and embassy in Algiers are run.
From here they run a series of social programs for the poor in the ghettos.
They've existed for 4 years, the US's most militant black organization.
This is the Harlem office where the 21 Black Panthers worked,
and who are now under arrest awaiting trial.
But political education still goes on here - classes in revolution.
Almost only women are teachers, the men are in jail.
That is how they wage a revolution -
by reading the Panther newspaper and debating.
"The Black Panthers are a revolutionary party", says Bobby Seale,
"whose primary goal is to fulfill the basic needs of the black population -
work, food, housing, education and how to ward off police brutality".
But they also work ideologically and practically with white radicals
and other revolutionary organizations in the US.
1969 - Stokely Carmichael goes into exile to Conakry, Guinea,
after FBI threatened his mother.
In addition to free school meals, the Black Panthers offer free clinics
and free legal advice to help the poor to deal with the police,
landlords and social service authorities.
They also offer free clothes and Legal defense to political prisoners.
The Party members receive medical and weapons training.
1970 - J. Edgar Hoover states that the breakfasts offered by
The Black Panthers are he biggest internal threat against the US.
The FBI intensifies and expands COINTELPRO,
a secret operation to neutralize all radical movements in the US.
Political trials are getting more and more common in the US.
In Chicago, we've been able to follow trials of 7 radical groups' leaders.
The yare accused of planning riots at the Democrats National Convention.
It's a trial that has come to be less about the crime,
and more about the accuseds' political views on US society.
1970 - Angela Davis becomes the third woman to be placed
on FBl's most wanted list.
At the highest point, in El Biar, Algiers, among the finest villas,
we find Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther Party headquarters.
The villa is put at their disposal by the Algerian government.
Cleaver, his wife Kathleen and may be twenty other Panthers -
including nannies - is being taken care of by the Algerian government.
But Cleaver is in exile. The goal seems very remote
and you get the feeling that he is a broken man.
This is Huey Newton, the founder and leader of The Black Panthers,
on his way out of the trial in Oakland, California.
This is the fourth time his trial has been postponed.
Huey Newton is out on a $50,000 bond.
Right now, trials against left-wing radicals are taking place in the US.
Besides Bobby Seale, Angela Davis - a black intellectual -
and 13 prominent Panthers in New York are also facing trial.
The Panthers' information Minister Eldridge Cleaver
is in exile in Algeria.
The only free leader of the Panthers is Huey P. Newton. The verdict of
manslaughter against him was wrong. He was unconscious during the crime.
The country getting the most coverage on Swedish TV right now is the US.
But is Swedish TV portraying a distorted image of the US?
Is Swedish anti-American?
The US's biggest magazine, TV-Guide, claims this in a recent article.
The author, Merrill Pannitt, wrote the article after a visit to Europe.
The criticism was mostly aimed towards Holland and Sweden.
Apparently Sweden was the worst.
The following are some of the quotes from the article in TV-Guide:
"The most unrestrained anti-American television
this side of the Iron Curtain comes from Sweden".
"This weekend, American B52 planes dropped 1,000 tons of bombs".
"Swedish TV is portraying America as an evil county run by evil men".
"Already negative news from America
is edited to look even more negative".
"In Swedish media, there is real hostility towards America".
1971 - George Jackson, one of the Soledad brothers,
is shot to death by guards in San Quentin Prison.
The murder sparks a riot in Attica.
The prisoners take control and take 33 employees hostage.
Half past nine in the morning, 1,200 prisoners in Attica revolted,
and took 38 guards as hostages.
The prisoners produced a list of 30 demands,
most of which called for more humane treatment.
An end to physical abuse, for toothbrushes and showers every day,
opportunity for work training and access to newspapers and books.
The riot lasted for four days until the police and national guardsmen
stormed the prison. 40 people were shot dead: 31 prisoners
and 9 of the guards that were held hostage.
It was stated immediately that the prisoners cut the guards' throats.
But the autopsies showed that all had been shot by the storming troops.
William Kunstler is a radical lawyer who has appeared in many
highly covered trials. He was in the prison
during the riot to negotiate between prisoners and authorities.
He says now that the governor is guilty of the murders.
1972 - The US breaks the diplomatic relations with Sweden after
Olof Palme (prime minister) compared the bombings of Hanoi
with Nazi war crimes.
Angela Davis - her name and face are recognized from 100,000 of protests
around the world. She is a symbol for black struggle
against oppression, not only in America, but in the whole world.
Protests have been arranged for her sake in Africa, South America,
Europe and the Soviet Union.
It was here it all started: Marin County Court house, CA.
On August 7, 1970 James McClain was on trial for a knife fight
in San Quentin prison. Two other black prisoners were witnesses.
This did not concern Angela Davis. It's unknown if they knew each other.
But in the courtroom sat 17 years old Jonathan Jackson, younger brother
to the Soledad brother, George Jackson, whom Angela Davis knew.
Jonathan rose up and yelled "everyone freeze". He took out a gun,
gave guns to the two witnesses and the defendant, and took a hostage.
They only reached the parking lot, a shoot out with the police ensued.
The judge, the two black witnesses and Jonathan Jackson were killed.
The police claimed that Angela was the owner of the guns Jonathan used.
Angela went into hiding. Much later, she was found at a New York hotel.
As the guns were hers, she stands accused as an accomplice to murder -
a crime punishable by death under California law.
No one believes she was behind the murders.
She and her thousands of supporters will be sure to politicize her trial.
She has received the best education a black person in America can get.
Her professors said she was the most gifted student they'd ever had.
In Germany she met Herbert Marcuse, who awoke her interest
for philosophy and Marxism. Her doctoral thesis
was on Kant's analysis of violence in the French Revolution.
She's more intelligent than most. The prison has not broken her down.
She is on a hunger strike as a protest against the conditions.
She is black, she is a woman and she is accused of murder.
Despite that, she seems to be an icon not only for women, but most blacks.
Only few have met her. She's being detained in this building,
a courthouse outside of San Francisco, in a small cell.
It is the first time a TV-camera has been brought to her there.
She's silent and pale.
1972 - On February 23, Angela Davis is acquitted of all charges,
and released after 18 months of incarceration.
Melvin Van Peebles, director
1973 - Assata Shakur is accused of murdering five policemen in N.Y.
We're getting closer to the neighborhood known as Harlem.
This is undoubtedly the colored man's ghetto.
Large amounts of narcotics are circulating in Harlem.
So you constantly have to raise money to get your fix...
or whatever you call it...
You might have read our welcome letter, where we inform you
that we do not want anyone to visit Harlem for personal studies.
That is because this neighborhood is only for colored people.
Not even the "better" - if I may use that wording -
not even the "better" colored people visit this area
because of the risk of being mugged.
1974 - Richard Nixon becomes the first US president who is forced to resign.
1974 - In Harlem with Lars Ulvenstam, Thomas Dillén and Anders Ribbsjö
1975 - The Vietnam War ends and the US mass evacuate Saigon.