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Bobby Seale & Rennie Davis
LEGENDS
OF THE SIXTIES
An
America College Tour
Two American Legends * Four Inspiring
Events
Remembering The Sixties * A New American
Vision
Rennie Davis
Then
And Now
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Bobby
Seale
Then and Now
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The
Sixties Experience
Two Days * Four Events
Public Event Followed By Sixties Q & A
Workshops (Optional)
Bobby Seale Workshop
Rennie Davis Workshop
Public
Event: Rennie Davis and Bobby Seale
Remembering The Sixties
Event Profile: The
1960s was one of our history’s most impactful social change decade. Bobby Seale and Rennie Davis are two of its
legends. With this rare university
event, you can take your campus on a unique journey into a time when students
changed the world. Bobby and Rennie
are your best tour guides imaginable. Rennie
Davis was a founder of Students for a Democratic Society, America’s most influential
student organization of that era. He
was also the coordinator of the largest anti-war and civil rights coalition
of the 1960s. Bobby Seale was the
co-founder and chairman of the Black Panther Party and one the most influential
black liberation leaders in America. For
their part at the Democratic National
Convention in Chicago (when Rennie
was clubbed by police unconscious), they were indicted and went on trial together
in an event described by the New York Times as “the most significant political
trail in American history.” During the trial, Bobby Seale was chained and
gagged by the judge, igniting a world outcry against the American justice
system. Between the experiences pf these two men, they engaged virtually every
aspect of this amazing social phenomenon to change the world.
Rennie Davis is one of the great story
tellers about this historic era. He
takes your audience through America’s most dramatic street events, including
a nationwide student strike that closed 90% of American colleges and universities
in protest to U.S. war policies in Vietnam when four students were killed
by National Guard troups at Kent State University.
As coordinator of the ‘National Mobilization To End The War, he was
one of the principal organizers of the most impactful public events of this
era. He directed the largest civil disobedience arrest in American history
and partnered with John Lennon during the closing days of this extraordinary
American era.
Bobby Seale lived through an era when
Black Panther offices were continuously surrounded and raided by police. He stood down the most intimating faces of
official authority with his ‘Power to the People’ movement. When
he takes to the stage, bringing his lively and charismatic eloquence to a
student audience, he takes you back to the dramatic experiences of the sixties
as they actually occurred, including the youthful spirit and creative intelligence
of the Black Panther Party. Today’s
students get to experience the wide philosophical range of that era’s protest
leaders with their grass-roots services and community organizing impact. Bobby
Seale transports his audience back to an era when the activism of hundreds
of thousands of protesters from diverse ethnic groups created unique coalitions
for a great social change. With the
demise of various sixties radical icons from Huey P. Newton's death in 1989
to Abbie Hoffman in 1991, Jerry Reubin
in 1993 and Eldridge Cleaver and Quame Turea in 1998, Bobby Seale and Rennie
Davis remain as living architects of one of the most important social change
eras in American history.
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1960s Q & A
Following the Public Event
Event Profile: Unlike any classroom account of the 1960s,
this Question & Answer experience invites your students to direct their
questions to two of its most prominent leaders.
Explore the early days of the civil rights sit-in movement, learn how
the student movement began, journey into the 1964 voter registration Mississippi
summer when three students were murdered on the opening day, discover the
diverse community organizing projects of SDS in Northern black and poor white
communities and learn how America’s largest coalition of anti-war and civil
rights organizations was created and orchestrate the unprecedented mass events
of that era. Explore the rise of the Black Panther Party
with its popular community programs. Learn
how its leadership shifted the Afro-American community into a new black liberation.
Ask questions about the youth culture, ‘free love’, hippies, hallucinogenic
drugs, the rise of the Beatles and the impact of the ‘60s music on a new generation. Learn about the nationwide student strike that
closed 90% of every American college and university (including your own.)
Discover the untold story of the closing days of this turbulent decade when
Bobby and Rennie were involved with John Lennon to bring one million people
to the Republican national convention. These
two legends of the 1960s stood at its center of this turbulent era. They will inspire your students to graduate
with the dream of a new world. (This event follows the public presentation
or it can take place with history classes or American social studies courses
that are studying this historic era.)
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Learn About The Student Movement |
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| Freedom Movement-Chicago
Police Riot- Chicago 8 Trial Of The Century |
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February 4, 1960 four college students took their place at an all white lunch counter igniting the student movement |
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| Workshop Events
(Optional)
What Students Can Do Today Following the public event, your students can select one of two workshops One on One with Bobby Seale Event Profile: Rennie Davis Workshop |
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Event Profile: Rennie Davis Workshop |
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Change Yourself To Change The World
Mahatma Ghandi inspired
John Lennon with his philosophy that you first have to be the change you seek
for the world. John later introduced
Rennie to the concept—that you can only change the world from the inside out. Recent findings in the field of particle physics
reinforce this philosophy. Atoms (the
building blocks of our world) are known to be influenced by the perception
of the observer. In this session,
Rennie takes you on an imaginary journey into the workings of the largest
machine on Earth studying the smallest particles in the universe. You will discover the role of thought and perception
in shaping the building blocks of the world.
The greatest discovery now stands directly in front of the current
millennial generation. The world is
not solid, real or independent of yourself as you believe. Rennie makes the case that this reality operates on a mirror principle
and its origin is yourself. This session
explores the world’s greatest discovery with probing questions. Are thoughts primal on the journey to a new
humanity? When creating a better world,
does it matter what you think in the privacy of your own head? When your perceptions are negative, are your
life experiences going to be negative as well?
Do you attract what you fear and experience what you condemn? Rennie lays out the profound consequences of
the current era of the tea party with its anger and finger pointing to call
the present generation to a new stage of awareness, a new type of community
and a new human-Earth relation.
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Event Profile: Bobby Seale's Workshop |
The
millennial generation has never known a world without computers or the Internet.
The new generation engages a fast paced, high tech social order while opposing
censorship by the government and debunking authority values.
The Sixties generation impacted the country when they were college
students and the current student generation can do the same.
Bobby Seale says, “when we saw police brutality in the ‘60s, we created
public awareness by mobilizing thousands of people in the streets.
You can pull out your smart phone, make a video of the bad behavior
and send it off to You Tube to reach millions of people. It
is a different time but the need for today’s students to create self-sufficient
communities that control the police, inspire options to poverty, racism and
despair and forge a new freedom road has never been greater.” In the 1960s, victims of police brutality in U.S. ghettos
had few if any legal recourse. The Black Panther Party shocked an entrenched
police system with a new brand of courage to face down police misconduct.
With law books in hand and public displays asserting Second Amendment rights
to bear arms, the Black Panther Party made the public case that the right
to self-defense applied to Afro-Americans as well as other U.S. citizens.
Leading an armed delegation in 1967 to the California State Legislature, Bobby
Seale created a riveting media event in which he was arrested and his arms
confiscated. A court later ordered the return of the confiscated weapons to
him, further enflaming the nationwide police reaction. Bobby takes you back
to these extraordinary times to draw lessons and inspiration for today's millennial
generation. He says,
“sometimes I look around and realize all the great legends of the Sixties
are fading, from Martin Luther King to Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton and
Quame Turea. They’re gone. I spoke publically with Abbie Hoffman one week before his demise. Then I watched Jerry Rubin and Dave Dellinger
depart the world. Maybe this tour
should be called ‘the two surviving architects of the 1960s movement.’ Whatever we call our special time with you,
our dream is to pass the baton and invite you to go beyond anything we ever
dreamed.”
Rennie
Davis: Biographical Profile
Rennie
Davis was the coordinator of America’s largest coalition of anti-war and civil
rights organizations during the 1960s. He was a founder of Students for a
Democratic Society, the most influential student organization of his generation.
He organized the historic protest demonstration at the 1968 Democratic Convention
described by a Presidential commission as a ‘police riot,’ in an event that
shifted the majority of American public opinion against the Vietnam war. He also organized and directed the largest
civil disobedience arrest in American history when a Washington, D.C. stadium
was turned into a temporary prison for anti-war protesters. He was one of the Chicago 8, a political trial
that captivated the imagination of America’s student community and the world’s
attention. His leadership was instrumental
to a nation wide student strike in which 90% of American colleges and universities
closed after four Kent State students were shot and killed by National Guard
troops. Today, he remains a recognized spokesman for his generation, featured
on Larry King Live, the CBS Legend Series, Barbara Walters, VHI, MTV, CNN
and other national media.
Bobby Seale: Biographical
Profile
Bobby
Seale co-founded
the Black Panther Party in 1966 and became the chairman and national organizer
of America’s most prominent black liberation organization of that era. In 1968, he replaced Eldridge Cleaver who had
been invited by Rennie Davis to speak at protests during the Democratic Convention
in Chicago. For making two Chicago
speeches, Bobby Seale faced ten years in prison as the eighth defendant in
the ‘Chicago 7’ conspiracy trial. When Seale’s attorney had to undergo surgery before that trial, Bobby
choose to defend himself. When his
constitutional rights were denied by the judge, he was chained and gagged
in the courtroom in front of the jury, creating a drama viewed by virtually
all media audiences worldwide. He
was subsequently severed from the Chicago trial to travel to New Haven, Connecticut
where he faced a conspiracy-to-murder trial.
In New Haven, he was acquitted of all charges after providing courtroom
evidence against the FBI agent who was behind the murder and false testimony
against Seale. Bpbby Seale won every
political trial except one: a misdemeanor
case when he was charged with disturbing the peace of the California State
Assembly.
Growing up, Bobby Seale learned the skills of a carpenter-builder
from his father and was studying architecture by age 15. He was also a stand-up comedian and a Black Arts West stage actor.
He was a jazz drummer as well and enjoyed ‘normal’ American pastimes
like game hunting and fishing. Prior to creating the Black Panther Party,
he spent four years in the U.S. Air Force and was an honor student in all
of his military tech schools.
In 1965 while attending Merritt College,
Bobby Seale created the "Black History Fact Group" that aimed to
rewrite Black History from the
perspective of the African American participants in that history. On
October 22, 1966 he wrote the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense Ten Point
Program with Huey P. Newton and went on to create 22 community service programs including free breakfast to feed hungry children, free preventive
medical health clinics with sickle cell anemia testing, free shoe and
clothing programs for the needy and Liberation Schools for youth education.
On April 1st 1967 in Richmond, CA, a 22 year old African
American was shot and killed by sheriff deputies and the Black Panther Party
responded to the family's call for protection from the police by placing Black
Panther Party guards in the area while demanding a full and objective investigation
of the homicide. The bold action rallied and mobilized the local
residents. The City of Richmond later
issued a proclamation honoring and acknowledging Bobby Seale for his role
in this action and other community services, including co-founding the Youth
Jobs Tutorial Program for job skill development for young Afro-Americans in
North Richmond.
Bobby Seale defines himself today as a revolutionary humanist
who joins with the current millennial generation during a new crisis of governance
“to reach for the future” and create a new American participatory democracy,
free of intolerance and bigoted and chauvinistic practices.
Books
by Bobby Seale
1. Seize The Time: The Story
Of The Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton
2. A Lonely Rage:
The Autobiography Of Bobby Seale
LEGENDS OF THE SIXTIES
BOBBY SEALE AND RENNIE DAVIS
For Information
Email Bobby: reachbs@msn.com
Email Rennie: rennie@renniedavis.com