hange itself. Trusting in violence is a form of revolutionary
romanticism, a seductive shortcut to other more basic kinds of social
power. The history of the Black Panthers would seem to be an example of
this point. Their appeal to violence attracted angry youths who were
eager for quick results. Although the party gained a lot of publicity,
and, in some quarters, received a lot of applause, its desire for rapid
success kept it from building a solid, mass base. Apparently its leaders
believed that violence made this kind of mobilization unnecessary. Its
publicity and quick successes were superficial and failed to achieve
basic social transformation. On Wednesday, May 19, 1971, Huey Newton, the
Black Panther Minister of Defense, declared that the Panthers had been
wrong in confronting the police: "All we got was a war and a lot of
bloodshed." He said that they had been mistaken in disregarding the
church and in thinking that they could change things without the people's
changing them:

"We'll be criticized by the revolutionary cultists for trying to effect
change by stages, but to do all we want to do, we just have to go through
all the stages of development. We cannot jump from A to Z as some
thought."

Throughout history almost all social transformations have been the result
of shifts in basic power relationships. The attempt to build political
and economic power on a nationwide basis within the black community is a
relatively new phenomenon. Reconstruction had attempted to do it earlier,
but it was destroyed before it could be tested. Almost all other black
economic and political involvement has been dependent on sizable white
support. This was true both of the policies of Booker T. Washington and
of the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, this meant a reliance on white
power and on white conscience. The new spirit of black pride and
self-reliance along with the new voting rights has already created
pockets of black political strength in many Northern cities and in parts
of the rural South. It is also being reflected in the Congress with the
election of more blacks and with their creation of the Black Caucus,
presently consisting of thirteen black congressmen. After submitting a
list of their demands to President Nixon, their spokesman, Representative
William Clay, D-Mo., said:

"We are going to set the tone for the black liberation struggle in this
country.... Black people in this country have no permanent friends, n