Address to Li'l Bobby Hutton Day Celebration

DR. TOLBERT SMALL / The Commemorator v.15, n.2, 13may2005

Editor's Note: Dr Tolbert Small was a volunteer physician at he Black Panther Party's George Jackson Medical Clinic and one of the founders of the BPP's Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation. He continues his efforts to provide medical care for the low income community through his Harriet Tubman Medial Clinic in East Oakland. Following is the speech by Dr. Tolbert Small to the 16 April 2005 Li 'l Bobby Hutton Day celebration at the West Oakland Public Library.

All power to the people!

I worked with the Panther Party from 1970 to 1974. If we had a government that truly served the needs of the people, we wouldn't have had a need to exist. But we don't have a government that serves the needs of the people.

We're a country that consumes 60 percent of the world's wealth, yet what do we get for it? We have 45 million people with no healthcare insurance, including 6.6 million in California. We have 40 million more people who are underinsured. We have 6 million kids who do not have healthcare insurance, including 179,000 in California.

This is a problem plaguing the richest country in the world. So, we can ask: are we spending enough money on healthcare? We spend more money on healthcare than any other country in the world. We spend $1.6 trillion on health-care. We spend 16 percent of our gross national product on healthcare; yet, 4 percent of the gross national product goes into some blood baron's pocket. For in the United States, 20 to 30% of every health care dollar spent goes into someone's pocket. It does not go to provide healthcare. We spend $6,100, on each person in United States, more than any other country in the world. Fifty percent of every health-care dollar in the world is spent in United States. Switzerland comes next. They spend 47 percent of what we spend on healthcare. Yet we have 44 million people with no healthcare.

In fact, fifty percent of all people who have declared bankruptcy in this country have done it because of health-care. They cannot afford to pay their healthcare bills.

But where does that money go? Well, the head of one HMO sold his interest for $1 billion dollars – $1 billion dollars! This blood baron also received a 24 million corporate jet and 2 million dollars for jet fuel.

There is a merger going on now between Blue Cross-Well Point and Anthem which will create the largest health insurance in the country. For this merger, the Well Point executives will split over $356 million. I'll give you another example. The head of Foundation Health Corporation got paid a 3.4 million bonus in addition to his $2 million a year salary. At the same time that Foundation Health Insurance was denying bone marrow implants for people with breast cancer, which costs $120,000. Just think of how many marrow implants could we get for $3.4 million dollars. Women were dying because they were denying bone marrow transplants., in 1994, the entire country only spent $1.4 billion on AIDS research — public and private. Yet, the six leading robber barons in this country stole $2.4 billion. These six CEO insurance executives created a wall of greed by stealing more money than the entire country spent on AIDS. And so, that is why we got involved with the Black Panther Party. That is why there is still a need for a party to serve the needs of the people.

I was born in Mississippi. In 1955, I was in Mississippi when Emmett Till was savagely murdered. I often followed my grandfather with his mule, plowing the red clay in Mississippi. While in medical school, from 1963 to 1967, I worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1965, the first Black Panther Party that I supported was the Lowndes County Freedom Party in Alabama. I even had a Black Panther bumper sticker on my car.

In 1965, Mark Comfort, the head of the Oakland Direct Action Committee, went down to Alabama to work with the Lowndes County Black Panther Party. Lowndes County was a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan; Ms. Violet Liuzzo was murdered in Lowndes County. The Lowndes County Black Panther workers carried guns to protect themselves from the Ku Klux Klan. 90 percent of Lowndes County was black; yet, no black folks could vote. When Mark returned to Oakland, he told Huey about the

Lowndes County Black Panther Party. That's where Huey got the conception of the Black Panther Party. Mark later went to Sacramento in 1966 with the armed Panthers.

In 1968, I came to Oakland to intern at Highland Hospital. In 1970, I went by the Black Panther office and told June Hilliard, "If you ever need a doctor, give me a call." Within days, the FBI attempted to contact Dr. Malcolm Nelson, the medical director of Highland Hospital, to inform him that Dr. Tolbert Small had agreed to work with the Black Panther Party. However, who did the FBI talk to? They didn't talk to the medical director; they talked to my intern, David Nelson, who shared the same last name as the medical director. David later informed me of the phone call

Later, the FBI would arrange for Savak , the Iranian shah's dreaded secret police to terrorize a medical technologist who volunteered to work for George Jackson Free Clinic.

Through COINTELPRO,¹ the FBI planted 67 paid agents into the 45 Black Panther Party chapters. COINTELPRO and contradictions with the Black Panther Party played a significant role in the demise of the party. I stopped working with the party around the same time that Big Man stopped working with them, which was in 1974.

But let's go back to the time when the Panther Party was founded. In 1966 racism firmly ruled this land. Our televisions portrayed the traditional black actor's role as a servant, such as Beulah. Northern inner-city police terrorized the Black communities. Southern Black travelers faced the dilemma of either sitting in the back of the bus or facing the threat of a lynching. Northern medical schools satisfied their quotas by admitting one or two Black students in each class. Southern medical colleges traditionally admitted no Black students.

Thus the ghetto's healthcare mirrored the institutional racism of our society. Bobby Seale was aware of racism in health care. It was his idea to set up our national Sickle Cell Anemia Program. As national chairman of the Black Panther Party Sickle Cell Anemia Project, we dramatized the American government's neglect of sickle cell anemia.

During this time, volunteers were raising up to $7.9 million for muscular dystrophy; $1.9 million for cystic fibrosis; but less than $100,000 for sickle cell anemia. Sickle cell anemia had more morbidity and mortality than those diseases, but it was a disease involving predominantly Black People. Nationally, the Black Panther Party's free clinics tested and counseled over a million Black People about sickle cell anemia. In fact, we lit a fire under Richard Nixon's ass. This dramatization of the neglect of sickle cell anemia forced Nixon to put forth a platform to reverse this country's neglect of sickle cell anemia. That's why in every major city in this country we have a sickle cell anemia project. Children's Hospital in Oakland is on the cutting edge of sickle cell anemia. If you go talk to Dr. Bertran Lubin, Children's Hospital's director of medical research, Dr Lubin will say, "We could not have done this without the Black Panther Party because nobody gave a damn about sickle cell anemia."

Audience applauds loudly.

The Black Panther Party was involved with setting up survival pro-grams. Like I mentioned, if we had a government that served our needs, we wouldn't have a need to exist. The Black Panther Party operated 11 free clinics: Seattle, Los Angeles, Berkeley, New Haven, Portland, Chicago, Boston New York, and Philadelphia; There were two free clinics in both New York and Illinois. You know, unfortunately, in this country our nation still suffers from a lack of national health-care plan. More infants die before their first year of life in the United States than in Singapore. Among industrial nations, only the United States and South Africa have failed to provide their citizens with a national health-care plan. I think South Africa will have a national health-care plan before we do. There are already 3000 Cuban doctors volunteering in South Africa.

The World Health Organization ranks the United States 34th in the world in providing health-care for its people.

Through its health-care programs and other survival programs, the Black Panther Party so extremely dramatized the neglect of the Black underclass that it helped to make Martin Luther King and the NAACP respectable to middle class America. America didn't like Martin Luther King; they spied on him; they killed him; then they named a holiday after him. They even sanitized Martin Luther King's message. They had to sanitize him because Martin Luther King saved them from us. Unfortunately, Blacks who have rose to middle class, in part to the struggles of such human rights organizations as the Black Panther Party, do not offer a helping hand to their ghetto brothers. I think we have to remember that although the Black Panther Party has come and gone, its spirit still lives through Billy, Melvin, and the programs they espouse. Unfortunately racism and poverty have not come and gone. As we approach this century racism no longer struts on the front porch of the White House. It crawls through the back door of our ruling circles.

Thank you. Much Applause
All power to the people!

¹ COINTELPRO - The FBI's Covert Action Program To Destroy The Black Panther Party / Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports On Intelligence Activities And Rights Of Americans / Book III / Final Report of the Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect To Intelligence Activities / United States Senate / 94th Congress, 2d Session Report No. 94-755 April 23, 1976 pp. 185-223 23apr76

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