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Good as Gold
Clark: The artist formerly
mown as Prince hits with
The Gold Experience.
Aggielife, Page 3
Burnt-out
Baxter: The Simpson trial has
worn out its welcome in the
minds of many Americans.
Opinion, Page 19
Winning ugly
The A&M Volleyball Team
staves off Rice to improve
to 2-0 in the SWC.
%
Sports, Page 15
The Battali
[ol. 102, No. 24 (20 pages)
Established in 1893
Thursday • September 28, 1995
eale brings Black Panther history to A&M
• •
Hill
Jobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party will speak
jn Rudder Auditorium tonight at 7 p.m.
•tudent leaders unite
or SG’s Roundtable
□ Seale comes to A&M tonight as
part of "Panther: Taking Charge of
the Revolution," presented by MSC
Black Awareness Committee.
By Rob Clark
The Battalion
As Texas A&M struggles to unify the stu
dent body across cultural lines, students
tonight will have the opportunity to hear a
prominent voice who helped unite African
Americans in the 1960s.
Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Pan
ther Party, will speak at 7 p.m. in Rudder Au
ditorium as part of “Panther: Taking Charge of
the Revolution,” presented by MSC Black
Awareness Committee.
Seale and Huey Newton started the Black
Panthers in Oakland, Calif, in 1966. Seale now
serves as a volunteer liaison with Temple Uni
versity’s Department of African and African-
American Studies.
While the Panthers promoted themselves in
favor of organization and unity in the black
community, their methods of armed self-de
fense spread fear and controversy among many.
Seale said government officials were to
blame for this fear.
“What scared everybody,” he said, “was the
lies, the stereotyping and the racism in the
United States government, including politi
cians and other law enforcements, such as J.
Edgar Hoover.”
Such stereotyping cre
ated panic among Ameri
cans who did not under
stand the Panthers’ mes
sage, Seale said.
“People like Mayor
Daley of Chicago
jumped up on national
television and said the
only reason the Black
Panthers have guns is to
come into the white community and shoot and
kill white people,” Seale said. “Why would we
want to come in the community and kill white
people when we’ve got a working coalition of
friends with hundreds of thousands of white
radicals all over the country?”
Despite involvement in violent shootouts
with police officers, Seale said the Panthers did
not promote violence.
“We didn’t allow riots,” Seale said. “If you
stop a riot then what are you for? You’re for or
ganizing people, unifying the political, electoral
community power.”
Seale said the guns and the fear detracted
from the Panthers’ prowess as a political force.
“We were a political party,” Seale said. “We
ran for political office
with our names on the
ballot throughout the
San Francisco Bay area
in 1968. We were a po
litical party who had
grass-roots organizing
and believed in self-de
fense if we were going
to be attacked by any
kind of racist.”
One of the biggest
battles the Panthers faced was police brutality.
Seale said violence erupted when the Panthers
tried to defend themselves.
“They killed 28 of us in all those times they
attacked our offices,” he said. “We killed 14 of
their officers. They wounded 64 of us, we
See Seale, Page 14
Profile
PANTHER
iStudents will discuss
/hich campus problems
leed to be addressed at
this year's roundtable
discussions.
By fara Wilkinson
The Batt alion
Solutions to difficult problems
(jiften become apparent when peo
ple with opposing viewpoints are
villing to communicate.
That is the idea behind the
Texas A&M Student Government
Roundtable discussions, the first
>f which will be held Thursday at
:30 p.m. in 230 MSC.
David Washington, Student
lovernment executive vice pres-
dent of administration, said the
■oundtable discussions will open
hannels of communication be
tween members of diverse cam
pus groups.
“The mission is to bring togeth
er student leaders representative
af the demographics of Texas
A&M University to discuss issues
that are pertinent to students’
academic, social and organiza
tional success,” Washington said.
One representative from 19 cam
pus organizations, ranging from
College Republicans to the Black
Awareness Committee to Off-Cam
pus Aggies, were invited to partic
ipate in this week’s discussion.
Toby Boenig, A&M student
body president, said he and
Washington will develop a list of
topics for monthly roundtable dis
cussions based on feedback from
this week’s meeting.
“We want everybody to get to
gether and tell us what they want
to talk about for the rest of the
year,” Boenig said. “Then we’re
going to go from there and see if
there is anything pressing to be
discussed right then.”
Washington said that although
there will be an agenda for the
year, one point of the roundtable
discussions is to deal with contro
versial issues as they develop.
“We want to come in with a
structured agenda,” he said, “ but
also to be flexible to issues that
come up throughout the-year.”
Erin Mozola, Hohors Student
Council president, said she expects
multiculturalism to be among the
pressing topics of discussion at
See Roundtable, Page 14
Amy Browning, Tut Battalion
Just browsing
Freshman history major jennifer Roberts takes a look at the many posters on display at the poster sale in the MSC Wednesday afternoon.
A Local Look at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women
Local delegates share experience
□ Dr. Gail Thomas
attended the two-week
conference. She spoke
to students and faculty
Wednesday.
By Wes Swift
The Battalion
A four-woman panel, including
a Texas A&M sociology professor,
shared their personal experiences
about the United Nations Fourth
World Conference on Women
with a packed room of students
and faculty Wednesday.
More than 30,000 delegates
representing 189 nations met in
Beijing in September for two
weeks of workshops, seminars
and official U.N. meetings focus
ing on global women’s issues.
Dr. Gail Thomas, director of
the A&M’s Race and Ethnic
Studies Institute and a sociology
professor, attended the confer
ence and said it gave women
from across the world a chance
to discover their similarities.
“The thing that stands out
in my mind is how these
women found they had similar
ideas, a common thread,”
Thomas said.
Thomas was joined by three
women from Austin who also at
tended the conference. Each
woman shared a personal story
about how she got to Beijing or
what she experienced in the Chi
nese capital.
Patricia Callahan, a social
work graduate student at the
University of Texas at Austin,
told the audience how a friend
challenged her to find a way to
attend the conference.
“She said to me, ‘If you were
to not put your life on hold for
school, what would you do?,”
Callahan said. “And I said I’d go
to Beijing.”
Her friend kept challenging
Callahan to find the means to at
tend the conference, and Calla
han said that was the major
force driving her.
“She put it in terms that
made it seem possible,” she said.
Dottie Curry, a member of the
community outreach for Planned
Parenthood in Austin, took her
17-year-old granddaughter to
the conference. Curry said the
conference dramatically changed
her granddaughter.
“I can tell you that I did not
bring back the same 17-year-old
that I took over there,” Curry said.
Curry said a recurring theme
See Delegates, Page 14
Organizations consider
conference’s effectiveness
Robyn Calloway, The Battalion
Dr. Gail Thomas, director and professor of Sociology Race and Ethnic
Studies Institute of Texas A&M and Patricia Calahan, a graduate stu
dent of social work from the University of Texas at Austin, were two
of the speakers Wednesday afternoon.
□ NOW and Aggies for
Life are among the A&M
groups that have rehashed
the progress made in
Beijing.
By Michelle Lyons
The Battalion
As the United Nations
Fourth World Conference on
Women came to a close Sept.
15, 1995, many questions be
gan to surface on the Texas
A&M campus about what had
been accomplished.
Various A&M groups con
cerned with women’s issues
gave special attention to the
conference and how the deci
sions will likely affect the
women on campus.
Dr. Gail Thomas, director of
the Race and Ethnic Studies In
stitute and an A&M sociology
professor, said student groups
could benefit from reading the
Platform for Action, the docu
ment that addresses the stances
that different countries have on
certain women’s issues.
“I think that the conference
could help if people from these
groups could actually attend
these conferences,” Thomas
said. “It’s always described as
a vicarious experience for
most people.”
Dr. Pam Matthews, director
of the Women’s Studies Pro
gram and an English professor,
said one of the most important
aspects of the conference is
that it served as a reminder for
world leaders.
“I think it was really impor
tant for reminding America
and other Western countries
See Conference, Page 14
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