Ballad of a thin man en Huey P. Newton - aanvullingen

In een stuk over Ballad of a thin man met de titel Something is happening here (zie hier), schreef ik o.a. hoe Ballad of a thin man als inspiratie diende voor het schrijven van de politieke beginselverklaring van the Black Panthers. Deze beginselverklaring werd geschreven door Huey P. Newton met wat hulp van Bobby Seale.
Gisteravond kwam ik het door Bobby Seale geschreven stuk Biography of Huey P. Newton uit Ramparts (17 november 1968) tegen, met daarin:
Cassius Clay would brag. People misunderstood the bragging. All Cassius Clay was saying was that he was defying all his omnipotent, racist bullshit by stepping forward and saying, "I'm the greatest! I can't be hit." He beat on his chest, and when he said that, the white racist omnipotent administrator who had a hold on the string had to ask himself, "Well, if he's a man then what the hell am I?" And that's what Bobby Dylan meant by the geek handing Mr. Jones the naked bone and saying: "How do you like being a freak?" And that's the whole meaning of the question. If he's a man, if he's not a freak, and he tells Mr. Jones he's a freak, then Mr. Jones has to ask. "Am I that?" That's symbolic of saying that if he's a man, what am I?
This song Bobby Dylan was singing became a very big part of that whole publishing operation of the Black Panther paper. And in the background, while we were putting this paper out, this record came up and I guess a number of papers were published, and many times we would play that record. Brother Stockely Carmichael also liked that record. This record became so related to us, even to the brothers who had held down most of the security for the set.
These brothers had some big earphones over at Beverly's house. These big earphones would sit on your ears and had a kind of direct stereo atmosphere and when you got loaded it was someting else! These brothers would get halfway high, loaded on something, and they would sit down and play this record over and over and over, especially after they began to hear Huey P. Newton interpret that record. They'd be trying to relate an understanding about what was going on, 'cause old Bobby did society a big favor when he made that particular sound. If there's any more he made that I don't understand, I'll just ask Huey P. Newton to interpret them for us and maybe we can get a hell of a lot more out of brother Bobby because old Bobby, he did a good job on that set.
Bovenstaande doet me sterk denken aan een scene uit de film I'm not there. En de gedachten draaien terug naar een stuk, járen gelden gelezen, een verslag van een ontmoeting tussen Bob Dylan en the Black Panthers, een ontmoeting die op het laatste moment niet doorging. Het stomme is, dat ik niet meer weet waar ik het gelezen heb. Het was geen Dylan-boek, maar welk boek was het dan?
In mijn geheugen - maar hang me er niet aan op - fungeerde de auteur James Bladwin als bemiddelaar tussen Dylan en de Black Panthers. Wie o wie kan mij vertellen in welk boek dat verslag stond?

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