Of all the sources I anticipated for my work looking at George Floyd Square, I never thought an original member of the Black Panther Party would be among them. Yet Wednesday afternoon I sat down with Larry Pinkney, and he opened right up about his views on things today.
That he opened up was on one hand totally expected. He's been an outspoken activist for 50+ years. But his openness was also a bit of a rarity, because he doesn't grant too many interviews anymore.
"More often than not, people like myself are viewed more as a threat," he said. "Even by people you'd think would be open."
He means he's not aligned with today's activists, which puts him in a strange place--a radical of sorts, but for entirely different reasons.
Before we met, he summed up his hesitancy to speak out by saying, "I'm in my 70s. I'm too old for this sh*t."
But he agreed to an audio-recorded interview, which I just released as its own video with photo collage and subtitles as visuals.
Hope you like it:
