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Roy Wilkins disputes the Black Panther's claim that power comes out of a barrel of a gun and states that power really comes from a ballot.

Wilkins speaks to the National OIC convention.

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SPEAKER: First, they are getting a kind of unity that they never had before, a sort of cooperation between organizations like the OIC and the NAACP. Second, they are using the ballot. And this has been recognized.

Its potency has been recognized by no less than the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers used to talk a lot of nonsense about power coming out of the barrel of a gun. That's a lot of horse feathers.

Power doesn't come out of the barrel of a gun, except temporarily. The real power comes from the exercise of the ballot. People are now talking about the election, the special election in Michigan, upsetting the whole Watergate and Republican hierarchy. And this is the way Americans customarily correct a situation. And the Black people are just beginning to discover this.

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