Black Panther Party

"Black Panthers" redirects here. For other uses, see Black Panthers (disambiguation).

The Black Panther Party or BPP (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982.

Initially, the Black Panther Party's core practice was its armed citizens' patrols to monitor the behavior of police officers and challenge police brutality. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity of party members. The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, and community health clinics.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover called the party "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country", and he supervised an extensive program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, police harassment, assassination, and many other tactics designed to undermine Panther leadership, incriminate party members, discredit and criminalize the Party, and drain the organization of resources and manpower.

Government repression initially contributed to the growth of the party as killings and arrests of Panthers increased support for the party within the black community and on the broad political left, both of whom valued the Panthers as powerful force opposed to de facto segregation and the military draft. Black Panther Party membership reached a peak in 1970, with offices in 68 cities and thousands of members, then suffered a series of contractions. As concessions were made by the government on these issues, public support for the party waned, and the group became more isolated. In-fighting among Party leadership led to expulsions and defections that decimated the membership. Popular support for the Party declined further after reports appeared detailing the group's involvement in illegal activities such as drug dealing and extortion schemes directed against Oakland merchants. By 1972 most Panther activity centered on the national headquarters and a school in Oakland, where the party continued to influence local politics. Party contractions continued throughout the 1970s. By 1980 the Black Panther Party comprised just 27 members.

The history of the Black Panther Party is controversial. Scholars have characterized the Black Panther Party as the most influential black movement organization of the late 1960s, and "the strongest link between the domestic Black Liberation Struggle and global opponents of American imperialism." Others commentators have described the Party as more criminal than political, characterized by "defiant posturing over substance."

Origins

In 1961, Huey Newton met Bobby Seale when they were both students at Merritt College. In 1965, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an independent political party in rural Alabama adopted the black panther as a symbol.

Original six members of the Black Panther Party (1966)
Top left to right: Elbert "Big Man" Howard, Huey P. Newton (Defense Minister), Sherwin Forte, Bobby Seale (Chairman)
Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton (Treasurer).

In 1966, Huey P. Newton was released from jail. With his friend Bobby Seale from Oakland City College, he joined a black power group called the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). RAM had a chapter in Oakland and followed the writings of Robert F. Williams. Williams had been the president of the Monroe, North Carolina branch of the NAACP and later published a newsletter called The Crusader from Cuba, where he fled to escape kidnapping charges stemming from an incident in which he allowed a white couple to take shelter in his house from a mob. Dissatisfied with RAM's failure to directly challenge police brutality and appeal to the "brothers on the block", Huey and Bobby sought to take matters into their own hands.

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on October 15, 1966. They drafted the party's first 10-point platform. Sixteen-year-old Bobby Hutton was their first recruit. The organization initially set forth a doctrine calling primarily for the protection of black neighborhoods from police brutality. The leaders of the organization espoused socialist and Marxist doctrines; however, the Party's early black nationalist reputation attracted a diverse membership. The Black Panther Party's objectives and philosophy expanded and evolved rapidly during the party's existence, making ideological consensus within the party difficult to achieve, and causing some prominent members to openly disagree with the views of the leaders.

Newton and Seale worked at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center, where they also served on the advisory board. To combat police brutality, the advisory board obtained 5,000 signatures in support of the City Council's setting up a police review board to review complaints. Newton was also taking classes at the City College and at San Francisco Law School. Both institutions were active in the North Oakland Center. Thus the pair had numerous connections with whom they talked about a new organization. Inspired by the success of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization and Stokely Carmichael's calls for separate black political organizations, they wrote their initial platform statement, the Ten-Point Program. With the help of Huey's brother Melvin, they decided on a uniform of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets, and openly displayed loaded shotguns. (In his studies, Newton had discovered a California law that allowed carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun in public, as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one.)

What became standard Black Panther discourse emerged from a long history of urban activism, social criticism and political struggle by African Americans. There is considerable debate about the impact that the Black Panther Party had on the greater society, or even their local environment. Author Jama Lazerow writes: "As inheritors of the discipline, pride, and calm self-assurance preached by Malcolm X, the Panthers became national heroes in black communities by infusing abstract nationalism with street toughness—by joining the rhythms of black working-class youth culture to the interracial élan and effervescence of Bay Area New Left politics ... In 1966, the Panthers defined Oakland's ghetto as a territory, the police as interlopers, and the Panther mission as the defense of community. The Panthers' famous "policing the police" drew attention to the spatial remove that White Americans enjoyed from the police brutality that had come to characterize life in black urban communities." In his book Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America journalist Hugh Pearson takes a more jaundiced view, linking Panther criminality and violence to worsening conditions in America's black ghettos as their influence spread nationwide.

Black Panther Party founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton standing in the street, armed with a Colt .45 and a shotgun.

One of the central aims of the BPP was to stop abuse by local police departments. When the party was founded in 1966, only 16 of Oakland's 661 police officers were African American. Accordingly, many members questioned the Department's objectivity and impartiality. This situation was not unique to Oakland, as most police departments in major cities did not have proportional membership by African Americans. Throughout the 1960s, race riots and civil unrest broke out in impoverished African-American communities subject to policing by disproportionately white police departments.

Late 1966 to early 1967

Chronology

• October 1966--the BPP is founded. A few months later, they began their first police patrols.

• January 1967--The BPP opens its first official headquarters in an Oakland storefront, and published the first issue of "The Black Panther: Black Community News Service".
• February 1967—BPP serve as security escorts for Betty Shabazz.

• April 1967—Denzil Dowell protest in Richmond.

• May 2, 1967—thirty people representing the BPP go to state capitol with guns, and achieve the Party's first national media attention.

Oakland patrols of police

The initial tactic of the party utilized the then legal gun laws to protect Party members when policing the police. This act was done in order to record incidents of police brutality by distantly following cop cars around neighborhoods. When confronted by a police officer, Party members cited laws proving they have done nothing wrong and threatened to take to court any officer that violates their constitutional rights. Between the end of 1966 to the start of 1967, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense's armed police patrols in Oakland black communities attracted a small handful of members. Numbers grew slightly starting in February 1967, when the party provided an armed escort at the San Francisco airport for Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X's widow and keynote speaker for a conference held in his honor.

From the beginning, the Black Panther Party's focus on militancy came with a reputation for violence. The Panthers employed a California law that permitted carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one. Carrying weapons openly and making threats against police officers, for example, chants like "The Revolution has come, it's time to pick up the gun. Off the pigs!", helped create the Panthers' reputation as a violent organization.

Rallies in Richmond, CA

The black community of Richmond, CA, wanted protection against police brutality. With only three main streets for entering and exiting the neighborhood, it was easy for police to control, contain, and suppress the black-dominated community. On April 1, 1967, a black, unarmed twenty-two year old construction worker named Denzil Dowell was shot dead by police in North Richmond. Dowell's family contacted the Black Panther Party for assistance after county officials refused to investigate the case. The Party held rallies in North Richmond that educated the community on armed self-defense and the Denzil Dowell incident. Police seldom interfered at these rallies because every Panther was armed and no laws were broken. The Party's ideals resonated with several community members, who then brought their own guns to the next rallies.

Protest at the Statehouse

Awareness of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense grew rapidly after their May 2, 1967, protest at the California State Assembly. On May 2, 1967, the California State Assembly Committee on Criminal Procedure was scheduled to convene to discuss what was known as the "Mulford Act", which would make the public carrying of loaded firearms illegal. Cleaver and Newton put together a plan to send a group of 26 armed Panthers led by Seale from Oakland to Sacramento to protest the bill. The group entered the assembly carrying their weapons, an incident which was widely publicized, and which prompted police to arrest Seale and five others. The group pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disrupting a legislative session.

Black Panther convention, Lincoln Memorial, June 19, 1970.

In May 1967, the Panthers invaded the State Assembly Chamber in Sacramento, guns in hand, in what appears to have been a publicity stunt. Still, they scared a lot of important people that day. At the time, the Panthers had almost no following. Now, (a year later) however, their leaders speak on invitation almost anywhere radicals gather, and many whites wear "Honkeys for Huey" buttons, supporting the fight to free Newton, who has been in jail since last Oct. 28 (1967) on the charge that he killed a policeman ...

Ten-point program

The Black Panther Party first publicized its original Ten-Point program on May 15, 1967, following the Sacramento action, in the second issue of the Black Panther newspaper. The original ten points of "What We Want Now!" follow:

1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
2. We want full employment for our people.
3. We want an end to the robbery by the white men of our Black Community.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
6. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
9. We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.

For the original ten points of "What We Believe" and a fuller discussion of the evolution of the Ten-Point Program, see the Ten-Point Program page.

Late 1967 to early 1968

Chronology

• August 1967—The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) directs its program "COINTELPRO" to "neutralize" what they call "black nationalist hate groups."

• October 28, 1967—Huey Newton kills police officer John Frey. At this time there were fewer than one hundred Party members.

• Early spring, 1968—Eldridge Cleaver's Soul On Ice is published.

• April 4, 1968--Martin Luther King is assassinated. Riots break out nationwide

• April 6, 1968—A team of Panthers led by Eldridge Cleaver ambushes Oakland police officers. Panther Bobby Hutton is killed.

• April to mid-June, 1968—Cleaver is in jail.

• August 5, 1968—Three Panthers were killed in a gun battle with police at a Los Angeles gas station.

• October 5, 1968—a Panther is killed in a gunfight with police in Los Angeles.

Referring to the 1967–68 period, historian Curtis Austin states: "During this period of development, black nationalism became part of the party's philosophy." During the months following the "Free Huey" birthday rallies, one in Oakland and another in Los Angeles, the Party's violent, anti-white rhetoric attracted a huge following and Black Panther Party membership exploded.

In 1968 the southern California chapter was founded by Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter in Los Angeles. Carter was the leader of the Slauson street gang, and many of the LA chapter's early recruits were Slausons.

COINTELPRO

COINTELPRO document outlining the FBI's plans to 'neutralize' Jean Seberg for her support for the Black Panther Party, by attempting to publicly "cause her embarrassment" and "tarnish her image".

In August 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) instructed its program "COINTELPRO" to "neutralize" what the FBI called "black nationalist hate groups" and other dissident groups. In September 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." By 1969, the Black Panthers and their allies had become primary COINTELPRO targets, singled out in 233 of the 295 authorized "Black Nationalist" COINTELPRO actions. The goals of the program were to prevent the unification of militant black nationalist groups and to weaken the power of their leaders, as well as to discredit the groups to reduce their support and growth. The initial targets included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement and the Nation of Islam. Leaders who were targeted included the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Maxwell Stanford and Elijah Muhammad.

Part of the FBI COINTELPRO actions were directed at creating and exploiting existing rivalries between black nationalist factions. One such attempt was to "intensify the degree of animosity" between the Black Panthers and the Blackstone Rangers, a Chicago street gang. They sent an anonymous letter to the Ranger's gang leader claiming that the Panthers were threatening his life, a letter whose intent was to induce "reprisals" against Panther leadership. In Southern California similar actions were taken to exacerbate a "gang war" between the Black Panther Party and a group called the US Organization. It was alleged that the FBI had sent a provocative letter to the US Organization in an attempt to increase existing antagonism between US and the Panthers.

COINTELPRO also aimed to dismantle the Black Panther Party by targeting the social/community programs they endorsed, one of the most influential being the Free Breakfast for Children Program. The success of the Free Breakfast for Children Program served to "shed light on the government's failure to address child poverty and hunger--pointing to the limits of the nation's War on Poverty." The ability of the Party to organize and provide for children more effectively than the U.S. government led the FBI to criticize the program as a means of exposing children to Panther Propaganda. In response to this, as an effort of disassembling the program, "Police and Federal Agents regularly harassed and intimidated program participants, supporters, and Party workers and sought to scare away donors and organizations that housed the programs like churches and community centers."

Huey Newton charged with murdering John Frey

On October 28, 1967, Oakland police officer John Frey was shot to death in an altercation with Huey P. Newton during a traffic stop. In the stop, Newton and backup officer Herbert Heanes also suffered gunshot wounds. Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter at trial.

At the time, Newton claimed that he had been falsely accused, leading to the "Free Huey" campaign. This incident gained the party even wider recognition by the radical American left. Newton was released after three years, when his conviction was reversed on appeal. During later years Newton would suggest to sociobiologist Robert Trivers (one of the few whites who became a Party member during its waning years) that he had in fact killed officer John Frey.

As Newton awaited trial, the Black Panther party's "Free Huey" campaign developed alliances with numerous individuals, students and anti-war activists, "advancing an anti-imperialist political ideology that linked the oppression of antiwar protestors to the oppression of blacks and Vietnamese". The "Free Huey" campaign attracted black power organizations, New Left groups, and other activist groups such as the Progressive Labor Party, Bob Avakian of the Community for New Politics, and the Red Guard. For example, the Black Panther Party collaborated with the Peace and Freedom Party, which sought to promote a strong antiwar and antiracist politics in opposition to the establishment democratic party. The Black Panther Party provided needed legitimacy to the Peace and Freedom Party's racial politics and in return received invaluable support for the "Free Huey" campaign.

Ambush of Oakland police

On April 7, 1968, seventeen-year-old Panther national treasurer Bobby Hutton was killed, and Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Party Minister of Information, was wounded in a shootout with the Oakland police. Two police officers were also shot. Although at the time the BPP claimed that the police had ambushed them, several party members later admitted that Cleaver had led the Panther group on a deliberate ambush of the police officers, provoking the shoot out. Seven other Panthers, including chief of staff David Hilliard, were also arrested. Hutton's death became a rallying issue for Panther supporters. churches and community centers."

Late 1968

Chronology

• Mid-July, 1968—Huey Newton's murder trial commences. Panthers hold "Free Huey" rallies outside the courthouse daily.

• Early September, 1968—Newton is convicted of manslaughter.

• Late September, 1968—days before he is due to return to prison to serve out a rape conviction, Cleaver flees to Cuba and later Algeria.

• November, 1968—the BPP finds numerous supporters, establishing relationships with the Peace and Freedom Party and SNCC. Monetary contributions are flowing in, and BPP leadership begins embezzling donated funds.

In 1968, the group shortened its name to the Black Panther Party and sought to focus directly on political action. Members were encouraged to carry guns and to defend themselves against violence. An influx of college students joined the group, which had consisted chiefly of "brothers off the block." This created some tension in the group. Some members were more interested in supporting the Panthers social programs, while others wanted to maintain their "street mentality".

By 1968, the party had expanded into many cities throughout the United States, among them, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Newark, New Orleans, New York City, Omaha, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Toledo, and Washington, D.C. Peak membership was near 10,000 by 1969, and their newspaper, under the editorial leadership of Eldridge Cleaver, had a circulation of 250,000. The group created a Ten-Point Program, a document that called for "Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace", as well as exemption from conscription for black men, among other demands. With the Ten-Point program, "What We Want, What We Believe", the Black Panther Party expressed its economic and political grievances.

Curtis Austin states that by late 1968, Black Panther Party ideology had evolved to the point where they began to reject black nationalism and became more a "revolutionary internationalist movement":

[The Party] dropped its wholesale attacks against whites and began to emphasize more of a class analysis of society. Its emphasis on Marxist-Leninist doctrine and its repeated espousal of Maoist statements signaled the group's transition from a revolutionary nationalist to a revolutionary internationalist movement. Every Party member had to study Mao Tse-tung's "Little Red Book" to advance his or her knowledge of peoples' struggle and the revolutionary process.

Panther slogans and iconography spread. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two American medalists, gave the black power salute during the playing of the American national anthem. The International Olympic Committee banned them from the Olympic Games for life. Hollywood celebrity Jane Fonda publicly supported Huey Newton and the Black Panthers during the early 1970s. She and other Hollywood celebrities became involved in the Panthers' leftist programs. The Panthers attracted a wide variety of left-wing revolutionaries and political activists, including writer Jean Genet, former Ramparts magazine editor David Horowitz (who later became a major critic of what he describes as Panther criminality) and left-wing lawyer Charles R. Garry, who acted as counsel in the Panthers' many legal battles.

Survival committees and coalitions were organized with several groups across the United States. Chief among these was the Rainbow Coalition formed by Fred Hampton and the Chicago Black Panthers. The Rainbow Coalition included the Young Lords, a Latino youth gang turned political under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez. It also included the Young Patriots, which was organized to support young, white migrants from the Appalachia region.

The BPP adopted a "Serve the People" program, which at first involved a free breakfast program for children. By the end of 1968, the BPP had established 38 chapters and branches, claiming more than five thousand members. Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver left the country days before Cleaver was to turn himself in to serve the remainder of a thirteen-year sentence for a 1958 rape conviction. They settled in Algeria.

By the end of the year, Party membership peaked at around 2,000. Party members engage in criminal activities such as extortion, stealing, violent discipline of BPP members, and robberies. The BPP leadership took one third of the proceeds from robberies committed by BPP members.

Women and womanism

At its beginnings, the Black Panther Party reclaimed black masculinity and traditional gender roles. Several scholars consider the Party's stance of armed resistance highly masculine, with the use of guns and violence affirming proof of manhood. In 1968, the Black Panther Party newspaper stated in several articles that the role of female Panthers was to "stand behind black men" and be supportive.

By 1969, the Black Panther Party newspaper officially stated that men and women are equal and instructed male Panthers to treat female Party members as equals, a drastic change from the idea of the female Panther as subordinate. That same year, Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton of the Illinois chapter conducted a meeting condemning sexism. After 1969, the Party considered sexism counter-revolutionary.

The Black Panthers adopted a womanist ideology in consideration of the unique experiences of African-American women, affirming that racism is more oppressive than sexism. Womanism was a mix of black nationalism and the vindication of women, putting race and community struggle before the gender issue. Womanism posited that traditional feminism failed to include race and class struggle in its denunciation of male sexism and was therefore part of white hegemony. In opposition to some feminist viewpoints, womanism promoted a gender role point of view that men are not above women, but hold a different position in the home and community, so men and women must work together for the preservation of African-American culture and community.

From this point forward, the Black Panther Party newspaper portrayed women as revolutionaries, using the example of party members such as Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis and Erika Huggins, all political, intelligent and attractive women. The Black Panther Party newspaper often showed women as active participants in the armed self-defense movement, picturing them with children and guns as protectors of the home, the family and the community.

This had direct implications at every level for Black Panther women. From 1968 to the end of its publication in 1982, the head editors of the Black Panther Party newspaper were all women. In 1970, approximately 40% to 70% of Party members were women, and several chapters, like the Des Moines, Iowa, and New Haven, Connecticut, were headed by women.

During the 1970s, recognizing the limited access poor women had to abortion, the Party officially supported women's reproductive rights, including abortion. That same year, the Party condemned and opposed prostitution.

The Black Panther Party experienced significant problems in several chapters with sexism and gender oppression, particularly in the Oakland chapter where cases of sexual harassment and gender division were common. When Oakland Panthers arrived to bolster the New York City Panther chapter after New York Twenty-one leaders were incarcerated, they displayed such chauvinistic attitudes towards New York Panther women that they had to be fended off at gunpoint. Some Party leaders thought the fight for gender equality was a threat to men and a distraction from the struggle for racial equality.

In response, the Chicago and New York chapters, among others, established equal gender rights as a priority and tried to eradicate sexist attitudes.

By the time the Black Panther Party disbanded, official policy was to reprimand men who violated the rules of gender equality.

Survival programs

Inspired by Mao Zedong's advice to revolutionaries in The Little Red Book, Newton called on the Panthers to "serve the people" and to make "survival programs" a priority within its branches. The most famous of their programs was the Free Breakfast for Children Program, initially run out of an Oakland church.

The Free Breakfast For Children program was especially significant because it served as a space for educating youth about the current condition of the Black community, and the actions that the Party was taking to progress that condition. "While the children ate their meal[s], members [of the Party] taught them liberation lessons consisting of Party messages and Black history." Through this program, the Party was able to influence young minds, and strengthen their ties to communities as well as gain widespread support for their ideologies. The breakfast program became so popular that the Panthers Party claimed to have fed twenty thousand children in the 1968-1969 school year.

Other survival programs were free services such as clothing distribution, classes on politics and economics, free medical clinics, lessons on self-defense and first aid, transportation to upstate prisons for family members of inmates, an emergency-response ambulance program, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and testing for sickle-cell disease.

Political activities

In 1968, BPP Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver ran for Presidential office on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. They were a big influence on the White Panther Party, that was tied to the Detroit/Ann Arbor band MC5 and their manager John Sinclair, author of the book Guitar Army that also promulgated a ten-point program.

1969

Chronology

• Early 1969—In late 1968 and January 1969, the BPP began to purge members due to fears about law enforcement infiltration and various petty disagreements.

• January 17, 1969—The Los Angeles chapter gets into a shootout with members of the competing US Organization, and two Panthers are killed.

• January, 1969—the Oakland BPP begins the free breakfast program for children.

• March, 1969—there is a second purge of BPP members.

• April, 1969—twenty-one members of the New York chapter are indicted and jailed for a bombing conspiracy.

• May, 1969—Two more southern California Panthers are killed in violent disputes with US Organization members.

• May 1969—members of the New Haven chapter torture and murder Alex Rackley, who they suspected of being an informant.

• July 17, 1969—two policemen are shot and a Panther is killed in a gun battle in Chicago.

• Late July, 1969—the BPP ideology undergoes a shift, with a turn toward self-discipline and anti-racism.

• August, 1969—Bobby Seale is indicted and imprisoned in relation to the Rackley murder.

• October 18, 1969—a Panther is killed in a gunfight with police outside a Los Angeles restaurant.

• mid-to-late 1969—COINTELPRO activity increases.

• November 4, 1969—Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are killed by law enforcement in Chicago.

• November 13, 1969—a Panther is killed in a gunfight with police in Chicago.

• Late 1969—David Hilliard, current BPP head, advocates violent revolution. Panther membership is down significantly from the late 1968 peak.

Shoot-out with the US Organization

Violent conflict between the Panther chapter in LA and the US Organization, a rival group, resulted in shootings and beatings, and led to the murders of at least four Black Panther Party members. On January 17, 1969, Los Angeles Panther Captain Bunchy Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins were killed in Campbell Hall on the UCLA campus, in a gun battle with members of the US Organization. Another shootout between the two groups on March 17 led to further injuries. Two more Panthers died.

Killing of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark

In Chicago, on December 4, 1969, two Panthers were killed when the Chicago Police raided the home of Panther leader Fred Hampton. The raid had been orchestrated by the police in conjunction with the FBI. Hampton was shot and killed, as was Panther guard Mark Clark. A federal investigation reported that only one shot was fired by the Panthers, and police fired at least 80 shots. Hampton was subsequently shot twice in the head at point blank range while unconscious. He was 21 years old and unarmed at the time of his murder. Coroner reports show that Hampton was drugged with a powerful barbiturate that night and all indicators point toward FBI infiltrator William O'Neal as the source of the drugging. Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, his assistant and eight Chicago police officers were indicted by a federal grand jury over the raid, but the charges were later dismissed. In 1979 civil action, Hampton's family won $1.85 million from the city of Chicago in a wrongful death settlement.

Torture-murder of Alex Rackley

In May 1969, three members of the New Haven chapter tortured and murdered Alex Rackley, a 19-year-old member of the New York chapter, because they suspected him of being a police informant. Three party officers — Warren Kimbro, George Sams, Jr., and Lonnie McLucas — later admitted taking part. Sams, who gave the order to shoot Rackley at the murder scene, turned state's evidence and testified that he had received orders personally from Bobby Seale to carry out the execution. Party supporters responded that Sams was himself the informant and an agent provocateur employed by the FBI. The case resulted in the New Haven, Connecticut Black Panther trials of 1970. Kimbro and Sams were convicted of the murder, but the trials of Seale and Huggins ended with a hung jury, and the prosecution chose not to seek another trial.

Baltimore infiltration and alleged involvement in murder of Eugene Anderson

In mid-1969, central BPP leadership visited the Baltimore chapter and found it lacking. On Oct. 27, 1969, three months after the national Black Panther Party cleaned house locally, police found the body of 20-year-old Eugene Leroy Anderson. According to testimony from informants, on July 11, 1969, Anderson was kidnapped, beaten, and tortured for two days. The informers testified that 11 Panthers and one lawyer for the Panthers were involved.

All party-members charged in the case were acquitted. Irving Ochiki Young, a Panther sympathizer, was convicted of being an accomplice in the murder, but after numerous inconsistencies in the prosecutor's case were brought to the attention of Maryland Governor Marvin Mandel, and after Young passed a lie detector claiming his innocence, Mandel granted him a pardon in 1975. University of Maryland Law Professor Larry Gibson, formerly a lawyer for the Panthers, argues that Anderson was murdered by the paid government agents (including, he claims, an agent of the National Security Agency) who infiltrated the Baltimore chapter at this time.

International ties

Activists from many countries around the globe supported the Panthers and their cause. In Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Finland, for example, left-wing activists organized a tour for Bobby Seale and Masai Hewitt in 1969. At each destination along the tour, the Panthers talked about their goals and the "Free Huey!" campaign.  Seale and Hewitt made a stop in Germany as well, gaining support for the "Free Huey!" campaign.

1970

Chronology

• January, 1970--Leonard Bernstein holds a fundraiser for the BPP, which was notoriously mocked by Tom Wolfe in Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.

• spring, 1970—the Oakland BPP engages in another ambush of police officers with guns and fragmentation bombs. Two officers are wounded.

• May, 1970—Huey Newton's conviction is overturned, but he remains incarcerated.

• July, 1970—Newton tells the New York Times that "we've never advocated violence".

• August, 1970—Newton is released from prison.

In 1970, a group of Panthers traveled through Asia and were welcomed as guests of the governments in North Vietnam, North Korea, and China. The group's first stop was in North Korea, where the Panthers met with local officials to discuss ways that they could help each other fight American imperialism. Eldridge Cleaver traveled to Pyongyang twice in 1969 and 1970, and following these trips he made an effort to publicize the writings and works of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung in the United States. After North Korea, the group traveled to North Vietnam with the same agenda in mind: finding ways to put an end to American imperialism. Eldridge Cleaver was invited to speak to Black GIs by the Northern Vietnamese government.He encouraged them to join the Black Liberation Struggle by arguing that the United States is only using them for their own purposes. Instead of risking their lives on the battlefield for a country that continues to oppress them, Cleaver believes the black GIs should risk their lives in support of their own liberation. After Vietnam, Cleaver met with the Chinese ambassador to Algeria to express their mutual animosity towards the American government.

When Algeria held its first Pan-African Cultural Festival, they invited many important figures from the United States. Among the important figures invited were Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver. The cultural festival allowed Black Panthers to network with representatives of various international anti-imperialist movements. It is at this festival where Cleaver met with the ambassador of North Korea, who later invited him to their International Conference of Revolutionary Journalists in Pyongyang. Eldridge also met Yasser Arafat, and gave a speech supporting the Palestinians and their goal of achieving freedom.

1971

Chronology

• January, 1971—Newton expels Geronimo Pratt who goes underground. Newton also expels two of the New York 21 and his own secretary, who flee the country.

• February, 1971—a fall-out between Newton and Cleaver ensues after they argue during a live broadcast link-up. Newton expels Cleaver and the entire international section from the party.

• Spring, 1971—the Newton and Cleaver factions engage in retaliatory assassinations of each other's members, resulting in the deaths of four people.

• May, 1971—Bobby Seale is acquitted of ordering the Rackley murder, and returns to Oakland.

• mid-to-late 1971—nationally, hundreds of Party members quit the BPP.

Newton focuses the BPP on the Party's Oakland school various other social service programs. In early 1971, the BPP founded the "Intercommunal Youth Institute" in January 1971, with the intent of demonstrating how black youth ought to be educated. Ericka Huggins was the director of the school and Regina Davis was an administrator. The school was unique in that it did not have grade levels but instead had different skill levels so an 11-year-old could be in second-level English and fifth-level science. Elaine Brown taught reading and writing to a group of 10- to 11-year-olds deemed "uneducable" by the system. The school children were given free busing; breakfast, lunch, and dinner; books and school supplies; children were taken to have medical checkups; many children were given free clothes.

The split

Significant disagreements among the Party's leaders over how to confront ideological differences led to a split within the party. Certain members felt the Black Panthers should participate in local government and social services, while others encouraged constant conflict with the police. For some of the Party's supporters, the separations among political action, criminal activity, social services, access to power, and grass-roots identity became confusing and contradictory as the Panthers' political momentum was bogged down in the criminal justice system. These (and other) disagreements led to a split.

Some Panther leaders, such as Huey Newton and David Hilliard, favored a focus on community service coupled with self-defense; others, such as Eldridge Cleaver, embraced a more confrontational strategy. Eldridge Cleaver deepened the schism in the party when he publicly criticized the Party for adopting a "reformist" rather than "revolutionary" agenda and called for Hilliard's removal. Cleaver was expelled from the Central Committee but went on to lead a splinter group, the Black Liberation Army, which had previously existed as an underground paramilitary wing of the Party.

The split turned violent, as the Newton and Cleaver factions carried out retaliatory assassinations of each other's members, resulting in the deaths of four people.

1972-74

Chronology

• early 1972—Newton shuts down chapters around the country, and calls the key members to Oakland.

• mid-1972—BPP members or supporters win a number of minor offices in the Oakland city elections.

• 1973—The BPP focuses nearly all of its resources on winning political power in the Oakland city government. Seale runs for mayor; Elaine Brown runs for city council. Both lose, and many Party members resign after the losses.

• early 1974—Newton embarks on a major purge, expelling Bobby and John Seale, David and June Hilliard, Robert Bay, and numerous other top party leaders. Dozens of other Panthers loyal to Seale resigned or deserted.

• August, 1974—Newton murders Kathleen Smith, a teenage prostitute. He flees to Cuba. Elaine Brown takes over the leadership in his absence.

• December, 1974—accountant Betty van Patter is murdered, after threatening to disclose irregularities in the Party's finances.

Newton solidifies control and centralizes power in Oakland

In 1972, the party began closing down dozens of chapters and branches all over the country, and bringing members and operations to Oakland. The political arm of the southern California chapter was shut down and its members moved to Oakland, although the underground military arm remained for a time. The underground remnants of the LA chapter, which had emerged from the Slausons street gang, eventually re-emerged as the Crips, a street gang who at first advocated social reform before devolving into racketeering.

The party developed a five-year plan to take over the city of Oakland politically. Bobby Seale ran for mayor, Elaine Brown ran for city council, and other Panthers ran for minor offices. Neither Seale nor Brown were elected. A few Panthers won seats on local government commissions.

Minister of Education Ray "Masai" Hewitt created the Buddha Samurai, the party's underground security cadre in Oakland. Newton expelled Hewitt from the party later in 1972, but the security cadre remained in operation under the leadership of Flores Forbes. One of the cadre's main functions was to extort and rob drug dealers and after-hours clubs.

Newton indicted for violent crimes

In 1974, Huey Newton and eight other Panthers were arrested and charged with assault on police officers. Newton went into exile in Cuba to avoid prosecution for the murder of Kathleen Smith, an eighteen-year-old prostitute. Newton was also indicted for pistol-whipping his tailor, Preston Callins. Although Newton confided to friends that Kathleen Smith was his "first nonpolitical murder", he was ultimately acquitted, after one witness's testimony was impeached by her admission that she had been smoking marijuana on the night of the murder, and another prostitute witness recanted her testimony. Newton was also acquitted of assaulting Preston Callins after Callins refused to press charges.

1974-77

The Panthers under Elaine Brown

In 1974, as Huey Newton prepared to go into exile in Cuba, he appointed Elaine Brown as the first Chairwoman of the Party. Under Brown's leadership, the Party became involved in organizing for more radical electoral campaigns, including Brown's 1975 unsuccessful run for Oakland City Council. The Party supported Lionel Wilson in his successful election as the first black mayor of Oakland, in exchange for Wilson's assistance in having criminal charges dropped against Party member Flores Forbes, leader of the Buddha Samurai cadre.

In addition to changing the Party's direction towards more involvement in the electoral arena, Brown also increased the influence of women Panthers by placing them in more visible roles within the previously male-dominated organization.

Death of Betty van Patter

Panther leader Elaine Brown hired Betty Van Patter in 1974 as a bookkeeper. Van Patter had previously served as a bookkeeper for Ramparts magazine, and was introduced to the Panther leadership by David Horowitz, who had been Ramparts editor and a major fundraiser and board member for the Panther school. Later that year, after a dispute with Brown over financial irregularities, Van Patter went missing on December 13, 1974. Some weeks later, her severely beaten corpse was found on a San Francisco Bay beach.

There was insufficient evidence for police to charge anyone with van Patter's murder, but the Black Panther Party leadership was "almost universally believed to be responsible."

Huey Newton later allegedly confessed to a friend that he had ordered Van Patter's murder, and that Van Patter had been tortured and raped before being killed.

1977-82

Return of Huey Newton and the demise of the party

In 1977, Newton returned from exile in Cuba. Shortly afterward, Elaine Brown resigned from the party and fled to LA.

Although many scholars and activists date the Party's downfall to the period before Brown became the leader, an increasingly smaller cadre of Panthers continued to exist through the 1970s. By 1980, Panther membership had dwindled to 27, and the Panther-sponsored school closed in 1982 after it became known that Newton was embezzling funds from the school to pay for his drug addiction.

Panthers attempt to assassinate a witness against Newton

In October 1977 Flores Forbes, the party's assistant chief of staff, led a botched attempt to assassinate Crystal Gray, a key prosecution witness in Newton's upcoming trial who had been present the day of Kathleen Smith's murder. Unbeknownst to the assailants, they attacked the wrong house and the occupant returned fire. During the shootout one of the Panthers, Louis Johnson, was killed and the other two assailants escaped. One of the two surviving assassins, Flores Forbes, fled to Las Vegas, Nevada, with the help of Panther paramedic Nelson Malloy. Fearing that Malloy would discover the truth behind the botched assassination attempt, Newton allegedly ordered a "house cleaning", and Malloy was shot and buried alive in the desert. Although permanently paralyzed from the waist down, Malloy recovered from the assault and told police that fellow Panthers Rollin Reid and Allen Lewis were behind his attempted murder. Newton denied any involvement or knowledge and said the events "might have been the result of overzealous party members". Newton was ultimately acquitted of the murder of Kathleen Smith, after Crystal Gray's testimony was impeached by her admission that she had smoked marijuana on the night of the murder, and acquitted of assaulting Preston Callins after Callins refused to press charges.

Aftermath and legacy

New York City Councilman Charles Barron is one of numerous former Panthers to have held elected office in the US

Later critics suggested that the Panthers' "romance with the gun" and their promotion of "gang mentality" was likely associated with the enormous increase in both black-on-black and black-on-white crime observed during later decades. This increase occurred in the Panthers' hometown of Oakland, California, and in other cities nationwide. Interviewed after he left the Black Panther Party (and after he became a conservative Christian), former Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver lamented that the legacy of the Panthers was at least partly one of disrespect for the law and indiscriminate violence. He acknowledged that, had his promotion of violent black militantism prevailed, it would have resulted in "a total bloodbath". Cleaver also lamented the abandonment of poor blacks by the black bourgeoisie and felt that black youth had been left without appropriate role models who could teach them to properly channel their militant spirit and their desire for justice.

Professor Judson L. Jeffries of Purdue University calls the Panthers “"the most effective black revolutionary organization in the 20th century." The Los Angeles Times, in a 2013 review of Black Against Empire, an "authoritative" history of the BPP published by University of California Press, call the organization a "serious political and cultural force" and "a movement of intelligent, explosive dreamers." The Black Panther Party is featured in the exhibits and curriculum of the National Civil Rights Museum.

Numerous former Panthers have held elected office in the United States, some into the 21st century; these include Charles Barron (New York City Council), Nelson Malloy (Winston-Salem City Council), and Bobby Rush (US House of Representatives). Most of these officials hold positive assessments of the BPP's overall contribution to black liberation and American democracy. In 1990, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution declaring "Fred Hampton Day" in honor of the slain leader. In Winston-Salem in 2012, a large contingent of local officials and community leaders came together to install a historic marker of the local BPP headquarters; State Representative Earline Parmone declared “[The Black Panther Pary] dared to stand up and say, ‘We’re fed up and we’re not taking it anymore...Because they had courage, today I stand as … the first African American ever to represent Forsyth County in the state Senate."

In October 2006, the Black Panther Party held a 40-year reunion in Oakland.

Black Panther 40th Reunion, 2006.

In January 2007, a joint California state and Federal task force charged eight men with the August 29, 1971, murder of California police officer Sgt. John Young. The defendants have been identified as former members of the Black Liberation Army. Two have been linked to the Black Panthers. In 1975 a similar case was dismissed when a judge ruled that police gathered evidence through the use of torture. On June 29, 2009 Herman Bell pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of Sgt. Young. In July 2009, charges were dropped against four of the accused: Ray Boudreaux, Henry W. Jones, Richard Brown and Harold Taylor. Also that month Jalil Muntaquim pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit voluntary manslaughter becoming the second person to be convicted in this case.

Since the 1990s, former Panther chief of staff David Hilliard has offered tours of sites in Oakland historically significant to the Black Panther Party.

Various groups and movements have picked names inspired by the Black Panthers:

• Gray Panthers, often used to refer to advocates for the rights of seniors (Gray Panthers in the United States, The Grays – Gray Panthers in Germany).
• Polynesian Panthers, an advocacy group for Māori people in New Zealand.
• Black Panthers, protest movement for the rights and social justice of Mizrahi Jews in Israel.
• White Panthers, used to refer to both the White Panther Party, a far-left, anti-racist, white American political party of the 1970s, as well as the White Panthers UK, an unaffiliated group started by Mick Farren.
• The Pink Panthers, used to refer to two LGBT rights organizations.

New Black Panther Party

See also: New Black Panther Party

In 1989, a group calling itself the "New Black Panther Party" was formed in Dallas, Texas. Ten years later, the NBPP became home to many former Nation of Islam members when the chairmanship was taken by Khalid Abdul Muhammad.

The Anti-Defamation League and The Southern Poverty Law Center include the New Black Panthers in lists of hate groups. The Huey Newton Foundation, former chairman and co-founder Bobby Seale, and members of the original Black Panther Party have insisted that this New Black Panther Party is illegitimate and have strongly objected that there "is no new Black Panther Party".

See also

1960s counterculture Black anarchism Black feminism Black Panther Party, Winston-Salem, North Carolina Chapter George Jackson Brigade Gun Control Act of 1968 I Wor Kuen List of former members of the Black Panther Party Mark Essex New Communist Movement New Left The Patriot Party Protests of 1968 Rainbow Coalition (Fred Hampton)

Red Guard Party (United States) Red power Rice/Poindexter Case Renault Robinson Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization) US Organization Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers Weather Underground White Panther Party World communism Young Lords

International

• Dalit Panther
• Dalit Panthers of India
• Polynesian Panthers
• Black Panthers (Israel)
• Dennis Walker

References

Reference bibliography

• Austin, Curtis J. (2006). Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party. University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 1-55728-827-5
• Alkebulan, Paul. Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007)
• Blackmon, Janiece L. (2008). I Am Because We Are: Africana Womanism as a Vehicle of Empowerment and Influence. Blacksburg: Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
• Bloom, Joshua; Martin, Jr., Waldo E. (2012). Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party. University of California Press. p. 315. ISBN 9780520953543.
• Brown, Elaine (1993). A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story. Anchor. ISBN 0-679-41944-6.
• Churchill, Ward and Vander Wall, Jim (1988). Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-294-6
• Dooley, Brian (1998). Black and Green: The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland and Black America. Pluto Press.
• Forbes, Flores A. (2006). Will You Die With Me? My Life and the Black Panther Party. Atria Books. ISBN 0-7434-8266-2
• Hilliard, David, and Cole, Lewis (1993). This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party. Little, Brown and Co. ISBN 0-316-36421-5
• Lewis, John (1998). Walking with the Wind. Simon and Schuster, p. 353. ISBN 0-684-81065-4
• Murch, Donna. Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, University of North Carolina, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8078-7113-3
• Pearson, Hugh (1994), The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America, De Capo Press. ISBN 0-201-48341-6
• Rhodes, Jane. Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon (New York: The New Press, 2007).
• Shames, Stephen. "The Black Panthers," Aperture, 2006. A photographic essay of the organization, allegedly suppressed due to Spiro Agnew's intervention in 1970.
• Swirski, Peter. "1960s The Return of the Black Panther: Irving Wallace's The Man." Ars Americana Ars Politica. Montreal, London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7735-3766-8
• Williams, Yohuru and Lazerow, Jama (eds), In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement, Duke University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8223-3890-1

External links

• Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project The largest collection of materials on any single chapter.
• BlackPanther.org official website according to the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation.
• FBI file on the BPP
• Incidents attributed to the Black Panthers at the START database

Archives

• UC Berkeley Social Activism Online Sound Recordings: The Black Panther Party
• Hartford Web Publishing collection of BPP documents
• The Black Panther Party Newspaper, Electronic Archive, Published in Black Thought and Culture, Alexander Street Press, Alexandria, VA 2005.
• Wayne Au, "'What We Want, What We Believe': Teaching with the Black Panthers' Ten Point Program", 7-page lesson plan for high school students, 2001, Zinn Education Project/Rethinking Schools.
• The Party's Over, a 1978 profile and history of the Party by New Times magazine.
• Benjamin R. Young, "'Our Common Struggle against Our Common Enemy': North Korea and the American Radical Left," NKIDP e-Dossier no. 14, Woodrow Wilson Center. An essay and selection of primary sources on the Black Panther Party's ties with North Korea in the late 1960s.