PANTHER PARTY

(Prints and Photographs Division/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. )

Words by Chanel Trezise

The Black Panther Party, formed in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, was a Marxist revolutionary group that, provided, assistance and direct mutual aid to the urban black communities of Oakland. Originally coined the Black Panther Party of Self-Defense, the party strived to raise the political consciousness of poor communities by meeting their needs, informing them of their realities, and subsequently helping them find the keys to their shackles. Seale and Newton knew that they needed to address the state violence perpetuated on their communities and consequently, they began ‘policing the police’. The Panthers followed police in urban black neighbours around Oakland carrying both arms and the power of the law as they informed citizens of their rights. However, despite later being coined as terrorists and “...the greatest threat to the internal security of the nation” by FBI’s Chief Edgar Hoover in 1969, the BPP championed the civil rights movement and provided one of the best examples of direct mutual aid I think the western world has ever seen.

In 1966, 35% of POC families were poor compared to only 15% of white families. Unsurprisingly, 60% of POC women were also in poverty. When the US government not only failed to provide poor black and white communities basic necessities, jobs and education, they also (and stil do)

systematically, legislatively and culturally oppressed black people.

The BPP provided free services, hope and a way of being that elevated its communities to be rich in a way that the white elite never could; through connected values of collectivism, kindness, and empowerment. The BPP helped and listened to the communities that deserved better than the cycles of poverty entwined in the impossible American dream.

The Panthers understood something very important though; they understood that the US’s capitalist system benefited few and disproportionately harmed black communities. However, they also knew that this was the intent of the system, to use itself as a perpetrator and a justifier of ingrained racism, poverty and generations of bleeding, starving communities.

As Bobby Seale stated, “Racism and ethnic differences allow the power structure to exploit the masses of workers in this country, because that’s the key by which they maintain their control.

To divide the people and conquer them is the objective of the power structure. It’s the ruling class, the very small minority, the few avaricious, demagogic hogs and rats who control and infest the government.”

In 1969, at the St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in West Oakland, California, the Black Panther Party launched one of its first ‘Survival Programs’ and called it the ‘Free Breakfast for School Children.’

The ‘Free Breakfast for School Children’ program was one of the most successful programs conducted by the BPP, in its peak, it served breakfast to 10,000 children a day. The program incidentally witnessed a rise in academic performance and liveliness within the children of the communities it served. The BPP’s ‘Free Breakfast Program for Children’ brought together communities, businesses, schools and churches to donate, assist, cook, clean, socialise and nourish the health and wellbeing of their children and their neighbour’s children. While serving its community in this way, the party acknowledged the Government’s use of hunger in perpetuating systematic oppression and white privilege, thus, they responded by politicising and feeding the hungry. The free breakfast program was not a standalone social program for the Panthers though, throughout the Party’s chapter, they implemented 36 ‘survival programs.’

In 1968 the Party opened up its first ‘People’s Free Medical Centre’ (PFMC), which provided free healthcare to Black communities who would otherwise face discrimination in mainstream medical practices. In 1970, 10 other centres were opened when PFMC’s were mandated for each chapter of the Party. Further, the BPP introduced medical research facilities for Black communities,

(Howard L. Bingham, Black Panther Rally #7, DeFremery Park, Oakland)

particularly regarding Sickle Cell Anemia, a condition that disproportionately affects black populations. The BPP also introduced Liberation Schools, one of which, Oakland Community School, expanded its curriculum to inform children not only about math, science and writing but about class disparities and the injustices of the world not traditionally taught in schools. For instance, in some classes children practiced penning by writing letters to prison inmates.

Despite the triumphs and good that the BPP achieved, they were not without controversy. As their popularity and reputation grew, the Panther’s survival and defence falsely became synonymous with terrorism. The Party was more often than not met with police and FBI agents who shot bullets through communities desperate to survive.

For the white public and government, it became so easy to slander the Panthers as violent without considering that their rise did not come out of a vacuum. No, the Panthers and their survival was not out of a vacuum, the Panther’s actions were the just reaction to hundreds of years of slavery, mistreatments, violence and genocide which the Western world’s vicious capitalism used to keep families begging, hungry and bleeding.

sources

Hilliard, D 2008, The Black Panther Party service to the people programs, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

Seale, B 1970, Seize the time : the story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton, Hutchinson, London.