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Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxist–Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California.[8][9][10] The party was active in the United States between 1966 and 1982, with chapters in many major American cities, including San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Philadelphia.[11] They were also active in many prisons and had international chapters in the United Kingdom and Algeria.[12][13] Upon its inception, the party's core practice was its open carry patrols ("copwatching") designed to challenge the excessive force and misconduct of the Oakland Police Department. From 1969 onward, the party created social programs, including the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, education programs, and community health clinics.[14][15][16][17] The Black Panther Party advocated for class struggle, claiming to represent the proletarian vanguard.[18]

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

Black Panther Party

BPP

1966 (1966)

1982 (1982)

Oakland, California

c. 5,000 (1969)[1]

  Black

In 1969, J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), described the party as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country."[19][20][21] The FBI sabotaged the party with an illegal and covert counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, and police harassment, all designed to undermine and criminalize the party. The FBI was involved in the 1969 assassinations of Fred Hampton,[22][23] and Mark Clark, who were killed in a raid by the Chicago Police Department.[24][25][26][27] Black Panther Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police. Huey Newton allegedly killed officer John Frey in 1967, and Eldridge Cleaver (Minister of Information) led an ambush in 1968 of Oakland police officers, in which two officers were wounded and Panther treasurer Bobby Hutton was killed. The party suffered many internal conflicts, resulting in the murders of Alex Rackley and Betty Van Patter.


Government persecution initially contributed to the party's growth among African Americans and the political left, who both valued the party as a powerful force against de facto segregation and the US military draft during the Vietnam War. Party membership peaked in 1970 and gradually declined over the next decade, due to vilification by the mainstream press and infighting largely fomented by COINTELPRO.[28] Support further declined over reports of the party's alleged criminal activities, such as drug dealing and extortion.[29]


The party's history is controversial. Scholars have characterized the Black Panther Party as the most influential black power organization of the late 1960s, and "the strongest link between the domestic Black Liberation Struggle and global opponents of American imperialism".[30] Other scholars have described the party as more criminal than political, characterized by "defiant posturing over substance".[31]

Early Spring 1968: Eldridge Cleaver's published.

Soul on Ice

April 6, 1968: Death of Bobby James Hutton, killed in a gunfight with Oakland police.

[90]

April 17, 1968: Funeral for Bobby James Hutton in Berkeley, followed by a rally at the Alameda County Courthouse.

[90]

April to mid-June 1968: Cleaver in jail.

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

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

[93]

Early September 1968: Newton 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.

October 5, 1968: A Panther is killed in a gunfight with police in Los Angeles.

[93]

November 1968: The BPP finds numerous supporters, establishing relationships with the and SNCC. Money contributions flow in, and BPP leadership begins embezzlement.[94]

Peace and Freedom Party

November 6, 1968: Lauren Watson, head of the Denver chapter, is arrested by Denver Police for fleeing a police officer and resisting arrest. His trial will be filmed and televised in 1970 as

"Trial: The City and County of Denver vs. Lauren R. Watson."

November 20, 1968: and two accomplices in a van marked "Black Panther Black Community News Service" allegedly rob a gas station in San Francisco's Bayview district of $80, resulting in a shootout with police.[95]

William Lee Brent

Connections to other political activist groups

Members of the Black Panther Party, such as Huey P. Newton, also frequently collaborated with Latino activist groups, like the Brown Berets and Los Siete de la Raza. Newton himself even attended some court sessions for Los Siete de la Raza's trial in June 1970.[183]


Bobby Seale described their alliances with Los Siete as particularly important, they saw that both Black and Brown activist groups had been dealing with similar issues regarding oppression and violence in the United States.[183]

Connections to the Gay Liberation Movement

Huey Newton expressed his support for the Women's liberation movement and the Gay liberation movement in a 1970 letter published in the newspaper The Black Panther titled "A Letter from Huey to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters About the Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements".[184] Written one year after the Stonewall riots, Newton acknowledged women and homosexuals as oppressed groups and urged the Black Panthers to "unite with them in a revolutionary fashion".[185] The Black Panther Party and the Gay Liberation Movement shared common ground in their fight against police brutality.[186]

an all-black activist group in Chicago, was founded in 2015 by Page May; the group is named after Black Panther Assata Shakur and has objectives similar to the Black Panthers' 10-Point Program.[200]

Assata's Daughters

Gray Panthers often used to refer to advocates for the rights of seniors ( in the United States, The Grays – Gray Panthers in Germany).

Gray Panthers

an advocacy group for Māori and Pasifika people in New Zealand.

Polynesian Panthers

a protest movement that advocates social justice and fights for the rights of Mizrahi Jews in Israel.

Black Panthers

White Panthers, used to refer to both the , 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.

White Panther Party

used to refer to two LGBT rights organizations.

The Pink Panthers

an Indian social reform movement, which fights against caste oppression in Indian society.

Dalit Panthers of India

(formerly known as the "Dalit Panthers Movement" and "Dalit Panthers of India"), modelled after the Dalit Panthers, now a political party in India.

Liberation Panther Party

The movement, which flourished in London in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was not affiliated with the American organization although it fought for many of the same rights.[201][202]

British Black Panther

The French Black Dragons, a black group closely linked to the punk rock and rockabilly scene.

antifascist

The

Young Lords

named after the Black Panther Party's founder.

Huey P. Newton Gun Club

Memphis Black Autonomy Federation

In popular media

The Black Panther Party briefly appeared in 1994's Forrest Gump.[206]


Aaron Sorkin's 2020 Netflix film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, features the Chicago Seven trial and Bobby Seale, who is portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.


The 2021 film Judas and the Black Messiah, starring Daniel Kaluuya, tells the story of Fred Hampton and his Chicago chapter.


The 2021 graphic novel The Black Panther Party by David F. Walker is a collection of biographies of fifteen Black Panther leaders.[207]

Malloy, Sean L. (2017). Out of Oakland: Black Panther Party Internationalism during the Cold War. Cornell University Press.  978-1501713422.

ISBN

. Independent Lens. PBS. Retrieved October 6, 2016.

"The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution | Documentary about Black Panther Party"

Shih, Bryan; Yohuru Williams (2016). The Black Panthers: Portraits from an Unfinished Revolution. Bold Type Books.  978-1568585550.

ISBN

Whitaker, Mark (2023). Saying It Loud: 1966 – The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Simon & Schuster.  9781982114121. OCLC 1365769400.

ISBN

The largest collection of materials on any single chapter.

Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project

tracks the geography of the BPP, including offices, facilities, and locations of key events in six cities.

Mapping American Social Movements: Mapping the Black Panther Party in Key Cities

according to the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation.

Official website

Incidents attributed to the Black Panthers at the START database

Young Lords in Lincoln Park

—Contains FBI Files on BPP members, information on destroyed BPP FBI files, and inventories of BPP FBI files held by the National Archives

FBI Docs

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.

a 1978 profile and history of the Party by New Times magazine.

The Party's Over

An essay and selection of primary sources on the Black Panther Party's ties with North Korea in the late 1960s.

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.

at marxists.org

The Black Panther Party Archive