Old page wikitext, before the edit (old_wikitext) | '{{redirect|Black Panthers|other uses|Black Panthers (disambiguation)}}
{{distinguish|text=the [[New Black Panther Party]] or the [[New Afrikan Black Panther Party]]}}
{{pp-protect|small=yes}}
{{too few opinions|date=July 2016}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2012}}
{{Infobox political party
|name=Black Panther Party
|logo=Bpp logo.PNG
|colorcode={{Black Panther Party/meta/color}}
|leader=[[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]]
|foundation={{Start date and age|1966}}
|dissolution={{End date|1982}}
|ideology={{Plainlist|
*[[Anti-fascism]]
*[[Anti-imperialism]]
*[[Anti-racism]]
*[[Black nationalism]] (later renounced)
*[[Maoism]]
*[[Marxism–Leninism]]
*[[Revolutionary socialism]]
}}
|position=[[Far-left politics|Far-left]]
}}
{{Black Power sidebar}}
The '''Black Panther Party''' ('''BPP'''), originally the '''Black Panther Party for Self-Defense''', was a political organization founded by [[Bobby Seale]] and [[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]] in October 1966.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America|last=Joseph|first=Peniel|authorlink=Peniel E. Joseph|publisher=Henry Holt|year=2006|isbn=|location=|page=219}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975|last=Van Deburg|first=William L.|authorlink=William L. Van Deburg|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=|isbn=|location=|page=155}}</ref> The party was active in the [[United States]] from 1966 until 1982, with international chapters operating in the [[United Kingdom]] in the early 1970s,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/27/britain-black-power-movement-risk-forgotten-historians|title=Britain's black power movement is at risk of being forgotten, say historians|last=Brown|first=Mark|date=27 December 2013|work=The Guardian|accessdate=2 January 2017}}</ref> and in [[Algeria]] from 1969 until 1972.<ref>{{Citation|last=Meghelli|first=Samir|contribution="From Harlem to Algiers: Transnational Solidarities Between the African American Freedom Movement and Algeria, 1962-1978"|title=Black Routes to Islam|editor-last=Marable|editor-first=Manning|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2009|pages=99–119.}}</ref>
At its inception on October 15, 1966,<ref name="founded oct 15">{{Cite news|title=October 15, 1966: The Black Panther Party Is Founded|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/october-15-1966-the-black-panther-party-is-founded/|newspaper=The Nation|access-date=2015-12-15|issn=0027-8378}}</ref> the Black Panther Party's core practice was its armed citizens' patrols to monitor the behavior of officers of the [[Oakland Police Department]] and challenge [[police brutality]] in [[Oakland, California]]. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity of party members.<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006}}; {{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|}}; {{harvnb|March|2010}}; {{harvnb|Joseph|2006}}</ref> The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the [[Free Breakfast for Children]] Programs, and community health clinics to address issues like [[Food Justice|food injustice]].<ref name="Pearson">{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=152}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|loc=chapter 7}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title = Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination.|last=Nelson|first=Alondra|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|year=2011|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref> The party enrolled the most members and made the greatest impact in the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area, [[New York City|New York]], [[Chicago]], [[Los Angeles]], [[Seattle]], and [[Philadelphia]].<ref name="depts.washington.edu">{{cite web|title=Mapping the Black Panther Party in Key Cities|url=http://depts.washington.edu/moves/BPP_map-cities.shtml|website=Mapping American Social Movements}}</ref>
[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] Director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] called the party "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country",<ref>{{cite web |title=Hoover and the F.B.I.|url=https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/people/people_hoover.html|work=Luna Ray Films, LLC|publisher=PBS.org|accessdate=January 24, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Hoover Calls Panthers Top Threat to Security|url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/147638465|accessdate=9 February 2017|work=The Washington Post|publisher=WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post|date=16 July 1969}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Panthers 'threaten' U.S., Hoover says|url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/532216174|accessdate=9 February 2017|work=Afro-American|publisher=Afro - American Company of Baltimore City|date=Jul 26, 1969}}</ref> and he supervised an extensive counterintelligence program ([[COINTELPRO]]) of [[surveillance]], [[Entryism|infiltration]], [[perjury]], [[Police misconduct|police harassment]], 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. The program was also accused of assassinating Black Panther members.<ref>''Final report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, [https://archive.org/stream/finalreportofsel03unit#page/184/mode/2up United States Senate''.]</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972|last=O'Reilly|first=Kenneth|publisher=Free Press|year=|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States|last=Churchill and Vander Wall|first=|publisher=South End Press|year=2002|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther|last=Haas|first=Jeffrey|publisher=Chicago Review Press|year=2010|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref>
Black Panther Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police including [[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]] allegedly killing officer John Frey in 1967 and the 1968 [[Eldridge Cleaver]] led ambush of Oakland police officers which wounded two officers and killed Panther Bobby Hutton. The party was also involved in many internal conflicts including the murders of [[Alex Rackley]] and [[Murder of Betty Van Patter|Betty Van Patter]].
Government oppression initially contributed to the party's growth, as killings and arrests of Panthers increased its support among [[African Americans]] and on the broad political left, both of whom valued the Panthers as a powerful force opposed to [[Racial segregation in the United States|de facto segregation]] and the [[Conscription in the United States|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. After being vilified by the mainstream press, public support for the party waned, and the group became more isolated.<ref>{{harvnb|Barker|2015}}</ref> In-fighting among Party leadership, caused largely by the FBI's [[COINTELPRO]] operation, led to expulsions and defections that decimated the membership.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|loc=conclusion}}</ref> 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.<ref>[[Philip Foner]], ''The Black Panthers Speak'', Da Capo Press, 2002.</ref> By 1972 most Panther activity centered on the national headquarters and a school in Oakland, where the party continued to influence local politics. Though under constant police surveillance, the Chicago chapter remained active and maintained their community programs until 1974.<ref name="depts.washington.edu"/> The Seattle chapter lasted longer than most, with a breakfast program and medical clinics that continued even after the chapter disbanded in 1977.<ref name="depts.washington.edu"/> Party contractions continued throughout the 1970s, and by 1980, the Black Panther Party had just 27 members.<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|p=331}}</ref>
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".<ref name=":2">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=3}}</ref> Other commentators have described the Party as more criminal than political, characterized by "defiant posturing over substance".<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=340}}</ref>
==History==
===Origins===
[[File:Black-Panther-Party-founders-newton-seale-forte-howard-hutton.jpg|thumb|300px|Original six members of the Black Panther Party (1966)<br/>
Top left to right: [[Elbert Howard|Elbert "Big Man" Howard]], [[Huey P. Newton]] (Defense Minister), Sherwin Forte, [[Bobby Seale]] (Chairman)<br/>
Bottom: [[Reggie Forte]] and [[Bobby Hutton|Little Bobby Hutton]] (Treasurer).]]
[[File:Black Panther 65-27 HD 2Mbps.webm|thumb|right|300px|Newsreel in which [[Kathleen Cleaver]] spoke at Hutton Memorial Park in Alameda County, California. The footage also shows a student protest demonstration at Alameda County Courthouse, [[Oakland, California]]. Black Panther Party leaders [[Huey P. Newton]], [[Eldridge Cleaver]], and [[Bobby Seale]] spoke on a 10-point program they wanted from the administration which was to include full employment, decent housing and education, an end to police brutality, and blacks to be exempt from the military. Black Panther Party members are shown as they marched in uniform. Students at rally marched, sang, clapped hands, and carried protest signs. Police in riot gear controlled marchers.]]
The sweeping migration of black families out of the South during [[World War II]] transformed Oakland and cities throughout the West and the North.<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|p=4}}</ref> A new generation of young blacks growing up in these cities faced new conditions, new forms of poverty and racism unfamiliar to their parents, and they sought to develop new forms of politics to address them.<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|p=5}}</ref> Black Panther Party membership "consisted of recent migrants whose families traveled north and west to escape the southern racial regime, only to be confronted with new forms of segregation and repression".<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|p=6}}</ref> In the early 1960s, the insurgent [[Civil rights movement|Civil Rights Movement]] had dismantled the [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]] system of racial caste subordination using the tactics of [[Pacifism|non-violent civil disobedience]], and demanding full citizenship rights for black people.<ref name="Bloom and Martin, 2013, p. 11">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=11}}</ref> But not much changed in the cities of the North and West. As the wartime jobs which drew much of the black migration "fled to the suburbs along with white residents", the black population was concentrated in poor "urban ghettos" with high unemployment, and substandard housing, mostly excluded from political representation, top universities, and the middle class.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=11–12}}</ref> Police departments were almost all white.<ref name="Bloom and Martin 2013 p.12">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=12}}</ref> In 1966, only 16 of Oakland's 661 police officers were African American,<ref>McElrath, Jessica. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070407155740/http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/blackpanthers/a/blackpanthers.htm The Black Panthers]. afroamhistory.about.com. Retrieved June 25, 2016.</ref> representing less than 2.5% of the force.
Insurgent civil rights practices proved incapable of redressing these conditions, and the organizations that had "led much of the nonviolent civil disobedience" such as [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]] and [[Congress of Racial Equality|CORE]] went into decline.<ref name="Bloom and Martin, 2013, p. 11"/> By 1966 a "Black Power ferment" emerged, consisting largely of young urban blacks, posing a question the Civil Rights Movement could not answer: "how would black people in America win not only formal citizenship rights, but actual economic and political power?"<ref name="Bloom and Martin 2013 p.12"/> Young black people in Oakland and other cities developed a rich ferment of study groups and political organizations, and it is out of this ferment that the Black Panther Party emerged.<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|pp=5–7}}</ref>
In late October 1966, [[Huey P. Newton]] and [[Bobby Seale]] founded the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). In formulating a new politics, they drew on their experiences working with a variety of Black Power organizations.<ref>{{harvnb|Seale|1970|loc=part I}}; {{harvnb|Newton|1973|loc=parts 2-3}}; {{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|loc=chapter 1}}; {{harvnb|Murch|2010|loc=part II and chapter 5}}</ref> Newton and Seale first met in 1962 when they were both students at [[Merritt College]].<ref>{{harvnb|Seale|1970|p=13}}</ref> They joined Donald Warden's Afro-American Association, where they read widely, debated, and organized in an emergent black nationalist tradition inspired by [[Malcolm X]] and others.<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|loc=chapter 3}}</ref> Eventually dissatisfied with Warden's accommodation-ism, they developed a revolutionary anti-imperialist perspective working with more active and militant groups like the Soul Students Advisory Council and the [[Revolutionary Action Movement]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20141006105851/http://kasamaproject.org/race-liberation/2005-37black-like-mao-red-china-black-revolution-part-2 Robin D. G. Kelley "Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution"], ''Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics'', Vol. 1, No. 4, Fall 1999 (Columbia University Press).</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=30–36}}</ref> While bringing in a paycheck, jobs running youth service programs at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center allowed them to develop a revolutionary nationalist approach to community service, later a key element in the Black Panther Party's "community survival programs."<ref>{{harvnb|Seale|1970|loc=chapters 6–7}}</ref>
Dissatisfied with the failure of these organizations to directly challenge police brutality and appeal to the "brothers on the block", Huey and Bobby sought to take matters into their own hands. After the police killed Matthew Johnson, an unarmed young black man in San Francisco, Newton observed the violent rebellion that followed. He had an epiphany that would distinguish the Black Panther Party from the multitude of organizations seeking to build Black Power. Newton saw the explosive rebellious anger of the ghetto as a force, and believed that if he could stand up to the police, he could organize that force into political power. Inspired by [[Robert F. Williams]]' armed resistance to the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK) and Williams' book ''[[Negroes with Guns]]'',<ref>[http://wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/negroes-guns "Negroes With Guns-Description"], Wayne State University Press website.</ref> Newton studied [[gun laws in California]] until he knew it better than many police officers. Like the Community Alert Patrol in Los Angeles after the [[Watts riots|Watts Rebellion]], he decided to organize patrols to follow the police around to monitor for incidents of brutality. But with a crucial difference: his patrols would carry loaded guns.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=30–39}}</ref> Huey and Bobby raised enough money to buy two shotguns by buying bulk quantities of the recently publicized [[Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung|Little Red Book]] and reselling them to leftist radicals and liberal intellectuals on the [[University of California, Berkeley|UC Berkeley]] campus at three times the price. According to Bobby Seale, they would "sell the books, make the money, buy the guns, and go on the streets with the guns. We'll protect a mother, protect a brother, and protect the community from the racist cops."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Seale|first1=Bobby|title=Seize the Time: The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton|isbn=0-933121-30-X|pages=79–83}}</ref>
On October 29, 1966, [[Stokely Carmichael]] – a leader of SNCC – championed the call for "[[Black Power]]" and came to [[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] to keynote a Black Power conference. At the time, he was promoting the armed organizing efforts of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) in Alabama and their use of the Black Panther symbol. Newton and Seale decided to adopt the Black Panther logo and form their own organization called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=39–44}}</ref> Newton and Seale decided on a uniform of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets.<ref name="Pearson 109">{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=109}}</ref> Sixteen-year-old [[Bobby Hutton]] was their first recruit.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9015498/Black-Panther-Party|title=Black Panther Party|accessdate=March 27, 2008|date=|publisher=''Encyclopædia Britannica''}}</ref>
===Late 1966 to early 1967===
====Chronology====
[[File:Black-Panther-Party-armed-guards-in-street-shotguns.jpg|thumb|Black Panther Party founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton standing in the street, armed with a Colt .45 and a shotgun.]]
*October 15, 1966: The BPP is founded. A few months later, they began their first "police" patrols.<ref name="founded oct 15"/>
*January 1967: The BPP opens its first official headquarters in an Oakland storefront, and published the first issue of ''[[The Black Panther (newspaper)|The Black Panther: Black Community News Service]]''.
*February 1967: BPP members serve as [[bodyguard|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 contemporary [[Open carry in the United States|open-carry 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 police cars around neighborhoods.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=45}}</ref> 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 violated their constitutional rights.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=46}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=48}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":1">''Black Panther Newspaper'', May 15, 1967, p. 3; {{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=71–72}}</ref>
The Black Panther Party's focus on militancy was often construed as open hostility,<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|pp=x-xxiii}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=108–120}}</ref> feeding a reputation of violence even though early efforts by the Panthers focused primarily on promoting social issues and the exercise of their legal right to carry arms. 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.<ref name="Pearson 109" /> Generally this was done while monitoring and observing police behavior in their neighborhoods, with the Panthers arguing that this emphasis on active militancy and openly carrying their weapons was necessary to protect individuals from police violence. For example, chants like "The Revolution has come, it's time to pick up the gun. Off the pigs!",<ref>{{cite book|title=The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s|page=207 |author=David Farber}}</ref> helped create the Panthers' reputation as a violent organization.
====Rallies in Richmond, California====
The black community of [[Richmond, California]], wanted protection against police brutality.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=51}}</ref> With only three main streets for entering and exiting the neighborhood, it was easy for police to control, contain, and suppress the majority African-American community.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=52}}</ref> On April 1, 1967, a black, unarmed twenty-two-year-old construction worker named Denzil Dowell was shot dead by police in North Richmond.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=50}}</ref> Dowell's family contacted the Black Panther Party for assistance after county officials refused to investigate the case.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=52–53}}</ref> The Party held rallies in North Richmond that educated the community on armed self-defense and the Denzil Dowell incident.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=54–55}}</ref> Police seldom interfered at these rallies because every Panther was armed and no laws were broken.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=55}}</ref> The Party's ideals resonated with several community members, who then brought their own guns to the next rallies.<ref name="Bloom, Joshua 2013. p. 57">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=57}}</ref>
====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. [[Eldridge 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=129}}</ref>
[[File:Black Panther convention2.jpg|thumb|Black Panther convention, [[Lincoln Memorial]], June 19, 1970.]]
<blockquote>In May 1967, the Panthers invaded the [[California State Assembly|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 P. Newton|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 ...<ref>{{cite news|title=Black Panthers: A Taut, Violent Drama|date=July 21, 1968|work=[[St. Petersburg Times]]<!--dead URL:|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ix0MAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0FwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7188,187226 -->}}</ref></blockquote>
====Ten-point program====
{{Main|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 Black Panther]]'' newspaper.<ref name=":1"/> The original ten points of "What We Want Now!" follow:
#We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
#We want full employment for our people.
#We want an end to the robbery by the Capitalists of our Black Community.
#We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
#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.
#We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
#We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
#We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
#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.
#We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.
===Late 1967 to early 1968<!--This section is in need of extensive development and revision.-->===
====Chronology====
*July 1967: the [[United Front Against Fascism]] conference is held in Oakland.
*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 allegedly 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 (book)|Soul on Ice]]'' is published.
*April 4, 1968: [[Martin Luther King Jr.|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.
====United Front Against Fascism====
In July 1969 the BPP organized the [[United Front Against Fascism]] conference in Oakland, which was attended by around 5,000 people representing a number of groups.{{sfn|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=300}}<ref name=spencer>{{cite web|url=https://dukeupress.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/the-black-panther-party-and-black-anti-fascism-in-the-united-states/|title=The Black Panther Party and Black Anti-fascism in the United States|date=January 26, 2017|accessdate=July 28, 2018|first=Robyn C.|last=Spencer|publisher=[[Duke University Press]]}}</ref>
====COINTELPRO====
[[File:COINTELPRO - Jean Seberg.jpg|thumb|[[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".]]
<!--This treatment is ok, but a bit eccentric. Needs significant revision.-->
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".<ref>Stohl, 249.</ref> By 1969, the Black Panthers and their allies had become primary COINTELPRO targets, singled out in 233 of the 295 authorized "[[Black nationalism|Black Nationalist]]" COINTELPRO actions.<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/actions_cointelpro.html "COINTELPRO" A Huey P. Newton Story], Public Broadcasting System website.</ref> 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 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 [[Almighty Black P. Stone Nation|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 black nationalist 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 the two groups.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/Chapter_History/BPP_Pieces_of_History.html|title=Black Panther Party Pieces of History: 1966–1969|publisher=Itsabouttimebpp.com|accessdate=August 27, 2010}}</ref>
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".<ref name=":0"/> 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".<ref name=":0"/><ref>[http://www.civilrightsteaching.org/Handouts/BPPhandout.pdf "History of the Black Panther Party, Part Two" Civilrightsteaching.org/Teaching for Change.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141031024002/http://www.civilrightsteaching.org/Handouts/BPPhandout.pdf |date=October 31, 2014 }}</ref>
====Huey Newton charged with murdering John Frey====
<!--More background is needed here on the state of the Party in late October, and the ideological and political developments following the passage of the Mulford Act in May after the Party's patrols were outlawed, and the way these changes set the stage for the Free Huey campaign.-->
On October 28, 1967,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.odmp.org/officer/5125-police-officer-john-f-frey|title=Police Officer John F. Frey|author=|date=|work=The Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP)|accessdate=September 12, 2015}}</ref> [[Oakland Police Department|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, but the conviction was later overturned. In his book ''Shadow of the Panther,'' writer Hugh Pearson alleges that Newton, while intoxicated in the hours before he was shot and killed, claimed to have willfully killed John Frey.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=7, 221}}</ref>
====Free Huey! campaign====
<!--This Section Needs Serious Revision-->
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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=3}}</ref> Newton was released after three years, when his conviction was reversed on appeal.<ref>December 15, 1971. "Case Against Newton Dropped". ''The Dispatch'' (Lexington, North Carolina) via UPI. Retrieved August 5, 2012.</ref>
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".<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=110}}</ref> The "Free Huey" campaign attracted black power organizations, New Left groups, and other activist groups such as the [[Progressive Labor Party (United States)|Progressive Labor Party]], [[Bob Avakian]] of the Community for New Politics, and the Red Guard.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=104}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=107}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=109}}</ref>
====Founding of the L.A. Chapter====
<!--This section needs serious development-->
In 1968 the southern California chapter was founded by [[Bunchy Carter|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.<ref>Gerald Horne, ''Fire this Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s'', University of Virginia Press, 1995.</ref>
====Killing of Bobby Hutton====
<!--This section is in need of serious development and revision-->
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.<ref>Kate Coleman, 1980, [http://colemantruth.net/kate1.pdf "Souled Out: Eldridge Cleaver Admits He Ambushed Those Cops"]. ''New West Magazine''.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|p=166}}</ref><ref>David Hilliard, This Side of Glory</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/ecleaver.html|title=Interview With Eldridge Cleaver; The Two Nations Of Black America|work=[[PBS]]|accessdate=30 March 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Epstein|first=Edward Jay|title=The Black Panthers and the Police: A Pattern of Genocide?|newspaper=[[The New Yorker]]|date=February 13, 1971|page=4|url=http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/archived/panthers4.htm|accessdate= June 8, 2007}}</ref> Seven other Panthers, including chief of staff David Hilliard, were also arrested. Hutton's death became a rallying issue for Panther supporters.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=152–158}}</ref>
===Late 1968===
====Chronology====
*April to mid-June 1968: Cleaver is in jail.
*Mid-July 1968: Huey Newton's murder trial commences. Panthers hold "Free Huey" rallies outside the courthouse daily.
*August 5, 1968: Three Panthers were killed in a gun battle with police at a Los Angeles gas station.<ref name="Epstein, 1971">{{cite news | first = Edward Jay |last = Epstein | title = The Black Panthers and the Police: A Pattern of Genocide? | newspaper = New Yorker | date = February 13, 1971 }}</ref>
*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.
*October 5, 1968: a Panther is killed in a gunfight with police in Los Angeles.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*November 1968: the BPP finds numerous supporters, establishing relationships with the [[Peace and Freedom Party]] and [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]]. Monetary contributions are flowing in, and BPP leadership begins embezzling donated funds.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=185, 191}}</ref>
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".<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=175}}</ref>
By 1968, the party had expanded into many cities throughout the United States, among them, [[Atlanta]], [[Baltimore]], [[Boston]], [[Chicago]], [[Cleveland]], [[Dallas]], [[Denver]], [[Detroit]], [[Kansas City, Missouri|Kansas City]], [[Los Angeles]], [[Newark, New Jersey|Newark]], [[New Orleans]], [[New York City]], [[Omaha, Nebraska|Omaha]], [[Philadelphia]], [[Pittsburgh]], [[San Diego]], [[San Francisco]], [[Seattle]], [[Toledo, Ohio|Toledo]], and [[Washington, D.C.]] Peak membership was near 5,000 by 1969, and [[The Black Panther (newspaper)|their newspaper]], under the editorial leadership of [[Eldridge Cleaver]], had a circulation of 250,000.<ref name="Black studies">{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Black Studies|last=Asante|first=Molefi K.|year=2005|publisher=Sage Publications Inc.|isbn=0-7619-2762-X|pages=135–137}}</ref> 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 in the United States|conscription]] for black men, among other demands.<ref>{{cite web|last=Newton|first=Huey|title=The Ten-Point Program|work=War Against the Panthers|publisher=Marxist.org|date=October 15, 1966|url=http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/1966/10/15.htm|accessdate=June 5, 2006}}</ref> With the Ten-Point program, "What We Want, What We Believe", the Black Panther Party expressed its economic and political grievances.<ref>{{harvnb|Lazerow|Williams|2006|p=46}}</ref>
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":
<blockquote>[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.<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|p=170}}</ref></blockquote>
Panther slogans and iconography spread. At the [[1968 Summer Olympics]], [[Tommie Smith]] and [[John Carlos]], two American medalists, gave the [[1968 Olympics Black Power salute|black power salute]] during the playing of the American national anthem. The [[International Olympic Committee]] banned them from the Olympic Games for life. Film star [[Jane Fonda]] publicly supported Huey Newton and the Black Panthers during the early 1970s. She actually ended up informally adopting the daughter of two Black Panther members, [[Mary Williams (activist)|Mary Luana Williams]]. Fonda 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)|Ramparts]]'' magazine editor [[David Horowitz]] (who later became a major critic of what he describes as Panther criminality)<ref>{{cite news|url=http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=22186|title=Black Murder Inc|last=Horowitz|first=David|date=13 December 1999|work=[[FrontPage Magazine]]|accessdate=31 March 2014|archive-url=https://archive.is/20120701134234/http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=22186|archive-date=July 1, 2012|dead-url=yes|df=mdy-all}}</ref> and left-wing lawyer [[Charles Garry|Charles R. Garry]], who acted as counsel in the Panthers' many legal battles.
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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/27-important-facts-everyone-should-know-about-the-black-panthers_us_56c4d853e4b08ffac1276462|title=27 Important Facts Everyone Should Know About The Black Panthers|last=Editor|first=Lilly Workneh Black Voices Senior|last2=Editor|first2=The Huffington Post Taryn Finley Black Voices Associate|date=2016-02-18|website=The Huffington Post|access-date=2017-02-07|last3=Post|first3=The Huffington}}</ref>
By the end of the year, party membership peaked at around 2,000.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=173, 176}}</ref> Party members engaged 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=186–187, 191}}</ref>
====Survival programs====
Inspired by [[Mao Zedong]]'s advice to revolutionaries in ''[[Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung|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|Free Breakfast for Children Program]], initially run out of an [[Oakland, California|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 address that condition. "While the children ate their meal[s], members [of the Party] taught them liberation lessons consisting of Party messages and Black history."<ref name=":0">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=186}}</ref> 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 1968-69 school year.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=184}}</ref>
Other survival programs<ref>[https://web.stanford.edu/group/blackpanthers/programs.shtml Black Panther Party Community Programs 1966 - 1982]</ref> 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|sickle-cell disease]].<ref name=westneat>{{cite news|url=http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002270461_danny11.html|title=Reunion of Black Panthers stirs memories of aggression, activism|last=Westneat|first=Danny|date=11 May 2005|work=[[Seattle Times]]|accessdate=31 March 2014|deadurl=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131106035921/http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002270461_danny11.html|archivedate=November 6, 2013|df=mdy-all}}</ref>
====Political activities====
In 1968, BPP Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver ran for Presidential office on the [[Peace and Freedom Party]] ticket.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/02/news/mn-45607|title=Former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver Dies at 62|author=|date=|work=latimes|accessdate=September 12, 2015}}</ref> 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 (poet)|John Sinclair]], author of the book ''Guitar Army'' that also promulgated a ten-point program.{{who|date=July 2015}}
===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 14, 1969: The Los Angeles chapter was involved in a shootout with members of the black nationalist [[US Organization]], and two Panthers are killed.
*January 1969: The Oakland BPP begins the first 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.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*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.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*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.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*Mid-to-late 1969: COINTELPRO activity increases.
*November 13, 1969: A Panther is killed in a gunfight with police in Chicago.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*December 4, 1969: Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are killed by law enforcement in Chicago.<ref name="depts.washington.edu"/>
*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 black nationalist 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 [[University of California, Los Angeles|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.
====Black Panther Party Liberation Schools====
Paramount to their beliefs regarding the need for individual agency in order to catalyze community change, the Black Panther Party (BPP) strongly supported the education of the masses. As part of their [[Ten-Point Program]] which set forth the ideals and goals of the party, they demanded an equitable education for all black people. Number 5 of the "What We Want Now!" section of the program reads: "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." In order to ensure that this occurred, the Black Panther Party took the education of their youth in their own hands by first establishing after-school programs and then opening up Liberation Schools in a variety of locations throughout the country which focused their curriculum on Black history, writing skills, and political science.<ref name="autogenerated221">Wahad, D. B., Abu-Jamal, M., Shakur, A., Fletcher, J., Jones, T., & Lotringer, S. (1993). Still Black, still strong: Survivors of the U.S. war against Black revolutionaries. Semiotexte. pp. 221-242</ref>
'''Intercommunal Youth Institute'''
The first Liberation School was opened by the Richmond Black Panthers in July 1969 with brunch served and snacks provided to students. Another school was opened in Mt. Vernon New York on July 17 of the subsequent year.<ref name="autogenerated221"/> These schools were informal in nature and more closely resembled after-school or summer programs.<ref name="autogenerated171">Murch, D. J. (2010). "Living for the city: Migration, education, and the rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California". pp. 171-185</ref> While these campuses were the first to open, the first full-time and longest-running Liberation school was opened in January 1971 in Oakland in response to the inequitable conditions in the Oakland Unified School District which was ranked one of the lowest scoring districts in California.<ref name="autogenerated168">Woodard, K., Theoharis, J., & Gore, D. F. (2009). Want to start a revolution?: Radical women in the black freedom struggle. New York University Press. pp. 168-181</ref> Named the Intercommunal Youth Institute (IYI), this school, under the directorship of Brenda Bay, and later, [[Ericka Huggins]], enrolled twenty-eight students in its first year, with the majority being the children of Black Panther parents. This number grew to fifty by the 1973-1974 school year. In order to provide full support for Black Panther parents whose time was spent organizing, some of the students and faculty members lived together year around. The school itself was dissimilar to traditional schools in a variety of ways including the fact that students were separated by academic performance rather than age and students were often provided one on one support as the faculty to student ratio was 1:10.<ref name="autogenerated168"/>
The Panther's goal in opening Liberation Schools, and specifically the Intercommunal Youth Institute, was to provide students with an education that wasn't being provided in the "white" schools,<ref name="autogenerated3">Programs. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://nhdblackpantherparty.weebly.com/programs.html</ref> as the public schools in the district employed a eurocentric assimilationist curriculum with little to no attention to black history and culture. While students were provided with traditional courses such as English, Math, and Science, they were also exposed to activities focused on class structure and the prevalence of institutional racism.<ref name="autogenerated1966">Liberation Schools. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://scalar.usc.edu/works/pictures-and-progress-the-black-panther-1966-2016/liberation-schools</ref> The overall goal of the school was to instill a sense of revolutionary consciousness in the students.<ref name="autogenerated171"/> With a strong belief in experiential learning, students had the opportunity to participate in community service projects as well as practice their writing skills by drafting letters to political prisoners associated with the Black Panther Party.<ref name="autogenerated1966"/> Huggins is noted as saying, "I think that the school's principles came from the socialist principles we tried to live in the Black Panther Party. One of them being critical thinking- that children should learn not what to think but how to think ... the school was an expression of the collective wisdom of the people who envisioned it. And it was ... a living thing [that] changed every year.<ref name="autogenerated171"/> Funding for the Intercommunal Youth Institute was provided through a combination of Black Panther fundraising and community support.<ref name="autogenerated168"/>
'''Oakland Community School'''
In 1974, due to increased interest in enrolling in the school, school officials decided to move to a larger facility and subsequently changed the school's name to Oakland Community School. During this year, the school graduated its first class.<ref name="autogenerated3"/> Although the student population continued to grow ranging between 50 and 150 between 1974-1977, the original core values of individualized instruction remained.<ref name="autogenerated168"/> In September 1977, the school received a special award from Governor Edmund Brown Jr. and the California Legislature for "having set the standard for the highest
level of elementary education in the state.<ref name="autogenerated3"/>
The school eventually closed in 1982 due to governmental pressure on party leadership which caused insufficient membership and funds to continue running the school.<ref name="autogenerated168"/>
====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 (activist)|Mark Clark]]. A federal investigation reported that only one shot was fired by the Panthers, and police fired at least 80 shots.<ref>Ted Gregory, [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-pantherraid-story-story.html "Black Panther Raid and the Death of Fred Hampton"], ''Chicago Tribune''.</ref> The only shot fired by the Panthers was from Mark Clark, who appeared to fire a single round determined to be the result of a reflexive death convulsion after he was immediately struck in the chest by shots from the police at the start of the raid.
Hampton was sleeping next to his pregnant fiancée, and was subsequently shot twice in the head at point blank range while unconscious. Coroner reports show that Hampton was drugged with a powerful barbiturate that night, and would have been unable to have been awoken by the sounds of the police raid.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=uivtCqOlpTsC&pg=PA672&lpg=PA672&dq=william+o+neal,+hampton,+drugged#v=onepage&q=william%20o%20neal%2C%20hampton%2C%20drugged "BPP, Chicago Branch"], Encyclopedia of African-American History (ABC-CLIO), p. 672.</ref> His body was then dragged into the hallway. He was 21 years old and unarmed at the time of his death. Seven other Panthers sleeping at the house at the time of the raid were then beaten and seriously wounded, then arrested under charges of aggravated assault and attempted murder of the officers involved in the raid. These charges would later be dropped.
Former FBI agent [[M. Wesley Swearingen|Wesley Swearingen]] asserts that the Bureau was guilty of a "plot to murder" the Panthers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/fbikill.htm|title=Wes Swearigen on FBI Assassination of Fred Hampton|date=|author=|work=colorado.edu|accessdate=September 12, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904011339/http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/fbikill.htm|archive-date=September 4, 2015|dead-url=yes|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Hampton had been slipped the barbiturates which had left him unconscious by William O'Neal, who had been working as an FBI informant. 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.<ref name="Black studies" /><ref>Michael Newton, ''The Encyclopedia of American Law Enforcement'', 2007.</ref> In 1979 civil action, Hampton's family won $1.85 million from the city of Chicago in a wrongful death settlement.<ref name="pbs.org">[https://www.pbs.org/pov/disturbingtheuniverse/fbi_files4.php "William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe"] https://www.pbs.org/pov/disturbingtheuniverse/, PBS website.</ref>
====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.<ref>Edward Jay Epstein, [http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/archived/panthers.htm "The Black Panthers and the Police: A Pattern of Genocide?"] ''New Yorker'', February 13, 1971.</ref> The case resulted in the [[New Haven Black Panther trials]] of 1970. Kimbro and Sams were convicted of the murder, but the trials of Seale and [[Ericka Huggins]] ended with a hung jury, and the prosecution chose not to seek another trial.
====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.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=313}}</ref>
===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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=201}}</ref>
*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 they were welcomed as guests of the governments of [[North Vietnam]], [[North Korea]], and [[China]]. The group's first stop was in North Korea, where the Panthers met with local officials in order to discuss ways in which they could help each other fight against 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.<ref>{{cite web|last=Young|first=Benjamin|title=North Korea and the American Radical Left|url=http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/north-korea-and-the-american-radical-left|work=NKIDP e-Dossier no. 14|publisher=Woodrow Wilson Center|accessdate=5 March 2014}}</ref> After leaving 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 North Vietnamese government. He encouraged them to join the Black Liberation Struggle by arguing that the United States government was only using them for its own purposes. Instead of risking their lives on the battlefield for a country that continued to oppress them, Cleaver believed that the black GIs should risk their lives in support of their own liberation. After leaving Vietnam, Cleaver met with the Chinese ambassador to Algeria in order to express their mutual animosity towards the American government.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=318–321}}</ref>
When Algeria held its first Pan-African Cultural Festival, they invited many important figures from the United States. Among the important figures invited to the festival were Bobby Seale and [[Eldridge Cleaver]]. The cultural festival allowed Black Panthers to network with representatives of various international anti-imperialist movements. This was a significant time, which lead to the formation of the International Section of the Party.<ref>Marable, Manning; Agard-Jones, Vanessa (2008). Transnational Blackness: Navigating the Global Color Line. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 183. {{ISBN|9780230602687}}. https://books.google.com/books?id=OEJaCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=barbara+easley+cox+algiers#v=onepage&q=barbara%20easley%20cox%20algiers</ref> It is at this festival that Cleaver met with the ambassador of North Korea, who later invited him to an International Conference of Revolutionary Journalists in Pyongyang. Eldridge also met with [[Yasser Arafat]], and gave a speech supporting the Palestinians and their goal of achieving liberation.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=314–317}}</ref>
===1971===
====Chronology====
*January 1971: Newton expels [[Geronimo Pratt]] who, since 1970, had been in jail facing a pending murder charge. 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.<ref name="ReferenceB">Donald Cox, "Split in the Party", ''New Political Science'', Vol. 21, No. 2, 1999.</ref>
*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.<ref>[[Peniel Joseph]], p. 268</ref>
*Late-September 1971: Newton visits and stays in China for 10 days.<ref name="ReferenceC">Revolutionary Suicide Penguin classics Delux Edition" page 349</ref>
Newton focuses the BPP on the Party's Oakland school and various other social service programs. In early 1971, the BPP founded the "Intercommunal Youth Institute" in January 1971,<ref>Jones, Charles Earl, ''The Black Panther Reconsidered'', Black Classic Press, 1998, p. 186.</ref> 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.<ref name="BrownElaine">{{harvnb|Brown|1993|p=391}}</ref> 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.<ref name="BrownElaine"/> Elaine Brown taught reading and writing to a group of 10- to 11-year-olds deemed "uneducable" by the system.<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|p=392}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|p=393}}</ref>
====Split====
Significant disagreements among the Party's leaders over how to confront ideological differences led to a split within the party. Certain members felt that 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#Criminal justice system|criminal justice system]]. These (and other) disagreements led to a split.
Some Panther leaders, such as [[Huey P. Newton|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 "[[Reformism|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/|title=Black Panther Party|author=Brian Baggins|date=|work=marxists.org|accessdate=September 12, 2015}}</ref>
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.<ref name="ReferenceB"/>
====Delegation to China====
In late September 1971, Huey P Newton led a delegation to China and stayed for 10 days.<ref name="ReferenceC"/> At every airport in China, Huey was greeted by thousands of people waving copies of the [[Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung|Little Red Book]] and displaying signs that said "we support the Black Panther Party, down with US imperialism" or "we support the american people but the Nixon imperialist regime must be overthrown". During the trip the Chinese arranged for him to meet and have dinner with a [[North Korea|DPRK]] ambassador, a [[Tanzania]]n ambassador, and delegations from both [[North Vietnam]] and the [[Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam|Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam]].<ref>Revolutionary Suicide Penguin classics Deluxe Edition" page 351</ref> Huey was under the impression he was going to meet Mao Zedong, but instead had two meetings with the first Premier of the People's Republic of China [[Zhou Enlai]]. One of these meetings also included Mao Zedong's wife [[Jiang Qing]]. Huey described China as "a free and liberated territory with a socialist government".<ref>Revolutionary Suicide Penguin classics Delux Edition" page 352</ref>
===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.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{harvnb|Forbes|2006}}</ref> 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.<ref>Virginia Heffernan, "The Gangs of Los Angeles: Roots, Branches and Bloods", ''THE New York Times'', February 6, 2007.</ref>
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.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
====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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=265, 286, 328}}</ref><ref name="Kelley, Ken 1989">Kelley, Ken. September 15, 1989. "Huey Newton: I'll Never Forget". ''East Bay Express'', Volume 11, No. 49.</ref> Newton was also acquitted of assaulting Preston Callins after Callins refused to press charges.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=283}}</ref>{{clarify|date=May 2014}}
===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.<ref name="Perkins, Margo V 2000. p. 5">Perkins, Margo V. ''Autobiography As Activism: Three Black Women of the Sixties''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000, p. 5.</ref> The Party supported [[Lionel Wilson (politician)|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.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
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 [[Murder of Betty Van Patter|Betty Van Patter]] in 1974 as a bookkeeper. Van Patter had previously served as a bookkeeper for ''[[Ramparts (magazine)|Ramparts]]'' magazine, and was introduced to the Panther leadership by [[David Horowitz]], who had been the editor of ''Ramparts'' and a major fundraiser and board member for the Panther school.<ref>Horowitz, David (December 13, 1999) [http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/1999/12/13/betty/index.html "Who killed Betty Van Patter?"] http://www.salon.com/1999/12/13/betty/ ''[http://www.salon.com/index.html Salon.com].'' {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051219102002/http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/1999/12/13/betty/index.html|date=December 19, 2005}}</ref> Later that year, after a dispute with Brown over financial irregularities,<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|pp=363–367}}</ref> 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".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=recDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT28#v=onepage Frank Browning. The Strange Journey of David Horowitz]. ''Mother Jones Magazine'', May 1987, p. 34 (on [[Google books]])</ref><ref>Christopher Hitchens, "Left-leaving, left-leaning", ''Los Angeles Times'', November 16, 2003.</ref>
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.<ref name="Kelley, Ken 1989"/><ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=328}}</ref>
===1977–82===
====Return of Huey Newton and the demise of the party====
In 1977, Newton returned from exile in Cuba, and found that some men in the party were concerned about the increased power delegated to women, who now outnumbered men in the organization. According to Elaine Brown, Newton authorized the disciplining of school administrator Regina Davis as punishment for reprimanding a male coworker. Davis was hospitalized with a broken jaw.<ref name="auto">{{cite dissertation|last=Ryder|first=Ulli Kira|date=December 2008|title="As Shelters Against the Cold": Women Poets of the Black Arts and Chicano Movements, 1965–1978|type=Dissertation|publisher=ProQuest|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ow3vKdhH7j0C&pg=PA124|page=124|accessdate=September 17, 2016}}</ref> Brown said "The beating of Regina would be taken as a clear signal that the words 'Panther' and 'comrade' had taken a gender on gender connotation, denoting an inferiority in the female half of us."<ref>{{cite book|title=Notable Black American Women, Book 2|last=McClendon III|first=John H.|editor=Smith, Jessie Carney|pages=66–67|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ssMBzqrUpjwC&pg=PA67|chapter=Elaine Brown|publisher=VNR AG|date=1996}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|p=444}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|work=International Business Times|url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/women-revolution-more-50-black-panther-party-were-women-carried-guns-1525198|last=Keating|first=Fiona|title=Women of the revolution: More than 50% of the Black Panther Party were women and carried guns|date=24 October 2015}}</ref> Brown resigned from the party and fled to LA.<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|pp=444–450}}</ref>
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.<ref name="Perkins, Margo V 2000. p. 5"/><ref name="Pearson 1994, pp. 299">{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=299}}</ref>
====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.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Gunmen Try To Kill Witness Against Black Panther Leader|journal=[[Regina Leader-Post|The Leader-Post]]|date=October 25, 1977}}</ref> One of the two surviving assassins, Flores Forbes, fled to [[Las Vegas Valley|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 [[Paralysis|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.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/14/archives/coast-inquiries-pick-panthers-as-target-murder-attempted-murders.html|title=Coast Inquiries Pick Panthers As Target; Murder, Attempted Murders and Financing of Poverty Programs Under Oakland Investigation|journal=New York Times|date=December 14, 1977|first=Wallace|last=Turner}}</ref> Newton denied any involvement or knowledge and said the events "might have been the result of overzealous party members".<ref name="The Odyssey of Huey Newton">{{cite magazine|magazine=Time Magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946144-1,00.html|title=The Odyssey of Huey Newton|date=November 13, 1978}}</ref>
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.
==Women and womanism==
At its beginnings, the Black Panther Party reclaimed black masculinity and traditional gender roles.<ref name=Lumsden2009>{{cite journal|first=Linda|last=Lumsden|title=Good Mothers With Guns: Framing Black Womanhood in the ''Black Panther'', 1968–1980|journal=[[Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly]]|volume=86|issue=4|year=2009}}</ref>{{rp|6}} A notice in the first issue of ''[[The Black Panther (newspaper)|The Black Panther]]'', the Panthers' newspaper, applauded the Panthers—by then an all–male organization—as "the cream of Black Manhood ... there for the protection and defense of our Black community".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Spencer|first1=Robyn Ceanne|title=Engendering the Black Freedom Struggle: Revolutionary Black Womanhood and the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area, California.|journal=Journal of Women History|date=2008|volume=20|issue=1|page=92}}</ref> Scholars consider the Party's stance of armed resistance highly masculine, with the use of guns and violence affirming proof of manhood.<ref name=Williams2012>{{cite journal|first=Jakobi|last= Williams|title='Don't no woman have to do nothing she don't want to do': Gender, Activism, and the Illinois Black Panther Party|journal=Black Women, Gender & Families|volume=6|issue=2|year=2012}}</ref>{{rp|2}} 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.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|6}} The first black woman to join the party was [[Joan Tarika Lewis]], in 1967.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black Panther party (reconsidered)|date=1998|publisher=Black Classic Press|others=Jones, Charles E. (Charles Earl), 1953-|isbn=978-0933121966|location=Baltimore|oclc=39228699}}</ref>
Nevertheless, women were present in the party from the early days and expanded their roles throughout the life of the party.<ref name=":0b">{{Cite book|title=Seize the time : the story of the Black Panther party and Huey P. Newton|last=1936-|first=Seale, Bobby|date=1991|publisher=Black Classic Press|isbn=9780933121300|location=Baltimore, Md.|oclc=24636234}}</ref> Women often joined the party because they were trying to fight against gender unequal gender norms.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cleaver|first=Kathleen Neal|date=1999-06-01|title=Women, power, and revolution|journal=New Political Science|volume=21|issue=2|pages=231–236|doi=10.1080/07393149908429865|issn=0739-3148}}</ref> By 1969, the Black Panther Party newspaper officially stated that men and women are equal<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|2}} and instructed male Panthers to treat female Party members as equals,<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|6}} 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.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|2}} After 1969, the Party considered sexism counter-revolutionary.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|6}}
The Black Panthers adopted a ''womanist'' ideology in consideration of the unique experiences of African-American women,<ref name="Blackmon2008">{{harvnb|Blackmon|2008|p=28}}</ref> affirming the belief that [[racism]] is more oppressive than [[sexism]].<ref>{{harvnb|Blackmon|2008|p=2}}</ref> [[Womanism]] was a mix of black nationalism and the vindication of women,<ref name=Blackmon2008 />{{rp|20}} putting race and community struggle before the gender issue.<ref name=Blackmon2008 />{{rp|8}} Womanism posited that traditional feminism failed to include race and class struggle in its denunciation of male sexism<ref name=Blackmon2008/>{{rp|26}} and was therefore part of white hegemony.<ref name=Blackmon2008/>{{rp|21}} 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,<ref name=Blackmon2008/>{{rp|42}} so men and women must work together for the preservation of African-American culture and community.<ref name=Blackmon2008/>{{rp|27}}
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 [[Ericka Huggins|Erika Huggins]], all political and intelligent women.<ref name=Lumsden2009 />{{rp|10}} 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.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|2}}
Police killed or incarcerated many male leaders, but female Panthers were less targeted in the party for much of the 1960s and 1970s. By 1968, women made up two-thirds of the party, while many male members were out of duty. In the absence of much of the original male leadership women moved into all parts of the organization.<ref name=":0b"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/grggenl9&div=17&id=&page=|title=Whose Revolution is This - Gender's Divisive Role in the Black Panther Party Ninth Symposium Issue of Gender and Sexuality Law: Note 9 Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law 2008|website=heinonline.org|access-date=2016-10-06}}</ref> Roles included leadership positions, implementing community programs, and uplifting the black community. Women in the group called attention to sexism within the Black Panther Party, and worked to make changes from within.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.forharriet.com/2015/05/say-it-loud-9-black-women-in-black.html#axzz4MKgy2NQD|title=Say It Loud: 9 Black Women in the Black Power Movement Everyone Should Know|newspaper=For Harriet {{!}} Celebrating the Fullness of Black Womanhood|access-date=2016-10-06}}</ref>
From 1968 to the end of its publication in 1982, the head editors of the Black Panther Party newspaper were all women.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|5}} In 1970, approximately 40% to 70% of Party members were women,<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|8}} and several chapters, like the Des Moines, Iowa, and New Haven, Connecticut, were headed by women.<ref name=Williams2012/>{{rp|7}}
During the 1970s, recognizing the limited access poor women had to abortion, the Party officially supported women's reproductive rights, including abortion.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|11}} That same year, the Party condemned and opposed prostitution.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|12}}
Many African-American women Panthers began to demand childcare in order to be able to fully participate in the organization. The Black Panther Party responded to the women by establishing on-site child development centers in multiple chapters across the United States. "Childcare became largely a group activity", the children would be raised collectively during the week. This was following the Panther's commitment to collectivism and an extension of the African-American extended family tradition. Childcare allowed women Panthers to still be able to embrace motherhood, while at the same time allowing them to fully participate in the Party. Creating Childcare to the Party allowed women Panthers to not to have to make the choice between motherhood and activism.<ref name="Bauer">{{cite web|last1=Bauer|first1=Kari|title=No Revolution Without Us: Feminists of the Black Panther Party, with Lynn C. French and Salamishah Tillet|url=http://urbandemos.nyu.edu/no-revolution-without-us-feminists-of-the-black-panther-party-with-lynn-c-french-and-salamishah-tillet/|website=Urban Democracy Lab|accessdate=25 June 2016|date=February 22, 2016}}</ref>
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.<ref name=Jennings2001>Regina Jennings, "Africana Womanism in the Black Panthers Party: a Personal story", ''The Western Journal of Black Study'' 25/3 (2001).</ref>{{rp|5}} When Oakland Panthers arrived to bolster the New York City Panther chapter after twenty one New York leaders were incarcerated, they displayed such chauvinistic attitudes towards New York Panther women that they had to be fended off at gunpoint.<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|pp=300–301}}</ref> Some Party leaders thought the fight for gender equality was a threat to men and a distraction from the struggle for racial equality.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|5}}
In response, the Chicago and New York chapters, among others, established equal gender rights as a priority and tried to eradicate sexist attitudes.<ref name=Williams2012/>{{rp|13}}
By the time the Black Panther Party disbanded, official policy was to reprimand men who violated the rules of [[gender equality]].<ref name=Williams2012 />{{rp|13}}
===Gender Dynamics===
In the beginning, recruiting women was not at the forefront to [[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]]'s and [[Bobby Seale]]'s minds.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Alameen-Shavers|first=Antwanisha|date=Fall 2016|title=The Woman Question: Gender Dynamics within the Black Panther Party|url=|journal=Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men|volume=5|pages=33–62}}</ref> In an interview with Seale, he stated that Newton targeted "brothers who had been pimping, brothers who had been peddling dope, brothers who ain't gonna take no shit, brothers who had been fighting the pigs". Also, they didn't realize that women could help the fight until one came into an interest meeting asking about "female leadership." <ref name=":2b">{{Cite journal|last=Jennings|first=Regina|date=2001|title=Africana Womanism in The Black Panther Party: A Personal Story|url=|journal=The Western Journal of Black Studies|volume=25|pages=146–152}}</ref> Regina Jennings recalls that many men in leadership positions had an "unchecked" sexism problem and her task was to "lift the bedroom out of their minds." She even remembers overhearing a conversation between some Panthers when were was being recruited: "Some concluded that the FBI sent me, but the captain assured them with salty good humor that, 'She's too stupid to be from the FBI.' He thought my cover and my comments too honest, too loud, and too ridiculous to be serious." She recalls her days in Oakland, California as a teenager looking for something to do to add purpose to her life and to her community. She grew up around police brutality, so it was nothing new. Her goal in joining was "smashing racism" because she viewed herself as Black before she was a women. In her community, that identity is what she felt held her back the most.<ref name=":2b"/>
===Women's Accomplishments===
The Black Panther Party was involved in many community projects as part of their organization. These projects included community outreach, like the breakfast program, education, and health programs.<ref name=":0b"/> In many cases women were the ones primarily involved with administering these types of programs.
From the beginning of the Black Panther Party education was a fundamental goal of the organization. This was highlighted in the Ten Point Platform, the newspaper that was distributed by the party, and the public commentary shared by the Panthers.<ref name=":0b"/> The newspaper was one of the primary and original consciousness raising and educational measures taken by the party.<ref name=":0b" /> Despite the fact that men were out distributing the newspaper, women like Elaine Brown and Kathleen Cleaver were behind the scenes working on those papers.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party: A new look at the Panthers and their legacy|last=Cleaver|first=Kathleen|last2=Katsiaficas|publisher=Routledge|year=2001|isbn=|location=New York|pages=}}</ref>
===Elaine Brown===
[[Elaine Brown]] rose to power within the BPP by filling the position of minister of information, after [[Eldridge Cleaver]] fled the country. In 1974 Elaine Brown took the seat of chair for the Black Panther Party in Oakland. She was appointed by [[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]], the previous chair, while Newton and other high-ranking members were dealing with legal issues.<ref name=":0b" /><ref name="Brown">{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/09/i-have-all-the-guns-and-money-when-a-woman-led-the-black-panther-party/|title='I have all the guns and money': When a woman led the Black Panther Party|last=Brown|first=DeNeen L.|date=2018-01-10|work=Washington Post|access-date=2018-02-18|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}}</ref> From the beginning of her tenure as chair, she faced opposition within the party and warned against a coup. During her time as chair she appointed many female officials, and faced backlash for her policies focused on equality within the organization. When Huey Newton returned from exile and approved of the beating of one of the female leaders of a panther school, Brown decided to leave the organization.<ref name="Brown"/>
===Gwen Robinson===
In an interview conducted by Judson Jeffries, Gwen Robinson reflects and relays stories and her experiences before and during her time in the Black Panther Party Detroit Division.<ref name=":1b">{{Cite journal|last=Jeffries|first=Judson L.|date=Fall 2016|title=Conversing with Gwen Robinson|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/634852|journal=Spectrum: A Journal of Black Men|volume=5|pages=137–145}}</ref> She explains that she joined the Party in October 1969 with a little push back from her mother, who participated in a march with Martin Luther King Jr., in the early part of the decade. She chose the Black Panther Party (BBP) because "[She] felt a closeness and a bond with them" that she didn't feel with other organizations around at the time, like the "[[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]], [[NAACP]], the [[National Urban League|Urban League]], the [[Nation of Islam]], Shrines of Madonna, Eastside Voice of Independent Detroit (ESVID), the [[Republic of New Afrika|Republic of New Africa]], and the [[Revolutionary Action Movement]]."<ref name=":1b"/>
She dropped out of high school in the 12th grade because at this point she had a good standing with the Party and the environment of her high school education wasn't the best for black folks at the time. She attended [[Denby High School]] in Detroit. "There were some students who would use the N word freely" and "a P.E. instructor accused [her] of stealing her keys." She was also "shoved" into the pool when she refused to swim in fear of getting her hair wet and her White teacher who taught Afro-American history would kick people out of the class "if you challenged his position on certain Black leaders." In conclusion, dropping out of school was a means to an ends.<ref name=":1b"/>
She continued her work in the BBP and "was living as part of a collective" where all the work was shared and she enjoyed her time selling newspapers all day long. She climbed the ranks and became the branch's Communications Secretary for the next to the last year of her membership in January 1971. She was placed in this position after the former left due to "some issues related to [[sexism]]". In this branch, unlike the average BBP divisions, the ways of thinking of the "brothers" never turned violent or physical. She claims, "that kind of thing didn't take place in Detroit." She left the organization in 1973, but she still had a link to the group through her husband. He was their Circulation Manager. The legacy she wishes to leave behind is collective work can take you anywhere. When asked, "what is the legacy of the Detroit branch, in your opinion?" She answers, "It's crucial that people realize that the strength of the organization was rooted in discipline, deep commitment, and a genuine love for the people."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jeffries|first=Judson|date=Fall 2016|title=Conversing with Gwen Robinson|url=|journal=Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men|volume=5|pages=137–145|via=Project Muse}}</ref>
==Aftermath and legacy==
[[File:Charles Barron.jpg|thumb|New York City Councilman [[Charles Barron]] is one of numerous former Panthers to have held elected office in the US]]
There is considerable debate about what impact the Black Panther Party had on the wider society, or even on their local environment. Author Jama Lazerow writes:
<blockquote>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.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=mi2G28ZcmvsC&q=%22policing%20of%20the%20police%22&pg=PA37#v=onepage&q=%22policing%20of%20the%20police%22 Lazerow & Williams (2006). p. 37]</ref></blockquote>
Professor Judson L. Jeffries of [[Purdue University]] calls the Panthers "the most effective black revolutionary organization in the 20th century".<ref>Jordan Green, [http://yesweekly.com/article-permalink-2333.html "The strange history of the Black Panthers in the Triad"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140909003118/http://yesweekly.com/article-permalink-2333.html|date=September 9, 2014}}, ''Yes! Weekly'', April 11, 2006.</ref> The ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', in a 2013 review of ''Black Against Empire'', an "authoritative" history of the BPP published by [[University of California Press]], called the organization a "serious political and cultural force" and "a movement of intelligent, explosive dreamers".<ref>[http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/24/entertainment/la-ca-jc-joshua-bloom-20130127/2 Hector Tobar "'Black Against Empire' tells the history of Black Panthers"], ''The Los Angeles Times'', January 24, 2013.</ref> The Black Panther Party is featured in the exhibits<ref>[http://civilrightsmuseum.org/project/what-do-we-want/ "What Do We Want? Black Power"] National Civil Rights Museum.</ref> and curriculum<ref>[http://civilrightsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/NCRMCurriculum-Guide2011.pdf National Civil Rights Museum Curriculum Guide] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029142114/http://civilrightsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/NCRMCurriculum-Guide2011.pdf|date=October 29, 2014}}</ref><ref>[http://civilrightsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/17-What-Do-We-Want-Black-Power-Learning-Links.pdf "Black Power-Questions to Consider"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029141425/http://civilrightsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/17-What-Do-We-Want-Black-Power-Learning-Links.pdf|date=October 29, 2014}}, National Civil Rights Museum.</ref> 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.<ref name="pbs.org"/> In [[Winston-Salem, North Carolina|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 Party] 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".<ref>Layla Garms, [http://wschronicle.com/2012/10/black-panthers-legacy-honored-with-marker/ "Black Panther Legacy Honored with Marker"], ''The Chronicle of Winston-Salem'', October 18, 2012.</ref>
In October 2006, the Black Panther Party held a 40-year reunion in Oakland.<ref>[http://www.jetcityorange.com/BlackPanther40thReunion/ Photos of the Black Panther Party], Oakland 2006.</ref>
[[File:BPP REUNION 2006.JPG|thumb|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.<ref>[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/24/MNGDONO11G1.DTL Ex-militants charged in S.F. police officer's '71 slaying at station] (via ''[[SFGate]]'')</ref> The defendants have been identified as former members of the [[Black Liberation Army]]. Two have been linked to the Black Panthers.<ref>''See'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20090212123434/http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/01/black_liberatio.html Black Liberation Army tied to 1971 slaying] ''and'' [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-25-sanfrancisco_x.htm Suspects arrested in police officer's 1971 shooting had settled into quiet lives]. USA Today.</ref> In 1975 a similar case was dismissed when a judge ruled that police gathered evidence through the use of [[torture]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://legacy.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/state/20070123-1454-ca-oldpolicekilling.html|title=8 arrested in 1971 cop-killing tied to Black Panthers|first=Marcus|last=Wohlsen|date=January 23, 2007|agency=Associated Press|work=[[The San Diego Union-Tribune]]|accessdate=August 14, 2016}}</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/07/BAKJ18JUNS.DTL "2nd guilty plea in 1971 killing of S.F. officer"] (via ''SFGate'').</ref>
Since the 1990s, former Panther chief of staff David Hilliard has offered tours of sites in Oakland that are historically significant to the Black Panther Party.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1997/10/25/MN32268.DTL|title=Tour of Black Panther Sites: Former member shows how party grew in Oakland|author=DelVecchio, Rick|date=October 25, 1997|work=San Francisco Chronicle|accessdate=June 15, 2011}}</ref>
===Groups and movements inspired and aided by the Black Panthers===
Various groups and movements have picked names inspired by the Black Panthers:
*[[Assata's Daughters]], 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 Panther's 10-Point Program.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.zedbooks.net/blog/posts/getting-free/|title=We're Assata's Daughters|last=|first=|date=19 October 2016|website=Zed Collective|access-date=14 March 2017}}</ref>
*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|Māori]] and [[Pacific Islander]] people in [[New Zealand]].
*[[Black Panthers (Israel)|Black Panthers]], a protest movement that advocates social justice and fights for the rights 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.
*[[Dalit Panthers]], an Indian social reform movement, which fights against Caste Oppression in Indian Society.
*The [[British Black Panthers|British Black Panther]] 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.<ref>Holly Williams, [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/power-struggle-a-new-exhibition-looks-back-at-the-rise-of-the-british-black-panthers-8872269.html "Power struggle: A new exhibition looks back at the rise of the British Black Panthers"], ''The Independent'', October 13, 2013.</ref><ref>Hazelann Williams, [http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/reliving-british-black-panther-movement "Reliving The British Black Panther Movement"], ''The Voice'', January 9, 2012.</ref>
*The French Black Dragons, a black [[Anti-fascism|antifascist]] group closely linked to the [[punk rock]] and [[rockabilly]] scene.
*The [[Young Lords]]
*[[Huey P. Newton Gun Club]], a gun club named after the Black Panther Party's founder.
*Memphis Black Autonomy Federation
In April 1977 Panthers were key supporters of the [[504 Sit-in|504 Sit-In]], the longest of which was the 25-day occupation of the San Francisco Federal Building by over 120 people with disabilities. Panthers provided daily home-cooked meals and support of the people that proved essential to the protest's success, which in turn inspired a movement that was instrumental in getting the [[Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990|''Americans with Disabilities Act'' (ADA)]] passed thirteen years later.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schweik|first=Susan|year=2011|title=Lomax's Matrix The Black Power of 504|url=http://www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/1371/0|journal=Disability Studies Quarterly|volume=31:1|pages=|via=}}</ref>
===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 its chairmanship was taken by [[Khalid Abdul Muhammad]].
The [[Anti-Defamation League]] and the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] include the New Black Panthers on their lists of designated [[hate group]]s.<ref>{{cite web|title=Active U.S. Hate Groups: Black Separatist|url=http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/type.jsp?DT=3|publisher=Splcenter.org|accessdate=June 25, 2016|dead-url=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080314154401/http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/type.jsp?DT=3|archivedate=March 14, 2008}}</ref> 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 they have strongly objected to it by stating that there "is no new Black Panther Party".<ref name="no NBPP">{{cite web|url=http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm|title=There Is No New Black Panther Party: An Open Letter From the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation|author=Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation|dead-url=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110401210040/http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm|archivedate=April 1, 2011}}</ref>
==See also==
{{Div col|colwidth=25em}}
*[[Angela Davis]]
*[[Assata Shakur]]
*[[Black feminism]]
*[[Black Panther Party, Winston-Salem, North Carolina Chapter]]
*[[Black Panthers (Israel)]]
*[[Counterculture of the 1960s]]
*[[Dalit Panthers]]
*[[Denis Walker (activist)|Denis Walker]]
*[[George Jackson Brigade]]
*[[Gun Control Act of 1968]]
*[[I Wor Kuen]]
*[[Jose Cha Cha Jimenez]]
*[[List of members of the Black Panther Party]]
*[[Mark Essex]]
*[[New Communist movement]]
*[[New Left]]
*[[Patriot Party (1960s–1980s)]]
*[[Polynesian Panthers]]
*[[Protests of 1968]]
*[[Rainbow Coalition (Fred Hampton)]]
*[[Red Guard Party]]
*[[Red Power movement]]
*[[Republic of New Afrika]]
*[[Rice/Poindexter case]]
*[[Renault Robinson]]
*[[Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project]]
*[[Soledad Brothers]]
*[[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]]
*[[Students for a Democratic Society]]
*[[Symbionese Liberation Army]]
*[[The Revolutionary Black Panther Party]]
*[[US Organization]]
*[[Up Against the Wall Motherfucker]]
*[[Weather Underground]]
*[[White Panther Party]]
*[[World communism]]
*[[Young Lords]]
{{div col end}}
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
===Bibliography===
{{Refbegin|2}}
*{{cite book|last=Austin|first=Curtis J.|date=2006|title=Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party|publisher=University of Arkansas Press|isbn=1-55728-827-5|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Alkebulan|first=Paul|title=Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party|location=Tuscaloosa|publisher=University of Alabama Press|date=2007|ref=harv}}
*{{cite paper|last=Barker|first=Thomas|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/13/the-liberal-media-and-the-ideology-of-black-victimhood/|title=Black and White: The Liberal Media and the Ideology of Black Victimhood|publisher=CounterPunch|date=February 13, 2015|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|first=Janiece L.|last=Blackmon|title=I Am Because We Are: Africana Womanism as a Vehicle of Empowerment and Influence|place=Blacksburg|publisher=Virginia Polytechnic Institute|year=2008|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last1=Bloom|first1=Joshua|last2=Martin|first2=Waldo E. Jr.|title=Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party|url={{google books|id=nWTH2Npul8MC|p=315|plainurl=yes}}|year=2013|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520953543|page=315|accessdate=2015-12-16|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Brown|first=Elaine|year=1993|title=A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story|publisher=Anchor|isbn= 0-679-41944-6|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last1=Churchill|first1=Ward|last2=Vander Wall|first2=Jim|date=1988|title=Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement|publisher=[[South End Press]]|isbn=0-89608-294-6|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Dooley|first=Brian|date=1998|title=Black and Green: The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland and Black America|publisher=Pluto Press|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Forbes|first=Flores A.|date=2006|title=Will You Die With Me? My Life and the Black Panther Party|publisher=Atria Books|isbn=0-7434-8266-2|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last1=Hilliard|first1=David|last2=Cole|first2=Lewis|date=1993|title=This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party|publisher=Little, Brown and Co.|isbn=0-316-36421-5|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=John|date=1998|title=Walking with the Wind|publisher=Simon and Schuster|page=353|isbn=0-684-81065-4|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|editor1-last=Lazerow|editor1-first=Jama|editor2-last=Williams|editor2-first=Yohuru|date=2006|title=In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement|location=Durham|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-3890-1|ref=harv|url={{google books|id=mi2G28ZcmvsC|plainurl=yes}}}}
*{{cite book|last=Murch|first=Donna|title=Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California|publisher=University of North Carolina|date=2010|isbn=978-0-8078-7113-3|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Pearson|first=Hugh|date=1994|title=The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America|publisher=De Capo Press|isbn=0-201-48341-6|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Rhodes|first=Jane|title=Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon|location=New York|publisher=The New Press|date=2007|ref=harv}}
*{{cite journal|last=Shames|first=Stephen|title=The Black Panthers|journal=Aperture|date=2006|quote=A photographic essay of the organization, allegedly suppressed due to [[Spiro Agnew]]'s intervention in 1970.|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Swirski|first=Peter|chapter=1960s The Return of the Black Panther: Irving Wallace's ''The Man''|title=Ars Americana Ars Politica|location=Montreal, London|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press|date=2010|isbn=978-0-7735-3766-8|ref=harv|pages=26–56|jstor=j.ctt80bj0}}
{{Refend|2}}
==Further reading and resources==
*{{Cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/the-black-panthers-vanguard-of-the-revolution/|title=The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution {{!}} Documentary about Black Panther Party {{!}} Independent Lens {{!}} PBS|access-date=2016-10-06|language=en-US|newspaper=Independent Lens}}
==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons category|Black Panthers}}
*[http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/BPP.htm Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project] The largest collection of materials on any single chapter.
*[http://depts.washington.edu/moves/BPP_map-cities.shtml Mapping American Social Movements: Mapping the Black Panther Party in Key Cities] tracks the geography of the BPP, including offices, facilities, and locations of key events in six cities.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130624095500/http://www.blackpanther.org/index.html] official website according to the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation.
*[http://vault.fbi.gov/Black%20Panther%20Party FBI file on the BPP] https://web.archive.org/web/20150704181939/https://vault.fbi.gov/Black%20Panther%20Party
*[http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?page=1&casualties_type=&casualties_max=&perpetrator=4659&count=100&charttype=line&chart=overtime&ob=GTDID&od=desc&expanded=yes#results-table Incidents attributed to the Black Panthers at the START database]
*[http://www.gvsu.edu/younglords/ Young Lords in Lincoln Park]
*[http://fbidocs.com/subjects FBI Docs] Contains FBI Files on BPP members, information on destroyed BPP FBI files, and inventories of BPP FBI files held by the National Archives
;Archives
*[http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificapanthers.html UC Berkeley Social Activism Online Sound Recordings: The Black Panther Party]
*[http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/index-be.html Hartford Web Publishing collection of BPP documents]
*[http://bltc.alexanderstreet.com/ The Black Panther Party Newspaper, Electronic Archive, Published in ''Black Thought and Culture'', Alexander Street Press, Alexandria, VA 2005.]
*[http://zinnedproject.org/materials/what-we-want-what-we-believe-teaching-with-the-black-panthers-ten-point-program/ 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.
*[http://colemantruth.net/kate8.pdf The Party's Over], a 1978 profile and history of the Party by ''[[New Times (magazine)|New Times]]'' magazine.
*[http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/north-korea-and-the-american-radical-left 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.
*{{cite web|url=http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/reconsidering-the-black-panthers-through-photos-stephen-shames/|title=Reconsidering the Black Panthers Through Photos|first=Maurice|last=Berger|authorlink=Maurice Berger|date=September 8, 2016|work=[[The New York Times]]}}
{{Black Panther Party}}
{{African American topics}}
{{United States political parties}}
{{Oakland, California}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Black Panther Party| ]]
[[Category:1966 establishments in California]]
[[Category:African and Black nationalism in the United States]]
[[Category:African-American history in Oakland, California]]
[[Category:Anti-fascist organizations]]
[[Category:Anti-racism]]
[[Category:Articles containing timelines]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Black political parties in the United States]]
[[Category:Black Power]]
[[Category:Civil rights movement]]
[[Category:COINTELPRO targets]]
[[Category:Communism in the United States]]
[[Category:Counterculture of the 1960s]]
[[Category:Crime in the San Francisco Bay Area]]
[[Category:Defunct American political movements]]
[[Category:History of Oakland, California]]
[[Category:History of socialism]]
[[Category:Maoist organizations in the United States]]
[[Category:New Left]]
[[Category:Political movements]]
[[Category:Political parties established in 1966]]
[[Category:Political parties of minorities]]
[[Category:Politics and race in the United States]]
[[Category:Politics of Oakland, California]]
[[Category:Socialism in the United States]]' |
New page wikitext, after the edit (new_wikitext) | '{{redirect|Black Panthers|other uses|Black Panthers (disambiguation)}}
{{distinguish|text=the [[New Black Panther Party]] or the [[New Afrikan Black Panther Party]]}}
{{pp-protect|small=yes}}
{{too few opinions|date=July 2016}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2012}}
{{Infobox political party
|name=Black Panther Party
|logo=Bpp logo.PNG
|colorcode={{Black Panther Party/meta/color}}
|leader=[[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]]
|foundation={{Start date and age|1966}}
|dissolution={{End date|1982}}
|ideology={{Plainlist|
*[[Anti-fascism]]
*[[Anti-imperialism]]
*[[Anti-racism]]
*[[Black nationalism]] (later renounced)
*[[Maoism]]
*[[Marxism–Leninism]]
*[[Revolutionary socialism]]
}}
|position=[[Far-left politics|Far-left]]
}}
{{Black Power sidebar}}
The '''Black Panther Party''' ('''BPP'''), originally the '''Black Panther Party for Self-Defense''', was a political organization founded by [[Bobby Seale]] and [[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]] in October 1966.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America|last=Joseph|first=Peniel|authorlink=Peniel E. Joseph|publisher=Henry Holt|year=2006|isbn=|location=|page=219}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975|last=Van Deburg|first=William L.|authorlink=William L. Van Deburg|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=|isbn=|location=|page=155}}</ref> The party was active in the [[United States]] from 1966 until 1982, with international chapters operating in the [[United Kingdom]] in the early 1970s,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/27/britain-black-power-movement-risk-forgotten-historians|title=Britain's black power movement is at risk of being forgotten, say historians|last=Brown|first=Mark|date=27 December 2013|work=The Guardian|accessdate=2 January 2017}}</ref> and in [[Algeria]] from 1969 until 1972.<ref>{{Citation|last=Meghelli|first=Samir|contribution="From Harlem to Algiers: Transnational Solidarities Between the African American Freedom Movement and Algeria, 1962-1978"|title=Black Routes to Islam|editor-last=Marable|editor-first=Manning|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2009|pages=99–119.}}</ref>
At its inception on October 15, 1966,<ref name="founded oct 15">{{Cite news|title=October 15, 1966: The Black Panther Party Is Founded|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/october-15-1966-the-black-panther-party-is-founded/|newspaper=The Nation|access-date=2015-12-15|issn=0027-8378}}</ref> the Black Panther Party's core practice was its armed citizens' patrols to monitor the behavior of officers of the [[Oakland Police Department]] and challenge [[police brutality]] in [[Oakland, California]]. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity of party members.<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006}}; {{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|}}; {{harvnb|March|2010}}; {{harvnb|Joseph|2006}}</ref> The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the [[Free Breakfast for Children]] Programs, and community health clinics to address issues like [[Food Justice|food injustice]].<ref name="Pearson">{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=152}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|loc=chapter 7}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title = Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination.|last=Nelson|first=Alondra|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|year=2011|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref> The party enrolled the most members and made the greatest impact in the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area, [[New York City|New York]], [[Chicago]], [[Los Angeles]], [[Seattle]], and [[Philadelphia]].<ref name="depts.washington.edu">{{cite web|title=Mapping the Black Panther Party in Key Cities|url=http://depts.washington.edu/moves/BPP_map-cities.shtml|website=Mapping American Social Movements}}</ref>
[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] Director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] called the party "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country",<ref>{{cite web |title=Hoover and the F.B.I.|url=https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/people/people_hoover.html|work=Luna Ray Films, LLC|publisher=PBS.org|accessdate=January 24, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Hoover Calls Panthers Top Threat to Security|url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/147638465|accessdate=9 February 2017|work=The Washington Post|publisher=WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post|date=16 July 1969}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Panthers 'threaten' U.S., Hoover says|url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/532216174|accessdate=9 February 2017|work=Afro-American|publisher=Afro - American Company of Baltimore City|date=Jul 26, 1969}}</ref> and he supervised an extensive counterintelligence program ([[COINTELPRO]]) of [[surveillance]], [[Entryism|infiltration]], [[perjury]], [[Police misconduct|police harassment]], 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. The program was also accused of assassinating Black Panther members.<ref>''Final report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, [https://archive.org/stream/finalreportofsel03unit#page/184/mode/2up United States Senate''.]</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972|last=O'Reilly|first=Kenneth|publisher=Free Press|year=|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States|last=Churchill and Vander Wall|first=|publisher=South End Press|year=2002|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther|last=Haas|first=Jeffrey|publisher=Chicago Review Press|year=2010|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref>
Black Panther Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police including [[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]] allegedly killing officer John Frey in 1967 and the 1968 [[Eldridge Cleaver]] led ambush of Oakland police officers which wounded two officers and killed Panther Bobby Hutton. The party was also involved in many internal conflicts including the murders of [[Alex Rackley]] and [[Murder of Betty Van Patter|Betty Van Patter]].
Government oppression initially contributed to the party's growth, as killings and arrests of Panthers increased its support among [[African Americans]] and on the broad political left, both of whom valued the Panthers as a powerful force opposed to [[Racial segregation in the United States|de facto segregation]] and the [[Conscription in the United States|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. After being vilified by the mainstream press, public support for the party waned, and the group became more isolated.<ref>{{harvnb|Barker|2015}}</ref> In-fighting among Party leadership, caused largely by the FBI's [[COINTELPRO]] operation, led to expulsions and defections that decimated the membership.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|loc=conclusion}}</ref> 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.<ref>[[Philip Foner]], ''The Black Panthers Speak'', Da Capo Press, 2002.</ref> By 1972 most Panther activity centered on the national headquarters and a school in Oakland, where the party continued to influence local politics. Though under constant police surveillance, the Chicago chapter remained active and maintained their community programs until 1974.<ref name="depts.washington.edu"/> The Seattle chapter lasted longer than most, with a breakfast program and medical clinics that continued even after the chapter disbanded in 1977.<ref name="depts.washington.edu"/> Party contractions continued throughout the 1970s, and by 1980, the Black Panther Party had just 27 members.<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|p=331}}</ref>
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".<ref name=":2">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=3}}</ref> Other commentators have described the Party as more criminal than political, characterized by "defiant posturing over substance".<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=340}}</ref>
==History==
===Origins===
[[File:Black-Panther-Party-founders-newton-seale-forte-howard-hutton.jpg|thumb|300px|Original six members of the Black Panther Party (1966)<br/>
Top left to right: [[Elbert Howard|Elbert "Big Man" Howard]], [[Huey P. Newton]] (Defense Minister), Sherwin Forte, [[Bobby Seale]] (Chairman)<br/>
Bottom: [[Reggie Forte]] and [[Bobby Hutton|Little Bobby Hutton]] (Treasurer).]]
[[File:Black Panther 65-27 HD 2Mbps.webm|thumb|right|300px|Newsreel in which [[Kathleen Cleaver]] spoke at Hutton Memorial Park in Alameda County, California. The footage also shows a student protest demonstration at Alameda County Courthouse, [[Oakland, California]]. Black Panther Party leaders [[Huey P. Newton]], [[Eldridge Cleaver]], and [[Bobby Seale]] spoke on a 10-point program they wanted from the administration which was to include full employment, decent housing and education, an end to police brutality, and blacks to be exempt from the military. Black Panther Party members are shown as they marched in uniform. Students at rally marched, sang, clapped hands, and carried protest signs. Police in riot gear controlled marchers.]]
The sweeping migration of black families out of the South during [[World War II]] transformed Oakland and cities throughout the West and the North.<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|p=4}}</ref> A new generation of young blacks growing up in these cities faced new conditions, new forms of poverty and racism unfamiliar to their parents, and they sought to develop new forms of politics to address them.<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|p=5}}</ref> Black Panther Party membership "consisted of recent migrants whose families traveled north and west to escape the southern racial regime, only to be confronted with new forms of segregation and repression".<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|p=6}}</ref> In the early 1960s, the insurgent [[Civil rights movement|Civil Rights Movement]] had dismantled the [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]] system of racial caste subordination using the tactics of [[Pacifism|non-violent civil disobedience]], and demanding full citizenship rights for black people.<ref name="Bloom and Martin, 2013, p. 11">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=11}}</ref> But not much changed in the cities of the North and West. As the wartime jobs which drew much of the black migration "fled to the suburbs along with white residents", the black population was concentrated in poor "urban ghettos" with high unemployment, and substandard housing, mostly excluded from political representation, top universities, and the middle class.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=11–12}}</ref> Police departments were almost all white.<ref name="Bloom and Martin 2013 p.12">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=12}}</ref> In 1966, only 16 of Oakland's 661 police officers were African American,<ref>McElrath, Jessica. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070407155740/http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/blackpanthers/a/blackpanthers.htm The Black Panthers]. afroamhistory.about.com. Retrieved June 25, 2016.</ref> representing less than 2.5% of the force.
Insurgent civil rights practices proved incapable of redressing these conditions, and the organizations that had "led much of the nonviolent civil disobedience" such as [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]] and [[Congress of Racial Equality|CORE]] went into decline.<ref name="Bloom and Martin, 2013, p. 11"/> By 1966 a "Black Power ferment" emerged, consisting largely of young urban blacks, posing a question the Civil Rights Movement could not answer: "how would black people in America win not only formal citizenship rights, but actual economic and political power?"<ref name="Bloom and Martin 2013 p.12"/> Young black people in Oakland and other cities developed a rich ferment of study groups and political organizations, and it is out of this ferment that the Black Panther Party emerged.<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|pp=5–7}}</ref>
In late October 1966, [[Huey P. Newton]] and [[Bobby Seale]] founded the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). In formulating a new politics, they drew on their experiences working with a variety of Black Power organizations.<ref>{{harvnb|Seale|1970|loc=part I}}; {{harvnb|Newton|1973|loc=parts 2-3}}; {{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|loc=chapter 1}}; {{harvnb|Murch|2010|loc=part II and chapter 5}}</ref> Newton and Seale first met in 1962 when they were both students at [[Merritt College]].<ref>{{harvnb|Seale|1970|p=13}}</ref> They joined Donald Warden's Afro-American Association, where they read widely, debated, and organized in an emergent black nationalist tradition inspired by [[Malcolm X]] and others.<ref>{{harvnb|Murch|2010|loc=chapter 3}}</ref> Eventually dissatisfied with Warden's accommodation-ism, they developed a revolutionary anti-imperialist perspective working with more active and militant groups like the Soul Students Advisory Council and the [[Revolutionary Action Movement]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20141006105851/http://kasamaproject.org/race-liberation/2005-37black-like-mao-red-china-black-revolution-part-2 Robin D. G. Kelley "Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution"], ''Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics'', Vol. 1, No. 4, Fall 1999 (Columbia University Press).</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=30–36}}</ref> While bringing in a paycheck, jobs running youth service programs at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center allowed them to develop a revolutionary nationalist approach to community service, later a key element in the Black Panther Party's "community survival programs."<ref>{{harvnb|Seale|1970|loc=chapters 6–7}}</ref>
Dissatisfied with the failure of these organizations to directly challenge police brutality and appeal to the "brothers on the block", Huey and Bobby sought to take matters into their own hands. After the police killed Matthew Johnson, an unarmed young black man in San Francisco, Newton observed the violent rebellion that followed. He had an epiphany that would distinguish the Black Panther Party from the multitude of organizations seeking to build Black Power. Newton saw the explosive rebellious anger of the ghetto as a force, and believed that if he could stand up to the police, he could organize that force into political power. Inspired by [[Robert F. Williams]]' armed resistance to the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK) and Williams' book ''[[Negroes with Guns]]'',<ref>[http://wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/negroes-guns "Negroes With Guns-Description"], Wayne State University Press website.</ref> Newton studied [[gun laws in California]] until he knew it better than many police officers. Like the Community Alert Patrol in Los Angeles after the [[Watts riots|Watts Rebellion]], he decided to organize patrols to follow the police around to monitor for incidents of brutality. But with a crucial difference: his patrols would carry loaded guns.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=30–39}}</ref> Huey and Bobby raised enough money to buy two shotguns by buying bulk quantities of the recently publicized [[Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung|Little Red Book]] and reselling them to leftist radicals and liberal intellectuals on the [[University of California, Berkeley|UC Berkeley]] campus at three times the price. According to Bobby Seale, they would "sell the books, make the money, buy the guns, and go on the streets with the guns. We'll protect a mother, protect a brother, and protect the community from the racist cops."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Seale|first1=Bobby|title=Seize the Time: The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton|isbn=0-933121-30-X|pages=79–83}}</ref>
On October 29, 1966, [[Stokely Carmichael]] – a leader of SNCC – championed the call for "[[Black Power]]" and came to [[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] to keynote a Black Power conference. At the time, he was promoting the armed organizing efforts of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) in Alabama and their use of the Black Panther symbol. Newton and Seale decided to adopt the Black Panther logo and form their own organization called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=39–44}}</ref> Newton and Seale decided on a uniform of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets.<ref name="Pearson 109">{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=109}}</ref> Sixteen-year-old [[Bobby Hutton]] was their first recruit.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9015498/Black-Panther-Party|title=Black Panther Party|accessdate=March 27, 2008|date=|publisher=''Encyclopædia Britannica''}}</ref>
===Late 1966 to early 1967===
====Chronology====
[[File:Black-Panther-Party-armed-guards-in-street-shotguns.jpg|thumb|Black Panther Party founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton standing in the street, armed with a Colt .45 and a shotgun.]]
*October 15, 1966: The BPP is founded. A few months later, they began their first "police" patrols.<ref name="founded oct 15"/>
*January 1967: The BPP opens its first official headquarters in an Oakland storefront, and published the first issue of ''[[The Black Panther (newspaper)|The Black Panther: Black Community News Service]]''.
*February 1967: BPP members serve as [[bodyguard|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 contemporary [[Open carry in the United States|open-carry 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 police cars around neighborhoods.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=45}}</ref> 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 violated their constitutional rights.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=46}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=48}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":1">''Black Panther Newspaper'', May 15, 1967, p. 3; {{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=71–72}}</ref>
The Black Panther Party's focus on militancy was often construed as open hostility,<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|pp=x-xxiii}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=108–120}}</ref> feeding a reputation of violence even though early efforts by the Panthers focused primarily on promoting social issues and the exercise of their legal right to carry arms. 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.<ref name="Pearson 109" /> Generally this was done while monitoring and observing police behavior in their neighborhoods, with the Panthers arguing that this emphasis on active militancy and openly carrying their weapons was necessary to protect individuals from police violence. For example, chants like "The Revolution has come, it's time to pick up the gun. Off the pigs!",<ref>{{cite book|title=The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s|page=207 |author=David Farber}}</ref> helped create the Panthers' reputation as a violent organization.
====Rallies in Richmond, California====
The black community of [[Richmond, California]], wanted protection against police brutality.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=51}}</ref> With only three main streets for entering and exiting the neighborhood, it was easy for police to control, contain, and suppress the majority African-American community.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=52}}</ref> On April 1, 1967, a black, unarmed twenty-two-year-old construction worker named Denzil Dowell was shot dead by police in North Richmond.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=50}}</ref> Dowell's family contacted the Black Panther Party for assistance after county officials refused to investigate the case.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=52–53}}</ref> The Party held rallies in North Richmond that educated the community on armed self-defense and the Denzil Dowell incident.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=54–55}}</ref> Police seldom interfered at these rallies because every Panther was armed and no laws were broken.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=55}}</ref> The Party's ideals resonated with several community members, who then brought their own guns to the next rallies.<ref name="Bloom, Joshua 2013. p. 57">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=57}}</ref>
====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. [[Eldridge 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=129}}</ref>
[[File:Black Panther convention2.jpg|thumb|Black Panther convention, [[Lincoln Memorial]], June 19, 1970.]]
<blockquote>In May 1967, the Panthers invaded the [[California State Assembly|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 P. Newton|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 ...<ref>{{cite news|title=Black Panthers: A Taut, Violent Drama|date=July 21, 1968|work=[[St. Petersburg Times]]<!--dead URL:|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ix0MAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0FwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7188,187226 -->}}</ref></blockquote>
====Ten-point program====
{{Main|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 Black Panther]]'' newspaper.<ref name=":1"/> The original ten points of "What We Want Now!" follow:
#We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
#We want full employment for our people.
#We want an end to the robbery by the Capitalists of our Black Community.
#We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
#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.
#We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
#We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
#We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
#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.
#We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.
===Late 1967 to early 1968<!--This section is in need of extensive development and revision.-->===
====Chronology====
*July 1967: the [[United Front Against Fascism]] conference is held in Oakland.
*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 allegedly 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 (book)|Soul on Ice]]'' is published.
*April 4, 1968: [[Martin Luther King Jr.|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.
====United Front Against Fascism====
In July 1969 the BPP organized the [[United Front Against Fascism]] conference in Oakland, which was attended by around 5,000 people representing a number of groups.{{sfn|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=300}}<ref name=spencer>{{cite web|url=https://dukeupress.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/the-black-panther-party-and-black-anti-fascism-in-the-united-states/|title=The Black Panther Party and Black Anti-fascism in the United States|date=January 26, 2017|accessdate=July 28, 2018|first=Robyn C.|last=Spencer|publisher=[[Duke University Press]]}}</ref>
====COINTELPRO====
[[File:COINTELPRO - Jean Seberg.jpg|thumb|[[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".]]
<!--This treatment is ok, but a bit eccentric. Needs significant revision.-->
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".<ref>Stohl, 249.</ref> By 1969, the Black Panthers and their allies had become primary COINTELPRO targets, singled out in 233 of the 295 authorized "[[Black nationalism|Black Nationalist]]" COINTELPRO actions.<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/actions_cointelpro.html "COINTELPRO" A Huey P. Newton Story], Public Broadcasting System website.</ref> 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 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 [[Almighty Black P. Stone Nation|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 black nationalist 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 the two groups.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/Chapter_History/BPP_Pieces_of_History.html|title=Black Panther Party Pieces of History: 1966–1969|publisher=Itsabouttimebpp.com|accessdate=August 27, 2010}}</ref>
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".<ref name=":0"/> 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".<ref name=":0"/><ref>[http://www.civilrightsteaching.org/Handouts/BPPhandout.pdf "History of the Black Panther Party, Part Two" Civilrightsteaching.org/Teaching for Change.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141031024002/http://www.civilrightsteaching.org/Handouts/BPPhandout.pdf |date=October 31, 2014 }}</ref>
====Huey Newton charged with murdering John Frey====
<!--More background is needed here on the state of the Party in late October, and the ideological and political developments following the passage of the Mulford Act in May after the Party's patrols were outlawed, and the way these changes set the stage for the Free Huey campaign.-->
On October 28, 1967,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.odmp.org/officer/5125-police-officer-john-f-frey|title=Police Officer John F. Frey|author=|date=|work=The Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP)|accessdate=September 12, 2015}}</ref> [[Oakland Police Department|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, but the conviction was later overturned. In his book ''Shadow of the Panther,'' writer Hugh Pearson alleges that Newton, while intoxicated in the hours before he was shot and killed, claimed to have willfully killed John Frey.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=7, 221}}</ref>
====Free Huey! campaign====
<!--This Section Needs Serious Revision-->
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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=3}}</ref> Newton was released after three years, when his conviction was reversed on appeal.<ref>December 15, 1971. "Case Against Newton Dropped". ''The Dispatch'' (Lexington, North Carolina) via UPI. Retrieved August 5, 2012.</ref>
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".<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=110}}</ref> The "Free Huey" campaign attracted black power organizations, New Left groups, and other activist groups such as the [[Progressive Labor Party (United States)|Progressive Labor Party]], [[Bob Avakian]] of the Community for New Politics, and the Red Guard.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=104}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=107}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=109}}</ref>
====Founding of the L.A. Chapter====
<!--This section needs serious development-->
In 1968 the southern California chapter was founded by [[Bunchy Carter|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.<ref>Gerald Horne, ''Fire this Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s'', University of Virginia Press, 1995.</ref>
====Killing of Bobby Hutton====
<!--This section is in need of serious development and revision-->
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.<ref>Kate Coleman, 1980, [http://colemantruth.net/kate1.pdf "Souled Out: Eldridge Cleaver Admits He Ambushed Those Cops"]. ''New West Magazine''.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|p=166}}</ref><ref>David Hilliard, This Side of Glory</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/ecleaver.html|title=Interview With Eldridge Cleaver; The Two Nations Of Black America|work=[[PBS]]|accessdate=30 March 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Epstein|first=Edward Jay|title=The Black Panthers and the Police: A Pattern of Genocide?|newspaper=[[The New Yorker]]|date=February 13, 1971|page=4|url=http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/archived/panthers4.htm|accessdate= June 8, 2007}}</ref> Seven other Panthers, including chief of staff David Hilliard, were also arrested. Hutton's death became a rallying issue for Panther supporters.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=152–158}}</ref>
===Late 1968===
====Chronology====
*April to mid-June 1968: Cleaver is in jail.
*Mid-July 1968: Huey Newton's murder trial commences. Panthers hold "Free Huey" rallies outside the courthouse daily.
*August 5, 1968: Three Panthers were killed in a gun battle with police at a Los Angeles gas station.<ref name="Epstein, 1971">{{cite news | first = Edward Jay |last = Epstein | title = The Black Panthers and the Police: A Pattern of Genocide? | newspaper = New Yorker | date = February 13, 1971 }}</ref>
*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.
*October 5, 1968: a Panther is killed in a gunfight with police in Los Angeles.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*November 1968: the BPP finds numerous supporters, establishing relationships with the [[Peace and Freedom Party]] and [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]]. Monetary contributions are flowing in, and BPP leadership begins embezzling donated funds.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=185, 191}}</ref>
*November 20, 1968, [[William Lee Brent]] and two accomplices in a van marked "Black Panther Black Community News Service" allegedly rob a gas station in [[San Francisco]]'s [[Bayview, San Francisco, California|Bayview district]] of $80, resulting in a [[shootout]] with police.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Long Time Gone : A Black Panther's True-Life Story of His Hijacking and Twenty-Five Years In Cuba|last=Brent|first=William Lee|publisher=iUniverse|year=2000|isbn=0595002889|location=https://www.amazon.com/Long-Time-Gone-True-Life-Twenty-Five/dp/0595002889|pages=}}</ref> [[Eldridge Cleaver]] kicks Brent out of the Black Panther Party, accusing him of "banditry".<ref>Fimrite, Peter, [http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/William-Lee-Brent-former-Black-Panther-2466571.php William Lee Brent -- former Black Panther hijacked jet to Cuba], [[San Francisco Chronicle]], November 20, 2006</ref>
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".<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=175}}</ref>
By 1968, the party had expanded into many cities throughout the United States, among them, [[Atlanta]], [[Baltimore]], [[Boston]], [[Chicago]], [[Cleveland]], [[Dallas]], [[Denver]], [[Detroit]], [[Kansas City, Missouri|Kansas City]], [[Los Angeles]], [[Newark, New Jersey|Newark]], [[New Orleans]], [[New York City]], [[Omaha, Nebraska|Omaha]], [[Philadelphia]], [[Pittsburgh]], [[San Diego]], [[San Francisco]], [[Seattle]], [[Toledo, Ohio|Toledo]], and [[Washington, D.C.]] Peak membership was near 5,000 by 1969, and [[The Black Panther (newspaper)|their newspaper]], under the editorial leadership of [[Eldridge Cleaver]], had a circulation of 250,000.<ref name="Black studies">{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Black Studies|last=Asante|first=Molefi K.|year=2005|publisher=Sage Publications Inc.|isbn=0-7619-2762-X|pages=135–137}}</ref> 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 in the United States|conscription]] for black men, among other demands.<ref>{{cite web|last=Newton|first=Huey|title=The Ten-Point Program|work=War Against the Panthers|publisher=Marxist.org|date=October 15, 1966|url=http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/1966/10/15.htm|accessdate=June 5, 2006}}</ref> With the Ten-Point program, "What We Want, What We Believe", the Black Panther Party expressed its economic and political grievances.<ref>{{harvnb|Lazerow|Williams|2006|p=46}}</ref>
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":
<blockquote>[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.<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|p=170}}</ref></blockquote>
Panther slogans and iconography spread. At the [[1968 Summer Olympics]], [[Tommie Smith]] and [[John Carlos]], two American medalists, gave the [[1968 Olympics Black Power salute|black power salute]] during the playing of the American national anthem. The [[International Olympic Committee]] banned them from the Olympic Games for life. Film star [[Jane Fonda]] publicly supported Huey Newton and the Black Panthers during the early 1970s. She actually ended up informally adopting the daughter of two Black Panther members, [[Mary Williams (activist)|Mary Luana Williams]]. Fonda 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)|Ramparts]]'' magazine editor [[David Horowitz]] (who later became a major critic of what he describes as Panther criminality)<ref>{{cite news|url=http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=22186|title=Black Murder Inc|last=Horowitz|first=David|date=13 December 1999|work=[[FrontPage Magazine]]|accessdate=31 March 2014|archive-url=https://archive.is/20120701134234/http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=22186|archive-date=July 1, 2012|dead-url=yes|df=mdy-all}}</ref> and left-wing lawyer [[Charles Garry|Charles R. Garry]], who acted as counsel in the Panthers' many legal battles.
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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/27-important-facts-everyone-should-know-about-the-black-panthers_us_56c4d853e4b08ffac1276462|title=27 Important Facts Everyone Should Know About The Black Panthers|last=Editor|first=Lilly Workneh Black Voices Senior|last2=Editor|first2=The Huffington Post Taryn Finley Black Voices Associate|date=2016-02-18|website=The Huffington Post|access-date=2017-02-07|last3=Post|first3=The Huffington}}</ref>
By the end of the year, party membership peaked at around 2,000.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=173, 176}}</ref> Party members engaged 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=186–187, 191}}</ref>
====Survival programs====
Inspired by [[Mao Zedong]]'s advice to revolutionaries in ''[[Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung|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|Free Breakfast for Children Program]], initially run out of an [[Oakland, California|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 address that condition. "While the children ate their meal[s], members [of the Party] taught them liberation lessons consisting of Party messages and Black history."<ref name=":0">{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=186}}</ref> 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 1968-69 school year.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=184}}</ref>
Other survival programs<ref>[https://web.stanford.edu/group/blackpanthers/programs.shtml Black Panther Party Community Programs 1966 - 1982]</ref> 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|sickle-cell disease]].<ref name=westneat>{{cite news|url=http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002270461_danny11.html|title=Reunion of Black Panthers stirs memories of aggression, activism|last=Westneat|first=Danny|date=11 May 2005|work=[[Seattle Times]]|accessdate=31 March 2014|deadurl=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131106035921/http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002270461_danny11.html|archivedate=November 6, 2013|df=mdy-all}}</ref>
====Political activities====
In 1968, BPP Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver ran for Presidential office on the [[Peace and Freedom Party]] ticket.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/02/news/mn-45607|title=Former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver Dies at 62|author=|date=|work=latimes|accessdate=September 12, 2015}}</ref> 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 (poet)|John Sinclair]], author of the book ''Guitar Army'' that also promulgated a ten-point program.{{who|date=July 2015}}
===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 14, 1969: The Los Angeles chapter was involved in a shootout with members of the black nationalist [[US Organization]], and two Panthers are killed.
*January 1969: The Oakland BPP begins the first 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.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*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.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*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.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*Mid-to-late 1969: COINTELPRO activity increases.
*November 13, 1969: A Panther is killed in a gunfight with police in Chicago.<ref name="Epstein, 1971"/>
*December 4, 1969: Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are killed by law enforcement in Chicago.<ref name="depts.washington.edu"/>
*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 black nationalist 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 [[University of California, Los Angeles|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.
====Black Panther Party Liberation Schools====
Paramount to their beliefs regarding the need for individual agency in order to catalyze community change, the Black Panther Party (BPP) strongly supported the education of the masses. As part of their [[Ten-Point Program]] which set forth the ideals and goals of the party, they demanded an equitable education for all black people. Number 5 of the "What We Want Now!" section of the program reads: "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." In order to ensure that this occurred, the Black Panther Party took the education of their youth in their own hands by first establishing after-school programs and then opening up Liberation Schools in a variety of locations throughout the country which focused their curriculum on Black history, writing skills, and political science.<ref name="autogenerated221">Wahad, D. B., Abu-Jamal, M., Shakur, A., Fletcher, J., Jones, T., & Lotringer, S. (1993). Still Black, still strong: Survivors of the U.S. war against Black revolutionaries. Semiotexte. pp. 221-242</ref>
'''Intercommunal Youth Institute'''
The first Liberation School was opened by the Richmond Black Panthers in July 1969 with brunch served and snacks provided to students. Another school was opened in Mt. Vernon New York on July 17 of the subsequent year.<ref name="autogenerated221"/> These schools were informal in nature and more closely resembled after-school or summer programs.<ref name="autogenerated171">Murch, D. J. (2010). "Living for the city: Migration, education, and the rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California". pp. 171-185</ref> While these campuses were the first to open, the first full-time and longest-running Liberation school was opened in January 1971 in Oakland in response to the inequitable conditions in the Oakland Unified School District which was ranked one of the lowest scoring districts in California.<ref name="autogenerated168">Woodard, K., Theoharis, J., & Gore, D. F. (2009). Want to start a revolution?: Radical women in the black freedom struggle. New York University Press. pp. 168-181</ref> Named the Intercommunal Youth Institute (IYI), this school, under the directorship of Brenda Bay, and later, [[Ericka Huggins]], enrolled twenty-eight students in its first year, with the majority being the children of Black Panther parents. This number grew to fifty by the 1973-1974 school year. In order to provide full support for Black Panther parents whose time was spent organizing, some of the students and faculty members lived together year around. The school itself was dissimilar to traditional schools in a variety of ways including the fact that students were separated by academic performance rather than age and students were often provided one on one support as the faculty to student ratio was 1:10.<ref name="autogenerated168"/>
The Panther's goal in opening Liberation Schools, and specifically the Intercommunal Youth Institute, was to provide students with an education that wasn't being provided in the "white" schools,<ref name="autogenerated3">Programs. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://nhdblackpantherparty.weebly.com/programs.html</ref> as the public schools in the district employed a eurocentric assimilationist curriculum with little to no attention to black history and culture. While students were provided with traditional courses such as English, Math, and Science, they were also exposed to activities focused on class structure and the prevalence of institutional racism.<ref name="autogenerated1966">Liberation Schools. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://scalar.usc.edu/works/pictures-and-progress-the-black-panther-1966-2016/liberation-schools</ref> The overall goal of the school was to instill a sense of revolutionary consciousness in the students.<ref name="autogenerated171"/> With a strong belief in experiential learning, students had the opportunity to participate in community service projects as well as practice their writing skills by drafting letters to political prisoners associated with the Black Panther Party.<ref name="autogenerated1966"/> Huggins is noted as saying, "I think that the school's principles came from the socialist principles we tried to live in the Black Panther Party. One of them being critical thinking- that children should learn not what to think but how to think ... the school was an expression of the collective wisdom of the people who envisioned it. And it was ... a living thing [that] changed every year.<ref name="autogenerated171"/> Funding for the Intercommunal Youth Institute was provided through a combination of Black Panther fundraising and community support.<ref name="autogenerated168"/>
'''Oakland Community School'''
In 1974, due to increased interest in enrolling in the school, school officials decided to move to a larger facility and subsequently changed the school's name to Oakland Community School. During this year, the school graduated its first class.<ref name="autogenerated3"/> Although the student population continued to grow ranging between 50 and 150 between 1974-1977, the original core values of individualized instruction remained.<ref name="autogenerated168"/> In September 1977, the school received a special award from Governor Edmund Brown Jr. and the California Legislature for "having set the standard for the highest
level of elementary education in the state.<ref name="autogenerated3"/>
The school eventually closed in 1982 due to governmental pressure on party leadership which caused insufficient membership and funds to continue running the school.<ref name="autogenerated168"/>
====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 (activist)|Mark Clark]]. A federal investigation reported that only one shot was fired by the Panthers, and police fired at least 80 shots.<ref>Ted Gregory, [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-pantherraid-story-story.html "Black Panther Raid and the Death of Fred Hampton"], ''Chicago Tribune''.</ref> The only shot fired by the Panthers was from Mark Clark, who appeared to fire a single round determined to be the result of a reflexive death convulsion after he was immediately struck in the chest by shots from the police at the start of the raid.
Hampton was sleeping next to his pregnant fiancée, and was subsequently shot twice in the head at point blank range while unconscious. Coroner reports show that Hampton was drugged with a powerful barbiturate that night, and would have been unable to have been awoken by the sounds of the police raid.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=uivtCqOlpTsC&pg=PA672&lpg=PA672&dq=william+o+neal,+hampton,+drugged#v=onepage&q=william%20o%20neal%2C%20hampton%2C%20drugged "BPP, Chicago Branch"], Encyclopedia of African-American History (ABC-CLIO), p. 672.</ref> His body was then dragged into the hallway. He was 21 years old and unarmed at the time of his death. Seven other Panthers sleeping at the house at the time of the raid were then beaten and seriously wounded, then arrested under charges of aggravated assault and attempted murder of the officers involved in the raid. These charges would later be dropped.
Former FBI agent [[M. Wesley Swearingen|Wesley Swearingen]] asserts that the Bureau was guilty of a "plot to murder" the Panthers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/fbikill.htm|title=Wes Swearigen on FBI Assassination of Fred Hampton|date=|author=|work=colorado.edu|accessdate=September 12, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904011339/http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/fbikill.htm|archive-date=September 4, 2015|dead-url=yes|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Hampton had been slipped the barbiturates which had left him unconscious by William O'Neal, who had been working as an FBI informant. 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.<ref name="Black studies" /><ref>Michael Newton, ''The Encyclopedia of American Law Enforcement'', 2007.</ref> In 1979 civil action, Hampton's family won $1.85 million from the city of Chicago in a wrongful death settlement.<ref name="pbs.org">[https://www.pbs.org/pov/disturbingtheuniverse/fbi_files4.php "William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe"] https://www.pbs.org/pov/disturbingtheuniverse/, PBS website.</ref>
====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.<ref>Edward Jay Epstein, [http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/archived/panthers.htm "The Black Panthers and the Police: A Pattern of Genocide?"] ''New Yorker'', February 13, 1971.</ref> The case resulted in the [[New Haven Black Panther trials]] of 1970. Kimbro and Sams were convicted of the murder, but the trials of Seale and [[Ericka Huggins]] ended with a hung jury, and the prosecution chose not to seek another trial.
====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.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|p=313}}</ref>
===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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=201}}</ref>
*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 they were welcomed as guests of the governments of [[North Vietnam]], [[North Korea]], and [[China]]. The group's first stop was in North Korea, where the Panthers met with local officials in order to discuss ways in which they could help each other fight against 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.<ref>{{cite web|last=Young|first=Benjamin|title=North Korea and the American Radical Left|url=http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/north-korea-and-the-american-radical-left|work=NKIDP e-Dossier no. 14|publisher=Woodrow Wilson Center|accessdate=5 March 2014}}</ref> After leaving 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 North Vietnamese government. He encouraged them to join the Black Liberation Struggle by arguing that the United States government was only using them for its own purposes. Instead of risking their lives on the battlefield for a country that continued to oppress them, Cleaver believed that the black GIs should risk their lives in support of their own liberation. After leaving Vietnam, Cleaver met with the Chinese ambassador to Algeria in order to express their mutual animosity towards the American government.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=318–321}}</ref>
When Algeria held its first Pan-African Cultural Festival, they invited many important figures from the United States. Among the important figures invited to the festival were Bobby Seale and [[Eldridge Cleaver]]. The cultural festival allowed Black Panthers to network with representatives of various international anti-imperialist movements. This was a significant time, which lead to the formation of the International Section of the Party.<ref>Marable, Manning; Agard-Jones, Vanessa (2008). Transnational Blackness: Navigating the Global Color Line. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 183. {{ISBN|9780230602687}}. https://books.google.com/books?id=OEJaCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=barbara+easley+cox+algiers#v=onepage&q=barbara%20easley%20cox%20algiers</ref> It is at this festival that Cleaver met with the ambassador of North Korea, who later invited him to an International Conference of Revolutionary Journalists in Pyongyang. Eldridge also met with [[Yasser Arafat]], and gave a speech supporting the Palestinians and their goal of achieving liberation.<ref>{{harvnb|Bloom|Martin|2013|pp=314–317}}</ref>
===1971===
====Chronology====
*January 1971: Newton expels [[Geronimo Pratt]] who, since 1970, had been in jail facing a pending murder charge. 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.<ref name="ReferenceB">Donald Cox, "Split in the Party", ''New Political Science'', Vol. 21, No. 2, 1999.</ref>
*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.<ref>[[Peniel Joseph]], p. 268</ref>
*Late-September 1971: Newton visits and stays in China for 10 days.<ref name="ReferenceC">Revolutionary Suicide Penguin classics Delux Edition" page 349</ref>
Newton focuses the BPP on the Party's Oakland school and various other social service programs. In early 1971, the BPP founded the "Intercommunal Youth Institute" in January 1971,<ref>Jones, Charles Earl, ''The Black Panther Reconsidered'', Black Classic Press, 1998, p. 186.</ref> 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.<ref name="BrownElaine">{{harvnb|Brown|1993|p=391}}</ref> 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.<ref name="BrownElaine"/> Elaine Brown taught reading and writing to a group of 10- to 11-year-olds deemed "uneducable" by the system.<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|p=392}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|p=393}}</ref>
====Split====
Significant disagreements among the Party's leaders over how to confront ideological differences led to a split within the party. Certain members felt that 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#Criminal justice system|criminal justice system]]. These (and other) disagreements led to a split.
Some Panther leaders, such as [[Huey P. Newton|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 "[[Reformism|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/|title=Black Panther Party|author=Brian Baggins|date=|work=marxists.org|accessdate=September 12, 2015}}</ref>
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.<ref name="ReferenceB"/>
====Delegation to China====
In late September 1971, Huey P Newton led a delegation to China and stayed for 10 days.<ref name="ReferenceC"/> At every airport in China, Huey was greeted by thousands of people waving copies of the [[Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung|Little Red Book]] and displaying signs that said "we support the Black Panther Party, down with US imperialism" or "we support the american people but the Nixon imperialist regime must be overthrown". During the trip the Chinese arranged for him to meet and have dinner with a [[North Korea|DPRK]] ambassador, a [[Tanzania]]n ambassador, and delegations from both [[North Vietnam]] and the [[Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam|Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam]].<ref>Revolutionary Suicide Penguin classics Deluxe Edition" page 351</ref> Huey was under the impression he was going to meet Mao Zedong, but instead had two meetings with the first Premier of the People's Republic of China [[Zhou Enlai]]. One of these meetings also included Mao Zedong's wife [[Jiang Qing]]. Huey described China as "a free and liberated territory with a socialist government".<ref>Revolutionary Suicide Penguin classics Delux Edition" page 352</ref>
===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.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{harvnb|Forbes|2006}}</ref> 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.<ref>Virginia Heffernan, "The Gangs of Los Angeles: Roots, Branches and Bloods", ''THE New York Times'', February 6, 2007.</ref>
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.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
====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.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|pp=265, 286, 328}}</ref><ref name="Kelley, Ken 1989">Kelley, Ken. September 15, 1989. "Huey Newton: I'll Never Forget". ''East Bay Express'', Volume 11, No. 49.</ref> Newton was also acquitted of assaulting Preston Callins after Callins refused to press charges.<ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=283}}</ref>{{clarify|date=May 2014}}
===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.<ref name="Perkins, Margo V 2000. p. 5">Perkins, Margo V. ''Autobiography As Activism: Three Black Women of the Sixties''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000, p. 5.</ref> The Party supported [[Lionel Wilson (politician)|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.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
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 [[Murder of Betty Van Patter|Betty Van Patter]] in 1974 as a bookkeeper. Van Patter had previously served as a bookkeeper for ''[[Ramparts (magazine)|Ramparts]]'' magazine, and was introduced to the Panther leadership by [[David Horowitz]], who had been the editor of ''Ramparts'' and a major fundraiser and board member for the Panther school.<ref>Horowitz, David (December 13, 1999) [http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/1999/12/13/betty/index.html "Who killed Betty Van Patter?"] http://www.salon.com/1999/12/13/betty/ ''[http://www.salon.com/index.html Salon.com].'' {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051219102002/http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/1999/12/13/betty/index.html|date=December 19, 2005}}</ref> Later that year, after a dispute with Brown over financial irregularities,<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|pp=363–367}}</ref> 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".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=recDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT28#v=onepage Frank Browning. The Strange Journey of David Horowitz]. ''Mother Jones Magazine'', May 1987, p. 34 (on [[Google books]])</ref><ref>Christopher Hitchens, "Left-leaving, left-leaning", ''Los Angeles Times'', November 16, 2003.</ref>
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.<ref name="Kelley, Ken 1989"/><ref>{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=328}}</ref>
===1977–82===
====Return of Huey Newton and the demise of the party====
In 1977, Newton returned from exile in Cuba, and found that some men in the party were concerned about the increased power delegated to women, who now outnumbered men in the organization. According to Elaine Brown, Newton authorized the disciplining of school administrator Regina Davis as punishment for reprimanding a male coworker. Davis was hospitalized with a broken jaw.<ref name="auto">{{cite dissertation|last=Ryder|first=Ulli Kira|date=December 2008|title="As Shelters Against the Cold": Women Poets of the Black Arts and Chicano Movements, 1965–1978|type=Dissertation|publisher=ProQuest|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ow3vKdhH7j0C&pg=PA124|page=124|accessdate=September 17, 2016}}</ref> Brown said "The beating of Regina would be taken as a clear signal that the words 'Panther' and 'comrade' had taken a gender on gender connotation, denoting an inferiority in the female half of us."<ref>{{cite book|title=Notable Black American Women, Book 2|last=McClendon III|first=John H.|editor=Smith, Jessie Carney|pages=66–67|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ssMBzqrUpjwC&pg=PA67|chapter=Elaine Brown|publisher=VNR AG|date=1996}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|p=444}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|work=International Business Times|url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/women-revolution-more-50-black-panther-party-were-women-carried-guns-1525198|last=Keating|first=Fiona|title=Women of the revolution: More than 50% of the Black Panther Party were women and carried guns|date=24 October 2015}}</ref> Brown resigned from the party and fled to LA.<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|pp=444–450}}</ref>
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.<ref name="Perkins, Margo V 2000. p. 5"/><ref name="Pearson 1994, pp. 299">{{harvnb|Pearson|1994|p=299}}</ref>
====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.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Gunmen Try To Kill Witness Against Black Panther Leader|journal=[[Regina Leader-Post|The Leader-Post]]|date=October 25, 1977}}</ref> One of the two surviving assassins, Flores Forbes, fled to [[Las Vegas Valley|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 [[Paralysis|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.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/14/archives/coast-inquiries-pick-panthers-as-target-murder-attempted-murders.html|title=Coast Inquiries Pick Panthers As Target; Murder, Attempted Murders and Financing of Poverty Programs Under Oakland Investigation|journal=New York Times|date=December 14, 1977|first=Wallace|last=Turner}}</ref> Newton denied any involvement or knowledge and said the events "might have been the result of overzealous party members".<ref name="The Odyssey of Huey Newton">{{cite magazine|magazine=Time Magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946144-1,00.html|title=The Odyssey of Huey Newton|date=November 13, 1978}}</ref>
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.
==Women and womanism==
At its beginnings, the Black Panther Party reclaimed black masculinity and traditional gender roles.<ref name=Lumsden2009>{{cite journal|first=Linda|last=Lumsden|title=Good Mothers With Guns: Framing Black Womanhood in the ''Black Panther'', 1968–1980|journal=[[Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly]]|volume=86|issue=4|year=2009}}</ref>{{rp|6}} A notice in the first issue of ''[[The Black Panther (newspaper)|The Black Panther]]'', the Panthers' newspaper, applauded the Panthers—by then an all–male organization—as "the cream of Black Manhood ... there for the protection and defense of our Black community".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Spencer|first1=Robyn Ceanne|title=Engendering the Black Freedom Struggle: Revolutionary Black Womanhood and the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area, California.|journal=Journal of Women History|date=2008|volume=20|issue=1|page=92}}</ref> Scholars consider the Party's stance of armed resistance highly masculine, with the use of guns and violence affirming proof of manhood.<ref name=Williams2012>{{cite journal|first=Jakobi|last= Williams|title='Don't no woman have to do nothing she don't want to do': Gender, Activism, and the Illinois Black Panther Party|journal=Black Women, Gender & Families|volume=6|issue=2|year=2012}}</ref>{{rp|2}} 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.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|6}} The first black woman to join the party was [[Joan Tarika Lewis]], in 1967.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black Panther party (reconsidered)|date=1998|publisher=Black Classic Press|others=Jones, Charles E. (Charles Earl), 1953-|isbn=978-0933121966|location=Baltimore|oclc=39228699}}</ref>
Nevertheless, women were present in the party from the early days and expanded their roles throughout the life of the party.<ref name=":0b">{{Cite book|title=Seize the time : the story of the Black Panther party and Huey P. Newton|last=1936-|first=Seale, Bobby|date=1991|publisher=Black Classic Press|isbn=9780933121300|location=Baltimore, Md.|oclc=24636234}}</ref> Women often joined the party because they were trying to fight against gender unequal gender norms.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cleaver|first=Kathleen Neal|date=1999-06-01|title=Women, power, and revolution|journal=New Political Science|volume=21|issue=2|pages=231–236|doi=10.1080/07393149908429865|issn=0739-3148}}</ref> By 1969, the Black Panther Party newspaper officially stated that men and women are equal<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|2}} and instructed male Panthers to treat female Party members as equals,<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|6}} 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.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|2}} After 1969, the Party considered sexism counter-revolutionary.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|6}}
The Black Panthers adopted a ''womanist'' ideology in consideration of the unique experiences of African-American women,<ref name="Blackmon2008">{{harvnb|Blackmon|2008|p=28}}</ref> affirming the belief that [[racism]] is more oppressive than [[sexism]].<ref>{{harvnb|Blackmon|2008|p=2}}</ref> [[Womanism]] was a mix of black nationalism and the vindication of women,<ref name=Blackmon2008 />{{rp|20}} putting race and community struggle before the gender issue.<ref name=Blackmon2008 />{{rp|8}} Womanism posited that traditional feminism failed to include race and class struggle in its denunciation of male sexism<ref name=Blackmon2008/>{{rp|26}} and was therefore part of white hegemony.<ref name=Blackmon2008/>{{rp|21}} 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,<ref name=Blackmon2008/>{{rp|42}} so men and women must work together for the preservation of African-American culture and community.<ref name=Blackmon2008/>{{rp|27}}
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 [[Ericka Huggins|Erika Huggins]], all political and intelligent women.<ref name=Lumsden2009 />{{rp|10}} 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.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|2}}
Police killed or incarcerated many male leaders, but female Panthers were less targeted in the party for much of the 1960s and 1970s. By 1968, women made up two-thirds of the party, while many male members were out of duty. In the absence of much of the original male leadership women moved into all parts of the organization.<ref name=":0b"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/grggenl9&div=17&id=&page=|title=Whose Revolution is This - Gender's Divisive Role in the Black Panther Party Ninth Symposium Issue of Gender and Sexuality Law: Note 9 Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law 2008|website=heinonline.org|access-date=2016-10-06}}</ref> Roles included leadership positions, implementing community programs, and uplifting the black community. Women in the group called attention to sexism within the Black Panther Party, and worked to make changes from within.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.forharriet.com/2015/05/say-it-loud-9-black-women-in-black.html#axzz4MKgy2NQD|title=Say It Loud: 9 Black Women in the Black Power Movement Everyone Should Know|newspaper=For Harriet {{!}} Celebrating the Fullness of Black Womanhood|access-date=2016-10-06}}</ref>
From 1968 to the end of its publication in 1982, the head editors of the Black Panther Party newspaper were all women.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|5}} In 1970, approximately 40% to 70% of Party members were women,<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|8}} and several chapters, like the Des Moines, Iowa, and New Haven, Connecticut, were headed by women.<ref name=Williams2012/>{{rp|7}}
During the 1970s, recognizing the limited access poor women had to abortion, the Party officially supported women's reproductive rights, including abortion.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|11}} That same year, the Party condemned and opposed prostitution.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|12}}
Many African-American women Panthers began to demand childcare in order to be able to fully participate in the organization. The Black Panther Party responded to the women by establishing on-site child development centers in multiple chapters across the United States. "Childcare became largely a group activity", the children would be raised collectively during the week. This was following the Panther's commitment to collectivism and an extension of the African-American extended family tradition. Childcare allowed women Panthers to still be able to embrace motherhood, while at the same time allowing them to fully participate in the Party. Creating Childcare to the Party allowed women Panthers to not to have to make the choice between motherhood and activism.<ref name="Bauer">{{cite web|last1=Bauer|first1=Kari|title=No Revolution Without Us: Feminists of the Black Panther Party, with Lynn C. French and Salamishah Tillet|url=http://urbandemos.nyu.edu/no-revolution-without-us-feminists-of-the-black-panther-party-with-lynn-c-french-and-salamishah-tillet/|website=Urban Democracy Lab|accessdate=25 June 2016|date=February 22, 2016}}</ref>
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.<ref name=Jennings2001>Regina Jennings, "Africana Womanism in the Black Panthers Party: a Personal story", ''The Western Journal of Black Study'' 25/3 (2001).</ref>{{rp|5}} When Oakland Panthers arrived to bolster the New York City Panther chapter after twenty one New York leaders were incarcerated, they displayed such chauvinistic attitudes towards New York Panther women that they had to be fended off at gunpoint.<ref>{{harvnb|Austin|2006|pp=300–301}}</ref> Some Party leaders thought the fight for gender equality was a threat to men and a distraction from the struggle for racial equality.<ref name=Lumsden2009/>{{rp|5}}
In response, the Chicago and New York chapters, among others, established equal gender rights as a priority and tried to eradicate sexist attitudes.<ref name=Williams2012/>{{rp|13}}
By the time the Black Panther Party disbanded, official policy was to reprimand men who violated the rules of [[gender equality]].<ref name=Williams2012 />{{rp|13}}
===Gender Dynamics===
In the beginning, recruiting women was not at the forefront to [[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]]'s and [[Bobby Seale]]'s minds.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Alameen-Shavers|first=Antwanisha|date=Fall 2016|title=The Woman Question: Gender Dynamics within the Black Panther Party|url=|journal=Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men|volume=5|pages=33–62}}</ref> In an interview with Seale, he stated that Newton targeted "brothers who had been pimping, brothers who had been peddling dope, brothers who ain't gonna take no shit, brothers who had been fighting the pigs". Also, they didn't realize that women could help the fight until one came into an interest meeting asking about "female leadership." <ref name=":2b">{{Cite journal|last=Jennings|first=Regina|date=2001|title=Africana Womanism in The Black Panther Party: A Personal Story|url=|journal=The Western Journal of Black Studies|volume=25|pages=146–152}}</ref> Regina Jennings recalls that many men in leadership positions had an "unchecked" sexism problem and her task was to "lift the bedroom out of their minds." She even remembers overhearing a conversation between some Panthers when were was being recruited: "Some concluded that the FBI sent me, but the captain assured them with salty good humor that, 'She's too stupid to be from the FBI.' He thought my cover and my comments too honest, too loud, and too ridiculous to be serious." She recalls her days in Oakland, California as a teenager looking for something to do to add purpose to her life and to her community. She grew up around police brutality, so it was nothing new. Her goal in joining was "smashing racism" because she viewed herself as Black before she was a women. In her community, that identity is what she felt held her back the most.<ref name=":2b"/>
===Women's Accomplishments===
The Black Panther Party was involved in many community projects as part of their organization. These projects included community outreach, like the breakfast program, education, and health programs.<ref name=":0b"/> In many cases women were the ones primarily involved with administering these types of programs.
From the beginning of the Black Panther Party education was a fundamental goal of the organization. This was highlighted in the Ten Point Platform, the newspaper that was distributed by the party, and the public commentary shared by the Panthers.<ref name=":0b"/> The newspaper was one of the primary and original consciousness raising and educational measures taken by the party.<ref name=":0b" /> Despite the fact that men were out distributing the newspaper, women like Elaine Brown and Kathleen Cleaver were behind the scenes working on those papers.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party: A new look at the Panthers and their legacy|last=Cleaver|first=Kathleen|last2=Katsiaficas|publisher=Routledge|year=2001|isbn=|location=New York|pages=}}</ref>
===Elaine Brown===
[[Elaine Brown]] rose to power within the BPP by filling the position of minister of information, after [[Eldridge Cleaver]] fled the country. In 1974 Elaine Brown took the seat of chair for the Black Panther Party in Oakland. She was appointed by [[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]], the previous chair, while Newton and other high-ranking members were dealing with legal issues.<ref name=":0b" /><ref name="Brown">{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/09/i-have-all-the-guns-and-money-when-a-woman-led-the-black-panther-party/|title='I have all the guns and money': When a woman led the Black Panther Party|last=Brown|first=DeNeen L.|date=2018-01-10|work=Washington Post|access-date=2018-02-18|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}}</ref> From the beginning of her tenure as chair, she faced opposition within the party and warned against a coup. During her time as chair she appointed many female officials, and faced backlash for her policies focused on equality within the organization. When Huey Newton returned from exile and approved of the beating of one of the female leaders of a panther school, Brown decided to leave the organization.<ref name="Brown"/>
===Gwen Robinson===
In an interview conducted by Judson Jeffries, Gwen Robinson reflects and relays stories and her experiences before and during her time in the Black Panther Party Detroit Division.<ref name=":1b">{{Cite journal|last=Jeffries|first=Judson L.|date=Fall 2016|title=Conversing with Gwen Robinson|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/634852|journal=Spectrum: A Journal of Black Men|volume=5|pages=137–145}}</ref> She explains that she joined the Party in October 1969 with a little push back from her mother, who participated in a march with Martin Luther King Jr., in the early part of the decade. She chose the Black Panther Party (BBP) because "[She] felt a closeness and a bond with them" that she didn't feel with other organizations around at the time, like the "[[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]], [[NAACP]], the [[National Urban League|Urban League]], the [[Nation of Islam]], Shrines of Madonna, Eastside Voice of Independent Detroit (ESVID), the [[Republic of New Afrika|Republic of New Africa]], and the [[Revolutionary Action Movement]]."<ref name=":1b"/>
She dropped out of high school in the 12th grade because at this point she had a good standing with the Party and the environment of her high school education wasn't the best for black folks at the time. She attended [[Denby High School]] in Detroit. "There were some students who would use the N word freely" and "a P.E. instructor accused [her] of stealing her keys." She was also "shoved" into the pool when she refused to swim in fear of getting her hair wet and her White teacher who taught Afro-American history would kick people out of the class "if you challenged his position on certain Black leaders." In conclusion, dropping out of school was a means to an ends.<ref name=":1b"/>
She continued her work in the BBP and "was living as part of a collective" where all the work was shared and she enjoyed her time selling newspapers all day long. She climbed the ranks and became the branch's Communications Secretary for the next to the last year of her membership in January 1971. She was placed in this position after the former left due to "some issues related to [[sexism]]". In this branch, unlike the average BBP divisions, the ways of thinking of the "brothers" never turned violent or physical. She claims, "that kind of thing didn't take place in Detroit." She left the organization in 1973, but she still had a link to the group through her husband. He was their Circulation Manager. The legacy she wishes to leave behind is collective work can take you anywhere. When asked, "what is the legacy of the Detroit branch, in your opinion?" She answers, "It's crucial that people realize that the strength of the organization was rooted in discipline, deep commitment, and a genuine love for the people."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jeffries|first=Judson|date=Fall 2016|title=Conversing with Gwen Robinson|url=|journal=Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men|volume=5|pages=137–145|via=Project Muse}}</ref>
==Aftermath and legacy==
[[File:Charles Barron.jpg|thumb|New York City Councilman [[Charles Barron]] is one of numerous former Panthers to have held elected office in the US]]
There is considerable debate about what impact the Black Panther Party had on the wider society, or even on their local environment. Author Jama Lazerow writes:
<blockquote>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.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=mi2G28ZcmvsC&q=%22policing%20of%20the%20police%22&pg=PA37#v=onepage&q=%22policing%20of%20the%20police%22 Lazerow & Williams (2006). p. 37]</ref></blockquote>
Professor Judson L. Jeffries of [[Purdue University]] calls the Panthers "the most effective black revolutionary organization in the 20th century".<ref>Jordan Green, [http://yesweekly.com/article-permalink-2333.html "The strange history of the Black Panthers in the Triad"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140909003118/http://yesweekly.com/article-permalink-2333.html|date=September 9, 2014}}, ''Yes! Weekly'', April 11, 2006.</ref> The ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', in a 2013 review of ''Black Against Empire'', an "authoritative" history of the BPP published by [[University of California Press]], called the organization a "serious political and cultural force" and "a movement of intelligent, explosive dreamers".<ref>[http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/24/entertainment/la-ca-jc-joshua-bloom-20130127/2 Hector Tobar "'Black Against Empire' tells the history of Black Panthers"], ''The Los Angeles Times'', January 24, 2013.</ref> The Black Panther Party is featured in the exhibits<ref>[http://civilrightsmuseum.org/project/what-do-we-want/ "What Do We Want? Black Power"] National Civil Rights Museum.</ref> and curriculum<ref>[http://civilrightsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/NCRMCurriculum-Guide2011.pdf National Civil Rights Museum Curriculum Guide] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029142114/http://civilrightsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/NCRMCurriculum-Guide2011.pdf|date=October 29, 2014}}</ref><ref>[http://civilrightsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/17-What-Do-We-Want-Black-Power-Learning-Links.pdf "Black Power-Questions to Consider"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029141425/http://civilrightsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/17-What-Do-We-Want-Black-Power-Learning-Links.pdf|date=October 29, 2014}}, National Civil Rights Museum.</ref> 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.<ref name="pbs.org"/> In [[Winston-Salem, North Carolina|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 Party] 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".<ref>Layla Garms, [http://wschronicle.com/2012/10/black-panthers-legacy-honored-with-marker/ "Black Panther Legacy Honored with Marker"], ''The Chronicle of Winston-Salem'', October 18, 2012.</ref>
In October 2006, the Black Panther Party held a 40-year reunion in Oakland.<ref>[http://www.jetcityorange.com/BlackPanther40thReunion/ Photos of the Black Panther Party], Oakland 2006.</ref>
[[File:BPP REUNION 2006.JPG|thumb|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.<ref>[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/24/MNGDONO11G1.DTL Ex-militants charged in S.F. police officer's '71 slaying at station] (via ''[[SFGate]]'')</ref> The defendants have been identified as former members of the [[Black Liberation Army]]. Two have been linked to the Black Panthers.<ref>''See'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20090212123434/http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/01/black_liberatio.html Black Liberation Army tied to 1971 slaying] ''and'' [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-25-sanfrancisco_x.htm Suspects arrested in police officer's 1971 shooting had settled into quiet lives]. USA Today.</ref> In 1975 a similar case was dismissed when a judge ruled that police gathered evidence through the use of [[torture]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://legacy.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/state/20070123-1454-ca-oldpolicekilling.html|title=8 arrested in 1971 cop-killing tied to Black Panthers|first=Marcus|last=Wohlsen|date=January 23, 2007|agency=Associated Press|work=[[The San Diego Union-Tribune]]|accessdate=August 14, 2016}}</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/07/BAKJ18JUNS.DTL "2nd guilty plea in 1971 killing of S.F. officer"] (via ''SFGate'').</ref>
Since the 1990s, former Panther chief of staff David Hilliard has offered tours of sites in Oakland that are historically significant to the Black Panther Party.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1997/10/25/MN32268.DTL|title=Tour of Black Panther Sites: Former member shows how party grew in Oakland|author=DelVecchio, Rick|date=October 25, 1997|work=San Francisco Chronicle|accessdate=June 15, 2011}}</ref>
===Groups and movements inspired and aided by the Black Panthers===
Various groups and movements have picked names inspired by the Black Panthers:
*[[Assata's Daughters]], 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 Panther's 10-Point Program.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.zedbooks.net/blog/posts/getting-free/|title=We're Assata's Daughters|last=|first=|date=19 October 2016|website=Zed Collective|access-date=14 March 2017}}</ref>
*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|Māori]] and [[Pacific Islander]] people in [[New Zealand]].
*[[Black Panthers (Israel)|Black Panthers]], a protest movement that advocates social justice and fights for the rights 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.
*[[Dalit Panthers]], an Indian social reform movement, which fights against Caste Oppression in Indian Society.
*The [[British Black Panthers|British Black Panther]] 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.<ref>Holly Williams, [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/power-struggle-a-new-exhibition-looks-back-at-the-rise-of-the-british-black-panthers-8872269.html "Power struggle: A new exhibition looks back at the rise of the British Black Panthers"], ''The Independent'', October 13, 2013.</ref><ref>Hazelann Williams, [http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/reliving-british-black-panther-movement "Reliving The British Black Panther Movement"], ''The Voice'', January 9, 2012.</ref>
*The French Black Dragons, a black [[Anti-fascism|antifascist]] group closely linked to the [[punk rock]] and [[rockabilly]] scene.
*The [[Young Lords]]
*[[Huey P. Newton Gun Club]], a gun club named after the Black Panther Party's founder.
*Memphis Black Autonomy Federation
In April 1977 Panthers were key supporters of the [[504 Sit-in|504 Sit-In]], the longest of which was the 25-day occupation of the San Francisco Federal Building by over 120 people with disabilities. Panthers provided daily home-cooked meals and support of the people that proved essential to the protest's success, which in turn inspired a movement that was instrumental in getting the [[Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990|''Americans with Disabilities Act'' (ADA)]] passed thirteen years later.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schweik|first=Susan|year=2011|title=Lomax's Matrix The Black Power of 504|url=http://www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/1371/0|journal=Disability Studies Quarterly|volume=31:1|pages=|via=}}</ref>
===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 its chairmanship was taken by [[Khalid Abdul Muhammad]].
The [[Anti-Defamation League]] and the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] include the New Black Panthers on their lists of designated [[hate group]]s.<ref>{{cite web|title=Active U.S. Hate Groups: Black Separatist|url=http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/type.jsp?DT=3|publisher=Splcenter.org|accessdate=June 25, 2016|dead-url=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080314154401/http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/type.jsp?DT=3|archivedate=March 14, 2008}}</ref> 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 they have strongly objected to it by stating that there "is no new Black Panther Party".<ref name="no NBPP">{{cite web|url=http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm|title=There Is No New Black Panther Party: An Open Letter From the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation|author=Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation|dead-url=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110401210040/http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm|archivedate=April 1, 2011}}</ref>
==See also==
{{Div col|colwidth=25em}}
*[[Angela Davis]]
*[[Assata Shakur]]
*[[Black feminism]]
*[[Black Panther Party, Winston-Salem, North Carolina Chapter]]
*[[Black Panthers (Israel)]]
*[[Counterculture of the 1960s]]
*[[Dalit Panthers]]
*[[Denis Walker (activist)|Denis Walker]]
*[[George Jackson Brigade]]
*[[Gun Control Act of 1968]]
*[[I Wor Kuen]]
*[[Jose Cha Cha Jimenez]]
*[[List of members of the Black Panther Party]]
*[[Mark Essex]]
*[[New Communist movement]]
*[[New Left]]
*[[Patriot Party (1960s–1980s)]]
*[[Polynesian Panthers]]
*[[Protests of 1968]]
*[[Rainbow Coalition (Fred Hampton)]]
*[[Red Guard Party]]
*[[Red Power movement]]
*[[Republic of New Afrika]]
*[[Rice/Poindexter case]]
*[[Renault Robinson]]
*[[Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project]]
*[[Soledad Brothers]]
*[[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]]
*[[Students for a Democratic Society]]
*[[Symbionese Liberation Army]]
*[[The Revolutionary Black Panther Party]]
*[[US Organization]]
*[[Up Against the Wall Motherfucker]]
*[[Weather Underground]]
*[[White Panther Party]]
*[[World communism]]
*[[Young Lords]]
{{div col end}}
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
===Bibliography===
{{Refbegin|2}}
*{{cite book|last=Austin|first=Curtis J.|date=2006|title=Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party|publisher=University of Arkansas Press|isbn=1-55728-827-5|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Alkebulan|first=Paul|title=Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party|location=Tuscaloosa|publisher=University of Alabama Press|date=2007|ref=harv}}
*{{cite paper|last=Barker|first=Thomas|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/13/the-liberal-media-and-the-ideology-of-black-victimhood/|title=Black and White: The Liberal Media and the Ideology of Black Victimhood|publisher=CounterPunch|date=February 13, 2015|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|first=Janiece L.|last=Blackmon|title=I Am Because We Are: Africana Womanism as a Vehicle of Empowerment and Influence|place=Blacksburg|publisher=Virginia Polytechnic Institute|year=2008|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last1=Bloom|first1=Joshua|last2=Martin|first2=Waldo E. Jr.|title=Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party|url={{google books|id=nWTH2Npul8MC|p=315|plainurl=yes}}|year=2013|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520953543|page=315|accessdate=2015-12-16|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Brown|first=Elaine|year=1993|title=A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story|publisher=Anchor|isbn= 0-679-41944-6|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last1=Churchill|first1=Ward|last2=Vander Wall|first2=Jim|date=1988|title=Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement|publisher=[[South End Press]]|isbn=0-89608-294-6|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Dooley|first=Brian|date=1998|title=Black and Green: The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland and Black America|publisher=Pluto Press|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Forbes|first=Flores A.|date=2006|title=Will You Die With Me? My Life and the Black Panther Party|publisher=Atria Books|isbn=0-7434-8266-2|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last1=Hilliard|first1=David|last2=Cole|first2=Lewis|date=1993|title=This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party|publisher=Little, Brown and Co.|isbn=0-316-36421-5|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=John|date=1998|title=Walking with the Wind|publisher=Simon and Schuster|page=353|isbn=0-684-81065-4|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|editor1-last=Lazerow|editor1-first=Jama|editor2-last=Williams|editor2-first=Yohuru|date=2006|title=In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement|location=Durham|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-3890-1|ref=harv|url={{google books|id=mi2G28ZcmvsC|plainurl=yes}}}}
*{{cite book|last=Murch|first=Donna|title=Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California|publisher=University of North Carolina|date=2010|isbn=978-0-8078-7113-3|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Pearson|first=Hugh|date=1994|title=The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America|publisher=De Capo Press|isbn=0-201-48341-6|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Rhodes|first=Jane|title=Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon|location=New York|publisher=The New Press|date=2007|ref=harv}}
*{{cite journal|last=Shames|first=Stephen|title=The Black Panthers|journal=Aperture|date=2006|quote=A photographic essay of the organization, allegedly suppressed due to [[Spiro Agnew]]'s intervention in 1970.|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book|last=Swirski|first=Peter|chapter=1960s The Return of the Black Panther: Irving Wallace's ''The Man''|title=Ars Americana Ars Politica|location=Montreal, London|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press|date=2010|isbn=978-0-7735-3766-8|ref=harv|pages=26–56|jstor=j.ctt80bj0}}
{{Refend|2}}
==Further reading and resources==
*{{Cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/the-black-panthers-vanguard-of-the-revolution/|title=The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution {{!}} Documentary about Black Panther Party {{!}} Independent Lens {{!}} PBS|access-date=2016-10-06|language=en-US|newspaper=Independent Lens}}
==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons category|Black Panthers}}
*[http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/BPP.htm Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project] The largest collection of materials on any single chapter.
*[http://depts.washington.edu/moves/BPP_map-cities.shtml Mapping American Social Movements: Mapping the Black Panther Party in Key Cities] tracks the geography of the BPP, including offices, facilities, and locations of key events in six cities.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130624095500/http://www.blackpanther.org/index.html] official website according to the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation.
*[http://vault.fbi.gov/Black%20Panther%20Party FBI file on the BPP] https://web.archive.org/web/20150704181939/https://vault.fbi.gov/Black%20Panther%20Party
*[http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?page=1&casualties_type=&casualties_max=&perpetrator=4659&count=100&charttype=line&chart=overtime&ob=GTDID&od=desc&expanded=yes#results-table Incidents attributed to the Black Panthers at the START database]
*[http://www.gvsu.edu/younglords/ Young Lords in Lincoln Park]
*[http://fbidocs.com/subjects FBI Docs] Contains FBI Files on BPP members, information on destroyed BPP FBI files, and inventories of BPP FBI files held by the National Archives
;Archives
*[http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificapanthers.html UC Berkeley Social Activism Online Sound Recordings: The Black Panther Party]
*[http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/index-be.html Hartford Web Publishing collection of BPP documents]
*[http://bltc.alexanderstreet.com/ The Black Panther Party Newspaper, Electronic Archive, Published in ''Black Thought and Culture'', Alexander Street Press, Alexandria, VA 2005.]
*[http://zinnedproject.org/materials/what-we-want-what-we-believe-teaching-with-the-black-panthers-ten-point-program/ 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.
*[http://colemantruth.net/kate8.pdf The Party's Over], a 1978 profile and history of the Party by ''[[New Times (magazine)|New Times]]'' magazine.
*[http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/north-korea-and-the-american-radical-left 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.
*{{cite web|url=http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/reconsidering-the-black-panthers-through-photos-stephen-shames/|title=Reconsidering the Black Panthers Through Photos|first=Maurice|last=Berger|authorlink=Maurice Berger|date=September 8, 2016|work=[[The New York Times]]}}
{{Black Panther Party}}
{{African American topics}}
{{United States political parties}}
{{Oakland, California}}
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