![]() ![]() “We stopped wearing what you call the iconic uniform after about three years,” she said. She ran the party-sponsored Oakland Community School for children from 1973 to 1981. “There was a conversation about the posture, that we didn’t have to be paramilitary to let people know we were in defense of our community,” Huggins said. But those words also meant nutrition, health care and political education for the Black community, said Huggins, who was the first woman to lead a chapter of the Panther Party. The party eventually dropped “for Self Defense” from its name. In interviews, former Panther members acknowledged that the party’s very name drove perceptions that it only operated by force and intimidation. Perhaps not coincidentally, women are the most prominent leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement. Some of its most famous alumni include Elaine Brown, Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis and Erika Huggins. ![]() ![]() The party struggled with sexism and misogyny, although less so as it grew across the country. ![]() As recently as 2016, when pop icon Beyoncé and her backup dancers performed in the Super Bowl halftime show near San Francisco dressed in black leather get-ups and berets as a clear tribute to the Panthers, some law enforcement groups took offense.Ī lesser-known fact was that a majority of the party’s membership, as well as its leadership outside of the central organizing committee in Oakland, were Black women. Police departments took Panthers’ anti-police rhetoric and name calling as more than just bravado. And there were the Panther formations, marches and patrols, meant as a show of discipline and strength. The party became famous in its early years for its uniform: men and women in matching black berets and black leather jackets, sometimes accessorized by long-barrel shotguns. Among their demands: Freedom to determine the destiny of the Black community, economic empowerment through full employment and wealth redistribution, an educational system inclusive of the Black experience, and an end to brutality and fatal encounters between Black people and police. Together, they wrote the party’s Ten Point Program, laying out the party’s beliefs. Newton was the party’s minister for defense and Seale was the party chairman. We’re just on the precipice.” _Īfter meeting at a community college in Oakland, Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966. “You’re hearing more about the Black Panther Party, and Huey’s contributions to (Black) liberation as a thought leader, than you’ve ever heard before,” she said. Among her goals: recognition of Panther sites by the U.S. She said the bronze bust is just a start of a larger effort to see the Black Power movement take its place in history with other, less confrontational actors of the civil rights movement. Newton Foundation in Oakland, is among those who want to retell the Panthers story for a new generation. Some of the party’s biggest accomplishments, like its community service programs, helped transform public education and health care.įredrika Newton, who co-founded the Dr. Yet over its 15 years of operation, the party and its politics were a training ground and an inspiration for a generation of Black, Latino, Asian, Native American and white people who hold public office or public platforms today. The Black Panther Party has been seen as an organization that sought war with police, a group doomed by infighting, infiltration and corruption among its leaders. Much of the party’s story has often been overshadowed by its association with violence. ![]()
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