Newspaper Page Text
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The Panther
February 28, 1993
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>* MOMENT
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THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
iFact Box L
1966: Huey Newton and
1969: The Panthers start a
Bobby Seale founded The
liberation school that
Black Panther organiza-
focused on a black curricu-
tion
1967: The first publica-
lum
1974: Two highly visible
tion of The Black Panther
is established
1968: The party spread
across the country, with
female Panthers, Kathleen
Cleaver and Elaine Brown
become the party's leaders
major cnapiers m incw
York, Chicago, Los
Angeles, Washington,
T) C New Orleans
1989: Huey Newton is
found shot to death in the
same Oakland community,
Detroit, and Philadelphia
wnere ne neipcu to iounu
the Black Panthers.
By Malik Adams
Contributing Writer
Some people called them militant community leaders
and defenders of the African American community, while
others labeled them violent racists.
They are known throughout the world as The Black
Panther Party (BPP).
In 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded this
political party after becoming dissastisfied with the Soul
Students Advisory Council, a black-nationalist group at
Merritt College in Oakland, California. The Council empha
sized cultural-nationalism.
“Bobby and I left Merritt College to organize brothers on
the block because the college students were too content to
sit around and analyze without acting,” said Newton.
Originally named The Black Panther Party For Self
Defense, its primary objective was to monitor the police and
defend the community from police brutality. The name was
shortened when the leaders began to broaden their social,
economice, and political agenda.
The BPP established “survival programs” that provided
free breakfast, clothing, shoes, dental and medical ser
vices, and sickle-cell anemia testing, for African American
people in their communities. They also erected “liberation
schools” designed to expose racism in America and empha
sized African American history.
In 1967, The Black Panther newspaper was established
to counter the party’s negative image portrayed by the
government and the media. The paper was also used to
keep the community informed on the BPP’s daily functions
and to display the party’s “10 Point Program," which was a
slate of proposals demanding decent housing, freedom,
justice, full employment for black people and their exemp
tion from military service among other stipulations.
Although Newton believed that blacks should exercise
their constitutional right to bear arms for defense, he also
armed the Panthers with law books so they could cite their
constitutional rights when accosted by the police. In
addition, the Black Panthers used cameras and tape re
corders to monitor police activities.
In 1968 the party had spread across the country, with
major chapters in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles,
Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Detroit and Philadelphia.
The members included African American greeks, athletes,
scholars, and women.
Once an all male organization, by the late 60’s women
began to hold high-ranking positions. Among them, Kathleen
Cleaver, Secretary of Communications and Elaine Brown,
who became the party’s leader in 1974.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), director J.
Edgar Hoover labled the BPP, “the greatest threat to the
internal security of the countiy.” According to Newton in
his book To Die For the People, the FBI’s Counter Intelli
gence Program (COINTELPRO) planted spies within the
party, phone wire tapping, vandalism, and other tactics to
destroy the groups’s unity.
“We have yet to assess the total damage that the FBI
caused us through their tricks and attacks,” said David
Hilliard, a former B.P.P. National Captain.
Many B.P.P. members were jailed or killed including
Huey P. Newton who was shot to death in 1989, however,
other key Panthers are alive today.
David Hillard, Bobby Seale, and Elaine Brown have
recently published autobiographies. Kathleen Cleaver is
teaching at Emory University in Atlanta,
Bobby Seale teaches at Temple University in Philadel
phia, and David Hilliard is a represenative for the United
Public Employees’ Union, Local 790, in Oakland.
Huey P. Newton formed the name of the group by
borrowing the symbol used by the Lowndes County Free
dom Organization in Alabama, “because it is not in the
panther’s nature to attack anyone first, but when he is
attacked and backed into a comer, he will respond vi
ciously,” Newton said.