Black Panther Party - Case Study
By Faiz Ahmed
Oakland University
This case study of a socio political revolutionary organization will be devoted to an organization that no longer exists and is a rather fascinating subject to study. The Black Panther Party was formed at the end of the nonviolent era of the civil rights movement in America.
This organization is fascinating to study in its formation, its objectives, its bravado, its uncompromising stance for liberation, its genius use of an existing support community, its ideological search and ideological evolution, its local community programs, its national structure, its internationalism, and in its charismatic leadership.
A history of rebellion against the establishment, a strong leadership, a national movement, law enforcement interventions, armed clashes with police personnel, electoral politics, members in exile or underground, assassinations, arrests, good leaders gone bad, factionalism, and a dissolution of the organization that was respected and feared are the factors that make this organization and its history a fascinating subject to research.
The social context in which the BPP was formed has been summed up by Author Jane Rhodes in her book “Framing the Black Panthers”. She writes that the conditions in Oakland, California were in essence horrible for blacks. “In the 1960’s, two-thirds of Oakland’s non white population lived in poverty… A quarter of black teenagers were unemployed … apprenticeships were denied to them and new industries refused to hire blacks … local retailers were notorious for refusing to hire blacks. There were only nineteen black officers on the police force out of six hundred police men.” The system of institutionalized discrimination against African Americans was horrendous (Rhodes, 2007 pg 57-58).
Under these circumstances, the Black Panther Party was founded by Bobby Seale and Huey P Newton as a socio-political revolutionary vanguard organization in response to the police brutality and intense poverty.
Paul Alkebulan, in his book, “Survival Pending Revolution” writes that Newton and Seale were students who had come together to start an organization that dealt with the socio-political problems. “They both studied at Merritt College in Oakland, California during the 1960s” (Alkebulan 2007, pg 4). They were both interested in the socio-political discourse of the time. They took part in student organizations. They studied the works of “revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Frantz Fanon” (Alkebulan 2007, pg 5). They also studied the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Mao Tse Tsung. They were the youth that Malcolm X tried to reach out to and who answered that call.
Alkebulan states that Malcolm X was the “ideological Patron Saint” of the Black Panther Party.
He lists the four points that give him this status. Alkebulan mentions that firstly Malcolm X justified the use of force to “achieve political” aims. Secondly Malcolm X proved to the world that “a spiritual and mental rejuvenation” could be achieved by “participating in a movement”. Thirdly he states that Malcolm X accepted that African Americans “should be open to alliances with other ethnic groups but only based on mutual self respect” and the BPP followed that idea. Fourthly Malcolm X vocalized the opinion that the “civil rights movement was part of an international struggle against racism and western capitalism” (Alkebulan 2007, pg 8).
The Black Panther Party was amongst the many other African American groups that were getting impatient with the nonviolent civil right movement and were espousing radical and violent revolutionary ideals. Most of these organizations sprang up after the assassination of Malcolm X.
The two founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, wrote up the 10 point program of the BPP. According to Huey Newton’s book, “To Die For The People” the ten point program was penned down as follows:-
1.We want freedom; we want power to determine the destiny of our black communities.
2.We want full employment for our people.
3.We want an end to the robbery by the capitalist of our black community.
4.We want decent housing fit for shelter of human beings.
5.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.
6.We want all black men to be exempt from military service.
7.We want an immediate end to the police brutality and murder of black people.
8.We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
9.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.
10.We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace
(Newton 1995, pg 1-6).
The explanation provided by Newton for ten point program includes a socialist demand for either “full employment” or for a “guaranteed income”. Newton also calls for reparations to be paid to the African American communities. He also levels a charge against the white landlords, that as owners of most of those houses and rental properties, they were guilty of not maintaining the properties in good conditions, not good enough to be “fit for decent human shelter”. The seventh point is a call to arms, literally, for black people to organize and form self defense groups against police brutality and white supremacist militant groups and patrol the communities.
The BPP also maintained and stated in ‘point eight’ that the juries that tried black men in court were not of the same socio-racial demographic and therefore were not of the same peer group and therefore all African Americans incarcerated in jails did not have fair trials (Newton 1995, pg 1-6).
Although the Black Panther Party, was a militant organization that had numerous conflicts with the law enforcement, they also had some of the best social programs in the country, they had the children’s breakfast programs, the free clothing and free shoes programs, they participated in political maneuvering and trying to effect local politics by endorsing black politicians who had the same ideologies and some who were even Panther leaders themselves.
The most well known of the BPP leaders and speakers were Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Elaine Brown, H Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael and Fred Hampton.
In “Liberated Territory”, a compilation of essays by Yohuru Williams and Jama Lazerow, author Williams mentions that the Black Panther Party primarily recruited disenfranchised “ghetto youth” who were “disconnected from the civil right movement and in need of political direction”. Williams also mention that Newton called them “the brothers from the block”. The panthers also appealed to “a wide variety of students, political activists, theorists, ex-soldiers and scholars” (Williams and Lazerow, 2008 pg 2).
There is a very obvious reason regarding why the BPP would want to recruit these “brothers of the block”, which is, the ghetto youth had hardly anything to lose. Secondly they were always at odds with the police and constantly getting in skirmishes with the police force. Thirdly they were young and bursting with fervor and were rather impatient as they saw the civil rights movement hardly doing anything to improve their condition.
According to a timeline found in “UC Berkeley Library Social Activism Sound Recording Project” timeline, The BPP first came into national prominence when they marched into the state legislature to protest an anti gun law.
“May 2, 1967 26 Panthers, lead by Bobby Seale, arrested in Sacramento, CA in connection with Panther armed visit to State legislature hearing on gun-control legislation (the Mulford Act).” (http://www.lib.berkeley.edu)
Soon after the Black Panthers were thrown into the national spotlight again with the arrest of Huey Newton after a shootout with the police that left a police officer dead and wounded Newton. (Williams and Lazerow, 2008 pg 3)
Bobby Seale in his book “Seize The Time, The Story of the Black Panther Party” talks in great detail about the nitty-gritty of the operations and the workings of the party. Seale talks about how they gave all the members training and educated them with regards to political activism and the use of weapons and the laws concerning weapon possession.
The Black Panther Party on the whole never went underground. They stayed out in the open despite attacks on members’ lives by the police. They always operated within the confines of the law, relied heavily on the law, and used it against law enforcement officers. He mentions in great detail how they relied on the law in their confrontations with the police.
He mentions how whenever they got into confrontations with the police they would stick to the law. Newton never carried a hand gun as he was on probation, rather he carried a shotgun or a rifle. Eldridge Cleaver never carried a gun “because he was an ex-felon” and therefore was not allowed to carry guns at all. Instead his wife bought the guns for protecting their home. Newton had instructed the party members “never to carry a loaded rifle or a loaded shotgun in a car however they were allowed to carry a loaded handgun in the car.” The party members were instructed never to point a gun at anyone. They would also cite laws, constitutional rights to the police officers and they used the surrounding onlookers and by-passers as witnesses and would educate on how to deal with abusive police personnel as well (Seale 1991 pg 85-99).
There were instances where Newton told police officers that if they drew their guns he was within his rights to defend himself and would shoot them in self defense and he would be upholding the law. (Seale 1991, pg 93-99)
The party members were constantly being arrested for petty reasons as well as for bigger crimes and were constantly in and out of jails but the party stayed above ground. The main focus of the Black Panther Party was teaching people to organize and create self defense groups to protect citizens from police brutality and white supremacist millitants, they patrolled police officers, bailed people out of jails as a recruitment technique, harassed police officers and called them out in public for breaking or disregarding the law, they also focused heavily on teaching members the proper handling of weapons and educating them about weapons laws. They educated party members and community members about political participation.
“So we floated around the streets, and we patrolled pigs. We followed pigs. They wouldn't even know we'd be following them. That's the way that shit went down in the very beginning. That went on for a month, back there in December 1966. Sometimes we'd just be high, going to a party. We might not have guns. Other times, we'd have guns. Still other times we weren't even going to a party. We'd just be going to a meeting. We'd have our shit with us, and while we were going to the meeting, we'd patrol those pigs, trying to catch them wrong. We'd see a pig, we'd get keyed off the meeting. We'd just forget about the meeting, and patrol that pig, just drive around behind him, a long time. After that, we'd go to the meeting. That's how interrelated that shit was. We went to a lot of meetings” (Seale 1991, pg 77).
“Pigs” was how police officers and the establishment were referred to as by the BPP and other similar African American groups which were dissatisfied by the government and the establishment.
The BPP took part in these dangerous escapades and were constantly faced with death. Many of the members were killed or wounded. J Herman Blake, in an article “Is the Black Panther Party Suicidal?” analyzes the extremely risky activities of the Black Panther Party . Blake notes that for African Americans death has always been an in-the-face kind of thing. It was always a very common thing. “…death has never been something one shuns or runs away from. Instead death has been frequently welcomed as a friend – the liberator from the harsh life one must live” (Blake 1972, pg 289).
He notes that blacks were so used to death and its constant presence that most people never had a life security. Anyone could die anytime. The BPP also had this worldview with regards to death. “The question then is not whether one will die for that is given, but how one will die. Furthermore, how one dies is not dependant on the circumstances of death, but rather how one lived life before death comes knocking on the door”(Blake 1972, pg 289).
Blake says that the BPP leadership and the rank and file members had come to terms with this world-view (Blake 1972, pg 289). Another point to be remembered is that even though the BPP did things that made the police crack down on them lethally, they succeeded in bringing down the soaring levels of police brutality against unarmed blacks in the long run and instilling self confidence among blacks.
The BPP created alliances with many other groups. SNCC was one of these groups. The Peace and Freedom Party was another such group. SNCC was predominantly an African American organization and had certain racist tendencies while the Peace and Freedom Party was mainly a ‘White American’ organization. “Huey Newton ran for congress on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket and secured 25000 votes but lost” (Seale 1991, pg 207-208).
Newton was arrested in 1967 after a shootout that left a police officer dead and injured Newton. (Seale 1991, pg 199-200) This started the Free Huey Newton Campaign that went on till Newton was released in 1970.
While Newton was incarcerated the BPP grew exponentially and Stokely Carmicheal and H Rap Brown of the SNCC organization joined. They were given honorary positions in the Organization. However this partnership was short lived. There was a difference in ideologies between the original BPP leadership and the newly incorporated SNCC leaders. (Alkebulan 2007, pg 19)
This led to a later rift between the Carmichael and the other leaders leading to the resignation of Stokely Carmichael (Newton 1995, pg192-193).
By the time Newton was released, the party leadership had undergone a change in its own outlook and mindset, the change was spearheaded by Newton and Seale and was rejected by Cleaver who was in Algeria in exile with other BPP members. The main focus of the Party became the social programs and political campaigns and the use of guns and weapons was abandoned. Social programs like “free breakfast programs, liberation schools, medical clinics and clothing programs” took center stage. This marked the start of another era for the BPP (Alkebulan 2007, pg 27-29).
In an article “Rhetoric of the gun” written by John A. Courtright, he analyzes the change in the BPP rhetoric after Newton’s release from prison in 1971 and its effects. Courtright summarizes that the reason for Newton-Seale faction’s change of direction was the number of casualties and the systematic repression of the BPP. The BPP had been in numerous confrontations with the police and party members were constantly being dogged, killed and arrested. Newton also saw no benefit strategically in violent means and saw more strategic benefit in non-violent political activism and community service programs. (Courtright 1974, pg 251, 255).
The breakfast program had “22 chapters” around the country, “…at the height of its enrollment, the liberation school served 400 students of all ethnic backgrounds”, the medical clinics were also a great success. The BPP also started a “national testing program for sickle cell anemia and worked to establish a research foundation to end the disease” (Alkebulan 2007, pg 32,35-36)
In an article “Revolutionary Black Nationalism”, Jessica Christina Harris explains the major split in the BPP organization between the Newton-Seale faction and the Eldridge Cleaver faction “Cleaver sat in Algiers in self-imposed exile as a response to legal charges he faced from a shootout with police in which Bobby Hutton was killed and a police officer was wounded.”(Harris 2000, pg 169)
The split between the two factions started off with the change of party strategy. Cleaver was not appreciative of the decision to shun self defense, police patrols and openly carrying weapons and had a more militant mindset, the Newton Seale faction chose to drop the use of weapons and participated in electoral politics and community service.(Alkebulan 2007, pg 80). This split was then deepened by the FBI by means of “bogus letters” sent to each faction supposedly from the other faction. The letters contained threats and accusations (Harris 2000, pg 169-170).
The BPP leaders with their new change in party personality campaigned heavily in the electoral system. In 1972-73 Bobby Seale campaigned for Mayor of Oakland and Elaine Brown the new ‘Minister of Information’ campaigned for city council. The BPP closed down many national offices and national programs to focus on the Oakland elections. Both Seale and Brown lost the elections. “This and other internal problems, along with a lot of self-destructive behavior induced negative publicity on the part of the leadership left the party members disillusioned”(Alkebulan 2007, pg 121).
The BPP was on a downward spiral. Huey Newton, the revolutionary super hero, the genius, the servant of the people was now a drug addict. “Newton fled to Cuba in 1974 following a murder accusation, after having forced many leaders out of the party due to his drug induced paranoia”(Alkebulan 2007, pg 121).
Elaine Brown assumed leadership of the BPP and tried to move in a good direction through local political and social involvement but resigned after Huey Newton’s return from Cuba in 1977. The Party survived until 1980 and eventually died out.(Alkebulan 2007, pg 121-124)
Most of the other leaders who were forced out of the party chose other routes in life.
“Newton was shot in drug related violence in 1989, Eldridge Cleaver returned to the USA and later denounced his past and became a member of the republican party, Bobby Seale wrote a book and gives lectures.”(Harris 2000, pg172)
Harris mentions that apart from self defense and community service programs, the BPP also “led rent strikes resulting in tenant ownership of their buildings, and led campaigns for the community control of schools, and the police, and the stoppage of drugs, crime, and police murder and brutality” and as such the effect she says was that “years later the government established similar programs such as free school lunch, expanded Medicare and day care facilities, and liberalized court procedures for tenant takeovers of poorly maintained housing.” (Harris 2000, pg 171)
Harris states that the BPP contributions were that it connected African Americans to other liberation struggles all over the world, brought women to the forefront of African American leadership, and that the BPP became a role model as it mastered mass media and propaganda techniques.(Harris 2000, 171-172)
The fact that African Americans do not suffer the level of institutionalized discrimination and police brutality they were subject to during and before the seventies and sixties and are active on the electoral politics forefront can be attributed at least in part to the BPP although the panthers were not the only group that contributed to these developments, due credit must be given to the BPP in setting the stage for these development.
Written for Class - Research Project.
First Published With East West Link News - ewlnews.com
Oakland University
This case study of a socio political revolutionary organization will be devoted to an organization that no longer exists and is a rather fascinating subject to study. The Black Panther Party was formed at the end of the nonviolent era of the civil rights movement in America.
This organization is fascinating to study in its formation, its objectives, its bravado, its uncompromising stance for liberation, its genius use of an existing support community, its ideological search and ideological evolution, its local community programs, its national structure, its internationalism, and in its charismatic leadership.
A history of rebellion against the establishment, a strong leadership, a national movement, law enforcement interventions, armed clashes with police personnel, electoral politics, members in exile or underground, assassinations, arrests, good leaders gone bad, factionalism, and a dissolution of the organization that was respected and feared are the factors that make this organization and its history a fascinating subject to research.
The social context in which the BPP was formed has been summed up by Author Jane Rhodes in her book “Framing the Black Panthers”. She writes that the conditions in Oakland, California were in essence horrible for blacks. “In the 1960’s, two-thirds of Oakland’s non white population lived in poverty… A quarter of black teenagers were unemployed … apprenticeships were denied to them and new industries refused to hire blacks … local retailers were notorious for refusing to hire blacks. There were only nineteen black officers on the police force out of six hundred police men.” The system of institutionalized discrimination against African Americans was horrendous (Rhodes, 2007 pg 57-58).
Under these circumstances, the Black Panther Party was founded by Bobby Seale and Huey P Newton as a socio-political revolutionary vanguard organization in response to the police brutality and intense poverty.
Paul Alkebulan, in his book, “Survival Pending Revolution” writes that Newton and Seale were students who had come together to start an organization that dealt with the socio-political problems. “They both studied at Merritt College in Oakland, California during the 1960s” (Alkebulan 2007, pg 4). They were both interested in the socio-political discourse of the time. They took part in student organizations. They studied the works of “revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Frantz Fanon” (Alkebulan 2007, pg 5). They also studied the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Mao Tse Tsung. They were the youth that Malcolm X tried to reach out to and who answered that call.
Alkebulan states that Malcolm X was the “ideological Patron Saint” of the Black Panther Party.
He lists the four points that give him this status. Alkebulan mentions that firstly Malcolm X justified the use of force to “achieve political” aims. Secondly Malcolm X proved to the world that “a spiritual and mental rejuvenation” could be achieved by “participating in a movement”. Thirdly he states that Malcolm X accepted that African Americans “should be open to alliances with other ethnic groups but only based on mutual self respect” and the BPP followed that idea. Fourthly Malcolm X vocalized the opinion that the “civil rights movement was part of an international struggle against racism and western capitalism” (Alkebulan 2007, pg 8).
The Black Panther Party was amongst the many other African American groups that were getting impatient with the nonviolent civil right movement and were espousing radical and violent revolutionary ideals. Most of these organizations sprang up after the assassination of Malcolm X.
The two founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, wrote up the 10 point program of the BPP. According to Huey Newton’s book, “To Die For The People” the ten point program was penned down as follows:-
1.We want freedom; we want power to determine the destiny of our black communities.
2.We want full employment for our people.
3.We want an end to the robbery by the capitalist of our black community.
4.We want decent housing fit for shelter of human beings.
5.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.
6.We want all black men to be exempt from military service.
7.We want an immediate end to the police brutality and murder of black people.
8.We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
9.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.
10.We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace
(Newton 1995, pg 1-6).
The explanation provided by Newton for ten point program includes a socialist demand for either “full employment” or for a “guaranteed income”. Newton also calls for reparations to be paid to the African American communities. He also levels a charge against the white landlords, that as owners of most of those houses and rental properties, they were guilty of not maintaining the properties in good conditions, not good enough to be “fit for decent human shelter”. The seventh point is a call to arms, literally, for black people to organize and form self defense groups against police brutality and white supremacist militant groups and patrol the communities.
The BPP also maintained and stated in ‘point eight’ that the juries that tried black men in court were not of the same socio-racial demographic and therefore were not of the same peer group and therefore all African Americans incarcerated in jails did not have fair trials (Newton 1995, pg 1-6).
Although the Black Panther Party, was a militant organization that had numerous conflicts with the law enforcement, they also had some of the best social programs in the country, they had the children’s breakfast programs, the free clothing and free shoes programs, they participated in political maneuvering and trying to effect local politics by endorsing black politicians who had the same ideologies and some who were even Panther leaders themselves.
The most well known of the BPP leaders and speakers were Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Elaine Brown, H Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael and Fred Hampton.
In “Liberated Territory”, a compilation of essays by Yohuru Williams and Jama Lazerow, author Williams mentions that the Black Panther Party primarily recruited disenfranchised “ghetto youth” who were “disconnected from the civil right movement and in need of political direction”. Williams also mention that Newton called them “the brothers from the block”. The panthers also appealed to “a wide variety of students, political activists, theorists, ex-soldiers and scholars” (Williams and Lazerow, 2008 pg 2).
There is a very obvious reason regarding why the BPP would want to recruit these “brothers of the block”, which is, the ghetto youth had hardly anything to lose. Secondly they were always at odds with the police and constantly getting in skirmishes with the police force. Thirdly they were young and bursting with fervor and were rather impatient as they saw the civil rights movement hardly doing anything to improve their condition.
According to a timeline found in “UC Berkeley Library Social Activism Sound Recording Project” timeline, The BPP first came into national prominence when they marched into the state legislature to protest an anti gun law.
“May 2, 1967 26 Panthers, lead by Bobby Seale, arrested in Sacramento, CA in connection with Panther armed visit to State legislature hearing on gun-control legislation (the Mulford Act).” (http://www.lib.berkeley.edu)
Soon after the Black Panthers were thrown into the national spotlight again with the arrest of Huey Newton after a shootout with the police that left a police officer dead and wounded Newton. (Williams and Lazerow, 2008 pg 3)
Bobby Seale in his book “Seize The Time, The Story of the Black Panther Party” talks in great detail about the nitty-gritty of the operations and the workings of the party. Seale talks about how they gave all the members training and educated them with regards to political activism and the use of weapons and the laws concerning weapon possession.
The Black Panther Party on the whole never went underground. They stayed out in the open despite attacks on members’ lives by the police. They always operated within the confines of the law, relied heavily on the law, and used it against law enforcement officers. He mentions in great detail how they relied on the law in their confrontations with the police.
He mentions how whenever they got into confrontations with the police they would stick to the law. Newton never carried a hand gun as he was on probation, rather he carried a shotgun or a rifle. Eldridge Cleaver never carried a gun “because he was an ex-felon” and therefore was not allowed to carry guns at all. Instead his wife bought the guns for protecting their home. Newton had instructed the party members “never to carry a loaded rifle or a loaded shotgun in a car however they were allowed to carry a loaded handgun in the car.” The party members were instructed never to point a gun at anyone. They would also cite laws, constitutional rights to the police officers and they used the surrounding onlookers and by-passers as witnesses and would educate on how to deal with abusive police personnel as well (Seale 1991 pg 85-99).
There were instances where Newton told police officers that if they drew their guns he was within his rights to defend himself and would shoot them in self defense and he would be upholding the law. (Seale 1991, pg 93-99)
The party members were constantly being arrested for petty reasons as well as for bigger crimes and were constantly in and out of jails but the party stayed above ground. The main focus of the Black Panther Party was teaching people to organize and create self defense groups to protect citizens from police brutality and white supremacist millitants, they patrolled police officers, bailed people out of jails as a recruitment technique, harassed police officers and called them out in public for breaking or disregarding the law, they also focused heavily on teaching members the proper handling of weapons and educating them about weapons laws. They educated party members and community members about political participation.
“So we floated around the streets, and we patrolled pigs. We followed pigs. They wouldn't even know we'd be following them. That's the way that shit went down in the very beginning. That went on for a month, back there in December 1966. Sometimes we'd just be high, going to a party. We might not have guns. Other times, we'd have guns. Still other times we weren't even going to a party. We'd just be going to a meeting. We'd have our shit with us, and while we were going to the meeting, we'd patrol those pigs, trying to catch them wrong. We'd see a pig, we'd get keyed off the meeting. We'd just forget about the meeting, and patrol that pig, just drive around behind him, a long time. After that, we'd go to the meeting. That's how interrelated that shit was. We went to a lot of meetings” (Seale 1991, pg 77).
“Pigs” was how police officers and the establishment were referred to as by the BPP and other similar African American groups which were dissatisfied by the government and the establishment.
The BPP took part in these dangerous escapades and were constantly faced with death. Many of the members were killed or wounded. J Herman Blake, in an article “Is the Black Panther Party Suicidal?” analyzes the extremely risky activities of the Black Panther Party . Blake notes that for African Americans death has always been an in-the-face kind of thing. It was always a very common thing. “…death has never been something one shuns or runs away from. Instead death has been frequently welcomed as a friend – the liberator from the harsh life one must live” (Blake 1972, pg 289).
He notes that blacks were so used to death and its constant presence that most people never had a life security. Anyone could die anytime. The BPP also had this worldview with regards to death. “The question then is not whether one will die for that is given, but how one will die. Furthermore, how one dies is not dependant on the circumstances of death, but rather how one lived life before death comes knocking on the door”(Blake 1972, pg 289).
Blake says that the BPP leadership and the rank and file members had come to terms with this world-view (Blake 1972, pg 289). Another point to be remembered is that even though the BPP did things that made the police crack down on them lethally, they succeeded in bringing down the soaring levels of police brutality against unarmed blacks in the long run and instilling self confidence among blacks.
The BPP created alliances with many other groups. SNCC was one of these groups. The Peace and Freedom Party was another such group. SNCC was predominantly an African American organization and had certain racist tendencies while the Peace and Freedom Party was mainly a ‘White American’ organization. “Huey Newton ran for congress on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket and secured 25000 votes but lost” (Seale 1991, pg 207-208).
Newton was arrested in 1967 after a shootout that left a police officer dead and injured Newton. (Seale 1991, pg 199-200) This started the Free Huey Newton Campaign that went on till Newton was released in 1970.
While Newton was incarcerated the BPP grew exponentially and Stokely Carmicheal and H Rap Brown of the SNCC organization joined. They were given honorary positions in the Organization. However this partnership was short lived. There was a difference in ideologies between the original BPP leadership and the newly incorporated SNCC leaders. (Alkebulan 2007, pg 19)
This led to a later rift between the Carmichael and the other leaders leading to the resignation of Stokely Carmichael (Newton 1995, pg192-193).
By the time Newton was released, the party leadership had undergone a change in its own outlook and mindset, the change was spearheaded by Newton and Seale and was rejected by Cleaver who was in Algeria in exile with other BPP members. The main focus of the Party became the social programs and political campaigns and the use of guns and weapons was abandoned. Social programs like “free breakfast programs, liberation schools, medical clinics and clothing programs” took center stage. This marked the start of another era for the BPP (Alkebulan 2007, pg 27-29).
In an article “Rhetoric of the gun” written by John A. Courtright, he analyzes the change in the BPP rhetoric after Newton’s release from prison in 1971 and its effects. Courtright summarizes that the reason for Newton-Seale faction’s change of direction was the number of casualties and the systematic repression of the BPP. The BPP had been in numerous confrontations with the police and party members were constantly being dogged, killed and arrested. Newton also saw no benefit strategically in violent means and saw more strategic benefit in non-violent political activism and community service programs. (Courtright 1974, pg 251, 255).
The breakfast program had “22 chapters” around the country, “…at the height of its enrollment, the liberation school served 400 students of all ethnic backgrounds”, the medical clinics were also a great success. The BPP also started a “national testing program for sickle cell anemia and worked to establish a research foundation to end the disease” (Alkebulan 2007, pg 32,35-36)
In an article “Revolutionary Black Nationalism”, Jessica Christina Harris explains the major split in the BPP organization between the Newton-Seale faction and the Eldridge Cleaver faction “Cleaver sat in Algiers in self-imposed exile as a response to legal charges he faced from a shootout with police in which Bobby Hutton was killed and a police officer was wounded.”(Harris 2000, pg 169)
The split between the two factions started off with the change of party strategy. Cleaver was not appreciative of the decision to shun self defense, police patrols and openly carrying weapons and had a more militant mindset, the Newton Seale faction chose to drop the use of weapons and participated in electoral politics and community service.(Alkebulan 2007, pg 80). This split was then deepened by the FBI by means of “bogus letters” sent to each faction supposedly from the other faction. The letters contained threats and accusations (Harris 2000, pg 169-170).
The BPP leaders with their new change in party personality campaigned heavily in the electoral system. In 1972-73 Bobby Seale campaigned for Mayor of Oakland and Elaine Brown the new ‘Minister of Information’ campaigned for city council. The BPP closed down many national offices and national programs to focus on the Oakland elections. Both Seale and Brown lost the elections. “This and other internal problems, along with a lot of self-destructive behavior induced negative publicity on the part of the leadership left the party members disillusioned”(Alkebulan 2007, pg 121).
The BPP was on a downward spiral. Huey Newton, the revolutionary super hero, the genius, the servant of the people was now a drug addict. “Newton fled to Cuba in 1974 following a murder accusation, after having forced many leaders out of the party due to his drug induced paranoia”(Alkebulan 2007, pg 121).
Elaine Brown assumed leadership of the BPP and tried to move in a good direction through local political and social involvement but resigned after Huey Newton’s return from Cuba in 1977. The Party survived until 1980 and eventually died out.(Alkebulan 2007, pg 121-124)
Most of the other leaders who were forced out of the party chose other routes in life.
“Newton was shot in drug related violence in 1989, Eldridge Cleaver returned to the USA and later denounced his past and became a member of the republican party, Bobby Seale wrote a book and gives lectures.”(Harris 2000, pg172)
Harris mentions that apart from self defense and community service programs, the BPP also “led rent strikes resulting in tenant ownership of their buildings, and led campaigns for the community control of schools, and the police, and the stoppage of drugs, crime, and police murder and brutality” and as such the effect she says was that “years later the government established similar programs such as free school lunch, expanded Medicare and day care facilities, and liberalized court procedures for tenant takeovers of poorly maintained housing.” (Harris 2000, pg 171)
Harris states that the BPP contributions were that it connected African Americans to other liberation struggles all over the world, brought women to the forefront of African American leadership, and that the BPP became a role model as it mastered mass media and propaganda techniques.(Harris 2000, 171-172)
The fact that African Americans do not suffer the level of institutionalized discrimination and police brutality they were subject to during and before the seventies and sixties and are active on the electoral politics forefront can be attributed at least in part to the BPP although the panthers were not the only group that contributed to these developments, due credit must be given to the BPP in setting the stage for these development.
Written for Class - Research Project.
First Published With East West Link News - ewlnews.com
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