Black Panthers at a parade (captured by Stephen Shames)

This digital project will explore the Black Panther Party by focusing on the intellectual influences that shaped the Panthers’ ideology. I recognize that by deciding to focus on the more intellectual aspects of the moment — the ideology, the prevailing narrative, and the positionality of the party — a lot of the sociocultural history is silenced. However, I believe the tale to be told about the Black Panther Party and its global impact on the perception of black and color consciousness is one that is too historically and presently significant not to tell.

Huey Newton captured in a candid (captured by Stephen Shames)

Bobby Seale speaking at a Panther rally (captured by Stephen Shames)

The Black Panther Party was established in 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Despite the purported end of de jure segregation and Jim Crow through judicial rulings and congressional legislation, African Americans continued to face discrimination, oppression, and marginalization. Many suffered under poverty, reduced (or lack of) access to public services, unemployment, and violence, which brewed discontentment. Tensions between the Oakland police force and black people – which culminated in riots like the Watts Riots of 1965 – led to an increase in police violence on black people, which further exacerbated the problem (1).

The main influences of the Black Panther Party’s ideology (first column from left to right: Baldwin, Fanon, Zedong; bottom column from left to right: Guevara, Frazier, Marx)

Originally established to combat these incessant acts of police brutality against black people by arming citizens and patrolling the streets, the Black Panther Party grew into something much greater. Upon reading and studying the ideologies of Frantz Fanon of Martinique, Che Guevara of Cuba, Mao Zedong of China, E. Franklin Frazier and James Baldwin of the United States, and Karl Marx, the leaders of the party modified their ideology when:

Newton and Seale developed an intellectual orientation that viewed the black community as a colony exploited by white businessmen, the government, and the police (2).

This ideological shift came largely as a result of the higher education Newton and Seale received. The thinkers they read at university and the ideas they espoused would radicalize them. Donna Murch, a historian at Rutgers University, would even argue in her book that Black Panther Party was founded by members of a study group, which supports the idea that the ideologies they encountered in college would truly shape and structure the Black Panther Party moving forward. In an interview (excerpt directly below), Huey Newton himself would say his encounters with the Nation of Islam, black Muslims, and Malcolm X’s program would heavily impact the structuring of the Black Panther ideology.

HUEY NEWTON: Well, ah, early on I was, a, about in the early ’60s, about 1960, 61 I had started, ah, Oakland City College. At Oakland City College I was a member, ah, instrumental in, in creating the Afro-American Association. The Afro-American Association was led by Donald Wharton. And, ah, the program was a cultural program to, ah, ah, to, ah, institute ethnic studies, African studies and Afro-American studies. Ah, from the Afro-American, the Afro-American Association, ah, ah, we created from, from, from the Afro-American Association, its, stemmed the Soul Student Advisory Council, and that was the action group inside of the school. After we created the, ah, the study classes, I felt that there was need to do other things, ah, to affect the wider community. And, ah, I became, ah, in contact, I, I came in contact with the Black Muslims. Ah, I was very impressed with Malcolm X. And, ah, Malcolm X’ program, or the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that, ah, Malcolm X followed, program was, ah, ah, it was like a Ten Point Program. Matter of fact, that, ah, our program was structured after the, ah, patterned after the Black Muslim program. It, ah, was minus the religion. And, ah, I think that I became disillusioned with the, with the, ah, Muslims after Malcolm X was assassinated. I think that I was following not, ah, Elijah Muhammad or the Muslims but Malcolm X himself (11.)

Nikhil Singh would also describe in his work how Seale and Newton first began fundraising for the party by distributing Mao Zedong’s Red Book nearby Berkeley’s campus, “be­lieving that the idea of ‘Negroes with RedBooks’ would pique the curiosity of Berkeley’s campus radicals and get them interested in supporting (and fi­nancing) the Panther Party” (9).

This perspective inspired the party’s push to bring about black self-determination by directing resources and attention to community social programs. In addition to recognizing the necessity of building strong black-controlled institutions, the Panthers were unapologetically bold in their Marxist, anti-imperialist perspective to the society and issues around them, citing the racist white capitalist establishment as responsible. With this ideological framework, the party advocated for class unity and black power through black self-actualization in order to overthrow the establishment. The party’s members were remarkably bold in challenging white authority and even other black movements like Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

For example, the video attached above depicts former SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael lending his support to the Black Panther Party in 1967, specifically that “This is the first time in the country that Negroes will be organized for their own political interest and they will form their own party and move along those interests as they see fit.” Just two years later, however, there would be infighting between Carmichael and the other Panther leaders, ultimately leading to his resignation as the Panthers’ prime minister in 1969. The Panthers were resolute in their ideology, specifically in emphasizing (and highlighting) class struggle, whereas Carmichael sought to ‘overlook’ it in seeking racial unity, and attracting white leftist support to free Newton, whereas Carmichael would rather call upon a Pan-African effort. The SNCC-Panther alliance would crumble and later would even culminate in a violent shootout that left two Panthers dead, further demonstrating the Panthers’ unwillingness to back down in their ideology, even at the expense of clashing with other black liberation movements (13).

This poster, first utilized by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in a voter registration campaign, later became the iconic and representative piece of propaganda of the BPP.

To find out more on the significance of this poster and how it eventually led to the the name of the BPP:

BOBBY SEALE: Actually we had written the Ten-Point Platform and Program of the organization but yet didn’t have a name. A couple of days later, Huey Newton and I was trying to figure out why was that on a Lowndes County Freedom Organization, it was Lowndes County, Mississippi, a pamphlet that we had, why they had this charging Black panther as logo. And, Huey come up with some notion that if you drive a panther into a corner, if he can’t go left and he can’t go right, then he will tend to come out of that corner to wipe out or stop its aggressor. So, I said, “That’s just like Black people. All the Civil Rights people are getting brutalized across this country for exercising the First Amendment of the Constitution which is the law of the land, they can’t go left. Other people have tried to control the police with law books and tape recorders and have been brutalized. They can’t go right. Even the young Whites who were protesting,” I said, “Who was in support of the Black people, can’t go left, can’t go right. So we just like the Black panthers and in effect Huey P. Newton and I named the organization the Black Panther Party. But at first it was the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Later, we dropped the self defense aspect because we didn’t want to be classified as a paramilitary organization (12).

First and foremost, the Panthers were adamant about being revolutionaries. In the context of the international rise and spread of socialism, it made many American government officials wary, so much so that the Former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) J. Edgar Hoover publicly stated that the “Panthers are the ‘greatest threat to the internal security of the country'” (5). As such, the FBI even launched a counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO to disrupt and subvert groups like the Panthers. Shortly thereafter, Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, was shot and killed in a police raid at the age of 21. Yet, in the years leading up to his death, he, like other Panthers, would unabashedly proclaim his status as a revolutionary fighting against the capitalist structure.

Fred Hampton in his speech “I Am a Revolutionary”

BPP Poster from 1970 (accessed from the Library of Congress)

Secondly, the Panthers were incredibly vocal about the necessity for unity through a black and class consciousness. Their Marxist understanding of the struggle led them to form alliances with “radical whites, Chicanos and other Third World groups” (2). They were incredibly strategic in forming these alliances across racial and national lines and were remarkably clear-sighted about who was to be supported and who was to be fought.

In The Black Panther article published on September 28, 1968, entitled “Warning to So-Called ‘Paper Panthers,'” the author writes:

Black brothers stop vamping on the hippies. They are not your enemy. Your enemy, right now, is the white racist pigs who support this corrupt system. Your enemy is the Tom n***** who reports to his white slavemaster every day. Your enemy is the fat capitalist who exploits your people daily. Your enemy is the politician who uses pretty words to deceive you. Your enemy is the racist pigs who use Nazi-type tactics and force to intimidate black expressionism. Your enemy is not the hippies. Your blind reactionary acts endanger THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY members and its revolutionary movements. WE HAVE NO QUARREL WITH THE HIPPIES. LEAVE THEM ALONE. Or – THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY will deal with you (3).

It is evident that the Panthers as a party made it clear that the (supposed white) hippies were not the central problem – partly because of their socioeconomic position in American society – and that only those who support the corrupt system were to be opposed. This move appears not to be out of an affinity for the hippies but rather a conscientious recalibration of efforts and attention back onto the ‘correct’ enemy.

Two examples of BPP ideology: a photo (left) of Seale and Newton with a quote from Seale and a BPP poster (right) 

The Black Panther (newspaper) – July 3, 1967

This issue attached directly above exemplifies this class consciousness across racial lines quite aptly because it includes an excerpt from a piece in support of Mao Zedong’s ideologies and a letter from a Filipino man that offers financial and verbal support of the movement and expresses his desire to overthrow the white capitalist establishment in conjunction with the Black Panther Party.

In addition to this class consciousness, the party fostered a black consciousness by “calling for Blacks to work together to protect their rights and to improve their economic and social conditions” (4). As Stokely Carmichael put it in his work “The Basis of Black Power”:

Thus an all-black project is needed in order for the people to free themselves. This has to exist from the beginning. This relates to what can be called “coalition politics.” There is no doubt in our minds that some whites are just as disgusted with this system as we are. But it is meaningless to talk about coalition if there is no one to align ourselves with, because of the lack of organization in the white communities. There can be no talk of “hooking up” unless black people organize blacks and white people organize whites. If these conditions are met, then perhaps at some later date–and if we are going in the same direction–talks about exchange of personnel, coalition, and other meaningful alliances can be discussed (5).

The Panthers clearly emphasized black unity for the purpose of amassing power as a movement and of liberating themselves from the hold of the white capitalist establishment. However, they were vocal about the struggle that existed between black people of different classes and even criticized the “Black middle class for acting against the interests of other, less fortunate Blacks” (4).

While the Panthers emphasized “black pride” and, more pragmatically, black control of the organization, they also exhibited a strategic level of internationalism, a central element of their ideology and wide-ranging appeal. From the example of the Black Panther newspaper praising and welcoming support from the Filipino man and their acknowledgement of the allyship from groups like the white leftists and the White Panther Party, it is clear that Panthers welcomed solidarity and support from non-black people in order to strengthen their movement but at the same time, heavily stressed the necessity of a black-centered politics.

A document outlining the White Panther Party’s ideologies in the format of the BPP’s Ten Point Program

Finally, the Black Panthers adamantly sought black power through self-determination, recognizing that socialism and black nationalism were inextricably linked. They engaged in a type of “community control” by taking responsibility over the welfare of black Americans. They wanted to establish strong black-controlled institutions apart from the services and programs offered by the government. The Panthers offered services in education by forming after-school programs, in health by establishing free breakfast programs and health clinics, and in protection by self-policing, physically confronting police officers, and reaching out to gangs to make peace; the party also fostered community by creating and distributing their own newspaper. In doing so, the Panthers sought to build self-sustaining communities that would allow black people to self-actualize and be the masters of their own destiny, as stated in the founding document of the Black Panther Party, the Ten-Point Program.

Representative moments of the BPP’s ideology (from left to right, top row followed by bottom): two photos of a BPP after-school program, children protesting for the release of black political prisoners, men at a parade, members discussing the BPP newspaper, and a woman holding a copy of the latest BPP issue (captured by Stephen Shames). 

The Black Panther Party was an incredibly effective, visually evocative, and historically significant black power movement. In its 16 years of operation, it established and operated out of 30 chapters in major American cities. The transnational impact the party had is even more awe-inspiring. To think that one moment – when armed black men marched into the California state legislature to protest against the Mulford Act, a bill that was passed in response to the party’s armed patrols – would give a small six-member organization in Oakland the platform and the publicity to soon grow to one that had chapters all over the country and support groups in “Japan, China, France, England, Germany, Sweden, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uruguay, and elsewhere” is a testament to the work of the Black Panthers and the importance of highlighting black, color, and class consciousness (2).

Police confronting armed Black Panthers on the California State Capital (accessed from Library of Congress)

Members of the Seattle BPP chapter stand in protest at the Washington State capitol (accessed from Washington State Archives)

To conclude this digital project, I included two iconic images of the Black Panthers’ protest on the steps of the California State Capital. The physical demonstration of armed, unbending, black men demanding rights was a major reason for the publicity and the platform the party received and allowed for this moment to be a foundational moment that would ignite an entire generation of black people.

Sources:

(1) https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/black-panther-party/

(2) https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party

(3) https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/unknown-date/black-power.htm

(4) https://aaregistry.org/story/black-panther-party-founded/

(5) https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/1968/paper-panthers.htm

(6) https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/index.htm

(7) https://stephenshames.com/projects/black-panther-party/

(8) http://www.inmotionaame.org/print.cfm;jsessionid=f830455521556637546985?migration=9&bhcp=1

(9) Nikhil Singh, “The Black Panthers and the ‘Underdeveloped Country,’ of the Left,” in Charles E. Jones, ed., The Black Panther Party Reconsidered: Reflections and Scholarship (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), 57-105

(10) http://collection-politicalgraphics.org/detail.php?type=browse&id=1&term=Black+Panther+Party&module=objects&kv=3126&record=32&page=1

(11) http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eii/eiiweb/new5427.0458.119hueypnewton.html

(12) http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eii/eiiweb/sea5427.0172.147bobbyseale.html

(13) https://web.stanford.edu/~ccarson/articles/am_left.htm

(14) https://depts.washington.edu/moves/BPP_map-cities.shtml