THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY: AN OVERVIEW

 

 

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY: AN OVERVIEW  

By Swayam Ganguly

 

Origin

The roots of the Black Panther Party can be traced back to October 15^th, 1966 in Oakland, California when Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. (Yes, it does sound like a pop/soul/R&B duo doesn’t it? It’s nothing like it. More of metal! Read on!)

This however, was no Aam Aadmi Party. Instead it was a group absolutely loathed by the Aam American Aadmi. This African- American organization aimed at promoting civil rights and self defense and was active in the USA from the mid 1960s to the 1970s. The Panthers are more or less extinct today.    

Black Panther Theory:

Malcolm X was a huge source of inspiration for the Panthers and they followed his philosophy of international working class unity irrespective of color and gender.Mao was another inspiration and Mao’s Red Book came in handy when it was sold to university students to enable the purchase of shotguns.

The cause was perhaps not worthy enough but the sales were so encouraging that the party made the book an essential read for all members. The basic ideology of the Panthers was the practice of militant self-defense of the minority communities against the US Government as well as the establishment of revolutionary socialism with the help of mass organizing and community based programs. The ideological similarity with the Indian Maoists in today’s times is astonishing.

 

In January, 1969, The first Panther’s Free Breakfast for School Children Program was initiated at St. Augustine’s Church in Oakland. In 1969, the Panthers set up kitchens in cities across the nation, feeding over 10,000 children everyday before they went to school.

 

 

Black Panther History: 

April 25th, 1967 was a historic day as the first issue of The Black Panther, the party’s official news organ, went into distribution. In the following month, the party marched on the California state capital fully armed, in protest of the state’s attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public. Bobby Seale was arrested along with 30 armed Panthers. This early act of political repression kindled the fire to the burning resistance movement in the United States leading to the formation of new Panther organizations.

 

 

Original six Black Panthers (Nov, 1966) Top left to right: Elbert “Big Man” Howard; Huey P. Newton (Defense Minister), Sherman Forte, Bobby Seale (Chairman). Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton (Treasurer).

   

The Panthers consisted of two groups, the first being the millions of unemployed blacks forming the “industrial reserve army”, largely dependent on Welfare or State Aid. The second group was the “criminal element”, the gangsters, thieves, pimps and prostitutes who had been locked out of the economy. Indian voters disillusioned with their political leaders can take heart. Probably the lack of an intelligent wing like the Military Commission and the Politburo on the lines of the Indian Marxists in today’s times was needed then to save the Panthers from extinction. Gangsters, thieves, pimps and prostitutes can hardly be deemed capable enough to lead a revolution, after all.

Probably it was this factor that prompted FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover to describe the Panthers as, “The greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”

The Indian Prime Minister (or was it the Home Minister?) quoted Hoover word to word when it came to a quote regarding the Marxists. “Get original yo!” in original Panther lingo!

The FBI under Hoover began a program called COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) to neutralize all such dissident hate groups.

Surgical assasinations would be followed by a series of arrests and psychological warfare to split the party morally and politically.

  

U.S. Police Terror and Repression

On April 6, 1968, in West Oakland, Bobby Hutton, an unarmed 17 year old kid was shot dead by Oakland police. In a 90 minute gun battle, an unarmed Bobby Hutton was shot ten times, after his house was set ablaze and he was forced to run out into a fire of bullets. Just two days earlier, Martin Luther King was assasinated. Two months later, Robert Kennedy, widely recognised in the minority commmunity as one of the only politicians in the US “sympathetic” to the civil rights movement, was also assassinated.

 

 THE TEN-POINT PROGRAM  

The Panthers created a Ten-Point Program, a document calling for “Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace” and exemption from military service for African-American men, among other demands. The last one is a bit confusing. If the Panthers were a patriotic lot and not separatists why would they demand exemption from military service? To focus more on the job at hand, perhaps?

•  We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities’ education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.
• We want completely free health care for all black and oppressed people.
• We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside the United States.
• We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression.
• 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 the shelter of human beings.
• We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society.
• We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in U. S. Federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country.
• We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people’s community control of modern technology.

 Quoting Bob Marley would be the best way to pay tribute to the positivity of the Black Panther Party: “Get up stand up. Stand up for your rights.Get Up Stand up. Don’t give up the fight! ”

  

                                                  MEMORABLE PANTHER QUOTES

 Bobby Seale: We not anti-white, we anti-oppression! You can’t fight racism with racism.

Tyrone: Uh, Alma is it? We don’t…
Alma: What? I’m black ain’t I, I wanna help my community right or do you think oppression ends with that thing dangling between your legs?
Tyrone: But…
Alma: But nothing! We want full-fledged membership in the Black Panther Party and none of that alright sugar as long as you play the background, rubbing my feet, getting my drink bullshit, you dig?

 

The author’s debut novel titled “Love Films and Rock n Roll” has been released recently. His second novel, “Good Bad and Ugly” is due for release soon.