The founding of the Black Panthers was 59 years ago today

This is the 59th birthday of the Black Panther Party, founded on October 15, 1966. Among other surprising historical facts, California banned the open carrying of firearms because the Panthers were strident defenders of that right.

The InfluenceWatch profile of the Black Panthers begins with this overview:

The Black Panther Party was a communist Black militant organization founded in 1966 that allied with extremist New Left organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and communist regimes abroad. A 1969 SDS resolution declared the Panthers the “vanguard force” in the “black liberation movement” and the “vanguard in our common struggles against capitalism and imperialism.” One historian described Panther members as “a cross-section of young African Americans, some who were law-abiding and sincerely interested in being of value to the Black community, others who had no qualms about breaking the law if it could be rationalized as a revolutionary activity, and still others who were just plain ruthless and criminal.” At peak popularity, the Panthers claimed 5,000 members in approximately three dozen chapters across the nation, and a 1970 Louis Harris poll revealed that 25 percent of African Americans “felt the Black Panther Party represented their views.”

The Black Panthers’ first popular program and successful recruiting tool was arming members with firearms, criminal law books, cameras and recording devices, and then sending them to follow police patrols. The Panther teams would observe the police/citizen interactions, ostensibly to remind individuals of their constitutional rights and prevent police abuses. The behavior created verbal confrontations with police, but no exchange of gunfire. Open carrying of firearms was legal in California at the time, but in response to the Panthers’ actions, the state of California enacted a law banning open carry.

So-called “survival programs” were the Black Panthers’ other major community outreach program and successful recruiting tool. A free breakfast program for schoolchildren grew to serve 10,000 Oakland children daily and expanded to nearly three dozen other cities. Survival programs later included K-8 schools, free medical clinics and ambulance services, sickle-cell anemia testing, and other social services. The Panthers used boycotts, firebombing and violence against local business owners who did not voluntarily contribute to the free breakfast program.

The Panthers were frequently associated with violence and crime, particularly after late 1967. Co-founder Huey Newton stated the organization benefitted from thefts carried out by Oakland’s criminals: “In order to survive, they still had to sell their hot [stolen] goods. But at the same time they would pass some of their cash on to us.” Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver deliberately recruited members with criminal inclinations, and said he wanted those who survive “off what they rip off, who stick guns in the faces of businessmen” and “don’t want a job.” The Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America reported that 28 Panthers may have died because in gun battles with law enforcement. Another history states that 9 police officers were killed and 56 wounded in violent confrontations with the Panthers over a 2 ½ year period running through 1969. A bookkeeper alleged to be knowledgeable of tax evasion and other misdeeds by the Panther leadership was brutally murdered.  Similarly, a team of Panthers attempted to murder a prosecution witness who identified Newton as the gunman who murdered a 17-year-old prostitute.

The full InfluenceWatch profile is here: The Black Panther Party.

The following InfluenceWatch profiles also cover The Black Panthers and their membership:

• Ramparts
• Stokely Carmichael
• People’s Law Office
• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
• Weather Underground (Weatherman/The Weathermen)
• Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)