Misplaced Pages

#893106

89-625: The 1960s were famous for numerous social movements, including the Black Panther Party in California. This increase in racial tension across the nation fed to rising concerns about the African-American population. The Black Panther Party was created to watch the actions of police forces in Los Angeles making sure that they were protecting the public as a whole, not a specific race. In Oakland,

178-487: A "revolutionary internationalist movement ": [The Party] dropped its wholesale attacks against whites and began to emphasize more of a class analysis of society. Its emphasis on Marxist–Leninist doctrine and its repeated espousal of Maoist statements signaled the group's transition from a revolutionary nationalist to a revolutionary internationalist movement. Every Party member had to study Mao Tse-tung's "Little Red Book" to advance his or her knowledge of peoples' struggle and

267-614: A 1958 rape conviction. They settled in Algeria. By the end of the year, party membership peaked at around 2,000. Party members engaged in criminal activities such as extortion, stealing, violent discipline of BPP members, and robberies. The BPP leadership took one-third of the proceeds from robberies committed by BPP members. No kid should be running around hungry in school. Bobby Seale Inspired by Mao Zedong 's advice to revolutionaries in The Little Red Book , Newton called on

356-434: A 90-minute gun battle with the police. The standoff ended with Cleaver wounded and Hutton voluntarily surrendering. According to Cleaver, although Hutton had stripped down to his underwear and had his hands raised in the air to prove that he was unarmed, Oakland Police shot Hutton more than 12 times, killing him. Two police officers were also shot. He became the first member of the party to be killed by police. Although at

445-503: A California law that permitted carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one. Generally this was done while monitoring and observing police behavior in their neighborhoods, with the Panthers arguing that this emphasis on active militancy and openly carrying their weapons was necessary to protect individuals from police violence. For example, chants like "The Revolution has come, it's time to pick up

534-927: A big influence on the White Panther Party , tied to the Detroit/Ann Arbor band MC5 and their manager John Sinclair (author of the book Guitar Army ), which also promulgated a ten-point program. Violent conflict between the Panther chapter in LA and the US Organization , a black nationalist group, resulted in shootings and beatings and led to the murders of at least four Black Panther Party members. On January 17, 1969, Los Angeles Panther Captain Bunchy Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins were killed in Campbell Hall on

623-600: A circulation of 250,000. The group created a Ten-Point Program , a document that called for "Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace", as well as exemption from conscription for black men, among other demands. With the Ten-Point program, "What We Want, What We Believe," the Black Panther Party expressed its economic and political grievances. Curtis Austin states that by late 1968, Black Panther ideology had evolved from black nationalism to become more

712-471: A largely Latino left-wing group; it evolved to an increasingly Maoist/Communist brigade. Katerina Del Valle was its chairperson. In 1971 they were joined by a faction of the Maoist organization Revolutionary Union (RU), led by H. Bruce Franklin , a Stanford University English professor. More whites joined the organization through this period. Franklin was fired in 1972 on charges of violating his commitment to

801-419: A memo: We are reading in the public press, and hearing via television and radio, that the best breeding and/or recruiting ground for neo-revolutionaries is in the prison system…. I am witnessing the deterioration of our ethnic organizations, which were once dedicated to the educational improvement of our men inside San Quentin, to para-military organizations with revolutionary overtones…. I do not believe that as

890-484: A plan to send a group of 26 armed Panthers led by Seale from Oakland to Sacramento to protest the bill. The group entered the assembly carrying their weapons, an incident which was widely publicized, and which prompted police to arrest Seale and five others. The group pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disrupting a legislative session. At the time of the protest, the Party had fewer than 100 members in total. In May 1967,

979-539: A police officer, Party members cited laws proving they had done nothing wrong and threatened to take to court any officer that violated their constitutional rights. Between the end of 1966 to the start of 1967, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense's armed police patrols in Oakland black communities attracted a small handful of members. Numbers grew slightly starting in February 1967, when the party provided an armed escort at

SECTION 10

#1732851228894

1068-694: A revolutionary anti-imperialist perspective working with more active and militant groups like the Soul Students Advisory Council and the Revolutionary Action Movement . Their paid jobs running youth service programs at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center allowed them to develop a revolutionary nationalist approach to community service, later a key element in the Black Panther Party's " community survival programs ." Dissatisfied with

1157-869: A serious political threat, as described in its 202-page report America's Maoists: the Revolutionary Union, the Venceremos Organization (1972). Venceremos members often participated in City Council and School Board meetings in Palo Alto with a verbal aggressiveness rarely seen before in the city's politics. Member Jeffrey Youdelman was known for offensive shouting down of council members and presenting petitions for radical left causes. Venceremos members ran for local office in Palo Alto, including Jean Hobson and Youdelman who unsuccessfully ran for City Council in 1971 and 1973, respectively. Doug Garrett ran for

1246-641: A variety of locations throughout the country which focused their curriculum on Black history , writing skills, and political science. The first Liberation School was opened by the Richmond Black Panthers in July 1969 with brunch served and snacks provided to students. Another school was opened in Mt. Vernon New York on July 17 of the subsequent year. These schools were informal in nature and more closely resembled after-school or summer programs. While these campuses were

1335-516: A week. Over time, the BCA evolved from an educational group into more of a political group that focused on radical ideals and black empowerment. Because the focus of the group shifted away from the conventional educational group, no statistics could be found on how successful the program was at improving the education of prisoners. One notable member of the BCA was a black prisoner named Donald DeFreeze . Defreeze became close with Westbrook and quickly embraced

1424-416: Is noted as saying, "I think that the school's principles came from the socialist principles we tried to live in the Black Panther Party. One of them being critical thinking—that children should learn not what to think but how to think ... the school was an expression of the collective wisdom of the people who envisioned it. And it was ... a living thing [that] changed every year. Joan Kelley oversaw funding for

1513-648: The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense ) was a Marxist–Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California . The party was active in the United States between 1966 and 1982, with chapters in many major American cities, including San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle , and Philadelphia . They were also active in many prisons and had international chapters in

1602-588: The Ku Klux Klan . In December 1966, he became the first treasurer and recruit of the Black Panther Party at the age of just 16 years old. On April 6, 1968, two days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , and with riots raging across cities in the United States, the 17-year-old Hutton was traveling with Eldridge Cleaver and other BPP members in a car. The group confronted Oakland Police officers, then fled to an apartment building where they engaged in

1691-719: The Progressive Labor Party , Bob Avakian of the Community for New Politics, and the Red Guard . For example, the Black Panther Party collaborated with the Peace and Freedom Party , which sought to promote a strong antiwar and antiracist politics in opposition to the establishment Democratic Party . The Black Panther Party provided needed legitimacy to the Peace and Freedom Party's racial politics and in return received invaluable support for

1780-1055: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , the Revolutionary Action Movement and the Nation of Islam , as well as leaders including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. , Stokely Carmichael , H. Rap Brown , Maxwell Stanford and Elijah Muhammad . As assistant FBI Director William Sullivan later testified in front of the Church Committee , the Bureau "did not differentiate" between Soviet spies and suspected Communists in black nationalist movements when deploying surveillance and neutralization tactics. COINTELPRO attempted to create rivalries between black nationalist factions and to exploit existing ones. One such attempt

1869-507: The UCLA campus, in a gun battle with members of the US Organization. Another shootout between the two groups on March 17 led to further injuries. Two more Panthers died. Paramount to their beliefs regarding the need for individual agency to catalyze community change, the Black Panther Party (BPP) strongly supported the education of the masses. As part of their Ten-Point Program which set forth

SECTION 20

#1732851228894

1958-528: The proletarian vanguard . In 1969, J. Edgar Hoover , the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), described the party as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." The FBI sabotaged the party with an illegal and covert counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance , infiltration , perjury , and police harassment , all designed to undermine and criminalize

2047-568: The "Free Huey" campaign. In 1968 the southern California chapter was founded by Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter in Los Angeles. Carter was the leader of the Slauson Street gang, and many of the L.A. chapter's early recruits were Slausons. Bobby James Hutton was born April 21, 1950, in Jefferson County, Arkansas. At the age of three, he and his family moved to Oakland, California after being harassed by racist vigilante groups associated with

2136-507: The 1980s. The same people who were demanding social reforms found themselves in jail demanding prison reforms for those of color. From this rise in black inmate population came the Black Cultural Association, or the BCA. Their goal was to educate black inmates on basic educational skills as well as foster an environment for black empowerment. The main purpose of the BCA was to provide educational tutoring for inmates. For two years

2225-582: The BCA operated without much direction. However, in 1971 the BCA was officially recognized by the California Medical Facility . University of California-Berkeley linguistic professor, Colston Westbrook was recruited to organize an educational tutoring system for the group. Westbrook's goal was to instill racial pride in the prisoners and provide self-help. Westbrook brought in a group of tutors to teach math, reading, writing, art, political science, black sociology, and African heritage. A majority of

2314-468: The BCA tutors were white students from the University of California at Berkeley that held leftist and radical beliefs. BCA tutors included Russell Little and William Wolfe. As well as Patricia Soltysik , Nancy Ling Perry , and Patty Hearst (who used a fake ID with the name Mary Alice Siem ), according to Lake Headley , a private investigator. The group began to grow and started to meet two to three times

2403-453: The Black Panther Party and a black nationalist group called the US Organization , allegedly sending a provocative letter to the US Organization to increase existing antagonism. COINTELPRO also aimed to dismantle the Black Panther Party by targeting their social/community programs, including its Free Breakfast for Children program, whose success had served to "shed light on the government's failure to address child poverty and hunger—pointing to

2492-448: The Black Panther Party and sought to focus directly on political action. Members were encouraged to carry guns and to defend themselves against violence. An influx of college students joined the group, which had consisted chiefly of "brothers off the block". This created some tension in the group. Some members were more interested in supporting the Panthers' social programs, while others wanted to maintain their "street mentality". By 1968,

2581-625: The Black Panther Party emerged. In late October 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). In formulating a new politics, they drew on their work with a variety of Black Power organizations. Newton and Seale first met in 1962 when they were both students at Merritt College . They joined Donald Warden's Afro-American Association , where they read widely, debated, and organized in an emergent black nationalist tradition inspired by Malcolm X and others. Eventually dissatisfied with Warden's accommodationism, they developed

2670-586: The Black Panther symbol. Newton and Seale decided to adopt the Black Panther logo and form their own organization called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Newton and Seale decided on a uniform of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets, the latter adopted as an homage to Che Guevara . Sixteen-year-old Bobby Hutton was their first recruit. By January 1967, the BPP opened its first official headquarters in an Oakland storefront and published

2759-565: The Black Panthers and their allies had become primary COINTELPRO targets, singled out in 233 of the 295 authorized " Black Nationalist " COINTELPRO actions. The goals of the program were to prevent the unification of militant black nationalist groups and to weaken their leadership, as well as to discredit them to reduce their support and growth. The initial targets included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ,

Black Cultural Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

2848-572: The Intercommunal Youth Institute which was provided through a combination of Black Panther fundraising and community support. Venceremos (political organization) Venceremos ( Spanish for "We will be victorious") was an American far-left and primarily Chicano political group active in the Palo Alto, California area from 1969 to 1973. The organization was founded in 1966 by Aaron Manganiello (a former Brown Beret ) as

2937-413: The Panther , writer Hugh Pearson alleges that Newton was intoxicated in the hours before the incident, and claimed to have willfully killed John Frey. At the time, Newton claimed that he had been falsely accused, leading to the Party's "Free Huey!" campaign. The police killing gained the party even wider recognition by the radical American left and it stimulated the growth of the Party nationwide. Newton

3026-778: The Panthers Party claimed to have fed twenty thousand children in the 1968–69 school year. The Black Panther Party's free breakfast program is "the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for." FBI director J. Edgar Hoover Other survival programs were free services such as clothing distribution, classes on politics and economics, free medical clinics, lessons on self-defense and first aid, transportation to upstate prisons for family members of inmates, an emergency-response ambulance program, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and testing for sickle-cell disease . The free medical clinics were very significant because they modeled an idea of how

3115-587: The Panthers invaded the State Assembly Chamber in Sacramento , guns in hand, in what appears to have been a publicity stunt . Still, they scared a lot of important people that day. At the time, the Panthers had almost no following. Now, (a year later) however, their leaders speak on invitation almost anywhere radicals gather, and many whites wear "Honkeys for Huey " buttons, supporting the fight to free Newton, who has been in jail since last Oct. 28 (1967) on

3204-516: The Panthers to "serve the people" and to make "survival programs" a priority within its branches. The most famous of their programs was the Free Breakfast for Children Program , initially run out of an Oakland church. The Free Breakfast For Children program was especially significant because it served as a space for educating youth about the current condition of the Black community, and the actions that

3293-454: The Panthers' many legal battles. The BPP adopted a "Serve the People" program, which at first involved a free breakfast program for children . By the end of 1968, the BPP had established 38 chapters and branches, claiming more than five thousand members. Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver left the country days before Cleaver was to turn himself in to serve the remainder of a thirteen-year sentence for

3382-439: The Party had expanded into many U.S. cities, including Atlanta , Baltimore , Boston , Chicago, Cleveland , Dallas , Denver , Detroit, Kansas City , Los Angeles, Newark , New Orleans , New York City, Omaha , Philadelphia , Pittsburgh , San Diego , San Francisco, Seattle , Toledo , and Washington, D.C. Peak membership was near 5,000 by 1969, and their newspaper , under the editorial leadership of Eldridge Cleaver , had

3471-448: The Party was taking to address that condition. "While the children ate their meal[s], members [of the Party] taught them liberation lessons consisting of Party messages and Black history." Through this program, the Party was able to influence young minds, and strengthen their ties to communities as well as gain widespread support for their ideologies. The breakfast program became so popular that

3560-802: The Peking House commune, but commune members were concerned about police surveillance. They moved DeFreeze to a lower-profile location east of the hills in Concord . Calling himself General Field Marshal Cinque, he co-founded the Symbionese Liberation Army with Patricia Soltysik , a white woman, and a few mostly white associates he met as a prisoner and member of the Black Cultural Association at Vacaville Prison , including former Venceremos members Joe Remiro and Willie Wolfe. The Communist Party USA (Provisional) also traces its origins to

3649-412: The Sacramento action, in the second issue of The Black Panther newspaper. In August 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) instructed its program " COINTELPRO " to "neutralize ... black nationalist hate groups" and other dissident groups. In September 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country". By 1969,

Black Cultural Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

3738-460: The San Francisco airport for Betty Shabazz , Malcolm X's widow and keynote speaker for a conference held in his honor. The Black Panther Party's focus on militancy was often construed as open hostility, feeding a reputation of violence even though early efforts by the Panthers focused primarily on promoting social issues and the exercise of their legal right to carry arms. The Panthers employed

3827-521: The School Board. During this period, Venceremos held weekly rallies at Lytton Plaza in Palo Alto, which they dubbed "The People's Plaza." In May 1971, Venceremos's Easter Division drifted away from the center and began organizing through the United Farm Workers union. A small group of Venceremos members attempted to free a federal prisoner on October 6, 1972; several members were involved in

3916-621: The Symbionese Liberation Army, or the SLA. Other volunteers at Vacaville prison were members of the Venceremos , a radical Chicano political organization. When the Venceremos political group became inactive, it joined forces with DeFreeze and the SLA to fight for prison reforms and black rights. Because the BCA operated with major political overtones under the pretense of education, many feared

4005-582: The United Kingdom and Algeria. Upon its inception, the party's core practice was its open carry patrols ("copwatching") designed to challenge the excessive force and misconduct of the Oakland Police Department . From 1969 onward, the party created social programs, including the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, education programs, and community health clinics. The Black Panther Party advocated for class struggle , claiming to represent

4094-505: The black migration "fled to the suburbs along with white residents", the black population was concentrated in poor "urban ghettos" with high unemployment and substandard housing and was mostly excluded from political representation, top universities, and the middle class. Northern and Western police departments were almost all white. In 1966, only 16 of Oakland's 661 police officers were African American (less than 2.5%). Civil rights tactics proved incapable of redressing these conditions, and

4183-601: The books, make the money, buy the guns, and go on the streets with the guns. We'll protect a mother, protect a brother, and protect the community from the racist cops." On October 29, 1966, Stokely Carmichael – a leader of SNCC – championed the call for " Black Power " and came to Berkeley to keynote a Black Power conference. At the time, he was promoting the armed organizing efforts of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) in Alabama and their use of

4272-502: The charge that he killed a policeman ... In 1967, the Mulford Act was passed by the California legislature and signed by governor Ronald Reagan . The bill was crafted in response to members of the Black Panther Party who were copwatching . The bill repealed a law that allowed the public carrying of loaded firearms. The Black Panther Party first publicized its original "What We Want Now!" Ten-Point program on May 15, 1967, following

4361-513: The citizenry, community control of the police, and reform of the prison system. To these ends, the group's members engaged in a number of legal activities, such as working to educate prisoners and defend Vietnam War protesters. The organization's ultimate stated goal was the overthrow of the government. In 1970, Venceremos opened its own community college in a Redwood City storefront; it operated for two years until running out of money. The House Committee on Internal Security considered Venceremos

4450-474: The daughter of two Black Panther members, Mary Luana Williams . Fonda and other Hollywood celebrities became involved in the Panthers' leftist programs. The Panthers attracted a wide variety of left-wing revolutionaries and political activists, including writer Jean Genet , former Ramparts magazine editor David Horowitz (who later became a major critic of what he describes as Panther criminality) and left-wing lawyer Charles R. Garry , who acted as counsel in

4539-573: The domestic Black Liberation Struggle and global opponents of American imperialism ". Other scholars have described the party as more criminal than political, characterized by "defiant posturing over substance". During World War II , tens of thousands of black people left the Southern states during the Second Great Migration , moving to Oakland and other cities in the Bay Area to find work in

SECTION 50

#1732851228894

4628-581: The explosive rebellious anger of the ghetto as a social force and believed that if he could stand up to the police, he could organize that force into political power. Inspired by Robert F. Williams ' armed resistance to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Williams' book Negroes with Guns , Newton studied gun laws in California extensively. Like the Community Alert Patrol in Los Angeles after the Watts Rebellion , he decided to organize patrols to follow

4717-544: The faculty to student ratio was 1:10. The Panther's goal in opening Liberation Schools, and specifically the Intercommunal Youth Institute, was to provide students with an education that was not being provided in the "white" schools, as the public schools in the district employed a Eurocentric assimilationist curriculum with little to no attention to black history and culture. While students were provided with traditional courses such as English, Math, and Science, they were also exposed to activities focused on class structure and

4806-438: The failure of these organizations to directly challenge police brutality and appeal to the "brothers on the block", Huey and Bobby took matters into their own hands. After the police killed Matthew Johnson, an unarmed young black man in San Francisco, Newton observed the violent insurrection that followed. He had an epiphany that would distinguish the Black Panther Party from the multitude of Black Power organizations. Newton saw

4895-523: The first issue of The Black Panther: Black Community News Service . The newspaper would be in continuous circulation, though varying in length, format, title, and frequency until the party dissolved. At its height, it sold one hundred thousand copies a week. The initial tactic of the party used contemporary open-carry gun laws to protect Party members when policing the police. This act was done to record incidents of police brutality by distantly following police cars around neighborhoods. When confronted by

4984-569: The first to open, the first full-time and longest-running Liberation School was opened in January 1971 in Oakland in response to the inequitable conditions in the Oakland Unified School District which was ranked one of the lowest-scoring districts in California. Named the Intercommunal Youth Institute (IYI), this school, under the directorship of Brenda Bay, and later Ericka Huggins , enrolled twenty-eight students in its first year, with

5073-564: The following titles (listed in order): Number 5 of the "What We Want Now!" section of the Ten-Point Program reads: "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 present-day society." To ensure that this occurred, the Black Panther Party took the education of their youth into their own hands by first establishing after-school programs and then opening up Liberation Schools in

5162-494: The group as a means to control the inmates and fuel the social unrest of the time. Various conspiracy theories involved the accusations that the group was transformed into an assassin group rather than one based purely for education. With inmates cut off from the outside world and their only information being fed to them by the radical tutors, it is believed by some that the group plotted revolution and other drastic means for social change. Louis Nelson, warden at San Quentin stated in

5251-409: The gun, they can recapture their dreams and bring them into reality. On October 28, 1967, Oakland police officer John Frey was shot to death in an altercation with Huey P. Newton during a traffic stop in which Newton and backup officer Herbert Heanes also sustained gunshot wounds. Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter at trial, but the conviction was later overturned. In his book Shadow of

5340-425: The gun. Off the pigs!", helped create the Panthers' reputation as a violent organization. The black community of Richmond, California wanted protection against police brutality. With only three main streets for entering and exiting the neighborhood, it was easy for police to control, contain, and suppress the population. On April 1, 1967, a black unarmed twenty-two-year-old construction worker named Denzil Dowell

5429-492: The ideals and goals of the party, they demanded an equitable education for all black people. Study and reading was important for all would-be candidates of the Party, which included studying the Ten-Point Program, reading the Black Panther newspaper , and attending a series of political education classes as well as weapons training. A 1968 "Panther Party Book List" was circulated in the party newspaper, recommending Panthers read

SECTION 60

#1732851228894

5518-455: The limits of the nation's War on Poverty". According to Bloom & Martin, the FBI denounced the Party's efforts as a means of indoctrination because the Party taught and provided for children more effectively than the government. "Police and Federal Agents regularly harassed and intimidated program participants, supporters, and Party workers and sought to scare away donors and organizations that housed

5607-486: The majority being the children of Black Panther parents. This number grew to fifty by the 1973–1974 school year. To provide full support for Black Panther parents whose time was spent organizing, some of the students and faculty members lived together year around. The school itself was dissimilar to traditional schools in a variety of ways including the fact that students were separated by academic performance rather than age, and students were often provided one-on-one support as

5696-515: The murder, which hit the headlines. Member Jean Hobson had been romantically linked to federal prison inmate Ronald Beaty, who was incarcerated at Chino Prison . She and other Venceremos members made a plan to gain Beaty's escape. According to police and Beaty, who became the prosecution's star witness, two unarmed prison guards were taking Beaty to a court appearance in San Bernardino when their vehicle

5785-421: The next decade, due to vilification by the mainstream press and infighting largely fomented by COINTELPRO. Support further declined over reports of the party's alleged criminal activities, such as drug dealing and extortion . The party's history is controversial. Scholars have characterized the Black Panther Party as the most influential black power organization of the late 1960s, and "the strongest link between

5874-588: The next rallies. Awareness of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense grew rapidly after their May 2, 1967, protest at the California State Capitol . On May 2, 1967, the California State Assembly Committee on Criminal Procedure was scheduled to convene to discuss what was known as the " Mulford Act ," which would make the public carrying of loaded firearms illegal. Newton, with Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver , put together

5963-434: The number of arrests dramatically increased, which led to an increase in prison populations. In the State of California's prisoners statistics it states that the populations of inmates on December 31, 1960, was 21,660 persons. 8 years later on December 31, 1968 the population had increased to a high of 28,462. During the 1960s the black distribution in California prisons was 20.8 percent but gradually increased to 34.1 percent by

6052-514: The organizations that had "led much of the nonviolent civil disobedience ", such as SNCC and CORE , went into decline. By 1966 a "Black Power ferment" emerged, consisting largely of young urban black people, posing a question the Civil Rights Movement could not answer: "How would black people in America win not only formal citizenship rights, but actual economic and political power?" Young black people in Oakland and other cities developed study groups and political organizations, and from this ferment

6141-470: The party. The FBI was involved in the 1969 assassinations of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark , who were killed in a raid by the Chicago Police Department . Black Panther Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police. Huey Newton allegedly killed officer John Frey in 1967, and Eldridge Cleaver (Minister of Information) led an ambush in 1968 of Oakland police officers, in which two officers were wounded and Panther treasurer Bobby Hutton

6230-404: The police around to monitor for incidents of brutality. But with a crucial difference: his patrols would carry loaded guns. Huey and Bobby raised enough money to buy two shotguns by buying bulk quantities of the recently publicized Mao Zedong's Little Red Book and reselling them to leftists and liberals on the Berkeley campus at three times the price. According to Bobby Seale, they would "sell

6319-404: The prevalence of institutional racism . The overall goal of the school was to instill a sense of revolutionary consciousness in the students. With a strong belief in experiential learning, students had the opportunity to participate in community service projects as well as practice their writing skills by drafting letters to political prisoners associated with the Black Panther Party. Huggins

6408-440: The programs like churches and community centers". Black Panther Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police. Newton declared: Malcolm , implacable to the ultimate degree, held out to the Black masses ... liberation from the chains of the oppressor and the treacherous embrace of the endorsed [Black] spokesmen. Only with the gun were the black masses denied this victory. But they learned from Malcolm that with

6497-456: The propagation of revolutionary acts or material. In fact, I believe it to be the exact opposite of my duty…. I intend to draw the line at revolutionary education. Suspicions gained truth when radical groups calling for revolution such as the SLA branched off from and eventually took over the BCA. It abandoned education as its purpose and focused instead on political revolution. Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (originally

6586-891: The revolutionary fantasy that was fostered in the BCA. Eventually, DeFreeze was transferred to Soledad State Prison where he then escaped. Following his escape he teamed up with fellow BCA members Russell Little and William Wolfe , as well as Bill and Emily Harris and Angela Atwood , to create the Symbionese Liberation Army . BCA Coordinator: Colston Westbrook Member and Inmate: Donald DeFreeze BCA Visitor/Tutor: William Wolfe BCA Visitor/Tutor: Russell Little BCA Visitor/Tutor: Patricia Soltysik BCA Visitor/Tutor: Nancy Ling Perry BCA Visitor/Tutor: Patty Hearst aka Mary Alice Siem The Black Cultural Association met regularly with outside volunteers, some of which did not teach basic educational skills. Tutors and prisoners tended to have discussions on radical ideas, often influencing inmates to join their way of thinking. Donald DeFreeze

6675-499: The revolutionary process. Panther slogans and iconography spread. At the 1968 Summer Olympics , Tommie Smith and John Carlos , two American medalists, gave the black power salute during the American national anthem. The International Olympic Committee banned them from all future Olympic Games. Film star Jane Fonda publicly supported Huey Newton and the Black Panthers during the early 1970s. She actually ended up informally adopting

6764-634: The southern racial regime, only to be confronted with new forms of segregation and repression". In the early 1960s, the Civil rights movement had dismantled the Jim Crow system of racial subordination in the South with tactics of non-violent civil disobedience , and demanding full citizenship rights for black people. However, not much changed in the cities of the North and West. As the wartime and post-war jobs which drew much of

6853-404: The time the BPP claimed that the police had ambushed them, several party members later admitted that Cleaver had led the Panther group on a deliberate ambush of the police officers, provoking the shoot-out. Seven other Panthers, including Chief of Staff David Hilliard, were also arrested. Hutton's death became a rallying issue for Panther supporters. In 1968, the group shortened its name to

6942-542: The university by "inciting to riot" in 1971. Venceremos and Franklin favored a militant strategy based on protracted urban guerrilla warfare. According to Franklin, "... these collectives had been heavily involved in youth organizing within white proletarian communities, in factory organizing and in anti-imperialist struggles on the campuses. [...] The new combined organization was multi-national, extremely diversified in its activities and base, and quite militant." Venceremos publicly advocated armed self-defense by

7031-603: The war industries such as Kaiser Shipyards . The sweeping migration transformed the Bay Area as well as cities throughout the West and North , altering the once white-dominated demographics. A new generation of young black people growing up in these cities faced new forms of poverty and racism unfamiliar to their parents, and they sought to develop new forms of politics to address them. Black Panther Party membership "consisted of recent migrants whose families traveled north and west to escape

7120-559: The world might work with free medical care , eventually being established in 13 places across the country. These clinics were involved in community-based health care that had roots connected to the Civil Rights Movement, which made it possible to establish the Medical Committee for Human Rights. In 1968, BPP Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver ran for presidential office on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. They were

7209-476: Was Franklin, with harboring Beaty, classified as a federal fugitive. While charges were dropped against some, the chief perpetrators were tried. Jean Hobson, 19 year-old Andrea Holman Burt, and her husband 31-year-old Douglas Burt were all convicted of second-degree murder in 1973 and 1974. Seabok was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Beaty had become a prosecution witness; he pleaded guilty for being part of Sanchez's death and

7298-644: Was ambushed near Chino . Beaty was freed when Venceremos member, 23-year-old Robert Seabok , shot both guards at point blank range , killing Jesus Sanchez and wounding his partner George Fitzgerald. After the police captured Beaty and Hobson nearly a month later, Beaty named Venceremos members Hobson, Seabok, Andrea Holman Burt, and Benton Burt as the perpetrators of the fatal assault on the prison guards. Former professor H. Bruce Franklin, four Venceremos members, and three Arizona residents were arrested in this case in late December 1972. A total of fourteen people were arrested; twelve were charged either with murder or, as

7387-507: Was convicted of first degree murder ; while Jean Hobson, Andrea Holman Burt, and Benton Burt were convicted of second degree murder . In March 1973, Donald DeFreeze , a prison inmate who was on somewhat familiar terms with Bay Area radicals through visits from the UC Berkeley Prison Outreach Project, escaped from Soledad Prison and made his way to Oakland. He found shelter with members or associates of Venceremos at

7476-503: Was killed. The party suffered many internal conflicts, resulting in the murder of Alex Rackley . Government persecution initially contributed to the party's growth among African Americans and the political left, who both valued the party as a powerful force against de facto segregation and the US military draft during the Vietnam War. Party membership peaked in 1970 and gradually declined over

7565-410: Was one inmate who converted his political ideas after attending BCA meetings. Soon after, DeFreeze broke off from the Black Cultural Association and created his own group within the prison. Willie Wolfe and Russ Little were two white volunteers that joined the small group DeFreeze set up, as well as ex-Black panther and inmate Thero Wheeler. This small group of radical-left's is considered the beginning of

7654-455: Was released after three years, when his conviction was reversed on appeal. As Newton awaited trial, the "Free Huey" campaign developed alliances with numerous students and anti-war activists, "advancing an anti-imperialist political ideology that linked the oppression of antiwar protestors to the oppression of blacks and Vietnamese". The "Free Huey" campaign attracted black power organizations, New Left groups , and other activist groups such as

7743-432: Was sentenced to life as well. By September 1973 Venceremos had officially disbanded. Some members went on to other leftist groups, such as Joe Remiro , who joined the small Symbionese Liberation Army in its early days. Venceremos disintegrated under the duress of legal troubles, recriminations over the Beaty incident, and general factionalism . By September 1973 it had ceased to function as an organization. Robert Seabok

7832-598: Was shot dead by police in North Richmond. Dowell's family contacted the Black Panther Party for assistance after county officials refused to investigate the case. The Party held rallies in North Richmond that educated the community on armed self-defense and the Denzil Dowell incident. Police seldom interfered at these rallies because every Panther was armed and no laws were broken. The Party's ideals resonated with several community members, who then brought their own guns to

7921-522: Was to "intensify the degree of animosity" between the Black Panthers and the Blackstone Rangers , a Chicago street gang. The FBI sent an anonymous letter to the Rangers' gang leader claiming that the Panthers were threatening his life, a letter whose intent was to provoke "preemptive" violence against Panther leadership. In Southern California, the FBI made similar efforts to exacerbate a "gang war" between

#893106