Yesterday, October 15th 2016, was the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.
Established in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the BPP was a Marxist Black liberation organization. They fought against the overt violence of racist cops and the covert brutality of poverty, hunger, and degradation. They established survival programs to do the work the government wouldn’t, worked to oppose American imperialism abroad, published a newspaper, and agitated for their Ten Point Plan which ended “We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace!”
The FBI targeted the Panthers under the COINTELPRO program, subjecting them to surveillance, infiltration, perjury, harassment, smear campaigns, and assassinations. Despite fighting valiantly, the party was dissolved in 1982.
From left to right: a BPP poster, Bobby Hutton (the first recruit, murdered at 16 by police), Elaine Brown (Party Chair from 1974-1977), Kathleen Cleaver (Party Communications Secretary), Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, and a gathering of the Free Breakfast Program.
No comments:
Post a Comment