Credit: National Museum of African American History and Culture
The Black Panther Party
The party was founded on October 15, 1966 in Oakland, California by college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. While King and the mainstream African American groups sought to work within the system to promote racial justice, the Panthers were much more revolutionary in their ideology. Compare the message of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech with the summarizing tenant of the Ten-Point Program advocated by the Black Panther Party, "We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny."[1]
The party's self-admitted radical ideology drew the attention of many, but perhaps most importantly of the government. In 1967 the Federal Bureau of Investigations targeted the Panthers through its COINTELPRO (counter intelligence) operations. The FBI was worried that the panthers would incite a violent race war and employed informants and misinformation campaigns within the Panther's leadership.[2] The FBI's tactics caused problems for the Panther's, as it broke down the trust within their organization and led to infighting over suspected informants. By 1972 Huey Newton began shutting down chapters across the country in an effort to centralize control of the party in Oakland. This spelled the beginning of the end for the Panthers, as Newton was forced out soon after in connection to several alleged violent crimes and panther leadership rotated throughout the 70s. By the early 1980s panther membership dwindled to less than 100 and the party was forced to disband following an embezzlement scandal surrounding Huey Newton. |
Bobby Seale's Speech on the 10 Point Program of The Black Panther Party
Key Figures
Bobby Seale
Bobby Seale was born on October 22, 1936 in Dallas Texas.[3] He spent only his very early childhood before relocating to California, where he stayed until joining the Air Force in 1955. His time in the Air Force was formative to his ideology, as he faced discrimination at the hand of the US government.[4] Following his time in the Air Force, Seale attended Merritt College where he met Huey Newton. In the early days of the party, they focused on resisting the racism of Oakland’s police force, but quickly were drawn into the larger civil rights movement.[5]
|
Huey Newton
Huey Newton was born on February 17, 1947 in Monroe, Louisiana. Newton met fellow Panther founder Bobby Seale during his time at Merritt College. The group founded the party in October of 1966. For much of the party's history, Newton was the public figurehead, but this all changed when he was arrested in October of 1967 in connection to a murder of a former Panther member in Connecticut.[6] The event spawned the "Free Huey" campaign, a grassroots effort to have Newton's charges dropped. Newton was eventually released on August 5, 1970, he left the party in 1972 but returned in the early 1980s, serving the party until its disbandment in 1982.
[1] Clayborne Carson and David Malcolm Carson, “Black Panther Party”, part of Encyclopedia of the American Left,(Garland Publishing: New York, NY 1990), accessed by http://web.stanford.edu/~ccarson/articles/am_left.htm
[2] Clayborne Carson and David Malcolm Carson, “Black Panther Party”, part of Encyclopedia of the American Left,(Garland Publishing: New York, NY 1990), accessed by http://web.stanford.edu/~ccarson/articles/am_left.htm
[3] “Bobby Seale: Biography”, Biography.com, updated July 7, 2020, https://www.biography.com/activist/bobby-seale
[4] Seale, Bobby. 1978. A lonely rage: the autobiography of Bobby Seale. New York: Times Books p.55
[5] “Bobby Seale: Biography”, Biography.com, updated July 7, 2020, https://www.biography.com/activist/bobby-seale
[6] “Huey Newton: Biography”, Biography.com, updated April 1, 2014, https://www.biography.com/activist/huey-p-newton
[2] Clayborne Carson and David Malcolm Carson, “Black Panther Party”, part of Encyclopedia of the American Left,(Garland Publishing: New York, NY 1990), accessed by http://web.stanford.edu/~ccarson/articles/am_left.htm
[3] “Bobby Seale: Biography”, Biography.com, updated July 7, 2020, https://www.biography.com/activist/bobby-seale
[4] Seale, Bobby. 1978. A lonely rage: the autobiography of Bobby Seale. New York: Times Books p.55
[5] “Bobby Seale: Biography”, Biography.com, updated July 7, 2020, https://www.biography.com/activist/bobby-seale
[6] “Huey Newton: Biography”, Biography.com, updated April 1, 2014, https://www.biography.com/activist/huey-p-newton