Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers

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When a book of any kind challenges the things you thought you knew, and teaches you things that as an adult you can't believe you didn't know already, it has achieved its ultimate goal. This book does that in such a remarkably straightforward way that I felt like I'd been slapped more than once. In a good way, I guess? (Is there a good way to feel like you've been slapped?) July 1969 the BPP organized the United Front Against Fascism conference in Oakland, which was attended by around 5,000 people representing a number of groups. [108] [109] In addition to changing the Party's direction towards more involvement in the electoral arena, Brown also increased the influence of women Panthers by placing them in more visible roles within the previously male-dominated organization. FBI files investigating Van Patter were destroyed in 2009 for reasons the FBI has declined to provide. [151] 1977–1982 Return of Huey Newton and the demise of the party El llibre també serveix per conèixer el llegat que van deixar i el seu impacte icònic i polític fins als nostres dies.

Activists from many countries around the globe supported the Panthers and their cause. In Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Finland, for example, left-wing activists organized a tour for Bobby Seale and Masai Hewitt in 1969. At each destination along the tour, the Panthers talked about their goals and the "Free Huey!" campaign. Seale and Hewitt made a stop in Germany as well, gaining support for the "Free Huey!" campaign. [122] 1970 Chronology Newton, Huey. "In Defense of Self Defense July 3, 1967". Essays from the Minister of Defense (PDF). p.9. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 14, 2020 . Retrieved March 3, 2020. October 18, 1969: A Panther is killed in a gunfight with police outside a Los Angeles restaurant. [92] Heffernan, Virginia (February 6, 2007). "The Gangs of Los Angeles: Roots, Branches and Bloods". The New York Times . Retrieved June 27, 2021. The party was made under extreme societal difficulties, and relied on a few individuals to get things going.Gray Panthers often used to refer to advocates for the rights of seniors ( Gray Panthers in the United States, The Grays – Gray Panthers in Germany).

Inspired by Mao Zedong's advice to revolutionaries in The Little Red Book, Newton called on 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.

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Hampton was sleeping next to his pregnant fiancée and was subsequently shot twice in the head at point-blank range while unconscious. Coroner reports show that Hampton was drugged with a powerful barbiturate that night and would have been unable to have been awoken by the sounds of the police raid. [116] His body was then dragged into the hallway. He was 21 years old and unarmed at the time of his death. Seven other Panthers sleeping at the house at the time of the raid were then beaten and seriously wounded, then arrested under charges of aggravated assault and attempted murder of the officers involved in the raid. These charges would later be dropped. In 1977, Newton returned from exile in Cuba, and received complaints from male members about the excessive power of women in the organization, who now outnumbered men. According to Elaine Brown, Newton authorized the physical punishment of school administrator Regina Davis for scolding a male coworker. Davis was hospitalized with a broken jaw. [152] Brown said, "The beating of Regina would be taken as a clear signal that the words 'Panther' and 'comrade' had taken a gender-on-gender connotation, denoting an inferiority in the female half of us." [153] [154] [155] Brown resigned from the party and fled to LA. [156] 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 [77] and it stimulated the growth of the Party nationwide. [67] Newton was released after three years, when his conviction was reversed on appeal. [78]

The Party experienced significant problems in several chapters with sexism and gender oppression, particularly in the Oakland chapter where cases of sexual harassment and gender conflict were common. [173] :5 When Oakland Panthers arrived to bolster the New York City Panther chapter after 21 New York leaders were incarcerated, they displayed such chauvinistic attitudes towards New York Panther women that they had to be fended off at gunpoint. [174] Some Party leaders thought the fight for gender equality was a threat to men and a distraction from the struggle for racial equality. [161] :5 Mid-July 1968: Huey Newton's murder trial commences. Panthers hold daily "Free Huey" rallies outside the courthouse.

Although at 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. [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] Seven other Panthers, including Chief of Staff David Hilliard, were also arrested. Hutton's death became a rallying issue for Panther supporters. [89] [90] [91] Late 1968 Chronology Churchill and Vander Wall (2002). The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States. South End Press. Without outside powers extracting its resources, or imposing exploitative policies, Wakanda flourishes and becomes the most technologically advanced country on Earth, rich in natural resources such as the fictional element Vibranium. (Sound familiar? It’s what Captain America’s shield is made of.)

December 15, 1971. "Case Against Newton Dropped". The Dispatch (Lexington, North Carolina) via UPI. Retrieved August 5, 2012. During the 1970s, recognizing the limited access poor women had to abortion, the Party officially supported women's reproductive rights, including abortion. [161] :11 That same year, the Party condemned and opposed prostitution. [161] :12 As far as I'm concerned, this book deserves to sit alongside legendary historical graphic novels like MAUS and the great Rep. John Lewis's MARCH series. It also called to mind a book we read as a group several years ago: THE HARLEM HELLFIGHTERS by Max Brooks. I love a good fictional comic as much as the next person, but every so often you'll come across a splash of nonfiction artwork that enriches your worldview, and this is one of those. If only they would start assigning it in schools. Gilbert Moore resigned from Life when they rejected three different rewrites of his feature on the Panthers. "I knew what they wanted," he writes, without bitterness, "but I was not prepared to cough it up. The price, psychologically speaking, was too high."

Early 1969: In late 1968 and January 1969, the BPP began to purge members due to fears about law enforcement infiltration and various petty disagreements.