The Black Panther Party Remembered

Beyonce blew the world’s mind on Super Bowl Sunday 2016. She and her dancers showed up with afros and black berets, in Oakland’s backyard to pay homage in dance to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on their 50th anniversary.

Huey P. Newton, Chairman of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

1968. Long hair, afros, bell bottoms, tie dye shirts and the Beatles were in vogue. Though James Brown’s anthem, “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud) only hit number 90 on the Billboard Top 100, it was number 1 with a bullet in every African-American neighborhood in the country.

The expression “long hot summer” had come into vogue a few years earlier. The term had little to do with the weather. It had everything to do with the smoke and flame that riot fever had birthed in cities like Cleveland, Chicago and Watts, Los Angeles.

Each night, Americans sat glued to their television sets, biting their nails as the body count came in from Vietnam. Young people marched and cried out for an end to a seemingly endless war. The fight for racial equality had morphed. Young black leaders like Stokely Carmichael were in the streets hollering, “black power!” H.Rap Brown declared, “…Violence is as American as cherry pie.”

H. Rap Brown of SNCC

By 1968, mainstream suit and tie, civil rights leaders like Dr. King had lost significant influence in the African-American community, especially among young activists who sometimes disparagingly referred to King as “De Lawd.”

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, SCLC

However, even King had become more radical with the times. He realized that integrating lunch counters alone would not bring full equality to black people in America. By 1968, Dr. King had begun to talk about things like a guaranteed income for all Americans and redress for years of slavery and segregation. He had begun to throw around terms like “democratic socialism.” He also called for an end to the Vietnam in no uncertain terms. This got him barred from the White House.

On April 4th, 1968 Dr. King was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel In Memphis, Tennessee. Some say that the killing had nothing to do with King’s, “I Have A Dream” speech and everything to do with his plans to bring a massive, multi-racial, protracted sit-in protest to Washington in an attempt to bring attention to the hunger and depravation that stalked America’s ghettoes and trailer parks. Dr King was murdered while what was being labeled as “The Poor People’s March On Washington” was still in its planning stages.

Back in October of 1966, two young men in Oakland, California; Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale crafted the 10 Point Program which would be the foundation of the Black Panther Party’s mission. The Panthers borrowed their name and logo from a Lowdnes County, Mississippi political party. Police brutality was the scourge of Oakland’s inner city communities. There were few black cops and many of the white officers were recruited from the segregated southern states. Blacks were routinely beaten and killed by officers of the law.

The Black Panthers grabbed up firearms, which was completely legal in the state of California at that time and they patrolled behind police cars in their black leather jackets and black berets. When officers would arrest a person of color, the Black Panthers would make sure that the officers read them their rights and didn’t harm them. Often, they would post bail for them.

Panther founders, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton

On April 6th, 1968, two nights after Dr. King’s assassination, Lil Bobby Hutton , a founding member of the Black Panther Party was shot down by the police in West Oakland. In the days following the killing, DeFremery Park in West Oakland was unofficially renamed “Lil Bobby Hutton Park.”

On February 13th, 2016, the former members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense gathered in the West Oakland Library on Adeline Avenue which is located on the edge of Lil Bobby Hutton Park. This event was a reunion, a celebration, a coming together of friends, neighbors and comrades all gathered to celebrate the birthday of Panther co-founder, Huey P. Newton.

Just a few of the many books written about the Black Panther Party

Huey believed that one should struggle against oppression. He once said, “A slave who dies a natural death will not balance two dead flies on the scale of eternity.” He went on to say, “We will have our humanity even if we have to level the earth.”

When I was young, I remember someone telling me that the Black Panthers were the black man’s answer to the Ku Klux Klan. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The Black Panthers were not racists. In fact, they did not believe in cultural nationalism or race based politics at all which brought them into conflict with Black Power groups of that era. The Panthers had many white allies. One of it’s three founders was Japanese. They worked closely with the Latino community’s Brown Berets and they were financially subsidized by white entertainers like Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda. There slogan was: “Power to the people.” That meant all people.

The Brown Berets--Black Panther Allies

Black Panthers chose spartan lives. One Panther would work at a regular 9-5 jobs to support several others who lived in the same apartment but were committed to Panther community building 24-7. Panther leaders recruited the forgotten, the formerly incarcerated and the brothers from the block as their soldiers.

On that beautiful spring like afternoon in February 2016, fthe ormer Black Panther Minister of Culture discussed his induction into the Black Panther Party. Emory Douglas met Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale at a place where Eldridge Cleaver lived called the “Black House.” Newton and Seale were trying to recruit Cleaver, author of Soul On Ice into the Panthers at that time. They were also finishing up the Black Panther newspaper. Douglass volunteered some of his art. In the future, the Black Panther newspaper was sold all over the world and Douglas’ illustrations became as widely noted as the newspaper itself. For if one could not read, they could certainly understand the powerful illustrations.

Emory Douglas said, “Huey was the scholar. Sometimes he had difficulty connecting with the brothers on the street. Once Lil Bobby Hutton and some young friends had failed to be someplace that they were scheduled to be. Huey got upset and suspended them for two weeks. At that point, he told Bobby Seale that he should be the one to deal with the younger kids. Bobby Seale at that point assumed the role of translator to the hood cats.”

The symbol of the Black Panther had been borrowed from a Mississippi political party. Huey and Bobby got permission to use the symbol but they altered it. They had Emory Douglas to slim that panther down and make him leaner so that he would be better representative of the struggle.

The Mulford Act was created by the California legislature to rescind the right to bear arms within the city limits. One can easily believe that this bill was created because of the Black Panthers. On May 2, 1967, the Black Panthers went to the capitol building in Sacramento to protest this bill. They carried guns ane rifles with them. The next day, photos of disciplined black men with firearms were on the front cover of newspapers all around the world. However, the Panthers were incarcerated. Emory Douglas was one of those who made the trip to Sacramento. Old news footage shows him arguing with a policeman who is confiscating his rifle. According to to Douglas, the D.A. made a deal. Some of them the young black men would have to plead guilty to some small charge in exchange they would be released. The authorities lied. When it came down, those who plead guilty were given sentences of incarceration.

Former Black Panther Minister of Culture, Emory Douglas with Rev. Harry Williams, 2016

Ms. Fredericka Newton, Huey P. Newton’s wife began her words of remember for Huey with a Bible verse. She said, “Greater love has no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends.” She noted one indisputable fact about Huey. He loved his people. She spoke about his greatness but she did not shy away from the “loneliness, boredom and addiction” which eventually destroyed him. Huey felt that he had outlived his

usefulness at age 42. By age 47, he was gone, shot to death by a drug dealer in West Oakland.

Ms. Newton spoke of the time when Huey joined Allen Temple Baptist Church, which was her home church in the 1980s. As I sat there in rapt attention, I wondered what would have happened had Huey continued on that path. In 1989, his funeral service would be held at that church building.

Fredericka Newton, wife of the late Huey P. Newton with Rev. Harry, 2016

The Black Panther Party started in Oakland, California but it spread all over America and soon there were international chapters. They will forever be remembered by the words, “defend yourselves.” However, there was so much more to the Party than the berets and the guns. The Black Panther Party created the free breakfast program for children that was later adopted by the government and instituted all over America. There were 60 other community survival programs which improved the lives of the country’s poorest people. Many Black Panthers died for freedom others are still imprisoned. There was one woman present whose husband, Panther Pete O’Neal is in exile in Tanzania to this very day and can not return to the United States. Other Black Panthers became doctors, lawyers, ministers, community activists and politicians. Today, there is another group who calls itself the “New Black Panthers.” They have no connection to the original group and adhere to a different philosophy entirely.

Brother Huey’s birthday celebration began with the serving of free breakfast to the neighborhood children. It ended with the cutting of a chocolate birthday cake with his image on the top. Everyone was blessed by just a single slice.