Founding
fathers of what was originally called The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
formulated the revolutionary Ten-Point Platform & Program, splitting
from the white community and bonding the black.
The
pioneering political party shook up the 1960s, patrolling the streets
in emblematic black berets and black leather jackets armed with weapons.
In the celebrated Panther 21 case, a jury acquitted New York party members
who had been charged with arson, conspiracy and attempted murder for
allegedly plotting police assassinations and attempting to burn and
or bomb public buildings.
In
the 1970s, members expanded their services: providing free breakfasts
for children, free medical clinics, free clothing and free food to the
homeless. The Black Panther Party faded during the 1980s, and yet the
Panther prowls on.
Today,
original party members teach, write and lead new organizations still
devoted to black community concerns. New parties, such as the Black
Panther Collective and the New Black Panther Party, ignite emotion and
attention with the Panther name and image.
The
return to rallies, protests and marches sparked by ruptures in race
relations and episodes of police brutality resonate
with Panther ideology: generating awareness in the black community of
police oppression.
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Members at a "FREE HUEY"
Panther Vigil, 1968
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Thirty
years after Huey Newton and Bobby Seale started the legendary organization
in Oakland, Calif., the Panther legacy grabs, entices, and infuriates
people. It conjures images of revolution -- exactly what the new parties
and old members still using the name are counting on.
David
Hilliard, former Black Panther chief of staff, founded the Huey Newton
Foundation with Newton’s widow, Fredrika, in 1996, helping to fund the
organization with proceeds from the $200,000 sale of original Panther
ephemera and artifacts to Stanford University. Newton was shot and killed
by a drug dealer on the streets of Oakland in 1989.
Hilliard,
who unsuccessfully ran for Oakland City Council last year, copyrighted
the Black Panther name and currently leads the "Black Panther Legacy
Tour" through his home town.
"My
right to do this is indisputable," he told San Francisco Weekly
last year. "My right is in being a founder of the Black Panthers,
in having suffered, in being shot at, in watching my friends killed,
in going to prison. This is our history. It’s not something that’s up
for grabs."
The
New Black Panther Party first surfaced in Jasper, Texas during
July of 1998. Khallid Muhammad, self-assigned leader of the new party,
and his armed cadre marched the city streets in Jasper.
The
group was protesting the brutal killing of James Byrd, a black man dragged
to death by three white men, and the subsequent Klan rally. At a Ku
Klux White Pride Rally, the klansmen refuted any Klan ties with the
white assailants.
The
New Black Panthers circled around the rally, chanting "Black Power,"
but were unable to pierce the barricades. After Muhammad’s gun threats,
police ordered the Klan to go home, and then surrounded Muhammad. Only
one Panther member was arrested that weekend, charged with disorderly
conduct. He was later released.
Barricades
and media equipment followed Muhammad and his New Black Panthers again
at Harlem’s Million Youth March, almost two months after Jasper.
Problems
plagued the September march. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani refused to issue
a permit for what he called a "hate march." His decision was
later appealed in court. In retaliation, Giuliani and the New York police
department barricaded most intersections leading to the march on Malcolm
X Blvd, and blocking subway stops from 110th to 145th
St. The media considered the march a failure because of its low turnout.
Sam
Anderson, a founding member of the Harlem Black Panthers in 1966, attended
the march as a legal observer. He said thousands of people were en route
to the march but grew frustrated by the barricades never making it to
Malcolm X Blvd.
Louis
Farrakhan censured Muhammad, his former supreme captain in the Nation
of Islam, after his blatant racial slurs against Jews, whites and homosexuals
in 1993.
Muhammad
denied the existence of the Holocaust and has called New York, "Jew
York City."
"He
shows up at events to get media attention with the purpose to create
tension and to agitate," said Marilyn Mayo of the Anti-Defamation
League. "They show up at situations where the community is upset
and then disappear."
The
name-connection is to lead people into believing that they have a similar
agenda to the original party, but they have no agenda, she said.
Anderson
said the party is just fluff, interested in the limelight of the media.
Both old Black Panther members and new ones assert that the only link
between the two parties is the name. The new party has made no effort
to make connections with formal (original) party members, he noted.
"He
(Muhammad) said the BPP was destroyed because men were chasing white
women," Anderson, currently education director for the Center of
Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, said laughing. "That
is totally incorrect."
The
name, Black Panther, attracts so many young people because
of its revolutionary origins. Anderson said he became a member in May
of 1966 when a Harlem chapter was formed to build on the work of the
Lowdnes County Freedom Party in Alabama, which was involved in black
voter registration. The Lowdnes group had adopted the black panther
as its mascot. Anderson and other members expanded the mission of the
Lowdnes organization to include both electoral politics and community
issues.
Anderson
said the first Harlem party actually pre-dated Huey Newton and the Black
Panther Party of Self-Defense. The media focused on the more militant
Oakland branch and the Harlem chapter, he said, beset by counter-intelligence
efforts, disbanded after about a year and a half. A second chapter later
formed in the 1960s, but Anderson said he was concentrating on academics
at the time and did not join.
As
to the new Black Panther Party, Anderson said, "In the year 2000
in New York City, they are irrelevant in regards to the black community.
They took the name and image as defined by white bourgeois media of
what the panthers were all about."
The
Black Panther Collective works directly with old members. The group
is rooted in Panther history by studying and staying involved at the
grassroots level, Anderson said.
It
started in conjunction with the original members in 1994 while campaigning
for political prisoners, most notably Mumia Abdul-Jamal, an imprisoned
journalist.
The
New York-based organization attracts members from all five boroughs
and New Jersey; there are no separate chapters or branches.
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The BPP Committee at the United
Nations for the Party's Platform & Program, 1968
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The
Black Panther Collective addresses issues such as police brutality and
political prisoners, and conducts community outreach programs. The group
took as its own the original Panther ten-point platform whereas the
New Party has a new platform of its own.
In
1997, Collective members patrolled the streets of Washington Heights
with video cameras to monitor police behavior. The group also depends
on propaganda — a Black Panther hallmark — distributing pamphlets, buttons,
t-shirts and stickers to create awareness.
The
organization’s Speakers Bureau offers workshops, seminars and political
education on Black Panther Party History, Political Prisoners &
P.O.W.’s in the United States, FBI’s Counter-intelligence (COINTELPRO)
and other subjects.
"It
is not a competition thing, if my people are dying," said Shaka
Shakur, a five-year member of the Black Panther Collective, dismissing
tension with the New Black Panther Party. "I would rather focus
my energies on the enemy: the oppressor."
Both
groups attract media coverage during sensational cases such as the Amadou
Diallo slaying, Shakur said, adding that the Collective is a "pro-actionary"
not a reactionary party.
"
We constantly work around the clock fighting oppression," Shakur
said.Shakur,
30, would not disclose the size of either party, citing security as
the concern.
"We’re
like the Salvation Army, we love everyone," said a nineteen-year
old New Black Panther member from Ohio, who asked that his name be withheld.
The
group is still growing, said the two-year member. The main focus of
the party is concentrating on the youth, "We’re there to teach,
and we need older generations to help."
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The BBP's Intercommunal Youth Institute, 1971
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He
was not familiar with the Black Panther Collective and asserted that
the new party is not the same as the old one.
The
purpose of the New Black Panther Party: empower and clean up the black
community, clothe and feed the homeless, he said.
"We’re
not pointing guns at the police or threatening anyone," he said
in a recent phone interview. "We’re based on trying to help people,
not going to jail, not always in black."
Like
the Black Panther Collective and the original Panthers, the group holds
classes on an array of topics—African American History, politics, economics
and self-improvement, he said. He could not comment on Khallid Muhammad
or the structure of the party.
As
for Hilliard's "Black Panther Legacy Tour" in Oakland, it has two objectives,
according to San Francisco State Professor Robert Smith: to keep the
legacy of Huey alive and to capitalize on the Huey/Panther name in order
to generate income.
Smith
does not criticize Hilliard because of the sacrifices he and other original
party members made as young people.
People
want to be part of the past and its revolutions, and recreate it in
this period of conservative government, he said.
"There
are a number of groups that pop up calling themselves that (New Black
Panther Party)," Smith said. "It immediately has a meaning."
All photos from Bobby
Seale's Homepage
Web Page produced by the Sarah
Cagno & Sarah Lolley
