narutothoughts

[twocozy]

eclectic array from the button museum.

[kropotkindersurprise]

Black Panther Party member Kathleen Cleaver on non-violence. [source]

Non-violence is a very non-functional approach in a society that's based entirely on organized force and violence. A country that was created in violence, land was taken in violence, a society that's perpetuating itself through violence in the ghettos, in Vietnam, in Africa. Wherever you look, there is organized force and violence at work to maintain this society. There is a world of difference between 20 million unarmed people, and 20 milion people organized and armed to the gills. That's Power.

[blackfolksintime]

Photographs from ‘The Black Panthers’ series by Ruth-Marion Baruch (circa 1968-1969) via the UC Santa Cruz University Library Digital Collections

[readyforevolution]

[mimi-0007]

[medullam]

To the average Panther, even though he worked daily in the ghetto communities of North America, his thoughts were usually on something larger than himself. It meant being part of a worldwide movement against US imperialism, white supremacy, colonialism, and corrupting capitalism. We felt as if we were part of the peasant armies of Vietnam, the degraded Black miners of South Africa, the Fedayeen in Palestine.

Mumia Abu Jamal, former Black Panther, political activist, and journalist

[henk-heijmans]

Black panther party, ca. 1967 - by Stephen Shames (1947), American

[without-ado]

Black Panthers Chicago 1969 l Hiroji Kubota l Magnum Photos

[blackstar1887]

Photographs from the Black Panther Party series by Stephen Shames (1970s)

[whatevergreen]

That time police peed on food for hungry children...

Bobby Seale Checks Food Bags, 1972 - Howard Erker

Free Breakfast for Children Program and The People's Free Food Program, 1969-1980.

In the early years up to 36 programs were running nationwide, feeding tens of thousands of children and poor families. The great success of this program was viewed as a threat by FBI director J Edgar Hoover:

"Hoover recognized that through the program the Panthers captured the loyalty of many black children by giving them free breakfasts. He was also angry that the breakfast program won liberal whites’ and moderate blacks’ support for the Panthers. Hoover perversely justified FBI attempts to destroy the program because it “is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to destroy what it [the Black Panther Party] stands for.” The FBI’s attempts to destroy the program included sending forged letters to stores to discourage them from donating food, spreading rumors that the food was poisoned, and even raiding sites while children ate."

And then there's such as this:

Despite such as this, the programs continued helping people in need for many years.

The Seattle chapter of the Black Panther party was the last to hold out, members managing to continue the breakfast program until around 1980, even after the chapters own demise in 1977.

The Black Panther's food programs directly led to the development of the national school breakfast program, and has inspired community based revivals ever since.

Also:

Other less well known services also existed included a Free Shoe Program, and the People's Free Clothing Program which provided quality clothing to Black communities. This program helped children get winter clothing to attend school and helped adults find suitable attire when seeking employment.

Credit for some elements of this post goes to the People's City Council - Los Angeles (@PplsCityCouncil) / X

[kropotkindersurprise]

August 22, 1989 - Huey P. Newton, revolutionary socialist and leader of the Black Panther Party, was assassinated on this day in 1989. The Black Panther Party rose to prominence in the 1960s and 70s for raising the revolutionary consciousness of the oppressed Black communities in the United States. Newton’s writings and leadership have left a permanent mark on the Black liberation movement and the socialist movement broadly. Newton elevated the Panthers to the role of internationalist revolutionary socialists who sought to fight US imperialism in order to liberate the most oppressed communities within the country. Newton, like many others in the Black liberation movement, was a target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO, which sought to sow division between revolutionary leaders and organizations. [link]

[lasttarrasque]

Black Panthers hold up high Chairman Mao Zedong's Little Red Book! May 1969.

Don't let liberals appropriate the black panthers, long live the Black Panther Party, long live New African liberation! long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

[blackfolksintime]

Photographs from ‘The Black Panthers’ series by Ruth-Marion Baruch (circa 1968-1969) via the UC Santa Cruz University Library Digital Collections

[damnesdelamer]