Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party

SURVIVAL PENDING REVOLUTION

SURVIVAL PENDING REVOLUTION

The History of the Black Panther Party

PAUL ALKEBULAN

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa

Copyright © 2007

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487–0380

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Typeface: Garamond

∞

The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Alkebulan, Paul.

Survival pending revolution : the history of the Black Panther Party / Paul Alkebulan.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-1549-8 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8173-1549-7

1. Black Panther Party—History. 2. Revolutionaries—United States—History—20th century. 3. Radicalism—United States—History—20th century. 4. African Americans—Politics and government—20th century. 5. African Americans—Civil rights—History—20th century. 6. United States—Race relations—Political aspects—History—20th century. 7. Black Panther Party—Biography. I. Title.

E185.615.A627 2007

322.4′20973—dc22

2006038430

ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-8029-8 (ebook)

This book is dedicated to the rank and file of the Black Panther Party who worked and sacrificed, often anonymously, to implement their community programs: medical clinics, liberation schools, and free breakfasts for schoolchildren. Their courage and devotion was in the best tradition of the African American struggle for democracy.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

List of Abbreviations

Prologue

1. The Heirs of Malcolm

2. Survival Pending Revolution

3. Regional Development of the Black Panther Party

4. Enemies of the People

5. Women and the Black Panther Party

6. Decline and Fall

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliographic Essay

Selected Bibliography

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to take this opportunity to thank the people and institutions that assisted in this project. This book would not have been possible without the wholehearted cooperation of the many former Panther Party members who graciously consented to be interviewed over the years. I knew some of these men and women from 1969 through 1971. There were others, however, who I met for the first time in the course of my research. They were always courteous and cooperative. Their candor inspired my work.

Archival research in Panther material was conducted courtesy of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, and the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries. Their staff members were always professional, helpful, and patient with my numerous requests.

INTRODUCTION

In 1966 we called ourselves a Black Nationalist Party because we thought that nationhood was the answer. . . . Shortly after that we decided that what was really needed was revolutionary nationalism, that is, nationalism plus socialism. After analyzing conditions a little more we found . . . we had to unite with the peoples of the world so we called ourselves Internationalists. . . . But then . . . we found that everything is in a state of transformation. . . . These transformations . . . require us to call ourselves intercommunalists because nations have been transformed into communities of the world.

—Huey P. Newton, November 1970

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party (BPP) in October 1966 at the beginning of the Black Power movement. The Panther Party existed for sixteen years as one of the most controversial political organizations in American history. The BPP's career was marked by heated revolutionary rhetoric, social service programs, international diplomacy, clashes with the police, and internal conflicts.

Opinions formed forty years ago about the BPP still exist today. The party's critics have vilified it as a loosely organized group of criminal anarchists with political pretensions. Panther supporters, on the other hand, have argued that the party was a community service organization undermined by the government because FBI director J. Edgar Hoover opposed the very thought of black people having civil rights.

Political and historical reality, however, refuses to adhere to these simplistic positions. Many individuals and organizations, for instance, supported the Panthers on some issues and criticized them on others. Party members also could and did decide that some activities were worth supporting, whereas other policies resulted in resignations. In other words, people and politics evolve and change over time, principle, or convenience.

Some historians might believe that it is too early for a proper assessment of the BPP. For instance, some former members may be hesitant, for one reason or another, to discuss all their activities or those of their friends. On the other hand, the government may be reluctant to reveal all the information in their possession about the activities of their agents provocateurs. I am not certain, however, whether the immediate future will bring about more openness in these areas.

I believe that good work can be done now. BPP veterans are all around us. In addition, Panther Party records are available in public archives and private collections. Historians have begun to ask many questions. For example, what exactly was the BPP's ideology? What did it hope to accomplish? What were the reasons for the major ideological shifts in party history? What was the impact of basing organizing efforts on the brothers on the block? What role did women play? And, finally, whom did the BPP appeal to and why?

Comprehensive academic studies of the BPP began in 1978 with Charles Hopkins's Ph.D. dissertation titled The Deradicalization of the Black Panther Party: 1966–1973. Angela Ernest-LeBlanc (formerly Darlean Brown), Kathleen Cleaver, Kit Kim Holder, Tracye Matthews, and Robyn Spencer have all written theses or dissertations on the BPP in the last fifteen years. Their works are either comprehensive national histories or studies of the role of women and international diplomacy in the BPP.¹

I am confident that these works are only the beginning of a new wave of scholarship on the BPP and black militancy during the twentieth century. Specialized regional studies of the chapters or the activities of the party's artists and musicians, for instance, can and should be part of the new wave of scholarship.

I have not attempted to chronicle the activities of every state chapter, local branch, or National Committee to Combat Fascism. I have chosen a different task. Survival Pending Revolution will discuss the BPP's appeal, what the members hoped to accomplish, what they actually achieved, the obstacles they encountered, and their legacy. This text will extend BPP historiography by demonstrating that party history can be divided into three different ideological eras. Each era had a different political objective. This approach will help to explain the varying political tendencies the Panthers displayed from 1966 to 1982.

The three eras are 1966 to 1971, 1971 to 1974, and 1974 to 1982. Different social circumstances, political philosophies, and activities characterized each era. Each time frame is further distinguished by a declension of ethical and political standards among the leadership that increasingly drove many dedicated members from the organization.

From 1966 to 1971 the Panthers were self-proclaimed revolutionaries advocating political autonomy for black America. Although never completely abandoning that stance, the BPP also embraced other ideologies, such as socialism, Marxism, and its own unique vision of a new world order: intercommunalism.

The party's advocacy of community control of police, education, politics, and economics attracted thousands of recruits as it expanded beyond Oakland to sixty-one cities across the United States.² Meanwhile, in 1969 exiled Panthers under the leadership of Eldridge Cleaver, minister of information, established an international section in Algeria.

The BPP also began community service activities in 1969. These activities were the free breakfast programs for schoolchildren, liberation schools, and free medical clinics. The efforts were intended to address the immediate needs of the black community. The Panthers also hoped to use these programs to provide positive activities for the rank and file and to educate the community toward a revolutionary understanding of the American political system.

Their ultimate goal at this time was to change that system to a socialist entity.³ The programs were popular within the party and the community, but some Panthers believed they diverted the organization from its primary responsibility of leading an armed rebellion against the government.⁴

Meanwhile, the U.S. government had begun a counterintelligence program in 1967 (known as Cointelpro) to eliminate black radicals and negate their influence.⁵ The Panther Party was not one of Cointelpro's initial targets. Soon, however, the BPP became the prime focus of government efforts because it was outspoken about the need for armed struggle to influence political change. Cointelpro campaigns against the Panthers resulted in the deaths of several members and the arrest of hundreds. These attacks strained organizational resources to the limits.

The government campaign also affected the party's leader, Huey Newton. Newton had been arrested in 1967 and convicted of manslaughter a year later for killing a policeman in an early morning shootout. Newton was released from jail in 1970 when his conviction was overturned on appeal. The events of the previous three years had changed Newton's political perspective. He had begun to doubt that armed struggle could be successful.

Newton was therefore reluctant to continue the militant tactics that had gained the Panthers their initial reputation as revolutionaries. By January 1971 he had openly eschewed armed struggle and threw his weight behind using community programs to organize the black community.⁶

Party militants believed Newton's about-face had betrayed them. They had made tremendous sacrifices because of his earlier words and actions. Their disaffection resulted in a direct challenge to Newton's leadership in 1971. The challenge resulted in a factional split, with a loss of life on both sides. The conflict ostensibly revolved around which was the best way to lead the black community toward political change. Should the BPP educate the community through the community service programs or through a campaign of armed propaganda designed to ignite a socialist revolution?

In reality, the Panthers also fell victim to a sophisticated counterintelligence operation designed to manipulate existing internal conflicts (and instigate others) among leaders and the rank and file. Each side of the schism claimed to be the real Black Panther Party, but the faction aligned with Huey Newton prevailed. The community service programs continued and became the party mainstay. The party's first ideological era ended in 1971 with a disengagement from armed confrontation with the government.

The Panthers continued their survival programs from 1971 to 1974 during the second ideological era. They were also involved in electoral politics when Bobby Seale and the new minister of information, Elaine Brown, ran for Oakland's mayor and city council, respectively. The BPP closed many offices across the country and redirected resources to Oakland in a massive effort to win the election.

This strategy proved to be an error because some members left the organization rather than carry out what they believed was an incorrect policy of shutting down viable local programs to concentrate on what were essentially Oakland electoral politics.⁷ The subsequent defeat of Bobby Seale and Elaine Brown disillusioned some of the remaining members. If the BPP could not win in its birthplace, what chance did it have to recoup its fortunes in other regions?

While Seale was being defeated, Newton and his inner circle were engaged in drug use and physical violence against party members and the community. They also misappropriated organization funds for their personal use.⁸ Ethical questions came to a head in 1974 when Newton had to flee to Cuba after being accused of murdering a prostitute.

These developments led to further membership losses. One of the legacies of this period was the party's growing negative perception in the black community. This perception conflicted with the self-image and self-respect of rank-and-file members. The result was a further drain of talented and dedicated people.

Party leadership devolved to Elaine Brown in Newton's absence, and she tried to improve the party's image by involvement in city government through the Panther's Oakland community school and membership on various city commissions. The 1974 to 1982 period was also the era when women increasingly occupied leadership roles. JoNina Abron became editor of the newspaper in 1978. Erika Huggins and Brenda Bay were the directors of the Oakland Community School, and women dominated the personnel makeup of the community programs.

Newton returned in 1977 to stand trial for the murder of a prostitute, and his presence once again focused negative publicity on the BPP. This was due to his increasingly erratic behavior that culminated in the botched murder attempt of one of the witnesses in his murder trial.⁹ This trial and a later one resulted in hung juries. Meanwhile, Newton wrested control of the party from Brown, and she subsequently resigned after a hasty nocturnal flight to Los Angeles.¹⁰

The Panther newspaper ceased publication in 1980, and the official demise of the party occurred in 1982 when the Huey P. Newton Educational Institute (formerly the Oakland Community School) closed its doors. The third era was over, and the BPP was history.

Survival Pending Revolution is organized thematically. The introduction and prologue provide some background information for the newcomer to Panther history. Chapter 1 will examine how and why the BPP's ideology changed over time. There I will also discuss how the Panther Party's beliefs influenced its relations with political organizations, students, and businesspeople.

Chapter 2 explores the Panther Party's rationale for beginning its community action programs. The community programs are perhaps the BPP's most well-known legacy. It is important to understand their origin, function, successes, and shortcomings.

Chapter 3 discusses some of the party's regional offices. I have chosen representative chapters from California, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, the South, Algiers, and the East Coast. In my opinion their stories illustrate the issues faced by the BPP as it developed from a small, local group to an international organization with a diplomatic mission in Africa.

Chapter 4 covers the questions of revolutionary violence, dissent within the party, and how the U.S. government's counterintelligence program subverted the BPP. This chapter also examines why the BPP initiated its own underground organization and how this connection eventually proved to be a two-edged sword. Chapter 4 will also occasionally refer to the political events of the previous chapters. Chapter 5 reviews the complex and important role women played in the Panther Party. Chapter 6 narrates the BPP's decline, and the epilogue discusses the party's multifaceted legacy.

I have also supplied a bibliographic essay that discusses the significant works and archival resources on the Black Panther Party. I hope this resource will encourage other historians to delve into the party documents, government memos, and news articles that are open to the public.

I have attempted to avoid the false dichotomy of portraying the Panther Party as a selfless community service organization or a group of criminal anarchists with political pretensions. The truth is far more complex because the party displayed many sides during its sixteen-year existence. The challenge is to understand why. In order to do this, we must begin with the circumstances that gave birth to the Black Panther Party.

ABBREVIATIONS

PROLOGUE

When black people send a representative he is somewhat absurd because he represents no political power. He does not represent land power because we do not own any land. He does not represent economic or industrial power because black people do not own the means of production. The only way he can become political is to represent what is commonly called a military power.

—Huey P. Newton, February 1970

The post-World War II American civil rights movement united disparate political and economic groups in a struggle for democratic rights and social change. Individuals and organizations, black and white, formed a united front to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson and end the legal disfranchisement and physical terror endured by millions of African American citizens. The common cause elided political, social, and philosophical differences among allies as diverse as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Americans for Democratic Action, the AFL-CIO, the Urban League, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and, occasionally, the U.S. government.

Civil rights organizations and African American religious, fraternal, and civic groups were primarily interested in the defeat of legal and social barriers to full participation in the American mainstream. The U.S. government, on the other hand, saw the civil rights movement primarily through a cold-war prism. This prism defined the Negro problem as a public relations issue that must be solved or managed for the benefit of American foreign policy. Consequently, segregation and the disfranchisement of millions of citizens were seen as glaring errors in American society that hindered the government's portrayal of itself as a champion of democracy in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.¹

Mainstream African American organizations, mindful of the domestic anti-Communist climate and because of their own beliefs, were careful not to challenge the democratic and free market consensus that prevailed in the United States. Consequently, critiques of capitalism were avoided for the most part. Civil rights leaders preferred to concentrate on making America live up to its promise of freedom for all regardless of race, creed, or color.

The movement's leaders reasoned that to achieve this goal it was first necessary to secure civil rights for African Americans as a group. Only then would it be possible for individual blacks to take advantage of their skills and education to integrate into mainstream America.

The efficacy of this tactical decision seemed to be borne out by the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision. Furthermore, the 1963 March on Washington, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the subsequent Great Society legislation were great victories for the civil rights movement. The worldview of moderate blacks and whites was apparently validated by the liberal promise of color-blind advancement in public and private arenas.

Not all African Americans were content with this political stance, however. The 1964 Harlem and 1965 Watts riots alerted the nation to new areas of racial discontent. Southern blacks had moved north and west during the great migration and World War II in search of the social justice and economic improvement that had eluded them in their birthplaces. Instead of the land of milk and honey, they found a prejudiced legal system, inferior education, employment discrimination, and slum housing.

The civil rights movement's main emphasis was initially on voting and equal access to public accommodations. This seemed distant from ghetto concerns with police brutality, jobs, and housing. In addition, some black activists were concerned with the so-called national question. In other words, what was the exact nature of black Americans’ relationship to the U.S. government?

W. E. B. DuBois had argued that historically there were two schools of thought or organized programs on this issue.² The first program argued for ceaseless agitation to achieve political rights, as well as civic and social equality. In this view blacks were citizens who had been denied their constitutional rights to equal protection of the law. The NAACP's legal strategy and the SCLC's mass protests were intended to force the majority population and the government to redress African American grievances.

DuBois referred to the second school of thought as the back to Africa program. Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association epitomized this ideal. The back to Africa idea, however, can be traced to a 1788 proposal by Philadelphia's Free African Society, Paul Cuffe's 1815 voyage to Sierra Leone, and the founding of Liberia. Outrage over the Compromise of 1850 and the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision reignited the movement. There was also an internal migration scheme after the Civil War that advocated homesteading on the Great Plains. This was fueled by dissatisfaction with the subordinate political and economic status of blacks after the war.

A subset of the first school was the idea that self-segregation and economic nationalism should precede political activism in order to smooth the path to full civil rights. Booker T. Washington, founder and president of the Tuskegee Institute from 1881