30 Facts About Black Panthers

Black Panther Party, originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California.

Black Panthers had an epiphany that would distinguish the Black Panther Party from the multitude of Black Power organizations.

Black Panther Party's focus on militancy was often construed as open hostility, feeding a reputation of violence even though early efforts by the Panthers focused primarily on promoting social issues and the exercise of their legal right to carry arms.

The Black Panthers employed a California law that permitted carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one.

Newton, with Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver, put together a plan to send a group of 26 armed Black Panthers led by Seale from Oakland to Sacramento to protest the bill.

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In May 1967, the Black Panthers invaded the State Assembly Chamber in Sacramento, guns in hand, in what appears to have been a publicity stunt.

The FBI sent an anonymous letter to the Rangers' gang leader claiming that the Black Panthers were threatening his life, a letter whose intent was to provoke "preemptive" violence against Panther leadership.

Black Panthers became the first member of the party to be killed by police.

Seven other Black Panthers, including Chief of Staff David Hilliard, were arrested.

Black Panthers's actually ended up informally adopting the daughter of two Black Panther members, Mary Luana Williams.

The Panthers attracted a wide variety of left-wing revolutionaries and political activists, including writer Jean Genet, former Ramparts magazine editor David Horowitz and left-wing lawyer Charles R Garry, who acted as counsel in the Panthers' many legal battles.

The only shot fired by the Black Panthers was from Mark Clark, who appeared to fire a single round determined to be the result of a reflexive death convulsion after he was immediately struck in the chest by shots from the police at the start of the raid.

Black Panthers was 21 years old and unarmed at the time of his death.

Seven other Black 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.

In 1970, a group of Black Panthers traveled through Asia and they were welcomed as guests of the governments of North Vietnam, North Korea, and China.

The group's first stop was in North Korea, where the Black Panthers met with local officials to discuss ways in which they could help each other fight against American imperialism.

Black Panthers encouraged them to join the Black Liberation Struggle by arguing that the United States government was only using them for its own purposes.

Certain members felt that the Black Panthers should participate in local government and social services, while others encouraged constant conflict with the police.

In 1974, Huey Newton and eight other Black Panthers were arrested and charged with assault on police officers.

When three Black Panthers attacked the wrong house by mistake, the occupant returned fire and killed one of the Black Panthers, Louis Johnson, while the other two assailants escaped.

Police killed or incarcerated many male leaders, but female Black Panthers were less targeted for much of the 1960s and 1970s.

Many women Black Panthers began to demand childcare to be able to fully participate in the organization.

When Oakland Black 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.

Black Panthers's grew up around police brutality, so it was nothing new.

Black Panthers's was appointed by Huey Newton, the previous chair, while Newton and other leaders dealt with legal issues.

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Black Panthers's appointed many female officials, and faced backlash for her policies for equality within the organization.

Black Panthers's explains that she joined in October 1969 with despite doubts from her mother, who had participated in a march with Martin Luther King Jr.

Huey Newton expressed his support for the Women's Liberation Movement and the Gay Liberation Movement in a 1970 letter published in the newspaper The Black Panthers Panther titled "A Letter from Huey to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters About the Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements".

In 1966, the Black Panthers defined Oakland's ghetto as a territory, the police as interlopers, and the Panther mission as the defense of community.

Black Panthers provided daily home-cooked meals in support of the protest's eventual success, which eventually led to the Americans with Disabilities Act thirteen years later.