Last October, the surviving members of the original Black Panthers held a reunion with some 200 participants in Oakland, California. A Reuters News Service dispatch described the Panthers as an "urban radical movement" that had a "painful birth" in the City of Oakland 40 years ago. It referred to its founders , Huey Newton and Bobby Seale as "local activists." Whoa! Reuters was playing really loose with the facts. Oakland was not the birthplace of the Panthers and the group was not formed as an urban movement by local activists.
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defesne was born in 1966 at San Quentin, one of California's maximum security prisons. Its founders and charter members were convicts doing hard time for armed robberies, murders, burglaries, assaults, and other felonies. They had no intention of going straight upon their release from prison. These were "ciminal activists," not local activists, who formed the Panthers in order to protect themselves from the police following their release. They were inspired by Mao Tse-tung and relied on many of his quotations in their printed handouts.
The Panthers gained world-wide attention when they entered the State Capitol dressed in black berets and leather jackets, carrying shotguns and bandoleers. They demanded a number of rights and scared the supreme shit out of California's state legislators. That confrontation led to the myth that the Panthers were a group of urban activists seeking justice and equal rights for the black community. In truth, the Panthers continued to commit robberies, burglaries, murders, and assaults. Its members were involved in a number of deadly shootouts with the police, not only in California, but in other parts of the United States as well.
Much has been made of the free breakfast program provided by the Panthers to the poor black children of Oakland. Less well known is the fact that during these breakfasts, the Panthers distributed their Black Panther Coloring Book. In it, the panthers used the term "pigs" to describe all whites and referred to the police as the "pig police." Their coloring book, a copy of which I still have, was full of hatred against all whites and it encouraged brave black children to attack and kill cowardly police officers.
People tend to make folk heroes out of scoundrels. Robin Hood, for one, comes to mind. Then there was Jesse James, the notorious bank robber. There was Billy the Kid, a youthful cold-blooded killer. John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, and their contemporary bank robbers have all been added to a list of American folk heroes,
Radical leftists and many blacks want to portray the Black Panthers as a group of civil rights activists who used a radical approach in the black community's fight for justice and equal rights. They believe the Panthers, their folk heroes, became the victims of a racist police force determined to destroy them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most Panthers killed by the police were shot while committing armed robberies or other felonies.
Panthers also committed a number of deadly attacks against unsuspecting police officers. In 1967, Huey Newton himself shot a police patrolman to death at an Oakland bus stop. At his trial, the State's chief eyewitness, a black bus driver, testified that the shooting was unprovoked. Newton testified that he acted in self-defense when he was attaced by the officer, a claim no one else corroborated. Shades of the O. J. Simpson trial - a black jury refused to convict Newton of first degree murder for that cold blooded killing, despite the evidence against him.
One case did give weight to those allegations that the police intended to destroy the Panthers, After a 1969 shootout in Chicago, the police discredited themselves by attempting to cover their asses with some creative "home remodeling." When they raided an apartment, there was a brief exchange of gunfire during which a stray bullet went through a wall into an adjoining room, killing Pamther leader Fred Hampton while he was in bed. As the police sought entry, someone inside the apartment fired a few shots through the front door. Officers responded with a fusilade that left the door riddled full of holes. Fearing they would be accused of murdering Hampton in bed, the police attempted to conceal the number of shots they fired by removing the door and having the crime lab reverse the hinges so that in rehanging the door it would appear most of the shots came from inside the apartment. After that cover-your-ass chicanery was uncovered, left-wingers always referred to this case as "the murder of Fred Hampton."
Huey Newton did not live to attend the recent Black Panther reunion. Alas, poor Huey was killed in 1989, not by the police, but by a black dope dealer during a dispute over Newton's failure to pay for an earlier purchase of cocaine.
The Panthers were started in prison by a bunch of convicted thugs and thieves, The thuggery and thievery continued after their release. Did they accomplish anything in the fight for justice and civil rights? Absolutely not! When their aura faded, the Panthers simply left behind a legacy of unresolved urban conflict, crime, death, and black hatred of whites. What a legacy. Folk heroes, my ass! My 80 year old useless balls deserve more recognition than that pack of retired thugs and thieves.
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