Power, Politics and Prejudice: The Criminalization of the Black Panthers

In the 1960s and 1970s, many black families migrated out of the South and into Northern and Western urban areas seeking opportunity and a chance to escape rampant racial discrimination. While black communities in these areas did fare somewhat better than their counterparts in Southern areas, city living came with its own problems: Overcrowding, lack of government investment in communities of color, and police brutality were all rampant even in these more ‘enlightened’ cities. In response to this, a group of activists in Oakland, California, formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, often colloquially known as the Black Panthers. Promoting a platform of exercising constitutional rights, Black cultural and historical awareness and education, and economic self-sufficiency (Pope and Flanigan 2013), the Black Panthers quickly became well-known throughout urban communities in the Bay Area. Membership boomed in the wake of the assassinations of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, and soon the Black Panthers had chapters in many major metropolitan areas. 

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While the Black Panthers did place an emphasis on paramilitary training and a willingness to use violence, some scholars believe that “much of it was rhetorical flourish.” (Pope and Flanigan 2013). Nevertheless, the Black Panthers did encourage members to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, and provided members with training in close combat and in guns. However, they did this mostly as a method of defending against police brutality, creating armed patrols that would defend their communities from police misconduct. (Pope and Flanigan 2013). In addition to this, the Black Panthers created dozens of community programs meant to close economic and social inequalities between Black and non-Black Americans, but the image of a uniformed, armed dissenter would remain in the public consciousness for decades after. 

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While the Black Panthers gained notoriety for their emphasis on self-defense and refusal to commit to the strategy of nonviolence Black activists had used in the past, their social programs meant to provide basic needs for underserved communities are less well-known. Black Panthers, in addition to their more publicized forms of protest, provided free breakfast programs for children, medical research and care services, home maintenance, free clothing and shoes, employment assistance, protective escorts for the elderly, childcare, and even free plumbing and pest control services. They believed that, in order for communities to understand how racial discrimination in society had unfairly disadvantaged them, basic needs like food, shelter, and a safe place to live had to be met first. They didn’t solely limit their services to Black communities, either-the Black Panthers often worked with other social movements, even forming an alliance with several LGBT+ rights movements in the Bay Area in order to prevent police brutality (Leighton 2019). 

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Although the Black Panthers gained a lot of respect from their communities and other activists for their social programs, their emphasis on meeting basic needs for underserved communities and demands for justice and equal treatment also garnered the attention of the FBI. In the age of Soviet espionage, the Mafia, drug cartels and Watergate, the FBI declared the Black Panthers a serious threat to national security and devoted valuable time, manpower and funding to installing informants, creating dissension in the ranks, and exaggerating activities in order to demonize the Black Panther Party (Brame and Shriver 2013). 

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The FBI focus on disrupting Black Panther activities can be seen as a ‘top-down’ problem, with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s notorious aversion to oversight, critiques of the government, and general social change coming out full force in his response to the Black Panthers. In 1956, Hoover and the FBI formed COINTELPRO, an extensive counterintelligence program with the express purpose of surveilling various social movement organizations (Brame and Shriver 2013). COINTELPRO was described as ‘autonomous from other government agencies’ and was given authority to “miscredit, discredit, or otherwise neutralize’ the activities of FBI targets.” (Brame and Shriver 2013).  COINTELPRO and the FBI were ordered to seek out evidence that the Black Panthers were violating the Smith Act of 1940 (a law that banned anyone advocating a violent overthrow of the US government), firearms regulations, and other criminal statutes. In terms of firearms regulations, at least, it could sometimes prove difficult to even prove a violation had taken place-many Black Panthers were expected to be aware of exactly what the law said they could and could not do in terms of being armed. An FBI report in 1971 on the Winston-Salem chapter of the Black Panthers was forced to admit that while the Winston-Salem Black Panthers did own approximately a dozen rifles and shotguns, all of those weapons were possessed legally (Brame and Shriver 2013) In addition to intelligence gathering, the FBI also sought to inform local law enforcement of Black Panther events and activities throughout the 1960s and 1970s. As the very nature of the Black Panthers meant  conflict with local law enforcement was inevitable, this increased attention from the police likely contributed to strains on resources and infighting among group members. In addition to this, COINTELPRO and the FBI used a network of informants to create infighting on the national level between Black Panther Party leaders and prosecute several key members. The FBI and the media also sought to portray Black Panthers as violent, destructive soldiers instead of people using an alternative method to fight social inequalities.  This and other methods of ‘inordinate social control measures relative to its activities’ (Brame and Shriver 2013) undermined the Black Panthers standing in their communities and disrupted funding, participation in programs, and recruitment among many Black Panther chapters. 

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The FBI did not consider the social programs the Black Panthers had created and perpetuated (mentions of the social programs the Black Panthers created typically write them off as ‘communist,’) (Brame and Shriver 2013) nor the circumstances that could radicalize thousands of young Black people across America. Instead, the FBI sought to paint the Black Panthers to the government and to the public at large as violent criminals who would stop at nothing to destroy the American way of life, which they did through a well-funded and supplied program of informants, surveillance and media. In an age where white nationalist militias display their colors freely and are told by the highest-ranking official in the land to ‘stand by,’ it is important to remember that the FBI consciously chose to focus many of their considerable resources on Black activists during a period known for high crime rates and racial tensions. 

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While the Black Panthers did sometimes pursue their goals through violent or criminal methods, it is important to remember that they also brought attention to and sought to solve many of the ways racial inequalities present themselves in the United States. While many narratives surrounding social movements throughout history are given the benefit of being multifaceted-containing more ‘militant’ and ‘moderate’ members, getting some things wrong while also getting some things right-the Black Panthers are historically painted with the same brush, entirely as people who solely looked for a violent revolution. To do this in the modern day erases important questions about racial issues, the ways in which racial inequality continues to permeate our society, and how the government exerts power and violence, both covert and overt, over individuals in different social groups. In order to create lasting change in American race relations, we must first look at where we have been and how we talk about it in order to learn where we are going and what we must change for a better future. 

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