The Black Panthers
Following the assassination of Black nationalist leader Malcolm X and the murder of an unarmed Black teen by San Francisco police, activists Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panthers or Black Panther Party in October of 1966, which was a socialist, armed self-defense group, with a primary goal of pushing back on police brutality against Blacks. Taking advantage of a California law that allowed citizens to carry fully-loaded, unconcealed guns, the Black Panthers began shadowing Oakland police with guns at the ready, representing a clear break from the integrationist goals and nonviolent protest tactics of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Contagious Spread
Spreading quickly to other American cities with large minority populations, by 1968, the Black Panthers had grown to some 2,000 members, spreading Newton and Seale’s political objectives drawn up in their Ten-Point Program, including the immediate end to police brutality, employment for African Americans, fair housing and justice for all. While the Panthers were able to institute community social programs such as free breakfast for school children and free health clinics in 13 African American communities, the group soon bogged down into violence, including Panther treasurer Bobby Hutton’s death in a shootout with police in April, 1968, followed by Newton’s conviction and imprisonment for killing Oakland police officer John Frey.
Hoover’s Watchlist
The Panther’s socialist message and militant tactics soon made them a target of the FBI’s secret counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO, leading FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to call the Black Panthers “One of the greatest threats to the nation’s internal security.” Hoover’s declaration triggered an open season by police against the Panthers in each of their chapter cities, leading to the 1969 murder of Panther members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark during an ambush by Chicago police. Killed while sleeping in their apartment, a ballistics investigation into the more than 100 rounds fired in the apartment determined that only one round came from the Panthers’ side of the exchange. After a federal grand jury ruled that the bureau played a significant role in the lead-up to the raid, the Black Panthers officially disbanded in 1982, making the Black Panther Party, a violent participant during the turbulent years of the American 1960s.