Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party, or Black Panthers was a political party, founded in 1966, to help protect the rights of African-Americans.[1][2]
Commentators note that while the party helped introduce health clinics to screen for sickle-cell anemia, and programs for children, it employed rhetoric that scared some white people.[1] They initiated a free breakfast program, for school children, when the initial modest program did not reach their community.[3][4] Their program eventually fed 20,000 kids per day, and is credited with putting pressure on the United States Congress to initiate a broad Federal School Breakfast Program.
The United States is known for laws that allow ordinary citizens access to firearms, and the Black Panthers encouraged members and supporters to own legal weapons, for self-defense.
Theorists within the Party were said to have been influences by the writings of Franz Fanon.[5]
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Janie Har (2016-10-27). "50 years later, Black Panthers look back at party's founding". The Birmingham Times. Oakland, California. Retrieved 2026-07-19.
- ↑
Duncan Howard MacLaury (2013). "Silent Guns, Blazing Rhetoric: A Narrative History of the Black Panther Party of Boston" (PDF). Tufts University. Archived from the original (thesis) on 2020-11-29. Retrieved 2026-07-19.
In the group’s short life, it launched an ambitious breakfast program for children and opened free health clinics to screen for sickle-cell anemia. At the same time, party members scared mainstream America with their calls for revolution that were at odds with Martin Luther King Jr.’s insistence on peaceful protest.
- ↑
Arielle Milkman (2016-02-16). "The Radical Origins of Free Breakfast for Children". Eater magazine. Archived from the original on 2026-04-08. Retrieved 2026-07-19.
Free Breakfast for Children began as one of a number of the Panthers’ survival programs and quickly became one of the organization’s capstone programs.
- ↑ "How the Black Panthers Revolutionized Breakfast". 2025-01-30. Retrieved 2026-07-19.
- ↑
"The Black Panthers Reconsidered". Against the Current. Archived from the original on 2020-09-09. Retrieved 2026-07-19.
The Panthers also strongly embraced the theories of Franz Fanon, who saw violence as an intrinsic good rather than a necessary means and rejected the working class in favor of the lumpenproletariat as the agent of revolutionary social change.