Black Panther Party Community Activism

Community Activism and Success of the Black Panther Party Aside from the Community Alert Patrol and Liberation Schools, the BPP created numerous, “survival programs” between 1966 to 1971 (Kirkby 2011). These other programs focused on human sustenance, and health care to empower the black residents living in the ghettos of the cities. Established in 1968, Free Breakfast for Children became one of most famous programs. It was initially started in low-income areas of Oakland, California. However, in 1966, it was adapted by every chapter of BPP across the country. The program “focused on meeting the nutritional needs of ghetto children—Black or otherwise—and it was concerned with building greater inroads into the African-American community” (Kirkby …show more content…
These programs were not just reflection of revolution, but a socialist revolution which was to be a premise for social and economic equality. Yet their importance to the revolutionary struggle has been undermined as much of the literature has argued that such programs were merely used as a tool to recruit members into the organization. Rather the real reason being is that, “Panther’s community survival programs provided a form of education that exposed America’s contradictions and insatiable appetite for materialism at the expense of poor people” (Pope and Flanigan 2013:455). These programs highlighted the fact that a grassroot organization had to provide necessities of life due to state and federal government neglect. Thus, these programs not only highlighted inequalities at the intersection of race and class, but also highlighted failing democracy. This led the government to labeling the BPP as an imminent threat and “what followed was one of the most sophisticated and brutal state-sponsored clandestine campaigns by a government agency to neutralize and destroy a civilian-based political organization in US history” (Kirkby …show more content…
From the view of the dominant history we recall the 1960s as an era of non-violent protest in the struggle for CRM which was led by Martin Luther King Jr. However, at the same time the discourse of violence was also being advocated by Malcom X to address the hardships faced by those living in the northern cities. Before the BPP was founded in Oakland, California, many black families migrated from southern to northern cities for economic opportunities. This led to the city facing the problem of racial transition. However, the city responded to this racial and social change by establishing social control through law enforcement authorities. In the aftermath of assassination of Malcom X, the residents in northern cities, faced with the reality of “police brutality, lack of opportunity, and the realization that opportunity was not forthcoming in the near future led many Blacks to conclude that armed self-defense coupled with self-help was the only way to end the despair” (Pope and Flanigan 2013:450). This thus highlights the fact that BPP emerged in response to the social

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