by
Joshua Bloom
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Following the conference, the Black Panther began to critique not only the police and white political leaders but also black political leaders and organizations that it viewed as counterrevolutionary. On July 20, the Black Panthers introduced their “Bootlicker” column. The idea was to identify “bootlicking,” or counterrevolutionary, black leaders who were subservient to the “White power structure.” The column was replete with photos, derogatory graphics, and articles critical of black leaders and organizations they saw as accommodationist—not only Ussery and CORE, but also California Assemblyman Willie Brown and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
oof
Building on the political strategy they had developed in facing legal challenges after the Sacramento action, Newton and the Panthers insisted on a political approach to the trial. They would follow the law to the letter and strive to exonerate Huey through legal channels, to “exhaust all legal means,” but the principle behind the case would be political. They would use Huey’s trial as a forum to put America on trial, to expose its inherent racism and injustice. If confronted with a strategic choice about whether to advance the political project or Newton’s personal interests, the Panthers would give priority to the political path. This decision reflected their belief that the political system was inherently unjust and that Huey would be put to death. They designed their legal approach to call attention to state repression and to advance the Panthers’ cause. Further, the Panthers believed that only a powerful mass political campaign could save Huey’s life.
When the Man walks up and says we are anti-white, I scratch my head, I say, “. . . what does he mean by that?” He says, “Well, I mean, you hate white people.” I say, “Me? Hate a white person?” I say, “Wait a minute, man, let’s back up a little bit. That’s your game. That’s the Ku Klux Klan’s game.” I say, “That is the Ku Klux Klan’s game to hate me and murder me because of the color of my skin.” I say, “I wouldn’t murder a person or brutalize him because of the color of his skin.” I say, “Yeah, we hate something, alright! We hate the oppression that we live in! We hate cops beating black people over the heads and murdering them. That’s what we hate!” If you’ve got enough energy to sit down and hate a white person just because of the color of his skin, you’re wasting a lot of energy. You’d better take that same energy and put it in some motion out there, and start dealing with those oppressive conditions, and you’re going to find out just what you hate, and what you’re going to stop.
materialism, baby
[bobby seale, feb 17 1968, at the conference where the black panthers announce their merger with sncc)
But by 1968, even in “Bloody Lowndes,” the political dynamic had changed.26 As the Civil Rights Movement dismantled Jim Crow through the mid-1960s, it ironically undercut its own viability as an insurgent movement. Whereas activists could sit in at lunch counters or sit black and white together on a bus or insist on registering to vote where they had traditionally been excluded, they were often uncertain how to nonviolently disrupt black unemployment, substandard housing, poor medical care, or police brutality. And when activists did succeed in disrupting these social processes nonviolently, they often found themselves facing very different enemies and lacking the broad allied support that civil rights activists had attained when challenging formal segregation. By 1968, the civil rights practice of nonviolent civil disobedience against racial exclusion had few obvious targets and could no longer generate massive and widespread participation.
Polly Graham knew about hardship and struggle. In the 1940s, she had been part of a failed attempt to organize low-wage black workers in the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Factory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. But virulent anti-unionism, magnified by racism and anti-Communist hysteria, had beaten that noble and long-forgotten effort. Almost thirty years later, on March 4, 1970, she opened the door of her rented home to find police handing her an eviction notice. Because the property had already been condemned in a legal hearing, she understood that she owed no rent until the landlord made the necessary repairs. The landlord believed and acted differently. Confronted with the seemingly impregnable power of the police, Polly Graham went to the local office of the Black Panther Party for help.
The local Panthers immediately sprang into action, sending a contingent to Ms. Graham’s home, where, with two armed Panthers standing guard, they replaced belongings that had been removed from the home by eviction police. In addition to resecuring Ms. Graham in her home, armed Panthers stood guard over the nearby homes of Pauline Greer and Minnie Bellamy to prevent similar evictions of these two elderly women.
goddamn
[...] the free breakfast programs highlighted the fact that hunger impeded a child’s ability to learn. Politically, the breakfasts shed light on the government’s failure to address childhood poverty and hunger—pointing to the limits of the nation’s War on Poverty. The U.S. government spent only $600,000 on breakfast programs in all of 1967. Government-sponsored breakfast programs grew rapidly as the Panthers pioneered their free breakfast program. By 1972, government-sponsored breakfast programs were feeding 1.18 million children out of the approximately 5 million who qualified for such help.
Attacking the serious problem of childhood hunger was a way to win people’s hearts and minds. “While we might not need their direct assistance in waging armed revolution,” acknowledged Forbes, “we were hedging our bets that if we did, they would respond more favorably to a group of people looking out for their children’s welfare.” The FBI and police agreed. In Baltimore, as in other places, they castigated these programs “as a front for indoctrinating children with Panther propaganda.” As a result, the national repression apparatus went into overdrive to destroy the free breakfast programs. Police and federal agents regularly harassed and intimidated program participants, supporters, and Party workers and sought to scare away donors and organizations that housed the programs, like churches and community centers. Safiya A. Bukhari discovered that participation in one of the Harlem free breakfast programs fell off after the police spread a false rumor among black parents that the children were being fed “poisoned food.” A police disinformation campaign in Richmond, California, suggested that the Party used the Free Breakfast for Children Program to spread racism and to foment school riots. Student participation began to decline, forcing local Panther leaders to combat the official disinformation.
Field offices quickly responded to Hoover with plans for escalating the conflict, and the Los Angeles office reported back to Hoover, “The Los Angeles Office is currently preparing an anonymous letter for Bureau approval which will be sent to the Los Angeles Black Panther Party supposedly from a member of the ‘US’ organization in which it will be stated that the youth group of the ‘US’ organization is aware of the [Black Panther Party] ‘contract’ to kill RON KARENGA, leader of ‘US,’ and they, ‘US’ members, in retaliation, have made plans to ambush leaders of the [Party] in Los Angeles. It is hoped this counterintelligence measure will result in an ‘US’ and [Black Panther Party] vendetta.”
jesus
The FBI field office suggested sending the letter to Fort rather than Hampton because Fort was more likely to respond with violence: “It is believed the above may intensify the degree of animosity between the two groups and occasion Fort to take retaliatory action which could disrupt the [Black Panther Party] or lead to reprisals against its leadership. Consideration has been given to a similar letter to the [Party] alleging a Ranger plot against the [Black Panther Party] leadership; however, it is not felt this would be productive principally because the [Party] at present is not believed as violence prone as the Rangers to whom violent type activity—shooting and the like—is second nature.” J. Edgar Hoover approved the proposal, and the field office sent the letter to Fort.
The FBI’s effort may have helped prevent a merger between the Panthers and the Rangers, but it did not precipitate widespread violence between the groups. Hampton and Fort figured out that the government was attempting to create a deadly conflict between them and decided not to take the bait.
a forged letter was sent from "A black brother you don't know" claiming there was a hit out on Jeff Fort
On the night of November 13, FBI Special Agent Mitchell met with informant William O’Neal and showed him photos of the two dead police officers killed earlier that day by Spurgeon Winters. In a series of meetings in the following days, Mitchell had O’Neal help map out the exact layout of Fred Hampton’s apartment, including the specific location of his bed and nightstand. He also asked O’Neal to keep tabs on who was coming and going from the apartment and to determine what weapons were kept there.
Armed with this information, a raiding party of fourteen SPU officers arrived outside Hampton’s apartment at 4:30 A.M. on December 4. They did not bring the standard raiding equipment they had used in previous Chicago Panther raids, such as tear gas or sound equipment; instead, they carried a Thompson submachine gun, five shotguns, a carbine, nineteen .38 caliber pistols, and one .357 caliber pistol. The assault was quick and decisive. Within fifteen minutes, Fred Hampton was dead, shot twice through the head while he lay in bed. Peoria, Illinois, Panther leader Mark Clark, in Chicago attending a statewide meeting of Party leaders, was also dead. The seven other Panthers in the apartment—four with bullet wounds—were arrested on charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery, and unlawful use of weapons. One SPU officer was shot in the leg.
That evening, about forty-five hundred people—mostly white Yale students—gathered at Yale’s Ingalls Rink to decide whether to call a strike. Kenneth Mills, a black assistant professor at the university, told the crowd that the plight of Bobby Seale and the accused Black Panthers symbolized the plight of blacks generally in “Racist America,” and he called for action: “In recognition of the critical emergency, in recognition of the reality of oppression, in recognition of exploitation,” he said, it was time to “close down” the university. “This is the time to say ‘classroom space is not where it’s happening.’ The struggle for justice is much more important.” The audience shouted and cheered, pumping clenched fists and chanting, “Strike, Strike, Strike!” Students organized meetings in all of Yale’s undergraduate colleges and some of the graduate schools to mobilize support for the strike.54
The following morning, April 22, 1970, Yale students went on strike for the first time in the university’s history. They set up picket lines surrounding classroom buildings and carried signs reading, “Don’t go to class” and “Skip classes, talk politics.” They handed out leaflets saying, “All academic commitments must be suspended so that we all may devote our full time and attention to the situation, educate ourselves, and act accordingly.” The university canceled all intercollegiate sports events for the week. Students in Yale’s undergraduate colleges passed referenda supporting the strike, and the undergraduate residence halls also voted to provide food, shelter, and first aid to Panther supporters who rallied on May 1. A university spokesperson estimated that between 50 and 75 percent of students were participating in the strike.
holy shit
(background: Bobby Seale on trial in New Haven; Panthers claimed he was targeted specifically by New Haven police and tried to force Yale to take a stand)