[...] 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.