They ran free breakfast clubs for children extensively (the police even raided these), and educational programs. They ran a bus service so urban black people could visit relatives in prisons. The Panthers ran a very successful 24 hour ambulance service, with members qualifying as paramedics. After the sewing up of the legal loophole that allowed the Panthers to carry guns to publicly police the police, they encouraged people to keep guns at home, and several times this helped them to see off the illegal entry of police attempting to intimidate the families of those the police had murdered. The fact that none of this was something I was solidly aware of, but that I was aware of the negative image of the Panthers spread by their previous allies and fellow travellers after their breif heyday, just goes to show how effective the illegal actions of the FBI in sabotaging the group were. Cops routinely barged into black houses, including those of the families of those they'd murdered, without any thought of producing a warrant. Even civilian whites could murder innocent blacks without any chance of conviction.

All across urban America police regularly visited black neighbourhoods to murder blacks on flimsy pretences and spurious evidence, all without repercussions or chance of redress. In 19, in Chicago, a city with twice as many whites as blacks, police killed 59 black people as opposed to 19 white people. The authors analyze key political questions, such as why so many young black people across the country risked their lives for the revolution, why the Party grew most rapidly during the height of repression, and why allies abandoned the Party at its peak of influence.īold, engrossing, and richly detailed, this book cuts through the mythology and obfuscation, revealing the political dynamics that drove the explosive growth of this revolutionary movement and its disastrous unraveling. In the face of intense repression, the Party flourished, becoming the center of a revolutionary movement with powerful allies around the world.īlack Against Empire is the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the history and politics of the Black Panther Party. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the US, the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the US government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism. In Oakland, California, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality.

Black Against Empire by Joshua Bloom