Stuart Higgins, Opinion Columnist

In light of a recent op-ed I wrote on police targeting of inner city black people, I felt it was an appropriate time to reflect on the legacy of the Black Panther Party and its founder, Huey P. Newton. The Black Panthers, formed in 1966 under Newton and Bobby Seale, started out as a group monitoring local police officers to help prevent police brutality in urban communities. This idea generated a powerful response within black communities, which helped them organize and mobilize against massive civil rights abuses across the United States. President J. Edgar Hoover described the group as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” This was because Newton was a Marxist who studied the works of revolutionaries like Lenin and Mao, and advocated for armed self-defense against the state. This mix of theory and practice struck fear into the establishment.

When discussing the civil rights era in school, students are rarely taught the true nature of the Black Panther Party. Instead student’s heads are filled with the idea that the group was full of criminals and thugs; this notion couldn’t be further from the truth. The group received such hate and vitriol mainly because they saw American imperialism and capitalism as the root cause of the problems people of color faced at home and abroad. Newton set up a ten-point program outlining the party’s ideology and demands. The program essentially asked for “land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace” for black communities across the United States.

In order for the party’s strategy of armed self defense to be effective and help members avoid arrest, Newton knew they needed to stay within the bounds of the law. He spent an extensive amount of time studying California penal code and set party guidelines and procedures based on his research. Eventually, the government would find ways to combat this by creating new laws in response to the party’s actions. The most important law set up was the Mulford Act of 1967, also given the name “Panther Bill.” The Mulford Act prohibited the carrying of loaded firearms and was undoubtedly put together to target the party. In response to the bill, the Panthers protested at the state capitol while fully armed. This protest showed the community that the Black Panther Party would not back down from its duty to protect the people and only helped the party gain more support.

Newton’s most important contribution to the party’s goals was what he called “survival programs.” The party raised money in order to feed and clothe the poor within their communities, while at the same time educating the people about the causes of their living conditions and teaching them how to combat these issues. The most important of these programs was the Breakfast for Children Program; the Panthers claim to have fed more than 20,000 children during the school year of 1968-1969. These programs were invaluable because they taught people to rely on each other; they knew they couldn’t rely on the government and the law to stop their oppression and create better social conditions.

Eventually the United States government would instruct its counterintelligence program to attempt to undermine and neutralize the party. By exploiting rivalries between black-nationalist groups and targeting the party’s social programs, the FBI was able to dismantle the Panthers from within, leading to their demise.

Although Newton will forever be remembered as a controversial figure, there is no denying his work helped unify the black community through education, self-betterment and localized care. It is important to remember Newton as a selfless leader who risked his life for the peoples’ cause. Too often the importance of armed self-defense is erased from the record of the civil rights movement; Newton’s legacy is testament to the importance of those aspects of the movement.