“Three is a Magic Number”: The Triple Threat of Being Black, Female, and a Panther
Madison Givens
Citation: Givens, Madison. “‘Three Is a Magic Number’: The Triple Threat of Being Black, Female, and a Panther.” The Coalition of Master’s Scholars on Material Culture, April 22, 2022.
Abstract: The Black Panther Party played a critical role during the United States Civil Rights era. The Party created a space for many black and brown individuals and offered protections that were often violated by laws, policies, government officials and law enforcement. This research in no way is an attempt to negate the good that the Black Panther Party did for their communities but instead aims to take a critical look at the abuses and diminishment of women within the movement. Looking with a critical gaze at the way women were treated within the Party is really looking at the mistreatment and abuse rendered upon black women and women of color within society. This piece looks at intersectionality and how the identities of women within the movement were marked by society due to their race, gender, and Party status. These labels made women targets both internally and externally and made it systematically difficult for women to be recognized for their role within the movement.
Women within the Black Panther Movement were confronted, both internally and externally, with discrimination and abuse due to racism, sexism, and Black Panther Party membership; the critical role women played within the party was diminished by the intersectionality of being black, female, and a member. There would be a much different discussion surrounding the Black Panther Party and the impact it had (or did not have) on society if women were not involved.
Keywords: gender studies, race studies, intersectional feminism studies, Black Panther Party, civil rights
Time stopped. A single heartbeat was all she heard as she watched bullets fly past, penetrating everything. Windows breaking, glass crashing to the ground. Her mattress she had been so soundly sleeping on riddled with holes as their bedding became engorged with a river of red. She clutched her belly as if she could protect the unborn child within her. The child who would grow up never knowing his father – A father who would die a martyr, whose wife watched his body be punctured by machine guns. She never saw who pulled the trigger, but she knew. They wore blue and took an oath to protect and serve. They would leave her with little means to provide for herself or her child. Deborah Johnson was her name. She and her now-deceased partner Fred Hampton had rented this apartment to be closer to the Black Panther Headquarters. Society levied three charges against Johnson even before she rented her apartment and long before that violent night: (1) her Black skin, (2) her female anatomy, and (3) her membership status in the Black Panther Party. She will wake up with horrific nightmares every night for the rest of her life. She will battle post-traumatic stress disorder everyday as her mind slips back to the image of her Fred’s lifeless body being filled with lead.
The trauma experienced by the aforementioned “Pantherette” was not uncommon for females involved with the Panthers. Women within the Black Panther Party suffered traumatic occurrences at the hands of many, not only the police but also at the hands of fellow panthers. Society deems women, specifically Black women, to be lesser citizens. This pejorative label within society allows for continued abuses to be rendered upon women of color. The level of abuse society allows to occur depends upon multiple interacting factors called intersectionalities. The oppressed woman intersects with the oppressed African American which intersects with membership in a stigmatized party. Women within the Black Panther Movement in the Bay Area (1960s-1970s) were confronted, both internally and externally, with discrimination and abuse due to racism, sexism, and Black Panther Party membership. The critical role women played within the party was diminished by the intersectionality of being Black, a woman, and a member.
The Black Panther Party began as a response to police and race-based violence during the Civil Rights Era. Instead of working towards solving problems of racial violence and oppression experienced by Black communities and individuals, “State Governments…began to equip police force with sophisticated weapons to quell riots. This negative and violent attitude of Whites in terms of Black problems resulted in the rise of…the Black Panther Party.”[1] Established by a small group of Black men in 1966, the Black Panther Party would go on to demand things like freedom and power for Black communities and would come to embody masculine and militant ideologies. Inspired by the Marxist and militaristic teachings of leaders such as Mao Tse Tung, Lenin, Malcolm X, and Frantz Fanon, the Black Panther Party vowed to uplift and protect Black communities at almost any cost. A rejection of middle-class values was evident within the Party as leaders Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, and Stokely Carmichael recognized the ways in which middle-class ideals contributed to an attitude of indifference towards underprivileged Black youths.[2] The leaders expected militant-like discipline from members since they viewed their role within the party and society at large to wage a battle against systematic Black oppression.
As the Civil Rights movement continued and police brutality escalated, the Black Panthers were no exception to this violence within their communities. In December 1969, “the Police killed two Black Panther leaders in Chicago. The jury report said that of the eighty-two bullets fired, only one came from a Panther’s gun.”[3] This incident, and others like it, did not deter nor stop the militant ideology and image of the party. In 1969, J. Edgar Hoover was said to have considered the Panthers the greatest threat to internal security matters of the United States and its government.[4] By the earlier 1970s, the majority of Black Panther leaders were either in jail, murdered, hiding, or in another country essentially exiled, and the Party began to disappear from the mainstream.
As the party began to disintegrate, leaders tried to redirect the efforts of the party away from militancy and toward running for political offices as a means to combat oppression. Arguably the most important part of their legacy stemmed from their desire to not only reform systems but to transform societies within the United States and beyond. Party member Elaine Brown stated it best when she described that, “[T]o influence the minds of people to understand not only that the Black Panther party was providing them this, but more importantly, that if they could get food, that maybe they would want clothing, maybe they’d want housing, maybe they’d want land and maybe they would ultimately want some abstract thing called freedom.”[5] The Black Panther Party was not alone in this sentiment but was one of many organizations calling upon the United States government to end the oppression relegated upon people of color.[6]
Intersectionality is a term coined by legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989. The term focuses on the ways in which people experience oppression differently based on certain groups or categories. For example, the experiences of Black women are unique from that of Black men and white women because they are experiencing the oppression of being Black and women within United States society. Crenshaw states, “Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated.”[7] The ideology of intersectionality is expanded upon in this paper because it takes into account the ways in which Black Panther Party membership adds a third layer to the intersectional experience of Black women.
There are inherent differences in the portrayal of women within the Black Panther Party and other women of this time. The focus, however, is not to take away any one woman’s experience but it is to enhance our understanding of the women who comprised a marginalized majority in the Party. The Black Panther Party is a defining movement in United States’ history and it is vital to understand the movement from multiple perspectives, one being from the women involved. There were more women within the movement, making women a prominent aspect of the party.[8] Many women joined the movement to combat the racism and sexism that they experienced on a regular basis. Women within the party were no exception to the daily life and work that Black women were experiencing during this time. During the 1960s, the Civil Rights Era, Black women comprised a majority of domestic servant roles outside of their own homes.[9] Black women were often times employed by middle-class and wealthy white families as nannies and maids. This contrasted other jobs afforded to women at the time, like secretarial, teaching, and nursing roles that were more readily occupied by white women. The servile role of Black women contributed to the intersectional oppression of Black women within society. This ideology was, in many ways, mirrored within the Black Panther Party and the masculine attitudes of party leaders. Women within the party found that they were combatting sexism within the party, as well as the stigma surrounding being Black and a Panther in the broader American society.
Black Power
Figure 1: July 20, 1967. Print Newspaper, African American Museum and Library, Oakland, California.
In Mexico City, 1968, Olympians Tommie Smith (gold medalist) and John Carlos (bronze medalist) completed the 200-meter race. Afterwards, they stood on the podium awaiting their medals. The world watched as the Star-Spangled Banner blared throughout the stadium. What they did next incited outrage in some, and hope in others. They raised one single gloved fist, heads bowed downward in protest of African American treatment in the United States. As the United States focused its efforts on the Vietnam War, there was another battle waging at home that was escalating to an unprecedented level. African Americans were demanding an end to segregation and racism. The perceived slow progress of non-violent leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), created division.[10] Individuals within Black communities became divided as some believed in the teachings of Malcolm X, while others still followed the ideologies of MLK. As militant-like leaders such as Malcolm X, and the Panthers’ own Huey Newton and Bobby Seale began calling for different forms of mobilization of the masses, the white men in power began to retaliate with violence.
The ways in which systematic oppression has been a device utilized by governmental officials in the United States as a means of control is evidenced throughout the 1960s through the use of violence and fear. Scholar Charles Jones recognizes that there are three characteristics of United States repression of people of color, “Repression tends to be legalistic and subtle; it is constrained by norms and procedures; and it is administered by multiple levels of government.”[11] The legalistic nature of repression of communities of color only furthered the struggles for Black men and, especially, Black women in the party. The twentieth century was a violent, and abusive time for communities of color. Protests and marches would turn into violent scenes of police with water hoses, weapons, and attacks by police dogs upon those protesting their lack of rights and freedoms.
Miss America
The fight for constitutional rights was not only limited to African Americans. The battle bled over to women’s rights movements as women began demanding to be treated as first-class citizens. Many women’s rights movements emerged in response to other political and social events happening at the time.[12] White women and Black women’s experiences during these movements varied drastically. As many women’s rights movements were heralded by white, especially middle class, women who saw them as liberating. Many Black women recognized that the mainstream calls for women’s liberation was in many ways inadequate, and a different movement was required to encompass Black women’s needs for liberation. These differences are in large part due to the intersectional differences of Black and white women. In 1966, the Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, co-led by future Panther Stokely Carmichael, was revered for claiming in the name of Black Power a new mood that, “served notice to white America that a new Black man and woman had been born and that their subordination would be, if necessary, violently resisted.”[13] This public statement was not void of Black women’s voices as Black women were involved with the movement’s origins.[14] Black women were calling for significant debates and internal discussions surrounding gender and Black Power.[15]
The intersectional nature of Black women was clearly different from that of Black men and white women and had real effects upon marginalized communities. On paper, the Black Panthers recognized this inequality and many members recognized that Black freedom should go hand in hand with female freedom and equality. A newspaper article from the Black Panther Party went so far as to condemn the Miss America pageant, stating that Black women, specifically, should not participate, as this pageant explicitly objectifies and oppresses “sisters.”[16]
Figure 2: May 25, 1967. Print Newspaper, African American Museum and Library, Oakland, California.
Figure 3: July 2, 1967. Print Newspaper, African American Museum and Library, Oakland, California.
“Pantherettes”
“Sisters” in the Black Panther Party were already combating racism and sexism in society. Once they joined the party, they no longer combated racism internally, but they did find that there was a lot of gender-based abuse within the party. Female panthers were subjected to misogynistic attitudes and lacked prominent female leadership. Even though women truly were the foundation and the backbone of the party, they never rose above their “place.” Women were oftentimes delegated to the kitchen supporting the free breakfast program, answering phones, and taking care of party members’ children.[17]
This is not to say that women did not have a strong influence and did not participate actively in protests and speeches. However, their participation was not as free and unbounded as they thought it would be when they joined the party.[18] They faced many barriers such as sexual assault and harassment by other members of the party, “[Huey Newton], and other men in the Party, also treated women as sexual objects…the men of the party still expected women to satisfy their sexual advances.”[19] In other instances of oppressive behavior, they had to wait to eat the food they prepared until the men finished eating.[20] African American men and women were subjected to the same level of brutality by police and white men in charge, so one would think they would be granted equal power in combating their oppressors in society. Unfortunately, this was not the case.[21]
Outwardly, it appeared that the party was giving women the power to rise above their second-class citizen status, but appearances can be deceiving and a deeper look at the inner workings of the party refute those claims of gender equality. The complexity of gender relations within the party is evidenced through the lack of recognition for female members, “Though women were eventually able to hold executive roles [within the party], true gender equality could never be achieved in the BPP given the party leaders’ sexist views and the party’s strict gender hierarchy. The continued struggle became a divisive issue that played a large part in the Party’s eventual demise.”[22] Women began to hold higher level roles within the party as male leaders were being jailed, exiled, and murdered by police and government officials. Kathleen Cleaver who would emerge as a party leader stated that, “[T]he greatest difficulty was in the idea that Black men and women’s objectives directly conflicted with one another. In a struggle between self-improvement and improvement of the race as a whole, many Party leaders believed that if men were trying to regain their manhood and power, women’s empowerment and expanded leadership opportunities ultimately defeated the purpose.”[23]
The roles initially afforded to women within the Party were relegated to those of supportive roles, such as secretaries, assistants, cooks, and daycare workers.[24] Their roles only changed once male leadership started to wain due to the aforementioned reasons, such as exile, murder, and imprisonment. Several scholars relate the mentality of party founders, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, to that of challenging deficiencies related to Black men as providers and defenders of the Black community.[25] While early recruitment efforts were targeted at men, women eventually became interested and wanted to join the party. Many women thought that the party had a “gender” neutral platform and many women were initially attracted to this uniquely gendered message.[26] As the presence of women increased, the ideology of creating an organization centered on Black masculinity began to come under question by women who wondered where their place was within this revolution and their demands for liberation.
Figure 4: November 3, 1967. Print Newspaper, African American Museum and Library, Oakland, California.
Artists of Resistance
Women found ways to subtly combat sexism within the party. To understand the role of women within the party, it is important to start at the beginning. Each woman’s experience was different, as were the means by which they combated the sexism and misogyny that permeated the party. While few women joined the party to spark a gender revolution, many soon realized that their fight extended beyond combating racism. Tarika Joan Lewis had a notably different mindset when she joined in 1967 at the young age of 16. Lewis did not realize at the time that she was the first female member.[27] She did not recognize the impact and the ripple effect that her decision would have on Black women within the Bay Area. She joined, not to fight for women’s equality, but instead to help the cause from a racial perspective. She quickly learned that there was inherent sexism within the party and began using her artistic abilities to depict women in the movement the same as men.[28] The official newspaper of the Black Panthers was undoubtedly a large source of revenue for the party. The graphic images, but most importantly the artwork depicted in the newspaper, were crucial for the newspaper's survival. Lewis played a huge part in facilitating some of the iconic artwork that would establish the continued success of the paper. Her artwork also shows a shift in the attitudes of women within the party. She started out with the intention of helping Black families and children and combating racism and ended with powerful images and messages to combat gender inequality.
Artwork, song, and literature all became a means for women to express themselves. Lewis was not the only one who used her gift of creativity to depict women as equal to men. Women like Gayle Dickinson also joined the movement as a means to fight racial oppression. Dickinson was instrumental in contributing to the party’s newspaper. The newspaper was essential to the survival of the party.[29] Shortly after joining the party, Dickinson realized that her talents could also be utilized to fight internal forms of oppression. She published articles and drawings in the newspaper to make people aware of the plight of the African-American woman and focused predominantly on the cycle of poverty. The artworks became a peaceful, and healing way for women to give themselves a voice. While some women held leadership roles, they were far and few. One example is Elaine Brown. Brown, entrusted with leadership by Huey Newton, took the helm as Newton fled to Cuba to avoid criminal charges. In her autobiography, Brown remembers being disrespected and disregarded by male members due to her gender, regardless of her appointment as leader by Newton.[30] The leaders of the party were overwhelmingly male, even though women had a larger percentage of representation within the party.
Figure 5: May 4, 1968. Print Newspaper, African American Museum and Library, Oakland, California. Artwork by Matiliba (Tarika Joan Lewis).
Not all women left their voices to be interpreted through political artwork and music. Many women attempted to take a more active role when protesting and, literally, exercised their voice using speeches. Angela Davis is a prime example of a woman who took active action in the fight. Not only did she arm herself, along with aiding others in obtaining weapons, but she also gave passionate speeches. Davis was a woman on the front line. By actively participating in protests, Davis became a very well-known figure. Davis believed that their revolution was justified using force when necessary because the Black community was under continual violent attacks by white police and citizens.[31] Those who wrote about Davis depicted her as a Black soldier.[32] These depictions were important because, as previously mentioned, women, especially Black women, did not have a female leader for inspiration.
Davis became a prominent figure, and in turn, became a strong and powerful symbol for many women. With her activism and notoriety, Davis quickly became a target of governmental organizations.[33] As the FBI, state, and federal government began to see the Black Panther Party as a “threat”, they started to make examples out of certain members. They targeted Davis because of her image in the Black Panther Community. She had become a strong figure that was causing women to rethink their role in society. This re-shaping of the Black, female “role” made many uncomfortable. Davis states in an interview, “We know about Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins and Huey Newton and Lee Otis Johnson. And I could go on and on. The list is endless. We know that they were arrested on criminal charges as an excuse for removing them from their revolutionary work and activity among the people.”[34] While Davis does not mention herself directly, this statement could easily be applied to her arrest and acquittal as well. Davis was already being oppressed and deemed a lesser person for the color of her skin, her gender, and now her party affiliation. By an unknown author, in a journal titled, The Black Scholar, Davis was depicted as a victim of an oppressive system that would do almost anything to crush her message,“Davis was a fugitive from injustice, from a vicious and systematic campaign to crush her spirit, her blackness.”[35] It was not only her blackness but the Black power of womanhood that she embodied. Davis was an easy target because not only had she legally committed a crime, but she was also a very vocal Black woman. She wore her hair natural and did not conform.[36] The government was especially wary of those who did not conform.[37] By attempting to crush her spirit, her femininity, and her blackness, the government was attempting to suppress the movement.
The party was revolutionary both externally in society and internally. Scholar JoNina Abron points out some of the ways in which the party was revolutionary for the era, but also emphasizes the ways in which certain programs we have today derive from the ideologies of the Black Panthers. Abron states the current free breakfast and lunch program, preventive health care, and local organizing across communities against police brutality, to name a few.[38] Internally, the party’s platform called for things like freedom and the power to determine the destiny of the Black community, decent housing, full employment opportunities, land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.[39] Ideas like these that may have emerged from this masculine, militant party were later transformed and given new life as women started to use this platform to request freedoms within the party, “[F]emale presence began to have a disruptive effect on the inner workings of the group….Supporting African American children and providing a better future for them was a resounding positive impact on the community but it simply was not one of the central goals of the Black Panther Party….This was one of the first examples of how female influence shifted the views of the party.”[40] What women once viewed as a means to help their community and help combat racism inspired a need to fight for gender rights and an end to sexual abuses and harassment within. The transformation did not stop at party lines but instead seeped into the long engrained societal notion of the Black woman’s “place” within the family.
A Woman’s Place is on the Front Lines
Figure 6: May 18, 1968. Print Newspaper, African American Museum and Library, Oakland, California. Poem by Sarah Webster Fabio.
Figure 7: September 7, 1968. Print Newspaper, African American Museum and Library, Oakland California.
Figure 8: September 7, 1968. Print Newspaper, African American Museum and Library, Oakland California.
A woman’s role based on western societal norms was as a homemaker. The wife and mother would bear children, stay home, and take care of them while the husband went to work.[41] There were however, two main reasons for the disruption of the family unit within the Black Panther Party. The first was that women were inclined to work harder than their male counterparts to “prove” themselves. This led to women giving birth, dropping their child at the Party-run Child Development Center (CDC), then going to work on the newspaper, cooking for the free lunch program, or whatever job was theirs before they gave birth.[42] Black women within the Party became a new type of mother. Due to the nature of being a Black woman within the Black Panther Party, these women, along with their other work outside of the home, now had an added responsibility – party membership and duties. They would go to work, go home to take care of their families, make dinner, then complete tasks for the party. There are also accounts of the men eating first while the “sisters” stand by and wait for the “brothers” to finish eating.[43] This is the perpetuation of the submissive female, the stereotypical Black woman whose only job is to serve those around her,[44] “[T]he concept of focusing on the restoration of Black manhood reinforced the prioritization of male suffering and upheld expectations for women to be strong, silent, and submissive….The role of women within the BPP was constantly debated and ultimately oversexualized, underestimated, and abused.” Women within the party had to be alert at all times at home, in the community, and at Party events and meetings. It was an exhausting lifestyle. [45]
Being always alert, even paranoid sometimes, leads to the second reason for the disruption of the family unit. The FBI, state government, and federal governments all became involved in the daily lives of prominent Party members. FBI agents would question family members of those affiliated with the party. They began police raids on homes, and “shoot-ins” by police were not uncommon. Needless to say, the home became a dangerous place. Many members, both men and women, moved into what they called “Panther pads.” They left their families for their safety. The reasoning behind a mother leaving was seen as noble – she wanted to protect her children and relatives. Consequently, we see party loyalty becoming stronger and more intrusive. The Black female must make a decision. Her options are to stay at home, putting her family’s lives in danger; leave the party, seemingly giving up everything she has worked so hard for; or she can move into a Panther pad temporarily. This is not to say that Panther pads were not dangerous. If the police found out the location of one, they would raid it, throw noxious gas inside, or, worse, shoot it. The mothers who left to live in Panther pads chose Party loyalty above almost everything else. It is uncertain whether these sacrifices were known at the time of joining the Party. In the end, the party that they thought was fighting for their equality was just continuing the centuries-long cycle of oppressing the Black female.
Oppression has many forms. It does not have to be the silencing of voices. It can be the gradual smothering of a person’s right to make decisions. The abuses that occurred outside of the party against Black female Panthers was horrific. The abuse that occurred inside was just as devastating. Take Gayle Dickinson, for example. Dickinson tearfully recalled having her first child shortly after joining the party.[46] She choked back tears as she remembered following the norm within the party. New mothers, whose young children could not help with the work, would place their child with the CDC. Her child was going to spend most of its first few months (possibly years) of life in the care of different women. The CDC was only there while the mother was working. Dickinson did take her child home when she was done with her work for the party. While this may not seem like abuse towards the mother, it is at the very least coercive. Those at the top of the party created a system that praised the submissive woman, the woman who was willing to sacrifice everything for the party. This system is evidenced in a statement by member Elaine Brown, “[women in leadership roles] was a violation of some Black Power principle that was left undefined. If a Black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding Black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the Black race. She was an enemy of the Black people.”[47] Scholar Robert Seither states about member Erika Huggins, “[A]s commendable as the passionate self-sacrifice of women like Erika Huggins were, it went against a fundamental founding priority of the BPP, which had been established as a means of empowering Black men and restoring their power.”[48] Black women within the Black Panther Party were now fighting societal norms of the black homemaker, internal norms of allowing their children to be raised by someone else while they work for the party, and familial disruption due to the government. The familial disruption is evidenced in the ways in which Black people, especially prominent male leaders of the party, were being arrested, on oftentimes fictitious charges, murdered by law enforcement, and under seemingly constant surveillance by the FBI.[49] All of these aspects left families without one or both parents, and caused financial hardship.
Black Women Panthers
Women gained the right to vote in the 1920s, the Black man in 1869. The female Panther never gained that right within her party. Her fight for her race quickly turned into a mad dash for gender equality. The women involved faced oppression on multiple fronts and struggled to get ahead. The intersectionality of the Black female Panther is a complex one worthy of study. The impact women had on the Party and society at the time was vast. As women were silenced, men seemed to make the majority of the headlines. If only men are represented in the newspapers and the media, then it becomes the default to study them and the impact they had. A closer look shows that women contributed immensely to the party. The discussion surrounding the Black Panther Party and the impact it had on society would be remarkably different if women were not involved.
Endnotes
[1] D.S. Gaikwad, “THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY OF USA: RISE AND FALL,” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 64 (2003), 1326, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44145561.
[2] Gaikwad 2003, 1328.
[3] Gaikwad 2003, 1330.
[4] Gaikwad 2003, 1330.
[5] Elaine Brown, Eyes on the Prize: Power!, episode 3 (1966-1968).
[6] Charles Jones, “The Political Repression of The Black Panther Party 1966-1971, The Case of the Oakland Bay Area,” Journal of Black Studies, no. 4 (June 1988), 415.
[7] Kimberle Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum, Article 8, Issue 1 (1989), 140.
[8] “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. PBS,” Public Broadcasting Service (2021), https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/the-black-panthers-vanguard-of-the-revolution/.
[9] Trena Easley Armstrong, “The hidden help: Black domestic workers in the Civil Rights Movement,” University of Louisville Electronic Theses and Disertations, Paper 46 (2012), https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/46.
[10] “In the mid- to late 1960s, many African Americans became tired of the slow and sometimes superficial gains that the nonviolent advocate leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. were making.” Robert James Seither, “Women in the Black Panther Party: An Internal Struggle for Power, Equality, and Survival,” TCNJ Journal of Student Scholarship, vol. 17 (April 2015), 1.
[11] Jones 1988, 418.
[12] Race riots and other protests were not always peaceful. A list of several race riots, and protests can be found at the citation below. It is important to recognize the nature and differences of movements aimed at the same or similar goals. “Race Riots of the 1960s,” Encylopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/race-riots-1960s.
[13] Rhonda Williams, “Black Women and Black Power,” OAH Magazine of History (July 2008), 22.
[14] The term Black Power and the Black Power Movement could be credited to several origins. However, in 1966 the Panthers own Stokely Carmichael, as a representative for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was credited with articulating the term Black Power. While this was not the first incident of a movement calling for the end of Black oppression it was a pivotal and inspirational moment.
[15] Williams 2008, 22.
[16] Minister of Information, “Beauty Contests and The Third World,” The Black Panther: Black Community News Service (November 23, 1967).
[17] The Panthers breakfast program ultimately put pressure on government officials to feed children before school. The Black Panther Program was being vilified in the media for their militant attitudes, but the members decided that doing good for their community was more important than the attacks by the media and political leaders. The program was meant to encourage survival of Black communities and continue to ignite the revolution. Erin Blakemore, “How the Black Panthers’ Breakfast Program Both Inspired and Threatened the Government,” History.com. A&E Television Networks (February 6, 2018), https://www.history.com/news/free-school-breakfast-black-panther-party; Seither 2015; Seither 2015, 3.
[18] ‘“I would say that the women who were drawn to the Black Panther Party were all feminisits,” said Ericka Huggins, the widow of the slain Panther leader John Huggins and the first woman to open a Black Panther Party chapter, in New Haven, where she served as deputy chairwoman. She went on to clarify in a phone interview: “Not in the way that feminism is looked at today, in which you have to go step by step in order to claim yourself as a feminist. But we generally believed in the political, social, economic and sexual equality of women and girls.”; One of the most outspoken critics of sexism within the Black Panther Party may be Elaine Brown, who was also the only woman to lead the organization (from 1974 to 1977). She wrote about the gender contradictions extensively in her memoir, “A Taste of Power,” but…she acknowledges that challenging Panther male chauvinism was not always successful, “Did we overcome it? Of course we didn’t. Or as I like to say, ‘We didn’t get these brothers from revolutionary heaven.’” Silamishah Tillet, “The Panthers’ Revolutionary Feminism,” The New York Times (2015), https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/movies/the-panthers-revolutionary-feminism.html.
[19] “One of the driving forces behind the creation of the BPP was the desire to reaffirm Black masculinity: to restore the sense of dignity and authority that had been stripped from Black men throughout centuries of racial oppression. Sentiments of Black male emasculation culminated in the Black Power era following pent up frustrations over the strategy of nonviolent direct action during the Civil Rights Movement. This belief was also deeply rooted in the long history of racial and sexual violence against women.” Freyberg, Anna.“A Woman’s Place in the Revolution: Gender and Sexual Politics within the Black Panther Party,” MURAJ vol. 4, no. 6 (2021), 1; “In addition to struggles with male leaders and members, BPPP women also endured acts of physical violence. In the early to mid 1970s when the Party began to face mounting federal suppression and internal challenges, Huey Newton and other BPP leaders began to deviate from the original goals of the Party, and in many instances, turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the dire situation. Newton, in particular became increasingly violent towards women in the Party.” Seither 2015, 4.
[20] Oakland Museum of California, “Black Panthers at 50: What was the Role of Women in the Black Panther Party?” YouTube video (2017), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiXainlSmko.
[21] “Despite rampant misogyny and a hypermasculine public perception, Panther women permeated into nearly every sphere of the BPP…Many women, through careful navigation of the rigid patriarchy, obtained leadership roles, such as Elaine Brown, Kathleen Cleaver, and Ericka Huggins, all of whom became members of the party’s Central Committee. Black women’s voices and labor profoundly shaped the impact of the BPP and their resistance to masculinist patterns of exclusion helped found a more inclusive struggle for liberation. Even so, their contributions within the BPP have been marginalized in scholarship and lost almost entirely to the unforgettably fierce images of rifle-bearing male Panthers lodged into popular memory.” Freyberg 2021, 2.
[22] Seither 2015, 1.
[23] Seither 2015, 2.
[24] Seither 2015, 2.
[25] Samuel Josephs, “Whose Revolution is This? Gender’s Divisive Role in the Black Panther Party,” Georgetown Journal of Gender & Law (2007), 2.
[26] Josephs 2007, 2.
[27] Black Panthers at 50.
[28] Looking at ideologies of power one can see why there would be a hierarchy rooted in oppression of black women inherent within the Black Panther Party. In a section called “Defining Power,” scholar Antwanisha Alameen-Shavers states, “The Black Panther Party believed that all oppressed groups should have power, enabling them to exercise agency and self-determination. Power is often defined in hierarchical terms, one group dominating the other, which is rooted in a Eurocentric perspective.” This is seen within the hierarchical structure of the Black Panther Party of the dominant masculine male taking back their power from society by exerting control over black women (intersectionally marginalized within society and now within the party). Antwanisha Alameen-Shavers, “The Woman Question: Gender Dynamics within the Black Panther Party,” Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men, vol. 5, no. 1 (2016), 37.
[29] The Black Panther Party newspaper, The Black Panther, was vital to the survival of the party because it was the largest source of revenue for the party. In order to continue operating nationally and internationally the newspaper had to continue its circulation. Not only was the paper the largest source of revenue but it was also utilized heavily in raising awareness for party events and updates. Data shows that during the peak years, 1968-1971, the newspaper was the most widely read Black run newspaper in the country with a weekly distribution of roughly 300,000 copies. At 25 cents a piece one can see how the revenue from the newspaper was crucial and the content was important due to the high circulation. Charles Jones, “The Black Panther Party (reconsidered),” Baltimore, Black Classic Press; Michael Carpini, “Black Panther Party 1966-1982,” Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America, 190-197.
[30] Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. Brantford, Ont.: W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library (2009).
[31]MrYacks, “Angela Davis – Interview 1972 – Talking About Revolution,” Youtube video (2012), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuBqyBE1Ppw.
[32] “Angela Davis: Black Soldier,” The Black Scholar, vol. 2, no. 3 (1970), 1, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41202862.
[33] “[Davis] ran with Black Panthers and Marxists, and she called for revolution.” Lavanya Ramanathan, “Angela Davis is Beloved, Detested, Misunderstood. What can a Lifelong Radical Teach the Resistance Generation?” The Washington Post (2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/legendary-activist-angela-davis-has-overcome-doubters-her-whole-life--and-at-75-shes-still-not-backing-down/2019/02/26/87ffd4c0-3392-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html.
[34] “The Real Black Panthers” NPR, podcast audio (2021), https://www.npr.org/2021/04/12/986561396/the-real-black-panthers.
[35] “Angela Davis: Black Soldier,” The Black Scholar.
[36] Since the time of African slavery in the Americas, hair has been point of contention for African Americans, especially African American females, “Elaborate hair designs, reflecting tribal affiliation, status, sex, age, occupation, and the like, were common…The idea that the hair of one’s head is a medium through which social messages can be conveyed and aesthetic standards of the dominant culture contested should not, nowadays, seem strange.” “The testimony of various Blacks has made it clear that some of the communal aspects of hair care survived into the twentieth century, but these tend to be associated with attempts to make African American hair resemble that of whites.” Through oftentimes painful and damaging chemical treatments African Americans, for decades, attempted to assimilate and their natural hair was deemed ungroomed and inappropriate for everyday society. Shane White and Graham White, “Slave Hair and African American Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 61, no. 1 (1995), 45-76.
[37]Angela Davis is outspoken and very vocal about oppression related to Black women and people of color. Davis joined the communist party in the 1970s and also held Marxist beliefs. Both of which were in direct contrast to the United States government ideology and made her a target. The shattering of the status quo is evidenced in Davis’ political ideology but also in the ways in which she was an active and outspoken Black woman – something that was not deemed “proper” for women at the time.
[38] JoNina Abron, “The Legacy of the Black Panther Party,” The Black Scholar, vol. 17, no. 6 (1986), 33-37.
[39] “October 1966 Black Panther Party Platform and Program: What We Want, What We Believe,” Ten-point program and platform of the Black Panther Party (1966), http://www.2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/Panther_platform.html.
[40] Seither 2015, 3.
[41] In most cases this reality was not the “norm” for Black mothers and Black families. As mentioned before, a majority of Black women had to work and entered the workforce as private maids, and nannies.
[42] Black Panthers at 50.
[43] Black Panthers at 50.
[44] These stereotypes mainly stem from the slavery era and have drastic consequences on Black women. For more information, see Jennifer Bailey Woodard and Teresa Mastin (2005). “BLACK WOMANHOOD: Essence and Its Treatment of Sterotypical Images of Black Women,” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 36, no. 2 (2005), 264-81, doi:10.1177/0021934704273152.
[45] Freyberg 2021, 1; John Kifner, “Policeman Who Led Chicago Panther Raid Testifies at Boycotted Inquest,” The New York Times (January 8, 1970), https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/08/archives/policeman-who-led-chicago-panther-raid-testifies-at-boycotted.html.
[46] Black Panthers at 50.
[47] Seither 2015, 5.
[48] Seither 2015, 4.
[49] “As suggested by the justifiable homicide that served as the inspiration behind The Black Panther’s establishment, the BPP initially focused on securing Black people’s human rights by ending, ‘police brutality and murder of black people,’ a goal outlined in point seven of the 10-Point Platform and Program and reflected in the inclusion of ‘Self-Defense’ in the organization’s original name. As James Baldwin (1972) put it, the Panthers emerged out of a genuine need to protect Black people from the police.” Meredith Roman, “The Black Panther Party and the Struggle for Human Rights,” Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men vol. 5, no. 1 (2016), 13.
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