[On October
15th, 1966, the Black Panthers were founded
in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton
and Bobby Seale. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of histories and
stories connected to the Panthers, leading up to a special weekend post on an
unfolding contemporary history that echoes the group’s activism and legacy.]
Although the
Black Panthers originated
with an explicitly masculine—and often sexist—philosophy, by 1969 the
group’s official position considered
sexism counter-revolutionary. Here are three of the more clearly
revolutionary—in both troubling and inspiring senses—female Panthers:
1)
Angela
Davis: As with almost every figure linked to the Panthers, Angela Davis’
bio has a dark and potentially criminal chapter: she purchased the guns later used
by 17
year old Jonathan Jackson in his 1970 armed takeover of a Marin County
courtroom, events that culminated in a shootout with police and the death
of Jackson, two African American defendants, and the judge. Jackson was acting
in support of the three young men known as the Soledad
Brothers, who were accused of killing a guard at Soledad Prison (one of the
three was his older brother George Jackson); Davis was also a vocal supporter
of the inmates. But whatever Davis’s culpability in the Jackson incident (and
she was both charged and imprisoned as an accessory and found innocent in a
jury trail), her lifelong social,
political, and academic
activism reflect how far the Black Panthers’ legacy has extended beyond the
most controversial and violent histories.
2)
Ericka
Huggins: Huggins, one of the party’s founding members, was likewise intimately
tied to some of its darkest moments: her husband, John
Huggins, was killed during protest activities at UCLA in 1969, when their
daughter was only 3 months old; the following year Ericka was charged with
murder and conspiracy in the death of party
informant Alex Rackley (the jury deadlocked and she was acquitted). Yet
Huggins cannot be defined solely by those tragedies and trials—not without
recognizing her lifelong career as an educator, including a decade at the groundbreaking Oakland Community
School (one of the Black Panther Party’s most impressive and enduring legacies)
and many subsequent decades of public education and activism on a variety of
social and cultural issues. Like Bill Ayers, the former Weathermen radical turned educational
reformer, Huggins’ career illustrates the ways in which social and
political activism can inform and influence education and future generations
through it.
3)
Elaine Brown: Brown,
who began as a rank-and-file party member in 1968 Los Angeles and worked her
way up to a central role, reflects both the sexism within and the crucial
female leadership of the Black Panther Party: she served as the party’s
national chairperson from 1974 to 1977, but later wrote in her autobiography
A Taste of Power (1992) about the
sexism she encountered and how it forced her to leave that leadership position.
Yet Brown’s multi-faceted career also helps us remember the vital role of
cultural texts in the party and period; she sang and recorded two albums, Seize the Time (1969)
and Until We’re Free (1973),
with the former including the song “The Meeting” that would
become the party’s anthem. As with so many of the 1960s social movements, art
and culture were as key to the Panthers as political and social activism, and
Brown’s talents and work reflect that too-often overlooked element very fully.
Next post
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other Panther histories or connections you’d highlight?
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