The Black Panther Party in a City near You

218 Pages·2018·1.238 MB·English

by  Judson L. Jeffries, Charles E. Jones, Ava Kinsey, Duncan MacLaury, Sarah Nicklas, John Preusser

THE
BLACK
PANTHER
PARTY
IN A CITY
NEAR
YOU
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THE
BLACK
PANTHER
PARTY
IN A CITY
NEAR
YOU
edited by Judson L. Jeffries
The University of
Georgia Press
ATHENS
© 2018 by the University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
www.ugapress.org
All rights reserved
Set in by 10/13 Kepler Std Regular by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus
Most University of Georgia Press titles are
available from popular e-book vendors.
Printed digitally
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jeffries, J. L. (Judson L.), 1965–, editor, author.
Title: The Black Panther Party in a city near you / Judson L. Jeffries.
Description: Athens, GA : The University of Georgia Press, [2018] | Includes index.
Identifiers: lccn 2017032685| isbn 9780820351988 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780820351971 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 9780820351995 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Black Panther Party—History. | African Americans—
Politics and government—20th century. | African Americans—Civil rights—
History—20th century. | African Americans—Services for—History—20th century. |
Poor—Services for—United States—History—20th century. | Civil rights movements—
United States—History—20th century. | United States—Race relations—History—
20th century. | United States—History, Local.
Classification: lcc e185.615 .j434 2018 | ddc 322.4/20973—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032685
CONTENTS
Introduction:
Painting a More Complete Portrait . . .
the Third Installment 1
JUDSON L. JEFFRIES AND DUNCAN MACLAURY
Wake up Georgia, the Panthers Are Here!
The Georgia Chapter of
the Black Panther Party
in Atlanta, 1970–1973 12
CHARLES E. JONES
Exceptional Headwinds:
The Black Panthers in D.C. 52
JOHN PREUSSER
The Black Panther Party and
Community Development in Boston 89
DUNCAN MACLAURY, JUDSON L. JEFFRIES,
AND SARAH NICKLAS
From Civil Rights to Black Power in Texas:
Dallas to Denton and Back to Dallas 137
AVA TIYE KINSEY AND JUDSON L. JEFFRIES
Conclusion:
The Black Panther Party in Summation 194
CURTIS AUSTIN
Contributors 201
Index 203
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THE
BLACK
PANTHER
PARTY
IN A CITY
NEAR
YOU
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Introduction
Painting a More Complete Portrait . . .
the Third Installment
JUDSON L. JEFFRIES AND DUNCAN MACLAURY
We can think of no radical organization of the twentieth cen-
tury that exploded onto the American scene with more flair and chutzpah than
the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). Although the organization’s
founding coincided with the mid-sixties color television revolution, it was not
until February 1967, when Panthers marched into the San Francisco airport in
dramatic fashion and escorted Betty Shabazz to the Ramparts office—for an
interview with Eldridge Cleaver—that the Bay Area mass media caught wind
of them. Several weeks later, the BPP garnered national media attention when
a delegation of Panthers descended upon Sacramento, the state’s seat of power,
on May 2, to protest a bill that was designed (no matter how thinly veiled) to
undercut the Panthers’ ability to effectively and assertively monitor the actions
of Bay Area police officers. Police needed monitoring, especially given the U.S.
Supreme Court ruling in Miranda v. Arizona the prior year requiring officers to
inform suspects of their rights before questioning them. Then in October 1967,
just days before Halloween, in the early morning hours, Panther cofounder
Huey P. Newton was arrested after an encounter with two police officers that
left one dead and the other wounded. With the death penalty a real possibility,
Eldridge Cleaver, the Panthers’ minister of information, turned Newton’s incar-
ceration into a cause célèbre. Taking their lead from the party’s national head-
quarters in Oakland, Panthers sprang into action. As David Hilliard, the party’s
chief of staff, later wrote, “In less than a week . . . we created the Huey New-
ton Defense Committee and held the first rallies at the courthouse . . . we bor-
rowed a psychedelically painted double-deck bus from one of the local white
political communes, cruising the streets blaring, “ ‘Free Huey! Free Huey!’ Can a
Black man get a fair trial in America—even if he was defending his life against
a white policeman?”1
One year later, as Newton languished in a jail cell and his detractors called
for the death penalty, young Bobby Hutton, the party’s first recruit, was shot
down on the streets of Oakland on April 6, 1968, two days after the assassina-
1