Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an American Marxist–Leninist and black power political and militant organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California and active in that area until 1982. Between 1968 and 1971, it was also a nationwide organization with chapters in many major American cities, including San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Philadelphia. Members were active in many prisons and had international chapters in the United Kingdom and Algeria. The party first drew attention for openly carrying firearms in Oakland while monitoring police activity. Its earliest goal was to challenge the excessive force and misconduct of the Oakland Police Department that affected the African American community during the civil rights movement. It advocated for decent housing, community control of education and police, exemption from military service, and free breakfast for children. Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police.

In 1969, J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), described the party as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." The FBI sabotaged the party with an illegal and covert counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, and police harassment, all designed to undermine and criminalize the party. The FBI was involved in the 1969 assassinations of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, who were killed in a raid by the Chicago Police Department. Huey Newton allegedly killed officer John Frey in 1967, and Eldridge Cleaver (Minister of Information) led an ambush in 1968 of Oakland police officers, in which two officers were wounded and Panther treasurer Bobby Hutton was killed. The party suffered many internal conflicts, resulting in the murder of Alex Rackley.

Government persecution initially contributed to the party's growth among African Americans and the political left, who both valued the party as a powerful force against de facto segregation and the U.S. military draft during the Vietnam War. Party membership peaked in 1970 and gradually declined over the next decade, due to vilification by the mainstream press and infighting largely fomented by COINTELPRO. Support further declined over reports of the party's alleged criminal activities, such as drug dealing and extortion.

The party's legacy is controversial. Older historical work described the party as more criminal than political, characterized by "defiant posturing over substance." Other assessments described the party as "mainly victims of a repressive state." These older assessments have been criticized as incomplete. Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin characterized the Black Panther Party as the most influential black power organization of the late 1960s, with an "eventually tragic evolution" - collapsing due to infighting, often partly initiated by the government. The Black Panther Party advocated for class struggle, claiming to represent the proletarian vanguard.