News Herald from Port Clinton, Ohio • Page A4

4A II WWW.PORTCLINTONNEWSHERALD.COM Oakland For many Americans, the ame brings to mind young, stone-faced black men in berets a nd black leather coats and carrying rifles. Those images were either exhila- ating, terrifying or world-changing, depending on who was looking. Fifty years after the group was founded, the Panthers remain a flash- oint in the struggle for black equality in the USA. While true that the part failed to live up to its ideals during its more than 10 years of activism, equally true that its efforts led to greater equity and strength in the black ommunity. The Black Panther Party for Self- efense was formed by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland in 1966.

It was founded to monitor police violence in black communities, a seemingly intractable issue that Black Lives Matt er and other groups continue to organ ize around today. took no crap, so to speak, from what we used to say is the racist pig power Seale said in a recent interview. hat the Panthers actually stood for, a well as the many projects a nd its eventual slide into violence and disarray, is the subject of a new documentary that aired on PBS this month. Sometimes controversial but always stunning in its use of archival footage, modern interviews and the music of the ime, Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution was written, directed and produced by Stanley Nelson, who has made films about such touchstones as the Freedom Riders and the murder of Emmett Till. The documentary has been criticized former Panthers as either too soft or oo hard on the movement that at one point had thousands of members in more than 21communities.

Roots on campus The Panthers grew out of the genera lly pacifist civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was art of an African-American culture of self-discovery and self-determination that was flowering in many parts of the ountry at the time. hard to think back to 1966, when you never saw a black man confront a hite person, anywhere not on the street, not on TV, not in the North or the South. You never saw the aggressive a ttitude that the Panthers had. For better or worse, so much a part of our culture Nelson says.

not widely known that the Panthers trace their origins to a fight to make education at a small Oakland junior college more relevant to a student body that was more than black. At the time, in the early 1960s, Seale was working in anti-poverty programs and studying part time at Merritt College in Oakland. very year, the college celebrated honoring the history of settlers who came West in the 1800s. ut Seale and others noticed a glaring omission in the story of the settlement i the American West. day, we said, no black folks involved in I guess we Seale says.

eale and Newton went on to found the Black Panthers. They chose the name, Newton said at the time, because he black panther strike first, if the aggressor strikes first, then hat organizing work led them to conclude that only by claiming power ould the black community live and lourish. ewton, who had studied law, knew that it was perfectly legal to carry loaded weapons in California as long as they were not concealed. With that knowledge, the Panthers began walking the streets of Oakland armed, converging police who pulled over black residents to observe and, it must be said, intimidate. A10-point plan always seen as more armed and confrontational, but the sen- ational part of their says anisha Sinha, a professor of Afro- American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

real- forgotten is that they were a continuation of the civil rights struggle. part of the forgotten black reedom struggle in Northern Newton and Seale crafted a very olitical 10-point plan to empower Black communities economically. Whereas the more mainstream civil ights movement focused on the largely rural South, the Black Panthers were perhaps better known for their actions i the North, in inner cities and on the West Coast. The plan contained basic demands uch as self-determination, decent housing, full employment, education that included African-American history, and an end to police brutality. It also included more radical demands that were very much in tune with the times.

They included freedom for all incarcerated black men, their exemption from military service and a national vote in which only black people would be allowed to participate in order to determine their will to their national according to the ocument. The Party gained followers and momentum in the late 1960s, launching ultiple until efforts such as a free breakfast pro- ram for children, food banks, health clinics and education outreach. By the 1970s, historians note, women ade up more than of the mem- ership of the Panthers. But there was also a macho, violent streak to the Panthers, with an emphasis on armed revo- ution. That came to the fore early on in a 1 967 gun battle between Newton and akland police, which left Officer John Frey dead and Newton wounded.

He as arrested, and a massive movement sprang up, sparking i nterest far outside the black community. After an overturned manslaughter conviction, two retrials and hung juries, the case against Newton was dismissed. Both the goodwill and the violence, along with the revolutionary ideals, orried J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI. In response, he launched an investigation of the Black Panther Par- tyand an eventual covert attack.

Hoover came to see the group as one of the most potentially destabilizing groups in the country and actively set out to disc redit, disrupt, subvert and destroy it. The term at the time was says Amilcar Shabazz, vice president of the National Council or Black Studies, who lectures on African-American history at Massachusetts, Amherst. I nternal divisions, personality cults, and the efforts of the FBI created bitter ivisions within the party. Members began to turn on each other. Violence flared.

I a shootout with Oakland police in 1968, Panthers national treasurer Bobby Hutton, just 17, was killed. Police aids and other conflicts with Panthers in Los Angeles and Chicago ended with shootouts and deaths. I nternally, there were violent disputes between factions and a series of purges. Members of the New Haven chapter tortured and killed Alex Rackley, a 19-year-old Panther whom they believed was an FBI informant, in 1969. Three Panthers were convicted of murder in the case.

Seale was accused of having ordered the killing because he had visited the building where Rackley was being held. The jury deadlocked on the charges, and the prosecution declined to retry the case. I was the beginning of the end. Still, the Panthers struggled on for several more years. In 1973, Seale ran or mayor of Oakland, and fellow Panther Elaine Brown who would lead he group from 1974 to 1977 ran for the Oakland City Council.

was part of the agenda, to run or political office. We were a political arty, we were not a gang. We were concerned with issues and Seale says. either was elected, and by the late 1970s the Party was effectively def unct. The film Nelson spent seven years working on the documentary.

hope that it will be an inspiration people to see that they can make the New York-based docu- entarian says. The story, he says, is extraordinary and important, despite the eventual demise. Panthers were not as success- ul as they wanted to he says. were very young. They said, to us to make the changes, not anybody else and we can do With criticism coming from both directions those who say it overstates the good as well as those who say it dwells too much on the bad Nelson says it would be impossible to make a single film that everybody would like because the party went through so many permutations.

have to understand that the anthers were different things to different people in different cities at different times. The Black Panther Party i Oakland in 1967 was different from the party in New York in 1969 or the ne in Chicago in he says. The legacy today The legacy of the Panthers very much lives on in black empowerment groups today, the most visible of which i Black Lives Matter. Panthers) made a word to be proud says Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. legacy is about challenging a narrative that our black lives matter, that actually what is true and honest is that we know best what we need to live our groups spring from the concerns of a younger generation of activ- i sts who focus on social justice, economic equality and back self-determination.

They also see an object lesson in the Panthers, learning from their successes and their failures. Panther Party in a lot of ways was dealing with a significant amount patriarchy and violence that our ovement is trying to ensure repeat Cullors says. habazz says he sees the egacy every day in his students: holding our feet to the fire, demanding greater accountability from He notes proudly that students begin end their gatherings in a circle, reciting lines written by Assata Shakur, a Black Panther in exile in Cuba. habazz quotes them from memory: It is our duty to fight for our freedom. I is our duty to win.

must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our MARTIN E. TODAY Bobby Seale, 79, a co-founder of the Black Panthers in Oakland, Calif. ELIZABETH WEISE USA TODA WALT ZEBOSKIAP Armed members of the Black Panther Party stand in the corridor of the California Capitol in Sacramento on May 2, 1967. They were protesting a bill, supported by Republican Gov.

Ronald Reagan, that would restrict the carrying of arms in public. The Panther leaders knew it was legal to carry guns openly, and they made a point of doing so. PANTHERS CAST A LONG SHADOW PANTHERS CAST A LONG SHADOW Legacy of group that took roots in lives on today 5 things to know about the Black anthers Before founding the Black Panther Party, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton worked to stablish a course on African history at Merritt College in Oakland. The Panthers took their logo from an Ala- ama group, The Lowndes County Freedom Organization. FBI director J.

Edgar Hoover specifically rdered the bureau to work to discredit the Panthers, among other groups. In 1969, the Black Panthers launched the irst free breakfast program for children in the nation. By the early 1970s, more than half of Panther members were women. IN DEPTH IN-DEPTH.