Month: February 2016

Remembering the BLACK PANTHER PARTY

An example of revolutionary defiance and militancy

By Carlos “Carlito” Rovira

On October 15, 1966, the Black Panther Party was born. It is one of the highlights in the history of the U.S. revolutionary movement, and the Black liberation struggle in particular.

Young African Americans dared to stand up and challenge the reins of the capitalist state, to the point of arming themselves to demand an end to Black oppression. Their vision of Black emancipation evolved into a vision of the liberation of all oppressed people and the smashing of the capitalist system.

The U.S. government, terrified by the potential for revolution and the influence these Black leaders and freedom fighters were gaining, resorted to the most extreme violence to destroy the BPP. It is a campaign that is still felt today.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, as the party was first called, was formed in Oakland, Calif., by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The name—and the famous panther logo—came from the Lowndes Country Freedom Organization in Alabama, that which organized for independent Black political action with the help of Stokely Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

BPP Chairman Bobby Seales and Minister of Defense Huey P Newton

The formation of the Black Panther Party was the culmination of a resistance over a long history that characterizes the oppression of African Americans in the United States, from the lashes of slavery to the beatings and murders by the police in modern times.

The BPP grew up in the aftermath of the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X — a powerful voice for militant Black self-determination and liberation. It drew inspiration from the Deacons for Defense and Justice, organized for African American self-defense against racist Klan and police terror in the South.

The Panthers recognized the need for an organization that was capable of addressing the racist violence that the Black masses faced. Every gain made by the Civil Rights movement was being matched by violence and lynching by racist cops and the Ku Klux Klan, in the North and South alike.

The Right to Armed Self-Defense

The Panthers won respect and admiration for their militancy and defiance in the face of the racist police state. For example, less than a year after their founding, on May 2, 1967, a group of 30 Black Panthers walked into the California state capitol building armed with shotguns and automatic rifles. The armed but peaceful demonstration was to protest the Mulford Act, aimed at prohibiting citizens from carrying firearms on their persons or in their vehicles.

The Black Panthers aspired to become a discipline revolutionary vanguard entity with military structure.

As the Panthers walked towards the entrance of the capitol building, they were approached by television and other news media. They used the occasion to call upon African Americans everywhere to arm themselves against the systematic brutality and terror practiced by the power structure.

But the party’s efforts went far beyond their call for armed self-defense and their patrols of racist cops. They also carried out consistent community work, gaining the confidence of the people not only in the Black community but among other oppressed nationalities as well.

Panther chapters sprung up in the African American communities of major cities from coast to coast. Wherever they established branches, they tried to set up outreach programs like free breakfast for children and free clothing drives. They used every one of these opportunities to expose the avaricious nature of the rich and powerful who exist at the expense of the poor.

The Panthers were influenced by Malcolm X’s rejection of “turn the other cheek” pacifism for the Black liberation struggle, as well as by the socialist movement in the United States and around the world. Their “Black Power” salute combined with street corner sales of Mao Zedong’s “Little Red Books” of quotations.

The international situation during this period also contributed to the birth of the Panthers. The 1949 Chinese Revolution, the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution and the heroic struggle of south Vietnam’s National Liberation Front against U.S. imperialism, along with the other national liberation struggles in Africa, Latin America and Asia had a great impact in inspiring revolutionaries in the United States, including the Black Panthers.

Women of the Black Panther Party.

Their militancy and revolutionary politics quickly put them in the center of the African American liberation struggle, as well as in the growing mass movements that were sweeping the country.

Capitalism is the Problem

More and more, the party put the blame for the plight of the African American people on the capitalist system. It rejected the view that the problems of racism could be solved within the confines of the exploitative system, or that it was possible to accumulate enough capital in the Black community to rival capitalism with “Black capital.” Instead, Panther speakers called for socialist revolution within the context of the Civil Rights era.

Their uncompromisingly revolutionary and anti-capitalist stance was the most prominent in what became a new trend within the Black liberation struggle of the 1950s and 1960s.

Black Panther Party co-founder and Chairman Bobby Seale.

As part of the political training of its membership, the BPP studied Marxist literature like the Communist Manifesto and the writings of Mao Zedong.

The Black Panther Party was a disciplined and organized revolutionary political entity. The Panthers put forward the need for professional, organizational sophistication in building a revolutionary political party.

While the party’s Ten-Point Program reflected its political views and line of march, it was the membership rules that ensured the internal discipline of the organization. Membership rules touched a range of matters, including mandatory collective study of revolutionary theory; respect for women inside and outside the BPP; and respect for the property of the poor.

Revolutionary Multinational Alliances

The Panthers advocated a united front of revolutionary organizations to guarantee the success of a struggle in the United States. Their organizing efforts extended to Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, Asians, other nationally oppressed people, and the white working class.

They forged alliances of various kinds, such as with the American Indian Movement as well as Cesar Chavez and the farm workers’ movement. The Panthers stood in solidarity with the struggle for women’s equality, especially supporting those sectors of the women’s movement that were anti-imperialist and anti-racist. To the surprise of many, on the heels of the Stonewall rebellion, Panther leader Huey P. Newton publicly supported the struggle to end LGBTQ oppression.

The Panthers perspective was toward building a multinational alliance. Their most notable effort was the Rainbow Coalition, organized in June 1969 in Chicago by Panther leader Fred Hampton, which consisted of the Black Panther Party; the Young Lords, a U.S. organization of Puerto Rican revolutionary youth; and organizations representing Chicanos, Asians, and poor whites. Hampton’s vision was to eventually merge these allied organizations into a single entity, to forge a revolutionary organization with representation from the full spectrum of the working class.

Wherever their agitation work was conducted, on the streets, on campuses, or at public events, the Panthers upheld the principle of solidarity with the liberation movements in the oppressed and colonized countries. At the height of the Vietnam War, the Black Panther leadership made an open gesture of internationalism by offering to send party members to fight alongside the National Liberation Front in their struggle against U.S imperialism.

Fierce U.S. Repression

Faced with the Black Panther Party’s tremendous growth and revolutionary orientation, the U.S. government struck back. It organized a massive political-military campaign, involving the FBI and police departments around the country, to destroy the Panthers’ leadership.

In a now-well-documented campaign called “Operation: COINTELPRO,” the FBI orchestrated covert operations—personally overseen by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover—to provoke conflicts between Black Panthers and other organizations. They employed a network of infiltrators and provocateurs to disrupt the party’s discipline and leadership.

Police attacks were common. Cops routinely raided party offices and the homes of Panther members. Dozens of Panthers were killed outright, often in cold blood. The most notable of these cop assassinations was the December 4, 1969, murder of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in Chicago while they slept. Hampton was 21 and Clark was 22 years old.

Black Panther leaders Mark Clark (left) and Chairman Fred Hampton.

Dozens more Panther members and leaders spent years in prison. The campaign to jail Panther leaders and activists long outlived the organization itself. Mumia Abu-Jamal, who at 16- years -old had been the Minister of Information in the party’s Philadelphia branch, was framed up and sentenced to death in 1981. He has been in prison ever since despite a worldwide effort calling for his release.

The Black Panther Party ultimately could not withstand the government onslaught. The combined police attacks and covert operations compounded internal differences. Unable to withstand the tremendous repression, by the mid-1970s the Black Panther Party was essentially defunct.

Ericka Huggins (far left) next to Huey P Newton.

Lessons for today

Bourgeois historians often try to downplay the role of the state in the destruction of the Panthers. At best, they point to the Panthers as a lesson to revolutionaries, especially from the oppressed nationalities: “Do not dare to struggle, you cannot stand up to the power of the capitalist state.”

However, the rulers were not then and are not now invincible. The fact that the U.S. government relentlessly attacked the Panthers before they had a chance to steel the discipline of their rank & file only points to the need for a disciplined organization of professional revolutionaries today.

As long as capitalist oppression exists, the rise of movements, like the one that gave rise to the Black Panther Party, is a historical inevitability. The Panthers showed that revolutionary ideology and organization, embraced by the most oppressed sectors of the working class, is what the ruling class fears the most.

On August 20, 2023, a street in Harlem, New York City was co-named to honor the legacy of the BPP.

Everything they did and sacrificed will not be in vain. Eventually, those who aim in the sincerest sense, for socialism, Black emancipation and the liberation of all oppressed people in the United States must strive to embrace and emulate the revolutionary spirit of the Black Panther Party.

LONG LIVE THE LEGACY OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY!

Impact of the African American Struggle on Puerto Ricans

Para la version en español: https://carlitoboricua.blog/?p=7385&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=7386

by Carlos “Carlito” Rovira

Racist Oppression Gives Rise to Solidarity

The historical struggle of the African American people was the inevitable consequence of the introduction of slavery by capitalists in the Western Hemisphere. The collective experience of the African American people over the course of many generations ran parallel to the development of U.S. capitalism at every stage. Their plight, from the era of the slave trade to the present day, reveals inherent oppression within capitalism.

Racist terror, degradation, and discrimination were the objective circumstances that compelled into existence the militant traditions of resistance among the African American masses. Their steadfastness in many key moments in history proved exemplary to the U.S. working-class movement, and particularly to other oppressed nationalities. African American history is replete with displays of genuine solidarity with other liberation struggles.

The Spanish-American War had a significant impact on African Americans, especially Black soldiers who were sent to wage colonial conquest on behalf of U.S. imperialism. Black troops resented their white officers using racial slurs against Filipino people, which were reminiscent of their own experience in the United States. Many Black soldiers defected to join the anti-colonial Filipino guerrilla army. The most notable of them was David Fagan, of the 24th Infantry Division. Fagan won the admiration and respect of the Filipino people and was made a commander in their guerrilla army.

David Fagan, of the 24th Infantry Division

The Black press, the Black church and outspoken African American figures such as W.E.B. DuBois, openly condemned the motives behind the 1898 Spanish-American War. The U.S. government and giant banking enterprises sought military conflict with Spain to win colonial control of Guam, the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.

Black Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg devoted his entire life to compiling vast collections of writings documenting significant events in Black history. Before moving to New York City’s Harlem community, Schomburg was a member of the clandestine Revolutionary Committees of Puerto Rico, which organized the famous 1868 Grito de Lares uprising — a revolt that called for the abolition of slavery and the independence of Puerto Rico. Schomburg eventually became a prominent figure during the Harlem Renaissance, which challenged the ideological facets of white supremacy through the literary, visual and performing arts.

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg

At many of his performance appearances, renowned African American singer, actor and Communist Paul Robeson would call upon his audience for a moment of silence to express solidarity for the incarcerated Puerto Rican revolutionary Nationalist leader, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos.

The young Pedro Albizu Campos gained recognition among African American figures for being very critical of the racism in the United States. Campos’s mother was Black, which gave him first-hand insight into the impact of racist oppression. Campos’s outspoken oratory against the “racist practices in the house of the empire” caught the attention of renown Pan-Africanist leader Marcus Garvey, who traveled to Puerto Rico to meet the Puerto Rican Nationalist leader.

Despite their differences in goals and tactics, this meeting was highly symbolic for that period in history. The Russian Revolution emboldened workers’ struggles and nationalist movements throughout the world, including the United States and Puerto Rico, and instilled a sense of vulnerability in the U.S. capitalist class.

Black Struggle Inspires Puerto Rican Militancy

Puerto Ricans have migrated to New York City and surrounding counties since the mid-1800s—in most cases, to escape Spanish colonial persecution. But in the years after World War II and well into the 1960s, Puerto Ricans migrated to U.S. industrial centers at an annual average rate of 63,000 due to economic hardships caused by U.S. colonial policy.

What the Puerto Rican migrants encountered was not what they expected when uprooting in search of a better life. In addition to the agony of coming to a strange land where an unfamiliar English language was spoken, the Puerto Rican experience now included greedy racist landlords, housing and job discrimination, cultural stigma by the mass media, police brutality and the terror of racist white gangs.

While Puerto Ricans began their exodus in the late 1940s African Americans were already in their “Great Migration” from southern states where they had been historically concentrated. Fleeing racist Jim Crow laws and Ku Klux Klan terror, more than 5 million Black people migrated to the North, Northeast and California between the 1920s and the 1960s.

The instinct of any oppressed people is to seek allies and find ways to resist. Puerto Ricans facing the realities of colonialism and impoverishment were able to relate to the demands of the Civil Rights movement and became attracted to its boldness.

The experiences of these two distinct oppressed communities came together in the social and cultural realms as well, especially in the performing arts. This phenomenon was most notable among Black and Puerto Rican musicians. No one can dispute the African American influence in the rise of Latino musical genres which the Puerto Rican diaspora of New York City developed during the 1960s & 70s, like Latin Jazz, Boogaloo, and Salsa. The affinities the two ethnicities had for each other was also attributed to their mutual historic connections to African culture.

The Nation of Islam, under Malcolm X’s leadership, began to approach the newly arrived immigrants with the aim of politicizing them. And when the Black Panther Party began organizing in the Puerto Rican community of Chicago, it transformed a street “gang” known as the Young Lords.

The Young Lords were the first Puerto Rican revolutionary organization to rise up based on the concrete circumstances of oppression in this country. They were a decisive factor in the spread of militancy in Puerto Rican communities of various U.S. cities. Like the Black Panthers, they advocated for a multinational revolution in the United States.

As this movement gained momentum, Puerto Ricans gained a sense of hope and became inspired to fight for their political and economic rights. By the second half of the 1960s, Puerto Ricans in the United States had become much more politically adept, thanks to the struggles of the African American masses.

African Americans and Puerto Ricans gained affinity to one another based on resistance to racist oppression. In cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and New York, at street demonstrations and on college campuses, African American and Puerto Rican masses instinctively aligned in common struggle. It was not unusual for the Black liberation flag (red, black & green) to be accompanied by the Puerto Rican flag.

A significant example of this solidarity that alarmed the ruling class, was the April 1969 student takeover of City College in Harlem, New York City and renamed it “University of Harlem.” Black and Puerto Rican students shocked many throughout the U.S. by defiantly uniting to seize control of 17 campus buildings to demand free tuition for all in the City University system. To further demonstrate their boldness, these students lowered the U.S. flag from a flagpole and hoisted the Black Liberation Flag and the Puerto Rican Flag. It was an imagery of resistance never before seen in this country.

Black and Puerto Rican students seized control of 17 buildings at City College in Harlem, NYC.

The great lessons gained from these experiences are still relevant today. Black oppression was instrumental in the economic rise of U.S. capitalism, and African Americans have confronted it head-on. The Black liberation struggle will continue to be a source of inspiration to all working people and shall be instrumental in forging genuine unity required for the fight against this system.

LONG LIVE BLACK & PUERTO RICAN SOLIDARITY

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