Photograph by Paul Myers
David Hilliard, former Black Panther Party chief of staff, made an effort to debunk myths about the party and spoke about the Panthers' community involvement during an appearance on Feb. 20 at West Valley College.
Black Panther 'myths' are focus of speaker
Founding member says defense was its basis
Focus on black history
By Rebecca Ray
Media images of the Black Panthers in the late 1960s and early 1970s often show party members wearing leather jackets and berets, toting guns and raising fists while yelling, "Black Power!" However, "we were much more than that," party member David Hilliard said. Hilliard, one of the founding members of the party, spoke about the Panthers' community involvement during an appearance at West Valley College on Feb. 20, as part of African American History Month.
Hilliard described the leather jackets, guns and berets as "narrow" imagery. "We were not just some crazy young people who decided that we were going to pick up guns and march and follow the police around. We were truly a self-defense movement," he said.
Hilliard said the Panthers carried guns while they followed law enforcement officials, because the Panthers wanted to make sure that the police didn't "brutalize" the people they arrested. He pointed out that the party formed in 1966, during a decade when African Americans weren't allowed to vote in Mississippi, Malcolm X was assassinated and the National Guard had to escort African American students to class when integrating schools.
In addition to self-defense, Hilliard discussed the other two areas the party organized around--reforming the system and survival programs.
During the Panthers' reform period, which lasted from roughly 1969 until the late 1970s, Panthers ran for public office. Huey Newton, the founder and former leader of the party, didn't believe that the Panthers should work outside the system, because there was no "outside the system," Hilliard said. Instead, Hilliard said, Newton said that people had to transform the existing system.
Elaine Brown, top lieutenant of the party, ran for Oakland city council in 1975, and Bobby Seale, party chairman, ran for mayor of Oakland in 1973. Eldridge Cleaver, the party's minister of information, ran for president of the United States under the Peace and Freedom Party ticket in 1968. Although none of them were victorious, the Panthers backed Lionel Wilson, a former judge, who became the first African American and Democratic mayor of Oakland.
In the late 1960s, the Panthers initiated a free breakfast program for underprivileged children. Hilliard discussed the party's free sickle cell anemia tests for African Americans, as well as its Seniors Against a Fearful Environment (SAFE) program, in which vans transport seniors to public places. He talked about the Panthers' free shoe and ambulance programs, free health clinics, voter registration drives and schools. He also discussed how the Panthers tested children for lead poisoning.
As in the late 1960s, when the Panthers drew up a 10-point program of economic development programs, Hilliard said that today's youth must focus on bringing domestic issues to the forefront. Instead of pouring money into prisons, he said, the government should redirect its resources to community programs.
Hilliard also encouraged minority youth to follow the paradigm set by the Civil Rights Movement. "You should do everything you can to manifest the American dream, because that's what our fight was about," he said.
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