e Cleaver. It will be argued that the FBI's activities were an illegal and certainly undemocratic attempt to thwart freedom of speech and assembly and to use inappropriate means to disrupt the many positive social programs that were undertaken by the Black Panthers in America's ghettos.
The forerunner of the BPP was the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), a group established by Stokeley Carmichael in Alabama in 1964.[5] In 1966, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton formed the BPP in Oakland, California to protect the local community from police brutality and racism. The group also ran medical clinics and provided free food to school children. It expanded is membership dramatically in short order and opened chapters in most major American cities.[6]
By 1967, the Black Panther Party had more than 2,000 members and had attracted the attention of the FBI. Its Chicago chapter was home to Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, two BPP members who quickly gained leadership roles. Also significant in the BPP were such key actors as H. Rap Brown, David Hilliard, Angela Davis, Bobby Hutton, Elaine Brown, and Fredrika Newton. The BPP leaders "were influenced by the ideas expressed by Malcolm X in the final days of his life. The Panthers therefore argued for international working class unity and supported joint action with white revolutionary groups. The Black Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group."[7]
While greatly suspect in the view of the FBI, the Black Panthers did have a strategic survival program that was designed to improve the quality of life of disadvantaged minorities in terms of food, housing, medical care, and education.[8] At the same time, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formalized the notion of self-defense and called for armed resistance to any and all signs of racism, oppression, or police brutality. Newton actively encouraged blacks to arm themselves and during its formative years, from 19...