Winston Grady Willis on the Black Panther Archive

The following is a conversation between Winter Intern Naima Nigh ’23 and Professor Grady-Willis about the Black Panther materials in the Tang Teaching Museum collection, conducted on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, in the Tang’s Print Study Room.

Naima Nigh: What events occurred in the years leading up to the foundation of the Black Panther Party, and how did they influence the Party’s ideology?

Winston Grady-Willis: The key context is the Black Power movement. As early as 1965, but certainly by 1966, there is a demand for Black community control of resources and institutions, a feeling that non-violent direct action wasn’t enough, that there needed to be an embrace of armed self-defense, and an increasing number of folks were arguing for armed revolution.

What revolution meant was not the same for an activist who might be in the Bay Area as for another activist who might be in Lowndes County, Alabama. So, there was no monolithic sense of what revolution meant. But there absolutely was a sense that there is no other choice but to move in a more radical direction and to confront institutional racism unapologetically. This belief propels itself after the assassination of Dr. King in 1968. However, you see community protests as early as 1965 in Birmingham, in Atlanta, in Los Angeles, of course, the Watts Rebellion, but also in New York City, in Rochester, in Chicago, and particularly in Detroit. These were major grassroots protests. In some cases, neighborhoods were on fire. That’s the combustible moment in which the Black Panther Party comes into fruition.

NN: How do you think teaching with the Black Panther Party ephemera can enhance learning and understanding of the movement and this combustible moment in history?

WGW: It’s game changing. The reason why using the materials is so game-changing for me is that the Panthers were so interested in culture at large. Their material culture specifically had an appreciation for the way that the visual could capture the attention of working-class, Black folk. To be able to work with the objects that Panther activists used themselves is really a window, not only into the time but into the power that visual material culture can have for impacting society. And there is a marriage, if you will, between amazing visual content (often supplied by Emory Douglas and other artists) with solid journalism. You have individuals who got news from around the world in ways that they simply couldn’t get from the mainstream newspaper in their own hometown, wherever that might be.

NN: In many of these pieces you see the slogan: “All power to the people.” Could you shed some light on that slogan and how it reflects the Party’s ideology?

WGW: One key dimension of Black Panther activism is its anti-capitalist focus and the argument that global capitalism is inherently exploitative. They argued that solutions that are more communal and embracing socialist struggles in other places in the world, would lead to the transfer of power from the hands of elite groups and into the hands of the larger population. Not only folk who were working-class or workers, but this group that the Panthers would refer to—and this is in Marxist ideology—as the lumpen, like the lumpenproletariat. The folks who are most marginalized and are often either steadily, structurally underemployed, if not just outright unemployed. The folks who often have the most significant connection to the criminal justice or injustice system, depending on your perspective.

The Panthers were basically saying, “We want to build a movement and we are arguing that we’re the vanguard group that can lead this people’s movement to not only challenge racism but to challenge capitalism, indeed, to challenge imperialism.”

It’s significant that the final Platform point of the Panthers ends with a direct lengthy quote from the Declaration of Independence. What is that about? I mean, why do you literally use the words of Thomas Jefferson to end the Platform? What’s going on there? In embracing armed self-defense, there is a connection to the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So, they are challenging the U.S. nation-state, but they are also going to key documents in terms of the founding of the U.S. nation-state as they attempt to make their case.

Some other Black radicals at the time criticized them for that. Their argument was “No, we actually want to use the words that the radicals, the patriots used against the British. We want to use those words and amplify them for this moment. We want to use what these patriots said back in 1776, that if you are in relationship to a tyrannical government then the yoke of that government needs to be thrown off. We are simply saying we agree.”

NN: What tools did the Panthers use to challenge U.S. nation-state and its economic systems? How do you see this reflected in the Ten-Point Program?

WGW: The Ten-Point Program and Platform is really intriguing. The focus on structural racism, on structural economic inequality is very important. It highlights the fact that the education system is a byproduct of this reality of institutional racism and a marginalization of working people’s voices. As well as the indictment of the criminal justice system in terms of incarceration.

In the final point, just before the lengthy quote from the Declaration of Independence, there is a call for a plebiscite or a vote of Black people in terms of what should the destiny of the group be. The Panthers made a point of saying, “No, we don’t want to decide ultimately what the tenth point is. That should be in the hands of people themselves to vote on.”

NN: I think that’s an important point. It goes back to, “All power to the people.” The Panthers didn’t want to institute themselves as a government. It was an organization trying to create community.

WGW: At least ideally.

NN: Right, the ideal. But I think that it’s reflected well in the survival programs. In my opinion, that’s one of the more successful avenues that the Panthers took in terms of creating community.

WGW: This is one of the most intriguing things about the legacy of the Black Panther Party. In many ways, the eventual demise of the Panthers was around that tension between those who were arguing for, “No, we should really focus almost entirely on the survival programs,” and those who said, “No, we need to focus on armed revolution.” However, most rank-and-file Black Panther activists who you talk to will tell you that those survival programs were their pride and joy, irrespective of the larger ideological tensions.

If you look at quotes from former Panthers, particularly folks in the rank-and-file, not necessarily in the formal leadership, they will talk about the smiles on young people’s faces, the epiphanies that take place when individuals get a diagnosis of sickle cell anemia and realize that there are ways that it can be managed. It’s those moments through the survival programs, that really made a big difference.

NN: What would you say are some differences between the survival programs and the government’s sponsored programs that we now have/have had in the past?

WGW: Well, one key difference is that the survival programs took place within a larger context of what activists would often call consciousness-building or consciousness-raising. Panther activists would make sure that children were fed, but there would also be a lesson for the day. It might be a history lesson, might be a political education class. Same with the sickle cell anemia screenings. You might have a screening, you might have your blood pressure taken, but you also will get some information, perhaps a pamphlet to talk about the reality of health disparities in the United States. That’s the key difference. There is information and a perspective that came with the program. It wasn’t just the service, but there was something else that was tied to it.

And there was no stigma. Sometimes, with free lunch, reduced lunch or free breakfast, there could be a stigma attached. That stigma wasn’t attached to the Panther programs. There was joy, a sense of community, and sense of belonging when people went to take advantage of the services. They didn’t feel dehumanized in any way, as someone, irrespective of racial background, might feel taking out food stamps. That’s not going to happen in this context.

NN: How were the survival programs perceived by the American public at large, and what kind of social dynamics did they create?

WGW: For the U.S. public in general, there was so much concern, some misinformation, too, around the Panthers. The survival programs were a kind of antidote for some of that. And this is particularly true in poor Black communities themselves.

I’ve spoken with folks in Atlanta, for instance, who took advantage of some of the Panther programs, who weren’t necessarily members of the Panthers but refused to buy into the narrative that demonized the Panthers. They saw that the Panthers were doing concrete work on behalf of the community.

I’ve heard stories of parents who would send their kids off either to one of the educational programs or the free breakfast program and say, “Look, I’m not necessarily down with all this Panther stuff, but I know our kids are being fed and the government’s not doing that.” Of course, now the government is, the free breakfast program of the federal government. Which is the major example of state co-optation of a Black Panther program.

In terms of some of the education programs, students would get a different perspective on their history. Sometimes they would get tutored to supplement what they were doing in school. And this is really concrete. This is how you move a larger movement forward. And it’s also how you build trust with members of the community.

NN: Do you think that mutual aid and community building do a better job giving people access to economic mobility than government sponsored programs?

WGW: I do believe that it’s a better avenue because the individuals who are going to be most impacted will have a say in how the resources can be directed. There’s this sense that someone who received aid in one moment might be someone who’s contributing aid down the line. So, again, there’s a sense of community building that’s involved. But it’s still imperfect because all of this is still happening within the larger context of very real structural economic disparity.

NN: Right. I think it’s very important to remember that the Panthers existed within the systems of oppression of capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy. With that said, can you expand on women’s role and the gender dynamics within the party?

WGW: Women were central to the Panthers, so much so that they were the lifeblood of the organization, despite some of the masculinist depictions, particularly of folks in formal leadership. In terms of the day-to-day success, particularly of survival programs and distribution of the newspaper, Black women were pivotal. Without their work, the Panther Party’s demise would have been much sooner.

One of the things that happened to the Black Power movement, particularly in the late ‘60s, is this notion that revolutionary demands were often male-centered. Some women who remember the Party will laugh about this now, they’ll say “Yeah, we called ourselves Pantherettes at the beginning, and we thought it was cool.”

If you look at The Black Panther newspaper in 1966-1967, those first couple of years, articles from individual Black women will say things like, “My aim is to support my man in struggle, no matter how, in any way.” Literally, this is what they were saying. But then you fast forward a couple of years to 1969, 1970, and suddenly the language changes to, “We are not Pantherettes. We are Panthers. We are revolutionaries.”

Several Black women were critical of sexism and patriarchy in the movement, but they’re also critical of racism and White skin privilege in the women’s liberation movement. They’re in between these two movements. Organizations like the Third World Women’s Alliance begin to argue for challenging sexism in their communities. They also want to, of course, fight this larger fight against racism and imperialism, but you can’t have Black liberation unless you have Black women’s liberation.

NN: You mentioned the Third World Women’s Alliance. What are some other groups that were inspired by the Panthers?

WGW: There were groups in different communities, like the Brown Berets, which were a Chicano radical group that were inspired by the Panthers. Of course, the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican radical group that had begun in being involved in some criminal activity and gangs, but through some work with the Panthers, becomes this force for revolutionary change.

Of course, today we have the Black Lives Matter movement. The one key connection between the Black Panther Party and BLM is this effort to look at the importance of interrogating structures. Black Lives Matter activists take that to another level with their effort to not only confront institutional racism, but to also confront patriarchy and heteropatriarchy as well, rigorously.

NN: I think that focus on intersectionality of issues is one of the most progressive aspects about the Black Lives Matter movement.

WGW: Yeah, I agree.

NN: I see that as a parallel with our economic systems on a government basis—specifically thinking about how we structure our laws and policies. There is often a lack of consideration towards marginalized communities when crafting these policies. What are the biggest lessons that we can learn from the Panthers in developing more efficient and equitable economic systems?

WGW: A national leadership or a core leadership group must be able to honor work at the grassroots level, the work at the individual chapter level in ways that leadership does not become so top-down that the goals of the movement ultimately can’t be realized. Another key thing is that there must be transparency, particularly with respect to talking about organizational finances.

NN: Could you talk about the end of the Party and what events led to the Panther’s disbandment?

WGW: Different scholars might have a different take on the life of the Panthers because you can make the argument, particularly in the Bay Area, that the Panthers existed well through the 1970s, right, into early ‘80s.

As a national group, it really began to fall apart in the early 1970s. So, by the mid-1970s, particularly as a national phenomenon, the Panthers simply didn’t have that impact anymore. It’s important to note that even in the high tide of the party’s existence, they may have had several thousand formal members.

We talked about this key tension between the survival programs, advocating for survival programs, and advocating for an armed revolutionary struggle. That was the key tension. And we see that tension really develop in 1970, 1971. The FBI exacerbates it in several different ways through the use of informants, working with local police agencies, most successfully in Chicago, of course, with the assassination of Fred Hampton in 1969. What exacerbates the split is immaturity. Most members of the Black Panther Party were in their late teens, early 20s. Folks were taken advantage of by some of the counterintelligence programs. Oftentimes, political maturity wasn’t the key thing being focused on. And it’s really a combination of internal tensions and the assault by the state.