In recent months, a couple people have told me that, "The Black Panthers started in L.os A.ngeles." Many Oakland-natives would know the above statement to be untrue, considering the role the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense played in the city. The Black Panther iconography holds a special place in Oakland history. For example, in 2007, upon restarting the Laney College Black Student Union (Laney BSU), the community college students incorporated the Black Panther into its organizational logo. However, many people do not know that the origins of the Black Panther and Party lay in Alabama. Student-led efforts for political empowerment of in Jim Crow Alabama led to the adoption and dissemination of the Black Panther as a revolutionary icon that would come to symbolize Black Power against white oppression. After emerging in Alabama in 1965-1966, the Black Panther came west to Los Angeles and Oakland. After the formation of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, the Black Panther later became an internationally recognized icon of “Black Power” and revolution.
The Alabama Origins of Black Power and the Black Panther
In 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), led by then activist Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure)–who later became SNCC’s chair–organized a voter registration project in Lowndes County, Alabama. Although 80 percent of County residents were Black, the white power structure kept all from voting. The LFCO adopted the Black Panther as the organization’s logo. The organization was also known as “The Black Panther Party.”[1] The LFCO registered voters, organized health clinics, and also ran candidates for county offices. Explaining the logo in 1966, the LFCO wrote:
“Their symbol is the “Black Panther” which stands for courage, determination, and freedom.
It was chosen as an appropriate response to the racist Alabama Democratic Party symbol, the white rooster and its slogan, “White Supremacy/For the Right.”[2]
The Black Panther rose as a fierce defender of Black Alabamans. Faced with the white dominated political economy–white sheriffs, coroners, education boards, and landowners–the LFCO fought for political rights. Despite evictions and terrorist intimidation, the LFCO ran candidates and brought candidates out to vote.[3]. Out of this struggle also led Willie Ricks (Baba Mukasa) to coin the phrase “Black Power.”[4] The symbolism of Black Power, embodied in the Black Panther, led to two different efforts in Northern and Southern California: Freedom City and the Black Panther Party.