![]() In Illinois, Chairman Hampton eschewed segregation lines in Chicago and successfully created the Rainbow Coalition, which allied Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Appalachian whites.Īll the while, national media organizations spread incendiary images of armed Black Americans and attributed other groups’ violence to the Panthers in an attempt to discredit them. Unlike some other revolutionary Black nationalist groups at the time, the Panthers organized alongside non-Black radical groups who were fighting the same issues of police brutality, poverty, and poor housing conditions. The Illinois Chapter was organized by August 1968-with Hampton as deputy chairman and Rush as the deputy minister of defense-and recruited at schools and universities. Social programs also served as the basis of the Party’s organizing activity and service to the public. ![]() The survival programs were named as such because they were designed to help the Black community to survive until a revolution, which Panthers anticipated, radically changed the unequal arrangement of society. At its peak, the Panthers’ Free Breakfast Program in Chicago served 4,000 kids every day. Panthers created many survival programs such as the Free Breakfast Program, the influence of which can be seen on the USDA’s national School Breakfast Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program. Political education was central to their initiatives. The Black Panthers advocated for freedom from oppression by any means necessary, including armed self-defense. At that time, many young, Black organizers were becoming disillusioned with Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence, including those who would eventually establish the Illinois Black Panther Party Chapter in 1968: Fred Hampton, who had been a member of the NAACP in high school, and Bobby Rush, who was initially a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Newton and Bobby Seale as a revolutionary organization that could effectively respond to the racial violence inflicted upon Black Americans by police and society. The Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, California, in 1966 by Huey P. This story was originally published by the Chicago Reader on December 21, 2022.
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