Applying The Black Panther Party's Survival Programs to Today

The Black Panther Party For Self-Defense, founded in Oakland in 1966, was a landmark organization that uplifted the Black community by providing resources to neighborhoods neglected by the local and federal government.

The Party was well-known for its Free Breakfast Program and its independent newspaper, The Black Panther. The group was also widely recognized for its fashion, as its members regularly dressed in sleek black leather jackets and berets.

But the history of the organization’s survival programs, 65 of them in total ranging from health services to transportation assistance, are often misunderstood or overlooked.

To illuminate these programs’ significance, on Thursday, Feb. 13, the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation debuts an exhibition of archival photography titled Survival Pending Revolution: The Black Panther Party Service to the People Programs at the Black Panther Party Museum in downtown Oakland.

“A lot of folks know about the free breakfast for schoolchildren,” says Dr. Xavier Buck, the executive director of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. “Some may even know about the free medical clinics.”

As for the contents of the exhibition, Dr. Buck explains, “We’re going to talk about the free ambulance service, the free pest control, the free bussing to prisons so families wouldn’t be broken up.”

By exhibiting rarely seen photos and sharing insight from veteran party members, Dr. Buck says attendees will gain a better understanding of what the Party did, how they did it and why they did it.

Another goal of the exhibition is to dispel the notion of the survival programs as some form of charity. Instead, Dr. Buck explains, the Black Panther Party saw them as organizing tools.

An example is the free breakfast program. “Yes, it was feeding kids in our schools,” Dr. Buck says. But it also served as an entry point for party members to inspire children to think critically about their circumstances — by asking questions like, “In such a wealthy country, why were you so hungry in the first place?” says Dr. Buck.

In Oakland, grassroots organizing has long connected to electoral politics. Dr. Buck points to the 1973 political campaigns of Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale and former Black Panther Party leader Elaine Brown.

“They engaged a new voter bloc,” says Dr. Buck of the Black Panther Party leaders. And four years later, in 1977, when the Black Panthers pushed forward the campaign of mayoral candidate Lionel Wilson, Dr. Buck says, they leveraged that same organized bloc from the survival programs.

In result, Wilson was elected as Oakland’s first Black mayor.

“It’s really about how we tie the services that we give the people to how we actually gain political power,” says Dr. Buck.

The forthcoming exhibition shows the practitioners and the beneficiaries of the Black Panther Party’s survival programs through the lens of photographers Ducho Dennis, Stephen Shames and Bob Fitch, as well as Ruth Marion-Baruch and Pirkle Jones.

The exhibition is set to open on Feb. 13 with a three-hour event where attendees can guide themselves through a tour of the photos; there will also be a 45-minute presentation.

Four days later, on Feb. 17, the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation will celebrate its 30th anniversary on what would’ve been the late Dr. Huey P. Newton’s 83rd birthday.

The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation presents ‘Survival Pending Revolution: The Black Panther Party Service to the People Programs’ at the Black Panther Party Museum in downtown Oakland on Thursday, Feb. 13. Details here.