The Black Panther Party Fed the Community

This is not one of those talking points that the news media and racist wypipo (and the bootlicking house negroes) can use to minimize the original movement. 

In 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale created the Black Panther Party for Self Defense to address police oppression of blacks in Oakland, California.  Because community members also turned to the Panthers for help with economic and social problems like job discrimination and evictions, the Panthers started community services in 1969 to build community self-determination.  The Panthers’ first and most successful community program was the Free Breakfast for Children Program.

The Panthers started the Free Breakfast Program because hunger and poverty made it difficult for many poor black children to learn in school.  In 1968, most poor children went to school hungry and stayed hungry.  The national School Lunch Program provided reduced-price, but not free lunches for poor children, and the national School Breakfast Program was limited to a few rural schools.  To address this need, the Panthers initiated the Free Breakfast Program at St. Augustine’s Church in Oakland in January 1969.  Bobby Seale planned the program with Father Earl Neil and Parishioner Ruth Beckford-Smith, who coordinated the program and recruited neighborhood mothers.  The Breakfast Program quickly spread to chapters in 23 cities by the end of the year.  Local businesses, churches and community-based organizations donated (sometimes with community pressure) space for the program and nutritious food like eggs, grits, toast, and milk.  The Panthers fed more than 20,000 children nationally in 1969.  By 1971, at least 36 cities had a breakfast program.  In a 1969 U.S. Senate hearing, the national School Lunch Program administrator admitted that the Panthers fed more poor school children than did the State of California.