Portland Black Panthers

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1. We Want Freedom. We Want Power to Determine the Destiny of Our Black Community. We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny. 2. We Want Full Employment for Our People. We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living. 3. We Want An End to the Robbery By the Capitalists of Our Black Community. We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make. 4. We Want Decent Housing Fit For The Shelter of Human Beings. We believe that if the White Landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people. 5. We Want Education for Our People That Exposes The True Nature Of This Decadent American Society. We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History And Our Role in the Present-Day Society. We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world then he has little chance to relate to anything else. 6. We Want All Black Men To Be Exempt From Military Service. We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military by whatever means necessary. 7. We Want An Immediate End to Police Brutality and the Murder of Black People. We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense. 8. We Want Freedom For All Black Men Held in Federal, State, County and City Prisons and Jails. We believe that all Black People should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial. 9. We Want All Black People When Brought to Trial To Be Tried In Court By A Jury Of Their Peer Group Or People From Their Black Communities, As Defined By the Constitution of the United States. We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical, and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and we are being, tried by all-White juries that have no understanding of the “average reasoning man” of the Black community. 10. We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice And Peace. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

This image depicts the Black Panther Party Ten-Point Program that was written October 15, 1966

The Portland chapter of the Black Panther Party declared its presence in June 1969. This declaration was made via a press conference from the steps of the Portland police station by Kent Ford after having been subjected to police brutality and jailed. In this initial announcement upon his release on bail, Kent proclaimed that "if they keep coming in with these fascist tactics, we're going to defend ourselves."

Due in part to the stigma associated with chapters of the Black Panther Party at the time of its inception, the chapter was initially officially recognized as the National Committee to Combat Fascism, though the organization would officially be recognized as a Black Panther Party chapter in 1970 with a letter authorizing its chapter status from Huey Newton. Newton approved of the chapter's status after founder Kent Ford demonstrated successful implementation of social programming in Portland.

Huey Newton's acknowledgement of the Portland Chapter was vital because it was Newton and Bobby Seale that founded the first official Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966 after having met at Merritt College in Oakland. The early chapters of the Black Panther Party operated primarily in Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Richmond, drawing attention from activist Ford.

The initial 1969 declaration was established in the wake of the COINTELPRO-assisted killing of Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter and John Huggins. The Portland chapter's creation was also in part inspired by the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense's foundation in 1966, the disproportionate number of African-Americans dying overseas in the Vietnam War, and the trauma induced by the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

History

Founding Members

Kent Ford - captain of the Portland chapter and founder

Percy Hampton - an early member who joined while still attending Jefferson High School

Tommy Mills - a decorated Vietnam War veteran

Oscar Johnson - a former U.S. Marine

Tom Venters

Joyce Radford - an early member and volunteer at the free health clinic

Sandra Ford - an early member and volunteer at the free health clinic

Origin

Following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the co-founder of The Portland Black Panthers, Kent Ford, knew that the days of nonviolence were in the past; with this realization, he began holding weekly political education classes with colleagues from Northeast Portland. At these classes, members would read classic works of philosophy like Chairman Mao's Little Red Book and Axioms of Kwame Nkrumah as well as review the ten-point program. These initial meetings were kept private in part due to the perceived negative reputation of the Black Panther Party.

The privacy of these initial meetings was short-lived when, at a meeting held at the University of California, Los Angeles campus, two leaders of the Black Panther Party's Los Angeles Chapter, Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter and John Huggins, were killed by two members of the Black nationalist cultural US Organization – though years later this was revealed to be instigated by COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO's interest in the Black Panther Party was driven by J. Edgar Hoover's declaration of BPP as a threat to national security; in a 1967 memorandum, Hoover directed COINTELPRO to actively "expose, disrupt, misdirect, and discredit or otherwise neutralize" the BPP. This stated interest in disruption of social movements by the FBI was not isolated to the BPP party members, but the result was the assassination or incarceration of BPP members like Fred Hampton and Geronimo Pratt.

The son of the Portland chapter's founder, Patrice Lumumba Ford, is currently incarcerated after having been accused of membership in a terrorist group dubbed the Portland Seven; Kent Ford has speculated that his son's incarceration may have been an act of retaliation, and this sentiment has precedent based on previous aggression toward BPP chapters by law enforcement.

File:Kent Ford Portland Black Panther Tour by Pete Forsyth.jpg

Founding member Kent Ford leading a tour through Portland related to the Portland Black Panthers. Photo by Peteforsyth, taken on 15 October, 2020

This double murder sent ripples through the Portland African American community and created an atmosphere where Kent Ford and other founding members of the Portland Black Panthers felt unsafe officially contacting members of the Oakland Black Panther Party. It wasn't until 1970 that Ford would reach out to Huey Newton to request official Black Panther Party Chapter status.

The chapter opened their first office on what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard; their headquarters would later move to three other locations.

Social Programs

By becoming staples of the community through progressive social programming, new members were attracted to the party and the Portland chapter grew, though the chapter would never have more than fifty members. Approximately a third of members were women. Social programming started by the Portland Black Panthers was intended to benefit all members of the community; the party was associated with social cohesion as many volunteer doctors were white. George Barton was the first volunteer physician and Gerry Morrel was the first volunteer dentist who would use his position as the head of Community Outreach for the Multnomah Dental Society to persuade other dentist and technician volunteers from the community.

Free Breakfast Program

Shortly after its official foundation, in the fall of 1969, the Portland Black Panthers had a free children's breakfast program that served up to 125 children every school day from the dining room of the Highland United Church of Christ.

Free Health Clinic

In January of 1970, the Portland Black Panthers in conjunction with Health-RAP (Research Action Project) opened a free health clinic at 109 N. Russell Street called The Fred Hampton People's Free Health Clinic. This clinic was open five nights a week from 7:00 pm until 10pm and was entirely staffed by volunteer doctors. The clinic was closed in 1979. Jon Moscow, a Reed College graduate, helped the Party organize their clinics.

Free Dental Clinic

In 1970, the Party opened the Malcolm X Dental Clinic at 2341 at N. Williams Avenue with the help of the volunteer dentists recruited by Dr. Gerald Morell. Patients were seen on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening. This clinic was eventually relocated to 214 N. Russell Street to share facilities with Kaiser Permanente; this joint office would later be taken over by Oregon Health & Science University in 1975 which asked the Panthers to vacate in 1980.

Media Portrayal

Before the Portland chapter of the BPP was formed, prominent Oregon newspapers like the Oregonian and the Oregon Journal were frequently depicting the BPP as perpetrators of violent acts and suggesting that the party instigated violent police clashes. Most notably, a November 4, 1968 Oregon Journal article titled "Black Militants Split on Violence," stated outright that "a significant split has developed between black militants over whether to continue stirring up race riots," only to later state that the BPP promotes both "ghetto rebellions, which they believe will lead to anarchy and revolution."

While this initial media introduction to the BPP was not neutral or informative, the social programming that the Portland BPP would combat some of this negative perception as brief press releases generated by the Party would circulate to update the community about the community organizing and social programming work being done continuously by Party members.

Further Reading

• United States v. Patrice Lumumba Ford

External Links

• A Beautiful Spirit Imprisioned
• Official Website of Black Panther Party Legacy & Alumni

References

This article "Portland Black Panthers" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Portland Black Panthers. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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