The Black Panther (newspaper)

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The Black Panther
The Black Panther Newspaper Masthead.jpeg
The Black Panther, Vol. 1, No. 1, April 25, 1967.pdf
Front page for the first issue on April 25, 1967
Format Tabloid
Founder(s)
Publisher Black Panther Party
FoundedApril 25, 1967 (1967-04-25)
Political alignment Black Power
LanguageEnglish
Ceased publicationSeptember 16, 1980 (1980-09-16)
Headquarters Oakland, California
CountryUnited States
ISSN 0523-7238
OCLC number 32411926

The Black Panther was the official newspaper of the Black Panther Party. It began as a four-page newsletter in Oakland, California, in 1967, and was founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. [1] It was the main publication of the party and was soon sold in several large cities across the United States, as well as having an international readership. The newspaper distributed information about the party's activities, and expressed through articles the ideology of the Black Panther Party, focusing on both international revolutions as inspiration and contemporary racial struggles of African Americans across the United States. [2]

Contents

Foundation

The Black Panther Party maintained a commitment to community service, including various "survival programs" developed by individual chapters that, by 1969, became part of the national party's "serve the people program" to connect their commitments to basic social services with community organizing and consciousness raising. The Black Panther Party's Intercommunal News Service published The Black Panther Party Newspaper as a critical part of its consciousness raising program. [3]

The Black Panther Party Newspaper, also known as The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service, Black Panther Black Community News Service, and Black Community News Service, was published by the Black Panther Party from April 25, 1967, [4] to September 16, 1980. [4] The newspaper was most popular from 1968 to 1972, and during this time, sold a hundred thousand copies a week. [2]

An undergraduate student at San Francisco State, Judy Juanita, served as editor of The Black Panther Party Newspaper during the later 1960s. [5] In 1969, two-thirds of Black Panther Party members were women. [6]

Emory Douglas, who studied at the City College of San Francisco, acted as the newspaper’s graphic arts designer. Working alongside Douglas were Gayle Asali Dickson and Joan Tarika Lewis, who was the first woman to join the Black Panther Party. [7]

In its later years, the newspaper was used to rally support for members of the party who became political prisoners.[ citation needed ]

Format

"The BPP newspaper grew from a four-page newsletter to a full newspaper in about a year and [537] issues were printed". [8]

Circulation

Circulation was national and international. [9] From 1968 to 1971, The Black Panther Party Newspaper was the most widely read Black newspaper in the United States, with a weekly circulation of more than 300,000. It sold for 25 cents. Every Panther was required to read and study the newspaper before they could sell it. As it became nationally circulated, The Black Panther Party Newspaper national distribution center was located in San Francisco, with a distribution team led by Andrew Austin, Sam Napier, and Ellis White. Other distribution centers were in Chicago, Kansas, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Judy Juanita is an American poet, novelist and playwright. She is a Lecturer in the College Writing Programs at the University of California, Berkeley. She was formerly a writing teacher at Laney College. In 1968, while attending San Francisco State, Juanita served as editor-in-chief of The Black Panther, the newspaper of the Black Panther Party. In her semi-autobiographical novel, Virgin Soul,, a black teen starts community college in Oakland, struggles to matriculate and then joins the Black Panther Party (BPP). The story of the female foot soldier in the black power movement, Virgin Soul exposes the unheralded women working behind-the-scenes in the BPP and the black student movement..

Intercommunalism is an ideology which was adopted by the Oakland chapter of the Black Panther Party after its turn away from revolutionary nationalism in 1970. According to Huey P. Newton the development of intercommunalism was necessary "because nations have been transformed into communities of the world." Intercommunalists believe that most forms of nationalism are obsolescent, because international corporations and technologically advanced imperialist states have reduced most nations down to a series of discrete communities which exist to supply an imperial center, a situation called reactionary intercommunalism. They also believe this situation can be transformed into revolutionary intercommunalism and eventually communism if communities are able to link "liberated zones" together into a united front against imperialism. Intercommunalism is a lesser-known aspect of the Panthers' legacy as much of its development occurred at the height of the party's suppression and reorientation towards survival programs.

References

  1. Danky, James Philip; Hady, Maureen E. (1998). African-American newspapers and periodicals : a national bibliography. Mark Graham. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press. p. 93. ISBN   978-0-674-00788-8.
  2. 1 2 Jones, Charles E. (Charles Earl), 1953- (1998). The Black Panther party (reconsidered) . Baltimore: Black Classic Press. ISBN   0933121970. OCLC   39228699.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. Carpini, Michael X. Delli. "Black Panther Party 1966–1982." In James Ciment and Immanuel Ness (eds), Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America, pp. 190–197. Vol. 1, Third Parties in History; Third-Party Maps; American Third Parties A-F. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference, 2000. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  4. 1 2 "A complete archive of the Black Panther Party's newspapers from beginning to end". Reddit. 2 June 2016. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  5. Tobar, Hector (April 19, 2013). "Judy Juanita and her 'Virgin Soul'". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  6. Cleaver, Kathleen Neal, Women, Power and Revolution, excerpted from Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party. London, England: Routledge, 2001, pp. 123–127.
  7. Khandwala, Anoushka (4 January 2021). ""The Black Panther Newspaper Wielded the Potency of Design"". elephant.art. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
  8. 1 2 Jennings, Billy X (May 4, 2015). "Remembering the Black Panther Party Newspaper April 25, 1967–September 1980". San Francisco Bayview. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  9. "Freedom Archives".

Further reading