Engendering the Black Freedom Struggle

This chapter analyzes the gender politics of the Black Panther Party (BPP), one of the leading organizations of the Black Power movement, in the Bay Area of California, especially Oakland. The Panthers’ gender politics were a function of official policy and ideological dictates; an outgrowth of day–to–day struggles and impromptu debates, and the result of mostly female members’ demands that the organization actualize its rhetoric about gender equality. Many scholars have depicted the Panthers as the quintessential macho male organization and emblematic of the Black Power movement’s misogyny. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self–Defense in Oakland, California, in October 1966 as a revolutionary nationalist organization aimed at challenging police brutality, poverty, and racial injustice. As women became a vital membership core within the organization, complaints about sexism became more prevalent. Panther women and scholars have asserted that tasks within the organization were assigned by skill rather than gender.

Political science · Race, History, and American Society