What are your thoughts on the Black Panthers?

complete segregation would have been for the best really

I wonder who is beyond this post

I agree we should have completely segregated segregationists from the rest of society.

The Black Panther as a symbol of black power predates the BPP though.

The basedest. Last truly great thing to come out of the American left. Yeah they had this "revolutionary chic" thing going, but they had actual pratice too, both political and social. They had form and substance.

They kind of sucked early on when they dabbled in black nationalism, but when they dropped that and became a proper left wing organization they were absolutely fucking great.

pretty based tbh Im fond of their historical use of integrating Marxism within their community outreach programs.

Rather curious why no American leftist organization exists to do this today.
i.e. BP would distribute food to impoverished workers, while also giving them copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung.

Kind of like what churches have been doing for years, wherein churches feed the homeless while giving them little copies of the Bible. Imagine if they gave them copies of the Communist Manifesto?

COINTELPRO and its de facto successor policies.
Vagrants know that religious people are only trying to convert them. It's just a reliable source of free food for mentally ill and crippled people.

I agree with what you're saying in spirit but literally handing out shit is useless and it's not like the homeless will become the social basis for a political movement.

I mean yeah, I was just using that as an example. I've had the idea of setting up something like a Marxist community outreach center though. Similar to a YMCA setup. Instead of community Bible study groups, you'd have community Marxist study groups. Same goes for youth programs and homeless programs.

I can't imagine every person who resided where the BP resided was all that interested in the Marxist rhetoric either, but it still painted the Black Panthers and ultimately Marxism in a positive light.

That's one of the things I always thought about. Where the hell did they get the money to do that?

Most of the stuff they gave away were left-overs from local stores which they convinced (or blackmailed) the owner into giving to them. They also sometimes set up their own production facilities where they could produce basic goods through communal voluntary labor by the community itself. All labor was usually provided through volunteer efforts, really. For expensive stuff they were basically entirely reliant on donations from (wealthy) sympathizers. They also tried going full SocDem and using state money, but they failed to get elected. David Hilliard, who was effectively in charge whilst Newton and Seale were both in prison, wrote this book detailing how they organized their programs.

food not bombs tried something similar and they were accused of promoting terrorism.

I don't know if that was their main source of income, but they had donations from several sources. There was a segment in Black Against Empire where the author mentioned that their influence in the black communities of the North was so strong that they could persuade people to avoid local businesses and churches if they wanted, and opted not to in exchange for money.

Then of course they had a bunch of newspapers to sell, people often bought revolutionary literature available elsewhere from them to support them, they had donations from the community, etc.

They also had a few rich donors, particularly in the arts. Shitloads of black musicians and actors had ties with the Panthers and offered financial support, and some white ones like Fonda and Lennon (who once used them as security I think) too. Jean Seberg even had a baby with a Panther.

Most homeless folk usually get jobs again, and these days many people are STILL homeless in SPITE of having jobs. Chronic homeless folk are in the minority.

proofs?