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Past is prologue: The Black Panther Party combined a challenge to state violence ("We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people"), analog sousveillance of police + health activism ("WE WANT COMPLETELY FREE HEALTHCARE FOR ALL BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE")
Two interviews with members with former members of the BPP published this week. Kent Ford founded the Portland, Oregon group that had the distinction among BPP chapters of establishing both community medical clinics *and* a dental clinic:
Many scholars who've written about the Black Panther Party over the last decade owe a debt of gratitude to Billy X. Jennings, who has become the BPP's historian and has been incredibly generous with his time and archive.
Former San Francisco BPP member Henry "Hank" Jones, quoted in a recent article, ventures a generational critique that I think we will be wrestling with for a good while to come:
"'This generation is amazing. It’s the generation after the Black Panther Party who dropped the ball...They thought they were free. They thought hard work and following the rules would gain acceptance. Racism knocked that out.'" https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2020-06/black-panthers-see-echoes-in-todays-protest-movement-with-focus-on-cell-phones-not-gun
My book on the BPP's health activism Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination is free to read online until next month, with thanks to @UMinnPress https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/body-and-soul
In 2016, I helped curate a special issue of the @AMJPublicHealh that highlighted the Black Panther Party's health activism for those in the medical community and marked the 50th anniversary of its founding, including contributions from former BPP member Cleo Silver,
White Coats 4 Black Lives, and former NYC Health Commissioner Mary Bassett (who worked at the Boston BPP clinic when she was a medical student). It is free to read here: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/toc/ajph/106/10
Here are some images of the archives, photos and ephemera I drew upon in writing Body and Soul, also free to access: https://www.facebook.com/pg/BodyandSoulbyAlondraNelson/photos/?tab=album&album_id=163268217070028
