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Lessons from the Black Panthers
Forty years ago the Black Panther Party for Self
Defense was founded in Oakland, California. It represented the highest
point of the vast rebellion against racism and poverty which swept the
US in the 1950s and 1960s. HANNAH SELL looks at the lessons to be learnt
from its rise and fall.
AT THE HEIGHT of their influence, J Edgar Hoover,
head of the FBI, described the Panthers as "the number one threat to
security in the USA". Forty years on, Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of
California, still considers them a threat. He refused to commute the
death penalty for Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams because he did not believe
he had ‘reformed’. Tookie was a founder of the notorious Crips gang, who
had since changed his outlook and dedicated his life to discouraging
young people from joining gangs. Schwarzenegger’s main justification for
refusing to believe Tookie had changed was that he had dedicated his
book to the heroic George Jackson, the Panther and revolutionary who was
gunned down and killed by prison guards in 1971. But while the ruling
class remembers the Panthers with fear, they will be seen as heroes by a
new generation of young people entering struggle.
The racism and poverty faced by black Americans in
the 1950s and 1960s is not fundamentally different today. It is true
that there is now a far larger and more affluent black middle class than
was the case then. A thin layer has even entered the elite of US society
– summed up by Condoleezza Rice’s position as secretary of state in the
Bush administration. The ruling class in the US responded to the revolt
in the 1950s and 1960s with a conscious decision to develop a black
middle class to act as a brake on future movements, to create a version
of the ‘American Dream’ for black people.
However, the American Dream remains a myth for
working-class black Americans, to an even greater degree than it is for
working-class whites. For large sections of the black population low pay
and poverty remain the norm. According to official statistics, in 2004,
24.7% of blacks were classified as poor, compared to 8.6% of
non-Hispanic whites. Unemployment is twice as high among blacks as
whites; and they are twice as likely to die from disease, accident or
murder at every stage of their lives. Hurricane Katrina laid bare the
reality of life in the USA in the 21st century – it was the poor who
were left behind as the levees flooded, and a majority of the poor were
black.
In the 1960s, as George Jackson put it, "black men
born in the US and fortunate enough to live past the age of eighteen
[were] conditioned to accept the inevitability of prison". Jackson
himself was sentenced ‘from one year to life’ for robbing a gas station.
Today, the situation is little changed for working-class young black
men. At any one time, 11% of them are in prison. In most states,
spending time in prison means being permanently refused the right to
vote. In effect, universal suffrage does not exist for black men. In the
1960s, as today, the prison system brutalised millions of young blacks.
However, in that period of radicalisation, for many prison also acted as
a university of revolutionary ideas. Jackson explained: "I met Marx,
Lenin, Trotsky, Engels, and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed
me". The Panthers, many of whom were imprisoned for their activities,
gained enormous support in US prisons.
US capitalism in the 21st century has failed
working-class American blacks. The story of the Black Panthers is
therefore not just of historical interest, but has important lessons for
a new generation entering struggle, particularly in the US, but to some
degree internationally.
It was not a coincidence that the ‘civil rights
movement’ erupted in the 1950s. The second world war had an effect. Not
only had thousands of black soldiers fought and died for US imperialism,
they were struck by the glaring hypocrisy of the war propaganda. Here
was a capitalist class claiming they had to go to war against the racism
of the Nazis, while in their own country vicious racism was the norm. In
addition, US capitalism was entering a prolonged period of economic
prosperity. This meant that many more blacks were moving from the rural
south to the cities, mainly in the north. In 1940, half the black
population lived in the cities. By 1970, it was three-quarters. Becoming
part of the working class – moving from isolated rural communities to
massive urban centres – increased confidence and capacity to struggle.
In addition, the increased wealth and higher living standards of the
white middle class made the poverty and degradation of the vast majority
of blacks seem even starker than before. Finally, the liberation
struggles of the masses in Africa and Asia, who were succeeding to
overthrow colonial rule, provided inspiration.
As the struggle developed it changed the outlook of
those who took part. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1965. But, while
this was a legal concession, it did not alter the reality of poverty and
police brutality. Even Martin Luther King, who initially saw the role of
the movement as using pacifist methods to pressure the Democrats to
grant civil rights, changed his outlook in the period before he was
assassinated. When King was viciously beaten by the police in
Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, riots burst out nationwide. Amidst the
rubble, King accurately declared the riots "a class revolt of the
under-privileged against the privileged". In 1967, he was forced to
conclude: "We have moved into an era which must be an era of revolution…
what good does it do to a man to have integrated lunch counters if he
can’t buy a hamburger?" In particular, he began to raise the need to
appeal to white workers and to organise a class-based struggle. He was
supporting a strike when he was assassinated. (See: The Legacy of Martin
Luther King, Socialism Today, No.27)
Ferment & formation
AT THE BASE of the movement there was a ferment of
discussion as activists tried to work out the most effective means of
struggle. Pacifist ideas were increasingly rejected, particularly by the
younger generation. Out of the turmoil of these events, the ideas of
Black Power were developed. In many senses, the Black Power movement was
a step forward. It was a break from pacifism, and from an orientation to
the Democrats, a big-business party. At the same time, it had
limitations, particularly its separatist overtones and lack of a clear
programme.
Malcolm X had been moving away from the black
nationalism of the Black Power movement, and had drawn anti-capitalist
conclusions to a greater degree than other leaders, stating clearly that
"you can’t have capitalism without racism". Malcolm X was killed in
February 1965. The Black Panthers were founded in late 1966 and saw
themselves as starting where Malcolm X had left off. The two founder
members, Huey P Newton and Bobby Seale, had become involved in the
struggle at a time when it was felt that there was no clear way forward.
A searching for ideas was underway among the new generation of
activists. Newton and Seale began their search, like most of that
generation, with the ‘cultural nationalists’, but rapidly found them
wanting. Their disagreements centred on class from the very beginning.
Seale explains in his autobiography, Seize the Time, how Newton began to
argue against the idea of buying from black businesses: "He would
explain many times that if a black businessman is charging you the same
prices or higher, even higher prices than exploiting white businessmen,
then he himself ain’t nothing but an exploiter".
The Panthers rejected the separatism of the cultural
nationalists and were founded with the magnificent concept: "We do not
fight racism with racism. We fight racism with solidarity. We do not
fight exploitative capitalism with black capitalism. We fight capitalism
with basic socialism. And we do not fight imperialism with more
imperialism. We fight imperialism with proletarian internationalism".
Within two years, the Panthers had spread like
wildfire, from a handful in Oakland, California, to having chapters
(branches) in every major US city, selling 125,000 a week of their
paper, The Black Panther. Having gained phenomenal support in their
first years, the Panthers went into decline just as quickly, riven by
splits. They faced enormous police repression. The ruling class was
terrified of the Panthers and set out to crush them. It is estimated
that the ‘cadre’ or core of the Panthers’ organisation never numbered
more than 1,000 yet, at one stage, 300 of those were facing trial.
Thirty-nine Panthers were shot on the streets or in their homes by the
police. In addition, the police carried out widespread infiltration of
the Panthers. However, it was not only brutal state repression that was
responsible for the demise of the Black Panther Party, but also its
failure to adopt a rounded-out Marxist approach.
The leaders of the Panthers were on a higher level
than the organisations that had gone before, describing themselves as
‘Marxist-Leninists’. The best of the Panthers strove heroically to find
the best road to win liberation for American blacks, and came to
understand that this was linked to the struggle for socialism. They
faced all the problems, however, arising from the fact that their
movement developed before a generalised, mass struggle of the US working
class. They were not able, in the short period of their mass influence,
to fully work out how their goals could be achieved.
The Panthers’ programme
THE INFLUENCE OF Stalinism had an enormously
confusing effect on the movement. And more than a little responsibility
lies with those organisations, particularly the American SWP, which
described itself as Trotskyist but tail-ended the Black Power movement,
doing nothing to raise the genuine ideas of Marxism with radical black
activists. In fact, far from helping the Panthers develop their methods
and programme, the American SWP even criticised the Panthers for daring
to argue against the racism of the cultural nationalists: "The concept
that it is possible for black people to be racists is one which the
nationalist movement has had to fight ever since the first awakening of
black consciousness".
The greatest strength of The Panthers was that they
strove for a class-based, rather than race-based, solution to the
problems of American blacks. Contrast the attitude of the American SWP
with that of Bobby Seale: "Those who want to obscure the struggle with
ethnic differences are the ones who are aiding and maintaining the
exploitation of the masses. We need unity to defeat the boss class –
every strike shows that. Every workers’ organisation’s banner declares:
‘Unity is strength’".
The Panthers were founded around a ten-point
programme: What We Want and What We Believe. The first demand read: "We
want freedom. We want the power to determine the destiny of the black
community. We believe that black people will not be free until we are
able to determine our destiny". The second was for full employment, the
third for an end to the robbery by the white man of the black community,
the fourth for decent housing and an education system "that exposes the
true nature of this decadent American society". Other demands included
an end to police brutality, for black men to be exempt from military
service, and for "all black people when brought to trial to be tried in
court by a jury of their peer group or people from black communities".
At their inception, they combined campaigning around
the ten-point programme with organising the defence of their local
community against police brutality. During this period, the Panthers’
chief activity was to ‘patrol the pigs’, that is, to monitor police
activity to try and ensure that the civil rights of black people were
respected. When Panther members saw police pull over a black driver,
they stopped and observed the incident, usually with weapons in hand. At
that time, it was legal in California to carry guns within certain
limitations and the Panthers asserted their right to do so, quoting the
relevant sections of the law. The third strand of the Panthers’ work was
the establishment of free food, clothing and medicare programmes in poor
black, working-class communities. The Panthers also took a clear and
positive position on the rights of women, and the leadership struggled
to ensure women were able to play a full role in the party.
They emphasised that the black community had to have
its own organisations, and membership of the Panthers was only open to
black people. However, they argued that they should work together with
organisations based in other communities. In fact, a number of other
organisations were founded (often initially based around ex-gang
members) in inner-city working-class communities, which modelled
themselves on the Panthers. These included a Puerto Rican organisation
based in New York, the Young Lords, and a white organisation, the Young
Patriots, in Chicago.
However, it was the mass movements against the
Vietnam war which most clearly showed to the Panthers that sections of
whites were prepared to struggle. As Huey P Newton put it: "The young
white revolutionaries raised the cry for the troops to withdraw from
Vietnam, hands off Latin America, withdraw from the Dominican Republic
and also to withdraw from the black community or the black colony. So
you have a situation in which the young white revolutionaries are
attempting to identify with the people of the colonies and against the
exploiter".
The Panthers were, in general, inspired by the
struggles against colonial rule taking place worldwide. Their attitude
on Vietnam was clear. In an appeal to black soldiers they declared: "It
is correct that the Vietnamese should defend themselves and defend their
land and fight for self-determination, because they have NEVER oppressed
us. They have NEVER called us ‘nigger’".
The revolt against the Vietnam war had a major
effect on the black community. In general, it was the working class who
suffered most from conscription. Panthers who were conscripted set up
groups in the army. They were working on fertile ground. One survey
suggested that 45% of black soldiers in Vietnam would be prepared to
take up arms to serve justice at home.
The uprising over Vietnam petrified the US ruling
class. Today, despite their desperate need for more troops to continue
the occupation of Iraq, they dare not reintroduce conscription, such are
the memories, among the ruling class and ordinary Americans, of Vietnam
and its consequences.
But, while the Panthers welcomed the radicalisation
of white youth in the anti-war movement, finding concrete allies to work
with proved more difficult. The Panthers stood in elections with the
Peace and Freedom Party, which was campaigning primarily against the
Vietnam war and the oppression of black communities. In 1967, when Huey
was in prison, the Panthers worked with the PFP to ‘Free Huey’.
However, neither the PFP, nor any of the
organisations the Panthers worked with, had a significant base among the
white working class. Newton recognised this, explaining in 1971: "Our
hook-up with the white radicals did not give us access to the white
community, because they do not guide the white community".
Few links with the workers
NOR WAS THE Panthers’ main orientation towards the
organised black working class. They did organise ‘caucuses’ within the
trade unions, as Bobby Seale recounted, "to help educate the rest of the
members of the union to the fact that they can have a better life too.
We want the workers to understand that they must control the means of
production, and that they should begin to use their power to control the
means of production to serve all of the people".
This was a correct conception but, in reality, union
work was a very small part of what the Panthers did. They consciously
orientated primarily towards the most downtrodden, unemployed sections
of the black community – which they described, using Marx’s phrase, as
the lumpenproletariat. It is correct that these most desperate sections
of society are capable of incredible sacrifice for the struggle and, as
the Panthers argued, that it is important to win these most oppressed
sections to a revolutionary party. This was particularly the case given
the horrendous social conditions most black Americans were forced to
live in.
The urbanisation that had accompanied the post-war
boom led to a mass migration of black workers to the northern industrial
cities. They arrived to find themselves living in ghettoes, in direst
poverty. In many areas, a majority was unemployed. Nonetheless, black
workers formed a significant part of the workforce and, because of its
role in production, the industrial working class in particular has a key
role to play in the socialist transformation of society.
Black workers had been to the fore of the best
traditions of the US working class. Prior to the war, many blacks had
been influenced by the major trade union struggles of the 1920s and
1930s, especially the massive wave of strikes that broke out in 1934,
including sit-down action and city-wide general strikes (the Teamsters’
rebellion in Minneapolis and the Auto Lite sit-down in Toledo, Ohio).
Mass organising campaigns among factory workers and unskilled workers
gave rise to the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO), formed in
1936. The new industrial unions (United Automobile Workers, United Mine
Workers, United Steel Workers, etc) immediately attracted over 500,000
black members, unlike the old craft unions of the American Federation of
Labor. This experience was used to good effect during the war, for
example, in the 1941 strike by the black railway porters’ union, the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which forced the government to end
open racial discrimination in federal war production factories.
With a correct orientation, the potential
undoubtedly existed for the Panthers to win the support of significant
sections of the working class, including a layer of white workers. Of
course, all kinds of racist prejudices existed, and had to be combated,
among sections of white workers, including those in the trade unions.
However, the end of the post-war upswing was leading to increased
unemployment and the greater intensification of labour for all sections
of workers. While the black working class was the most combative, having
faced far worse conditions, the white working class was also beginning
to be radicalised.
The lack of a base among the organised working class
was one element that increased the tendency towards an authoritarian
regime in the Panthers. It also added to the tendency, which always
existed to some extent, to try and take short cuts by substituting
themselves for the mass with courageous acts, such as the armed
demonstration at the California state parliament.
It was the influence of Stalinism which in large
part was responsible for the failure of the Panthers to have a
consistent orientation towards the working class. The leadership of the
Panthers was particularly inspired by the Chinese and Cuban revolutions,
both of which were led by petit-bourgeois guerrilla leaders based on the
peasantry, with the working class playing a passive role. In addition,
the Panthers, again following the Stalinists, and based on their own
experience of the brutality of the US state, falsely concluded that
fascism was around the corner in the US. This, combined with the
desperate conditions facing blacks, created an overwhelming impatience
for an immediate solution and added to the lack of a consistent strategy
to patiently win over broader sections of the working class.
However, the American SWP also bears responsibility
for failing to put forward a programme that could win the most advanced
sections of the US working class. Despite the lack of genuine workers’
democracy, it was entirely uncritical of Cuba. In the US, it took part
in the anti-war and Black Power movements but made absolutely no attempt
to take those movements beyond their existing level of development. The
existence of the Black Panthers, despite their limitations, showed in
practise how consciousness develops as a result of struggle against the
brutal realities of capitalism. It remains a tragedy that no rounded-out
Marxist party existed which could have offered the Panthers, and the
hundreds of thousands who were touched by them, a way forward.
A separate black state?
PART OF THE explanation for the woeful role played
by the American SWP lay in its misunderstanding of Leon Trotsky’s 1930s
writings on black nationalism. Trotsky based himself on the approach
developed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks regarding the national question
and the right of nations to self-determination. Lenin, in particular,
fully understood that to successfully carry through a revolution in
Russia it was vital to stand for the right to self-determination, up to
and including the right to secede, for the many nationalities that
suffered the brutal oppression of tsarist Russia. Only on this basis
would it be possible to successfully strive for the maximum unity of the
working class across national and religious divides. To argue for the
right to secede, however, did not necessarily mean to argue for
secession. In fact, it was Lenin’s extremely skilled and sensitive
approach which meant that, in the period immediately after the
revolution, the Russian Socialist Federative Republic included many of
the nationalities that had been oppressed by tsarism, but on a free and
voluntary basis.
Trotsky had raised points on these issues in
discussions with his US supporters in the 1930s after the Stalinist
Communist Party had suggested the idea of a separate black state in the
USA. Trotsky’s followers had initially reacted by completely dismissing
this demand and counterposing to it the need for class unity. Trotsky
pointed out that, at a certain stage, in the face of brutal repression,
the demand for a separate state – that is, the development of a national
consciousness – might arise amongst broad layers and, if it did,
Marxists would have to support the right of US blacks to a state.
Trotsky’s method of analysis was correct. But
changed circumstances meant that the demand for a separate state within
the territory of the USA did not come to the fore. When Trotsky was
writing there was a majority of blacks in two US southern states,
Mississippi and Alabama, and most black people lived in the south. By
1970, three-quarters lived in the major cities, and a majority in the
north. While black consciousness was, and still is, extremely strong, it
was therefore less likely to develop into a demand for a separate
nation.
However, even if that had been the consciousness of
black people, it would not have excused the approach of the American SWP.
Trotsky emphasised the role of the working class as the only force
capable of winning national liberation as part of the struggle for
socialism. He explained the importance of the working class taking an
independent position, and that it was a profound mistake to rely on the
bourgeois and petit-bourgeois leaders of nationalist movements. To their
credit, the Black Panthers got far closer to an understanding of these
points than the self-professed Trotskyists of the American SWP, who
followed uncritically behind the petit-bourgeois ideas of the cultural
nationalists.
Relevance to Britain
TODAY IN BRITAIN, the situation we face is very
different to that which existed in the US in the 1960s. But there are
lessons to be learned. The different history of Britain means that, on
the one hand, there has been a greater level of integration among
working-class communities. Poverty in the US has a more sharply defined
‘racial’ element than in Britain. Nonetheless, in general, workers from
ethnic minorities suffer worse unemployment and poverty than the working
class as a whole. For example, in 1999, 28% of white families lived
below the poverty line compared with 41% of Afro-Caribbean families, and
84% of Bangladeshi families. On the other side, the British ruling class
never succeeded in developing a black elite to the extent that the US
ruling class did following the uprising of the 1950s and 1960s.
While all ethnic minorities suffer racism, in
Britain it is Muslims who have been on the sharp end of racism and
prejudice in the last period. The history of Muslims in Britain has been
one of poverty and discrimination. Historically, this discrimination has
been only one of the many facets of the racism of capitalist society.
Over the last decade, however, and particularly since the horror of 11
September 2001, there is no doubt that anti-Muslim prejudice,
Islamophobia, has risen dramatically. While other forms of racism
remain, Muslims face the sharpest manifestation of discrimination in
Britain today. The government’s participation in brutal wars of
subjugation against Afghanistan and Iraq, both majority Muslim
countries, with all the accompanying propaganda denigrating the peoples
of those countries, has further increased Islamophobia. The government’s
foreign policy has also enormously angered British Muslims.
While there are many major differences, there is a
limited comparison between the anger and radicalisation of Muslims in
Britain today and the anger of US blacks at the start of the civil
rights movement. The general backdrop is different. Following the
collapse of the grotesque Stalinist regimes over a decade ago, which the
capitalists falsely equated with genuine socialism, socialist ideas are
not yet seen as a viable alternative by the mass of the working class,
including most Muslims. On an international plane, there are not the
same mass struggles for national liberation that existed in the 1950s
and 1960s and which inspired the revolt in the USA. In their absence,
the ideas of right-wing political Islam, including the highly
reactionary ideas and methods of terrorist organisations like al-Qa’ida,
have been drawn into the vacuum. The vast majority of Muslims in Britain
are repelled by al-Qa’ida, but a small minority are so alienated that
they are willing to support such ideas.
Nonetheless, many Muslims have been touched by the
anti-war movement which, at its height, saw two million people from
every ethnic and religious group march on the streets of London. It
should be remembered that socialist ideas were in a very small minority
at the start of the US black uprising, but grew dramatically as a result
of its collision with US capitalism. The potential exists today to win
the most far-thinking Muslim workers and youth to socialist ideas. On
the basis of events, it will be possible to win the mass in the future.
In the medium and long term, the absence of Stalinism will make it
easier to gain support for the ideas of genuine socialism. In the 1960s,
while Stalinism was a certain pole of attraction, it also had an
enormous distorting effect on the socialist ideas adopted in the US and
elsewhere.
Socialist ideas
HOWEVER, IN ORDER to win any section of the working
class to genuine socialism, it is necessary to put forward a genuinely
socialist programme. Unfortunately, the most prominent socialist
organisation in the anti-war movement, the Socialist Workers’ Party
(unconnected to the US SWP), has not taken this approach. For example,
while it is in the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition, the SWP has
decided not to raise socialist ideas from its platforms, and has
prevented other socialists from having the opportunity to do so.
Respect, the party the SWP co-founded with George
Galloway MP, has come out of the anti-war movement and has had some
electoral success, particularly in getting George Galloway elected as
the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow. However, it has concentrated in the
main on one section of society, the Muslim community, which it is
important to win, but not at the expense of reaching out to other
sections of the working class. If it continues to develop in the
direction of being seen as a ‘Muslim party’, it could push other
sections of the working class away and even inadvertently reinforce
racist ideas, while strengthening the incorrect idea that the Muslim
community can win liberation by acting as a Muslim bloc.
Could the SWP attempt to draw a comparison with the
Black Panthers in order to support its mistaken strategy? Quite aside
from the important social and political differences (not least that
Muslims make up 2.8 % of the population in Britain compared to blacks
comprising 11% in the USA), there is the crucial question of which
direction the arrow is heading in. The Black Panthers were moving away
from black nationalism towards a class-based position. In the future, it
is possible that organised groups of Muslim workers will move in a
similar direction, perhaps wanting to affiliate to, or work together
with, a future workers’ party. This would be a step forward. One of the
reasons we argue that new mass workers’ parties should have federal
structures is precisely to allow different groups of workers to keep
their own organisations while working together to build a broad party.
However, the situation in Respect is very different. The majority of
activists in Respect are long-standing socialists but, far from using
the opportunity to win working-class Muslims to socialist ideas, they
have lowered their banner. Unfortunately, in their lack of a principled
approach there is a comparison to be made with the mistakes of their
namesakes, the US SWP.
The tragedy of the Panthers was that, having failed
to develop a rounded-out Marxist approach, despite their best efforts,
they went into rapid decline. The difficulties of the Panthers led some,
particularly those around Eldridge Cleaver, to turn to the dead-end road
of terrorism. Today, in Britain, we see a tiny minority of Muslim youth
taking this mistaken path. However, on the basis of future defeats,
there will be the danger that larger numbers, from all ethnic
backgrounds, turn in this direction because they can see no other
effective means of struggle. The building of a mass socialist
alternative is the only effective way to cut across this process.
Notwithstanding the limitations of the Panthers, they show the
determination of the advanced layer of thinking workers, once they are
engaged in struggle, to find a route to genuine socialism. Even as
Cleaver and others headed down the road of terrorism, Newton and others
attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to re-orientate the Panthers.
Later, Newton reflected on their mistakes: "We were
looked upon as an ad-hoc military group, operating outside the community
fabric and too radical to be part of it. We saw ourselves as the
revolutionary vanguard and did not fully understand that only the people
can create the revolution. And hence the people ‘did not follow our lead
in picking up the gun’."
Just as Newton and Seale stood on the shoulders of
Malcolm X, future generations of black workers and youth will take all
the great strengths of the Panthers and build on them to create a party
capable of carrying through the socialist transformation of society.
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