The Black Panther Party was a complex political movement that was unfairly painted as a militant group who hated white people. Far from it, they were actually men and women trying to affect change in their community. Their history is one of the more interesting American stories, from the early stages of policing the police to their community service efforts to their inevitable fall. Learn all about the Black Panther Party in this classic episode.
# Stuff You Should Know: How the Black Panther Party Worked
Josh Clark selected this episode to help listeners understand an important and often misrepresented part of American history—the Black Panther Party and their fight for civil rights and human dignity. The episode explores how the party, founded in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, California, operated both as an armed self-defense movement against police brutality and as a community-focused organization that ran breakfast programs, free medical clinics, and schools serving thousands of people. Through extensive research, Josh and Chuck reveal how much of the negative public perception of the Black Panthers came from a deliberate FBI smear campaign called COINTELPRO led by J. Edgar Hoover, and they trace the party's evolution, influence, and eventual decline while highlighting its genuine commitment to uplifting Black communities.
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