Black Panther Party

In response to the civil rights movement's failure to address the challenges of postindustrial capitalism, urban blight, and social dislocations, the Black Panther Party (BPP) articulated a construction of black masculinity based on violent self-defense and the promotion of self-determination. For the BPP, living as black men meant meeting violence with violence, resisting threats from the (white) police, and providing for a black community that was starving physically, emotionally, politically, and spiritually.

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, in 1966. Originally intended to [Page 55]protect the black community from police brutality, the organization evolved into a revolutionary nationalist group that responded to African Americans' educational, social, and economic needs. Its agenda—“land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of modern technology”—reflected a vision of black manhood that was grounded in men's traditional roles as breadwinners, protectors, and leaders.

A poster from around 1970 depicting members of the Black Panther Party holding machine guns. Black Panthers proposed—and expressed through their attire—an ideal of African-American masculinity grounded in brash aggressiveness and defiant social protest. (From the collections of the Library of Congress)

The Panthers identified several inner-city institutions— particularly law enforcement, the school system, and social welfare—as white-run attempts to emasculate black men by limiting their ability to govern, teach, and protect their communities. They established street patrols and community service programs designed to offer political hope and social assistance. These alternative institutions provided social spaces in which Panther men enacted their vision of black masculinity.

Although the Panthers used masculine imagery in their rhetoric—one statement called the group “the cream of Black manhood”—their public postures did more to attract followers than did their political statements or ideology. Seeking to create a new aesthetic of black masculinity, they cultivated an image of brash aggressiveness and coolness. Thus, they wore black leather coats, black berets, and dark glasses, and they brandished weapons and ammunition at their public appearances. A portrait of Huey Newton, dressed in a black leather jacket and beret, holding a spear in one hand and a shotgun in the other, suggests that their aesthetic looked as much to traditional African cultural models as to contemporary American urban life.

Although the BPP's vision of black manhood was in some ways traditional, they also challenged conventional notions of femininity that called for black women to “support their men” through domestic or secretarial work. Within the party, women and men alike engaged in community patrols and shoot–outs, while its male members often did work that other black men might have associated with women, including teaching in their community schools, working in the free breakfast programs, and helping to develop community service programs. Despite these challenges to traditional definitions of masculinity and femininity, conventional gender constructs persisted within the organization: community service programs were defined as feminine and police patrols as masculine. The BPP privileged masculine activities in its rhetoric, viewing patrols as sites of revolutionary resistance to white supremacist emasculation in which participants, whether male or female, were acting as “men.”

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