October 1966

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the BPP in Oakland, California, drawing on Malcolm X's philosophy, Marxism, and armed self-defense. The party's Ten-Point Program demanded housing, employment, education, and justice, while its community programs fed thousands of children breakfast daily.

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, California in 1966, articulating a ten-point program demanding Black liberation and organizing armed community patrols against police brutality. The Panthers' free breakfast programs, health clinics, and liberation schools became models for community organizing, and the Party became the most surveilled domestic political organization in FBI history.

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, California. Combining Marxist ideology, community programs including free breakfast for children, and armed self-defense patrols, the Panthers became the most influential Black revolutionary organization of the late 1960s and a lasting symbol of Black political radicalism.