HEARING BUT NOT LISTENING THE EXPERIENCES & LESSONS OF THE BLACK PANTHERS

Romanticising foreign movements,
ignoring their lessons

From Left Luggage

The sell-out event at last year’s Marxism conference,
organised by the Socialist Workers’ Party, was a talk by
David Hilliard, former chief of staff of the Black
Panthers. By all accounts the event was standing room only
and Hilliard was accorded a standing ovation at the
beginning and end of the meeting.

This would be unremarkable, except that almost his entire
lecture was spent urging those activists present to
reformulate their strategies in light of the Black
Panthers’ experience. If you watch the meeting in full, it
almost seems that two different languages are being spoken,
with Hilliard’s message – restated over and over –
unacknowledged by almost every speaker from the audience.
Hilliard stresses the relevance today of the Panthers’
ten-point programme (08:09 = time into video), argues that
the most important aspect of the group’s activity was its
“survival programmes” (10:24), suggests one of the most
pressing issues for left-wing activists in London is knife
crime and gang violence (13:27), and proposes practical
solutions to black people being harassed via police
stop-and-search powers (48:34). Here are a few selections
from his speech:

"As we grew we saw the need to really begin to address the
very basic desires and needs of people in the community
because if we were not doing that we were going to be
isolated." (05:53)

"You should look at our Black Panther Party as a model for
how you meet today’s challenges." (10:24)

"I think that if there is any lesson that you can draw from
the history of our Black Panther Party that is that it is
possible for you to usher in change as we did. You just
have to be willing to get involved in issues in your
community." (15:33)

Apart from the ovations, the largest rounds of applause are
when Hilliard condemns the Iraq war. What is surprising is
that the central elements of his message are picked up by
virtually none of the speakers from the audience, despite
him listing the key elements of the Panthers’ “survival
programme” (05:53) which he says are the most important
lessons to be learned from the party’s work. The
achievements of the group included:

- Running the free breakfasts for children programme - A
bus programme for senior citizens “because they were being
mugged and were afraid to come of their house” - Giving
free prescriptions and medical care to the elderly -
Testing 500,000 African-Americans for sickle cell anaemia
over the course of five years - Clothing and shoe
programmes - Buses to prison programme

These aspects of the Panthers’ activity were at the heart
of their political orientation. They recognised this was
both a moral necessity – to directly intervene to improve
the quality of life of members of their community – and a
strategic imperative. It was this belief in addressing the
immediate interests of working class black Americans, in
fact their “mastery of mass organizing techniques”[1] that
built them a support base in cities across America. As an
author in The Journal of Negro History notes:

“One thing that was fundamental in the attraction of
members to the Black Panther Party and their numerous
supporters was its policy of ‘serving the people.’ This was
a policy of going to the masses, living among them, sharing
their burdens, and organising them to implement their own
solutions to the day to day problems that were of great
concern to them. The BPP organised and implemented
community programmes ranging from, as previously mentioned;
free breakfast for children programs, and free health
clinics to free clothing drives. They also led rent strikes
resulting in tenant ownership of their buildings, and led
campaigns for the community control of schools, and the
police, and to stoppage of drugs, crime, and police murder
and brutality.”[1]

So what can the Left today learn from the Panthers? Well,
Hilliard makes the point clear in his talk, suggesting
activists begin engaging in community work and addressing
the core concerns of working-class people. The practical
examples he cites are knife crime and gang violence, along
with more community control of police. This makes sense
given that crime consistently ranks as one of the major
concerns of ordinary people, as it clearly did in the
context in which the Panthers were operating. It also makes
sense, if we’re serious about building movements that in
the long-term can bring about fundamental social change, to
address a community’s core economic and social concerns,
and establish institutions independent of the state that
build a political culture and improve people’s lives.

However, Hilliard doesn’t mention the central point, at
least for the audience he is addressing. That is, the Left
is consistently failing to heed any of the lessons to which
he draws our attention. As Left Luggage has previously
highlighted, crime is not taken seriously as an issue to be
addressed in the here and now, but is deferred until
capitalism’s overthrow. Likewise, very little energy is
expended on community organising around the immediate needs
of the working class. Instead, the Left tends to focus its
activity on international issues and movements, such as the
Israel-Palestine conflict, anti-capitalist mobilisations,
the war on terror, and US imperialism more generally.

Paradoxically, the very enthusiasm demonstrated for the
Black Panthers at Hilliard’s talk is a manifestation of the
Left’s unbalanced political focus. That’s not to say
Hilliard and the Panthers don’t deserve a couple of
standing ovations. Of course they do, for the reasons
already outlined. However, the fact that Hilliard
demonstrably failed to impress his message upon the
audience is a symptom of a peculiar approach to foreign
political movements, especially those that achieve a degree
of success. That is, we romanticise their struggle while
ignoring its lessons.

This can be seen in numerous cases. For instance, many
left-wing activists are involved in Palestine solidarity
work and identify closely with the Palestinian cause; the
example of the 1987-1993 Intifada – of a people rising up
to attempt to shake off their oppressors – remains an
inspiration to many.

However, the Intifada did not emerge from nowhere. As well
as being a product of political, social and economic change
throughout the 1970s and 1980s, it was crucially the
product of organising that took place among the population
over the previous two decades. Central to this development
were a range of popular organisations that aimed “to
provide basic services to a population living under
military occupation as an alternative to the
occupation”.[2] These organisations, in other words,

“served economic and social as well as political functions.
They filled a void in the provision of services not
available to resident Palestinians under the occupation […]
they also provided a training ground for collective action
and the development of leadership and organisational skills
among Palestinians, and incorporated a political agenda
aimed at raising national consciousness.”[3]

Once the Intifada got underway, “popular committees” were
established to “coordinate the provision of education,
health care, agricultural production, security and defence,
and other services”[3] to Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza. They also performed “underground social work” to
offer support to families with members arrested, injured or
killed by the Israelis.[4]

The methods of these organisations, during and especially
after the end of the first Intifada, were taken up
enthusiastically by Hamas, which similarly set up schools,
charities, clinics, and teaching circles to mobilise
popular support behind the Islamist movement. It is not an
exaggeration to say this is the modus operandi of the
majority of political Islamist groups in the Middle East
and while clearly we don’t want to borrow from their
ideology, we can still learn from the strategy of these
mass political organisations.

Another case is the Zapatista movement, which first came to
prominence in 1994 when it established an autonomous zone
in Chiapas, Mexico, and attracted much interest from the
Left internationally, particularly from libertarian
socialists and anarchists due to its use of participatory
democratic forms of organisation. Solidarity groups were
established by left-wing activists around the world to
support the movement.

The Zapatistas consisted of a guerrilla movement without a
civilian arm but symbiotically linked to the peasant
communities of the region through ten years of clandestine
organisation.

“The movement was built by political education and direct
action which resolved the immediate problems of the
communities […] the small victories built the larger
movement – infusing the members of the community with the
idea that they were capable of winning in struggle and
changing society.”[5]

A significant problem for the peasant communities of
Chiapas was access to cultivable land, so the Zapatistas
set about reclaiming land from large owners through
occupation. They also had a range of other social
programmes in their “communities in resistance”, including
providing health clinics, schools, supplying electricity,
and establishing a communal culture. They also tackled
directly the problems of alcohol and drug addiction such
that “there is a total absence of consumption or sale of
drugs, which are also not permitted in the autonomous
communities.”[6]

These varied movements - from the south of Chicago, through
the Gaza Strip, and the Chiapas mountains - are linked
together in their basic strategic approach. In each case,
they were effective because they aimed to meet the
immediate needs of their populations while building
networks of solidarity and establishing a political
culture. Of course, the situation in contemporary Britain
seems quite different, but as David Hilliard says, working
class people here are facing similar structural problems as
those addressed by the Black Panthers.

How many activists who have read about the Zapatistas,
attended meetings on Chiapas, or engaged in solidarity
actions, have thoughtfully considered the implications of
their strategy? Likewise, how many of us have seriously set
about building the kind of “survival programmes” Hilliard
talks about? Or the “popular organisations” that were able
to meet the everyday needs of Palestinians while also
building a culture of resistance?

It is not enough simply to engage in activism around
foreign struggles without considering how those movements
were built and attempting to apply the lessons here; to do
that is simply a form of romanticism, a radicalism by
proxy. We should support international progressive
movements where we can, but our primary and pressing goal
must be to establish “communities in resistance” at home.

Notes: [1] Harris, Jessica Christina. ‘Revolutionary Black
Nationalism: The Black Panther Party’. In The Journal of
Negro History, 85, 3 (Summer, 2000), pp. 170-171.

[2] Hilterman, Joost R. ‘Mass Mobilization and the Uprising:
the Labor Movement’. In Michael C. Hudson, ed. The
Palestinians: New Directions. Washington D.C.: Georgetown
University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. 1990. p.
47.

[3] Alin, Erika G. ‘Dynamics of the Palestinian
Uprising’. In Comparative Politics, 26, 4 (July 1994), p.
485.

[4] Muslih, Mohammad. ‘Palestinian Civil Society’. In
Middle East Journal, 47, 2 (Spring 1993), p. 267.

[5]Petras, James, and Steve Vieux. ‘Myths and Realities of the
Chiapas Uprising’. In Economic and Political Weekly, 31, 47
(November 23, 1996), p. 3055.

[6] ‘Zapatistas Eradicate Alcoholism and Drug Addiction’
by Hermann Bellinghausen, in La Jornada (Mexican daily
newspaper), March 6, 2009. See:
http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk/node/222