(Offshoot of this discussion on MLK vs Malcom X on violence)
What the Black Panther Party had done breakfast programs, free health clinics, and other mutual aid, but didn’t do the community safety patrols?
We know that the patrols were effective, morally good, and a big part of the BPP’s public perception. We also know that the United States is still racist as fuck, and that black liberation has not been achieved yet.
I see the Black Panthers as one of the most promising leftist experiments in the US. In the spirit of scientific socialism, how do you think the movement would have gone, had the party been less militant?
Would it have just been easier to dismantle? Would it have been seen as less of a threat, so not worth extreme actions? Would the general public have been more or less supportive? Would the black community have been more or less supportive? How would its legacy be different?
My analysis
Partly informed by this interview with the BPP minister of defense
Benefits:
- Community safety: obviously. The patrols were started to address a critical need in the community.
- Recruitment: the militant aspect of the party had massive appeal to folks that had been oppressed for generations. It gave agency and a way to direct the rage into something useful
- Publicity: great way to get into the news, which helps get the message out
Drawbacks:
- Attracted more attention from the feds
- Spooked white people
- Increased risk for party members
Since we have the benefit of hindsight, we know that the feds were a major part of the dissolution of the movement. I assume that if the feds had NOT intervened, the movement would have continued to grow in power and made massive improvements to the lives of black people and Americans in general.
I trust that the BPP members made reasonable decisions to counter CoIntelPro, but I also trust that the focused power of the federal government is able to succeed in whatever fucked up stuff it wants to do. That’s to say: the BPP may have simply been in an unwinnable fight.
Avoiding the eye of sauron for as long as possible is a prudent strategy, and I think a less militant BPP could have drawn less focus from the feds. Mostly, I think they received disproportionate focus because white people saw organized, armed black folks and it tickled the “enemy combatant” part of their brains.
If the party had instead focused on nonviolent mutual aid, I think it could have lessened the suppression efforts, possibly to a point where the fight was winnable. At very least, it could have given more time to grow the organization, so that once more militant actions were needed they would be more powerful.
On the other hand, I think there wouldn’t have been as much excitement about the party. I do not know if having more time to grow without suppression would have been cancelled out by slower growth.
If we were able to run it back, I think a less militant BPP may have ended up making more progress towards black liberation.
It’s alt history at this point. Would you consider the NOI, which had a paramilitary called the Fruit of Islam, to be militant? And a lot of Black nationalist militancy can trace its roots to Marcus Garvey and Garveyism, so how would that work out? Malcolm X’s father was a Garveyist who got murdered by white supremacists for his political beliefs. To make it an even bigger mess, Ho Chi Minh himself was partially radicalized by Marcus Garvey while he was at the US.
This hypothetical basically has to assume that Garvey and Garveyism was still around (so Ho Chi Minh would be partially radicalized by them) but that Garveyism didn’t spread past a certain point. But the problem is that his org the UNIA was one of the largest radical Black-led orgs in existence, meaning there will always be people who see it as inspiration.
And as a final point, one of Hoover’s first assignments back when the FBI didn’t exist yet was to bust the UNIA and nab Garvey on trumped-up charges. Hoover led the BOI to bust Garvey and he led the FBI to harass Black radicals of the 60s. We’re talking about multiple generations of Black radicals being harassed by the same asshole cracker.
I don’t think it’s important to delve into the origin story of the hypothetical, since I’m mostly curious about how the state and capitalist superstructures would have been likely to react.
But if it’s important to you: MLK was promoting nonviolence during the liberation movement. In the hypothetical, let’s say he was able to convince the entire movement commit to nonviolence.