Newark Activists Honor ‘OG Black Panthers’ At Ceremony In NYC (Op-Ed)

NEWARK, NJ — The following op-ed comes courtesy of Bashir Muhammad Ptah Akinyele, a history and Africana studies teacher in Newark. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.

On Sunday, August 20, the community honored the OG Black Panthers with a street naming ceremony for the original Black Panther Party on 122 Street and Adam Clayton Powell in Harlem, NYC. The location is the site of the Black Panther Party’s Harlem chapter.

Peace activists Sharif Amenhotep and Baba Zayid Muhammad, co-founders of the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition (NAVC) from Newark, NJ, were present in solidarity at the street naming ceremony.

The NAVC led protests against senseless community violence for 155 straight weeks in the city of Newark in the middle of intersections from 2009 to 2014. Both the original Black Panther Party and the NAVC became the source of inspiration behind the creation of the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery. The founder of the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition was Newark’s Mayor Ras J. Baraka in 2009. Because of the work of Newark’s activists in the streets, Baba Zayid was asked to speak at the naming ceremony. He spoke with various speakers from the original Black Panther Party, elected officials, clergy members, and grassroots leaders from Black and Brown neighborhoods to honor and pay tribute to the work, legacy, and the contributions of the original Black Panther Party to Black liberation struggles in the U.S. and freedom struggles around the world.

The original Black Panther Party was a revolutionary Black nationalist organization founded In Oakland, California on October 15, 1966 by two respected community activists named Bobby Seale and Dr. Huey P. Newton.

Its chapters were all over the country and in many countries in the world. Some of their famous leaders includes the following: Fred Hampton (assassinated by Illinois’ local and state police), Afani Shakur (the mother of hip hop artist Tupac Shakur), Kathleen Cleaver, Eldridge Cleaver, George Jackson (assassinated by correctional officers at San Quinton Prison in California), Sundiata Acoli (recently released political prisoner), Jamal Joseph (former Panther 21 political prisoner), Assata Shakur (living in exile from America), Mumia Abu Jamal (current political prisoner) and Dhoruba bin Wahad (unjustly imprisoned by NYC officials for 19 years).

The original Black Panther Party exposed the contradictions of race and class in American society. Their work of community survival programs (i.e., the Breakfast Programs, Lunch Programs, Ambulance Programs, Sickle Cell Anemia Programs, liberation schools, etc.) helped to liberate masses of people from poverty, Black self-hatred and despair. However, the original Black Panther Party’s programs captured the consciousness of Black, Brown and oppressed people from every neighborhood in America, and in the world, to unity to fight against the exploitation of monopoly capitalism and the oppression of police violence.

Unfortunately, because of the world-wide support of the Black Panther Party, the U.S. government labeled the original Black Panther Party as a “threat” to its national security in 1967.

The U.S. government’s policing agencies took racist and clandestine actions against the original Black Panther Party. Starting with the FBI, the system’s state and local policing agencies began assassinating original Black Panther Party leaders to neutralize the power and influence of the organization in America. By 1980, the physical organization of the original Black Panther Party had ceased to exist.

In summation, despite the U.S. government‘s attempt to completely destroy the original Black Panther Party, their history is still being studied and adopted in the modern era to find the pathway to challenge white supremacy and class oppression in the U.S. and in the world. The naming of the street on U.S. soil is tantamount to the respected heritage of the original Black Panther Party.

Hotep.

— Bashir Muhammad Ptah Akinyele is a history and Africana studies teacher in Newark, NJ. He is also the coordinator for ASCAC’s (the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations) Study Group in Newark.

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