The Most Radical Thing the Black Panthers did was Give Kids Free Breakfast

Original article by Victoria M. Massie for Vox

Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense as "the greatest threat to internal security of the country" in an official memo in 1969.

A lesser-known fact about that quote is that the Panthers were considered a "threat" because they used to give free breakfast to children.

The black nationalist political organization, founded 50 years ago in Oakland, California, is best known for wearing all-black outfits, sporting Afros with berets, and advocating that black people take up arms as a self-defense strategy against police brutality.

But that’s not the whole story — even if it’s the one Beyoncé told at the Super Bowl. Activist William Johnson, who joined the Black Panthers at age 19, told the Grio that her performance presented an opportunity to tell the organization's story.

Young people now, Johnson said, were born after the Black Panther Party's most active days, "but a lot of them had free breakfast in their schools. And a lot of them don’t know why."

The Panthers' breakfast program started in January 1969 at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Oakland. Ruth Beckford-Smith, a parishioner who taught Haitian dance at the church, volunteered to be one of the program’s co-organizers.

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