This Black Panther Party member helped feed a movement. Fifty years later, he still sees its impact.
Billy X Jennings was fresh out of high school when he joined the Black Panther Party in the summer of 1968. The Party, which was barely a year old at the time, grew out of an opposition to racism and police violence toward Black people in Oakland, California — and later, around the country — and as Jennings told eater, “the Party was more than berets and leather jackets. It was more than shootouts with police. It was hard community work.
That crowd sparked something in me, and I started going to Black Panther rallies. At one of those rallies, a party member was speaking about the 10-Point Program, the Party’s core values and demands for justice. Point number six of the program was that all Black men should be exempt from military service. That was right up my alley. When the Black Panthers opened an office in East Oakland, I joined in the summer of 1968.
At the time that the breakfast program started, America was thoroughly involved in NASA. They were shooting rockets to the moon, wasting all kinds of money. So when we started the breakfast program, we made our mission plain and simple. We wanted something sound on the ground, while we were still around. Our message was clear: There are people down here hungry. There are potholes in the street. People saw that. And demands reached across America, calling for free breakfast programs.
The Black Panther Party was at the vanguard, teaching by example, showing people what to do, and how to do it. We were trying to educate people, so they could grasp power, and so that they could do the things they needed in their communities. Now, the Black Lives Matter movement is pushing the envelope further. We’re in a very rare time, a special time, and there’s never been a time like this before.
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