by Chief Saint
The Black Panther Party (BPP) was formed by Bobby Seale And Huey P. Newton on October 15, 1966. Two Black college kids got together to form a revolutionary organization that other organizations hold as an example of a community organization and held a lot of respect in the Black community. The founders are held as heroes of those communities.
The BPP instituted many programs to materially address the concerns of Black people in a way that Black Hammer upholds and emulates.
They watched the cops to combat police brutality, prepared breakfast to feed children, and created health clinics to educate and treat those with sickle cell and AIDS.
However, my own personal experience with the BPP starts at home. My great grandfather Joseph Frank McNair was a part of the Winston Salem chapter of the BPP.
It was one of the first chapters in the southern region and it was always something he talked about with great pride and also sadness.
Like many African men in the south, my grandfather was drafted and deployed to Vietnam as a pawn of colonialism. This became the education he needed to join the growing movement the Black Panther Party was beginning.
I remember him talking about what he learned and how he was changed by it.
I remember him telling me stories about how he sometimes wished that he had defected and that many people he knew did.
While working in the orchard he would tell me how many times he had risked his life during that time. It was incredibly dangerous to start cop watching patrols, lynching was something that was still commonplace if not spoken about highly. The smaller towns outside of Winston Salem were notorious sundown towns and pigs were searching for any chance to enact violence
He stressed the importance of gun training with me. He told me that the best thing he could do is teach me to protect myself because that was the key to protecting our land. Huey P. Newton has a direct quote saying
It is an honor to see that the words of the Black Panther Party live on in my teachings by my grandfather but even more when I think about how this ideology continues on with my work in Black Hammer.
He believed there was an unspoken relationship between all Colonized people built by the violence of white power colonialism. He taught me that all of the problems the Colonized people face was due to colonization. And while it wasn’t in those exact words, his meaning was clear.
The solidarity my grandfather stressed to me amongst all Colonized people led me to Black Hammer. The fact that colonialism is built on the backs of our Colonized people is key to our political development.
That solidarity is carried through all of Black Hammer’s Principles of Unity in a way that showcases the exact circumstances that lead him to find the BPP.
He also directed me to the land question.
I never understood why he put as much emphasis on owning land, but now as a revolutionary and a member of Black Hammer, I understand what he meant. The land question is the long term answer to the harm reduction programs the BPP started to address the needs of our people.
Land is power because if our people get back their land, they can be a self-sustaining people that no colonizer can exploit again.
With Black Hammer’s dedication to educating the masses about the dangers of coronavirus in schools, to a holistic security apparatus, and the Hammer City project, we prove that we are our ancestors.
We are the descendants of the Colonized people of the world who can overturn colonialism, imperialism, and all that plagues the Colonized working class.
Join Black Hammer to carry out your ancestor’s dream of a liberated world where we can live and work with our real native land!
Land Back!
