“It’s not about being macho or anything like that,” Seale said about the use of guns. “We were intellectuals from a grassroots community who didn’t take no crap.”

Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, spoke to a packed audience in the Wisconsin Room of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Union last Monday, and explained how one of the most controversial and misunderstood groups in America’s history ignited the minds of a generation.

Seale’s sharp wit and attention to detail were in no short supply as the 71-year-old civil rights activist and revolutionary explained how the party was formed, its subsequent actions, and the brutal crackdown by the U.S. government.

Seale began his narrative by describing a profound cultural awakening he experienced in 1962 while attending a community college in California as an engineer and design major. Following an eye-opening book recommendation from a childhood friend, Seale began tracking down hard-to-find books written 20 years ago about the colonial history of Africa.

“I finally began to realize that a half-naked white man named Tarzan didn’t rule Africa,” Seale joked to the amusement of the audience. “I grew up in the ‘50s and was brainwashed by TV.”

While enrolled in an anthropology class, Seale advocated correct social science references for groups of people in response to his teacher referring to whites as “Caucasians,” while referring to African Americans as “negroids” and everyone else as “mongoloids.” It was in that class that Seale would come to meet the other founding member of the Black Panther’s, Huey P. Newton

Seale remembered Newton had agreed with him after other African-Americans in the class had told him to just be quiet.

Seale and Newton became close friends and would later go on to write what would become the 10-point party plan of the Black Panthers in October of 1966. The 10-point plan, along with a declaration of independence, was written in response to Seale and Newton’s dissatisfaction with the police department and what Seale referred to as “institutionalized racism.”

By that time, Newton had been studying as a law student in San Francisco and helped the party understand the legal guidelines involved in what they were attempting to do.

“Patrol the police with loaded weapons, law books and tape recorders,” Seale said.

Three months after the party’s founding, the group had 14 members, wore black and blue uniforms, and were heavily armed. Seale explained the group’s decision to use weapons in their cause.

“It’s not about being macho or anything like that,” Seale said about the use of guns. “We were intellectuals from a grassroots community who didn’t take no crap.”

Seale described the night the party went out on their first campaign in a nearby neighborhood. Armed with unconcealed long guns and handguns, the 14 members spread out along 40 feet and approached an arrest in process.

When the police officer noticed the group and asked what they were doing, Newton replied that they were observing. Seale said the officer told them they didn’t have the right to observe him and that’s when Newton began citing Supreme Court cases and California law that in fact, did protect their right to observe.

When the officer realized that the group had loaded weapons and that 40 people on the block were now watching the incident, the officer “got really pissed off” and left.

Seale said this was the typical result of their campaigns. After patrolling California for one year there had been no shootouts, despite historical distortions that there had been gun battles from the start.

After eight months, the party boasted 5,000 members operating in 49 chapters across the country. In addition to patrols, the party was also implementing free breakfast for children and health care programs, the latter resulting in one million people getting tested for sickle-cell anemia, Seale said.

By the time one of the most highly decorated Vietnam veterans had joined up in 1969, J. Edgar Hoover had made it clear that the party had to go, resulting in the systematic murder and imprisonment of prominent members by the government, Seale said.

One misconception Seale attempted to clear up was the notion that the Black Panthers were diametrically opposed to the white race, a notion former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley tried to spread.

“Mayor Daley is telling people that the Black Panther Party wants to go into white neighborhoods with guns and kill white people, and here we are running around in the streets with all our white buddies,” Seale said.

The party founder said that he and others had always made the “intelligent distinction” between racist whites and “white kids willing to get beat up protesting for civil rights.”

“All power to all people,” Seale said. “That’s the revolution I was talking about.”

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