Schalk argues that the Panthers supported the demonstration because disability rights and anti-ableism fit within their existing revolutionary ideology. 

Schalk's Theory of Panther Support for 504 Sit-In

- The Black Panther Newspaper Coverage
- Material Support for Protesters
- BPP Party Member Engagement

BPP Involvement in the 504 Sit-In

There is no Panther scholarship that discusses the BPP’s involvement in the 504 sit-in. There are only two articles “Lomax’s Matrix: Disability Solidarity, and the Black Power of 504” and “The Intersections and Divergences of Disability and Race” that provide at length engagement with this history. Recent works by Disability Activists however have added more detail to the BPP’s engagement in 504. 

University of Wisconsin - Madison

The 504 Sit-In is currently the longest occupation of a federal building, while protests started in 10 U.S. cities, only two lasted more than a few hours, the one in Washington, D.C. which lasted a day, and the one in San Francisco which lasted 25 days. The success of the occupation of the HEW building in San Francisco, which was only ended when federal regulations were signed, is often credited to the cross-movement organizing which brought together gay rights, women’s liberation, and civil rights groups in a “504 emergency coalition.”

What was the 504 Sit-In?

The Black Panther Party was a revolutionary, antiracist, anticapitalist, anti-imperialist organization started in Oakland, California in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. By 1970 68 cities had party chapters of varying sizes.

What was the Black Panther Party?

Schalk, Sami. Black Disability Politics, New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478027003

Black Disability Politics

Panther Involvement in the 504 Sit-In

When individuals picture the Black Panther Party they normally envision Black men wearing black berets and carrying guns. This picture is often closely related to the early years of the Black Panther Party from 1966 to 1972 or 1974  where the Black Panther Party focused the bulk of their activities on armed self-defense and patrol of police within Black communities. 

In 1969 the then director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, referred to the Black Panther Party as a "violence prone black extremist group" and viewed the Black Panther Party as an existential threat to national security. This led to the FBI covert counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO), targeting suspected members of the Black Panther Party. This led to a shift in the Black Panther Party under the force of government suppression and the chaos it caused within the organization to move into more cultural, political, and community work until 1982. 

The work from 1972 or 1974 to 1982 is often seen by scholars as a decline and less radical. Schalk argues however this work was nonetheless influential and radical as even BPP founder Huey Newton wrote about the survival programs carried out during this later era of the Black Panther Party as inherently revolutionary because they worked to provide the basic conditions needed for people to begin to organize. There is also significant value in the later years of the Black Panther Party for its lessons about how to organize for change after organizational splits, membership decline, and governmental suppression.

Views of the Black Panther Party and Perceived Decline

The Black Panther was the Black Panther Party intercommunal newspaper published from 1967 to 1980. The Black Paper was one of the BPP's main political tools and included political education for Party members, news stories of racial injustice, and news of the BPP's on-the-ground community work. Notably, each paper included the BPP's ten-point platform at the end of every issue. The paper also served as a way to raise money for the party. At its height, the BPP printed 150,000 copies of the Black Panther weekly and the newspaper had national and international circulation. 

"The Black Panther" - The Black Panther Party Newspaper

The Oakland Community School was opened in 1973 by the Black Panther Party as a tuition-free, not-for-profit, and community-organized elementary school for children ages two through twelve. The Oakland Community School was an outgrowth of some of the Black Panther Party's other educational endeavors including the Intercommunal Youth Institute. The Oakland Community School was widely regarded as a successful endeavor and was used as a training space for local educators. The school was also in very high demand and often had waiting lists for entry. The Oakland Community School closed its doors in 1982 in alignment with the formal end of the Black Panther Party.

What was the Oakland Community School?

Schalk notes that her own analysis of the Black Panther Party runs counter to the dominant cultural narrative of the Black Panther party as an violent, sexist, gang-like organization. Schalk notes her own work seeks to move away from the predominant focus on the most recognized men in the organization and instead focus on the work of women and rank-and-file members before 1972. 

This reassessment has become academically more popular after a 2017 FBI leak which included a document that labeled the Black Lives Matter movement as Black identity extremists - a label similar to the label of "greatest internal threat to the United States" given to the Black Panthers in 1969.

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