#BLACK PATHER PARTY FREE#

Unhappy with the ineffective teaching principles of the public school system, the Panthers founded the Intercommunal Youth Institute which remained open for almost 20 years.

#BLACK PATHER PARTY FREE#

In 1970, the Illinois Panthers opened a free health clinic that served over 2,000 people within its first two months of existence.

Much of what we currently know about sickle cell anemia is a direct result of those first testing programs.

The Black Panthers ran several registered nonprofits, allowing them to apply for and receive grants that facilitated their youth programs, free food and clothing services, elder support systems and sickle cell anemia research.

There was a time when the Black Panthers were feeding more school children nationwide than the US government was.

The Black Panthers are the reason we currently have free breakfast programs in public schools today.

We’ll talk more about that in our session, but here are a few interesting tidbits about the Panthers and why Stacey and I care about continuing on their legacy: The movement was successfully stymied after a gruesome nation-wide campaign to discredit and destroy it. That legacy-and that struggle-continues today in the commitment of health activists and the fight for universal health care.There is a reason we don’t all know the incredible depth of organizing that the Panthers did. The Black Panther Party’s understanding of health as a basic human right and its engagement with the social implications of genetics anticipated current debates about the politics of health and race. In addition to establishing screening programs and educational outreach efforts, it exposed the racial biases of the medical system that had largely ignored sickle-cell anemia, a disease that predominantly affected people of African descent. In 1971, the party launched a campaign to address sickle-cell anemia. Building on a long tradition of medical self-sufficiency among African Americans, the Panthers’ People’s Free Medical Clinics administered basic preventive care, tested for lead poisoning and hypertension, and helped with housing, employment, and social services.

The Black Panther Party’s health activism-its network of free health clinics, its campaign to raise awareness about genetic disease, and its challenges to medical discrimination-was an expression of its founding political philosophy and also a recognition that poor blacks were both underserved by mainstream medicine and overexposed to its harms.ĭrawing on extensive historical research as well as interviews with former members of the Black Panther Party, Nelson argues that the Party’s focus on health care was both practical and ideological. Here Alondra Nelson deftly recovers an indispensable but lesser-known aspect of the organization’s broader struggle for social justice: health care. The Black Panthers are most often remembered for their revolutionary rhetoric and militant action. In doing so, and in showing how the problems of poverty, discrimination, and access to medical care remain hauntingly similar more than forty years later, Nelson reminds us that the struggle continues, particularly for African Americans, and that social policies have profound moral implications.' -Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksīetween its founding in 1966 and its formal end in 1980, the Black Panther Party blazed a distinctive trail in American political culture. 'In Body and Soul, Alondra Nelson combines careful research, deep political insight, and passionate commitment to tell the little-known story of the Black Panther Party's health activism in the late 1960s. Nelson argues that the Party’s focus on health care was practical and ideological and that their understanding of health as a basic human right and its engagement with the social implications of genetics anticipated current debates about the politics of health and race. The legacy of the Black Panther Party’s commitment to community health care, a central aspect of its fight for social justiceĪlondra Nelson recovers a lesser-known aspect of The Black Panther Party’s broader struggle for social justice: health care.

Black pather party