In every issue, the newspaper published its T en-Point Program, which starts with “We want freedom. The organization, which put out an international newspaper “ The Black Panther Community News Service” every week for a decade, was a game-changer, forever altering how African Americans saw themselves. The legacy of the Black Panther Party, however, goes far beyond its complicated, iconoclastic leaders, as illuminated at the Oakland Museum of California’s exhibition, “ All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50,” which runs through February 12, 2017. The cover of Judy Juanita’s novel Virgin Soul. The assassination of black nationalist trailblazer Malcolm X on February 21, 1965, in New York City compelled Newton and Seale to take a more active stance against white supremacy: On October 15, 1966, the two formed the Black Panther Party as an armed patrol against police brutality toward the African American community, which led to headline-grabbing shootouts in Oakland in 1967 and ’68.

Those three young men were both well-read intellectuals in the black nationalist movement and hard-edged revolutionaries, two of whom had recently served time in prison: Newton had done six months for assaulting a black acquaintance with a steak knife, and Cleaver served eight years on rape charges.

Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver, respectively 24, 29, and 31 when the Party launched in Oakland, California. Much of the reverence-and controversy-around the Black Panther Party centers on its early male leaders, Huey P. Women had very specific roles in the militant movement.” Not only did Beyoncé honor a defiant radical organization, she also flipped the gender script: While women accounted for two-thirds of the Party’s membership, the historic images we remember of Black Panthers in militaristic garb are of men. The pop superstar and her dancers were decked in leather costumes, with the dancers wearing characteristic black berets and the singer herself sporting crossed bandoliers. The 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was thrust into the mainstream early in 2016, when Beyoncé paid tribute to the revolutionary group during her performance of “Formation” at Super Bowl 50 in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Virgin soul by judy juanita