A previous article, FBI, CIA and Black History Month suggested the Conservative Movement today could benefit from learning more about Black History.
I was going to write a section on the FBI and the Black Panthers and I realized that it needs its own article for Conservatives to really understand what’s happening today, in a historical context.
Like that other article, this information is laying around in plain site, with links to source material.
FBI infiltrators caused the Black Panther Party (BPP) to suffer many internal conflicts, resulting in the murders of Alex Rackley and Betty Van Patter. In-fighting among Party leadership, fomented largely by the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation, led to expulsions and defections that decimated the membership.
In August 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) instructed its program “COINTELPRO” to “neutralize … black nationalist hate groups” and other dissident groups. In September 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”[71]
As assistant FBI Director William Sullivan later testified in front of the Church Committee, the Bureau “did not differentiate” between Soviet spies and suspected Communists in black nationalist movements when deploying surveillance and neutralization tactics.[73]
The FBI sent an anonymous letter to the Rangers’ gang leader claiming that the Panthers were threatening his life, a letter whose intent was to provoke “preemptive” violence against Panther leadership. In Southern California, the FBI made similar efforts to exacerbate a “gang war” between the Black Panther Party and a black nationalist group called the US Organization, allegedly sending a provocative letter to the US Organization to increase existing antagonism.[74]
The Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program is “the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for.”
~ FBI director J. Edgar Hoover[104]
In Chicago, on December 4, 1969, two Panthers were killed when the Chicago Police raided the home of Panther leader Fred Hampton. The raid had been orchestrated by the police in conjunction with the FBI. Hampton was shot and killed, as was Panther guard Mark Clark. A federal investigation reported that only one shot was fired by the Panthers, and police fired at least 80 shots.[115] The only shot fired by the Panthers was from Mark Clark, who appeared to fire a single round determined to be the result of a reflexive death convulsion after he was immediately struck in the chest by shots from the police at the start of the raid.
Former FBI agent Wesley Swearingen asserts that the Bureau was guilty of a “plot to murder” the Panthers.[118] Hampton had been slipped the barbiturates which had left him unconscious by William O’Neal, who had been working as an FBI informant. Hanrahan, his assistant and eight Chicago police officers were indicted by a federal grand jury over the raid, but the charges were later dismissed.[97][119] In 1979 civil action, Hampton’s family won $1.85 million from the city of Chicago in a wrongful death settlement.[120]
In May 1969, three members of the New Haven chapter tortured and murdered Alex Rackley, a 19-year-old member of the New York chapter, because they suspected him of being a police informant. Three party officers—Warren Kimbro, George Sams, Jr., and Lonnie McLucas—later admitted taking part. Sams, who gave the order to shoot Rackley at the murder scene, turned state’s evidence and testified that he had received orders personally from Bobby Seale to carry out the execution. Party supporters responded that Sams was himself the informant and an agent provocateur employed by the FBI.[121]
Regina Jennings recalls that many male leaders had an “unchecked” sexism problem and her task was to “lift the bedroom out of their minds.” She remembers overhearing members: “Some concluded that the FBI sent me, but the captain assured them with salty good humor that, ‘She’s too stupid to be from the FBI.’ He thought my cover and my comments were too honest, too loud, and too ridiculous to be serious.” She recalls her days in Oakland, California as a teenager looking for something to do to add purpose to her life and her community. She grew up around police brutality, so it was nothing new. Her goal in joining was “smashing racism” because she viewed herself as Black before she was a woman. In her community, that identity is what she felt held her back the most.[176]
The CIA Denied any involvement.
