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| Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998). Author of Soul on Ice. The ultimate leader of the Black Power movement after arrest of Newton and Seale. U.S. Presidential candidate in 1968. Promised to burn down the White House if elected.. Disappeared Nov. 1968 after missing a court date. |
"Race comes first, always first. Everything started with the Black Panthers. The whole thrill of being with them. When you heard Huey Newton, you were blown away. The civil rights movement had turned bad, and these people were ready to fight. And yeah, the war. The country was turning into Nazi Germany, that's how we saw it. Do you have the guts to stand up? The underground did. Ah, oh, the glamor of it. They were my heroes...We were going to make a revolution." --Elizabeth Fink, radical attorney in Brooklyn who represented scores of underground figures.
1920 Sept 16 -- Bombing on Wall Street
1925 -- Malcom Little (Malcolm X) born in Omaha
1928 -- Little family moves to Lansing, Michigan
1930 -- Foundation of the Nation of Islam in Detroit by Wallace D. Fard, who preaches that Blacks had ruled the earth 6000 years ago until their destruction by a renegade wizard (Yakub) who then created the White Devil" (White race).
1934 -- Disappearance of Wallace D. Fard. Nation of Islam is taken over by Elijah Muhammad, who builds organization quietly over the next twenty years.
1935 -- Eldridge Cleaver born in rural Arkansas.
1946 -- Malcom Little in Boston is sentenced to 8-10 years in prison for a string of burglaries
1952 -- Malcolm Little released from prison. Nation of Islam with a few hundred followers
1950s -- Eldridge Cleaver shuttles between prison and reform schools in California
1954 -- Brown vs. Board of Education
1954 -- Malcom X takes charge of Harlem's 116th Street Mosque No. 7 of the Nation of Islam. Denounces White America as a "racist, doomed land."
1955 Murder of Emmet Till
1957 -- Desegregation of Little Rock schools
1957 -- Elijah Muhammad names Malcolm X as his personal representative
1957 -- Eldridge Cleaver begins serial rapes of white women, which he later describes as his "first revolutionary act. "It delighted me that I was defying and trampling on the white man's law, on his system of values, and that I was defiling his women---and this point, I believe, was the most satisfying to me because I was very resentful over the historical fact of how the white man had used the black woman. I felt I was getting revenge."
1958 -- Ghanese revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah tours Harlem in open car, receiving cheering welcome.
1958 -- "Kissing Case" Prosecution of two young black boys at at elementary school who kissed white girls. Robert F. Williams leads defense.
1959 Jan 1-- Fidel Castro achieves full power in Cuba.
1960 -- Greensboro sit-ins. Formation of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in response.
1960 Sept -- Fidel Castro visits New York. He tours Harlem and meets Malcom X, who calls Castro "the only white person I ever liked."
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| Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961). First President of Ghana. He became a revolutionary in Congo and was executed by the Belgian backed government in Feb. 1961, which marked the radicalization of the black nationalist movement. |
1961 -- Freedom Riders campaign to register Black voters. Robert F. Williams charged in kidnapping of white couple. Flees to Cuba becoming first U.S. radical to be welcomed by Castro.
1962 Oct -- Cuban Missile crisis
1962-1965 -- Robert F. Williams in exile in Cuba churns out anti-U.S. writings
1963 Nov -- Malcolm X gives speech in Detroit denouncing "house Negroes" who help whites, as opposed to the "field Negroes" who oppose them.
1964 early -- Malcom X tours the United States with new friend Cassius Clay, who urges his style of rhetoric.
1964 Mar 8 -- Malcolm X quits the Nation of Islam to found a new group, the Organization for Afro-American Unity.
1964 -- Stokely Carmichael graduates from Howard University, becomes coordinator for SNCC.
1964 -- Beginning of black riots in U.S. cities
1964 summer -- Freedom Summer in the Mississippi.
1965 Feb 21 -- Malcom X assassinated in Harlem by several black nationalists from the Nation of Islam
1965 -- Robert F. Williams disappears after moving to China
1960s early Cleaver is sentenced to four years in prison for rape, first at San Quentin and later at Folsom. In prison he joins the Nation of Islam and pushes for books and classes on African history.
1965 -- Eldridge Cleaver, in prison for rape, writes Bay Area attorney Beverly Axelrod, who takes up his case, instigating a publicity campaign for Cleaver through Rampart, a local activist newspaper.
1965 -- Burning of the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles
1966 summer -- Stokely Carmichael and his SNCC followers become increasingly militant, driving wedge between his group and Martin Luther King, as well as NAACP's Roy Wilkins
1966 Jun 16 -- Stokely Carmichael arrested for pitching a tent at local high school in Greenwood, Mississippi during protests there.
1966 Jul -- Marvel Comics character "Black Panther", created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, appears in Fantastic Four #54.
Wikipedia: The Black Panther's name predates the October 1966 founding of the Black Panther Party, though not the black panther logo of the party's predecessor, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), nor the segregated World War II Black Panthers Tank Battalion. Co-creator Stan Lee denied that the comic, which pre-dates the political usage of the term, was, or could have been, named after any of the political uses of the term "black panther", including the LCFO, citing "a strange coincidence".
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| Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998). Graduated Howard University 1964. SNCC activist who became its head. Became de facto head of Black nationalist movement after death of Malcolm X in 1965. Gave speech in Oct. 1966 in Greenwood, Mississippi that inspired formation of the Black Power movement, and the various Black Panther chapters. Popularized Black Power on speaking tour in Europe and Africa. |
1966 Oct -- Stokely Carmichael gives a speech during protest, jumping on top of a tractor trailer and leading the crowd in a chant of "Black Power!". His speech is widely publicized, and in response, the rallying cry of "Black Power" sweeps ghettos and black colleges around the country. Many Black Power groups are founded, some calling themselves Black Panthers.
Note this is the same month as the conference in Baltimore at which Derrida introduced Deconstruction.
1966 late -- Huey Newton dictates the Black Panther 10-point program to fellow college student Bobby Seale at offices of North Oakland Service Center, using pamphlets from Nation of Islam. Calls for full employment, good housing and education, an end to police brutality, exemption of blacks from military service, and release of all blacks in every jail and prison.
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| Bobby Seale (born 1936). Co-founder of BPP |
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| Huey P. Lewis (1942-1989). Cofounder of BPP |
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| Black Panther Party (BPP) Founded Oct 1966, Oakland, by Huey P. Lewis and Bobby Seale, two college student friends. They instigate tense stand-offs with police in Oakland and San Francisco. Seale is sent to prison after leading an armed intrusion into the California Assembly in Sacramento. |
1966 Dec -- Beverly Axelrod secures release from prison for Eldridge Cleaver Cleaver becomes Axelrod's lover. Later he claims that he had been romantically "gaming" her in a cynical bid to achieve his freedom. Cleaver is welcomed at the activist newspaper Rampart as a celebrity. He quickly becomes the most prominent black activist in the Bay Area. Cleaver founds Black House, a Black Panther salon where he holds court with every Movement figure who visits San Francisco.
1967 Jan -- Stokely Carmichael resigns chairmanship of SNCC to make speaking tour of Europe and Africa. Replaced as Black Power's national spokesman by 23-year-old H. Rap Brown.
1967 Feb -- Huey Newton and Bobby Seale found the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland. Huey Newton names himself "Minister of Defense" and chairman, with Bobby Seale as his No. 2. The group experience "meteoric rise" to prominence in U.S. media
1967 Feb -- early Confrontation between Huey Newton and Oakland police outside the Black Panther offices. Oakland police stop Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in their car, with their semi-automatic rifles clearly visible. They refuse the police demand to inspect the weapons. Black Panthers with loaded weapons surround the car, forcing the police to back down.
1967 Feb 21 -- Confrontation between armed Oakland Black Panthers and police in San Francisco during dedication of San Francisco chapter of OAUU by Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X. Huey Newton punches a photographer. During armed standoff with SF police, he forces San Francisco policeman to lower his weapon pointed at him. Confrontation is observed by Eldridge Cleaver, who signs on as the Black Panther "information minister" as editor of a new weekly Black Panther magazine.
1967 -- Stokely Carmichael introduces Black Power to cheering crowds in Copenhagen, London, Paris, several African capitals, and Havana.
1967 May 2 -- Bobby Seale leads two dozen armed Black Panthers into California State Capitol building in Sacramento. They push past guards and enter the packed Assembly chamber. The confrontation ends peacefully. Seale is later sentenced to six months in prison
1967 summer -- Violent riots in Detroit and Newark. Enraged blacks sack entire city blocks, engaging in street battles with police and National Guardsmen
1967 July -- riot by Black nationalists in the town of Cambridge on Maryland's Eastern Shore. H. Rap Brown comes into national spotlight with speech in which he declares "This ain't no riot brother! This is rebellion, and we got 400 years of reasons to tear this town apart! ...I know who my enemy is and I know how to kill him...I'm going out and look for a honky and I'm going to take 400 years' worth of dues on him."
1967 summer -- H. Rap Brown tours U.S., from New Jersey to Texas, giving speech urging "guerilla warfare on the honky white man."
1967 Jul 27 -- H. Rap Brown in Washington, D.C. "I say there should be more shooting than looting."
1967 Aug 6 -- H. Rap Brown in Queens calls Newark and Detroit riots "a dress rehearsal for revolution."
1967 Oct 28 -- Huey Newton arrested after shutout. He is stopped by an Oakland police patrol car. Gunfight follows. Two officers badly wounded. One dies. Newton stumbles away with bullet in abdomen and is arrested in the hospital emergency room. Prosecution of Newton would become "one the decade's centerpiece events, providing the rallying cry 'Free Huey!' for a generation of Black Power advocates.
1967 late -- In absence of Newton and Seale, Eldridge Cleaver becomes most prominent spokesman for black nationalism. "It was under Cleaver that the Panthers would drastically escalate their language of violence and insurrection to levels never before heard in America." Black Panther newspaper openly calls for murder of police, coining term "Off the pigs!" and supplying tips on ambush tactics and ways to build bombs.
1967 -- FBI begins bugging Black Panther headquarters in Oakland
1967 Dec 11-- Stokely Carmichael receives hero's welcone by Black nationalists with raised fists on return to Kennedy Airport in New York.
1968 spring Police launch dozens of raids on Black Panther member homes in the Bay Area
1968 Apr 4 -- Martin Luther King assassinated in Memphis. Stokely Carmichael in Washington, D.C. announces that white America has declared war on blacks.
1968 Apr -- Eldridge Cleaver attempts ambush of Oakland police. Black Panther shoot at Oakland police patrol car. Black Panther Bobby Hutton is killed after being hit six times. Cleaver is granted bail and becomes a hero.
1968 -- Eldridge Cleaver publishes Soul on Ice, a memoir of his letters from prison and articles in Rampart.Cleaver is hailed as new literary talent. The book becomes an international best seller and is named by the New York Times as one of the ten best books of the year.
1968 -- Black Panther chief of staff arrested in San Francisco for telling a crowd "We will kill Richard Nixon!"
1968 -- Eldridge Cleaver runs for President, promising to destroy the White House. "We will burn that motherf---er down." Other Black Panthers call for kidnapping of the Kennedys and Rockefellers.
1968 Aug -- Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Arrest of the "Chicago Eight" including Bobby Seale .
1968 late-- Thousands of Black Panther chapters across the United States, in almost every major urban area.
1969 early -- Without clear leadership, Black Panther chapters become increasingly autonomous, leading to split between Oakland and the East Coast chapters,1968 Nov 27 -- Eldridge Cleaver fails to appear for a court date for the Oakland shootout in April. He vanishes, with suggestions that he has fled to Canada or to Cuba.
1969 -- J. Edgar Hoover tells Senate committee that he considers the Black Panthers to be the greatest internal security threat to the United States.
1969 Apr-May -- All-out war by Nixon administration against Black Panthers in New York leads to mass arrests.
1969 -- Mass arrests of Black Panthers in New Haven, Connecticut.
1969 summer -- Black Panther movement spiraling into anarchy.
"...which is exactly when the crucial group of the Panther's white allies mounted a kind of rescue operation. They were not jut any allies. They were...the national leadership of a dominant white Movement organization, Students for a Democratic Society, known as SDS. They called themselves the Weathermen."
1969 mid Sam Melville (white) starts bombing campaign with associates in Lower Manhattan.
See timeline here from Chapter 1.
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