black power for women

positive influence

• women played an important role in the black power movement Black women grew in consciousness - they faced a triple oppression of racism, sexism and classism 

• women played a key role in shaping Black
Power and women gained by participating in the movement 

• pamphlets and posters produced portrayed women as revolutionary equals 

• women activist developed a wide range of aims involving day care, food aid and support for poorer neighbourhoods 

• in the early 1970s women made up 2/3rds of the membership of the Black Panthers 

• some believe their activities, particularly at local level, helped to define the movement as much as the dramatic image of male power 

• female members of black power were known as
'sisters' - the sisters wrote articles, designed posters, gave legal advice, were organisers and speakers, often making links to local communities 

• Ericka Higgins was a high-ranking Panther in Connecticut and Elaine Brown was second only in responsibility on the central committee to the founder, Huey Newton

• the sisters experience in taking major roles in organised radicalism developed confidence and pride

• Angela Davis was a key and famous leader of the black power movement (but spent most of her time working with an all-Black branch of the Communist Party called Che-Lumumba Club) 

• Malcolm X described Fannie Lou Hamer as 'the country's number one freedom fighter'

• Fannie Lou Hamer was a sharecropper who in 1964 became the key delegate for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

• Fannie Lou Hamner alongside Ella Baker and others joined the March on Washington (yet no woman was invited to speak)

• Elaine Brown was Chairperson of the Black
Panther Party from 1974 to 1977


• Kathleen Cleaver was a secretary for the NY branch of SNCC but left after meeting

• Eldridge Cleaver and joined the panthers - she sought an equal partnership alongside her male peers and found more freedom as a woman in the panthers

• for women like Elaine Brown, Ericka Huggins and Kathleen Cleaver, service roles - typing meetings minutes, washing dishes, preparing food, providing male activities with moral support or even sexual gratification - were demeaning 

• these women sought an equal partnership alongside their male peers 

• the Panther's underlying promise of equality in the Party's platform attracted female recruits 

• Bobby Seale believed class structure was the root of all types of oppression, including male chauvinism 

• male and female Panthers were to treat each other as "comrades" and share equally in group activities and responsibilities - for women itching to become warriors on the front line, this was the ultimate invitation

• "The way we see it," Bobby Seale explains, "the pigs in the system don't care that she's a Sister; they brutalize her just the same." Women should be "revolutionary first, Sister second" 

• despite gender discrimination within the Party, these women agreed that they were able to transcend the limitations of sexism to see the immediate results of their contributions 

• Sheeba Haven explained that the Black Panthers offered her the chance "to know my own strength. I think that there was no [other] organization that could've afforded me that opportunity

negative influence

• inherent sexism in the black power movement - the macho posturing of Black Power males and their talk of reclaiming male sexuality did not seem promising for women supporters

• feminism was seen as 'a white woman's thing' 

• black activists called for black women to 'walk behind the men' in protesting and political activity 

• in 1965 the NOl condemned the 'sins of birth control' and referred to 'the deadly pill' 

• the Black Power movement did not really address the concerns of women and in some ways was part of the problem 

• women did not take leadership positions in the panthers 

• Angela Davis was criticised for doing 'a man's job'. She said 'A women had to "inspire her man" and educate his children' 

• Angela Davis became one of the FBI's "Most Wanted" and spend 18 months in jail for charges against her due to a shoot-out in a courtroom 

• Kathleen Cleaver saw that sexism remained in the panthers - she noted that ideas offered by men were immediately implemented, while the same ideas when posed by women were ignored. 'The fact that the suggestion came from a woman gave it lesser value' 

• once in the Panthers, female members or
"Sisters" found that they had to earn respect 

• male Panthers expected women to assert toughness, defying any evidence of weakness of vulnerability h

• they were to prove that they could stand against the enemy, gun locked and loaded, prepare to shoot 

• male chauvinism penetrated the ranks despite Party rhetoric promoting an equal partnership between men and women 

• at a memorial gathering for a fallen
Panther, Elaine Brown found that while all men sat in one room discussing the "revolution," the women were relegated to the kitchen, expected to cook and prepare food to serve the
"Brothers."

w

d