The Black Panther Party and the Struggle for Human Rights

Abstract

This essay illuminates how the Black Panther Party conceived of the African American liberation struggle as a struggle for human rights. In seeking to understand the elision of the Panthers from broader discussions of human rights, it contemplates the critical roles played by J. Edgar Hoover’s counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO), Cold War geopolitics, the party’s rhetoric of “pigs” and armed revolution, and US White supremacy that equates humanity with whiteness. Reconceptualizing the Black Panthers as human rights activists is not merely an academic exercise, but rather contains the potential to foster greater support for the Black Lives Matter movement.