Black Panther Black Community News Service collection

1968-1973

Black Panther Black Community News Service was the Black Panther Party's (BPP) official newspaper. It was also known as The Black Panther, Black Community News Service, and Black Panther Intercommunal News Service. Huey P. Newton (1942-1989) and Bobby Seale (1936-), who founded the Black Panther Party, started the publication in 1967 as part of the Party's consciousness-raising program. Selling newspapers was required of all Panthers and it was mandatory that Panthers study each issue before selling. The newspaper's purpose was to share up-to-date information about BPP activities, support for international revolutionary movements, and articles that reflected the Party's Ten Point Platform and Program.

Emory Douglas, a graphic artist who also served as the Party's Minister of Culture, designed original artwork for the newspaper's covers. Rahn "Ducho" Dennis (1934-2014) was an early photographer for the newsletter. Past editors included Seale; Elaine Brown (1943-); Judy Juanita (1946-); Elbert "Big Man" Howard (1938-2018); Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998); David Du Bois (1925-2005); and JoNina Abron (1948-), who was the newspaper's final editor.

The newspaper started as a four-page newsletter printed in San Francisco, but was circulated in major cities across the United States and internationally. By 1968, Black Panther Black Community News Service had grown into a full length, sixteen to twenty-eight page publication that distributed over 300,000 copies on a weekly basis. The Party published new issues on Wednesday evenings. It was the leading Black weekly periodical in the nation at the height of its popularity from 1968 to 1972.

On March 13th, 1971 (vol. 6, no. 7), the newspaper was renamed The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service in commemoration of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Day of Solidarity for Political Prisoners on March 5th, 1971. The issue's cover notably features a "Free Angela [Davis]" illustration. The newspaper continued to print over 500 issues until its final issue on September 16, 1980, two years before the Party's formal dissolution in 1982.

Black Panther Black Community News Service popularized the use of news publications in progressive activist and political organizations. Similar publications from the late 1960s and early 1970s include student activist organization newsletters such as Students for a Democratic Society's (SDS) New Left Notes and Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM); newsletters that centered Black blue collar workers like Auto Workers Focus: Black Panthers Caucus; and anti-war newsletters, such as Black Unity, aimed at Black soldiers based in Camp Pendleton in California. The publication also influenced other American leftist organizations such as People Get Ready, People's World, and even Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver's Right On: Revolutionary Peoples Communication Network.