{"id":316570,"date":"2022-11-04T10:18:58","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T17:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/?p=316570"},"modified":"2022-11-04T10:18:58","modified_gmt":"2022-11-04T17:18:58","slug":"sds-black-panther-party-celebrates-55th-anniversary-with-peace-treaty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/sds-black-panther-party-celebrates-55th-anniversary-with-peace-treaty\/","title":{"rendered":"SD\u2019s Black Panther Party celebrates 55th anniversary with peace treaty"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Diego chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) celebrated its 55el<\/span> anniversary with a two-day event at the WorldBeat Cultural Center in Balboa Park that included speeches on the history of the party, a keynote address from City Councilwoman Monica Montgomery-Steppe, awards dinner, and the signing of a reconciliation agreement between the chapter<\/span><\/span><\/span> and Organization US.<\/p>\n

BPP and Organization US are both Black empowerment organizations founded in the \u201860s with chapters in Los Angeles and San Diego. After an incident at UCLA that left two Panthers dead, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover exploited the situation to pit the organizations against each other using counter-intelligence methods like having agents impersonate group members to send taunts and issue threats. It escalated into a deadly feud between the two organization egged on by an FBI that viewed the Panthers, and the civil rights movement as a whole, as a national threat.<\/p>\n

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Dancers performed at the anniversary party.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After years of efforts to find peace between the two groups with similar goals, San Diego Original Black Panther Party for Community Empowerment chair Henry Wallace V and Organization US head Maulana Karenga signed an historic reconciliation agreement at the event that forgave past violence and promised a future of peace.<\/p>\n

Wallace and his family are founding members of the local BPP chapter.<\/p>\n

The Wallace family moved to San Diego after fleeing Richmond, Calif. where Henry and his bandmates, then young teenagers, hid on coffins at a funeral home after police shot<\/span><\/span><\/span> into a crowd during a social uprising that followed the police killing of a teen boy. However, riots also occurred in San Diego soon after the family relocated.<\/p>\n

Wallace is a longtime member of the BPP, after his sister and her boyfriend started a San Diego chapter while attending San Diego State College. His parents also joined the party and began a free breakfast program in Downtown San Diego. The Panthers still run feeding programs to this day.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI became a Black Panther because the Black Panthers stood for empowerment. They made you understand that you have human rights… that you don’t have to bow down for somebody and become inferior for these people because at that time, you couldn’t even look at a white person without them feeling as though you’re doing something wrong,\u201d Wallace said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Coming out of the Jim Crow era<\/span><\/span><\/span>, Wallace described how dehumanizing it was going into stores and being watched constantly, Black history not being taught in schools and African culture being ripped away for generations through the trans-continental slave trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey treat you as though you was some kind of \u2018it\u2019 \u2013 an animal to eradicate,\u201d the Panther leader said. \u201cEverything that we were ever taught in this system of San Diego was all made to have a negative impact on us as a people.\u201d<\/p>\n

BPP taught him African and African-American history as well as the vocabulary to use in police interactions to assert his civil rights. The dignity afforded him by this new education was \u201cattractive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nationally, the Panthers stood for self-reliance in a way that did not promote American individualism, but rather created radical communal care, self defense and justice programs that benefitted Black Americans outside the strictures of government bureaucracy. School meal programs, public health efforts, and traffic safety measures<\/span><\/span><\/span> have all been<\/span><\/span><\/span> influenced by the pioneering work of the Panthers to meet community needs.<\/p>\n

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Wallace and Council member Monica Montgomery-Steppe shake hands. She gave the keynote address.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cDon’t keep asking the government to do it for you because the government has been slanted because it’s controlled by the corporations to make you feel as though that the only thing you could do is work for a check all your life,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cYou should be able to have a pleasant life, a good life based on your hard labor, your actions. So we want to empower people to do more for themselves and not depend on the system to help them because the system ain’t designed to help the average person.\u201d<\/p>\n

After joining as a teenager, Wallace has never quit his community advocacy. He helps the local Black Panther Party run three food programs, register voters, and connect people in need to health and housing resources. Even now, he has plans to expand the Panthers\u2019 work to tutor elementary students feeling stressed and isolated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s in your spirit and your soul, to teach this to people over here in the United States and the world: That you are<\/i> valuable. That we are<\/i> valuable,\u201d Wallace said about his lifetime of service.<\/p>\n

Over the decades he has seen improvements as well as setbacks when it comes to racial justice. He noted that more than just white people can get hired in the government sector now even if more managers in the business world should be people of color. He has observed that \u201cDriving while Black,\u201d i.e. Black drivers being pulled over and interrogated by law enforcement is less common now as well as police killing citizens with impunity decreasing. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur law enforcement is starting to learn that people is not to be executed,\u201d he said. \u201cJust because a person looks a certain way don\u2019t mean that they\u2019re guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

One area in which the Panthers\u2019 efforts backfired was surrounding gun control. BPP <\/span><\/span><\/span>advocated for self defense and that Black people should have the same access to Second Amendment rights that other Americans do without being beaten or jailed for carrying weapons. However, in response to these efforts, then-Governor Ronald Reagan pushed through strong gun control measures that barred open carry and kept certain segments of the population from owning weapons \u2013 the opposite of what the Panthers wanted.<\/p>\n

Through Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, and other movements, a new generation of racial justice advocates have emerged. Wallace\u2019s advice to them is to not start assuming they know the problems and solutions, but instead to study what\u2019s going on and talk to people.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be a student first. You can\u2019t be all experts on what\u2019s going on… [People] don\u2019t need a person to dictate to them. [Activists] need to listen to what the needs of the people are and then maybe work a program around that,\u201d he said. \u201cI’m hopeful… One thing I can say about America: America do learn from its mistakes.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The San Diego chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) celebrated its 55th anniversary with a two-day event at the WorldBeat Cultural Center in Balboa Park that included speeches on the history of the party, a keynote address from City Councilwoman Monica Montgomery-Steppe, awards dinner, and the signing of a reconciliation agreement between the chapter […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":936,"featured_media":316571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"The San Diego chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) celebrated its 55th anniversary with a two-day event at the WorldBeat Cultural Center in Balboa Park that included speeches on the history of the party, a keynote address from City Councilwoman Monica Montgomery-Steppe, awards dinner, and the signing of a reconciliation agreement between the chapter and Organization US.","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11550,11555],"tags":[14474,14470,14472,14473,14471],"class_list":["post-316570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news","tag-black-empowerment","tag-black-panther-party","tag-cointelpro","tag-j-edgar-hoover","tag-organization-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/936"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}