Formed in Oakland, California in 1966, the BPP aimed to promote Black Power and self-defense. Its founders, college students Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, urged blacks to resist racist violence “by any means necessary,” wore black berets and leather jackets, carried guns, and recruited mostly young urban members. Its official newspaper was The Black Panther. By 1968 the party had a national membership of more than 5,000 in 40 chapters and a Panther circulation of 250,000.

Panthers were race rebels. Their community work, including free breakfasts for children, was underappreciated. Media focused on their Ten-Point Program, which included “freedom for all black and oppressed people now held” in prisons and jails, armed rallies, and confrontations with police. State and local authorities monitored them; the FBI also infiltrated the party's operations to create internal strife. Police had killed at least twenty-eight Panthers by 1970, during which time New York State alone sentenced twenty-one of them to prison. BPP declined in the late 1970s.