I've been going around and talking to young students from fourth grade all the way through
to PhD's and usually the questions that people ask me was, "Where did you guys keep your guns,
why didn't you like white people?" I think still in schools we're still recognized as a black
nationalist hate movement and there was never hate. As a matter of fact one of the things that
that drew me to the Black Panther Party is that they loved the people so much. That,
in order to do that kind of work, in order to be that focused, you had to really love the people.
The Black Panthers are one of the most misunderstood civil rights groups in American
history. Started in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale as a way to protect Black communities
against police brutality, the Panthers are often depicted as a violent organization.
But many of their contributions to the communities they serve,
especially in terms of health care, are left out of history textbooks.
I think the dominant message from from almost every textbook I've seen is putting the Panthers
in what civil rights scholars have called the declension narrative, which is basically this
idea that you know once the Black Power movement starts, but really after king's death in 1968
the Civil Rights movement, declines and you get these Black radicals who are just
demanding too much and nonsensically turning to violent tactics. I don't think i've seen
a single textbook that mentions the 100 or so social programs that the black panthers ran.
They're anti-capitalists, they're socialists, and they work with all poor people. In fact they
saw themselves as continued model of Dr. King's work. People forget when king was assassinated
he was leading what he called the Poor People's Campaign. King advocated as a Democratic Socialist
against the what he called the exploiting tenants of materialism and capitalism.
The goal of black panther party was to expose the problems in society
and then show that they weren't static that they didn't have to be that way, but that there were
ways in which to make those changes that were necessary. In particular free quality healthcare
was one of the key elements of the program of the Black Panther Party.
Cleo Silvers came to the South Bronx in the 60s as a health care volunteer and later joined the
Harlem branch of the Black Panthers.
Now you know the South Bronx is the congressional district in
the United States with the lowest income per capita. It was then and continues to be today.
So the conditions in the South Bronx were something that i had never seen before.
The area's main hospital was known for its horrendous treatment of its predominantly
Black and brown patients. In fact conditions were so bad that in 1970 Silvers took part in
a protest where community activists including the panthers occupied the hospital for one day.
Lincoln Hospital was known as the butcher shop. Those conditions were really horrible. People
were waiting for 72 hours to get seen. There was no heat in the emergency room. There's really
bad stories about Lincoln Hospital and what could happen to you if you had to go to Lincoln Hospital.
When we talk about the impact of racism and the healthcare system, I mean there is a long
history of medical discrimination. We can think of the history that involves
Black bodies being used as guinea pigs, Black women and women of color going to the doctors
and getting illegally sterilized, and so this has caused a lot of mistrust. And then your
zip code matters. Black communities that are in disenfranchised areas, we have a history of
not being protected. And so part of that history of medical discrimination is what the Panthers
were trying to fight. Everything from first aid, they had a free ambulance program, they had
sickle cell anemia testing. They had gynecological exams, optometry services, I mean, physical exams.
There are tons of services that the Black Panther Party offered when we talk about health care.
We designed a program to go door-to-door and really test for diseases like tuberculosis,
anemia, diabetes, these are preventable diseases. We'd go in and we there would be an elderly person
in some apartment who really needed to see a doctor, but they were afraid to go the doctor,
and that's how we would be able to refer them to a place where where they would be seen and be helped
before the illness whatever illness they have got too difficult for them.
They were in the community
educating, offering tools to medically empower the Black community and much of that understanding
of the Black Panther Party has been written out of the public perceptions of the organization. It has
a lot to do with the FBI and COINTELPRO.
COINTELPRO, which stands for counterintelligence program
was the FBI's Illegal surveillance scheme.
They looked at the Panthers as a threat, and so they
did everything you can think of from infiltrating the organization to pushing lies in the media.
The Panthers were actually about restorative care, they were actually about healing the community
mind body and soul. And that's placed on the margins of the history of the party.
The party disbanded in 1982, but the legacy of the black panthers continues to this day.
Many of the party programs were community-based and community-run, so the party would start them,
they would establish them, and then before long the community takes them over and the
community runs them. So you can point to community clinics health clinics food programs, food banks,
free busing to prison programs, the list goes on, that are still alive and well today.
as extensions and continuations of programs that the party started.
There are many kids that
go to my high school that get their health care from the Carolyn Downs clinic that was started by
the Black Panther Party, and they don't know the history of where it came from. And it's really sad
because if students knew where their health care was coming from
they would gain lessons about how to organize and struggle against those barriers today.
The Panthers work drew attention to healthcare disparities that COVID-19 has made even more
apparent today. And their legacy of community care is carried on by activists like Dr. Ala Stanford,
who founded the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium in Philadelphia.
April 3rd, 2020, A report came out in the
Philadelphia Tribune that African-Americans were being diagnosed and dying from coronavirus at
rates greater than every other group in our city. We now know that's pervasive throughout the nation.
And it was like the first time i sat in medical school naive, excited, I was realizing my dream,
22, and listening to a teacher say, "Yeah there's these social determinants of health
and Black people have poor health outcomes. They have a shorter life expectancy,
They do worse with cancer, hypertension, diabetes, surgery. And so when i heard it on April 3rd,
it was like, "Ding!" I've been here before, only it was 23 freaking years ago that I heard this same story
and i said no not this time i'm not going to sit and listen i'm not going to internalize that pain
and just accept it as truth.
I want to change the narrative.
The Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium brought COVID testing and medical aid into Black neighborhoods
that typically have reduced access to health care. They've tested more than 26 000 people for COVID-19
and have provided basic health services like flu shots. Now, the consortium is holding
COVID vaccination clinics for highly impacted communities.
Just like racism is is baked into
every other aspect of of capitalism in this country, it's baked into the health care system.
And I think because of that, the free and equitable access to health care has always been a part of
the Black freedom struggle especially during the Civil Rights movement, and I think if we're ever to
you know, change the health care system in this country we have to learn from the Civil Rights
movement and and the folks who who fought for free and equitable access to health care in the past.