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"To Serve, Educate, Unify, And Organize": The Black Panthers' Free Breakfast Program And Cointelpro In The United States, 1968-1971, Joshua Sinclair
"To Serve, Educate, Unify, And Organize": The Black Panthers' Free Breakfast Program And Cointelpro In The United States, 1968-1971, Joshua Sinclair
The Exposition
The creation of the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for Schoolchildren marked a shift away from the community defense origins of the Party, focusing more on community outreach and unification. The social and political implications of the Program – expanded interest by black and white moderates, and growing popularity of the party in general – made the breakfasts and the Party targets for the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO.) With the end goal of neutralizing the Panthers in mind, the FBI had a prime target to focus this work in the Breakfast Program.