---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 19:27:25 -0800
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Black Panther Logo
2 forwarded messages:
------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002
From: Scott B Smith Jr <scottbsmithjr@yahoo.com>
To: sncc@honors.olemiss.edu
Subject: [SNCC] Black Panther Logo
In Lowndes County were I worked with Stokeley the
Lowndes Co Freedom Org was presented with two logo's
one of a raised clench fist and a black cat (panther)
for thos e voters who could not read or write a symbol
of the org that would be placed on the ballot for the
coming election those on the sncc staff Bob Mants,
Judy, myself(ScottB) Jimmy Rogers and Stokeley all
agreed that the Black cat would be best.The Back Cat
had superstitious powers within the black&white
communities and as Stokeley put it during a Mass
meeting that a Black cat could always beat a white
rooster(symbol of the ALA DEMOCRATIC party)The people
in Lowndes Co all agreed and decided to use the
logo.It was the press who changed the reference from
cat to panther mainly because of the size and
attacking position of the cat. This logo was taken to
the bay area by Mark Comfort of ODAC in Oakland after
the battle of Fort Deposit where we went in to that
community armed when we received a valid report of a
KKK attack on the black people that had voted.That's
where the statement came from about self defense from.
When Mark & Terry Cannon told the story about what
happened that night in Oakland Huey and Bobby were
present and started their own org. We used that logo
all across the black belt counties that we worked in
and the people responded like Panthers attacking the
political structure like never before. Very proud of
the fact that I WAS THERE at the historical perod of
time and the people there in Lowndes Co are a proud
strong community that I'll never forget working
with.They caused the change in Ala that still exists
today.This symbol was used in Oakland for the org
known as the Black Panthers and across the U.S.
Scott B. Sncc staff Lowndes Co Ala.
P.S. Bob Mants is still working there and I have a
respect for him that hasn't changed.
-------------
From: Arropoint@aol.com
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002
Subject: Re: [SNCC] Black Panther Logo
To: <sncc@honors.olemiss.edu>
Dear Friends,
The story that Scott B. Smith Jr. just related to you on the Black Panther
logo was told to me exactly that way in the fall of 1965 when I arrived in
Alabama.
By 1966, after the election of Stokely to SNCC's chairmanship, and the
press' attention to the various County Freedom Organization during that
summer, despite his and SNCC's best attempts to the contrary, the press
insisted on referring to those organizations as "Black Panther party(ies)."
Following from that--in late 1966 and early 1967--quite a number of many
black liberation organizations, in various cities, started calling
themselves "Black Panther parties" as well--briefly. For example, slightly
before the Black Panther Party for Self Defense
was created by Bobby Seal, Huey Newton, and others, there was a "Black
Panther Party of Northern California" and a "Black Panther Party of
Southern California" from what I heard when I arrived out here. They did
not last long after the "BPP for SD" rose into local and national prominence.
On another note, the most powerful use of the symbol, I thought, were the
bumper stickers printed in the same period that depicted a springing black
panther jumping
(toward the viewer, as it were) through a burnt hole in a Confederate flag.
Yes! That said it all.
Best,
Michael Oshoosi
(Michael Wright)
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