Let's take a look at the Black Panther Party leaders' class backgrounds.
Richard Aoki* Aoki and his family were interned at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah from 1942 to 1945. They moved to Oakland, California after World War II ended. After serving in the US Army, Aoki attended Merritt College for two years before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley in 1968, where he graduated with a BA in Sociology in 1968 and a MSW degree in 1970. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Aoki>
Elaine Brown Elaine Brown, the daughter of a dress factory worker, was born in Philadelphia on 2nd March, 1943. Brown attended the Thaddeus Stevens School of Practice and Philadelphia High School for Girls. After a brief period at Temple University, Brown found employment at the Philadelphia Electric Company. In 1965 Brown moved to Los Angeles, California, where she worked as a cocktail waitress. Soon afterwards she met Jay Kennedy, a member of the American Communist Party. Brown also became interested in radical politics and began working for the radical newspaper, Harambee. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACbrownE.htm>
H. Rap Brown H. Rap Brown was born in Baton Rouge on 4th October 1943. While attending Southern University (1960 to 1964) he joined the civil rights organization, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He became Alabama project director in 1966 and national director of SNCC after Stokely Carmichael left in May, 1967. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USArapB.htm>
Stokely Carmichael Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Carmichael moved with his family to New York when he was eleven. He went to Howard University and joined SNCC. In his first year at the university he participated in the Freedom Rides of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and was arrested, spending time in jail. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokely_Carmichael>
Eldridge Cleaver Eldridge Cleaver, the son of a nightclub piano player, was born in Wabbaseka, Arkansas, in 1935. The family later moved to Los Angeles. As a teenager he was sent to reform school for stealing a bicycle and selling marijuana. Soon after his release he was arrested for possession of marijuana. Found guilty he was sentenced to 30 months in Soledad Prison. While in prison Cleaver became interested in politics and read the works of Karl Marx, Tom Paine, William Du Bois and Lenin.
Cleaver was released in 1957 but the following year he was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Found guilty, he was sentenced to a term of two to fourteen years in prison. While in San Quentin he began reading books on black civil rights and was particularly influenced by the writings of Malcolm X. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcleaver.htm>
Kathleen Cleaver Kathleen Neal was born in Dallas, Texas, on 13th May, 1945. Her father, Ernest Neal, taught sociology at Wiley College before moving to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He later joined the Foreign Service and the family lived in India, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Philippines. Kathleen returned to the United States to finish her education. While studying at Barnard College she became involved in the civil rights movement. In 1967 she left college to work full-time for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACcleaverK.htm>
Angela Davis Angela Davis, the daughter of an automobile mechanic and a school teacher, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on 26th January, 1944. The area where the family lived became known as Dynamite Hill because of the large number of African American homes bombed by the Ku Klux Klan. Her mother was a civil rights campaigner and had been active in the NAACP before the organization was outlawed in Birmingham. Davis attended segregated schools in Birmingham before moving to New York with her mother who had decided to study for a M.A. at New York University. Davis attended a progressive school in Greenwich Village where several of the teachers had been blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In 1961 Davis went to Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts to study French. Her course included a year at the Sorbonne in Paris. Soon after arriving back in the United States she was reminded of the civil rights struggle that was taking place in Birmingham when four girls that she knew were killed in the Baptist Church Bombing in September, 1963. After graduating from Brandeis University she spent two years at the faculty of philosophy at Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt, West Germany before studying under Herbert Marcuse at the University of California. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdavisAN.htm>
Fred Hampton Fred Hampton was born in Chicago in 1948 and grew up in Maywood, a suburb of the city. A bright student, Hampton graduated from Proviso East High School in 1966 before enrolling at Triton Junior College where he studied law. While a student Hampton became active in the civil rights movement. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and was appointed leader of the Youth Council of the organization's West Suburban branch. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhamptonF.htm>
Bobby Hutton Bobby Hutton was born in 1950. He was only 16 years old when he joined the Black Panther Party (BPP) in December, 1966. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhuttonB.htm>
Goerge Jackson George Jackson was born in 1952. When he was eighteen Jackson was found guilty of stealing 70 dollars from a gas station and sentenced to "one year to life" in prison. While in California's Soledad Prison Jackson and W. L. Nolen, established a chapter of the Black Panthers. On 13th January 1970, Nolen and two other black prisoners was killed by a prison guard. A few days later the Monterey County Grand Jury ruled that the guard had committed "justifiable homicide." When a guard was later found murdered, Jackson and two other prisoners, John Cluchette and Fleeta Drumgo, were indicted for his murder. It was claimed that Jackson had sought revenge for the killing of his friend, W. L. Nolen. On 7th August, 1970, George Jackson's seventeen year old brother, Jonathan, burst into a Marin County courtroom with a machine-gun and after taking Judge Harold Haley as a hostage, demanded that George Jackson, John Cluchette and Fleeta Drumgo, be released from prison. Jonathan Jackson was shot and killed while he was driving away from the courthouse. Jackson published his book, Soledad Brother: Letters from Prison (1970). On 21st August, 1971, Jackson was gunned down in the prison yard at San Quentin. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACjacksonG.htm>
Huey P. Newton He attended Merritt College, earning an Associate of Arts degree and also studied law at Oakland City College and at San Francisco Law School. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_P._Newton#College>
Bobby Seale Bobby Seale, the son of a carpenter, was born in Dallas, Texas, on 22nd October, 1936. During the Second World War the Seale family moved to Oakland, California. After leaving Oakland High School he joined the United States Air Force. Seale served for three years until being court-martialed for disobeying the command of a colonel at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. In 1962 Seale entered Merritt College in Oakland, California. While a student he head Malcolm X speak at a public meeting. Influenced by what he heard, Seale joined the Afro-American Association and became active in the civil rights movement. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAseale.htm>
With the exception of Eldridge Cleaver and George Jackson, the Black Panther leadership clearly came from the cream of Black communities, i.e. they wre extraordinarily talented, college-educated sons and daughters of the parents who were of the highest strata of the Black (and Asian) working class.
The working class always need such educated leaders from the highest strata of the class.
* Richard Aoki, "Another Shade of Black Panther. . .," It's About Time: Black Panther Party Legacy and Alumni, <http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/Our_Stories/Chapter3/Richard_Aoki.html>; Neela Banerjee, "Back in the Day. . . " (a profile of Richard Aoki), Asian Week, 27 April - 3 May 2001 <http://www.asianweek.com/2001_04_27/feature_richardaoki.html> -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>