Carroll wrote:
"Every movement reaches a point beyond which, at the time, it cannot go. That high point for the 'sixties was the Panthers."
Completely agreed. Also, what made the Panthers so dangerous was not the violence -- despite the fact that they were walking around Oakland fully armed-- it was the myriad community programs: food, education, medical care that they set up. To have a working example of black folks caring for one another, helping each other, teaching each other, feeding each other...that was the scary part.
My GP, Tolbert Small, ran a free clinic for the Panthers for three years and worked for them for another four years.
http://rwor.org/a/v23/1130-39/1139/drsmall.htm,
He still runs a clinic about six blocks from where I live. He accepts medicare and you can drop in without an appointment and see a doctor every day of the week. He's in his late sixties now.
He still puts up the Panther newspaper on the bulletin board every month and remains, from all I can tell, a socialist.
Joanna