About Organizations
Black Panther Party
Black Liberation Army
American Indian Movement
FALN
Weather Underground
Earth Liberation Front
Animal Liberation Front
MOVE
Republic of New Afrika
Symbionese Liberation Army
Los Macheteros
United Freedom Front
May 19th Communist Organization
Young Lords
George Jackson Brigade
Students for a Democratic Society
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Industrial Workers of the World
Communist Party USA
Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Brown Berets
Socialist Workers Party
African People's Socialist Party
Nation of Islam
About Black Panther Party
Founding of the Black Panther Party
Police Patrols in Oakland
Sacramento Capitol Protest
Huey Newton Arrest & the "Free Huey" Campaign
Killing of Bobby Hutton
Free Breakfast for Children Program
Bunchy Carter & John Huggins Killings
Panther 21 Arrests & Trial
New Haven Panther Trials
Fred Hampton & Mark Clark Raid
Oakland Community School
Elaine Brown Leadership Period
Decline & Dissolution
POLICE PATROLS IN OAKLAND
In its earliest months, the Black Panther Party built its reputation through armed "police patrols" in Oakland. Members, exercising their legal right under California law to openly carry loaded firearms, followed police cars, observed arrests from a lawful distance, and informed those being detained of their constitutional rights, law book in hand.
These "copwatching" patrols turned the everyday reality of police brutality into the party's central organizing issue and drew a stream of young recruits. They also alarmed the authorities, prompting the state legislature to draft the Mulford Act to ban the open carry of loaded weapons — the law the Panthers would famously protest at Sacramento in May 1967.