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SACRAMENTO CAPITOL PROTEST
Sacramento Capitol Protest

On May 2, 1967, about thirty armed Black Panthers, led by Bobby Seale, walked into the California State Capitol in Sacramento to protest the pending Mulford Act — a bill drafted specifically to disarm the party's police patrols. Seale read the party's Executive Mandate Number One, denouncing the disarming of Black people in the face of racist police terror.

Images of the armed, disciplined Panthers inside the seat of state government flashed across the national media and made the party famous overnight. The protest did not stop the Mulford Act, which Governor Ronald Reagan signed into law that summer, but it announced the Black Panther Party to the country and swelled its ranks.