Elaine Brown - Involvement With The Black Panther Party

Involvement With The Black Panther Party

In 1968, Brown joined the Black Panther Party as a rank-and-file member, studying revolutionary literature, selling Black Panther Party newspapers, and cleaning guns, among other tasks. Brown soon helped the Party set up its first Free Breakfast for Children program in Los Angeles, as well as the Party’s initial Free Busing to Prisons Program and Free Legal Aid Program.

In 1968, Brown was commissioned by David Hilliard, the current Chairman of the Party, to record her songs, a request resulting in the album "Seize the Time". She eventually assumed the role of editor of the Black Panther publication in the Southern California Branch of the Party. In 1971, Brown became a member of the Party's Central Committee as Minister of Information, replacing the expelled Eldridge Cleaver. In 1973, Brown was commissioned to record more songs by national party Chairman, Party founder, and Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton. These songs resulted in the album "Until We're Free."

As part of a directive by Black Panther Party Chairman Huey Newton, Brown unsuccessfully ran for the Oakland city council in 1973, getting 30 percent of the vote. Brown ran again in 1975, losing again with 44 percent of the vote.

When Newton fled to Cuba in 1974 in the face of murder charges, he appointed Brown as his replacement. The first woman Chairman of the party, Elaine Brown was the Chairman of the Black Panther Party from 1974 until 1977. In her 1992 memoir A Taste of Power, she wrote about the experience:

"A woman in the Black Power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant. A woman asserting herself was a pariah. If a black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the black race. She was an enemy of the black people.... I knew I had to muster something mighty to manage the Black Panther Party."

During Brown's leadership of the Black Panther Party, she focused on electoral politics and community service. In 1977, she managed Lionel Wilson’s victorious campaign to become Oakland’s first black mayor. Also, Brown developed the Panther's Liberation School, which was recognized by the state of California as a model school.

Brown stepped down from Chairwoman of the Black Panther Party less than a year after Newton’s return from Cuba in 1977 when Newton condoned the beating of Regina Davis, the administrator of the Panther Liberation School. This incident was the point at which Brown could no longer tolerate the sexism and patriarchy of the Black Panther Party (A Taste of Power, p. 444). Brown left the United States with her daughter, Erika, and entered psychotherapy to end her addiction to Thorazine.

Brown recorded two albums, Seize the Time (Vault, 1969) and Until We're Free (Motown Records, 1973). Seize the Time includes "The Meeting," the anthem of the Black Panther Party.