Feb. 21, 1968: 56 years ago, Feb 21 1967, Betty Shabazz arrived in San Francisco for her [...]
56 years ago, Feb 21 1967, Betty Shabazz arrived in San Francisco for her first public speech since the murder of her husband Malcolm X. She was escorted by an armed phalanx of 14 men from two different new organizations, both called the Black Panther Party
Shabazz had been invited to San Francisco for a three-day memorial to Malcolm X in Hunters Point that was organized by the Black Panther Party of Northern California, an armed group affiliated with the local chapter of the Revolutionary Action Movement
https://t.co/SyLmkmGvYV
The BPPNC was led by Roy Ballard, who had previously been a leader of the Ad Hoc Committee to End Discrimination, a major early 1960s civil rights group that led successful sit-ins against racist hiring practices at Bay Area businesses
https://t.co/W5U4upEiUA
Ballard, who feared potential violence, approached another local group with the same name about forming an armed escort for Shabazz: the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, led by young radicals who had recently split from a RAM-affiliated student group
https://t.co/vgau4Uqe1A
The BPPNC and the BPPSD were just two of numerous groups using the Black Panther Party name in the Bay Area at the time. Black Power activist Mark Comfort introduced the name to Oakland after borrowing it from SNCC’s Lowndes County Freedom Organization
https://t.co/aXVpF4TS4V
The escort was also co-organized by Eldridge Cleaver, a newly famous Black radical intellectual who had just been released after 8 years in prison, where he had written the bestselling Soul On Ice. Cleaver hoped to re-found Malcolm X’s defunct Organization of Afro-American Unity
Although the action had been planned by Ballard and the BPPNC, when the openly armed and uniformed Panthers arrived at SFO, Huey Newton and the BPPSD quickly took charge, leading the delegation into the airport and ignoring the instructions of police and airport officials
The Panthers escorted Shabazz into a 6-car convoy that took her to the offices of Ramparts Magazine, a left-wing publication at which Cleaver was a columnist. There, an altercation broke out between the Panthers and newspaper photographers who were trying to enter the office
Police moved in during the confusion, demanding the Panthers disarm, which Newton refused to do. After a tense standoff, the police backed down. Deeply impressed, Cleaver told Newton, “You’re the baddest motherfucker I’ve ever seen!” Cleaver joined the BPP shortly thereafter
The Shabazz incident left a deep rift between the two Black Panther Parties, especially after word got out that Ballard’s group had carried unloaded weapons. The BPPSD forced the BPPNC to cede the name. By Spring, Ballard was working instead with the Haight-Ashbury’s Diggers
