When we think about community media, we’re often conditioned to think of second-tier media; newspapers that are free and go to several thousand recipients, — notice, I said recipients, not readers — low watt radio stations that barely cover a few city blocks, or other low-impact forms of communication designed for local distribution. I spent several years as a community media worker, but my experience did not equate with those noted above. Indeed, it was community media, both in name and tone and content and distribution, but its reach was vast and it punched far above its weight.
I speak here of the Black Panther newspaper, [The Black Panther] written, edited, published, and distributed by members of the Black Panther Party, both at national headquarters in Berkeley, California, and in 44 chapters and branches all across the United States and abroad. For those who wish to read detailed accounts of that period, they’re invited to read my book, We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party, put out by South End Press. The newspaper was published for over a decade, a weekly production that, at its height, sold well over 100,000 copies per issue. The average member of the organization spent a considerable amount of time selling the paper every day. When I lived and worked in New York as a member of the party’s Ministry of Information in the Bronx, I can tell you that this activity could last well until the wee hours of the morning, or until bars closed.
The newspaper’s subheading was Black Community News Service, and that it was. For, even though it was a national publication, it published articles written by members of the organization living in Black communities from Boston, Massachusetts to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and while often an article reflected an achievement or a conflict with a state and a local chapter or branch, it also gave notice and voice to Black community members seeking redress or attention to injustice, like poor housing or, far too often, police violence. It did this, mind you, weekly for over a decade, and for the most part until the latter days, without advertisement. I should also note that the staff, true to their socialist beliefs, were unpaid workers who worked to further the revolution.
The newspaper, as colorful in its front page as in its language, provided an important tool to the revolutionary organization. It offered its own perspectives on issues involving the organization, the community at large, and even national and international affairs. It also funded party initiatives by paying office rents and costs for necessary equipment, for example, but it did more. It provided a real-life example of revolutionary resistance, and thus furthered that culture of resistance far beyond the community, and indeed the United States. It provided a consistent voice of anti-imperialism at a time of imperial, genocidal war in Vietnam. It therefore performed a powerful social and political function far beyond the membership of the party. In many ways, its very existence and its regularity served to normalize and institutionalize the very idea of revolution to many, many people over a significant period of time.
This was community media, both reflecting and building a broader revolutionary community. Dr. Huey P. Newton, the party’s co-founder and Minister of Defense, called the paper the party’s lifeblood. It reached out to people, spoke their language, resisted the system, and preached revolution. It brought funds in to build and sustain party programs. It allowed thousands of young Black revolutionaries to reach each other, to teach each other, and became an instrument of broader communal radicalization. It was community media that gave heart and form to a community of revolutionaries. I thank you. From in prison Nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
