Black Panther Women’s Organizing in Baltimore
This post is part of our forum on the Urban Rebellions of the 1960s
“So, what is it that I can do? Because I want to be a part of this, the Panther Party. What do I have to do?” Connie Felder asked then Baltimore Panther Lieutenant of Information Steve McCutchen in 1969. Felder was 19 years old, a community college student in business administration, when she came across a red Black Panther Party leaflet in her West Baltimore neighborhood, so she walked all the way to the Party’s East Baltimore offices to find out more. Lieutenant McCutchen remembers Felder’s presence at a political education class that January, asking “questions that would have put seasoned reporters to shame.” By 1970, Felder became Communications Secretary for the Baltimore branch.
Historian Robyn C. Spencer names multiple reasons why women joined the Black Panther Party in Oakland including police brutality, segregation, and educational and workplace inequities occurring in their own communities. Many joined organizations of the time like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Nation of Islam (NOI), or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), only to be disappointed with the rigidity of hierarchical gender roles in organizations like the NOI. Some women’s families had long histories of activism. Still, others were attracted to the Party’s platform, its organized structure, and its openness, which allowed women a space to carve out a place for themselves. The Party had over 40 branches and chapters in cities across the country, and each branch and chapter was shaped by local history and context.
Unearthing what compelled women to join the Party in specific branches and chapters is important for understanding how local context shaped implementation of the Party’s platform. When we name what motivated women to join the Party in cities like Baltimore, we expand on the limited literature on the women of the Baltimore branch of the Black Panther Party, solidify Baltimore women’s place in the historical record, and deepen our knowledge of Black women’s radicalism.
The Baltimore branch of the Black Panther Party was founded in 1968, and the majority of the Party’s recruits were Baltimore natives and products of working-class families. Felder, born and raised in Southeast Baltimore, was the daughter of a Bethlehem Steel worker and a Baltimore City Hospital employee. Nkenge Touré grew up in Lafayette Courts in East Baltimore, raised by a single mother. Many of Baltimore’s recruits were in their late teens or early twenties, while those nationally were “more varied in age.” Touré was one such 17-year old, a member of the Eastern Eight, a group of high school students that led protests for Black education in Baltimore schools, which led to her eventual arrest. She states that the Eastern Eight was a “pivotal moment that organized a lot of students in Baltimore,” and many of them joined the Panthers. Lieutenant McCutchen remembers their arrival at the branch’s political education classes, asking questions, wanting to move papers, and bringing a “fresh breath” to the branch.
Like Panther women in Oakland, some Baltimore women joined other organizations before their Party membership. Both Nana Njinga (Conway) Nyamekye and Touré were members of the West Baltimore-based Black cultural nationalist organization, Society of United Liberators (SOUL) School.
The SOUL School focused on education, hosting classes in Black history, philosophy, and politics, attempting to combat a system which had failed the Black community. However, the SOUL School did not have a clear program for membership and self-determination. While Black women like Oblate Sister Judith taught classes and participated in programs, the School did not put women in leadership positions. Touré remembers that “the Panthers and the SOUL School were kind of in a struggle for the hearts and minds of us students,” with both Nyamekye and Touré ultimately becoming Panther members. Nyameke cites her attraction to the Party because of its ability to “teach me about myself and the plight of Black people…[a] group dedicated to moving the Black community forward,” while Touré attributes her decision to the Ten-Point Platform and community programs.
Baltimore men, similar to Panther men nationally, came from military families or were military veterans, which brought the Party “much needed knowledge of and access to firearms.” Baltimore Panther Lieutenant of Security Eddie Conway, Field Lieutenant Zeke C. Boyd, Irving “Ochika” Young, Communications Secretary Jackie Powell, and eventual Defense Captain Paul Coates were all military veterans themselves [Paul Coates, interview by author, March 30, 2017]. Lieutenant Conway defected from the U.S. Army after seeing photographs in the newspaper of Black women facing down police during riots in New Jersey [Eddie Conway, interview by author, February 10, 2017]. Others, like Lieutenant McCutchen, were young men trying to avoid the draft. In contrast to their counterparts in Oakland, Baltimore Panthers never patrolled or monitored the police because of a Maryland law prohibiting open carrying of guns; however proper use and handling of firearms was still a critical element of Baltimore Panther militancy regardless of gender.
While Baltimore men’s experiences as veterans may have shaped their entry into the Party, as scholar Ashley Farmer explains, “Panther women’s resiliency in the face of repression impressed their contemporaries and brought more women into the organization.” Angie Hatten was one of those women. Hatten describes herself as a longtime “strong supporter” of the Party, working at a bar up the street from the Baltimore offices, encouraging all of her customers to buy the Panther newspaper. Hatten was in New York during the trial of the Panther 21 where she met Afeni Shakur. Hatten recalls: “When I came back [from] New York…I knew I was going to join the organization” 1. Lula Hudson, then 21 years old, was also persuaded to join the Party by Panther acts of defense, particularly citing the death of Chicago Panthers Chairman Fred Hampton and Mark Clark as impetus for her Party membership.
Similarly, Baltimore Panther women understood the militancy necessary to defend the Party’s survival programs. As Hudson explains, “the Panthers were risking their lives to institute relevant social programs.” Hatten echoed Hudsons’s words, naming the Party’s commitment to the community: “That was the organization that I actually [saw] in the community doing something and that’s what drew me there” [Angie Hatten, interview by author, October 11, 2017]. In addition, Felder names her belief in the Party in opposition to non-violence: “Dr. King had come to Baltimore to lead a march…he was talking about turning the other cheek. I just couldn’t go for that. If someone hit [me] I wasn’t going to turn the other cheek and let him hit me again…I wasn’t going to do that…I had to be true to me.” Baltimore women embodied the militancy they articulated. Shortly after Hatten joined the Party, she participated in a protest against unfit medical conditions at the Maryland State Penitentiary where she was arrested alongside other Panthers [Angie Hatten, interview by author, October 11, 2017]. Touré and Felder were stationed inside Baltimore headquarters for three weeks during the spring 1970 police siege on the breakfast program. From the outset, Baltimore women understood what was required of them to enact the “Panthers’ call for self-defense and community control.”
Baltimore women Hatten and Hudson, like their peers across the country, were moved to join the Party by Panther acts of militancy in defense of the Party, particularly by women like Afeni Shakur. While some such as Nyamayeke and Touré had a history of organizing at the SOUL School and with the Eastern Eight, ultimately the Party’s platform and commitment to the community compelled them to choose the Party. From the beginning, Baltimore women like Felder and Hudson understood the “everyday acts of militancy” that were required of them to defend the Party’s survival programs and their communities. Together Baltimore women like Felder, Hatten, Hudson, Nyamekye, and Touré joined the Black Panther Party, and in doing so, linked themselves to a long history of Black women militantly organizing for survival of their comrades and their communities.
- Angie Hatten, interview by author, October 11, 2017 ↩
