Correction on Panthers and COINTELPRO

Since 1985, we have incorrectly reported that the number of Black Panther Party (BPP) members killed under the FBI’s notorious Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) was 38. Our recent research, while unable to confirm that figure, verified that this government campaign of violence, harassment and disruption led to the killing of 32 Panthers.

Launched in 1956 against the Communist Party, COINTELPRO later took aim at the Socialist Workers Party, Vietnam antiwar protesters, the American Indian Movement and Puerto Rican nationalists, among others deemed “security threats.” Its foremost victims were the Black Panthers, who were subjected to relentless racist state terror. The Feds conspired with police departments around the country and actively collaborated with cultural nationalist groups like Ron Karenga’s United Slaves organization. At the same time, the BPP was infiltrated by agents provocateurs, who inflamed factional divisions within it.

The names of the murdered Panthers are Eugene Anderson, Welton Armstead, Steven Bartholomew, Sylvester Bell, Fred Bennett, Alprentice Carter, Mark Clark, Nathaniel Clark, Frank Diggs, Mark Essex, Carl Hampton, Fred Hampton, John Huggins, Bobby Hutton, George Jackson, Jonathan Jackson, Sterling Jones, Robert Lawrence, Tommy Lewis, Arthur Morris, Samuel Napier, Babatunde X Omarwali, Walter Touré Pope, Sandra Lane Pratt, Alex Rackley, Larry Roberson, John Savage, Zayd Malik Shakur, Joseph Waddell, Robert Webb, Anthony White and Spurgeon Winters.

The main sources consulted were The Black Panther newspaper (Special Issue, 21 February 1970); COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story, a report by Paul Wolf, Ward Churchill, Howard Zinn et al. (2001); and The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther by Safiya Bukhari (2010).