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RACE + HISTORY
How a Free Breakfast Became the U.S. Biggest ‘Threat’
If feeding children is wrong, then we shouldn’t want to be right
We never learned about the Black Panther Party in Louisiana’s public schools. But, ironically, the free toast, grits, and orange juice many of my classmates enjoyed wouldn’t be available if it weren’t for the Black Panther’s Free Breakfast for School Children Program. Because of the free breakfast program organized in Oakland, California, by 1969, there were “hundreds of breakfast programs throughout the country.”
Noticing that most students didn’t eat or had never had breakfast before school, the Panthers began to provide free meals for all students in their communities.
While many White people feared the Black Panthers and labeled them as domestic terrorists, years later, it’s clear government officials unjustly smeared their organization. The Black Panther Party never turned away a hungry child, no matter their racial identity or their walk of life. Can White folks in this era say the same?
Black bravery is often mischaracterized as Black terrorism.
As I wrote before: “children who do not eat regularly are at higher risk for chronic illnesses like asthma, anemia, and malnutrition. Focusing on a teacher’s lesson can be exceedingly difficult for hungry children. They are much more likely to display behavioral abnormalities such as anxiety, hyperactivity, and aggression.”
Children need food to learn and grow. But, America’s capitalistic system seems to punish poverty. And, it’s not a coincidence that Black people are much more likely to be poor in this country.“A vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions, and exclusion, separates Black and White America.” That’s why the Black Panthers’ Party had no choice but to address these disparities by creating survival programs.
America’s first FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, described the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense as “the greatest threat to internal security of the country,” in a memo in 1968. However, a lesser-known fact is that Hoover called them a “threat” because they gave free breakfast to children.
