An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

challenge the assumed authority of the police, who continue to terrorize
Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. As a young college student, I
loved the Black Panthers too. I, too, admired their use of guns and that they
directly challenged the police state. I also admired their commitment to
class struggle and their critique of racial capitalism. Shit, I still admire
them! They continue to be one of the most studied radical groups during the
era of Black Power. 50 What I didn’t initially notice was their engagement
with Indigenous peoples’ movements.
In spite of their many faults, including male chauvinism and patriarchy,
they demonstrated solidarity with a variety of groups in fantastic fashion.
They showed solidarity with poor and working-class whites, the Brown
Berets, the gay and lesbian movement, and Palestine. They also showed this
solidarity with Indigenous peoples. Their many acts of solidarity were
rooted in their Black internationalist and Marxist-Leninist philosophy of
global class struggle and the fight for racial justice. Their solidarity in
covering Indigenous struggles in their newspapers should not be taken
lightly, especially when we consider how difficult it was for Native people
to receive coverage in most non-Indigenous newspapers.
The Black Panthers’ media organ, the Intercommunal News Service,
covered a number of struggles in the US and around the world, from the
murder of young Black men to the happenings in Vietnam. And the news
was enhanced by the artwork of the revolutionary artist Emory Douglas.
By the mid-1970s, the Black Panthers were in decline. Having suffered
assassinations, imprisonment, and exile, they began to rebrand and focused
more on their community efforts, as well as on issues close to home. As
they were declining in relevancy, the Native struggle continued, and the
Black Panthers supported those struggles.
For example, in 1974, Elaine Brown, who became the chairperson of the
Panthers after Huey Newton fled to Cuba after facing a murder charge,
attended a rally in Custer, South Dakota, to protest the extradition of
American Indian Movement member Dennis Banks. Standing in front of the
crowd, Brown stated, “The Black community of Oakland, I am certain, will
become more involved in the issue of Dennis Banks.” She also noted the
connections between Black and Indigenous struggles. “Not only did they
come here and rip off this country from the Indian people,” she said, “they
also ripped off our territory and brought us here to work for them.” By
acknowledging that Africans forced to come to the Americas originally had