THE BLACK PANTHERS’ SCHOOL
This 1977 article from the Pacific News Service, a non-profit alternative news outlet, contrasts the criminal charges brought against some party factions with the growing success of the Oakland Community School. According to the author, the Panther’s education efforts had shifted over time from “anti-authoritarian and inflammatory” to the more traditional and esteemed pedagogy of the OCS. Roberto details the negative publicity surrounding the panthers at the time, who were accused of welfare fraud, murder, and extortion. This violent reputation contrasts with the widely-held community support for the school. Students who transferred from or were kicked out of OUSD schools showed amazing improvements, thanks to class sizes 2-4 times smaller than those in public schools, before and after school child care, 3 hot meals a day, medical care, and overnight lodging when needed, all at an affordable or no cost. While the author and others such as Daniel Perlstein (link) argue that the OCS’ transformation constituted a deradicalization, the simple existence of the school, a model for a less capitalist future with investment in free public education and integration of school and community, is radical in and of itself. Huggins insisted against the notion that Panther philosophy had become less radical, and saw education as a necessary step in the struggle for liberation. According to curriculum coordinator Dr. Bill Moore, the awards and government grants provided to the school represented not an embrace of the system, but an understanding of how to work within it to achieve their vision.
"These people are visionaries without any economic motives," said one observer. "For the sake of that vision they have learned to fit into any structure that exists. They know how to organize, to get projects funded. Whatever it takes."
While most school faculty were party members, unaffiliated staff and parents did not see the school as instilling an ideology, but rather teaching children to make their own decisions.
The success of the OCS highlighted the failures of public schools, which had long blamed students for their own struggles in school, for example, relegating struggling students to special needs classes. The school’s rejection of these ideas is emblematic of their ideology – they understood that the system, deeply rooted in white supremacy and capitalism, was to blame for the struggles that Black Americans faced and continue to face, despite being constantly told otherwise. The school further fought the individualistic capitalist mindset by teaching the importance of helping others above financial gain or fame.
"We do not impress our ideas on these children," Huggins said. "But the education they get here is not just the three R's, either. It is an understanding that there is no more important purpose than to be obligated to other human beings"
It also served as a model for what education could be, with the necessary investments to have smaller classes and more community.
The article hints at the allegations of fraud and the mishandling of funds that would become the downfall of the school.