Kathleen Cleaver- BPM

During the time Kathleen Cleaver came to talk to us about the Black Panther movement, she mentioned a lot of different people who had a great impact at the time of the movement. She talked about Aldridge Cleaver, who was one of the leaders, her husband and the father of her children. She included Bobby Hutton who was also one of the first men to be recruited into the movement. When describing Bobby, she talked about how quiet he was and that he didn’t want the things he did to be publicized for the media to be asking him too many questions. Ms. Cleaver included some stories involving shootouts between members and the police, how people would tell on the group members that were hiding, and also the role different women had in the group.

After hearing these stories, it surprised me that she still remembered everything just like it was yesterday. After a while, someone asked her how she felt about “The New Black Panther” and she they were illegitimate. She said that with power, because she believed they were just copying the name but wasn’t doing the things The Original Black Panther was doing for the black community. Overall, it was a good discussion and I would recommend her to comeback and speak again.

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