Were there any Puerto Ricans in the Black Panther Party?

Answer 1

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded by two college students,

Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966 due to constant Police brutality on Black communities in West Oakland, CA. The Black Panther Party included African-American's, Asians and Latinos.

The Black Panther Party did not include any Anglo-Saxon's in their ranks, instead, they asked that Whites organize their own groups and respond to the needs of their own communities. Coalitions were created with the Black Panther Party through groups like The White Panther Party, Rising Up Angry, Young Patriots, Students for a Democratic Society and The John Brown Revolutionary League.

Victor Gomez, who was Latino, joined the Black Panther Party San Diego Chapter in 1968. Carlos Rodriguez was a first generation immigrant from Costa Rica who joined the Los Angeles Black Panther chapter in 1969. He is a retired Fire Chief today. Carlos Perez and John "Juan" Martinez were both early members of the NY Chapter of the Black Panther Party. Ricardo de Leon originally from Panama was also a NY Panther (1968-69).

Miriam Hilliard was a Bay area Black Panther of Native American descent who

joined the Party in its formative years until 1973-1974.

Silvia Perez, a Mexican-American Black Panther Party member worked for the George Jackson Medical Clinic in the Bay area (circa 1971). Julio Lopez was a Puerto Rican Panther in the Oakland Chapter in the early 1970s. Jorge Aponte was a Puerto Rican Panther Captain in the New York Chapter early in the Party's history (1968). Richard Rodriguez, was Puerto Rican and a Southern California Black Panther member (1968-1972). Guy Kurose, Richard Aoki, Michael Tagawa and Lee Lew-Lee were four Asian Black Panthers in the Seattle, Oakland and New York chapters.

Francisco Torres a Puerto Rican Black Panther Party member in New York was accused, tried and freed in the early 1970s was illegally accused again in January 2007 for the same supposed "crime" and was part of the Black Panther San Francisco 8. All charges against the 8 Panthers were eventually dismissed but at a hefty cost to their families, the community and taxpayers expense (2007-2011).

The FBI's COINTELPRO program often accused and fabricated crimes against the Panthers and other radical community groups including White radicals like White Panther Chairman John Sinclare who spent years in prison for smoking a single marijuana joint.

The word Latino is often used to describe an individual who speaks Castilian (Spanish language) and is from the Americas or the Caribbean but "Latino" is not a Race or ethnicity. The word Hispanic was adapted by the Nixon Administrations Census Bureau in the early 1970s to lump all Castilian or Spanish speaking groups as a single Race. This is problematic because it also negates certain Races from receiving equal representation.

There are African, Andean and Asian's in Latin America whose contributions to the continent (North, Central and South) are unprecedented but often marginalized in Western history.