Can White People Join The Black Panther Party? History Says You’re Asking The Wrong Question

Source: Jack Manning / Getty

As videos of armed members of the new Black Panther Party re-emerging in public circulate on social media, a familiar question has begun to float online, especially in white progressive spaces: “Can white people join the Black Panther Party for Self Defense?”

It’s a question that immediately raises a deeper historical one. Not just whether white participation ever existed, but what it actually meant, and what people imagine it would mean now.

The short answer is yes.