“Panther cubs,” the now-grown children of 1960s Black Panther Party (BPP) members, participated in an open discussion about their childhood and all that they experienced while being raised in Black revolutionary-led households.
In March, British newspaper The Guardian published an article that looked at the lives of nine Panther cubs. Three of these cubs participated in a public discussion with the article’s author, Ed Pilkington, and Guardian Deputy Editor Lauren N. Williams at Brooklyn Public Library’s Center for Brooklyn History on June 12.
The Panther cubs who participated, Ericka Abram, K’Sisay Sadiki, and Sharif El-Mekki, recalled the intense community commitments of their BPP parents. They marveled at how young their parents were, yet able to accomplish so much. And they spoke of the enduring influence of BPP principles on their lives.
Ericka Abram, the daughter of BPP Chairperson Elaine Brown and Minister of Education Raymond “Masai” Hewitt, fondly recalled the bubble she lived in among BPP families in Oakland, California. She said she was never hungry, never felt scared, and never felt unloved. But when her mother left the BPP in 1977, Ericka was sent to attend a private school in Malibu where, in the seventh grade, she frequently got into arguments with her teachers. One teacher got angry with her for sitting quietly while everyone else was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Another tried to teach her that Australia had been founded by pioneers, but when Abram countered that it was founded by prisoners, she was put out of the class.
When asked about the stresses of growing up under government surveillance and having to watch as adults regularly attended the funerals of BPP comrades, Abram replied that she was empowered by her childhood and admires her mother. “When I think about it now her building the Black Panther in Oakland — it’s 80 units of affordable housing for people who pay $300. The floors were made and installed by Black men —— and the windows. I don’t know if all of the things that they lost, the funerals … were worth it. But then I look at the 80 families that are living in this building and that have that opportunity.” Ericka says her mother wants people to copy the model of the Black Panther building in Oakland and help more people access quality housing.
The performing artist/producer K’Sisay Sadiki works as a senior policy associate at the New York Immigration Coalition. She is the daughter of Pamela Hanna and also leads the international campaign to free her father, political prisoner Kamau Sadiki.
K’Sisay recalls a childhood spent attending court cases for BPP members. At one point, during a pause in the trial of Assata Shakur, she played with the political activist. “I spent a lot of time in court, so I spent time playing peek-a-boo with Assata,” she said. “And then my mom and my other auntie, another Black Panther warrior woman, would take another cub cousin and myself to the park or give us other opportunities because they knew that taking their children to court all the time was a lot.
“Even at the time when Assata was playing peek-a-boo with me, she was facing, you know, she was facing life. So that was her moment, and my mom shared that with me; that was the moment when she could feel normal, when we locked eyes. With everything that was happening in her life, she could stop for a moment, and we could connect. I’m 53, and I still remember that.”
Sharif El-Mekki, the son of Aisha El-Mekki and Hamid Khalid, fondly recalled attending a BPP Liberation School that prioritized Black pride. The school formed part of an educational ecosystem led by Dr. Suzette Hakeem and was taught on an indoor porch. BPP members believed in the power of education, the Panther cubs noted, and because they could not trust that public schools would properly educate their children, they took on the task of doing so themselves.
El-Mekki explained: “What made our school unique was that a lot of the things that were discussed were about liberation. Our classrooms were named after African liberation groups. So you started in TANU [Tanganyika African National Union], then you went to ZANU [Zimbabwe African National Union], then you went to PAIGC [African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde], then you went to FRELIMO [Mozambique Liberation Front], then you went to MPLA [Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola], then when you went to the sixth grade there was SWAPO [South-West Africa People’s Organization].”
Being educated in a classroom named after African liberation parties exposed Panther cubs to the struggles and concerns of African people worldwide. That’s what made it harder for the children when they later had to attend conventional U.S. schools.
El-Mekki had to attend a public school when he entered the 10th grade. He said he became angry at the education he received in public schools, and he learned to separate his public school and college life from his BPP community life. He confesses it took him a while to learn how and when to merge both worlds. Today, he works to prioritize the education of the next generation at his Philadelphia, PA-based Center for Black Educator Development (CBED). El-Mekki’s CBED is trying to rebuild a national Black teacher pipeline that focuses on developing Black teachers steeped in BPP-influenced perspectives.