Panther Voter Registration Drives
Oakland Survival Week food giveaway, Courtesy of Stamford University Special Collections
By the summer of 1974, Black Panther Party (BPP) chapters across the country had made adjustments to achieving its 10 point platform yet remained ardently anti-capitalist and convinced that the united power of lower caste people could crush capitalism. The BPP decreased their demonstration of militancy and increased grassroots community activism such as feeding the hungry and registering voters. The Oakland chapter leveraged survival events to attract large crowds of hungry voting age citizens and raise their consciousness about the importance of being registered to vote and voting. Oakland BPP efforts added 30,000 new voters to the roles. In 1974 panthers Bobby Seale ran for mayor of Oakland and Elaine Brown ran for an open seat on the Oakland city Council. Both candidates lost but had a respectable showing in the races that inspired other Panthers to run for public office.
