From 7 pm to 9 pm in a combined Where We Live/Education At The Crossroads special - through interviews and archival materials - we bring the voices of Women in the Black Panther Party and a conversation with those they inspired today.

“When many people think of the Black Panther Party today, the image that comes to mind is male-centered and violent: a powerful man wearing the Panther’s signature black beret, with gun prominently in hand. This image has been seared into the collective conscious and appears on thousands of posters and t-shirts. It may be surprising, then, to learn that by the early 1970s the Black Panther Party was two-thirds female.”

As Frankye Malika Adams – who – along with her sister – formed the Mt. Vernon chapter of the Black Panther Party before moving into leadership in the Brooklyn Chapter – put it “Women ran the Black Panther Party pretty much.  I don't know how it got to be a male’s party or thought of as being a male’s party…”

1. A long-ranging exclusive interview with the above-mentioned Dr. F. Malika Adams Johnson …
2. A recent interview with Erika Huggins who formed the BPP New Haven Chapter after her husband, John was killed – a victim of the FBI’s illegal counterintelligence program against the BPP.
3. Safiya Bukhari – who served out of the Manhattan Branch and became a political prisoner on charges related to The Black Liberation Army – interviewing Sister Sheba Haven of the West Coast branch of the Party.
4. Sister Sheba Haven, Recruited into the BPP after high school she was an instructor at BPP Community School.. Following clandestine work she was arrested in 1972 and she served time with other Panther women and 2 Weather underground members.
5. Janet Cyril ran the legendary BPP children’s breakfast program, created educational services for oppressed people;
6. Tarika Lewis – said by Bobby Seale to be the first woman to join the Black Panther party in West Oakland in 1967 at the age of 16.                
7. Angie Dobson – Incensed by the arrest of the Panther 21 in New York Angie joined the Baltimore BPP Chapter after 25 community activists were arrested in Baltimore..
8. Rosemari Mealy – Initially out of the Philadelphia branch – then transferred to New Haven after the trumped up arrests of Bobby Seal and Erika Huggins to help continue the Chapter work and do support work for the trail – while there Rosemari helped found the first free health clinic in New Haven..
9. Kathleen Cleaver – Joined the California Branch in 1967 and shortly after married BPP Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver. Kathleen was  the first woman on the Party’s Central Committee and served as Communications Secretary.

An incredible 1996 conversation between Safiya Bukhari, Assata Shakur and Rosemari Mealy and producer Freddi Smith.

We will be joined in studio by Sister J. Yasmeen Sutton who joined the Queens Chapter in 1969 and keeps the legacy going today.. and two young organizers of the NY City Chapter of Black Lives matter; Autumn Marie who is also a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and BLM organizer, Nakisha Lewis.

WBAI is in the middle of our annual summer fund drive. Where We Live and Education at the Crossroads are proud to offer this special to our listeners for a very reasonable pledge amount. To donate please call 516-620-3602 or go online to give2wbai.org!