“Defend the Ghetto”: Space and the Urban Politics of the Black Panther Party

Founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale as a grassroots organization, the Black Panther Party achieved national and international prominence through their local activities and global ideas. By employing the concepts of spaces of dependency and spaces of engagement, I detail the spatial transformations associated with the evolving political thought of the Black Panther Party. I chart how the four “moments” of the Black Panther Party's doctrine (black nationalism, revolutionary nationalism, revolutionary internationalism, and intercommunalism) are geographically contingent, and argue that these four moments demonstrate, both ideologically and materially, how space matters within the political thought of black radical intellectuals. Despite considerable work within geography in articulating alternative conceptions of race and racism, serious lacunae remain. The concepts associated with black separatism, black radical thought, and, crucially, the Black Power Movement have received minimal attention in the geographic literature. And yet fundamental geographic concepts, including territoriality and scalar politics, are key components of black separatism and black power. I argue that a case study of the Black Panther Party provides insights into the fundamental questions of social justice and public space.