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And they were more Pan-Africanist and Black Nationalist/Muslim than Maoist. People vastly overrate how the BPP fit into a Marxist mold while simultaneously underrating how they fit well into a Pan-Africanist and Black Nationalist/Muslim mold. Just because Dr. Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver characterized the org as ML didn't mean the rank and file necessarily felt the same way. Remember, the org only existed because Malcolm X got assassinated and the OAAU and Muslim Mosque, Inc. fell apart because he died. A lot of initial members were basically radical Black Muslims who joined the BPP because they no longer thought the NOI was good because Malcolm X had a very public fallout with the org. They joined the BPP because it was the next best thing after the OAAU/Muslim Mosque, Inc collapsed. They read Marx and Mao, but they didn't really discard their Muslim beliefs that they brought over with them.

I strongly encourage you to hunt down videos and writings by BPP vets and not just people everyone knows about like Newton or Cleaver. Here's a tribute video of Sekou Odinga: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjWCJDTHioQ Notice how you see a lot of vets who are Muslim. There's the Jericho Movement that started as a political movement to free BPP/BLA member Jalil Muntaqim, a Black Muslim who wrote a book more or less advocating for the establishment of New Afrika. There's Dhoruba Bin Wahad speaking at a mosque as a Muslim. And he's not a rando nobody either. He was founding member of the NY branch of the BPP, part of the Panther 21, and part of the BLA. Even Assata Shakur's autobiography had a section where she felt more inspired by Ho and Castro than by Marx and Lenin.