The FBI released the Black Panther Coloring Book in 1968, in an outlandish and desperate attempt to discredit the movement. Many white Americans already believed that the Black Panthers were violent extremists, and the coloring book was designed to reinforce that bias.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had put the Black Panthers at the top of his very long enemies list. He called the Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal security of this country.”
The coloring book contained controversial images of Black people being kidnapped from Africa, then forming the Black Panther Party and fighting pigs, symbolizing police officers. The Black Panther Party considered the book inappropriate for children and ordered it to be destroyed.
Los Angeles chapter members Larry Clayton Powell and his wife Jean, later discovered to be FBI informants, ignored the orders not to distribute the hateful books, sending out almost 1,000 copies to grocery stores and shops that supported the Panthers’ free breakfast program.
White supremacy will do anything to discredit the Black liberation we rightfully deserve. But we, too, can turn propaganda against our oppressors to create a narrative supporting our best interests.