The FBI drugged Fred Hampton, then shot him in the head while he slept. The next morning, Black Panthers served free breakfast to 50,000 children.

While the federal government was assassinating their leaders, the Panthers kept serving eggs, working to survive and organize while being systematically attacked by the U.S government’s law enforcement and intelligence services.

By 1980, the Party was mostly finished, crushed by assassinations, frame-ups, and infiltration. But for a few crucial years, they proved something that matters for us today: even under lethal state repression, communities could coordinate their own survival and influence political machinations. Though the programs didn’t outlast COINTELPRO, they lasted long enough to prove the models worked.