Haiti’s Fanmi Lavalas and the Black Panther Party

By Kiilu Nyasha (a.k.a. Pat Gallyot)
This year of 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, October 1966, in Oakland, California.
In 1968, prior to joining the Party, I was employed by Community Progress, Inc. (CPI), the nation’s pilot program of President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” also euphemistically called “The Great Society.”


I became one of the “Field Trainers” deployed in each of the seven impoverished neighborhoods of New Haven, Conn.  Assigned to the predominately Black area of Newhallville, I worked at the Teen Center, a government facility that eventually became the cite for the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program; launched by a town hall meeting and a popular vote.