Black Panther Party Free Breakfast for School Children Program The 1960’s was a time in the United States where many children from all areas would help their fathers or mothers with work while going to school at the same time, some days, without having enough time to even eat. In various cities in California, such as Oakland and Los Angeles, there would be children that would come to school with empty stomachs. The meal privileges and programs that most students have now and take for granted, did not exist during these times. However, in 1969, a revolutionary black nationalist group known as the Black Panther Party, took the initiative and created a measure known as the Free Breakfast for Children Program in order to make sure that children were …show more content…
The Panthers created certain programs in order to protect and help members of low income communities. Their Free Breakfast for School Children program, was one of their most famous programs which they created and led throughout the state of California and other locations as well. The primary participants in the program were mainly children of African American descent of low socioeconomic status all around the country, which would range from a “handful of kids in an Oakland church, to serving over 10,000 a day before they went to school (Robertson, 2016). It is believed that the Black Panther Party fed about 1,200 Los Angeles students every week as well as 300 students from the state of New Orleans (Robertson, 2016). This program could not have been as successful as it was without the help of the communities where they were located. For example, the St. Augustine's Church in Oakland, California was the host of the very first Free Breakfast for Children Program. Churches were the favored locations to hold these programs because of their immense capacity to hold people and the availability of kitchens to prepare hundreds of meals each day. It does not seem as