Free Breakfast for Children

Common card · No. 348043

The Free Breakfast for School Children Program, or the People's Free Food Program, was a community service program run by the Black Panther Party that focused on providing free breakfast for children every morning before school. The program began in January 1969 at Father Earl A. Neil's St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, located in West Oakland, California and spread throughout the nation. This program was an early manifestation of the social mission envisioned by Black Panther Party founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, along with their founding of the Oakland Community School, which provided high-level education to 150 children from impoverished urban neighborhoods. The breakfasts formed the core of what became known as the party's Survival Programs. Inspired by contemporary research about the essential role of breakfast for optimal schooling and the belief that alleviating hunger and poverty was necessary for Black liberation, the Panthers cooked and served food to the poor inner city...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Black Panther Party, American, 1966 - 1982, Public domain