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Scroll through, read the story, comment your answers and follow the prompts in this lesson inspired by the work of Oakland's own Black Panther Party (BPP) and their solidarity with the United Farm Workers (UFW).

🍏🍎Educators may scroll to bottom for a pdf lesson plan.

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Photo: Sign marking Oakland breakfast site from PBS

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Black Panther Party Free Breakfast Program Blurb

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1) This document was written in 1980, are these points still relevant today?
2) Do these point only affect black people? Explain why?
3) What issues remain a problem today?
Comment your answers below.

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Write three demands that reflect the needs in your community. You can make up your own new point and/or update demands from the Black Panther Party. Comment 1 or 3 of your demands below.

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The story of the alliance between BPP and UFW in West Oakland 🍇:

The United Farm Workers (UFW) formed in 1965 in the San Joaquin Valley of CA as a result of a series of strikes by Filipino and Mexican farmworkers led by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong, and Philip Vera Cruz. Over 2,000 farmworkers were demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage. Beyond fair compensation, farmworkers experience hazardous working conditions including heat stress, injuries, lack of field sanitation, and exposure to toxic chemicals from the use of pesticides and fertilizers.

To bring national attention to their strike and put pressure on the growers and state government to answer the demands of the Mexican and Filipino farmworkers, the UFW embarked on a 300-mile march from Delano to the state’s capitol of Sacramento. Once grape harvest season drew to a close, the UFW used a different protest tactic: they sent two workers and a student activist to follow a grape shipment from one of the picketed growers to its destination at the Oakland docks where they successfully persuaded the International Longshoremen’s Union not to load the shipment of grapes resulting in the spoilage of a thousand ten-ton cases of grapes left to rot on the docks. 💸💸

This event inspired the UFW to launch a boycott against two of the largest corporations involved in the Delano grape industry. The UFW called upon Americans to show their support by refusing to buy lettuce and grapes and Cesar Chavez reached out to civil rights groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Black Panther Party (BPP). To support the UFW, BPP members marched outside the Safeway store at 27th and West Street in Oakland telling customers not to buy their grapes, wine or other grape products. They succeeded in closing this store in west Oakland, which had been given fair warning; Cesar Chavez wrote the CEO of Safeway in February 1969, "Blacks, Filipinos, and members of all minorities will express their solidarity against all oppression by joining their neighbors in supermarkets other than Safeway."

The strike lasted 5 years and by 1970 the UFW had succeeded in signing their first union contract with these grape and lettuce growers, affecting over 10,000 farmworkers in California at that time. The organizing strategies of the UFW was effective perhaps because they directed their protest tactics across the food chain: at the production end where farmworkers were striking in the field, at the distribution level where the Longshoremen refused to unload the shipment of grapes, and at the consumer end where groups like the BPP were telling consumers to boycott grapes.”

Learn more about these alliances from Lauren Araiza’s book, “To March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers” published in 2013 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Emory Douglas' Art on the BPP Weekly Publication by Huey P Newton 1972

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IMAGE: Art by Emory Douglas Black Panther Party Minister of Culture

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IMAGE: Art by Emory Douglas Black Panther Party Minister of Culture

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Pick one of the demands you made and create a poster or postcard that communicates the demand or highlights the issue! Use your own artistic talents to draw images that represent your topic or use this super dope resource from Just Seeds to download graphics made by artists from around the world.
Submit your poster for our gallery by emailing education@plantingjustice.org with the subject line "poster" and remember to cc your teacher for credit!

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Make a fruit salad including grapes in honor of the alliance between UFW and Black Panther Party. Avoid berries from Discoll, a company known for fighting unions and promoting abusive practices.

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Original BPP Chants

1:“No more brothers in jail” “off the pigs!”

2:“The Pigs are Gonna catch Hell” “Off the Pigs!”

1:“No More pigs in our community” “off the Pigs!”

1:“Black is Beautiful!” “Free huey!”

2:“Set our warrior free!” “Free Huey!”

Remixed BPP Chants

1:“No more junk in our community” Free the land!

1:“Brown is beautiful” Free the Land!

2:“Set our mother free” Free the Land!

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Print or provide .pdf of 10 Pt. Program Handout (above)
Prepare art supplies or for online learning provide link to Just Seeds downloadable graphics. If in person consider purchasing prints from Just Seeds, Dignidad Rebelde or your favorite local artist as examples and inspiration to use for this workshop.