User:Eggplantcarm/Free Breakfast for Children

Copied from [[Free Breakfast for Children]]; see that page's history for attribution

*** Not including these edits**** Initiated in January 1969 at a Black Catholic parish in the Bay area—either St. Augustine's in Oakland, California or Sacred Heart in San Francisco—the program became so popular that by the end of the year, the Panthers set up kitchens in cities across the US, feeding over 10,000 children every day before they went to school. After helping establish the free breakfast program in Oakland, party founder Bobby Seale urged all Black Panther Party chapters across the country to do the same. At the program's peak, there were around 45 kitchens run by chapters around the nation.

The Free Breakfast Program became the central organizing activity of the group. The reach and success of the program in so many communities underscored the inadequacies of the federal government's then-flagging and under-resourced lunch programs in public schools across the country. The party used the program to educate children and their families about anti-capitalism, Black pride, and developing revolutionary consciousness. Many of these programs were held in predominantly Black neighborhoods but also served children of other ethnicities. Despite its successes, Federal authorities attempted to discredit and derail the Free Breakfast Program. Among other actions, authorities targeted the party with rumors of poisoned food and raided breakfast program locations while children were eating.

Legacy
The Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast for Children program put pressure on the government and thus contributed to the expansion of federal breakfast programs. Although the federally funded School Breakfast Program for Children was started in 1966, it was only permanently authorized by congress in 1975. In California in particular, the party pushed then-governor Ronald Reagan's administration to create a state-wide free breakfast program.