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The Black Panther Party Newspaper began as The Black Panther, a newsletter founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1967. It was established to promote The Black Panther Party's Ten-Point Program and Platform. It began as a four page newsletter and quickly became a newspaper. The Black Panther Party (BPP) maintained a commitment to community service included various "survival programs" developed by individual chapters that, by 1969, became part of the BPP's national "serve the people program" to connect their commitments to basic social services with community organizing and consciousness raising. The BPP's Intercommunal News Service published The Black Panther Party Newspaper as a critical part of its consciousness raising program.

The Black Panther Party Newspaper is also known as the The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service, Black Panther Black Community News Service, and Black Community News Service, was published by the Black Panther Party (BPP) from 1969-1983. Circulation was national and international. From 1968-1971, The Black Panther Party Newspaper was the most widely read Black newspaper in the United States, with a weekly circulation of more than 300,000. It sold for 25 cents. Every Panther was required to read and study the newspaper before they could sell it. The Black Panther Party Newspaper national distribution center was located in San Francisco, with a distribution team led by Andrew Austin, Sam Napier, and Ellis White. Other distribution centers were in Chicago, Kansas, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle.

An undergraduate student at San Francisco State served as editor at The Black Panther Party Newspaper during the later 1960s. In 1969, two-thirds of BPP members were women.

The Black Panther Party Newspaper is part of a long tradition of African American newspapers. The first African American newspaper, Freedom's Journal, was founded in New York City on March 16, 1827.