The Black Panther Party for Self Defense established its Seattle chapter in the spring of 1968, after Aaron Dixon, Elmer Dixon, Anthony Ware, Gary Owens and several other future Panthers attended a memorial service in San Francisco for 17 year-old Bobby Hutton, who had been killed in a shootout with local police. While in Oakland, the Seattle youth met BPP Chairman Bobby Seale, whose subsequent visit to Seattle marked the beginning of the Seattle chapter, one of the first authorized chapters outside of California. The Seattle chapter also lasted longer than most, surviving until 1978.

On February 28, 1969, eight members of the Black Panther's Seattle chapter, carrying rifles and shotguns, protested on the steps of the state capitol against House Bill No. 123, passed the day before, which made it a misdemeanor to exhibit firearms with 'an intent to intimidate others.' The group unloaded their weapons when asked, and chapter captain Aaron Dixon (b. 1949) read a statement to the legislature, then the Panthers left the capitol grounds. That same day, a second, separate delegation of Black activists from Seattle's Central Area met with the Senate Ways and Means Committee, asking that the legislators make changes in order to help the poor and oppressed.

In this image, a Washington State Patrol trooper stands in front of two Black Panther Party members on the steps of the state capitol building.

Caption information source: "Armed Activists Blocked at Capitol," Seattle Daily Times, February 28, 1969, p. 8.
Caption information source: "Seattle Black Panther Party protests gun-control bill in Olympia on February 28, 1969" by Linda Holden Givens, HistoryLink.org Essay 20649.
Caption information source: Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project, retrieved from https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/BPP.htm