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.

This image of the BPP headquarters at 173 20th Avenue was taken shortly after the BPP vacated the property in 1971. Located on the corner at 20th Avenue and East Spruce Street, this was the chapter's second headquarters and was chosen for its close proximity to the community they wanted to serve. From this building the BPP started a free medical clinic, a busing to prisons program for community members to visit their incarcerated loved ones, ran five different free breakfast programs, and were working to establish a free food bank. Though the storefronts were a requirement from Central Headquarters so that party members would have access to the community, they were also consistent targets of police raids and racist hate crimes. The BPP used military-style operations for self-defense and to resist arrest, building fortifications and stockpiling weapons inside their offices.

Caption information source: https://www.thestranger.com/books/2017/04/12/25068568/ghosts-of-seattle-past-an-exclusive-excerpt-seattle-black-panther-party-headquarters
Caption information source: Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project, retrieved from https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/BPP.htm
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.