The Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) established its Seattle chapter in the spring of 1968, after Aaron Dixon, Elmer Dixon, Anthony Ware, Garry 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 shows a notice posted on the BPP’s former headquarters at 616 26th Avenue East. In 1970 and 1971, the Seattle BPP was the target of an FBI investigation. As part of the investigation, the FBI requested confidential information from utility companies about this address and another Black Panther owned property at 173 20th Avenue. An investigation by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1973 revealed that the Washington Natural Gas Company and Seattle City Light had provided the FBI with billing information relating to these addresses. Both buildings were seized by the federal government and demolished in the early 1970s.

Caption information source: “FBI got info from other utilities,” by Paul Boyd, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 25, 1973, page A3.
Caption information source: “Black Panther Party Seattle Chapter (1968-1978),” by Linda Holden Givens, HistoryLink, retrieved from https://www.historylink.org/File/20648