As a high school senior in Sacramento, James Mott cut class to watch the Black Panthers march into the state Capitol in their leather jackets and berets, carrying shotguns.

Mott couldn’t resist falling in behind them, and now he is at the front of the line as the Black Panther Party cranks up to mark its 50th anniversary celebration, beginning with an all-day symposium Saturday at Laney College.

“The Black Panthers were the single greatest effort by blacks in the United States for freedom and self-determination,” he said, as keynote speaker for a news conference Friday at the Oakland Museum of California. The museum will be the site of a three-day conference on the Panthers that will take over the entire 7.5-acre museum compound for three days, Oct. 20-23.

The symposium will coincide with the museum exhibit “All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50,” which will include original Panther berets and rarely seen photographs of day-to-day life among the Panthers, taken by party members. The marquee item, borrowed from Stanford, will be the original draft of the Panther “10 Point Platform and Program” written by hand by party co-founder Bobby Seale.

Seale noticeably absent

Seale, who has written a screenplay about his life in the Panthers, was noticeably absent from Friday’s event. That’s because he is putting on his own 50th anniversary events on behalf of the National Alumni Association of the Black Panther Party, which he says will draw more than 200 Panthers to the Bay Area in October.

Back to Gallery Black Panthers unveil 50th anniversary plans with eye to... 10 1 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle 2 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle 3 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle 4 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle 5 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle 6 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle 7 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle 8 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle 9 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle 10 of 10 Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle



















Also absent was David Hilliard, founding member and chief of staff of the Panthers. He was on the schedule but called in sick. This left it to several later members, led by Mott, who now goes by the name Saturu Ned, 67, and Elaine Brown, 73-year-old former chairwoman of the Black Panther Party. Brown, an activist and one-time presidential candidate, arrived with her right arm in a sling, the result of a much-publicized dustup with Oakland City Councilwoman Desley Brooks, in an Oakland soul food joint. Brown has filed suit against the city and Brooks for $7 million, claiming injuries that required surgery.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf was on hand for the news conference to claim her own link to the Panthers. This is based on the fact that Schaaf is also 50 and is the 50th mayor of Oakland.

“Growing up in Oakland with the Black Panther Party gave me a skeptical eye,” Schaaf began her remarks, later concluding them by declaring October to be Black Panther History Month in the city of Oakland.

There was no specific event that launched the Black Panther Party, but the generally agreed-upon date is Oct. 15, 1966. The one person who does not agree on that date is Seale, who was reached by phone Friday, as his plane landed after a speech at the University of Oregon. Seale said the founding date was Oct. 22, 1966, which was his 30th birthday and the day he and the late Huey Newton finished the “10 Point Platform and Program” for the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (as it was originally called).

Breakfasts for kids

The call to action was to patrol the streets in uniforms of black leather jackets and turtlenecks and berets, but those uniforms and military marches were mostly theatrics, Ned said Friday. The more effective action was to distribute food and medical treatment to the poor. The party launched a free breakfast program for neighborhood schoolchildren.

Soon enough, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called the Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” This only aided the lore, and probably helped with recruiting. At their peak, the Panthers had thousands of members and offices in 68 cities.

Nationwide, the single act that most boosted Panther membership was probably the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1968.

“That was our 9/11,” said Ned. But there was also an assassination two days later and closer to home, the death of original Panther Bobby Hutton, in a shootout with Oakland police. Hutton was 17, and since then, DeFremery Park in West Oakland has been commonly known as “Bobby Hutton Park.” Now the city will officially rename a portion of the park as Bobby Hutton Grove. It will be October April 23, and 500 bags of groceries will be distributed in the community in honor of the Black Panther Party.

16 years with long legacy

As an organization, the Black Panthers lasted just 16 years, from 1966 to 1982, but the legacy is still going strong at 50, and for those three days in October, “people will be coming from all over the world,” predicted Brown. It won’t be for nostalgia. The title of the conference, “Where Do We Go From Here?” suggests the goal will be to recapture that momentum, which was sparked in 1966 and is waiting to be rekindled.

“Without the Black Panther Party, Congresswoman (Barbara) Lee would not be in office and Obama wouldn’t be president,” said Ned. “Our ideology hasn’t changed, the concept of our work hasn’t changed, and now we’ve come full circle.”

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Instagram:sfchronicle_art.