Recent scholarship is shedding light on the role of women in the BPP and the Black struggle more broadly. Yet until recently, much of their work has been sidelined in historical research and popular media. 2 These women were integral to every aspect of party life, including serving as prominent leaders. Yet at its height-according to a survey conducted by Chairman Bobby Seale in 1969-the party membership was over 60 percent female. To many, the BPP conjures up a hypermasculine image of Black men in leather coats and berets carrying shotguns. She responded, in part: “No one ever asks what a man’s place in the Revolution is.” 1 In February 1970, Kathleen Cleaver, communication secretary of the Black Panther Party (BPP), was asked by a reporter from the “women’s page” of the Washington Post what she thought was a woman’s role in the revolution.
