The Infiltration of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (2025) by Kevin Rashid Johnson

The New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP) was cofounded in 2005 by two prisoners, Kevin ”Rashid” Johnson and Shaka Sankofa Zuku aka Zulu Sharod. Its first recruit, who became the party’s Minister of Human Rights, was Hasan Shakur, another prisoner, but known to be innocent, who was executed by the state of Texas in 2006. The NABPP went on to grow and transition through various stages over the years, remaining committed to its founding purpose of continuing the work and legacy of the original Black Panther Party (OBPP). The Party was led theoretically by Rashid and the late Tom Watts, respectively.

In 2004, the year before the NABPP was founded, a political prisoner in Pennsylvania, Mumia Abu Jamal, and former member of the OBPP, wrote a book chronicling his life and experiences in the OBPP titled We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party. In one chapter Mumia talked about how the OBPP had developed such prestige and legend in the Black historical memory that many groups had taken on the Panther name and/or imagery over the years following the decline of the OBPP in the early 1980s. But most of these groups he noted did not know nor study the political line nor history of the OBPP. In several articles written by Mumia during 2005, the same year that the NABPP was founded, he pointed to one group that had taken on the Panther name and imagery and actually did study the history and political line of the OBPP, namely the NABPP.

Over the years that followed, the NABPP experienced many ebbs and flow and advances and setbacks, including a split between the co-founders, leading to a reconstitution of the NABPP as the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party (RIBPP) by Rashid and numerous members who joined him in the split. Zulu Sharod continued to organize under the name NABPP.

Despite the split, the remaining elements of both the NABPP and RIBPP maintained the same ideological and political line of Revolutionary Imtercommunalism aka Pantherism illuminated by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM).

Deeper investigation of conditions and influences that instigated this NABPP/RIBPP split made apparent that sinister forces and wreckers were at play behind the scenes, which many people who witnessed the divide warned was likely the case. Furthermore, study of struggles within China’s own MLM Party during the period of the Chinese revolution, reveals that the very same struggles that the NABPP/RIBPP split over had been experienced within the Chinese Communist Party, and were resolved WITHOUT becoming antagonistic nor splitting the MLM party.

In this light more could have been done in the practice of Unity-Struggle-Unity to resolve the contradictions that arose within and split the NABBP/RIBPP, especially when several RIBPP members that instigated and led the split with NABPP indulged in the very same behaviors after the split that they criticized the NABPP members for engaging in. Also it is possible that subsequent splits within the NABPP could have been avoided with similar principled struggle.

It is our belief that Pantherism represents the most advanced and correct revolutionary line and strategy addressed to the struggles against today’s U.S. imperialist empire and the chaos and anarchy it is unleashing in its efforts to maintain global hegemony against its sub-imperialist rivals.

The aim of this project is to provide a platform through which to unify and advance Panther formations and allied forces under the revolutionary strategy of Pantherism.

So while there may be one, two…many Panther formations, we aim to politically educate and unite them under a single political and ideological line, namely Pantherism.

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!
Kevin ”Rashid” Johnson