Born out of the tumult of the 1960s, the Black Panther Party is usually portrayed as a militant organization with radical political views.
But there's another side to the story of the Black Panthers, one that involved feeding breakfast to poor children, operating an ambulance service for people in neglected areas, screening people for sickle-cell anemia and infusing a spirit of black pride within their communities.
That version of the Black Panther story will be recognized today when city officials unveil a historic marker for the Winston-Salem chapter of the Black Panther Party at the northeast corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Fifth Street, near the group's former headquarters.
The Winston-Salem chapter, organized in 1969, was the first to be formed in the Southeast.
Nelson Malloy, an early member of the party who later became member of the Winston-Salem City Council, said he never imaged the Panthers would be recognized in such an official capacity.
"But we are, in fact, part of the city's history," he said.
Mark Maxwell is the chairman of the city's 12-member Historic Resources Commission that selects historic markers.
Most members of the commission were familiar with the violent past of the national Panther Party, Maxwell said.
But once they learned of the local Panthers' positive impact on the community, their views shifted, she said.
"We felt we had an organization that had a story," Maxwell said.
City Council Member Derwin Montgomery suggested the marker, and a city intern helped organize the application, said Leslie Pegram, the historic resource officer for the Historic Resource Commission.
The commission usually has funding to mark two historic sites each year, she said. The Katie B. Reynolds Memorial Hospital, a segregated hospital that served the black community, received a marker earlier this year.
Montgomery said that the local Panther movement came at a time when many blacks distrusted the police.
"You had some who chose a passive stance, the nonviolent approach, and those who chose the Malcolm X or Black Panther Party approach," he said. "We recognize much from the nonviolent portion of the movement but there are also positive things that came out from the other side as well."
But the local Panthers were not averse to violence or the threat of violence. In 1971, they exchanged gunfire with Winston-Salem police near their headquarters when police arrived to investigate a stolen truck. They also threatened to use violence if a local woman, who had been evicted, was not allowed to return to her home on Locust Street.
A 1970 newspaper photo showed a young, solemn-faced Larry Little, his hands gripping a shotgun, standing sentry behind the woman.
That confrontation ended peacefully after someone agreed to pay the woman's rent.
Little, a longtime professor at Winston-Salem State University, also served on the city council.
He and Malloy are scheduled to speak at today's program, which begins at 3 p.m.
The social awareness that Malloy gained as a member of the party has served him and other former Panthers in the years since the local group dissolved in 1977.
"It allowed us to continue our dedication to the community and to be agents of change," Malloy said.
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