Brother Sunship,
You make some interesting points, one especially in regards to some of my own recent thinking, in regards to the "Original" Black Panthers.
So, let me go to Alabama and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization.
http://www.alabamatv.org/alex/studyguides/lowndes.htm
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1103
Again, we are faced with acknowledging Elder Ancestor Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael).
During my recent research it came to me the connection with the Black Panther as a symbol. And this, understanding brother Kwame's own familial roots.
http://myfwc.com/panther/handbook/natural/whatname.html
"The panther is thought to be a favorite of the Creator and to have special powers."
While there are many who speak of the Panthers as a failed movement, they still stand out for their heroic SYMBOLISM, and also for their ACTIVISM for they were no mere armed chair revolutionaries. And, regardless of the criticisms waged against brother Kwame and Eldridge Cleaver, it was the Internationalist faction of the Panthers which developed relations with the Algerian revolutionaries, the Cubans, and the MPLA in Angola, when most other Black "Nationalist" oorganizations in the united snakes threw their support to the FNLA and UNITA, both of which were backed by the Chinese AND the CIA.
The Black Panthers followed a History of resistance and rebellion, and community servie to their Black "Nation" as did Silas jefferson, James Coody Johnson and John Myers, several generations before them. And this rebellion was firmly rooted in the heroic struggles of Diasporic Africans who successfully DEFENDED themselves, and their families against united snakes imperialist aggression.