BLACK PANTHERS ENTER

CALIFORNIA CAPITOL

On May 2nd, 1967, 30 members of the Black Panthers entered the Californian Capitol holding .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols. Their walk-in was in protest against new legislation proposed by Republican Don Mulford which would ban carrying loaded weapons in public. Prior to entering the Capitol building, Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers, announced: “take careful note of the racist California legislature aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless.”

The Black Panthers, originally called the Black Panthers for Self-Defense, were an African-American political group formed by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in 1966, 6 months before the Capitol event. The Black Panthers argued that the Second Amendment allowed civilians to carry weapons. Guns played a central role in Black Panther ideology, the group asserted “the gun is the only thing that will free us - gain us our liberation”. In Oakland, where the Black Panthers first began, members would carry out their own police patrols in opposition to police harassment. 

Mulford’s proposed legislation against carrying loaded weapons was in response to the Black Panthers. The group’s protest was met with immediate backlash and the Mulford bill was quickly approved and even strengthened, barring weapons from the Capitol unless carried by law enforcement. The Mulford Act remains part of the California Penal Code and is partly why California’s gun control laws are so strict.