Black Panther Party Museum

About this museum

At 1427 Broadway in Oakland, the Black Panther Party Museum occupies ground that is saturated with meaning. Oakland is the city where Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self - Defense in October 1966, and the museum, operated by the Huey P. Newton Foundation, exists to ensure that the full, unfiltered history of that organization - its community programs, its political philosophy, its confrontations with law enforcement, and its enduring legacy - is preserved and told on its own terms.The Black Panther Party remains one of the most significant and most misrepresented political organizations in American history. For decades, the dominant narrative was shaped largely by FBI surveillance files and hostile press coverage that reduced a complex political movement to a set of threatening images. The museum works to counter that distortion with primary sources: documents, photographs, newspapers, audiovisual material, and artifacts from the organization's active years. The Ten - Point Program, the free breakfast for children initiative, the legal defense work, the community health clinics - the full breadth of what the Panthers actually built in Oakland and across the country is laid out here with the rigor and honesty the subject demands.Visitors who have encountered this museum describe it as transformative, essential, and unlike anything else they've experienced in American public history. That response is reflected in a perfect 5.0 - star rating across 58 reviews - a remarkable and telling endorsement that speaks to genuine emotional and intellectual impact rather than mere visitor satisfaction. Many people leave with a fundamentally revised understanding of a chapter of American history they thought they knew.The museum is open Friday, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday from 10 AM to 3 PM, and is closed Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday. Admission is free - a reflection of the organization's founding ethos of serving the community without financial barriers. Visit hueypnewtonfoundation.org/black - panther - party - museum for more. For anyone seeking to understand the history of American civil rights, Oakland, and the politics of the 1960s and 70s, this museum is essential.