“We Know How You Pigs Operate, We Are Ready for You”: Australian Security Intelligence and the Unraveling of the Australian Black Panther Party

In December 1971 the Black Panther Party of Australia emerged in Brisbane under the leadership of Aboriginal activist Denis Walker.  The Australian Black Panther Party was the most radical product of the Black Power Movement, which had largely appealed to Aboriginal youths from the late 1960s.  From its inception, the American Black Power movement sought to unite African Americans around issues such as police brutality, decrepit living conditions, crime, starvation and unemployment.  Black Power rhetoric proved applicable to an Australian framework, as similar issues were present within Aboriginal communities.  This Aboriginal adoption of the American Black Power movement, paved the way for future forms of radical Aboriginal resistance, including the emergence of the Australian Black Panther Party. 

During the 1960s, racial matters forged complex and confrontational relationships between alternative organizations and established authorities.  The Black Panther Party was no different, as it sought to challenge racial paradigms and mobilize communities.  The Australian formation of the organization raised significant alarm when the group’s key leaders promised greater political disturbances throughout Australia and modeled both its platform and program directly from the Black Panther Party founded in Oakland, California.  Various American scholars have provided examinations of the hostile relationship that existed between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the American Black Panther Party.  Utilizing archival sources, this poster presentation will detail how members of the Black Panther Party in Australia became targets of national security surveillance. 

From 1969 until 1975 the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) traced the rise of the Black Power movement throughout Australia, producing two volumes that specifically detailed the emergence of the Black Panther Party in Australia.  These volumes, released in July of 2006, provide valuable insight into the rhetoric and actions of Panther members but also highlight the government’s concern that the group would take up the violent vanguard of its American model.  During seven years of surveillance, ASIO officials monitored Black Power ‘disturbances’ within Aboriginal communities and sought to document the actions of Black Panther members and summarize their controversial rhetoric.  Photographs, newspaper clippings, manifestos, meeting summaries and university propaganda largely comprised the volumes of material.  The documents collected were analyzed in an attempt to understand the aims of these contentious individuals.  The primary purpose of this poster presentation is to provide a context of understanding the fears that generated Australian government surveillance of the Australian Black Panther Party and initiate a broader discussion of the group’s impact on Aboriginal communities.