Online Petition Demands Winston-Salem Remove Historic Black Panther Party Marker

2:04 PM, JULY 30, 2015
BY WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL

 Former members and current supporters cheered the unveiling of the city's historic marker commemorating the Winston-Salem chapter of the Black Panther Party at the corner of Fifth Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard in Winston-Salem, N.C. in 2012.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — An online petition is asking the city of Winston-Salem to remove a historic marker for the city chapter’s of the Black Panther Party — a sign that the petition says honors a racist and violent organization, according to The Winston-Salem Journal.

Wayne Pearce of Henderson started the petition drive at http://www.change.org , a website that allows people throughout the world to start online petitions for various causes. Pearce’s petition had more than 930 signatures late Wednesday. Pearce couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.

The petition demands that the Winston-Salem City Council remove the sign located at the northeast corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and East Fifth Street.

The petition also mentions a rally two weeks ago in South Carolina in which a leader and members of the so-called New Black Panther Party called for killing white people.

This organization has no relations to the BPP formed by Huey P.Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland during Oct. 1966. The original party initiated by Stokely Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began in Lowndes County, Alabama in 1965 ad 1966.

Newton, Seale and others set up there own Black Panther organizations in 1966.