u/geraffes-are-so-dumb

So obviously this isn't a century old, but still cool. This is part of why I really love old houses - finding little stuff like this and getting to think about the history and the people who lived here.

I'm pretty sure this fell out of the attic and in the bathroom wall for us to find during our bathroom reno. The guy we bought the house from was a Black Panther and helped form some of their early initiatives. There are actually some really cool documentaries and long-form interviews with him and some of the other early organizers out there if you want to go down that rabbit hole (and you should because it's such cool history).

Finding this got me looking into the Black Panthers in Oakland again, and a lot of the media coverage is absolutely infuriating. These were kids, literally kids, getting followed not just by police but by the media too, treated like tabloid fodder. All they were trying to do was help their community. Look at their actual charter; they wanted to bring healthy food to the community, create job opportunities, and clean up the neighborhood. They were just asking for a better life and got harassed nonstop for it.

It's pretty wild to find a piece of that history sitting in my wall, and it's really inspired me to try to do little things to improve my community.