On May 2, 1967, about thirty young Black men and women carried rifles into the California state capitol building in Sacramento to protest a proposed bill to ban carrying loaded weapons in public. The protesters were members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, a group founded to patrol the streets of Oakland. Its founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, said white police departments were not protecting Black people so much as containing, oppressing, and brutalizing them, which is why Black people needed the right to carry weapons.
