The Seattle Black Panther Party Interpretive Center honors the groundbreaking Seattle chapter—the first chapter of the Black Panther Party based outside of California, and the second overall chapter after the Los Angeles chapter. The Seattle chapter was founded in April 1968.

While attending the West Coast Conference of Black Student Unions following the assassination of MLK, students from Seattle found themselves mesmerized during the keynote speech that first night by Chairman Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, who delivered a fiery speech just days after the murder of “Lil” Bobby Hutton, the first member to join the BPP and first panther to die, at the hands of the Oakland Police. After Bobby Seale's powerful delivery.

Seattle activists Aaron and Elmer Dixon, Anthony Ware aka ‘Frank Muhammad’, and others from Seattle made a beeline to Chairman Bobby Seale and emphatically stated that they wanted to start a chapter of the BPP in Seattle.

After attending “Lil” Bobby Hutton’s funeral, the group returned to Seattle. A week later, Chairman Bobby and Minister of Education George Murray, and Captain Demmings from the San Diego Chapter met with over 20 attendees, and Aaron Dixon was appointed as captain, and thus the Seattle Chapter was born. Bobby Seale and the other Panther officials left for the East Coast to launch the establishment of Black Panther Party chapters and branches across the country. The Black Panther Party's impact was immediate and powerful, not just for the young black youth but for Black communities across the country, and impacted a wide variety of communities with the party's broad coalition building with other radical organizations. Their signature uniform of black berets, powder blue shirts, black pants, and black leather jackets was worn throughout the country.

The Party’s strong community organizing, including the launch of its survival program, the Police Alert Patrols, was very effective. FBI leader J. Edgar Hoover launched an attack against the Party, and it was rubber-stamped by President Richard Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell. They declared the Black Panther Party to be the greatest threat to the internal security of America.

Early members forged in the city’s Black Student Union networks and the streets of Seattle and across the Black community —included Bobby Harding, Louis “Lu-Jack” Jackson, Bobby White, Willie Brazier, Welton Armistead, Chester Northington, Kathy “Nafasi” Halley, Kathy Jones, Maud Allen, Mike Tagawa, Rashad “T” Birdsong, Henry Boyer, Mark Cook, Jake Fidler, Leonard Dawson Jr., Asali Dickson, Melvin Dickson, Gwen Dixon, Joyce Redmond, Trolis Flavors, Charles Toliver, Steve Phillips, Wayne Jenkins, Gary Owens, Ron Johnson, Michael Dixon, Sydney Miller, Vanetta Molson, Leathia Stallworth, and many others.

These men and women organized a series of what were called ‘Survival Programs (Pending Revolution)” such as the Police Alert Patrol, the first Children’s Free Breakfast Programs and launched a community-based Free Medical Clinic along with many other survival programs like Free Legal Aid, Free Food Program, Free Bussing to Prisons, and The Summer Liberation School and the dramatic Olympia armed protest in 1969 to resist oppressive gun laws that were aimed at keeping Panthers from legally carrying their firearms in the open.