Black Panther Park in Skyway Becomes First Black Panther Park in the World

The new community garden honors the Black Panther Party’s legacy of food justice and the Skyway neighbors who helped bring it to life.

By Lauryn Bray

On a sunny Sunday earlier this month, at the corner of 75th Avenue and Renton Avenue South, the community gathered for the opening of Skyway’s Black Panther Park. Inspired by the Black Panther’s Free Breakfast for School Children program that compelled the federal government to provide breakfast in schools, Black Panther Park is a community garden—planted, preserved, and protected by the surrounding residents of Skyway.

“When the name got settled on, we knew it was the first,” says Jake Harris, owner of Stone Soup Gardens, a design and installation company and one of the partner organizations responsible for making the vision of Black Panther Park come to life. “We knew in Oakland, there’s a park named after one of the fallen Panthers, and in other cities. In Chicago, there was a park that was dedicated to fallen Panthers, but none are called ‘Black Panther Park.’”