probablyasocialecologist:

The program, originally coordinated by Ruth Beckford, an Afro-Haitian dance teacher, also caught on nationwide, becoming a core initiative of the party’s Survival Programs. By the end of 1969, the program fed 20,000 children across 19 cities. Its unprecedented success was countered by destructive raids of pantries and party headquarters by police. “J Edgar Hoover was scared of the program because it brought prestige to the party,” Jennings recalled. In an internal FBI memo, Hoover wrote: “The [Program] represents the best and most influential activity going for the BPP and, as such, is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for”. Six years later, in 1975, the US government started offering free breakfast in public schools.