Please note!
This fact brief was originally published as an experiment to test the concepts behind fact briefs.
Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of useful information in fact briefs like this one, not all of them reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
Did the Black Panthers develop a national program providing free meals for schoolchildren?
Sunday, October 11, 2020
By Austin Tannenbaum
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YES
The U.S. government established a national school-lunch program to provide low-cost or free lunches at schools in 1946, and twenty years later added a pilot program offering breakfasts. The Black Panther Party, founded in 1966, began to supplement the federal efforts with its own free-breakfast program in Black communities, serving thousands of children in different cities. The breakfast program ran into harassment from the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover, who assailed the program as a propaganda tool as he sought to shut down what he saw as a subversive organization.
The federal government expanded its breakfast program in the early 1970s and permanently authorized it in 1975.
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Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
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