Mark Comfort

Biography

Mark Everett Comfort (February 6, 1934 – November 6, 1976) was a community activist who worked in early Oakland grassroots civil rights movements in the 1960s, before moving to Lowndes County, Alabama. He helped in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Black Panther project in Lowndes County, Alabama with security and self-defense against the Ku Klux Klan. He asked Stokely Carmichael if he could use the Panther name and idea to try to spread it. Carmichael told him it belonged to "the people and he should feel free to use it." With permission, he returned to Oakland and started his own Black Panther project in 1965 called the Oakland Direct Action Committee (ODAC) and was its head. He later found that other local groups liked the Black Panther name as well. He also started clubs for young black males called the Alm Boy Dukes and the Enchanted Maffions.

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