The name originates from a SNCC-run voting campaign in Lowndes county, Alabama, in which an organization known as the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LFCO) attempted to establish themselves as an independent political party to rival the all-white Dem ocrat party . Many people in the county were illiterate, so both parties had to come up with mascots to differentiate themselves. The Dems picked a white rooster, and the LFCO picked a black panther, which according to LFCO chairman John Hulett, "is an animal that when pressured moves back until it is cornered, then it comes out fighting for life and death. We felt we had been pushed back long enough and that it was time for Negroes to come out and take over."
The imagery of the Black Panther became so powerful that Stokely Carmichael began to promote it as a symbol for the entire Black Power movement across America, but it wasn't until a pamphlet about voter registration in Alabama reached a young Huey Newton at the UC Berkeley campus that the name began to describe what we know today as the Black Panthers. Basically, he saw the logo, was impressed and inspired by what it stood for and what had been accomplished under its banner, and essentially adopted it for his and Bobby Seale's new group in Oakland.