Safiya Bukhari (born Bernice Jones; April 2, 1950[1]: xxiii  – August 24, 2003[2]) was an American member of the Black Panther Party.

[3] On a sorority trip, she encountered a Black Panther member selling newspapers who asked if she and her friends wanted to volunteer with the Free Breakfast for Children program.

[4] She worked out of the Party's Harlem office, becoming in charge of Information and Communications for the East Coast Panthers.

[5] In 1969, she gave birth to a daughter, Wonda Jones, whose father Robert Webb was killed during the Party's split.

[4] On January 25, 1975, Bukhari was captured after a shooting in Norfolk, VA that left a fellow BLA member dead and another shot in the face.

[6] Even though she had a license to open carry in public, she was charged with illegal possession of a weapon, felony murder, and attempted robbery.

[18] Bukhari was the vice president of the Republic of New Afrika, a provisional government working to form a Black nation composed of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, "states built on the backs of enslaved Africans.

"[19] On August 24, 2003, Bukhari died of heart failure at North Shore University Hospital in Queens, NY.

[21] Her papers became The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison and Fighting for Those Left Behind, published in 2010 by The Feminist Press.