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Avylee Plaza
Professor Tillard
Civil rights Movement BLST
December 6, 2022
Black Power& Black Panther Party
Looking at the entirety of the Civil Rights Movement, one can see many different pushes
to challenge racial inequality, creating many powerful movements, people, and moments in history. As a result, the civil rights movement is categorized into two distinct periods: the classical
civil rights movement (dating from 1954-1968) and the contemporary civil rights movement.
The Contemporary Civil Rights Movement included movements with a newer perspective, such
as the Black Power Movement. To thoroughly understand the complexity and progression of the
Black Panther Party, a 360-degree perspective of the civil rights movement is necessary. Once
we understand, one can see how essential the Black Panther Party was to the Civil Rights movement and how it all fell apart. To create a total perspective, one must start at the beginning of the
Civil Rights Movement.
The beginning of the civil rights movement is known as the classical civil rights movement. The classical civil rights movement had many chosen martyrs in the South that advocated
for civil rights. One of the most infamous, Martin Luther King part of the founders of SCLC
(Southern Christian Leadership Convention), rose to fame for his touching preachings and hope
to equalize black people and white people by integrating into white society using non-violent resistance. Immediately, some realized that black people exercising non-violence were met with a
brutal force of hatred and abuse from white communities everywhere. Black communities were
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politically and socially being discriminated against and persecuted nationwide. With other leaders seeing this, another opposing concept is formed relative to Civil Rights, where others suggested that Black people don’t have to turn their cheek to the white man and that they should be
allowed to acquire equal rights “by any means necessary” (Malcolm X 1964) Furthermore, the
concept of black nationalism was an influence to those like Malcolm X. This consequently taught
that Black people should try to uplift their communities, instead of integrating with the white
man’s government. This site offered different solutions to the struggle for equality than the nonviolent concept that was so widely accepted before. In February 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated, creating a turning point in history because the founders of the Black Panthers used this to
jumpstart their campaign. Police Brutality had been prevalent at this time, causing the death of
Matthew Johnson. Both murders had brought more fuel to the fire, causing black America to go
into an uproar, directly rioting against white authority.
After this event, more young people crave more militancy and change. Stonely
Carmichael also comes into play concerning the Black Panthers when at the end of a speech in
October 1966, he put his fist up and demanded “Black Power” a phrase that will be said for
decades to come. This revolutionized how black people thought of themselves and acted against
the crumbling pressure of a violent white society.
That same month the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was created in Oakland, California, by two students, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Bobby Seale is the organization's
Chairman, and Huey Newton is the minister of defense. They quickly chose the Black Panther as
their emblem and used this to create a given look and vibe to themselves, a militant, all-black
look, with black shades and natural hair out. In an excerpt from Revolutionary Black national-
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ism, it states, “The Black Panther Party chose the name because the panther is known to be an
animal that never makes an unprovoked attack but will defend itself vehemently when attacked,
and this was symbolic of what the Black Panther Party for Self - Defense stood for ." (Harris) As
they had many critiques on the harmful effects of white supremacy and white infrastructure on
black communities, they sought not only to take a stand politically but to defend themselves if
need be. They released their 10-point case in which they point out the failure of the system to
benefit back communities. “The ten-point platform and program of the Party was as follows: 1 )
freedom or power to determine the destiny of the black community; 2 ) full employment of black
people ; 3 ) an end of robbery by white men of the black community; 4 ) decent housing: 5 ) education that exposes the true nature of the American society; 6 ) the exemption of all black men
from military service; 7 ) an end of police brutality to black people and murders of black people
by police officers; 8 ) the freedom of all black men held in federal, state, county, and city prisons
and jails; 9 ) that black people have the privilege of being tried in courts by juries of their peers
( people from their black communities ) as defined by the Constitution of the United States; 10 )
the possession of land, bread, housing, education, justice, and peace.” (Harris) These were goals
of the Black Panther party, although not all of them were realized; the black panthers did implement systems to help the black community.
The Black Panthers party started as a party to defend black people against police brutality. The Black panthers were based in Oakland, California. According to California law at the
time, civilians were allowed to carry guns on their person as long as it is not concealed. This law
was used to the advantage of the black panther party because it helped the black panther party
intimidate police legally, thus giving them more power over the situation. Police weren’t allowed
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to use intimidation to discriminate and persecute black people anymore because the black panther's party, for self-defense, was present to make sure the person in question knew their constitutional rights and was protected against policemen. In Revolutionary Black Nationalism, Harris
states, “The nature of the social climate was to make policemen, especially Southern white policemen, the main objects of the militancy and violence of the Black Panthers for Self Defense.
This was due partly to the fact that in addition to permitting black people to be flogged, intimidated, and sometimes murdered, they were frequently the perpetrators of such floggings, intimidation, and murders.” (Harris) Black people were in a position where they certainly could not
trust the police, as the police were part of the oppressor. Therefore, the black panthers had their
police patrol established to be able to ensure a decrease in police brutality. Another source confirms this by stating, “The patrol squads had the effect of reducing the incidence of police brutality against black people, but at the same time, the incidence of harassment of Panthers intensified, ultimately leading to a nationwide campaign of repression against them.” (Jones) This
source not only shows that the patrol squads had a positive effect on the black community but
also notes what is marked as the beginning of political harassment against black panthers.
As Black Panthers continued to patrol and defend their communities, police departments
started becoming increasingly aggressive and persistent. Black Panther's attitude towards cops
and the government in power was seen as threatening by police departments. Because of this,
they tried their best to give the Black Panthers a hard time. In an interview, one of the heads of
the LAPD at the time of the Black Panthers described the situation as such “My job was to infiltrate radical organizations and do surveillance because at that time the panther operation was at
high priority to infiltrate and keep a watch on and mainly because the panther party nationally
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had a reputation for confronting police officers.” Police officers were clearly intimidated by the
presence of the black panthers, so much so that they began to heavily interfere with the black
panther's operations. Although the police gave their worst, the black panthers were not in deep
trouble until the FBI watched them. Once they stormed the (California) state capital, the black
panther's history was forever changed.
The Journal of Black Studies highlighted two instances in 1967 because they catapulted
the Black Panthers into “national prominence.” Jones noted, “The first was the disruption of the
California State Legislature by an armed delegation of 29 Panthers on May 2. The Panthers were
protesting the consideration of a bill that would have made carrying a loaded weapon within city
limits a crime. According to the Panthers, this proposed legislation would adversely affect the
Panther Police Patrol… The second major incident occurred on October 28 of that year, when a
Panther Police shoot-out erupted, leaving one police officer dead and Huey Newton wounded.
Newton's subsequent arrest on murder charges became a rallying point for the Black Panther Party, which resulted in national visibility and status.” (Jones) Another source, a Black Panther documentary, agrees with this and adds Bobby Seale's interview to give insight into his memory of
how these instances came about. On May 2nd, when the panthers protested against the gun legislature, they stormed the California state capital as the meeting was in session; the government
then used this to their advantage to essentially trap the panthers by throwing everyone into jail,
including Bobby Seale. Bobby Seale is sentenced to six months in jail, leaving Newton to run the
Panthers independently. A few months into his sentence, Newton visits Seale in jail; Newton is
struggling to upkeep the party, and to make matters worse, they have lost their office. Bobby
Seale recalls him saying, “Well, Huey, when I get out, I'll reorganize everything’ next thing I
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know, Huey is arrested, and he’s also wounded and shot in the side.” (Black Panthers Documentary).With both founding members arrested, the panthers were left up in the air.
This is when another member Elridge Cleaver, who had become a member in early 1967,
comes to the forefront. Although he had a controversial past, he became an essential aspect of the
Black Panther Party as he helped Bobby Seale (after his release) to upkeep the party and heavily
advocated for Huey’s release. Elridge Cleaver was the minister of information; he and his wife,
Kathleen Cleaver, became essential figures in the black panthers. “With Cleaver as a member,
the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense moved forward. He influenced the decision to drop the
" for self-defense" from the name because the Party was now beginning to expand their aims far
beyond fighting police brutality and began to take steps to move towards working on more parts
of their program.” (Harris) He wanted to uplift the Black Panther Party to help out his community. Elridge cleaver brought about a strong defiance while also bringing about many changes within the Black Panther Party. On April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated, leaving the
black community devasted.
In turn, violence and riots made the united states crumble. This was when Elridge Cleaver
decided black America was ready for the revolution necessary to be seen and treated as equals.
On April 6, 1968, Elridge Cleaver brought out, amongst many other panthers, bobby Hutton in
an ambush against Oakland Police. Instead of an ambush, the situation escalated to a full-on
shootout. After police tear-gassed the house, Cleaver and Hutton decided to surrender. Cleaver
and Hutton both put their hands up and stripped down to show they had no weapons. Nevertheless, this wasn't enough for the Oakland Police department, as they proceeded to assassinate
Bobby Hutton. Amongst many shots fired that night, the loss of bobby Hutton had been very dear
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to the panther party because he was the first member of thousands gathered at his funeral, Including marlin Brando. Eldridge cleaver gets charged with the assault and attempted murder of a police officer and was released on the judge's decision that he was held only because of his political
beliefs. When he was released, even more social buzz was created around the black panther party, leading to the peace and freedom party running him for president.During his run, he directly
challenged the “racist pigs” who ran the government. In July of 1968, Huey’s Trial opened, and
thousands were chanting “Free Huey!” and “F*ck the pigs!” but Huey was still found guilty and
sentenced to two-fifteen years in prison. That same November, Cleaver's decision is reversed, but
instead of going back to jail, he secretly goes into exile and leaves the United States for his freedom.
After this event, Bobby Seale became the only leader left. He strategically used the
momentum that the party was gaining to help support the black communities in places it counted,
such as infrastructure. Bobby Seale notes that he had “upwards of 5000 members in 49 cities of
America.”(Black Panthers Documentary) in late 1968 - early 1969. He used this to jumpstart his
first program, free breakfast for children. “One of the programs of the Black Panther Party was
that of providing free breakfast for needy school children. This program started in San Francisco
and Oakland, California, in January 1969.” (Harris) With the success of free breakfast for school
children, they decided to organize other community programs where the government neglected
black communities. This included community programs from a multitude of areas ranging from
clothing drives to medical facilities and schools. For instance, “The Black Panther Party organized and implemented community programs ranging from, as previously mentioned, free breakfast for children programs and free health clinics to free clothing drives. They also led rent
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strikes resulting in tenant ownership of their buildings and led campaigns for the community
control of schools and the police, and the stoppage of drugs, crime, and police murder and brutality. For these reasons and others, the influence of the Black Panther Party spread far beyond actual membership. Not only did the Black Panther Party programs teach self-reliance, but years
later, the government established similar programs such as free school lunch, expanded Medicare
and daycare facilities, and liberalized court procedures for tenant takeovers of poorly maintained
housing.” (Harris) These programs showed a level of social responsibility and showed that the
Panthers were not just a group advocating for militancy, but they were advocating for the people.
With the Panthers being a relatively new organization, the target painted on their backs by
the government could mean not only a setback but the party's termination. Additionally, having
the head of the FBI consistently persecuting and sabotaging your operations isn't exactly easy to
deal with either, especially when whole communities rely on you. J. Edgar Hoover, head director
A specific program of the FBI was now appointed to them; in an excerpt from Journal of Black
Studies by Charles E. Jones, he specifically focuses on how political repression was used against
the Black Panther Party “In the late 1960s, the Black Panther Party was one of several organizations claiming repression at the hands of government officials. Recent releases of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Memoranda describing the activities of COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) lend credence to the Black Panther Party's accusations. One such memorandum indicated that the Racial Intelligence Section of COINTELPRO was established to ‘expose,
disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalists’ (Blackstone, 1975: 30). Public statements made by key government officials in the late 1960s also support these claims of the Black Panther Party.” (Jones)This proves that the government had a se-
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cret hand in the black panther party. Unfortunately, this led to the party’s demise. J. Edgar
Hoover used COINTELPRO to commit acts against the panthers internally and externally to
eliminate the party altogether. “These acts were perpetrated in an attempt to disrupt the Party's
Free Breakfast Program, the operation of its newspaper, and speaking engagements, and to cause
dissension within the ranks of the organization. The Panthers' Free Breakfast Program was the
target of several different covert actions, one of which was the use of anonymous letters sent to
contributors to the program….” (Jones) Evidently, programs within the party were being persecuted. Within the next few months, multiple rates, rates, raid arrests, and deaths happened. The
Political repression by the United States government is apparent, “Previous studies have focused
on particular incidents of political repression such as December 4, 1969, Chicago raid (Chandler,
1970; Clark and Wilkens, 1973), the New York Panther 21 conspiracy case (Chevingny, 1972;
Zimroth, 1974), the New Haven 14 case (Freed,1973), and the FBI campaign to manipulate and
sabotage between the Black Panther Party and "US," a California-based cultural nationalist organization (Karenga, 1976).” (Jones) This verifies that the FBI had deep involvement in the party's operations. Furthermore, it verifies that the government used its power to destroy an important black nationalist movement deliberately, what they perceived as the "number one threat to
the security of the United States.”
Lastly, the corruption of the black panther party’s primary leaders drove the party to the
very end. Because of Bobby Seale’s alleged involvement in the New Haven case, he was indicted
on conspiracy to murder. In the time that this is happening, Bobby Seale then gets arrested for
charges connected to a protest at the Democratic convention. During his trial, Bobby Seale decides to represent himself; due to an unjust judge, Bobby Seale was duck-taped and chained, un-
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able to defend himself on the charges that he had been indicted for. From here on, Bobby Seale
spends three years in jail for contempt. Using the supposed ‘Justice System,’ the government was
allowed to abuse its power to effectively get Bobby Seale, one of the founders of the Black Panther party, out of the way. After this, the black panther party still struggles against the debilitating
power of the racist US government. In a turn of events, in August 1970 after serving three years
of his two to fifteen-year sentence, Huey Newton was finally released after years of Black Panthers heavily advocating for his release. once Huey is released, he expresses a change of ideology and ideology which lead to less militancy. In an interview, Huey Newton expressed how the
excessive use of guns was proving to be more detrimental to the party instead of inflicting good.
Huey Newton decides that he’d like to focus on the community aspects of the revolution. On the
contrary, Eldridge Cleaver suddenly emerged out of self-exile after being in Algeria for two
years. Elridge Cleaver had a black panthers base in Algeria, where he wanted to recruit and teach
the militancy of the black panthers. This introduced two separate ideologies in important figures
in the black panther party. Consequently, tensions arose between Huey Newton and Eldridge
Cleaver. The FBI uses this to it’s advantage, in order to disassemble, the black panther party for
good. “The COINTELPRO eventually intimidated and corrupted all three of the Black Panther
Party's top leaders, Newton, Seale, and Cleaver. Each in their own way caved into the pressures
put forth by the FBI and began acting in a manner that was deliberately designed to destroy the
Black Panther Party and to disillusion not only Party members but African - American people in
general .” (Jones) Letters were sent back and forth from the FBI posing as other people in the
party to the leaders in order to pit them against each other. Two instances when this happened are
“Another attempt by the FBI to divide Cleaver and Newton occurred in April 1970 when the FBI
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sent an anonymous letter to Cleaver in Algeria accusing Panther leaders in California of plotting
against him…Other letters included a letter warning the brother of Huey Newton ( Melvin Newton ) that Cleaver had a plan to assassinate him. As a result of this letter and many other misunderstandings caused by the FBI and their Counterintelligence program, Cleaver was expelled
from the Party .” (Jones) This substantiates the Black Panther's claim that there was repression
and sabotaging done by government officials. Moreover, it demonstrates the lengths that the
government went to use the party’s own leaders in order to break the party apart.
After Cleaver and the international branch of the Black Panther Party were expelled from
the party, the Black Panther Party broke into factions. Some sided with Huey Newton's new
stance of softening militancy and others sided with Elridge Cleavers’ fiery attitude towards government. As a result, many people decided to leave the party. In June 1971, Bobby Seale is released and found not guilty after being arrested in the New Haven case on conspiracy to murder.
As he comes back into power, he finds the population of the party had dropped nearly by half,
and Huey Newton had let an addiction to cocaine take over his mind. By 1971, the party was essentially over, as the FBI considered it “effectively neutralized” by that time. The party did linger
on, but it was not the power structure that opposed the governments of America like it once had
been, it was now left weak and unsupported. By 1974, the party was officially over.
To conclude, the black panther party went about opposing already existing infrastructure
and defending the rights of citizens in a completely unique and different way. Throughout the
entirety of the Black Panther Party, they effectively completed many of their goals and empowered the nation unlike any other movement in history. Judging the party from a new perspective,
the black panther party’s armed aspect actually aided the contemporary civil rights movement by
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showing that non-violence was not the only way and communities do have rights. Those rights
should be able to be exercised no matter what. Although The black panther party did have defects
that caused the party’s demise, the party was one of the most influential and significant black liberation organizations in history.
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(Harris)
Works Cited
Harris, Jessica C. “Revolutionary Black Nationalism: The Black Panther Party.” The Journal of Negro History, vol. 86, no. 3, 2001, pp. 409–21. JSTOR, https://doi.org/
10.2307/1562458. Accessed 18 Dec. 2022.
Jones, Charles E. “The Political Repression of the Black Panther Party 1966-1971: The
Case of the Oakland Bay Area.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 18, no. 4, 1988, pp. 415–34.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2784371. Accessed 18 Dec. 2022.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/1562458
Lords of the Revolution: The Black Panthers Documentary. Dir. Arlitist. YouTube. 23 Oct.
2016. Web. 18 Dec. 2022. <https://youtu.be/EukElITplo4
(Lords of the Revolution: The Black Panthers Documentary)