Supporting standards comprise
35% of the U. S. History Test
9 (D)
Supporting Standard (9)
The student understands the impact of the
American civil rights movement.
The Student is expected to:
(D) Compare & contrast the approach taken by
some civil rights groups such as the Black
Panthers with the nonviolent approach of
Martin Luther King Jr.
Black Panther Party
founders Bobby
Seale and Huey P.
Newton standing in
the street, armed
with a Colt .45 and a
shotgun.
The Black Panther Party or BPP (originally the Black Panther Party
for Self-Defense) was a black revolutionary socialist organization
active in the United States from 1966 until 1982. The Black Panther
Party achieved national and international notoriety through its
involvement in the Black Power movement and U. S. politics of the
1960s and 1970s.
Founded in Oakland, Ca., by Huey Newton and Bobby
Seale on October 15, 1966, the organization initially set
forth a doctrine calling primarily for the protection of
black neighborhoods from police brutality. The pair
was inspired by the success of the Lowndes County
Freedom Organization & Stokley Carmichael’s calls
for separate black political organizations, they wrote
their initial platform statement, the Ten-Point
Program.
Ten Point Program
The original "Ten Point Program" from October, 1966 was as follows:
1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black Community.
2. We want full employment for our people.
3. We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our black Community.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent
American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in
the present-day society.
6. We want all black men to be exempt from military service.
7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black
people.
8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons
and jails.
9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their
peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of
the United States.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our
major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout
the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate
for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.
With the help of Huey’s brother Melvin, they decided on a uniform
uniform of
of
blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets, and
openly displayed loaded shotguns. (In his studies, Newton had
discovered a California law that allowed carrying a loaded rifle or
shotgun in public, as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at
no one.) From the beginning, the Black Panther Party’s focus
focus on
on
militancy came with a reputation for violence. Carrying weapons
openly and making threats against police officers, for example,
chants like “The Revolution has come, it's time to pick up the gun.
Off the pigs!,” helped
helped create
create the
the Panthers’ reputation as a violent
organization.
The leaders of the organization espoused socialist and Marxist doctrines;
however, the Party’s early black nationalist reputation attracted a diverse
membership. The Black Panther Party’s objectives and philosophy
expanded and evolved rapidly during the party’s existence, making
ideological consensus within the party difficult to achieve, and causing some
prominent members to openly disagree with the views of the leaders.
The organization’s official newspaper, The Black Panther, was first
circulated in 1967. Also that year, the Black Panther Party marched
on the California State Capitol in Sacramento in protest of a selective
ban on weapons. By 1968, the party had expanded into many cities
throughout the United States, among them, Baltimore, Boston,
Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Los
Angeles, Newark, new Orleans, New York City, Omaha, Philadelphia,
Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, & Washington D. C.
Peak membership was near 10,000 by 1969, and their
newspaper, under the editorial leadership of Eldrigde Cleaver,
had a circulation of 250,000. The group created a Ten-Point
Program, a document that called for “Land, Bread, Housing,
Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace,” as well as exemption
from conscription for black men, among other demands. With
the Ten-Point program, “What We Want, What We Believe,”
the Black Panther Party expressed its economic and political
grievances.
Gaining national prominence, the Black Panther Party became an
icon of the counterculture of the 1960s. Ultimately, the Panthers
condemned black nationalism as “black racism” and became more
focused on socialism without racial exclusivity. They instituted a
variety of community social programs designed to alleviate poverty,
improve health among inner city black communities, and soften the
Party’s public image.
The Black Panther Party’s most
most widely
widely known
known
programs were
programs
were its
its armed citizens’ patrols to
evaluate behavior of police officers and its Free
Breakfast for Children program. However, the
group’s political goals were
were often
often overshadowed
overshadowed by
by
the supposed criminality of members and their
confrontational, militant, and violent tactics
against police.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called
called the
the party
party “the greatest threat to
the internal
the
internal security
security of
of the
the country,”
country,” and he supervised an extensive
program of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, police harassment, and
many other tactics designed to undermine Panther leadership,
incriminate party members and drain the organization of resources
and manpower. Through these tactics, Hoover hoped to diminish the
Party’s threat to the general power structure of the U.S., or even
maintain its influence as a strong undercurrent.
Angela Davis, Ward Churchill, & others have alleged that federal, state and local
law enforcement officials went to great lengths to discredit and destroy the
organization, including assassination. Black Panther Party membership reached a
peak of 10,000 by early 1969, then suffered a series of contractions due to legal
troubles, incarcerations, internal splits, expulsions and defections. Popular
support for the Party declined further after reports appeared detailing the group’s
involvement in illegal activities such as drug dealing and extortion schemes
directed against Oakland merchants. By 1972 most Panther activity centered on
the national headquarters and a school in Oakland, where the party continued to
influence local politics. Party contractions continued throughout the 1970s; by
1980 the Black Panther Party comprised just 27 members.
Panther slogans and iconography
spread. At the 1968 Summer
Olympics in Mexico City, Tommie
Smith & John Carlos, two
American medalists, gave the black
power salute during the playing of
the American national anthem. The
International Olympic
Committee banned them from the
Olympic Games for life. Hollywood
celebrity Jane Fonda publicly
supported Huey Newton and the
Black Panthers during the early
1970s. She and other Hollywood
celebrities became involved in the
Panthers’ leftist programs.
There is considerable debate about the impact that the Black Panther
Party had on the greater society, or even their local environment.
Author Jama Lazerow writes: “As inheritors of the discipline, pride,
and calm self-assurance preached by Malcolm X, the Panthers
became national heroes in black communities by infusing abstract
nationalism with street toughness—by joining the rhythms of black
working-class youth culture to the interracial élan and effervescence
of Bay Area New Left politics. . . . In 1966, the Panthers defined
Oakland’s ghetto as a territory, the police as interlopers, and the
Panther mission as the defense of community. The Panthers’ famous
‘policing the police’ drew attention to the spatial remove that White
Americans enjoyed from the police brutality that had come to
characterize life in black urban communities.” In his book Shadow of
the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in
America journalist Hugh Pearson takes a more jaundiced view,
linking Panther criminality and violence to worsening conditions in
America’s black ghettos as their influence spread nationwide. There
is considerable debate about the impact that the Black Panther Party
had on the greater society, or even their local environment.
Significant disagreements among the Party’s leaders over how to confront
ideological differences led to a split within the party. Certain members felt
the Black Panthers should participate in local government and social
services, while others encouraged constant conflict with the police. For
some of the Party’s supporters, the separations among political action,
criminal activity, social services, access to power, and grass-roots identity
became confusing and contradictory as the Panthers’ political momentum
was bogged down in the criminal justice system. These (and other)
disagreements led to a split.
Some
Some critics
critics have
have written
written that
that the
the Panthers’ “romance with the gun” and
and their
their
promotion of “gang mentality” was
was likely
likely associated
associated with
with the
the enormous
enormous increase
increase in
in both
both
black-on-black and black-on-white crime observed during later decades. This increase
occurred
occurred in
in the
the Panthers’ hometown of Oakland, California, and
and in
in other
other cities
cities
nationwide. Interviewed after he left the Black Panther Party, former Minister of
Information Eldridge Cleaver lamented that the legacy of the Panthers was at least
partly one of disrespect for the law and indiscriminate violence. He acknowledged that,
had his promotion of violent black militantism prevailed, it would have resulted in “a
total bloodbath.” Cleaver also lamented the abandonment of poor blacks by the black
bourgeoisie and felt that black youth had been left without appropriate role models
who could teach them to properly channel their militant spirit and their desire for
justice.
Fini