The Black Panther Party
Original Members
 The six original members, Nov. 1966
 Top left to right: Elbert Howard, Huey Newton, Sherman Forte, Bobby
Seale
 Bottom: Reggie Forte, and Little Bobby Hutton
Origins: The Founding
 Started October 1966 in Oakland,
California
 Founded by Huey Newton and
Bobby Seale
 Initially called “The Black Panther
Party for Self-Defense”
 One of the first organizations in
U.S. history to militantly struggle
for ethnic minority and working
class emancipation.
Origins: Historical
Context
 They believed that blacks were obliged to wage fierce survival
struggles in the U.S.
 Organizations such as the NAACP and UNIA were created to
promote civil rights and independence for blacks.
 There were also efforts by former slave Booker T. Washington to
establish a separate socioeconomic scheme for blacks.
 “America’s response to all such efforts was violent and
repressive and unyielding.”
Historical Context
 Some relief came in 1954 when the
Supreme Court ruled, in the case of Brown
v. Board of Education, that separate was
not equal for blacks in America (at least
with respect to public education).
 Even after Brown blacks struggled to
integrate and become full partisans in
American society.
 In 1955 numerous boycotts and sit ins were
being held in Montgomery, Alabama.
 These acts in favor for civil rights began to
further challenge white America as a whole;
no longer could they over look the growing
voices of discontent.
Historical Content
 Finally, in 1964, the U.S.
Congress passed a civil rights act
that outlawed racial segregation in
public facilities, but it came too
late.
 Images of nonviolent blacks and
other civil rights workers and
demonstrators being beaten and
water hosed by police, spat on
and jailed for protesting social
injustices were seen across the
nation.
 “…Young urban blacks rejected
[the idea of] nonviolence.”
Goals and ideals
 The party’s agenda was the
revolutionary establishment of real
economic, social and political equality
across gender and color lines.
 Black Panther Theory: The practices
of the late Malcolm X were deeply
rooted in the theoretical foundations
of the Black Panther Party.
 Followed Malcolm’s belief of
international working class unity
across the spectrum of color and
gender and united with various
minority and white revolutionary
groups.
The Ten Point Plan
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
We want freedom. We want power to determine the
destiny of our black and oppressed communities.
We want full employment for our people.
We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of
our black and oppressed communities.
We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human
beings.
We want decent 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.
The Ten Point Plan
6.
We want completely free health care for all black and
oppressed people.
7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of
black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside
the United States.
8. We want an immediate to all wars of aggression.
9. We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held
in the U.S. federal, state, county, city and military prisons and
jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged
with so-called crimes under the laws of the country.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice,
peace and people’s community control of modern technology.
International Reaches
 The effects of the Black Panthers have rippled across many
countries, however briefly.
 International groups have included the Black Panther Movement
and the White Panthers of the United Kingdom, the Black
Panther Party of Israel, the Black Beret Cadre of Bermuda, the
Dalit Panthers of India, and the Black Panther Party of Australia.
 Clemons & Jones (2001) concluded that the ideology of the
Panthers, underlined by a commitment to self-determination and
the elimination of all forms of discrimination, found resonance
with oppressed people around the world.
Other subgroups
 Black Panther coalition and support groups began to
spring up internationally in Japan, China, France,
England, Germany, Sweden, Mozambique, South
Africa, Zimbabwe, Uruguay and Israel.
 There was a rapid proliferation of other, like minded
organizations.
 Chicanos or Mexican Americans in South California
formed the Brown Berets.
 Whites in Chicago formed the White Patriot Party.
Other subgroups: cont.
 Chinese in the San Francisco Bay Area formed the Red
Guard.
 Puerto Ricans in New York created the Young Lords.
 A group of so called senior citizens organized the Gray
Panthers to address human and civil rights abuses of
the elderly in society.
Survival programs
 There came to more than 35 programs in the 1960’s
that were referred to as Survival Programs and were
operated by Party members under the slogan “survival
pending revolution.”
 Free Breakfast for Children Program, which spread from
being operated at one small Catholic church to every
major city in America where there was a Party chapter.
 Thousands upon thousands of poor and hungry children
were fed free breakfasts every day by the
Party under this program.
Survival programs: cont.
 Other survival programs that existed were:
 Free Clinics
 Grocery Giveaways
 The manufacture and distribution of free shoes
 Senior transport and service programs,
 Free busing to prisons and prisoner support and
legal aid programs, among others.
Political activities
 Fought for and obtained funds to build 300 new,
replacement housing units for poor people displaced by a
local freeway.
 They entered into a working partnership with certain
developers to build up the dilapidated downtown city center
in order to provide 10,000 new jobs for Oakland’s poor and
unemployed.
Political activities:
cont.
 At that same time, a permanent primary school was
instituted, which was highly lauded by the California
legislature, among others.
 The Party briefly merged with the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, headed by the fiery Stokely
Carmichael.
 In 1967, the party organized a march on the California state
capitol to protest the state's attempt to outlaw carrying
loaded weapons in public.
 In order to prove a point, participants in the march carried
rifles.
Demise of the panthers
 The Panthers were no longer a progressive political
organization calling for an end to a racist, class-based
society, but thugs with the capacity to incite incredible
damage.
 While part of the organization was already participating
in local government and social services, another group
was in constant conflict with the police.
 For some of the Party's supporters, the separation
between political action, criminal activity, social
services, access to power, and grass-roots identity
became confusing and contradictory as the Panther's
political momentum was bogged down in the criminal
justice system.
Demise of the panthers:
cont.
 A significant split in the Black Panther Party occurred
over disagreements within the Panther leadership about
how to confront these challenges.
 By the beginning of the 1980s, attacks on the party and
internal degradation and divisions, caused the party to
fall apart.
 Many remaining Panthers were hunted down and killed
in the following years, imprisoned on trumped charges,
or forced to flee the United States.
Where are they now?
 Black Panthers gathered for their 35th Anniversary on
April 18, 2002, which discussed preserving civil
liberties, women in the struggle, police brutality, the
prison industrial complex and a session led by Bobby
Seale on “grassroots organizing in a high-tech society.”
 Although the Black Panthers Party are no longer active,
one of the six members Bobby Seale continues to
speak on racism, abusive exploitation, and violence
against women and children.
References
 The Black Panther Party. Retrieved January 20, 2006 from
www.blackpanther.org
 Burroughs, Todd Steven. 2002. “Black Panthers Gather for 35th Anniversary.”
Crisis (The New) 109:12.
 Columbia Encyclopedia. 1994. “Black Panthers.”
 Fraley, Todd and Elli Lester-Roushanzamir. 2004. “Revolutionary Leader or
Deviant Thug? A Comparative Analysis of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago
Daily Defender’s Reporting on the Death of Fred Hampton.” The Howard
Journal of Communications 15:147-167.
 Lothian, Kathy. 2005. "Seizing the Time: Australian Aborigines and the
Influence of the Black Panther Party, 1967-1972.” Journal of Black Studies
35:179-200.
 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. “The Black Panther Party.” Retrieved
February 27, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party.