African Americans In The 1960s

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The 60s was a dramatic and eventful decade for the U.S., people were flying in space, hippies on acid spoke of world peace, the death of an amazing leader, and police brutality in almost every city in the nation. It was a time where the youth of the nation stood up, and said "We've had enough". For once the people in Washington were going to listen to what the American people wanted. The biggest social injustice during the 60s was the segregation and inequality of African Americans. Once people gained the courage to protest this, there was two distuigh gropus protesting the same cause. Black militancy was necessary to the African American cause , it was the combination of civil disobedience and violent protest that led to change. While Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers both fought for equality, their ideas on what should be changed the most immediate, were different. He mostly focused on the desegregation of society and the option of better education for African …show more content…

Furthermore, the chief goal of the Black Panther Party was to protect African AMericans from police brutality and stop the economic exploitation of both blacks and whites. Additionally they wanted a fair distribution of jobs and the other economic resources. They also ran food programs, opened a free health clinic and an Elementary school on the Oakland area. For a brief period of time the Black Panther Party went through a socialist period of time. Fred Hampton, perhaps one of the most involved activist in the party, said “We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.” Yet in the later years of the party, they turned to a more democratic way of getting their oblivious done, although they did not get far in the world of