October 15th, 1966. This was a memorable one for the population of Oakland California. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale came together in meeting, and founded the Black Panther Party (Originally the Black Panther Party For Self Defense). This party worked for many reasons, including the assassination of Malcolm X and police brutality.
The Black Panther’s wanted four things for the colored community: “equality in education, housing, employment, and civil rights.” They created ten steps for the Black Panther Party to achieve these aspirations. These ten steps were supposed to help the Black communities economically. Some of the steps are freedom, full employment, decent housing, free healthcare, and ending robbery in black communities. The Black Panthers affected the civil rights movement by starting many programs for the colored community giving them a sense of equality.
Huey Newton said, “Black power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.” In 1966 in Oakland, California the Black Panther Party for Self- Defense was created by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. The formation of this party was a direct result of the civil rights movements and people feeling like the efforts of the peaceful protest weren’t enough. Their philosophy was based of the ideals of the late Malcom X and the panthers were widely known for their radical style of rebelling against police brutality. With the Civil Rights Movement in action some group’s methods of fighting for equality proved to be ineffective and because of this the Black Panther Party rose.
On May 2, 1967, Huey P. Newton, the minister of defense of the Black Panthers, said that “the time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late” (Document F). The group had changed to a violent point of view after they saw nothing was happening when they were
The Black Panther Party and Black Lives Matters are two movements that happened at different time periods in history, both wanting to approach the issue of police brutality towards African American individuals. Since both movements take place in two different time periods, the Black Panther Party happening in the 1960’s and the Black Lives Matter in present-day 2017, both have different and similar approaches along with goals in which they believe they can change the abusive relationship African Americans have with structural racism implemented by America. The police brutality back in the 1960’s majorly went unprosecuted due to high racism in this time period and not only did police brutality go majorly unpunished, it was also much more merciless
In contrary to peaceful protest and marches led by Martin Luther King there were other leaders who had more radical approaches to protest. Amongst these radical leaders are Malcolm X, Robert Williams, and the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers, a group created by in 1966, by Huey P Newton and Bobby Seale protected black communities patrolling areas with loaded firearms, monitoring police activities involving blacks. Since they were known for carrying loaded firearms FBI Director J Edgar Hoover considered the Black Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States” (To Determine the Destiny of Our Black Community). The Black Panthers created the Ten-Point Program.
The Black Panthers believed that the non-violent campaign of Martin Luther King had failed and any promised changes to their lifestyle via the ‘traditional’ civil rights movement, would take too long to be implemented or simply not
During the civil rights movement, many African americans were frustrated and wanted to break the idea, “separate but equal”, so that they could be given equally given rights. The Black Panther party was a socialist organization that sought to protect African Americans from police brutality. Although some believe that the Black Panther party was a radical, violent organization, the Black Panther party has left a powerful impact on the civil rights movement from 1966-1976 by providing a voice for the African Americans, uniting African Americans, and reduced racial profiling. African Americans were provided a voice by instilling them their pride in being African American. The Black Panthers focused on solving problems in the poor African american
In October of 1966 Huey Newton and Bob Seal created the Black Panther party to stop police violence in Oakland. Wayne Pharr, a member of the group, when talking about police brutality, stated, “Police jump on you, beat you up, point a gun to your head. This is what we were going through on a daily basis.” One of the activities the black panthers did was what Elbert Howard, a former member called, “observe these so called law makers of their duties. The group would patrol the streets of Oakland, waiting for a police officer to arrest someone, and when he did they would watch from a distance, making sure extreme measures were taken.
The BPPs decided that it was not only time to get their freedom but it was time to fight. They wanted the police brutality to stop so they followed their second amendment and bare arms. The patrolling of the police began. If they seen that an officer was to pull a black man over and search him, the Panthers would get out of the car and go towards the scene and stood watching with their guns out and easy to be noticed. The police officer questioned them with the law but what the law enforcement also known as “pigs” did not know was that the Panthers new their rights and quoted each every law and court ruling relevant to their situation.
Their reasoning for doing so is made evident in the following: “At the center of their politics was the practice of armed self-defense against the police. While revolutionary ideas could be easily ignored, widespread confrontations between young armed black people and the police could not” (Bloom 13). Although nonviolent confrontation, consisting of “revolutionary ideas,” was suitable for the Beats because their obstacles related to the human mind, the Beats recognized that the only solution to their problem was the “practice of armed self-defense.” While pleas to create change could easily be ignored by the government, there would be no way to overlook physical aggressions made by the Black Panther Party. The Black Panthers were mindful of the impression of Black people because of the historical implications of racism in America, and used this fear of the “other” to their advantage.
The Panthers were fighting for equal housing, jobs, employment, education, and an end of police brutality across the nation on blacks and their support of civil rights movement and equality for all blacks. Newton and Seale devised a 10 point plan to empower blacks focusing on their rights as citizens with some of their views being unrealistic ie: having blacks released from prison and protesting the Vietnam War and the killing of
Stated in the Black Panther History article, On April 25th, 1967, the first act of the Black Panther goes into play, within a month the party marches on the California state capitol fully armed, in protest of the state's attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public. This act resulted in the arrest of all 30 armed Panthers. The outbreak in the media of this act initiated minority workers to form Panther groups in other states outside of California. The Black Panthers were well known for taking up guns in defense against police brutality but aside from this they also did things for their community as well. For example, the Black Panthers organized dozens of community programs such as free breakfast for children, health clinics and shoes for children.
Tensions were rising with the police force and Blacks. Police brutality was rampant and so the BPP stepped up when no one would protect them. The BPP created a self-titled newspaper in 1967 that called for Blacks to “protest the police killing of Denzil Dowell, who was shot while allegedly running from a stolen car” (Foner, xi). Panther members would patrol their neighborhoods armed so when the police pulled someone over they would watch what happened and they were prepared to fight back if the police officer overstepped his boundaries. The Panther members learned about California law so they could know their rights.
The black panthers put a lot of their dedication into police brutality since police officers used their powers against blacks on a daily. Freedom to all black men in prisons and jails because majority of the blacks put into jails had unfair trials and are innocent of their accusations. The next point is the black people to be tried with a jury of their race for the sake of equality and fairness. The last point in the ten point program is the need for land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. The need for all of these points shows the dedication of the black panther party.
