Question 7 (for 10 points): After Nixon was connected to the break-in of the offices of the DNC at the Watergate business complex, in part due to the affiliation of his connection to one of the burglars, who was an employee of Nixon’s Committee for the Re-election of the President (CREEP), it gradually became apparent that the Watergate break in was largely a result of Nixon’s beliefs concerning the degree of latitude his office afforded him with regards to transgression of federal law. As the result of an investigation by a senate committee prompted by the Watergate scandal, it was discovered that during his presidency Nixon had committed a number of crimes, which included “extending political favors to powerful business groups in exchange
Martin Luther King Jr. was against segregation and wanted racial equality while Malcolm X did not. Malcolm was for violence and believed the blacks should use any kind of violence while Martin was not for violence and was peaceful. The only similarity here would
The Black Panther party in comparison to the Black Lives Matter movement had a list of tactics and end goals that they wanted to accomplish for their movement. The Black Lives Matter movement only had media coverage and no actual direction of where they wanted to take the movement also, not having a clear organizer or leader made the movement less effective. The Black Panther Party saw the African American community as not only targets of law enforcement but the American government in general. They wanted to form a community that would work together to protect and serve each other and some of the ways they did this was by creating programs that met the community's needs, followed law enforcement when detaining a African American individual to prevent the use of excessive force, educate their communities, etc. One of the Black Panther Party founders, Huey Newton made a document named the,”Ten Point Program”, where it outlines what exactly they wanted changed.
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 SDS’s main issue revolved around the Vietnam War and particularly about matters relating to war, for instance, the drafting of students. The organization essentially wanted to create a “New Left” (Document 7). The Black Panther Party originally wanted to protect African Americans from acts of police brutality. However, along with putting an end to police brutality, they soon developed into a group who also wanted the release of all African Americans from jail and compensation for exploitation by white Americans (Document 8). The United Farm Workers ultimately wanted to improve migrant farmworkers wages and working conditions (Document 9).
Agency is the ability of individuals to act independently and to make their own decisions. The social structure is a manner dictated for a person in which they must abide by to act. The Black Panther Party is an example of how individuals acted independently to arm themselves against the police. Structure would have been for them to report bad behavior or mistreatment to their local police depart but they decided that a corrupt system would not fix itself therefore they used their agency to take their problems into their own hands.
MLK’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech and “The Ideology of the Black Panther Party” written by David Hilliard, both share similarities, although they were driven with very distinctive ideas. For instance MLK states that African Americans can never be satisfied as long as their children are robbed of their dignity by signs stating “whites only”. This shows that black kids are being subjugated by these signs that deny black people from doing certain things. Hilliard writes that the laws the government makes black people respect are oppressive laws that protect whites, but persecute them. This shows how the government is so eager to keep the black society down, that it made the laws so that they tyrannized black people.
The need for blacks to have their own so called justice against prejudice in a nation they felt were not supporting them in becoming an equal part of a world which had struggled for the rights of blacks since slavery. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense were perceived as a militant organization unlike the Ku Klux Klan. Many of those in political power felt that the panther’s organization was the next uprising for blacks following Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X for civil rights. Huey Newton followed the approach of Malcom X in trying to achieve that all black were self-contained and become a working product of society.
The Black power movement was more than just a raised fist. It was an influential movement established in the 1960s, and began to slow down in the 70s, it promoted self-sufficiency among the black and African community, and they fought for equality and power among those who faced discrimination in society. The Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement were two different movements with very similar motives, but different ways of going about their fight for equality. Symbolism played a significant role in representing the Black Power Movement, and helped unify the group by using one symbol that all recognized. The movement began as a reaction to the Civil Rights Movement and continued into the 1970s as a force for good.
The civil rights movement in the 1960s, lead by Martin Luther King Jr, was well executed compared to the black lives matter movement happening today. The Goals of the civil rights movement and the black lives matter movement are different, but they both come back to the same idea of equality. The major goals of the civil rights movement were to end segregation, equal access to jobs and housing, and fair voting rights. The black lives matter movement wants to end violent policing, the oppression of black people, and the racism in America (“About”). There is many reasons that the civil rights movement has had a larger effect on the government and their policy than the black lives matters have had.
The Civil Rights Movement and the BLM movement are driven by a desire to end racism and inequality. During the Civil Rights movement, activists fought for the end of segregation, voter suppression, and other forms of discrimination that were deep in American society. Similarly, BLM activists today are fighting against the disproportionate number of police killings of Black Americans, the mass incarceration of Black people, and the ongoing effects of historical racism on social and economic outcomes. The Civil Rights Movement and the BLM movement share a common goal: to create a more just and equal society while the BLM movement has brought more attention to issues of police brutality and racism, there have been few concrete policy changes
The Black Panthers Movement was very effective in helping empower the black community but lacked large scale assurance due to the fact that the FBI thought of this movement as a terrorist organization. This social movement has been very effective in addressing the social problem or racism and police brutality. It did show how the police would act when they don’t believe in an organization. They discriminate and try to run the organization down and out. If the police or FBI want a stop to things, they will do whatever is possible to end it, including illegal behavior.
Social movements are a rebellion to get your thinking out there and get that thinking hopefully followed. The United States has solved many issues brought up by past social movements when involving dejure issues. However, more needs to be done when involving defacto problems. The big difference between the two is that dejure involves laws that should be strictly followed. While defacto involves human thinking, that is because people have had ingrained in their minds for many centuries that one thing should be on the way and never be changed.
The Black Panther Party was formed out of frustration. They were formed after the death of civil rights leader James Meredith. The party was given a boost of movement by the decline of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and SNN. They believed in fighting with nationalism, a philosophy taken from Marxism.
Malcolm X once said “Early in life [he] had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.” The Black Panther Party lived by this quote. The party rose from the foundations of Malcolm X. The party was much different from other civil rights movements. They went by direct confrontation.
