Civil Rights Movement: The Black Panther Party

Words: 1028
Pages: 5
Open Document
The Black Panther Party was created in October 1966 in Oakland, California. The movement thought of the black community as a colony within America and the police as occupying their space and violently controlling their own community (Bloom, 2013). Both Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, founders of the black panthers, were fueled to start a movement after the never-ending acts of police brutality (O’Boyle, 2013). As Meyer (2007) states “… for large social movements to emerge, people need to believe that participation in a protest movement is needed to get some part of they want that and that the movement might be effective, in other words, that protest is both necessary and potentially effective” (p.23). At this time, most civil right activists were …show more content…
Newton and Seale believed it was the time to start physically fighting back and if the government would not do it, they would patrol the police themselves.
The prominent event that forced Newton and Seale to begin to act on their beliefs was the assassination of Malcolm X. “When Malcolm X was gunned down in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem in February 1965, he came to symbolize the struggle for black liberation---everything the Civil Rights Movement promised but could not deliver” (Bloom, 2013, p.28). Seale was outraged and pleaded to Newton to help him begin an organization to fight back against the police and government (O’Boyle, 2013). In the beginning, there were only 14 Black Panther members including one woman. The members were trained for two months in gun safety, so they knew what their rights were and what was legal and what was not. After training, they began to walk around armed and patrol the police at night. In order to get more people involved in the Black Panther Party, they created a platform of 10 points that represented what they fought for in the movement. Many of these points talked about the fight against police brutality, while others talked …show more content…
By December of 1968, they had spread across the country with offices in twenty cities and then by the 1970s they had offices in about 68 cities in the United States (Bloom, 2013). In this time, media attention was helping the Black Panthers gain the most support and recruits. Bloom (2013) states “While the New York Panthers became heavily involved in issues of housing, schools, and welfare, as well as their program of political education, their conflicts with police were the activities that garnered the most media attention and mobilized allied support” (p.154). Young black students were the most motivated to join the Black Panthers even with the severe consequences that came attached. The party had many great leaders that influenced many young black intellectuals to find them and ask to join the organization themselves. When a young black person did not join, many of them still supported the Black Panthers. In a survey, about 43% of blacks under the age of 21 stated they heavily supported the Black Panther Party (Bloom, 2013). Many national security agencies were concerned by the amount of support the party had including the FBI and the CIA. “FBI director J. Edgar Hoover famously declared, ‘The Black Panther Party, without question, represents the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.’” (Bloom, 2013, p.3). Many people saw the Black Panthers as threatening, but they still had multiple
Show More

Related Documents: Civil Rights Movement: The Black Panther Party

Black Panther Movement Analysis

will compare two revolutionary movements, the Black Panther Party and the Movement for Black Lives. These movements both grew out of frustration with rampant police brutality in black communities. They founded at a time when police brutality and oppression of black people was sensationalized by media. During the 1960s, you repeatedly saw black people getting attacked by policemen, police dogs, and water hoses on television and in newspapers. Today, you repeatedly see black people getting gunned down…

Words 1128 - Pages 5

Black Power Movement Research Paper

THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT? 1 What was the Black Power Movement? Analyzing the Black Power Movement John Viscardi University of Wyoming Author Note: This paper was prepared for African American Studies (AAST-1000-03) taught by Professor McGriff. WHAT WAS THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT? 2 What was the Black Power Movement? Analyzing the Black Power Movement The Black Power Movement was largely kick started and fueled by the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement began…

Words 1679 - Pages 7

Martin Luther King Jr Rhetorical Analysis

American congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis famously stated before he died in 2020 that "Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble." Throughout history, whether it be American colonists throwing tea into the harbor, Civil Rights activists rallying protests, or suffragettes holding hunger strikes in protest of their arrests, trouble has typically always precedent change in America. Lewis knew that…

Words 806 - Pages 4

Black Power Mixtape Analysis

The Black Power Mixtape captures the unique essence of the Black experience in America through various narratives of Black Americans, historical video clips, and quotes from notorious Black activists. Each year, from 1967 to 1975 is examined in the context of Black civil rights. The first recognizable video clip is of Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee(SNCC), who discusses the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The bus boycott, in alliance with figures…

Words 698 - Pages 3

Black Panther Party Essay

1 Black Panthers “The Black Panthers were formed in California in 1966 and they played a short but important part in the civil rights movement” says www.historylearningsite.co.uk . “T he party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighbourhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality” says http://www.britannica.com . In October of 1965, in Oakland California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self­Defense…

Words 1210 - Pages 5

Malcolm X's Archetype Of The Civil Rights Movement

law can “abridge the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” [1] This ever-so-controversial constitutional right has been instrumental in the making of American history, particularly in the shaping of the civil rights movement. Perhaps the very first image that may pop into one’s head when one thinks of the civil rights movement is Dr. Martin Luther King peacefully marching to Montgomery. However…

Words 1088 - Pages 5

Black Panther Vietnam War

history of the Black Panther Party is controversial. Many people characterized the Black Panther as the black movement organization of the late 1960s.The black panther party was original for self defense, African American revolutionary party that was found in 1966 in Oakland California. The panthers practiced militant self defense of minority communities against the U.S government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community. The black panther party had four goals…

Words 497 - Pages 2

Student: Feminism and Martin Luther King Essay

Black Feminist and the response to Sexism in Black Liberation groups Sexism What is sexism? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, sexism means prejudice or discrimination based on sex especially discrimination against women. It’s a behavior that conditions stereotypical attitudes on gender roles based on the sex. Sexism is an individual attitude, it is as well characteristic in many societal institutions. Sexism in Black Liberation Groups One of the things that were not brought to…

Words 1155 - Pages 5

Huey Newton's Influence On The Black Panthers

1950s, the Black Panthers were an organization not even thought of at the time, the main focus would have been on Martin Luther King Jr. and his struggle for civil rights within the American South. These events would have been seen by people like Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, and may have been a small contributing factor as to why they wanted to stop racial profiling within the North. In 1959, Huey P. Newton had just finished high school, where as Bobby Seale, the co-founder of the party had just come…

Words 1292 - Pages 6

Ericka Huggins Research Paper

-Ericka Huggins is a human rights activist, professor, former Black Panther leader, and political prisoner. She began political activism in 1963 when she attended the March on Washington. At age 18 she became the leader of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther party with her husband John Huggins, who was later killed. He and fellow Party leader Bunchy Carter were gunned down by members of the black nationalist US organization during a 1969 meeting at UCLA (Speak Out Now paragraph 1-3). -In…

Words 550 - Pages 3