The Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party

The Black 9Panther, also referred to as the “Black Panther Party for Self-Defense,” was a revolutionary party for African-American people. The party was founded in 1966 in California by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton (Williams et al. 2016). At its inception, The Black Panther Party was primarily for patrolling the neighborhoods of the African Americans to ensure residents are protected from police cruelty and brutal acts. According to Spencer (2016), party was finally transformed into a Marxist movement that advocated for all African Americans to be armed, freedom of all African Americans from all sorts of sanctions perpetrated by the White majority, release, and end of mass incarceration of African Americans, and most importantly, the party agitated for compensation for all African Americans for the many centuries that they have been subjugated by the whites. During the party’s peak (in the late 1960s), membership of the Black Panthers Party had risen to more than 2,000 (Franziska, 2017), and it had established its operational chapters in many cities of the Americas. This paper will, therefore, look into the origin of the party, its impact, and its legacy.

Origin of the Black Panthers and its Political Program

Despite 1960s’ passage of the legislation about civil rights that came after the landmark Supreme Court’s judgment on the case of in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education of 1954 (Bloom, & Martin, 2016), the black minority who lived in the major cities of North America continued suffering both social and economic disproportions. Limited public services and poverty continued to be part of these cities. Residents had a pathetic living standard. There were no jobs, there several chronic health issues, there was absolutely no change that could change the lives of the residents, and worst of all, there was constant violence. The people decided not to tolerate these conditions anymore. As a result, it led to the formation of uprisings all over in the 1960s. It was in response to these conditions and Malcolm X’s assassination of 1965 that prompted Bobby Seale and Huey Newton to come up with a solution towards self-defense, leading to the formation of the party in 1966 in Oakland-California (Abu-Jamal et al. 2014).

The Name “Black Panther Party”

As pointed out earlier in this paper, this revolutionary movement was initially known as the “Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.” The name was shortened to the “Black Panther Party” to set it as a separate movement from other African American organizations. The other organizations were seeking to protect the culture and nationality of the minority groups in America, such as the Nation of Islam and the Universal Negro Improvement Association to which many people thought the party was related to (Léger et al. 2017). Even though the Black Panther Party was comparable to all these other revolutionary groupings due to their shared tactical characteristics as well as philosophical positions, it is worth noting that the Black Panthers were different from the other movements on several issues. For example, while the other organizations viewed every white man as an enemy and a person whose aim is to oppress the black minority, the Black Panthers were on the knowledge that not all white men are racists. They were able to differentiate the racist whites from non-racist white men (Godfrey et al. 2017). For this reason, the Black Panthers formed alignments with non-racist whites because they believed they had a common philosophical position with them.

On the same note, the Black Panther Party was different from other nationalist and cultural movements in the sense that these groups had a general viewpoint that all African Americans were subjugated. However, the Black Panther Party had a common belief that not only the whites who oppressed African Americans but also African American elites and capitalists, especially the working class (Godfrey et al. 2017). Conceivably the most significant point is that while the nationalist and cultural movements put more emphasis on the symbolic systems like imagery and language as a means of liberating African Americas, Godfrey et al. (2017). The Black Panther Party believed that despite the importance of such systems, they were not effective in the liberation struggle. The party considered that symbols are distressingly insufficient towards amelioration of the unfair material conditions such as unemployment, which were as a result of capitalism (Abu-Jamal et al. 2014).

The Party’s Political Program

From its inception, the Black Panther Party highlighted their ten-point plan, not like the other cultural nationalist movements. The ten-point helped to establish projects for the survival of all African Americans nationally and to form political coalitions with other progressive white revolutionary movements, as well as other races (collectively known as the people of color). Many positions as described in the ten-pint political agenda addressed the generally accepted principle of the party, “economic exploitation is the fundamental root of all kinds of subjugation in both the US and elsewhere, and the elimination of capitalism is a primary requirement of social justice” (Williams et al. 2016). By the late 1960s, this socialist economic viewpoint that was fundamentally based on Marxism had a resonation with other socialist groupings in the US and many other countries of the world. In this regard, even as the party formed alliances both in the United States and beyond, the Black Panthers also realized that it was squarely in disagreement with the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation). The party was declared as being a fundamental threat to national security in 1969 by the then director Hoover Edgar (Varda et al. 2015).

The Party’s Repression and Impact

The party came into national attention in early 1967 when some of its members, under the leadership of Seale, streamed into the Sacramento legislature of the California State when armed to the neck (Spencer, 2016). Inspired by the fact that African Americans’ rights were also protected by the constitution of the land to hold weapons following the Second Amendment Godfrey et al. (2017), they matched in protest to the Mulford Act that was kept pending. According to the Black Panthers, the pending Act (about gun control) was a political strategy of thwarting their efforts to liberate their people from police brutality in the community. This move was later supplemented by breaking news that Newton was arrested after involving the police in a shoot-out, where one police officer was also killed. With this spanking publicity, the party expanded from being an Oakland party to an international party with branches in all the 48 states of North America, South Africa, Uruguay, China, Japan, Mozambique, Sweden, France, England, Zimbabwe, and Germany (Franziska, 2017).

Apart from their challenge to the cruelty of the police, Black Panthers initiated more than thirty survival projects and programs; they helped their communities through education, legal assistance, tuberculosis testing, ambulance services, production, and distribution of footwear to the needy people. Most remarkable was the “the Free Breakfast for Children Program of 1969” (Spencer, 2016), which expanded to all major cities of the United States with the chatter of the Black Panther Party. Back in 1966, the federal government of the United States has initiated a program of the same kind. However, the Black Panthers extended the program until it was made permanent by 1975 (Bloom, & Martin, 2016).

Recognizing the social services that the Black Panther Party offered, the FBI considered it a communist movement; hence, an enemy of the government. The FBI director of the time had pledged that the Black Panther Party’s existence would not go beyond 1969. Thus he devoted all FBI resources through COINTELPRO towards that course (Franziska, 2017). In a prolonged action against the party, COINTELPRO applied sabotage, provocateurs, lethal force, and misinformation to eliminate the party. According to Spencer (2016), the campaign championed by the FBI ended in 1969 with a five-hour confrontation with the Black Panthers at their California headquarters. The second police shoot-out took place when the Illinois-based police confronted the Chicago-based Black Panthers leading to the killing of party leader Hampton Fred. The strategies used by the FBI were so brutal to the extent that when they were later exposed, the FBI director apologized publicly for unlawful application of power (Varda et al. 2015).

Later in the 1970s, a scholar and radical human rights activist, Davis Angela, got into a deep-rooted association with the Black Panthers, even though she seems to have never been recruited into party membership. According to Abu-Jamal et al. (2014), Angela did, however, have unwavering linkage with the Black Panther Party to the extent that she had political education lessons regarding the party. At first, she was shown no honor for her involvement with the Black Panthers. The dishonor was demonstrated in 1970 when Ronald Reagan, (who was the governor of California by then), refused the renewal of Angela’s appointment as a full philosophy lecturer at the University of Los Angeles, the University of California due to her connection with the socialists (Williams et al. 2016). At that time, Angela also got involved in the three African American prisoners’ cases who were accused of killing a security guard. Angela, on her side, got extremely involved with Jackson George (one of the inmates) whose brother’s effort towards George’s release from jail by taking captives in the Marin county courtroom went brutally askew. As a result, four deaths were registered. When one of the weapons used was later confirmed to be registered under Angela’s name, Angela escaped conspiracy charges, murder, and kidnapping. She ended up being one of the top fugitives wanted by the FBI. In the long run, Angela was acquitted of all charges by a white panel of judges (Spencer, 2016).

Between the 1970s and 1980s, the Black Panther Party terminated all its activities. Even though the party’s end is credited to COINTELPRO, a project of the FBI, it is essential to note that the dissolution of the party’s leadership also contributed to its demise. Cleaver Kathleen earned a Law degree and was appointed as a professor in the same field. Concerning the case of Newton, it is worth pointing out that after he returned to the United States from Cuba, where he went for exile, he got killed in 1989 in a drug dispute (Varda et al. 2015). Cleaver Kathleen, however, designed clothes between the 1970s and 1980s before deciding to join the anti-socialist movement in his quest to seek Christianity and a registered member of the Old Grand Party (currently known as the Republican Party).

Legacy of the Back Panthers

Right from the party’s onset, the Black Panther Party became presumably transformational with its activities going beyond initiating community help programs. For instance, human rights and political activists in the Australian cities adopted the work of the Black Panthers into their communist movements. The subjugated Dalits of India took the teachings of the Black Panther Party and leaders of the “Vietnamese National Liberation Front” (Bloom, & Martin, 2016), who by emulating the Black Panthers branded their identity as “Yellow Panthers” (Franziska, 2017). They used the party as their model on political, economic, and social matters. Next to the US, the Bahamas’ Vanguard Party drew most of its political views from the Black Panthers, outlined their ten-point agenda like the Black Panthers. They wore uniforms and made newspaper publications whose format and scope reflected that of the Black Panthers to get its program of activism well-shaped (Godfrey et al. 2017).

Even though the Black Panther Party was brutally terminated, it survived in public minds for decades, especially in the United States, because its surviving members published several memoirs and, most importantly, kept its teachings and principles in rap music. In 1990, something strange happened. The Black Panther Party is surviving member Alderman Milwaukee attempted to pursue he resurrection of the Black Panthers Party by organizing a militia group called “Black Panther Militia” (Léger et al. 2017), a name that was derived from the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Militia had one goal of responding to the neglect of his community by both business and political class. The Black Panther Militia grew in most parts of the United States and later transformed into the New Black Panther Party under the leadership of Michael Aaron, a community activist (Williams et al. 2016).

Recently in 1998, Khallid Muhammad, the spokesperson of the Nation of Islam based in Chicago, assumed the leadership of the New Black Panthers. The new party also become recognized by the public as a result of the match by millions of youths, which was initiated in New York in 1998 for the first time (Spencer, 2016). In most cases, the activities of the New Black Panther Party appeared to be the replica of those championed by the original Black Panthers. On the same note, however, the new party is considered to have taken a slightly different path when it comes to its concern on cultural nationalist orientations. Such, agenda made some of its members quit because they believed it was not an accurate representation of the ten-point plan outlined by the Black Panther Party in its beginning.

Conclusion

From the party’s inception in 1966 to its dissolution, five fundamental facts need consideration in the attempt to grasp a better understanding of the Black Panther Party. First, their fundamental principle was love for their people. Secondly, they were able to form a strong party due to their unity and the ten-point plan. Thirdly, members of the Black Panthers were able to monitor police brutality, especially in black neighborhoods. Forth, the Black Panther Party had tremendous growth in the major cities of the United States, something that drew everyone’s attention. Lastly, and perhaps the most crucial lesson, members of the Black Panther Party acknowledged black beauty, hence more members got attracted to join the party.

Reference

Abu-Jamal, M., Films Media Group, & MVD Entertainment Group, (2014). Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation.

Bloom, J., & Martin, W. E. (2016). Black against Empire: The history and politics of the Black Panther Party

Franziska, M. (2017). Racism and Resistance: How the Black Panthers Challenged White Supremacy. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

Godfrey, M., Whitley, Z., Cahan, S., Driskell, D. C., Gaither, E. B., Goode-Bryant, L., Jarrell, J., Brooklyn Museum, (2017). Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power.

Léger, M. J., Tomas, D., Douglas, E., Rollow, M. E., Piñon, C. D., Rigo, & Kak, S. (2017). Zapantera Negra: An artistic encounter between Black Panthers and Zapatistas.

Spencer, R. C. (2016). The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland. Durham: Duke University Press.

Varda, A., Raab, M. L., Auroux, B., Aviv, N., Myers, D., Tarot, D., Aratow, P., Criterion Collection (Firm), (2015). Agnès Varda in California: Uncle Yanco; Black Panthers; Lions love (… and lies); Mur murs; Documenteur.

Williams, L., Streeter, S., McMahon, T. B., Gladsjo, L. A., McGee Media (Firm), Inkwell Films (Firm), & Kunhardt Films (Firm), (2016). Black America Since MLK: Part one