Period 1
4/8/18
The Black Panthers
After the release of Marvel's, Black Panther, when someone says the name Black Panther much won't think of the 1966 self-defense party. During the 1960's when police brutality was on the rise, and many figures such as Martin Luther King Jr and Malcon X prompted for new black rights. There were groups that took a more extreme approach to the problem than MLK, these people can be known as The Black Panther party. Founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in West Oakland the Black Panthers goal was that they would preserve black lives in a way that the police wouldn't do. They did this by patrolling the streets of their neighborhood armed with rifles, and pistols and acted as their own police force. The Black Panther party first emerged when they protested to Sacramento completely armed and marched through the streets, even into the capitol building. They wanted to show that African Americans had the same rights as whites and display their second amendment rights. Later on, that year when a group of Black Panthers got into a shootout with he police and killed an officer their publicity rose significantly, prompting more African Americans from across the world to join their cause. During the late 1960's the Black Panther party reached its pinnacle of members at around 2000 and could be found in almost every major city.
Cool post Gavin. I think that the Black Panthers were a very key part of the push for civil rights. However, despite their overall message and goal to help push forward the rights of black people, they were often not very well-received. For example, the FBI declared them a communist organization and an enemy of the United States in 1969. This shows that the government was against their methods during this time and sought to get rid of them through communist labelling.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.history.com/topics/black-panthers
Thanks for writing this post about an important group pushing for civil rights for African Americans. I found it interesting that one way they did this was to act as a sort of vigilante police force because the actual police were unwilling to do their job in black neighborhoods. I think that although this is an admirable cause and a possible solution to this discrimination problem, it is also very dangerous as this would give the power of the legal system to the citizens. Overall, I think African Americans were put in a difficult spot, where they saw crime running rampant due to a lack of police, but any solution would have come with downsides as well.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting part of American history that definitely needs more spotlight. The BPP had a few unique characteristics. For one, it recognized the difference between racist white oppressors and sympathizers, and would ally itself with the latter. In other words, they weren't anarchists willing to shoot all whites. They also recognized that whites weren't the only oppressors -- often elite black people would exploit the impoverished black majority. The BPP advocated against them too. Because they believed that economic exploitation was the root of the institutionalized inequality, they were against the American capitalist way and were in favor of a more socialist approach.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party