The Black Panther Party Fought For Civil Rights

990 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Black panther party and civil rights movement

What was the Black Panther Party for Self Defense? During the turbulent 1960’s, the Black Panther party was initially established to protect the black community from police brutality. The Black Panther Party grew its membership by appealing to the sense of hopelessness in black American people. Although widely known for violence, the Black Panther Party had goals to organize and service the black and oppressed communities.

Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale wrote an outline for the BPP, the Ten Point Program, which set the objective for members to follow. The BPP seemed to grow in membership for all the wrong reasons. Despite their reputation, the BPP did manage to successfully put into effect many survival programs within black and minority communities.

The Black Panther Party was an African American organization founded to promote equality for minorities through political, social and economic means.

The Black Panther Party was co-founded in October 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. It was originally named the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Huey Newton believed that there was a lot of police brutality happening to black Americans. The founders were concerned about racism in the police departments. They felt that the people should defend themselves both physically, with guns, and with the law. They wrote the Ten Point program in 1966 as the manifesto for members to live by. It consisted of two parts – What we want and What we believe. (refer to hand-out) The Black Panther Party believed in a ten point program that outlined the primary goals and mission of the entire organization. “The fact remains that their ten point program enlightened the community and the nation of the needs of the Black Community. It pr...

... middle of paper ...

...ey believed that the greatest power was KNOWLEDGE.”

Consequently, many American people were not aware of these programs because they were not sensationalized or in the newspaper as all the other Black Panther activities had been.

In summary, the Black Panther Party was organized to address police brutality, equal rights and freedom for the black American people. The Black Panther Party wrote and followed their Ten Point Program. They taught the people to stand up for their civil rights by any means necessary. They established social programs to help educate, feed and cloth the minorities suffering from poverty.

The radical methods of threats and violence, as well as persuasive yet biased speeches prevented some people from seeing the positive impact that the Black Panther Party had on black and minority communities during the times of civil unrest.

Show More
Related

  • Black Panther Party

    2267 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Party’s fight for redistribution of wealth and the establishment of social, political and social equality across gender and color barriers made it one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for working class liberation and ethnic minorities (Baggins, Brian). The Black Panther Party set up a ten-point program much like Malcolm X’s Nation of Islam that called for American society to realize political, economic and social equal opportunity based on the principles of socialism, all of which was summarized by the final point: "We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace" (Newton, Huey P). The Black Panther Party wanted to achieve these goals through militant force. In the words of Che Guevara, “Words are beautiful, but action is supre...

    Read More

  • Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBoise

    1614 Words  | 4 Pages

    middle of paper ... ... The NAACP was a coalition of black and white radicals which sought to remove legal barriers to full citizenship for Negroes. DuBois was one of the founding members of the organization.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Panther Baby By Jamal Joseph

    1220 Words  | 3 Pages

    It includes many equal access, support, and equal education for African American. I should learn how to have confidence in leadership, achieve my many goals and confront different kinds of situations like Jamal Joseph did it in the book. Before I learned about the Black Panther from the book, I have never heard about the Black

    Read More

  • Demise of the Second Reconstruction

    2219 Words  | 5 Pages

    This political shift materialized with the advent of the Southern Strategy, in which Democratic president Lyndon Johnson’s support of Civil Rights harmed his political power in the South, Nixon and the Republican Party picked up on these formerly blue states and promoted conservative politics in order to gain a larger voter representation. Nixon was elected in a year drenched in social and political unrest as race riots occurred in 118 U.S. cities in the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s murder, as well as overall American bitterness due to the assassination of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the extensive student-led activist opposition to the Vietnam War. The late 1960’s also saw the advent of several movements promoting Black Nationalism to unify the African-American community through the efforts of Black Power, most notably the formation of the Black Panthers in 1967 who were dedicated to overseeing the protection of African-Americans against police brutality and the support of disadvantaged street children through their Free Breakfast for Children program. During this time, black power was politically reflected through the electorate as the 1960-70’s saw a rise in Black elected officials. In 1969 there were a total of 994 black men and 131 black women in office in the country, this figure more than tripled by 1975 when there were 2969 black men and 530 black women acting in office; more than half of these elected officials were acting in Southern States....

    Read More

  • Black Panther Party Analysis

    897 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Black Panther Party’s initial success came about without having to address these roots, but, as the Party expanded and wished to move ahead, the Party’s shifts in policy can be directly attributed to the wishes and needs of the community. Murch profiles the Oakland Community School and the People’s Free Food Program, which were social institutions created by the Black Panther Party to address the needs of the community; though these approaches were used to bring about more members and to garner support, these tactics worked because of their correlation to the needs of Oakland’s African American community.

    Read More

  • The Congressional Black Caucus

    917 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through the history of African Americans in America, few political moments were more important than the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus. The thirteen black members of the House of Representatives founded the CBC in 1969. Their goal was to establish a voice for African Americans who felt forgotten and downtrodden. One early goals of the Black Caucus was to end the Apartheid in South Africa. During the early years of the organization, there was strife internally and externally. After the Reconstruction of America, African Americans were without organization amongst their representation in Congress until the establishment of the Congressional Black Caucus.

    Read More

  • Nonviolence or Violence: Which Was More Effective?

    1426 Words  | 3 Pages

    The use of violence during the Civil Rights Movement proved to be ineffective because it furthered social tensions between Whites and Blacks. The people who generated violence were mainly the Black Panthers advocating Black Power. Black Power called for nationality, unity, self-pride, self-defense and the separation from the White race (Blumberg 9). The idea of separation of the White race competed with integration since Black Power wanted “African Americans to establish their own ...

    Read More

  • The Black Panther Party

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Panthers had many accomplishments while they were around, these were some of them. The Panthers gave to the need many times. They did stuff like opened food shelters, health clinics, elementary schools, patrolled urban ghettos to stop police brutality, created offices to teach young black kids, and they said that they were going to start stressing services. The Panthers had many great people join them, but one man had made a huge accomplishment that will never be forgotten. In November of 68’ the Chicago chapter of The B.P.P. was founded by Fred Hampton, he was a strong leader. The accomplishment he had made was that...

    Read More

  • The Movements of the New Left by Van Gosse

    674 Words  | 2 Pages

    These movements have many similarities in the goals that they want to achieve, however, they have some differences as well. In the document written by the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, they voiced their demands through a ten-point program: “We want full employment for our people.... ... middle of paper ... ...

    Read More

  • NAACP

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since its beginning, and with increasing emphasis since World War II, the NAACP has advocated nonviolent protests against discrimination and has disapproved of extremist black groups such as SNCC and the Black Panthers in the 1960s and 70s and CORE and the Nation of Islam in the 1980s and 90s, many of which criticized the organization as passive.... ... middle of paper ... ... DuBois, Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkens and the hundreds of thousands of nameless faces who worked tirelessly cannot and must not be forgotten (NAACP 1). The history of the NAACP is one of blood, sweat and tears.

    Read More

  • The African American People's Fight for Equality

    2687 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Civil Rights Movement is the story of the struggle of African-American people and their fight for equality. Although exceptional leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Ralph Abernathy fought long and hard and carried the burden of the movement on their shoulders, they were not alone. The struggle was fueled by the commitment and the hard work of thousands of everyday people who decided that the time had come to take a stand.

    Read More

  • The Black Lives Matter: The Civil Rights Movement

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a movement against police violence that is, as argued by BLM supporters, disproportionately and systematically directed at black people. The movement has highlighted incidents in which police have harassed and killed black men and women. BLM is considered one of the most visible and controversial civil rights movement of the last decades.” (Black Lives Matter. 2016) “Black Lives Matter is an American social activist organization devoted to stopping violence and injustice against African Americans. The group was founded in 2013 following the acquittal of In the sixties African Americans began a Civil Rights Movement that, to some, still continue today; hence, the Black Lives Matter movement. During the sixties, the

    Read More

  • The Black Panther Party

    989 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Black Panther Party was founded on October, 15, 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, California. This organization was a black revolutionary socialist party that was created to primarily protect African American neighborhoods from violent police brutality. In 1967, the party released and circulated its first newspaper, The Black Panther. Within the same year the organization also protested a ban on weapons in Sacramento on the California State Capitol. After becoming an icon of the 1960's counterculture, the Party was see in numerous cities throughout the nation, with record membership at 10,000 in 1969. Editor of The Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver and his editorial committee created a document called the Ten-Point Program. This document was comprised of desired wants and needs for the black community, such as; freedom, employment, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. The Black Panthers expressed their injustices with their saying of, "What we Want, What we Believe". Not only did this document demand specific wants for the panthers, it was also a sign of hope and inspiration for the underprivileged blacks that lived in ghettos across the nation. With a strong passion to turn around the poor black communities, the Panthers installed a variety of community social programs that were made to improve several aspects of the inner city ghettos. Two of their most commonly known programs were its Free Breakfast for children program and its armed citizens patrol that made sure police officers behaved within their limit of power and to protect blacks who became victims of racist police brutality abuse. They also instituted a free medical care program and fought the common problem of young blacks using narco...

    Read More

  • Black Panther Party Ideology

    1938 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Black Panther Party is where BLACK MEN are. I know every black woman has to feel proud of black men who finally decided to announce to the world that they were putting an end to police brutality and black genocide… Become members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defence, Sisters, ‘we got a good thing going.’” – Barbara Arthur ( Black Against Empire, p.96) The ideology of black masculinity and women’s roles at the beginning of the party’s establishment was shared by many, and is illustrated in the quotation during a recruitment pitch aimed at women.

    Read More

  • Essay On Black Lives Matter Movement

    406 Words  | 1 Pages

    This movement has a goal, a goal to get black lives liberation. Members of the movement are “working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise” (Cullors, Tometi, & Garza, n.d.). All blacks really want, is to be heard. Tactics.

    Read More

More about The Black Panther Party Fought For Civil Rights

Open Document