Black Panther Sociology

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The Black Panther was founded in October 1966 by Bobby Scale and Huey Newton. The party was formed in Oakland, California with the intentions of providing African Americans with protection against police brutality. However, the group quickly grew into a Marxist assembly. Their movement was concerned with issues such as exploitation that African Americans underwent following Jim Crow. They called for the release of all the African Americans incarcerated individuals and to be exempted from all sanctions. The organization reached its peak in the 1960s with a membership of over 2000 people. It was also operational in most the major cities across the United States like Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago. It also followed a very militant style …show more content…

However, he contributes the rise of the Party with the rise of communism. On page 397 he says “the Black ghetto has been a more permanent phenomenon, although some individuals do escape it… Afro-Americans are distinct in the extent to which their segregated communities have remained controlled economically, politically, and administratively from the outside (Blauner 402).” This was a problematic to black youth in the 1960s and they wanted to take action. Bauner notes that the administrators who control the ghettos or urban communities in America are usually white-Americans who do not live in these communities and this contributes to the colonization of the black mind and body. He also argues that the cultural revitalization that was and is the aspirations of the Party continues to “play a key role in anti-colonial movement(s) (Blauner, 403).” This is anti-colonial movement is Black Nationalism or Black Power which calls on African Americans within the urban communities to cease back control of their very own institutions. These institutions include, but are not limited to schools, police departments, social services and businesses. This is exactly what the Party did. In the first draft of the Platform and Program of the Black Panther Party, their demands included …show more content…

The founders established a ten point program system that guided the activities of the Party. The Ten-Point Program argued for an end to police brutality, equal employment for all races, and distribution of land resource equally, provision of fair justice, and proper housing for all. The Black Panther Party aligned themselves with other Black Power movements that emphasized on the unification of civil rights, community control, and black pride. Even though the authorities saw the Party as a gang, the members saw themselves as a political party that wanted more African Americans to be elected in political offices. Unfortunately, they never achieved their dreams of having more African Americans elected in political offices. Luckily, the party established a number of social help programs such as free breakfast for school children and free health clinics for African-Americans (Joseph,

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