The Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party

What was the public response to them/who where their biggest supporters?

What did they do to gain support?

The black panther party grew very quickly, and at its peak had over 5000 members in 1969. At times They drew crowds of 10,000. A national poll in 1970 found that 25% percent of all African Americans

“felt the Black Panther party represented their views”. They even had an international presence in north Africa and the Caribbean and had support from other organisations from Asia and the middle east.

Including their police monitoring activities, they engaged in a number of social programs and created tabloids and youth groups to propel their message to a broader demographic.

They gave free breakfasts to over 20,000 black schoolchildren who usually would have gone to school hungry. They also created health clinics called People’s Free Medical Centers (PFMC) in 13 cities manned by volunteers, established the Youth institute (now Oakland community school), and created SAFE an elderly program to ensure the safety of senior citizens, and formed the Black Student alliance a political group for colleges, and ran their own newspaper, “The Black Panther”.

Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information for the BPP and his wife Kathleen Cleaver, Algiers 1969.

The formation of the BPP/Who where the founding members?

Why did the black panthers disband?

Political Parties in the Black Power Movement

What were their demands?

Did any outside forces contribute to the downfall of the Black panthers?

In October 1966, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded “the Black Panther Party for Self-Defence”. The party was originally formed to combat police brutality against the black community and began to take direct action against it after the LAPD shot and killed Matthew Johnson, an unarmed young black man in San Francisco. Newton observed the violent insurrection that followed and concluded that by standing up to the police, he could organize that force into political power. They began to organize patrols to follow the police around to monitor for incidents of brutality, while carrying loaded ammunition. They believed that the only solution to combat racism in America was to act with force and miltancy, because the "capitalists" as they referred to them refused to act despite widespread protest.

The Black Panther Party (BPP) drew much of their inspiration from other Black Power organizations such as the Soul Students Advisory Council and the Revolutionary Action Movement, and were heavily influenced by African American activists such as Malcolm X, who was a long time member of the Nation of Islam, a religious and political movement with African American Identity at its core.

Yes. The CIA and FBI had a major influence of public opinion when it came to the Black Panthers and disrupted many of their efforts to gain support, through their COINTELPRO intelligence program. They interfered with the medical centres and the free breakfasts for children, and even publicly denounced them. While the Black Panthers and other civil rights group believed that the unjust suffering of black people demanded immediate action, The secret services and other governmental organisations would argue that this sort of reaction was violent, thuggish, and threatened the stability of the United States.

1. freedom

2. full employment.

3. An end to the “robbery” by capitalists

4. housing

5. education

6. Black exemption from military service.

7. An end to police brutality.

8. freedom for all incarcerated Blacks.

9. Black people to be tried in courts by a jury of the same community

10. “We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing,

justice and peace.’

After they became the target of subterfuge by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program due to their socialist and black nationalist image, they gradually waned in popularity. In 1969 Chicago police killed party members Fred Hampton and mark Clark, two important figures in the groups leadership. these and other similar events are significant, as leadership of the party became weaker, and allegations of mistreatment by those in high postions in the party had become increasingly commonplace. The last straw for many was Huey P newton's embezzling of funds for his drug addictions. These series of events eventually culminated In a drastic decline in membership, and in 1980 their popularity reached an all time low, when their members are numbered to be about 27.

The Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party

An analysis of the effects of the Black Panther Party on the civil rights movement

What changes where caused By the Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party became one of the first black-nationalist political groups and inspired a generation of similarly minded groups and ushered a new era of leftism and race in politics around the world.