Black Panther Party

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The Black Panther Party (BPP), original name Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a revolutionary Black nationalist party in the United States, influenced by Communism and having associations with foreign Communist organizations. It was active from 1966 until 1982, with chapters in numerous major cities, and many international support groups. In 1969, it had about 5,000 members.

Various crimes are associated with the organization and its members, but as the FBI, partially through COINTELPRO and other agencies, used various methods to repress the organization, what occurred is controversial and disputed. Despite the associations with violence, as being a leftist and pro-Black organization, it is described rather positively in politically correct sources. Numerous former Panthers have held elected office in the United States.

Foundations

In 1965, Huey Newton was released from jail, and, with his friend from Oakland City College, Bobby Seale, had joined a black power group called the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), which had a chapter in Oakland and followed the writings of Robert F. Williams. Originally from North Carolina, Williams published a pro-communist newsletter called The Crusader from China, where he fled to escape kidnapping charges. RAM was extremely violent; in 1965, three east coast RAM members were charged with conspiring to blow up the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, and the Washington Monument. Newton and Seale eventually left RAM seeking a group even more radical and violent. They wrote their initial platform statement, the ten-point program, with the help of Huey's brother, Melvin, and decided on uniforms of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, Black Berets, and openly displayed loaded shotguns.

The party rejected the integrationist stance of Martin Luther King, and focused on revolution, taking many ideas from Maoism. The party turned to the works of Karl Marx, Lenin, and Mao to form their revolutionary structure . In consciously working toward such a revolution, they considered themselves the vanguard party, “committed to organizing support for a socialist revolution.” However, the party did not fully agree with Karl Marx's analysis of the so-called lumpenproletariat (unemployed and uneducated classes). Marx felt that this class lacked the political consciousness required to lead a revolution. Newton, on the other hand, was inspired by his reading of post-colonial theorist Frantz Fanon and his belief that the lumpen was of utmost importance, saying about these "brothers off the block" that, “If you didn't relate to these cats, the power structure would organize these cats against you.”

The Ten Point Program

  • We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities.
  • We want full employment for our people.
  • We want an end to the robbery by the capitalist of our Black Community.
  • We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.
  • We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.
  • We want completely free health care for all black and oppressed people.
  • We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside the United States.
  • We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression.
  • We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in U. S. Federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country.
  • We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of modern technology.

See also

External links

Encyclopedias

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