Black Panther Party
By Hayley Easter
Some facts...
The Black Panthers played a short but important role in the civil rights movement. They believed that Martin Luther King's non-violent campaign had failed. This group basically preached for a "revolutionary war". The Black Panthers were more than willing to us violence to get what they wanted. The Black Panther Party had four desires: equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights. Although the desires they had were understandable, their methods were disastrous.
More about them...
The Black Panthers were formed in Oakland, California in 1966. The language of the Black Panthers was violent as was their public stance. The two founders of the Black Panther Party were Huey Percy Newton and Bobby Seale. Like I had typed in earlier they had four desires, equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights, and they had a ten point plan to get to those goals (you can see below this).
When the Black Panthers started talking about a revolutionary war, it caught the FBI's attention. The FBI was successful in destroying the Black Panther's movement. The people who supported and were all for the Black Panther party claimed that the FBI used dirty tactics like forging letters to provoke conflict between the movements leaders and organizing the killings leaders such as John Huggins and etc. In 1966, survey carried out in America showed less than 5% of African-Americans approved of groups like the Black Panther Party.
Malcom X and the Black Panther Party (connections)
A man that spoke of violence in the civil rights movement, is Malcolm X. Many people believe that he was one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. You can also read that many other people believe that the Black Panther Party was inspired by Malcom X, even though they did take it to a new level.
Black Panthers Revisited | Op-Docs | The New York Times