The bill was crafted in response to members of the Black Panther Party who were copwatching.

This was highlighted in the Ten Point Platform, the newspaper that was distributed by the party, and the public commentary shared by the Panthers. Its roots may be also found in the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO)—an Alabama group dedicated to registering African-American voters. [47] Newton and Seale decided on a uniform of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets. October 18, 1969: A Panther is killed in a gunfight with police outside a Los Angeles restaurant. [31] Black Panther Party membership "consisted of recent migrants whose families traveled north and west to escape the southern racial regime, only to be confronted with new forms of segregation and repression". This early act of political repression kindles the fires to the burning resistance movement in the United States; soon initiating minority workers to take up arms and form new Panther chapters outside the state. Early 1972: Newton shuts down chapters around the country, and calls the key members to Oakland. Bobby Seale resigns from the party; while Elaine Brown takes the lead in continuing the Panther community programs.

capable of protecting myself, my family and my Black brothers and

[156]:13, In the beginning, recruiting women was a low priority for Newton and Seale. [101], Other survival programs[102] were free services such as clothing distribution, classes on politics and economics, free medical clinics, lessons on self-defense and first aid, transportation to upstate prisons for family members of inmates, an emergency-response ambulance program, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and testing for sickle-cell disease. [128] Elaine Brown taught reading and writing to a group of 10- to 11-year-olds deemed "uneducable" by the system. In California, the party leader of Oakland, David Hilliard, claimed that the BPP was at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list. A few Panthers won seats on local government commissions. That synergetic statement of "All power to all the people," "Down with the racist pig power structure" -- we were not talking about the average white person: we were talking about the corporate money rich and the racist jive politicians and the lackeys, as we used to call them, for the government who perpetuates all this exploitation and racism.

CNN's Alexandra Meeks contributed to this report. "We do know that those kinds of things shape one's subconscious values, and so now there will be dark-skinned dolls that kids from everywhere can play with," Myong'o said. Fonda and other Hollywood celebrities became involved in the Panthers' leftist programs. December 1974: Accountant Betty van Patter is murdered, after threatening to disclose irregularities in the Party's finances. [114] Hampton had been slipped the barbiturates which had left him unconscious by William O'Neal, who had been working as an FBI informant. The Panthers attracted a wide variety of left-wing revolutionaries and political activists, including writer Jean Genet, former Ramparts magazine editor David Horowitz (who later became a major critic of what he describes as Panther criminality)[citation needed] and left-wing lawyer Charles R. Garry, who acted as counsel in the Panthers' many legal battles. Young. [107] Funding for the Intercommunal Youth Institute was provided through a combination of Black Panther fundraising and community support. In 1967, the Mulford Act was passed by the California legislature and signed by governor Ronald Reagan. Interview of Bobby Seale in 1996: "They came down on us because we had a grass-roots, real people's revolution, complete with the programs, complete with the unity, complete with the working coalitions, we were crossing racial lines. The BPP adopted a "Serve the People" program, which at first involved a free breakfast program for children. Black political and community outreach, life styles, humor and drama for today's Black Nation. [121], When Algeria held its first Pan-African Cultural Festival, they invited many important figures from the United States. Scholars have characterized the Black Panther Party as the most influential black movement organization of the late 1960s, and "the strongest link between the domestic Black Liberation Struggle and global opponents of American imperialism". The Black Riders Liberation Party was created by Bloods and Crips gang members as an attempt to recreate the Black Panther Party in In September 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country". In the beginning of 1968, after selling Mao's Red Book to university students in order to buy shotguns, the Party makes the book required reading. It is not clear this was his own doing, and very probable the work of the FBI. One such attempt was to "intensify the degree of animosity" between the Black Panthers and the Blackstone Rangers, a Chicago street gang. Instead of risking their lives on the battlefield for a country that continued to oppress them, Cleaver believed that the black GIs should risk their lives in support of their own liberation.

At the time, the Panthers had almost no following. But with a crucial difference: his patrols would carry loaded guns. Newton and Seale decided to adopt the Black Panther logo and form their own organization called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

The BPP leadership took one third of the proceeds from robberies committed by BPP members.[99]. After the 1970s the Black Power movement saw a decline, but not an end. Seven other Panthers sleeping at the house at the time of the raid were then beaten and seriously wounded, then arrested under charges of aggravated assault and attempted murder of the officers involved in the raid. The school itself was dissimilar to traditional schools in a variety of ways including the fact that students were separated by academic performance rather than age and students were often provided one on one support as the faculty to student ratio was 1:10. [79] The Black Panther Party provided needed legitimacy to the Peace and Freedom Party's racial politics and in return received invaluable support for the "Free Huey" campaign.

Now, (a year later) however, their leaders speak on invitation almost anywhere radicals gather, and many whites wear "Honkeys for Huey" buttons, supporting the fight to free Newton, who has been in jail since last Oct. 28 (1967) on the charge that he killed a policeman ...[65], The Black Panther Party first publicized its original "What We Want Now!"

[32] In the early 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement had dismantled the Jim Crow system of racial caste subordination in the South with tactics of non-violent civil disobedience, and demanding full citizenship rights for black people.

The initial targets included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement and the Nation of Islam, as well as leaders including the Rev. The Panthers employed a California law that permitted carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one. [169], Elaine Brown rose to power within the BPP as Minister of Information after Eldridge Cleaver fled abroad. [87][88], In 1968, the group shortened its name to the Black Panther Party and sought to focus directly on political action.

[124], In late September 1971, Huey P. Newton led a delegation to China and stayed for 10 days. The party developed a five-year plan to take over the city of Oakland politically. It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality. [36], Civil rights tactics proved incapable of redressing these conditions, and the organizations that had "led much of the nonviolent civil disobedience", such as SNCC and CORE, went into decline. [165]:5 When Oakland Panthers arrived to bolster the New York City Panther chapter after 21 New York leaders were incarcerated, they displayed such chauvinistic attitudes towards New York Panther women that they had to be fended off at gunpoint. In order to ensure that this occurred, the Black Panther Party took the education of their youth in their own hands by first establishing after-school programs and then opening up Liberation Schools in a variety of locations throughout the country which focused their curriculum on Black history, writing skills, and political science. October 5, 1968: A Panther is killed in a gunfight with police in Los Angeles. 3) End to robbery of Black communities; the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules as promised to ex-slaves during the reconstruction period following the emancipation of slavery. [170], In an interview with Judson Jeffries, Gwen Robinson reflects on her time in the Black Panther Party Detroit Division. The group confronted Oakland Police officers, then fled to an apartment building where they engaged in a 90-minute gun battle with the police. [8] At its inception on October 15, 1966,[9] the Black Panther Party's core practice was its open carry armed citizens' patrols ("copwatching") to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in the city. The shirt my brother got for me while he was in Ghana. Panthers provided daily home-cooked meals in support of the protest's eventual success, which eventually led to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) thirteen years later.[189].

But were these survey results slanted in such a manner as to tarnish the name of the Black Panthers at an early stage in its existence especially as the head of the FBI, Hoover, was known to be very against the movement?

We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense. FBI infiltrators caused the party to suffer many internal conflicts, resulting in the murders of Alex Rackley and Betty Van Patter. "[35] Young black people in Oakland and other cities developed study groups and political organizations, and from this ferment the Black Panther Party emerged. possible. Newton expels Cleaver and the entire international section from the party. From its beginnings, the Black Panther Party championed black masculinity and traditional gender roles. Hutton's death became a rallying issue for Panther supporters. FBI raids in BPP heartlands – Chicago and Los Angeles – that led to the arrest of regional leaders, resulted in the collapse of the movement.

For something I love to finally represent people who look like me.

Still, they scared a lot of important people that day. Following these mass killings would be a series of arrests, followed by a program of psychological warfare, designed to split the party both politically and morally through the use of espionage, provocatures, and chemical warfare.

Spring 1970: The Oakland BPP engages in another ambush of police officers with guns and fragmentation bombs. Hampton's wife, carrying child for 8 months, is also shot, but survives. 2) Full Employment; give every person employment or guaranteed income. Elaine Brown was appointed Chairwoman of the Panthers in 1974 as Newton went into exile. in their struggle for liberation. The language of the Black Panthers was violent as was their public stance. Black people have been striving to remind the world for years that Africa is a continent, not a country.