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Space05us
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quote:
Black Panther Party (BPP), a militant black political organization originally known as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. It was founded in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966. Newton became the party’s defense minister, and Seale its chairman. The BPP advocated black self-defense and restructuring American society to make it more politically, economically, and socially equal.
Newton and Seale articulated their goals in a ten-point platform that demanded, among other items, full employment, exemption of black men from military service, and an end to police brutality. They summarized their demands in the final point: “We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace.” They adopted the black panther symbol from an independent political party established the previous year by black residents of Lowndes County, Alabama.
Both Newton and Seale were influenced by the black Muslim leader, Malcolm X, who called on black people to defend themselves. They also supported the Black Power movement, which stressed racial dignity and self-reliance. The BPP established patrols in black communities in order to monitor police activities and protect the residents from police brutality. The BPP affirmed the right of blacks to use violence to defend themselves and thus became an alternative to more moderate civil rights groups. Their militancy quickly attracted the support of many black residents of Oakland. Newton, who had studied law, objected strongly when police engaged in brutality, conducted illegal searches, and otherwise violated the civil rights of black citizens.
The BPP combined elements of socialism and black nationalism, insisting that if businesses and the government did not provide for full employment, the community should take over the means of production. It promoted the development of strong black-controlled institutions, calling for blacks to work together to protect their rights and to improve their economic and social conditions. The BPP also emphasized class unity, criticizing the black middle class for acting against the interests of other, less fortunate blacks. The BPP welcomed alliances with white activists, such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later the Weathermen, because they believed that all revolutionaries that wanted to change U.S. society should unite across racial lines. This position differed from those taken by many black organizations of the late 1960s, such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which excluded white members after 1966.
The party first attracted attention in May 1967 when it protested a bill to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public. Reporters quickly gathered around the contingent of protesters, who had marched on the California state capital in Sacramento armed with weapons and wearing the party’s distinctive black leather jackets and black berets. After Seale read a statement, police arrested him and 30 others. News coverage of the incident attracted new recruits and led to the formation of chapters outside the San Francisco Bay area. The BPP grew throughout the late 1960s, and eventually had chapters all around the country.
Among those arrested in Sacramento was Eldridge Cleaver, a former convict who had recently published a book of essays called Soul on Ice (1967). Cleaver’s influence in the party increased when Newton was arrested in October 1967 and charged with murder in the death of an Oakland police officer. Cleaver was a powerful speaker who took the lead in building a “Free Huey” movement to defend Newton.
As part of this effort, Cleaver and Seale contacted Stokely Carmichael, the former chairman of SNCC and a nationally known proponent of Black Power. Carmichael agreed to become prime minister of the party and speak at “Free Huey” rallies during February 1968. The “Free Huey” movement allowed the BPP to expand its following nationally, particularly after it recruited well-known figures such as Carmichael and other SNCC members. The campaign on behalf of Newton saved him from the death penalty, but in September 1968 he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 2-15 years in prison. This conviction was appealed and was overturned in 1970 due to procedural errors.
The SNCC-Panther alliance began to disintegrate in the summer of 1968 for a variety of reasons. Carmichael and other representatives of SNCC had hoped to guide the less experienced Panthers but soon found that Cleaver and Seale were forceful leaders who were not easily dominated. In addition, Carmichael wanted to end all ties with white activists because he believed that they stood in the way of black self-reliance and equality. He eventually broke with Panther leaders over the issue of white support. The BPP also had differences with followers of southern California black nationalist Maulana Karenga, leader of a group called US. Panther leaders saw themselves as revolutionary nationalists, who wanted all revolutionaries, regardless of race, to unite. They disparaged Karenga as a cultural nationalist who placed too much emphasis on racial unity. The escalating verbal battles between the two groups culminated in a gun battle in January 1969 at the University of California at Los Angeles that left two Panthers dead.
As racial tension increased around the country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) blamed the Black Panthers for riots and other incidents of violence. The bureau launched a program called COINTELPRO (short for counterintelligence program) designed to disrupt efforts to unify black militant groups such as SNCC, BPP, and US. FBI agents sent anonymous threatening letters to Panthers, infiltrated the group with informers, and worked with local police to weaken the party. In December 1969 two Chicago leaders of the party, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, were killed in a police raid. By the end of the decade, according to the party’s attorney, 28 Panthers had been killed and many other members were either in jail or had been forced to leave the United States in order to avoid arrest. In 1970 Connecticut authorities began an unsuccessful effort to convict Seale and other Panthers of the murder of a Panther who was believed to be a police informant. In New York, 21 Panthers were charged with plotting to assassinate police officers and blow up buildings. Chief of staff David Hilliard awaited trial on charges of threatening the life of President Richard Nixon. Cleaver left the United States for exile in Cuba to avoid returning to prison for parole violations.
After Newton’s conviction was reversed, he sought to revive the party and reestablish his control by discouraging further police confrontations. Instead, he called for developing survival programs in black communities to build support for the BPP. These programs provided free breakfasts for children, established free medical clinics, helped the homeless find housing, and gave away free clothing and food. In 1973 Seale also tried to build popular support for the party by running for mayor of Oakland. He was defeated but received over 40 percent of the vote.
This attempt to shift the direction of the party did not prevent further external attacks and internal conflicts, and the party continued to decline as a political force. Newton and Seale broke with Cleaver, who continued to support black revolution instead of community programs. Newton became debilitated by his increasing use of cocaine and other drugs, and in 1974 he fled to Cuba to avoid new criminal charges of drug use. The same year, Seale resigned from the party.
After the departure of Newton and Seale, the party’s new leader, Elaine Brown, continued to emphasize community service programs. These programs were frequently organized and run by black women, who were a majority in the party by the mid-1970s. By then most of the party’s original leaders had left or had been expelled from the group. The BPP lost even more support after newspaper reports appeared describing the illicit activities of party leaders, including extortion schemes directed against Oakland merchants. By the end of the 1970s, weakened by external attacks, legal problems, and internal divisions, the BPP was no longer a political force.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. |
discuss if you please, mainly here so I dont interrupt Diss's thread. 
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Space05us
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Black Panther Party = Black people's Neo-Nazi party.
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Zevico
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Melbourne
Apr 2002
time: 15:28
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Uber, the fact that Germany's Jews attempted to live on when others refused to buy from them during the Nazi regime's pre-war time means nothing. The effect of racial prejudice laws in Germany was the reason Germany's Jews got into their own 'mini-economy'. Not the other way around.
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Bereta_Eder
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They should have become terrorists and demand rights and better conditions for the black community.
I see them as a very useful tool for the future undermining of US cohesion. Them and Texas.
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Bereta_Eder
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There was this movie with a little black girl going for the first time in an all white shool somehwere in south US. And people were shouting to the little girl, we'll poison you, die die die.
And not skinhead nazis but middle aged women etc.
It was unbeliavable. nazis were mild in comparison with those scum.
but the biggest shock was in the end when it said that those events happened in 1996!
199 freaking 6 for christs sHake.
so black panthers yeah why not.
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Bereta_Eder
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it sounded strange to me too, so i did a search and it was about 1960! (which i still pretty damn recent!!!!!!)
i mean i can see why ted striker and other americans appear so racist. there is a long tradition behind it whiuch makes the neo nazis look cute.
here's the movie (1st link i found really) http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/n.../item_2097.html
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:28
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The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was primarily a Black nationalist organization that got into socialism for two reasons. One, it was the late 60s, and every protest group was influenced by socialism of one sort or another. Two, they discovered they could make a lot of money buying cheap books from the PRC and selling them to white college radicals.
There were some serious problems with the BPP, mainly because of certain "reactionary" aspects of their philosophy. One of the key aspects of their philosphy was that racism unmanned the Black man (which is not untrue, but neither as true as they claimed), and so as a response they proclaimed a hyper-macho philosophy. As the BPP proclaimed at the last congerss of the Students for a Democratic Society, the proper position for women during the revolution is prone. To say that the BPP was sexist would be an understatment.
Eldrige Cleaver wrote in his memiors, Soul on Fire, that he raped white women in order to get back at white men. In order to practice, to learn how to rape and get away with it, he spent several years raping Black women first!  He apologizes for raping Black women, not for being a rapist. Women in the BPP were expected to give it up for the revolution, which basically relegated them to being prostitues and maids.
The BPP also attracted a large number of opportunists, criminals, and dillitants. Because of the hyper-machoism of the BPP, many men joined simply so they could strut their stuff around the Black community. Criminals joined because the BPP openly carried weapons (which was legal at the time in California, stronghold of the BPP). Having been drug dealers before, they continued their illegal activities after joining the party. While some sections, such as the Chicago and L.A. branches were mostly political, the national headquarters in Oakland was infected with many lesser quality comrades.
Still, there was something about the BPP that scared the bezeezus out of authority. They were openly revolutionary (though more for show than real), they carried weapons and regularly confronted the police (legally--mostly), they had the support of the communities in which they lived. They were able to organize within the prison system. They forced the issue of sickle cell anemia on the American medical establishment. They established the first breakfast programs for poor students (programs which many cities still have today). They gave away free groceries in poor communities. At a time when police were free to grab any Black man they wanted and charge him for a crime, or simply decide to go beat some poor man up, the BPP would intervene, help people get aquitted, defend those getting beaten.
Roy Kanaga's US organization was funded by the government (federal and local) as a counter-organization to the BPP, and when US attacked and murdered several BPP members at a UCLA meeting, it was the BPP that was harrassed by the police. The CIA spread a rumour that a then prominent actress, married to a French director, was carrying the child of a Panther. She because so distraught over the rumor, that after the child was born (all white, btw), that she committed suicide. The LAPD created the SWAT team to deal with the BPP. After all, Black people openly carrying weapons weer scary. California even changed the law to outlaw carrying weapnos openly, after the BPP showed up at the statehouse in Sacremento armed.
Gun fights between the BPP and police were frequent, and people were jailed on silly pretences or made up ones. Geronimo Pratt spent 23 years in prison for a murder, where the only evidence was the testimony of a paid FBI informant, even though there were witnesses who placed him 600 miles away at the time of the murder (a Black man murdered a white woman playing tenis with her husband).
George Jackson, who became political in prison, was jailed for participating in a robery, though he was asleep in the car when the robbery occured. Eventually he was murdered by prison guards who claimed he had hidden a gun in his afro.  Before this, however, Jackson's younger brother, a BPP member, staged a armed take-over of a court room, to try and get his brother out. When they got outside to a van with the judge in tow, the FBI and police open fired on the van, kiling the judge, and everyone else inside.
One of the guns Jackson's brother used was registed to Angela Davis, a prominent member of both the BPP and the Communist Party. Ronald Reagan, then governor had a hate on special for Angela, as he had repeatedly tried to fire her from her UCLA teaching job. With this excuse, the government proclaimed her a public-enemy, armed and dangerous, and began a year and a half manhunt for her, eventually capturing her in a hotel in NYC. Her captors expressed surpise that she surrendered quitely, apparently hoping she'd try and go out in a blaze of glory. The jury aquitted her of all charges in less than four hours of deilberation.
In Chicago, local BPP leader Fred Hampton arranged a truce between the Back (Black P. Stone Rangers--later known as the El Rukins) and Latino gangs and began recruiting them to politics. When the Black Student Union took over one of the main buildings at DePaul university, these gangs and the BPP stood guard (unarmed) outside to prevent invasion by the police.
Later that year, after an FBI plant informed police of the layout of the BPP's apartment, the police opened fire with a hail of bullets. Police claimed that the BPP started the gun-fight, but a reporter examined the evidence and discovered that only one bullet had been fired outward from the building. Both Fred Hampton and follower Mark Clark were killed while they lay in their beds, sleeping. According to Hampton's widow, when the police finally entered the apartment, one of them exclaimed "He's still breathing!" in Hampton's bedroom and they opened fire again. The family later won a lawsuit against the city of Chicago for quite a bit of money, and no one inside the building ever went to jail.
Eventually, the shenningans in Oakland drove many of the leaders into exile. Cleaver ended up in Algeria, where he held acid-guru Timothy Leary captive for a while (Leary was a narc, so he deserved it) and threatened to kill Elane Brown, Huey Newton's lover, while they were in China. Newton himself ended up in Cuba, hiding from a warrent on a cocaine charge.
Brown then took over the organization, drove out the rapists and many of the criminals, and tried to transform the organization from the macho-posture fest it was to a useful political organization. She was the one wh sponsored free grociers to the poor, she helped get Jerry Brown elected, etc. Then Huey came back from exile, beat the drug charge, and the organization collapsed.
Today, Cleaver is back in the US, a pastor of an evangalist churhc. He supported Ronald Reagan saying he would kick Black people in the ass and get them moving. Heuy Newtno died in what is presumed to be a drug deal gone wrong, but he was killed execution style. Given the man's addition to coke, I believe it. Bobby Seale, another leader (whom Brown claims no one in the organization had much respect for--so how did he get to be a leader?), one time member of the Chicago 8 (later the Chicago 7 as his trial was seperated for demanding his own attorny at every chance) now works as a community laison for Temple University and sells BBQ stuff.
There is a group around today that claims to be the BPPSD, but it is only a few years old, none of the old leaders enorse it, and has none of the socialist pretensions of the original group. It is a fairly right-wing, Black nationalist organization heavily influenced by the Nation of Islam. A sad appropriation of the name of an important part of American history,
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:28
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again, chegitz...
Eldridge Cleaver died in the mid 1990's...
he also ran for Congress in Cali as a Republican
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:28
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and by the way, the second incarnation of the black panther party is whats up... thats what i'm talking about... the working class, urban neo-fascists! my kind of people.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:28
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alright... late 90's...
anyway here in philly, you're right... these groups are minor. I think the African Revolutionary Action Commitee is a bit bigger but that group basically comes down to a guy walking the subway preaching to people... so black nationalism is at a low which is a good thing in that racial tensions are low but is bad in that people are slipping more and more onto the road of immorality and dependence.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:28
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though i had talked to one of the ARAC people... bah... his beliefs made no sense... saying that the gov't was arresting people to work in prison for nothing because no corporations wanted to hire black people... thats paranoid, delusional bullshit...
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:28
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Can't say anything about that ARAC cuz this is the first I've ever heard of them. It's a legitimate concern thuogh (if poorly reasoned).
Fact: corporations do use convicts as cheap labor.
Fact: #1 means that people who don't committ crimes aren't going to get those jobs.
Fact: historically, companies in the South would provide the state or county with a request for convict laborers, and the sheriff would go out and round people up, railroad them on some crime, and provide, at the cost fo the state, slave labor. This happened up until the end of the chain gang system (IIRC, the early 50s).
However, there is no evidence the later is happening today. But, if people aren't getting jobs because a convict laborer has the job instead, it's more likely that the jobless person will have to resort to crime to support himself. Thus, it becomes a vicious circle. Politicians and right-wingers say that convicts should work to pay for their keep, since it's an unfair burden on society to keep them in prison at public cost, but it takes jobs away from the innocent.
You can see how a paranoid person would latch onto this and construe it another way.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:28
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Chegitz:
but even what you said was not something intentional... it was just how the system worked out... i had a pamphlet from the group (i donated three dollars and got a cd of malcolm x speeches) where it basically said that businesses did not want to hire blacks period (which in itself is clearly a paranoid idea) but they still wanted to get labour off them so they basically forced blacks to do crime and get arrested so they could work in the prisons that the pamphlet described as in-door plantations...
some really crazy ****... i didnt know where to begin when i was talking to the boy
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:28
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i respect what he's trying to do but he needs to get his head on straight... at least he's anti-drugs and anti-feminist but the rest of his idealogy is crazy...
it's no matter though... his words fall on deaf ears 90% of the time... it's weird though how the last thing and the most important thing he says people should remember after hearing him is to 'not snitch on your people'...
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28-05-2003 14:58
I wish some people would gain experience before jumping to such conclusions. Two friends of my family were Black Panthers. As Uber said, it was a radical reaction to a radical situation. It's easy to call them THUGS and Neo-Nazis, but you have to consider the times, and the sh1t they had to put up with.
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