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Martin Luther Jr.

Date: 2017 From: Gale In Context Online Collection Publisher: Gale, a Cengage Company Document Type: Biography Length: 1,246 words Content Level: (Level 5) Lexile Measure: 1350L

About this Person Born: January 15, 1929 in , , Died: April 04, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, United States Nationality: American Occupation: Civil rights activist Other Names: King, Michael Luther, Jr. Full Text: One of the most well-known and accomplished social activists in history, Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) was one of the key figures of the American and a revered leader in the African American community. A Baptist minister, King led a passionate campaign to promote equal rights for African Americans and put an end to racial discrimination. His efforts, which included such historic events as the (1955–1956) and the March on Washington (1963), had a lasting impact on the way Americans thought about race and led to the passage of groundbreaking legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Although his life was ultimately cut short, King left a lasting legacy that continues to shape America and the American way of life today.

Critical Thinking Questions Critical Thinking Questions

What contributions did King make to the civil rights movement, and why were they important? Why might King have been a target of violence and intimidation? How might King’s death have changed the way the American public thought about him and the civil rights movement?

Early Life

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. The son of Martin Luther King Sr. (1899–1984), the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and former schoolteacher (1926–1974), King grew up in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood, which was one of the most affluent African American communities in America. As a child, King attended segregated public school and performed so well as a student that he graduated high school early and enrolled at when he was just fifteen years old. Upon earning a degree from Morehouse, King began religious studies at Pennsylvania’s Crozer Theological Seminary. After earning a bachelor of divinity degree from Crozer in 1951, King moved on to Boston University. While working toward earning his doctorate at the university, King met a student from the New England Conservatory of Music named Coretta Scott (1927–2006). The two subsequently married in 1953. The following year, King moved to Montgomery, Alabama, with his new wife and took a position as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The Kings would eventually add four children to their family, including Yolanda Denise King (1955–2007), Martin Luther King III (1957–), Dexter Scott King (1961–), and Bernice Albertine King (1963–). King and the Civil Rights Movement

Within a year of his arrival in the city, Montgomery became the center of the quickly escalating civil rights movement. King’s involvement in the civil rights movement began after local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) secretary (1913–2005) was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger in 1955. In response to this injustice, King led a boycott of the Montgomery bus system that lasted for 381 days and brought national attention to the problem of segregation. Thanks in part to King’s efforts, segregated seating on public buses was declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court less than a year later. Empowered by the effectiveness of his bus boycott, King moved to take a more active role in the civil rights movement and, along with some of his fellow activists, formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957. The SCLC was founded with the specific aim of achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent means. From the outset, King served as the SCLC’s president and most visible public spokesman. In this position, which he held for the remainder of his life, King spoke about civil rights and nonviolent protest at lectures around the world, wrote several books, and generally took a stand against racism and discrimination.

King moved back to Atlanta in 1960 to serve alongside his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. In 1963, King and a number of other civil rights activists participated in a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, that involved marches, sit-ins, and boycotts. For his part in the campaign, King was arrested on April 12 and briefly imprisoned. During his incarceration, King wrote a civil rights manifesto called “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In this famous letter to a group of white clergymen, King persuasively defended the use of civil disobedience as a way of achieving social change.

In August 1963, King organized and led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the massive civil rights rally for which he is perhaps best remembered. On the day of the event, approximately two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand supporters of the civil rights movement gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial and called for an end to racial inequality and discrimination. For his part, King delivered the renowned “” speech in which he described his vision of a future America where people of all colors and creeds lived side by side in peace. The march and King’s speech had an immediate impact, galvanizing the civil rights movement and helping to pave the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That same year, King himself was honored as both Time magazine’s Man of the Year and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In early 1965, an SCLC voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, erupted into a violent confrontation between white segregationists and peaceful protestors. In response to the violence, King led a group of supporters on a peaceful procession from Selma to Montgomery known as the March for Voting Rights. Just months after King’s march in Selma, Congress took steps to protect the voting rights of all African Americans with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. After Selma, King began making a concerted effort to extend the scope of his activism beyond civil rights. Specifically, he started speaking out against poverty and the Vietnam War (1954–1975). Death and Legacy

Throughout the time he spent as a major public figure in the civil rights movement, King was frequently subjected to threats of violence and personal assaults. His home was even damaged in a bombing in the 1950s. King took these incidents in stride, but his work was undoubtedly dangerous and often left him vulnerable to attack. In the spring of 1968, King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to lend his voice to a sanitation workers’ strike. On the night of April 4, King was shot and killed while standing on a motel balcony. King’s assassination set off a wave of violence in cities across the nation. His assassin, an escaped convict named (1928–1998), was later caught, tried, and sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison for King’s murder.

In the years following his death, King came to be seen not only as a civil rights hero but also as one of the most important and influential activists in American history. In recognition of his groundbreaking accomplishments and the lasting legacy he left behind, the third Monday of January was designated a national holiday in King’s honor in 1983.

Timeline—Martin Luther King Jr. Timeline—Martin Luther King Jr.

1929: Born on January 15 in Atlanta, Georgia 1948: Graduates from Morehouse College and enrolls at Boston University 1953: Marries 1955: Earns doctorate from Boston University 1955: Leads the Montgomery bus boycott 1957: Founds the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 1963: Gets arrested and is briefly jailed for participating in a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama 1963: Leads the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and delivers “I Have a Dream” speech 1965: Leads a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama 1968: Dies of a gunshot wound on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2020 Gale, a Cengage Company Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "Martin Luther King Jr." Gale In Context Online Collection, Gale, 2017. Gale In Context: High School, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GFPPKR808355292/SUIC?u=esc11&sid=SUIC&xid=76275bfa. Accessed 20 Mar. 2020. Gale Document Number: GALE|GFPPKR808355292 Disclaimer: This is a machine generated PDF of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace original scanned PDF. Neither Cengage Learning nor its licensors make any representations or warranties with respect to the machine generated PDF. The PDF is automatically generated "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" and are not retained in our systems. CENGAGE LEARNING AND ITS LICENSORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES FOR AVAILABILITY, ACCURACY, TIMELINESS, COMPLETENESS, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Your use of the machine generated PDF is subject to all use restrictions contained in The Cengage Learning Subscription and License Agreement and/or the Gale In Context: High School Terms and Conditions and by using the machine generated PDF functionality you agree to forgo any and all claims against Cengage Learning or its licensors for your use of the machine generated PDF functionality and any output derived therefrom.

Malcolm X

Date: 2017 From: Gale In Context Online Collection Publisher: Gale, a Cengage Company Document Type: Biography Length: 1,128 words Content Level: (Level 4) Lexile Measure: 1220L

About this Person Born: May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, United States Died: February 21, 1965 in New York, New York, United States Nationality: American Occupation: Civil rights activist Other Names: Little, Malcolm; El-Shabazz, El-Hajj Malik Full Text: (1925–1965) was an African American human rights leader active during the civil rights movement in the United States. A harsh critic of white America, Malcolm X fought for equal rights for black Americans. Unlike the nonviolent protests advocated by leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), Malcolm X was known for his aggressive rhetoric, which some critics perceived as racist and encouraging of violent protests. Malcolm X had a rough childhood and spent time in prison during his youth. He converted to Islam while jailed as a young man and became a follower of the black nationalist Islamic sect known as the Nation of Islam (NOI). He is often noted for his advocacy of Pan-Africanism, which promotes solidarity among all people of African descent, and black nationalism, a movement that seeks to separate black lives from European influences. Malcom X would distance himself from the NOI in his later career. In February 1965, Malcom X was assassinated by several members of the NOI.

Critical Thinking Critical Thinking

How did Malcom X’s childhood influence his future as a black nationalist? What are some reasons why Malcolm X backed away from the Nation of Islam (NOI)? Why was Malcom X critical of nonviolent protesting?

Early Life

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska. His father, Earl, was a Baptist minister known for his support of black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey (1887–1940). His mother, Louise, stayed home to care for the family’s eight children. The Littles often received death threats from various white supremacist organizations for their involvement in civil rights causes. The family was forced to move twice to avoid such threats, but in 1929 their home in Lansing, Michigan, was burned to the ground. In 1931, Earl Little’s dead body was discovered on trolley tracks. Although police ruled his death an accident, the family believed white supremacists were responsible. A few years after her husband’s death, Louise had a mental breakdown and was committed to a mental health facility in 1939. Malcom X and his siblings were put into foster care, where they were separated from one another.

Under foster care, Malcolm attended several predominantly white schools while growing up and was friends with many of his white schoolmates. He achieved excellent grades in his subjects but often faced harsh criticism for his success. After telling one of his teachers that he hoped to be a lawyer one day, Malcolm X was told that his goal was unrealistic for a black student. He often acted out in response to his frustrations, which were intensified by his mother’s deteriorating health. Welfare officials placed him in a number of reform schools during these rebellious years. Eventually he decided to leave Michigan and relocate to Boston, Massachusetts, with his sister, Ella.

Malcom X found a job as a railroad worker in Boston and often traveled between there and New York. Throughout the 1940s, he became increasingly involved in illegal activities such as drug peddling and illegal gambling. His reddish hair earned him the nickname Detroit Red within his community. His activities came to a halt in 1946, when he was arrested for theft and sentenced to prison. Malcom X spent six years in prison, during which time he studied subjects such as slavery and oppression throughout history. He also converted to the religion of Islam under the influence of his brother, Reginald. Malcolm X became a follower of Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975), the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI), a small group of black nationalists who followed Islam. The NOI regularly referred to whites as “devils” and preached the end of white authority over black lives. Following his release from jail in 1952, Malcolm X became a minister within the NOI. He replaced his last name, Little, with an X to stand in for the African name taken from his ancestors. The Face of Black Muslims

Malcolm X quickly became an outspoken advocate for the NOI, whose members are often referred to as Black Muslims. He proved to be a very effective speaker and was credited with recruiting thousands of new followers over the next decade. By 1954, he was assigned to lead the group’s New York location, and three years later he was named the NOI’s national representative. In 1958, he married Betty Sanders, with whom he would have six children.

Malcolm X’s fame greatly increased throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s due to his frequent appearances on television and radio programs and his participation in civil rights protests around the country. His speeches became known for their fierce calls to action, urging black Americans to liberate and separate themselves from their white neighbors. He was vocally critical of the nonviolent protests advocated by Martin Luther King Jr., which he believed were an ineffective means of achieving revolutionary goals. Malcolm X’s opinions began to differ from those of his NOI superiors, however, and following a crass comment he made about the assassination of John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), the NOI banned him from speaking in public.

In response to his growing discontent with the NOI, Malcolm X left the organization in 1964 to form his own group, Muslim Mosque, Inc. In April 1964, he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, an Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia. Seeing Muslims of all colors praying together made Malcolm X change his mind about whites, and he believed that Islam could be a way to overcome racial prejudice. He began following orthodox Islam and changed his name to el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. He remained critical of nonviolent protest, however, and continued to advocate the forceful reclaiming of black freedom. His oratory often made him the target of government agencies, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was known for trying to undercut his influence. He also had made enemies within the NOI, who considered him a traitor. In February 1965, Malcolm X’s home was firebombed. His family made it out safely, but the culprit was never caught. A week after the firebombing, members of the NOI shot and killed Malcolm X as he spoke at the Audubon Ballroom in . His Harlem funeral service was attended by more the 1,500 people. In the decades after his death, Malcolm X remained one of the most influential voices of the civil rights movement.

Timeline—Malcolm X Timeline—Malcolm X

1925: Born Malcolm Little on May 19 in Omaha, Nebraska 1931: Father’s body is found on trolley tracks, his death ruled an accident 1939: Mother is committed to a mental health facility 1946: Gets arrested for theft and is sentenced to jail 1952: Finishes jail sentence, becomes a minister within the NOI, and changes name to Malcolm X 1957: Becomes the NOI’s national representative 1964: Leaves NOI and founds Muslim Mosque, Inc. 1965: Dies in an assassination carried out by members of the NOI

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2020 Gale, a Cengage Company Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "Malcolm X." Gale In Context Online Collection, Gale, 2017. Gale In Context: High School, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/HDAQVG663899021/SUIC?u=esc11&sid=SUIC&xid=06ef8a4e. Accessed 20 Mar. 2020. Gale Document Number: GALE|HDAQVG663899021 Freedom Rides

In the mid-1970s, people became suspicious about the activities of the FBI and CIA and filed lawsuits under the FOIA. These resulted in the publication of a number of COINTELPRO files. The information in these files, coupled with documentation implicating the CIA in domestic intelligence abuses, prompted Congress to investigate the activities of both agencies. Although many FBI and CIA files had been destroyed or altered, the investigations revealed that both organizations had carried out a number of programs intended to undermine, discredit, or destroy the civil rights movement and antiwar movement in the 1960s. Following the revelation of FBI and CIA abuses, there was a public outcry for curbs on both organizations. In 1974, Congress created amendments to the FOIA that would allow disclosure of documents to individuals subject to investigation as long as their release did not pose a security risk. Privacy Act amendments give individual Americans the right to see the government’s records concerning themselves and to cor- rect them if they are inaccurate. The amendments also determined that individuals can sue the government if it releases records about them to anyone not authorized to see those records under the act.

Freedom Rides On May 4, 1961, thirteen civil-rights activists—seven blacks and six whites—led by James Farmer (1920–1999) set out in two buses from Washington, D.C. They called themselves freedom riders, and they were heading to New Orleans, Louisiana, via the states of the Deep South—Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. These were Jim Crow states where segregation, the enforced separation of races in almost every aspect of public life, had prevailed since the nineteenth century. The freedom riders, who were sponsored by the nonviolent civil- rights group Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), were determined to speed up the process of desegregation (elimination of practices that sep- arate people by race) in the South. In direct violation of Jim Crow laws, black freedom riders planned to sit in the front of the buses while white freedom riders sat in the back. They would “desegregate” every station along the way by having the black riders use the “white” waiting rooms while the white riders used the “colored” facilities. The riders were trained in nonviolent activism (see Civil Disobedience) and knew that

588 U•X•L Encyclopedia of U.S. History Freedom Rides

Freedom riders arrive in Alabama in 1961 protected by National Guard troops. The freedom riders, who were sponsored by the nonviolent civil-rights group Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), were determined to speed up the process of desegregation in the South. AP IMAGES

hostile segregationists in the South were determined to stop them. They steeled themselves for the worst.

Violence in Alabama On the first part of the trip, there were minor incidents, but it was in Alabama that the two buses carrying the freedom riders met with vio- lence. An angry mob met the first bus in Anniston, Alabama, slashing its tires before the bus could pull away. When a flat tire forced the bus driver to stop outside of town, the mob caught up and renewed its attack. In the frenzy, someone threw a firebomb into the crowded bus; the freedom riders barely managed to escape before the bus burst into flames.

U•X•L Encyclopedia of U.S. History 589 Freedom Rides

The other bus fared no better. City authorities in Birmingham, Alabama, had failed to provide police protection for the riders, and an angry mob assaulted the freedom riders at the bus depot. Many were in- jured, and one of the riders was crippled for life. The riders fled to New Orleans. With no bus drivers willing to trans- port them and the threat of violence growing, CORE decided to end its project. But civil-rights activists across the nation had been watching. Determined to prevent the segregationists from ending the freedom rides, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) quickly made a new plan. Despite the obvious danger, ten stu- dents, including one of the riders from the original two buses, (1940–), prepared to finish the freedom rides.

Riot in Montgomery National newspapers, television, and radio had covered the violence against the first freedom riders, shocking Americans with the scenes of mob brutality. When the second group of freedom riders arrived in Birmingham to begin their journey, the eyes of the nation were upon them. In Washington, D.C., Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) had found a bus driver willing to transport the freedom riders and had obtained assurance from Alabama’s segregationist gover- nor, John Malcolm Patterson (1921–), that they would be protected. As the freedom riders’ bus left Birmingham, a busload of policemen and a helicopter followed. When the bus arrived in Montgomery, however, all protection disappeared, and another mob attacked. With television cam- eras rolling, the mob severely beat the riders with lead pipes, bricks, and bats. The city police allowed the beatings to continue for some time be- fore they intervened. Kennedy was outraged, and immediately sent six hundred U.S. marshals (federal law enforcement officers) to protect the riders. After the bloodied freedom riders escaped the mob and were helped to safety by local families, they gathered with their supporters at Montgomery’s First Baptist Church. There, minister and civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) was preparing to address the crowd. A white mob gathered outside the church. As evening fell, the mob dissolved into rioting. A force of two hundred federal marshals was barely able to keep the mob from burning down the church. Finally, at 2 AM, Patterson sent state troops to restore order.

590 U•X•L Encyclopedia of U.S. History Freedom Summer

Prison in Jackson On May 25, after Alabama policemen drove the freedom riders to the state line, twenty-seven of them set off by bus for Jackson, Mississippi, to continue their mission. At the Mississippi state line, they found the state’s national guard (military reserve units controlled by the state, but equipped by the federal government) lining both sides of the highway. At the Jackson bus depot, the police quietly escorted the riders into the whites-only waiting room and out the other side, and then arrested them for trespassing. The judge who heard their case refused to listen to their defense and sentenced them to thirty days in Parchman State Penitentiary, a segregated jail known for its abuse of African American inmates. That summer, hundreds of activists followed the freedom riders’ ex- ample, and many were arrested for it. In the fall, Robert Kennedy con- vinced the Interstate Commerce Commission (a federal regulatory agency) to enforce a 1960 Supreme Court ruling that banned segrega- tion in interstate travel (travel from state to state). The freedom rides put President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63) on notice that civil-rights leaders expected his admin- istration to take action to uphold the law. The civil rights movement also sent a clear message to the white segregationists that ugly mob vio- lence would not stop civil-rights workers’ efforts to integrate the South. Indeed, the freedom riders had proven that mob violence was actually its own worst enemy, because it turned national opinion against segregation and brought the forces of the federal government squarely into the de- segregation movement.

Freedom Summer Although the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that the right to vote may not be denied anyone because of race or color, in the early 1960s civil rights activists in Mississippi were struggling against great odds to make it possible for African Americans to vote. Mississippi’s record on voting rights was not good. In 1960, blacks made up about 45 percent of the state’s population, but only about 6 percent were registered to vote. White supremacists (people who believe that whites should rule over people of other races) had devised many meth- ods to ensure that blacks did not vote. In some cases, literacy (the abil- ity to read and write) or “interpretation” tests were required of blacks.

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Black Panther Party

original name for Self-Defense

original name Black Panther Party for Self-DefenseAfrican American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and . The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighbourhoods to protect residents from acts of . The Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans, the exemption of African Americans from the draft and from all sanctions of so-called white America, the release of all African Americans from jail, and the payment of compensation to African Americans for centuries of exploitation by white Americans. At its peak in the late 1960s, Panther membership exceeded 2,000, and the organization operated chapters in several major American cities. Origin and political program

Despite passage of the 1960s civil rights legislation that followed the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), African Americans living in cities throughout North America continued to suffer economic and social inequality. Poverty and reduced public services characterized these urban centres, where residents were subject to poor living conditions, joblessness, chronic health problems, violence, and limited means to change their circumstances. Such conditions contributed to urban uprisings in the 1960s (such as those in the Watts district of in 1965, among others) and to the increased use of police violence as a measure to impose order on cities throughout North America.

It was in this context, and in the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, that Merritt Junior College students Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on October 15, 1966, in West Oakland (officially “Western Oakland,” a district of the city of Oakland), California. Shortening its name to the Black Panther Party, the organization immediately sought to set itself apart from African American cultural nationalist organizations, such as the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Nation of Islam, to which it was commonly compared. Although the groups shared certain philosophical positions and tactical features, the Black Panther Party and cultural nationalists differed on a number of basic points. For instance, whereas African American cultural nationalists generally regarded all white people as oppressors, the Black Panther Party distinguished between racist and nonracist whites and allied themselves with progressive members of the latter group. Also, whereas cultural nationalists generally viewed all African Americans as oppressed, the Black Panther Party believed that African American capitalists and elites could and typically did exploit and oppress others, particularly the African American working class. Perhaps most importantly, whereas cultural nationalists placed considerable emphasis on symbolic systems, such as language and imagery, as the means to liberate African Americans, the Black Panther Party believed that such systems, though important, are ineffective in bringing about liberation. It considered symbols as woefully inadequate to ameliorate the unjust material conditions, such as joblessness, created by capitalism.

From the outset, the Black Panther Party outlined a Ten Point Program, not unlike those of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and Nation of Islam, to initiate national African American community survival projects and to forge alliances with progressive white radicals and other organizations of people of colour. A number of positions outlined in the Ten Point Program address a principle stance of the Black Panther Party: economic exploitation is at the root of all oppression in the United States and abroad, and the abolition of capitalism is a precondition of social justice. In the 1960s this socialist economic outlook, informed by a Marxist political philosophy, resonated with other social movements in the United States and in other parts of the world. Therefore, even as the Black Panther Party found allies both within and beyond the borders of North America, the organization also found itself squarely in the crosshairs of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and its counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO. In fact, in 1969 FBI director J. Edgar Hoover considered the Black Panther Party the greatest threat to national security.

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The Black Panther Party came into the national spotlight in May 1967 when a small group of its members, led by its chair, Seale, marched fully armed into the California state legislature in Sacramento. Emboldened by the view that African Americans had a constitutional right to bear arms (based on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution), the Black Panther Party marched on the body as a protest against the pending Mulford Act. The Black Panther Party viewed the legislation, a gun control bill, as a political maneuver to thwart the organization’s effort to combat police brutality in the Oakland community. The images of gun-toting entering the Capitol were supplemented, later that year, with news of Newton’s arrest after a shoot-out with police in which an officer was killed. With this newfound publicity, the Black Panther Party grew from an Oakland-based organization into an international one with chapters in 48 states in North America and support groups in Japan, China, France, England, Germany, Sweden, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uruguay, and elsewhere.

In addition to challenging police brutality, the Black Panther Party launched more than 35 Survival Programs and provided community help, such as education, tuberculosis testing, legal aid, transportation assistance, ambulance service, and the manufacture and distribution of free shoes to poor people. Of particular note was the Free Breakfast for Children Program (begun in January 1969) that spread to every major American city with a Black Panther Party chapter. The federal government had introduced a similar pilot program in 1966 but, arguably in response to the Panthers’ initiative, extended the program and then made it permanent in 1975—undoubtedly to the chagrin of Hoover.

Notwithstanding the social services the Black Panther Party provided, the FBI declared the group a communist organization and an enemy of the U.S. government. Hoover had pledged that 1969 would be the last year of the Black Panther Party and devoted the resources of the FBI, through COINTELPRO, toward that end. In a protracted program against the Black Panther Party, COINTELPRO used agent provocateurs, sabotage, misinformation, and lethal force to eviscerate the national organization. The FBI’s campaign culminated in December 1969 with a five-hour police shoot-out at the Southern California headquarters of the Black Panther Party and an Illinois state police raid in which Chicago Black Panther leader was killed. The measures employed by the FBI were so extreme that, years later when they were revealed, the director of the agency publicly apologized for “wrongful uses of power.”

In the early 1970s radical scholar and activist Angela Davis became widely associated with the Black Panthers, though it seems likely that she never actually became a standing member of the party. Davis did, however, have strong connections with the party and taught political education classes for it. She initially gained notoriety in 1970 when then governor of California Ronald Reagan led the Board of Regents in refusing to renew Davis’s appointment as lecturer in philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, because of her politics and her association with communists. At about the same time, Davis became involved in the case of three African American inmates at Soledad Prison who had been accused of murdering a guard. She became deeply involved with one of the inmates, George Jackson, whose younger brother’s attempt on August 7, 1970, to win Jackson’s release by taking hostages in the Marin county courthouse went violently awry. Four deaths resulted, and when at least one of the guns proved to be registered to Davis, she fled charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder, going underground and entering the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list before being captured some eight weeks later after becoming a cause célèbre for the radical Left. Ultimately she was acquitted of all the charges against her by an all-white jury.

From the mid-1970s through the ’80s, the activities of the Black Panther Party all but ceased. Although COINTELPRO contributed to its demise, the dissolution of the party’s leadership also contributed to the downfall of the organization. earned a law degree and took an appointment as a professor. After returning from exile in Cuba, Newton was killed in a drug dispute in August 1989, perishing in an alley in West Oakland, not far from where he and Seale had founded the first Black Panther Party chapter. designed clothes in the 1970s and ’80s before joining the anticommunist Unification Church en route to becoming a born-again Christian and a registered member of the Republican Party.

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From its founding in 1966, the influence of the Black Panther Party assumed a transnational character that went beyond the creation of support groups for the organization. Activists in Australian urban centres, for example, incorporated the works of Black Panther Party members into their social movements. The oppressed Dalits in emulated the rhetoric of the Black Panthers, and the representatives of the Vietnamese National Liberation Front, who called themselves Yellow Panthers, also used the organization as a model. Closer to the United States, the Vanguard Party in the Bahamas closely studied the Black Panther Party, drew on its political philosophy, adopted its use of uniforms and its Ten Point Program, and published the newspaper Vanguard, whose scope and format mirrored the Black Panther Party’s newspaper, Black Panther, to shape its program of activism.

Even decades after the founding of the organization, the Black Panther Party survived in the public imagination in the United States as a result of the publication of a number of memoirs by its members and the use of its rhetoric in rap music. In 1990 Alderman Michael McGee, a former Black Panther Party member, sought to resurrect the organization when he formed the Black Panther Militia in response to the neglect of his community by local politicians and business leaders. The militia inspired other chapters and eventually became the , under the leadership of community activist Aaron Michaels. By 1998, Khallid Abdul Muhammad, the former national spokesperson for the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, had assumed the de facto leadership of the organization when he led a group of shotgun- and rifle-toting New Black Panther Party members to Jasper, , in the wake of the murder of James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old African American man who had been dragged behind a pickup truck by three members of the Ku Klux Klan. The New Black Panther Party also became known to the public through the Million Youth March it first organized in New York in 1998.

Many activities of the New Black Panther Party clearly replicated those of the original Black Panther Party. At the same time, however, the New Black Panther Party embraced a staunchly cultural nationalist orientation, leading some former Black Panther Party leaders to denounce it for using the Black Panther Party name and for appropriating its legacy. The Southern Poverty Law Center also emphasized the difference between the two groups and labeled the New Black Panther Party a racist and anti-Semitic hate group. Members of the New Black Panther Party, however, were unapologetic and summarily rejected such condemnation, contending that they only took up the struggle for social justice and freedom that the original Black Panther Party had failed to sustain.

Garrett Albert DuncanEB Editors

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MARTIN LUTHER KING'S SPEECH AT THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, WASHINGTON, DC (1963)

Editor: Brigham Narins Date: 2009 From: African American Almanac(10th ed.) Publisher: Gale Document Type: Speech Length: 1,678 words Content Level: (Level 3) Lexile Measure: 1090L

Full Text: On August 28, 1963, some 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, in order to raise the nation's consciousness and to demonstrate on behalf of the civil legislation being debated in Congress. It was during this demonstration that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the "I Have a Dream" speech.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon of light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capitol to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check: a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is not the time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen hundred and sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam, and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the Nation returns to business as usual. There will neither be rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our Nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "when will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs reading "For Whites Only." We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No. No, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the victims of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing the new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire! Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York! Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last! Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "MARTIN LUTHER KING'S SPEECH AT THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, WASHINGTON, DC (1963)." African American Almanac, edited by Brigham Narins, 10th ed., Gale, 2009. Gale In Context: High School, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ2125050045/SUIC?u=esc11&sid=SUIC&xid=0f34ac8c. Accessed 20 Mar. 2020. Gale Document Number: GALE|EJ2125050045

Constitution Scavenger Hunt with Political Cartoons

Worksheet 1: Cartoon Analysis Worksheet