Volume 12 Number 052 Black Panther Party - II

Lead: In the 1960s the Black Panther party represented a far more aggressive posture among African Americans frustrated continued resistance to full participation by blacks in the benefits of American freedom.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Formed in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, joined in leadership by Eldridge Cleaver and Stokely Carmichael, the Panthers combined ideas of black separatism influenced by Malcom X and an economic critique of western capitalism straight out of Karl Marx. This mix joined with a rhetoric of violence and confrontational tactics with authority, evoked fear and reaction in both white and black communities.

Panther goals were pretty radical stuff. Their 10 point program demanded full employment for blacks, free healthcare for blacks and oppressed people, an end to the war in Vietnam and all wars of aggression, freeing all blacks from US jails, and all black juries for black defendants.

In the beginning Panthers organized black for self defense patrolling the ghettos areas to prevent police harassment. They also provided free breakfasts, open schools, and supported medical clinics in black neighborhoods.

The Panthers, however, were most known for their confrontation with the police in the late 1960s and early 1970s which led to shoot outs in major cities. Many angry young blacks were attracted by the inflammatory rhetoric, but the party's tactics also made it susceptible to FBI surveillance, police infiltration, and internal conflict.

By the mid-1970s Panther leadership had been dispersed to prison (Newton), or exile (Newton, Cleaver and Carmichael). Moderating attitudes even within extreme wings of the black community marginalized the movement. The party had largely disbanded by the 1980s.

At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

Resources

Abron, Jonina M. “The Legacy of the Black Panther Party," Black Scholar 17 (6, 1986): 33-37.

Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul on Ice. New York: Laurel Reprint 1968 and 1970.

Hilliard, David. This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.

Kurlansky, Mark. 1968. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.

Milstein, Tom. “A Perspective on the Panthers,” Commentary 50 (3, 1970): 35-44.

Newton, Huey P. Revolutionary Suicide. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973. http://www.stanford.edu/group/blackpanthers/