Black Panther Party For Self Defense

Black Power and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

In the nineteen fifties black communities across the United States were suffering under the heavy burden of poverty. Unemployment, incarceration, drug use and numerous other conditions of poverty were all significantly more prevalent amongst blacks then whites. At the same time blacks across the country were struggling against the oppression of general racial discrimination and Jim Crow segregation in the south. From this turmoil a multitude of black rights movements were created to struggle for equality and better living conditions for blacks. On the forefront of this undertaking was the non-violent Civil Rights Movement led by Baptist Minister Martin Luther King Jr. and the “by any means necessary” Nation of Islam represented by Malcolm X. By nineteen sixty eight however, the Nation of Islam had fallen into disarray with the separation of Malcolm X from the group and his subsequent assassination. The Civil Rights Movement had been very successful in forcing racial integration in the south but Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated before he could really direct the movement towards a more anti-poverty platform. During this period a new vanguard party, The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was quickly growing out of California. The party was radical because it was formed around the new idea of black power, which

Advocated the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests and secure black autonomy. (Hanes, 25) This was a revolutionary black social movement because it endeavored to combat the problems in the black communities as an independent black collective instead of relying on the government or white majority for help. By arming blacks, establishing free social programs and involving lower class blacks The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was able to directly improve and empower black communities across the United States.

In two short years after is founding The Black Panther Party for Self Defense grew into a national organization with substantial social influence amongst blacks all over the country. In October of 1968, The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was founded in Oakland, California as a community based organization committed to directly improving the lives of blacks through autonomist black action. (Hanes, 33) The founders of the party, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, authored a ten point doctrine which marked the beginning of the party and served as the groups manifesto throughout its existence.

1: We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black and

oppressed communities.

2: We want full employment for our people.

3: We want an end to the robbery by the capitalist of our black community.

4: We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.

5: We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this

decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history

and our role in the present-day society.

6: We want all black men to be exempt from Military Service.

7: We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people,

other people of color, all oppressed people inside the United States.

8: We want freedom for all black men held in Federal, State, County and City prisons and jails.

9: We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in

court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black

communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.

10: We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace.

Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale defined freedom in this manifesto as blacks determining their own destinies in their own communities by fully controlling all their institutions. Black Panthers advocated that the only way any of their progressive goals would become reality is if blacks created them in their own communities on their own. By 1970, The Black Panther Party for Self Defense had established forty five chapters in cities across the United States and was circulating two hundred and fifty thousand copies of their paper, The Black Panther, a week. (Sheehy, 40) They had gained national attention and were considered by the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” (Churchill, 67) The party was able to expand across the country so rapidly because of the popularity of the black power message and the group’s dedication to fighting poverty across the country.

By establishing free social programs which included after school programs, before school breakfasts, transportation, medical clinics, homeless shelters, clothes drives and food drives at the Black Panthers were able to make substantial improvements in black communities across the country. The Black Panthers most successful free social program was called the Free Breakfast for Children Program which began in San Francisco. The Black Panthers were huge advocates of education in black slums and believed public education was the most effective way to combat oppression. By giving out breakfast to children the group hoped to help them learn and perform better in school.

The program was so successful that it eventually expanded to twenty of the parties chapters and fed roughly ten thousand school children every morning. (Shames, 113) After school sports programs were also very successful in keeping black youth out of participating in gang and drug activity. The Panthers also organized free publics buses for unemployed blacks to factories and farms across the country where they could work for the day. They also organized bus rides for families once a week to visit relatives in prison and free ambulance transportation to hospitals. Free medical clinics were established by the Black Panthers in forty out of the forty five cities in which the Panthers had chapters. These clinics were often under supplied and under staffed but they were still able to provide medical care to many blacks who could not afford any treatment. Through these clinics the Black Panthers launched