The Black Panthers
- Created by: florineruby
- Created on: 13-04-15 19:15
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- The Black Panthers
- Orgins and aims
- Founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale
- Excluded whites and was prepared to use violence to revolutionise the USA
- Inspired by Malcom X - stressed self defence and economic improvements which were also what Malcom X emphasised
- BPP organised their own uniformed militia to patrol the ghettos and rejected the police: "off the pigs!"
- This was because Newton claimed the white police "occupied" the black ghettos in the same way the US Army occupied Vietnam
- Organised welfare schemes and demanded federal government aid to relieve poverty in the black ghettos
- Ideology
- Black nationalism - inspired by Malcom X, particular emphasis on the racism of white police and the unfairness of the justice system
- Anti-colonialism - called on blacks not to fight in Vietnam and admired anti-colonial liberation struggles in Africa and Asia - including Mao Zedong's expulsion of foreign influence from China
- Marxism - main aim was to liberate the black working class from exploitation by white capitalists
- Methods
- "Patrol the pigs" - shadowing police patrols to observe any arrest by police of a black person - find legal grounds to challenge the arrest
- The "Free Huey" campaign after Newton was arrested on a false murder charge in 1967
- The Free Breakfast for Schoolchildren Programme - supported by black celebrities e.g. Richard Pryor and Jimi Hendrix
- Free health clinics offering tests for conditions which predominantly affect blacks e.g. sickle cell anaemia
- "Liberation Schools" teaching black history and culture
- Official Persecution and the Decline of the Black Panthers
- Federal government was suspicious of the BPP, especially the FBI which feared they would lead black people into a violent revolution to overthrow the US government
- FBI used telephone tapping, bugging the homes of BPP members, arrests and infiltration to undermine the BPP - even forged letters from the BPP threatening to murder senior government officials
- FBI succeeded in discrediting the BPP and the leaders were arrested so often that money was diverted away from welfare programmes to pay their legal expenses
- Internal dispute between Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver who stood for President in 1968 and got 0.15% of the vote
- Federal government was suspicious of the BPP, especially the FBI which feared they would lead black people into a violent revolution to overthrow the US government
- Orgins and aims
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