People take to the streets to protest. They gather in churches, in people’s homes, in whatever space is large enough for all of the people who want change. Some are arrested, hurt, or even killed for this, but the danger and risk are not enough to break this movement. It is the 1960’s, and people are fed up with racial oppression. The Civil Rights movement has begun. Continuing into the 1970’s, this movement marked a turning point in US history. Institutional change in favor of equality and the empowerment of African-American communities occurred as a result of everyday citizens coming together to fight for their rights.
Too often, history paints this movement as the story of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and the people who marched to hear speeches, walked to work, and who sat at ‘whites only’ lunch counters. These types of nonviolent protest were powerful tools, and they contributed to crucial systemic change, but they were not the entirety of the Civil Rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s followers used non-violent civil disobedience as a way to demand legal recognition of equality, true integration, and removal of discriminatory laws. While legal change was long overdue, and most people would have welcomed a government shift from oppression to equality, nobody knew how long it would be until change actually arrived. Years of oppression through Jim Crow laws, racist employers, and corrupt police departments had left many African-Americans disenfranchised and forgotten. The severity of these problems demanded more immediate change. People were sick of waiting for politicians to solve things; they wanted control of their own futures. This idea of self determination became the foundation of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP).
When Huey Newton and Bobby Seale started the organization in Oakland in 1966, they wanted people to take charge of their lives. This attitude allowed them to positively impact people’s daily lives, a quality which amassed a large following for the organization and led to the creation of chapters across the country. The reasons it gained popularity and the people it affected are often overshadowed by the image of the BPP as only a militant group holding guns, clad in menacing black berets and leather jackets.
One of the first ways that the BPP sought to make change was by providing protection against police brutality. They taught people how to use guns and sent out armed citizen patrols as a way to protect people from violence. The pro-gun stance of the BPP, which involved an armed demonstration in front of the California statehouse in 1967 fostered a negative public image and media fear-mongering. It also provided a pretext for strong opposition from the FBI, including classification as an enemy of the United States government. In 1969, then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called the BPP “One of the greatest threats to the nation’s internal security.” Several members of the BPP were arrested, making headlines, although the reasons of arrest were often unclear.
The BPP was generally indifferent to the way it was perceived by outsiders, focusing more on its own audience. However, this inattention and disregard for its broader public image left it with the writers of our nation’s history primarily remembering it as an organization of violence and hatred and ignoring its positive contributions to society. The BPP was deeply involved in communities and social programs as a way to achieve what was outlined in their 10-point program.
In order to round out the story of the BPP, I have compiled both primary and secondary sources about other aspects of their advocacy into a packet of instructional resources. To access the packet, please scroll through the document linked below, or click on it to view the full PDF. To guide the use of the packet in the classroom, an overview with questions is also provided.
Materials in Packet: