Racial Identity and the Historical Experiences of the Black Panthers in the USA

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The Black Panther Party
Ten Point Program
The Black Panther Theory
Political Experiences
The Guerrilla Warfare
The Split and Decline
The New Black Panther
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The Black Panthers was an African American movement that was started in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland California. The movement was later known as the Black Power because it championed the interests of the Black Americans. The Black Power joined the political arena as The Black Panther Party where they expanded their objectives and philosophies to protect and fight for the rights of the Black Americans, who were under the oppression and discrimination of the United States government in the 1960s and 1970s. The Black Panthers Party grew and became a powerful organization of the Black Americans earning both local and international recognition in its anti-racism struggles and permeation into social, cultural, military, and political aspects of the United States government as they shaped the future of the Black Americans. This paper is going to examine racial identity and the historical experiences of the Black Panthers in the United States.

The Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party was a party for self-defense. Baggins states that ‘the Panthers practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the United States government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community-based programs’” (1). The Black Panther Party was against capitalism and sought to mobilize the Black Americans in the fight against oppression and discrimination by Whites due to the capitalism ideology. The party was a unique ethnic organization in the United States because of its use of the military as self-defense in the anti-racism struggles. The objective of the Black Panther Party was “the evolutionary establishment of the real economic, social and political equality across gender and color lines” (Baggins 1). To meet their objective, the Black Panthers party formulated a ten-point program.

Ten Point Program

In the fight for their rights and emancipation of the Black Americans, Huey Newton led the Black Panthers in the formulation of the ten-point program. After formulating the ten-point program, he protested that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Baggins 2). The Black Panthers gave the ultimatum to the United States government to meet their ten-point demands or the Black Americans fight for them.

The ten-point program is a list of ten demands of the Black Panthers Party. The first demand was “we want freedom, we want the power to determine the destiny of our Black community” (Baggins 2). The Black Americans had been under oppression and discrimination of the White Americans in the government hence they sought emancipation and political power to rule and decide their future. Other demands were employment, slavery compensation, decent housing, historical identity, justice, and peace amongst other demands.

The Black Panther Theory

To fight effectively for their rights, the Black Panthers Party used the Marxism theory of dialectic materialism. According to Courtney, “the Panther educational kit declares: we must teach party members to apply the Marxist-Leninist method” (1). They employed Marxist tactics and philosophies in making sure that the Black Americans establish a socialist state by overthrowing the capitalist and racist rule of the White Americans. The Panthers mobilized the Black Americans workers to control the means of production so that they can cripple the economic powers of the United States government.

In their struggle, the Black Panthers Party employed the Malcolm X military tactics and theory in their formulation of the policies and strategies. “I do not believe in fighting today in any one front, but on all fronts” (Baggins 3). Since the Black Americans were the minority group fighting the majority White Americans in the government, they needed tactful military force. The use of military force and tactics was inevitable as “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun; the Panthers taught that politics ultimately rests on the gun” (Courtney 2). This is the principle of Maoism on which the Panthers were required to memorize and always carry a copy.

Political Experiences

In 1968, the Black Panther leaders Newton and Cleaver joined political offices of the Peace and Freedom Party, which championed communism in the United States. The Black Panthers Party leaders frequented Cuba seeking the communist strategies to employ in their bid for the social state. The Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed how the prime minister of the Black Panther Party has been seeking foreign communist assistance to overthrow the government. This led to the accusation of the Black Panthers before the House committee that they are collaborating with the Revolutionary Action Movement and “dedicated to the overthrow of the capitalist system in the United States, by violence if necessary and its replacement by a socialist system oriented toward Chinese communist interpretation of the Marxism-Leninism” (Courtney 3). This revelation alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to crackdown on the movement.

The United States Government began the crackdown of the Black Panthers Party leaders and its members in 1968. This was done following the revelation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the Black Panthers were “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country” (Street 360). The Federal Bureau of Investigation embarked on the mission to crackdown threatening Black Panthers militia by forming a program known as the counterintelligence, which comprises a series of tactics including the assassination of the leaders, mass arrests of the members, and psychological warfare to break the Black Panthers ideologies and strategies.

The Guerrilla Warfare

The deaths of the two Black Panthers’ leaders, Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, and other prominent leaders like Martin Luther King, the junior made the Black Panthers opt for the guerrilla war attacks on the United States police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation officers. “To gain community control, the Panthers know they must control the schools and police” (Courtney 4). The Black Panthers had formed their militia who took control of Oakland, California, and Berkeley and were determined to kill one police a day in the guerilla war attacks. The Black Panthers continue with their series of killings but the government was too strong for them to survive because the Federal Bureau of Investigation had succeeded in the assassination of the Black Panthers’ leaders, massively arresting and sentencing the minor members, and they weakened the movement by splitting its leadership.

The Split and Decline

The Federal Bureau of Investigation employed psychological warfare to split the leadership of the Black Panthers. The targeted Black Panther leaders were Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton. The Federal Bureau of Investigation used forged letters to convey misinformation between the two leaders about the leadership strategies. According to the Baggins “Cleaver received stacks of forged FBI letters from supposed party members, criticizing Newton’s leadership, and asking for Cleaver to take control” (4). Eventually, the two leaders confessed their difference on a television interview that heralds their complete split of the Black Panthers leadership leaving the White Americans leadership celebrating the downfall of the movement. Huey Newton endured painfully the experiences of conflicts that ruined the movement and he resorted to drugs abuse, which eventually led to his death on 22, August 1989.

The New Black Panther

In 1989, the Black Panther Party was reformed as a New Black Panther Party in Dallas, Texas but the organization was taken over by Islam (Street 372). In 2004, the Shazza Nzingha revived the original Black Panthers Party in honor of the departed heroes who fought for the emancipation of the Black Americans. Although the criminal activities of the Black Panthers are historical, the ex-militia men were charged in the state of California in 2007.

Conclusion

The Black Panthers was a great movement for the Black Americans that championed their rights, which were trampled down by the majority of the White Americans and the United States government. The rights of the Black Americans were trampled down because racism and discrimination were very rampant; making them form a movement that will fight for their rights and freedom. Though the movement demanded and fought for the rights of the minority, it lost focus on its objectives when they get involved with the foreign ideologies of communism and socialism. Furthermore, the Black Panthers resorted to criminal activities that led the government to completely crack down on the movement.

Works Cited

Baggins, Brian. History of the Black Panther Party. Marxists Archive. 2002. USA: HarperCollins Publisher.

Courtney, Kent. The Black Panthers. The Conservative Society of the American. 1969. USA: Pineville Publisher.

Street, Joe, “The Historiography of the Black Panther Party.” Journal of American Studies. (2002): 351–75. Print.

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