Civil Rights Movement: The Black Panthers

The Black Panthers were a famous and revolutionary organization founded in California in the 1960's, whose purpose was the protection and empowerment of the black race. Although most media attention focused around Martin Luther King Jr. as the leader of the Civil Rights movement during the 1960's, Black Power groups like the Black Panthers, who disagreed with MLK's ideology, also exerted influence, especially in poor black communities. "Founded in October 1967 in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the group had as its original purpose patrolling black neighborhoods to monitor police treatment of blacks" (American Decades 234). The party originally had fewer than one hundred members in Oakland, but it grew to a loosely connected
organization with chapters in about thirty-five cities in nineteen states by 1970 (American Decades 234). The Panthers were also famous for their tough image: they were "dressed in striking uniforms of black berets, pants, shoes, and leather jackets, and powder-blue shirts," and were "also heavily armed" (American Decades 234).
The unity of the Black Panthers was very strong at its core, but with time it was extinguished by both government intervention and ideological differences between leaders of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.The Black Panthers emerged as a powerful organization because of the strength and unity of their members and the support of the black community. Their co-founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, met while they were leftist student activists in Oakland at Merritt Junior College during the early 1960's (Burroughs). The Black Panther Party's official political platform regarded and was designed to improve the lives of poor black people. "The Black Panther Party fed the hungry, protected the weak from racist police, and presented a new paradigm of Black political and social activism" (Burroughs). The Party's survival programs, which included free health clinics, food giveaways, and free breakfast programs for children, were popular fixtures in Black neighborhoods through the early 1970s
(Burroughs). Their platform addressed many important issues including the need for full employment, financial reparations for slavery and black suffering, decent housing, exemption for black men from military service, release of all blacks held in prison, and a demand for land, bread, housing, and education (Fayer 350). These points resonated with the black community and garnered support for the Black Panthers.Through their newspaper the Black Panther, and their use of violent rhetoric that appealed to frustrated blacks, the Black Panther Party was able to create a large following in the black community.
Their promotion of arming themselves with guns in opposition to the white establishment, or the "Rhetoric of the Gun," was effective in that it gave them influence over poor blacks (Courtright 253). This power was to their advantage because much of their strength and unity as an organization came from the fact that most of the members were black men from the ghetto, and thus shared similar backgrounds. The leaders of the Black Panther Party saw this from the beginning: "[We] wanted brothers off the block brothers who had been pimping, brothers who had been peddling dope, brothers who ain't gonna take no shit, brothers who had been fighting the pigs" (Seale qtd. in Calloway 57). The use of guns and armament, the violent rhetoric, spoke to these men. "Men suffering under economic frustration, from lack of identity and dependency on whites for their daily bread, had little other than some cathartic mechanism through which they could channel their
anxiety. Hence, the party was a perfect answer for these members" (Calloway 57). The Black panthers also believed strongly in accomplishing group goals and unifying members: "Members were reminded that the values and goals of the party were the only hope of making life better in the black community and that it was their duty to see that these goals were accomplished" (Calloway 64). In order to reinforce their members' focus on the Black Panthers' goals, the leaders made use of their newspaper, theBlack Panther, which was distributed to the general public but mostly read by Party members. According to historian Carolyn Calloway, "an essential feature of the Black Panther was the use of slogans, speeches, and cartoons in gaining and holding the attention of the rank and file members of the party" (Calloway 61). The Black Panther used the image of the police force as the common enemies and characterized policemen as "pigs," in order to increase resentment towards the establishment and police, and to reinforce group goals and unity (Calloway 64). The Black Panthers' unity and cohesiveness was thus achieved in order for them to grow in influence and achieve their radical beliefs of overthrowing the government.