J. Edgar Hoover began a new phase of a counterintelligence program in August of 1967 known as COINTELPRO. The purpose of this particular program, according to Hoover, who was the Director of the FBI, was to expose and disrupt the activities of black nationalists, hate organizations or groups. Hoover obsessively used the vast resources of the FBI against black groups across the political spectrum, from the NAACP to the Black Panther Party. His justification was that African Americans who objected to segregation were communists. Given Hoover’s well documented antipathy towards black people, which was typical of a white conservative man with southern upbringing, his motivation was simply racism. The Black Panther Party was not originally on Hoover’s “Black Nationalist-Hate Group” list, but organizations such as SCLC, SNCC and the Nation of Islam were included. But the Black Panther Party became the primary focus of the program where they were the target of 233 …show more content…
of the total 295 actions directed against black groups. The FBI employed tactics such as blackmail, smear campaigns and armed attacks. In the process of directing the “white backlash” against perceived black militancy the FBI and its Director, J. Edgar Hoover, proposed through organizational expansion and simultaneously established the most extensive system of covert domestic surveillance in the United States has ever seen. They, meaning the FBI, turned violent organizations against the Black Panthers in an effort to aggravate gang warfare. Under the direction of Cook County, State attorney 14 Chicago police officers, executed a raid on an apartment that left Illinois Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark dead, several other party members wounded and seven arrested on attempted murder charges. The state claimed that there had been a shootout that morning. However, physical evidence proved that the Panthers had only fired a single shot in response to about 90 shots from the police. In March 1971, when a group of anonymous activists who called themselves the “Citizens’ Commission,” broke into a small FBI office in Pennsylvania.
They reportedly stole more than 1,000 documents. In doing so, the Commission exposed the FBI’s “COINTELPRO,” program, a secret counterintelligence program created to investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the United States. According to the documents, Hoover had directed all of the Bureau’s offices to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize,” African-American organizations and leaders. One of these organizations was the Black Panthers.
Two years later, it was publicly revealed that Chicago Black Panther Party Chief of Security William O'Neal was a paid informant for the FBI. The reaction to the black community was distraught from the events that had occurred. In their minds, the government hated blacks and everything they stood for. However, change came from all of this, and justice would eventually take its
course.
and Robert Kennedy—both of whom fought for the rights of black people. The filmmakers could not get much of the riots after King’s death, so the chapter of 1968 was fairly thin, but this shifts into the Black Panther arc. Thankfully, the filmmakers were close with the party, so there is plenty of material here. The Black Panther Party was a revolutionary, pro-black movement started in Oakland, California and was co-founded by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. They focused on educating black people while informing them of their rights and arming them in order to protect themselves.
The Web. 1 Dec. 2013. http://www.jstor.org/> http://www.jstor.org/>. Hoover, Edgar J. COINTELPRO Black Extremist Part 01 of 23. N.d.
This political shift materialized with the advent of the Southern Strategy, in which Democratic president Lyndon Johnson’s support of Civil Rights harmed his political power in the South, Nixon and the Republican Party picked up on these formerly blue states and promoted conservative politics in order to gain a larger voter representation. Nixon was elected in a year drenched in social and political unrest as race riots occurred in 118 U.S. cities in the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s murder, as well as overall American bitterness due to the assassination of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the extensive student-led activist opposition to the Vietnam War. The late 1960’s also saw the advent of several movements promoting Black Nationalism to unify the African-American community through the efforts of Black Power, most notably the formation of the Black Panthers in 1967 who were dedicated to overseeing the protection of African-Americans against police brutality and the support of disadvantaged street children through their Free Breakfast for Children program. During this time, black power was politically reflected through the electorate as the 1960-70’s saw a rise in Black elected officials. In 1969 there were a total of 994 black men and 131 black women in office in the country, this figure more than tripled by 1975 when there were 2969 black men and 530 black women acting in office; more than half of these elected officials were acting in Southern States....
The Black Panther Party’s initial success came about without having to address these roots, but, as the Party expanded and wished to move ahead, the Party’s shifts in policy can be directly attributed to the wishes and needs of the community. Murch profiles the Oakland Community School and the People’s Free Food Program, which were social institutions created by the Black Panther Party to address the needs of the community; though these approaches were used to bring about more members and to garner support, these tactics worked because of their correlation to the needs of Oakland’s African American community.
Former U.S. President Richard Nixon once said, “Communism is never sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.” From 1919 – 1921, a hysteria over the perceived threat of communism spread like wildfire across the nation. Known as the First Red Scare, the widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism quickly invaded the infrastructure of the U.S. government and radically influenced the American people. American citizens, such as Sacco and Vanzetti, were convicted and found crimes that evidence showed otherwise only because they supported anarchism. The US government arrested and deported radicals only because of their political standing. Although The First Red Scare may have begun as a cultural movement, private business owners actually catalyzed and facilitated the wide spread hysteria over communism.
The Party’s fight for redistribution of wealth and the establishment of social, political and social equality across gender and color barriers made it one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for working class liberation and ethnic minorities (Baggins, Brian). The Black Panther Party set up a ten-point program much like Malcolm X’s Nation of Islam that called for American society to realize political, economic and social equal opportunity based on the principles of socialism, all of which was summarized by the final point: "We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace" (Newton, Huey P). The Black Panther Party wanted to achieve these goals through militant force. In the words of Che Guevara, “Words are beautiful, but action is supre...
The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. http://www.biography.com/news/black-history-birmingham-childrens-crusade-1963-video#awesm=oEGbvT402Y2SWu>. FBI. The FBI. The FBI.
...pping charges against Robert F. Williams in 1976. Williams pressing times beyond his prime became frustrated by what he considered as the irrational and impulsive nature of Black Nationalist Politics. Occasionally Williams wrote letters to the press, critical commentaries, and hosting lectures kept him in touch with this new generation of young and radical minds, especially many of the young Black radicals of the 1980s-90s. Reflective of the period, Williams grew politically muted and outdated, rejoining the NAACP (peacefully might I add), and even disconnecting from militant organizations. His own vast output of radicalism with words, ideas, and actions, unfortunately, was also put on pause. He was not remembered for much of what happened in his later years of life, but he did leave a relevant and effective impact of American society and its African American peers.
STATEMENT OF FACTS: Hom way was found with heroin in his possession after being under surveillance for six weeks by Federal Narcotics Agents. Way stated that he obtained the heroin from a guy name “Blackie Toy” who owned a laundromat. Agent Alton Wong went to the laundromat, and James Wah Toy answered the door. Agent Wong stated that he was calling for laundry and dry cleaning. Toy then replied that the laundry does not open until 8 o’clock and told agent Wong to come back at that time. As toy went to close the door, agent Wong showed Toy his badge and Toy slammed the door and ran down the hall into his bedroom. Agent Wong and a few other agents broke open the door and chased Toy down and arrested him. Toy stated that he had not been selling any narcotics but Johnny Yee was, which lead the agents to Yee’s home.
From bold investigations of mob brutality, protests of mass murders, segregation and discrimination, to testimony before congressional committees on the vicious tactics used to bar African Americans from the ballot box, it was the talent and tenacity of NAACP members that saved lives and changed many negative aspects of American society. While much of its history is chronicled in books, articles, pamphlets and magazines, the true movement lies in the faces—black, white, yellow, red, and brown—united to awaken the conscientiousness of people, and a nation. Work Cited www.en.wikipedia.org www.naacp.org www.spartacus.schoolnet.co
...on to create equality was too ideological. The members of the Black Panther knew that their goals were impossible to reach. There is a movement called the “New Black Panther Party” that deals with the issues that the Black Panthers never completed. Possibly, if the Black Panthers had tried more to fit into the community and had been less radical, their party may have lasted longer which would have led to greater effectiveness.
Nearly all of the problems the Black Panther Party attacked are the direct descendants of the system which enslaved Blacks for hundreds of years. Although they were given freedom roughly one hundred years before the arrival of the Party, Blacks remain victims of White racism in much the same way. They are still the target of White violence, regulated to indecent housing, remain highly uneducated and hold the lowest position of the economic ladder. The continuance of these problems has had a nearly catastrophic effect on Blacks and Black families. Brown remembers that she “had heard of Black men-men who were loving fathers and caring husbands and strong protectors.. but had not known any” until she was grown (105). The problems which disproportionatly affect Blacks were combatted by the Party in ways the White system had not. The Party “organized rallies around police brutality against Blacks, made speeches and circulated leaflets about every social and political issue affecting Black and poor people, locally, nationally, and internationally, organized support among Whites, opened a free clinic, started a busing-to prisons program which provided transport and expenses to Black families” (181). The Party’s goals were to strengthen Black communities through organization and education.
The Black Panther Party made blacks more progressive in trying to be more equal and more willing to fight for justice. Their self-determination to come together and stand up for themselves, as one was a stepping-stone for blacks to fight for themselves and the good of their people, also to make sure blacks could be treated equally both socially and politically in society. The Black Panther Party was started in Oakland, California in 1966, when “Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton took up arms and declared themselves apart of a global revolution against American imperialism” (Bloom). They wanted to empower the black people to stand up for themselves and defend themselves against the police and their unjust ways. The police were the oppressor’s that kept blacks down and kept blacks from gaining any self-rights.
The Black Panther Party was founded on October, 15, 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, California. This organization was a black revolutionary socialist party that was created to primarily protect African American neighborhoods from violent police brutality. In 1967, the party released and circulated its first newspaper, The Black Panther. Within the same year the organization also protested a ban on weapons in Sacramento on the California State Capitol. After becoming an icon of the 1960's counterculture, the Party was see in numerous cities throughout the nation, with record membership at 10,000 in 1969. Editor of The Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver and his editorial committee created a document called the Ten-Point Program. This document was comprised of desired wants and needs for the black community, such as; freedom, employment, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. The Black Panthers expressed their injustices with their saying of, "What we Want, What we Believe". Not only did this document demand specific wants for the panthers, it was also a sign of hope and inspiration for the underprivileged blacks that lived in ghettos across the nation. With a strong passion to turn around the poor black communities, the Panthers installed a variety of community social programs that were made to improve several aspects of the inner city ghettos. Two of their most commonly known programs were its Free Breakfast for children program and its armed citizens patrol that made sure police officers behaved within their limit of power and to protect blacks who became victims of racist police brutality abuse. They also instituted a free medical care program and fought the common problem of young blacks using narco...
The Panthers had many accomplishments while they were around, these were some of them. The Panthers gave to the need many times. They did stuff like opened food shelters, health clinics, elementary schools, patrolled urban ghettos to stop police brutality, created offices to teach young black kids, and they said that they were going to start stressing services. The Panthers had many great people join them, but one man had made a huge accomplishment that will never be forgotten. In November of 68’ the Chicago chapter of The B.P.P. was founded by Fred Hampton, he was a strong leader. The accomplishment he had made was that...