The Black Panther Party Fought For Civil Rights

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What was the Black Panther Party for Self Defense? During the turbulent 1960’s, the Black Panther party was initially established to protect the black community from police brutality. The Black Panther Party grew its membership by appealing to the sense of hopelessness in black American people. Although widely known for violence, the Black Panther Party had goals to organize and service the black and oppressed communities.

Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale wrote an outline for the BPP, the Ten Point Program, which set the objective for members to follow. The BPP seemed to grow in membership for all the wrong reasons. Despite their reputation, the BPP did manage to successfully put into effect many survival programs within black and minority communities.

The Black Panther Party was an African American organization founded to promote equality for minorities through political, social and economic means.

The Black Panther Party was co-founded in October 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. It was originally named the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Huey Newton believed that there was a lot of police brutality happening to black Americans. The founders were concerned about racism in the police departments. They felt that the people should defend themselves both physically, with guns, and with the law. They wrote the Ten Point program in 1966 as the manifesto for members to live by. It consisted of two parts – What we want and What we believe. (refer to hand-out) The Black Panther Party believed in a ten point program that outlined the primary goals and mission of the entire organization. “The fact remains that their ten point program enlightened the community and the nation of the needs of the Black Community. It pr...

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...ey believed that the greatest power was KNOWLEDGE.”

Consequently, many American people were not aware of these programs because they were not sensationalized or in the newspaper as all the other Black Panther activities had been.

In summary, the Black Panther Party was organized to address police brutality, equal rights and freedom for the black American people. The Black Panther Party wrote and followed their Ten Point Program. They taught the people to stand up for their civil rights by any means necessary. They established social programs to help educate, feed and cloth the minorities suffering from poverty.

The radical methods of threats and violence, as well as persuasive yet biased speeches prevented some people from seeing the positive impact that the Black Panther Party had on black and minority communities during the times of civil unrest.

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