On October 15, 1966, College students Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, and Elbert Howard founded “The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense” in Oakland, California. Like Malcolm X, the Black Panthers believed that nonviolent protests could not truly liberate black Americans or give them power over their own lives, leading them to become the most influential black militant movement of the era, with reigns in similar movements in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Disappointed in the failure of the civil rights movement to improve the condition of blacks outside the South, the young men began to organized young, poor, disenfranchised African Americans into the Black Panther Party. They saw brutality against civil rights protesters as part of a long tradition of police violence and state oppression and felt it was something they no longer could stand. As the group began to immerse themselves in Black History; the idea of self-survival was implicated.
The BPP chose to teach, protect, and serve the Black communities around them while also lending a hand to all they saw as oppressed as the belief, all oppressed people are our people, took a hand. The Yellow Peril, the BPP’s Asian counterparts even found support and solidarity within the Black Community.
Women-led chapters focused their attention on community “survival programs.” They organized a free breakfast program for 20,000 children each day as well as a free food program for families and the elderly. They sponsored schools, legal aid offices, clothing distribution, local transportation, and health clinics, and sickle-cell testing centers in several cities. They campaigned for prison reform, held voter registration drives, and created Freedom Schools in nine cities including the noteworthy Oakland Community School, led by Ericka Huggins from 1973 to 1981. They also assisted in Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers union boycott against Safeway. These activities provided concrete aid to low-income communities and drew support for the Panthers.
No comments:
Post a Comment