The Reputation of the Black Panther Party and an explanation of the Real History behind the BPP.
The Black Panther Party is well known for its revolutionary strategies, and it carries with it the reputation of having played a major role in the civil rights movement. On seeing that Martin Luther King’s non-violent campaign had failed, and that there still was very minimal hope that the black people’s lives were going to change, Huey Percy Newton and Bobby Seale decided to form the Black Panthers Party (Delli Carpini, 2000). The Black Panthers Party is historical for having introduced a new dimension to the African American struggle for civil liberties, for it advocated violence with regards to the ends in question.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
It is recorded in history that that the original purpose of the Black Panthers was to simply patrol neighborhoods, predominantly occupied by African Americans, so as to protect their residents from what were then rampant acts of police brutality and racism. These events took place in Oakland, California, where the party was founded in 1966. The leaders of the party preached a revolutionary war, posing a major threat to American homeland security. Although the party did, to a very great extent, help the African American community achieve basic civil freedoms, their techniques were considered quite too violent. This created constant quibble between the government and the group, and the government worked at its best to cripple the Black Panthers Party, which had become very popular at that time (Lazerow, 2006).
In conclusion, it is observed that the Black Panthers Party garnered reputation, almost immediately after having been formed, for their willingness to stand up to police brutality. The group not only stood up for the people, but also created programs that helped community members (Lazerow, 2006). For instance, they started a food program to feed school children, provided shelter for the homeless and they also ran a medical clinic which provided healthcare to people who prior lacked any form of medical attention (Delli Carpini, 2000).
References
Delli Carpini, M. X. (2000). Black Panther Party: 1966-1982. In I. Ness & J. Ciment (Eds.), the encyclopedia of third parties in America pp.190-197, retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=asc_papers
Lazerow, J. (2006). In search of the Black Panther Party: New perspectives on a revolutionary movement . Durham, NC [u.a.: Duke Univ. Press.
