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For the Israeli group called the "Black Panthers", see HaPanterim HaSHkhorim . The Black Panther Party (originally called the '''Black Panther Party for Self-Defense''') is a Black Nationalist organization in the United States founded by Huey P. Newton , Bobby Seale , and Richard Aoki . Formed in October 1966, the party grew to national prominence in the United States and is an iconic representative of the Counterculture revolutions of the 1960s. The group was founded on the principles of its Ten-Point Program, which called for greater autonomy of black Americans and correction of the injustices of racism. The group's political goals are often overshadowed by their confrontational and uncompromising views and approach toward agents of law enforcement, who the Black Panthers saw as the linchpin of racism that could only be overcome by a willingness to take up armed Self-defense . The Black Panther Party fell apart in the early 1970s under the weight of both internal feuding and the external pressures of federal, state, and local law enforcement's campaign to undermine the organization with Black Propaganda , infiltration by Agents Provocateur and outright Assassination ). THEORY With the death of Malcolm X in 1965 , the Black Panther Party was founded with an aim toward furthering the revolutionary movement for black liberation on a mass basis. The party rejected the Integrationist stance of King, and made it clear from the beginning that it sought no compromise with the (white) Power Structure . The Black Panthers focused their Rhetoric on revolutionary Class Struggle , taking many pages from Maoism . The party did turn to the works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao to inform the manner in which it should organize, as a revolutionary Cadre organization. In consciously working toward such a revolution, they considered themselves the Vanguard Party , "committed to organizing support for a Socialist revolution." However, the party did not fully agree with Karl Marx 's analysis of the Lumpenproletariat . Marx felt that this class lacked the political consciousness required to lead a revolution. Newton, on the other hand, was inspired by his reading of post-colonial theorist Frantz Fanon and his belief that the lumpen was of utmost importance, saying about these "brothers off the block" that, "If you didn't relate to these cats, the power structure would organize these cats against you." ‘The “dangerous class,” the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society.’ (Karl Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, pp.27-28) Here we see Marx’s conception of the Lumpenproletariat, a group that stands on the very margins of the class system because they are not wholly integrated into the division of labour. They do not accept the idea of making their living by regular work. Thus, their position within society is not marked by the fact that they are unemployed but rather by the fact that they do not seek employment: ‘the lumpenproletariat, which in all big towns forms a mass sharply differentiated from the industrial proletariat, a recruiting ground for thieves and criminals of all kinds living on the crumbs of society, people without a definite trade, vagabonds, gens sans feu et sans aveu without hearth or home , varying according to the degree of civilization of the nation to which they belong, but never renouncing their lazzaroni character’. (Karl Marx, Class Struggle in France, C.W., Vol. 10, p.62) Though they may be swept up by a proletarian revolution and are entirely capable of ‘the most heroic deeds and the most exalted sacrifices’, they are equally capable of ‘the barest banditry and the foulest corruption’, and are much more likely to play the part of ‘a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.’ (ibid.; Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, pp.27-28) Essentially, they are a malleable populace that is generally tempted into service of sight, as opportunistic and exploitative as the finance aristocracy. (‘The finance aristocracy, in its mode of acquisition as well as in its pleasures, is nothing but the rebirth of the lumpenproletrait on the heights of bourgeois society’, Marx, Class Struggle in France, p.51) Just like the aristocracy, the Lumpen live off society, rather than producing for it, existing as an entirely parasitic force. The Black Panthers’ basic understanding of the Lumpenproletariat generally conforms to that of Marx. For Eldridge Cleaver, the Lumpenproletariat were those who had ‘no secure relationship or vested interest in the means of production and the institutions of a capitalist society.’ (Eldridge Cleaver, ‘On the Ideology of the Black Panther Party’, Pamphlet, (San Francisco, Black Panther Party, June 1970), p.7) His wife echoed a similar sentiment, stating that the black Lumpenproletariat had absolutely no stake in industrial America: ‘They existed at the bottom level of society…outside the capitalist system that was the basis for the oppression of black people.’ (Kathleen Cleaver in Brown, A Taste of Power, p.135) The Panthers included two distinct groups within the Lumpen. Firstly the “Industrial Reserve army”, who could not find a job, being unskilled and unfit, displaced by mechanization and never invested with new skills, forced to rely on Welfare or receiving State Aid. They consisted of ‘the millions of black domestics and porters, nurses’ aides and maintenance men, laundresses and cooks, sharecroppers, unpropertied ghetto dwellers, welfare mothers’.(Cleaver, On the Ideology of the Black Panther Party, p.7) The second group were the so-called “Criminal Element”, who had similarly been locked out of the economy, and consisted of the ‘gang members and the gangsters, the pimps and the prostitutes, the drug users and dealers, the common thieves and murderers’. The “Criminal Element” quite evidently displayed the key characteristics of the Lumpen, the parasite, ‘existing off that which they rip off’. However, the “Industrial Reserve Army” poses something of a problem, since a large proportion of this group consists of the working poor (although their jobs are ‘irregular and usually low paid’ they are the working poor all the same). But Marx explicitly stated that the Lumpenproletariat formed ‘a mass sharply differentiated from the industrial proletariat.’ However, the Panthers viewed the line that separated the proletariat and the lumpen as tenuous and fragile, and this resulted in a blending of the two classes. Indeed, some historians have argued that the Panthers ‘envisioned a lumpen more akin to a subproletariat class’ that lacked the parasitical aspects of the traditional lumpen sector. (Charles E Jones and Judson L Jeffries, ‘ “Don’t Believe the Hype”: Debunking the Panther Mythology’, in Charles E Jones ed., The Black Panther Party {Link without Title} , p.44) Nationalism, internationalism and "intercommunalism" As it was chiefly a party of the ''black'' Masses , the leadership of the Black Panthers were characterized by internal contradictions on the type and kind of Black Nationalism it wished to embrace. In his book ''Seize the Time'' Bobby Seale spoke directly about the evolution of the Panthers' politics, saying "At first we were Black Nationalists," then going on to point out how, that upon realizing that more than blacks were oppressed in the United States, they became Internationalist . Newton, Seale, and their supporters within the party eventually came to reject cultural nationalists as "black racists" , and dubbed those nationalists' brand of cultural nationalism as narrow and Bourgeois "pork-chop nationalism". Alluding to the black nationalist United Slaves and Maulana Karenga , Black Panther Fred Hampton said, " {Link without Title} olitical power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki; political power flows from the barrel of a gun." ("Political power flows from the barrel of a gun" is an early quote by Mao Zedong .) Newton and Seale attempted to work in coalition with organizations representing oppressed communities in the United States (many of which took inspiration from the Black Panthers), as well as with white radical groups with whom they felt they had common interests. These included the Puerto Rican Young Lords of New York and the white Appalachian Young Patriots with whom the Panthers formed the first Rainbow Coalition in 1969 . Other groups with whom the Panthers worked with included the predominantly white youth movements Students For A Democratic Society (SDS) and Youth International Party (Yippies); the Chicano Brown Berets ; the Pacifist California Peace And Freedom Party ; and the post- Stonewall Riot formed group, the Gay Liberation Front . In Huey P. Newton's speech at Boston College 1970, he summed up this approach as "intercommunalism." That is to say that the Party recognized that all over the world there were "oppressed communities", many of whom shared a common oppressor. That these communities should be united across national boundaries to overthrow that common oppressor. However, Newton's approach toward combating all forms of oppression rather than simply anti-black oppression caused friction to form between him and Panthers such as Stokely Carmichael and Eldridge Cleaver . Indicative of this was Carmichael's embrace of the slogan of " Black Power " , in contrast to Newton and Seale's embrace of the slogan 'Power to the People' which they believed was of a more Internationalist and Marxist character. Though written before he joined the Black Panther Party, Eldridge Cleaver's book ''Soul on Ice'' often promoted a Sexist and Homophobic perspective that people erroneously associated with the Panthers. In his book, Cleaver indicates that, at one point in his life, he viewed the Rape of white women as "an insurrectionary act." He also attacked black author James Baldwin for his well-known homosexuality and relationships with white men. While a member of the Panthers, however, Cleaver explicitly attacked sexism declaring that the women "have a duty and the right to do whatever they want to do in order to see to it that they are not relegated to an inferior position." Insisting that liberation must be broad, he explained that, "the women are our half. They're not our weaker half; they're not our stronger half. They are our other half." While in exile in Algeria, Cleaver eventually demanded less emphasis on Panther community programs and more emphasis on guerrilla activity. These differences of opinion took their toll on Newton's control of the party, especially while he served a sentence in prison, and eventually these cracks grew into a full-blown split between a main, Western U.S.-based faction supporting Newton, and a breakaway, Eastern U.S.-based faction that supported Cleaver. (''See Decay And Disintegration below'') ACTION Self-defense One of the central aims of the BPP was to stop abuse perpetrated by local police departments. When the party was founded in 1966 , only 16 of the 661 Oakland Police Department officers assigned to black neighborhoods were African American . This situation was not unique to Oakland, California . Several southern cities such as Birmingham, Alabama had police forces that openly worked with the White-supremacist Ku Klux Klan . Throughout the 1960s , Race Riot s broke out in impoverished African American communities subject to policing by disproportionately white police departments. The BPP sought to oppose police brutality through neighborhood patrols (an approach since adopted by groups such as Copwatch ). Police officers were frequently followed by armed Black Panthers who sought at times to aid African American victims of police brutality and perceived racial prejudice. Both Panthers and police often died as a result of violent confrontations. By 1970 , 34 Panthers had died as a result of police raids, shoot-outs and internal conflict. At least 11 Law Enforcement Officers were murdered by Panthers while attempting to make arrests. Between 1966-1972 when the party was most active, several departments hired significantly more African American police officers. Some of these black officers played prominent roles in shutting down the Panther's activities. In Chicago in 1969 for example, Panthers Mark Clark and Fred Hampton were both killed in a police raid by Sergeant James Davis, an African American police officer in the Chicago Police Department . In cities such as New York City , black police were used to infiltrate Panther meetings. By 1972 , almost every major police department was fully integrated. Survival programs Inspired by Mao Tse-Tung 's advice to revolutionaries in the The Little Red Book , Newton called on the Panthers to "serve the people" and to make "Survival programs" a priority within its branches. The most famous and successful of their programs was the '' Free Breakfast For Children Program'', initially run out of a San Francisco church. Other survival programs were free services such as clothing distribution, classes on politics and economics, Free Medical Clinics , lessons on self-defense and First Aid , transportation to upstate prisons for family members of inmates, an emergency-response ambulance program, drug and alcohol abuse rehabilitation, and testing for Sickle-cell Disease , which was performed on more than 500,000 African-Americans before it was recognized by medical establishments as one that affected the black community almost exclusively. Political activities The Party briefly merged with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , headed by the fiery Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Toure). In 1967 the party organized a march on the California state capitol to protest the state's attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public. Participants in the march carried rifles. In 1968 BPP Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver ran for Presidential office on the Peace And Freedom Party ticket with Child Psychologist Dr. Benjamin Spock as his Running Mate . COINTELPRO and conflict with law enforcement In August 1967, the FBI instructed COINTELPRO to "neutralize" what the FBI called "Black Nationalist Hate Groups" and other dissident groups. By 1969, the Black Panthers were the primary target of COINTELPRO. The goals of the program were to prevent the unification of militant Black Nationalist groups and to weaken the power of their leaders in order to reduce that probability, as well as discredit the groups to reduce their support and growth. The initial targets included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference , the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , the Revolutionary Action Movement and the Nation Of Islam . Leaders who were targeted included Martin Luther King, Jr. , Stokely Carmichael , H. Rap Brown , Maxwell Stanford and Elijah Muhammad . In September of 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as "The greatest threat to the internal security of the country," and within the year the Black Panther Party had become the primary focus of COINTELPRO and the target of 233 out of a total of 295 authorized "Black Nationalist" COINTELPRO actions. Although COINTELPRO was commissioned to prevent violence, many of the tactics of the FBI organization were intended to foster violence. The most telling example was the FBI's efforts to "Intensify the degree of animosity" between the Black Panthers and the Chicago gang, the Blackstone Rangers . These included sending an anonymous letter to the Ranger’s gang leader claiming that the Panthers were threatening his life, a letter with the stated intent to induce "reprisals" against Panther leadership. In Southern California similar actions were taken to exacerbate what was characterized as a "gang war" between the Black Panther Party and an organization called the United Slaves . Violent conflict between these two groups, including shootings and beatings, led to the deaths of at least four Black Panther Party members. FBI agents claimed credit for instigating some of the violence between the two groups. It should be noted that James Adams , Deputy Associate Director of the FBI's Intelligence Division, claimed that COINTELPRO operations did not intend to foster violence nor to harm individual members of the organizations targeted. However the final report of Senate “ Church Committee ” which investigated the actions of COINTELPRO in 1975 and 1976 did not agree with Adams, and purported to demonstrate that the FBI “itself engaged in lawless tactics and responded to deep-seated social problems by fomenting violence and unrest.” On January 17, 1969, Los Angeles Panther Captain Bunchy Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins were killed in Campbell Hall on the UCLA campus, in a gun battle with members of United Slaves , a rival black nationalist group, stemming from a dispute over who would control UCLA's Black Studies program. Another shootout between the two groups on March 17 led to further injuries. It was alleged that the FBI had made contacts with US in an alliance against the Panthers. {Link without Title} One of the most notorious of such actions involved a Chicago Police raid of the home of talented and charismatic Panther organizer Fred Hampton on December 4 , 1969 . The raid had been orchestrated by the police in conjunction with the FBI, and the FBI was complicit in many of the actions involved. The people inside the home had been drugged by an FBI informant, William O'Neal , and were all asleep at the time of the raid. Hampton was shot and killed, as was the guard, Mark Clark . The others in the home were then dragged into the street and beaten and subsequently charged with assault. These charges were later dropped. In May 1969, Alex Rackley , a twenty-four year old member of the New York chapter of the Black Panther party, was Torture d and murdered because party members suspected him of being a police informant. A number of party members had taken part, and three party officers eventually admitted guilt. Party supporters alleged that George Sams , the man who identified Rackley as an informer and subsequently ordered his execution, was an Agent Provocateur in the employment of the FBI. POLITICAL AND LEGAL SUPPORT Support for the Panthers became widespread and was characterized by the now famous Raised Fist salute at the 1968 Summer Olympics by two medalists during the playing of the American national anthem. The Black Panthers attracted a wide variety of left-wing revolutionaries and political activists. Among others, the party was supported by former Ramparts Magazine editor, David Horowitz , before he renounced Socialism and gradually drifted to the Political Right . Decades later, upon the death of Huey Newton (who died in a shoot-out with rival gangsters), he would remark, "He (Newton) killed a lot of people." According to Horowitz, the Black Panthers once murdered a young, white female activist named Betty Van Patten , whom he had introduced to the Party and who was representing it. After raping her, Horowitz claims, the members beat the woman to death with baseball bats. DECAY AND DISINTEGRATION While part of the organization was already participating in local government and social services, another group was in constant conflict with the police. For some of the Party's supporters, the separation between political action, criminal activity, social services, access to power, and grass-roots identity became confusing and contradictory as the Panther's political momentum was bogged down in the Criminal Justice System . A significant split in the BPP occurred over disagreements within the Panther leadership about how to confront these challenges. Some Panther leaders such as Huey Newton and David Hilliard favored a focus on community service coupled with self-defense while others, such as Eldridge Cleaver , embraced a more confrontational strategy. A schism was made inevitable when Cleaver publicly criticized the Party as adopting a " Reformist " rather than " Revolutionary " agenda and called for Hilliard's removal. Cleaver was expelled from the Central Committee but went on to lead a splinter group, the Black Liberation Army , which had previously existed as an underground Paramilitary wing of the Party. The Party eventually fell apart due to rising legal costs and internal disputes exacerbated by COINTELPRO. In was formed on July 31 , 2004 , inspired by the grassroots activism of the original organization, but not otherwise related. Its chairwoman is Shazza Nzingha . FAMOUS MEMBERS ''See'' List Of Former Members Of The Black Panther Party . SEE ALSO Groups and trends Contemporary left groups and trends
Descendant groups and ideological trends Events NOTES |
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