Black Panther Movement

Black Panther Movement

Black Panther Movement

Introduction

The Black Panther Party is an African American political Organization of United States. It was formed by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California in the year 1966. The black power movement was a cultural, social, economic, and political movement for self-determination of the blacks. The movement, which brought forward a generation of black activists committed to the struggle for and practical realities of black agency, began in the United States in the mid-1960s and lasted until the early 1970s. The manifesto of the movement contributed towards the development of a new understanding of racism and the conceptualization of institutional racism as a form of the phenomenon.

This paper discusses the origination of the Black Panther Movement, its effects on the United States, reactions of the public and a brief conclusion.

Discussion

After the civil rights movement, the Black Panther Movement is the most important political phenomenon in the 20th century and the history of African-American politics. The Post-civil rights era comprises of the cultural, structural and ideological relationships between blacks and whites. The Black power movement profoundly altered the internal philosophy and organization of the Black community. It also shaped their identity, consciousness and political culture, and for some time helped to give rise to genuinely revolutionary ideas and organizations. Black power together with the Civil Rights Movement, served as an inspiration and model for social movements among other Americans, including feminists, Latinos and homosexuals. This helped in contributing to shift towards identity politics, and had a strong emphasis on multiculturalism in the United States (Edwards, 1970).

Origins of the Movement

The Black Power Movement has its origins in the success of the Civil Rights Movement. After a decade of intense protest in the Southern States, the passage of Civil Rights act of 1961 and the voting rights act of 1965 granted African-Americans full civil and political rights. Thus, after five decades of lobbying, litigation and protest, the agenda of the Civil Rights movement was outlined in the year 1905. However, in spite of the successes of the Civil Rights movement in getting laws passed successfully, the day- to-day conditions of the average black people did not change. The economic conditions of blacks became worse during the 1960s.

In 1966, SNCC's central committee voted to exclude whites from decision-making positions in the organization, and to restrict their role in organizing the communities of white. This is to some extent reflected the rising influence the sentiments of the black nationalists in the organization. More importantly, it reflected that there was a need for a group who has a black leader. This would affect the liberal labor elements of the civil rights coalition and establish independent bases of black political action (Hine, 2000).

The concern emerged from three considerations. First, members of SNCC, blacks, and white felt a sense of betrayal by white liberals and labor because of their last-minute refusal to support the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in the face of the opposition from President Lyndon ...