The Black Panther Party or BPP (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was created in a time where black people were not seen as equal members of society, from a moral standpoint. Black people (and other minorities) faced systematic oppression from the government, police, and people of America. The BPP was founded in 1966, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, in Oakland California. The main goal was to protect black people from the police, so they would patrol black communities to prevent unnecessary violence from the police. The BPP also promoted black self-love and pride. The BPP had four desires: equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights. They also had a 10-Point Plan expressing what they desired for the black community.
The Black Panther Party’s foundation was greatly influenced by the teachings and ways of Malcolm X. In Malcolm X’s movement, he advocated for the use of force to protect himself and his people. The Panthers followed another one of Malcolm’s beliefs, having an equal working class, no matter the gender or race. The BPP separated itself from other cultural nationalist organizations like the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Nation of Islam. Unlike other cultural nationalist organizations, the BPP did not exclude white people from their movement. They joined forces with progressive white allies who shared the same beliefs. They also believed that not all African Americans were oppressed, they believed that the African Americans among the rich and elite exploited the less privileged side of the race. The BPP also had partners outside of the United States, with support groups in countries like Japan, China, England, South Africa and Uruguay for example.
In the May of 1967, the Panthers make national news. A small select group of panther led by co-founder Bobby Seale, storm into the California state capitol fully armed. The BPP made this move in response to the state’s attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public. The BPP believed that their constitutional right was being taken away from them, and that the state was trying to thwart the organization. The police respond by arresting Seale and all thirty of the panthers who had a part in the event. In October of the same year, Huey P. Newton was arrested for killing an Oakland police officer. The reason for the officer’s murder is unknown, some people believed Huey did it out of cold blood, and others believed the charge was an attempt to crush the militant party. This began the “Free Huey” movement, a series of rallies which praised Huey for his leadership of the Black Panther Party. The way people spoke of Huey during the rallies made him seem like he was a once great leader who had recently passed away, and leaders of the BPP were speaking as if they were giving a eulogy. “Stokely Carmichael proclaimed that Huey Newton laid down his life for us, encouraging the audience to view Huey’s imprisonment as a sacrifice equivalent to death,” (Free Huey! “You Can Jail a Revolutionary, But You Can’t Jail the Revolution” 3). On September 8th, 1968, the jury’s verdict found Huey guilty of manslaughter. Because of Huey’s imprisonment, Stokely Carmichael, former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, (SNCC) another cultural nationalist organization, becomes prime minister of the BPP.
The Black Panther Party had many friends, alliances, and admirers across the nation and the world. But a group as revolutionary and controversial as the BPP comes with enemies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI) was one of those enemies. The FBI made many efforts to dismantle the BPP by using cruel and unfair tactics backed up by sabotage and oppression. The director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, began a program called COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) to break apart the BPP and other revolutionary groups. The program used assassinations of leaders, lies, arrests, psychological warfare, killings, – anything they could use to stop this uprising of liberation. J. Edgar Hoover labeled the Black Panther Party as the “#1 threat to the internal security of the country”.