The Black Panther Party

Black Power - Why was it seen as radical?

The Black Panther party were only doing what whites in America had been doing for hundreds of years, which was taking control of their lives. The civil rights era was a great movement that helped gain the vote and establish a better relationship between the government and African Americans however there was still difficulties in issues such as inequality  in housing , healthcare and job opportunities. 

After the assassination of Martin Luther king in 1968, this led to extremely violent riots in the North following his death.  The Black Panther party did think Martin Luther King's non violent methods were harmful to African Americans as it put them in a vulnerable positions especially against extreme white racism. As lynching and violent attacks were an everyday occurrence to African Americans, therefore they thought that the only way to combat this was to retaliate with violence and teach African Americans to defend themselves.  The Black panther party started as a small organization in Oakland and then slowly started to spread nationally and then more worryingly for the US government then became international.  Even though their methods of fighting violence with violence can be seen as wrong, they were simply trying to provide for their own community were the government was failing to take action to help these people in poverty, poor health and living in unsanitary living conditions.

The parties most famous phrases such as ' Black Power' and 'Black is Beautiful' was another form of fighting back against what it was considered to be positive in US society. As experiments such as the 'Doll Test' in 1940 which studied how young children viewed race, it was clear from the experiment that even black children saw  by picking the black doll it was a bad thing and that picking the white doll was always better than being black.

With the group setting up services such as education, ambulance services and free children's breakfasts through their own finances it meant they could slowly better their communities.  Even though the groups actions and some of their methods were extreme, you cannot over look the programs the group put into place for so many communities providing free health care and education for so many children. Yes their ideas were radical but underneath it they were simply trying to gain the same services as so many white Americans had for free. As Martin Luther king had helped the civil rights cause to great efforts throughout the political system. By gaining the vote this was a monumental achievement for African Americans nationally but it had failed to tackle the issues that the vote gave them such as better housing, better wages and better healthcare.  

Why was the party seen as radical?

Because the party was gaining popularity not just in America but internationally, in places such as France, England, China and many more countries. This caught the attention of J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI who saw the Black Panther Party as a threat to national security, because of their extremism.  The popular group was then later on branded as 'communist' in 1969 because of their services to the black community. It could be argued that they could be viewed as communist, however I draw back to my argument that the Black Panther Party were doing the exact same thing white Americans were doing.  Throughout history African Americans especially black men were depicted as 'aggressive' and 'savage' like, it was not surprising many whites saw the Black panther party as radical and threatening as this group was the first of its kind to gain national recognition.

By  Emily Jackson