1966: Black Panther Party

05/03/17 • 10 min

The Black Panther Party was created in 1966, in Oakland, California. It was established in California but it spread throughout the US including many different cities in the following years, a few of them being: Boston, Chicago, and New York. The founders of this party were Huey P. Newton and Bobby Steale, and they made it clear of their goals and the needs of this party. They did this by creating a ten point program, which consisted of many different things that involve equal rights for all. “We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community. We want full employment for our people. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people. We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.” This list was the goals made by the the Black Panthers. They followed through with some of these goals very forcefully. For example for their goal to end the brutality and murder of black people by the police, they would follow white police officers around with guns in order to make sure they were not harming any black person. This is one of the reasons why the Black Panthers were so unique. The government could not ignore them like some other civil rights movements at the time. The FBI got involved to follow some of the leaders of the Black Panthers to make sure that nothing got too out of hand. There were many different parts of this party that made them unique their dress code, the contribution of women, and the sense of community that they established all showed how this party was one of a kind. The Black Panthers made it evident that “they would do whatever it takes” in order to achieve these goals. They made this very prominent with their dress code. Their dress code consisted of a leather jacket with a blue shirt underneath but in their hands they would have loaded shotguns. They held the weapons not always as a threat but to show that they too are citizens of the United States and they too have the right to bare arms. Although the Black Panthers had their goals set since the beginning not everything stayed the same in the party. The main thing that changed after a year of the party being founded was women and their role. In the beginning this was an all males organization with no women in it. This started to change when more and more women wanted to get involved they opened the group to them. The Black Panthers did not stop there not only did the open the group up to women but they made it so women were then important players in this game. Women were public speakers for the party, they would go to the rallies and protests as well. Because of the big role that women played more and more women joined the group. After several thousands of women joining the party, they took another turn. The Party used to stand for only black men should be treated equal to a white man, they then changed it to both black men and women should be treated equal to white men and women. The last thing that made the Black Panther Party one of a kind was the sense of community that they had. Everyone that was apart of the party was also part of the community. This community that they established constantly would help out families who were in poverty. Two of the things that they created was a preschool for children for families that could not afford to pay for their child to go to preschool. And the other one being daily breakfasts. The Black Panthers would have a common area where they would set up breakfast lines to serve people food.

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1964: Freedom Summer

In 1964 the number of registered African American voters had been gradually increasing. In most Southern States, about 50-70% of African American citizens were registered to vote on average. However, this number was drastically lower in Mississippi. Unfortunately, less than 7% of African Americans were registered to vote. This means that over 93% could not vote in any elections. This was due to the fact that registering to vote was an extremely discouraging process for African Americans within the state. Those who would register a black voter would be all-white, and most likely be judging the person attempting to register, and would be trying to make it extremely difficult to register. Civil rights activists were aware of this and had been attempting to change it, but their previous efforts were not doing much to change the numbers. Several groups had started to get frustrated with the fact that not much was changing. Groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and many others wanted to bring the treatment of African Americans in Mississippi to national attention. The Freedom Summer of 1964 was the result. The main goal of the Freedom Summer was to register as many African Americans to vote as possible. White citizens, along with some African Americans, traveled to Mississippi from the north to help. All of these people were civil rights activists and while they were registering people, they were trying to combat discrimination towards blacks, particularly in the South. There was a lot of support from the black community, but not everyone agreed with what they were doing. In particular, the Ku Klux Klan was prominent in the state and were very vocal about their negative feelings about the freedom summer. The Klan was not only trying to attack African Americans trying to register, but any white people trying to help them as well. That summer Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two white men, and James Chaney, a black man, were all helping register voters. One night, the three were arrested and only jailed for a few hours. When they were released that night, they were released into the hands of some Klan members who assaulted and killed them. The FBI tried to convict men who had connection to the crime, but the final verdict was 18 men arrested, and seven charged with federal charged. There were some negative responses from the Freedom Summer, but overall it had a fairly positive response. That year the Civil Rights Act passed and the following year the Voting Rights Act passed. The passing of these acts was in part due to the fact that the country as a whole gained a lot of awareness from the Freedom Summer.

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February 21, 1965 -- Malcolm X is Assassinated

Malcolm X who was born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19th 1925 from his mother Louise Norton Little and his father Earl Little. He was one of 8 children and grew up in a very proactive household. His father, Earl who was a baptist minister was very outspoken and was a large supporter of the Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Being outspoken came with its consequences, his father would receive death threats from a white supremacist organization Black Legion. They were forced to move to avoid the threats but less than a year later their house was burned, and two years later he was found dead. It was presumed an accident and after his death his mother became insane and had to go to a mental institution in which all the kids went to foster care. As Malcolm grew up he bounced from home to home and eventually in 1946 he was arrested for burglary. During his time in prison he reflected on his life and his brother would visit him, he introduced him to Nation of Islam. He then took very close following of the leader Elijah Muhammad, and when he got out he decided to get involved. He then changed his name from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X to get rid of his slave name. Most importantly he became the spokesperson for the NOI because he was very intelligent and articulate. He used television, radio and newspapers to spread his beliefs and ideas with the world. The NOI grew from 500 to 30,000 followers in 10 years. Malcolm X was very controversial and his statements brought outrage from the public. He told his followers to break away from racism “by any means necessary” which means violence is acceptable. Separate from his rival Martin Luther King who was anti-aggression, Malcolm often scolded MLK for being friends with the white man. He said “You don’t have a peaceful revolution” and “You don’t have a turn the cheek revolution. There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution”. These words had an effect on the people of America due to his pro-violence views. These statements won him large amounts of followers but also brought many critics. One of the critics was MLK himself saying “I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice.” showing the feelings he has for Malcolm’s opinions. In 1963 Malcolm was betrayed by his most coveted friend Elijah Muhammad. He had followed Muhammad’s teachings for many year only to find out that Elijah himself was breaking some of the most important rules of his religion. He was having affairs with numerous women and it caused a huge outbreak for Malcolm to handle. He then separated himself from NOI and moved on to start his own organization. The death of Malcolm X was monumental for the civil rights movement. He was killed in 1965 at the Audobon ballroom in Manhattan. He was shot 15 times at point blank range by members of the NOI. This allowed Martin Luther King to take Malcolm’s followers and move forward with the civil rights movement. Without Malcolm X the civil rights movement would have been drastically different.