BLACK POWER, MALCOLM X AND BLACK PANTHERS

Check notes written in O. book

Origins – James Meredith 1966 ‘march against fear’ began black power movement, first AA to
attend Mississippi university

Black Power Groups

 Nation of Islam
 SNCC
 CORE
 Black Panthers

Achievements of Black Power Movement:

1965 – Los Angeles riot
1966 – SNCC starts the Free D.C movement
1967 – Newark, Detroit, New Brunswick riots
Mississippi ‘freedom city’ project ends
1968 – black athletes give black power salute
at the Olympics
1972 – National Sickle Cell Anaemia Control
Act passed by Congress

Political/ economic:
o Didn’t solve social/ economic problems facing Northern AAs, did offer practical help to
AAs living in ghettos, assuring problems remained on political agenda

o MLK’s xstian message didn’t appeal to AAs in North, w/ ghettos deserted by the church,
and MLK appealed more to middle class than working class AAs,
SNCC and Black Panthers (BP) stressed self-defence and commitment to addressing
economic problems of the ghettos was more attractive to north, working-class AAs

Black Panthers
o Founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale 1966, inspired by Malcolm X and his ability to
connect w/ AA working class in ghettos of North, critical of CR leaders who worked w/ white
people (who they saw as too cautious and failing to understand needs of AA working class),
use BP to organise black working class
o membership all black, prepared to use violence to achieve aim of revolutionary
transformation of US
Bobby Hutton, member of BP, died in 1968, a firefight w/ Oakland police that started
when 8 Panthers ambushed a group of police in response to MLK death, 50-man assault
squad sent after him, unarmed Hutton walked out, police shot him 12 times
o Focused on two aspects of AA liberation highlighted by Malcolm X: self-defence, economic
improvements
AA needed organised defence; police/ justice system untrustworthy - according to
Newton, police ‘occupied’ ghettos as US army patrolled Vietnam
BPP organised its own militia, patrolled black neighbourhoods; ‘patrolling the pigs’
Improve conditions in northern ghettos, organised campaigns for gov investment in
black neighbourhoods, organised welfare schemes to help AA in cities
Ten Point Programme:
 Education that teaches AA history
 Free healthcare for all black and oppressed people
 Decent housing for all
 End to police brutality
 Free all black and oppressed held in prisons, trials by an all-black jury
 Full employment for AAs
Ideology – black nationalists, black people should govern themselves, anti-colonialism
 Inspired by Mao Zedong (communist), expelled white oppressors from China and
established a revolutionary Chinese government
 Newton and Seale stressed solidarity w/ oppressed people internationally, anti-Vietnam
war (call for AA to refuse to fight)
 Emphasis of revolution came from Marxism, no real freedom under capitalism, Marxist
emphasis on working class, tried to organise American black working class
Methods
 ‘patrol the pigs’ campaign, keep police under surveillance, protect AA from police abuse
of power, any time police patrol stopped or arrested AA BP patrols would observe,
Newton heavily involved (carried law books in car, question police and bring attention to
incidents) – highlighted police abuses, educated black residents regarding legal rights
 Californian state gov felt threatened, tried to ban BP patrols but BP got media attention
for their cause. Party becoming national organisation w/ 35 different local groups across
15 states
 BPP ‘free Huey’ campaign following Newton’s arrest on murder charges in 1967 (he was
released in 1970, case dropped)
Survival programmes
Newton’s arrest led to new leadership, from 1968 BP emphasised welfare programmes
rather than confrontations w/ police, improve lives of AA in ghettos in North
 Free breakfast for School Children Programme (highly successful, by 1969 had
fed 10,000 children each school day)
 Free health clinics
 Free ‘liberation schools’ (located in church halls, empower AAs, teach
achievements of AAs as well as provide academic support)
Programmes funded by local black business as well as celebrities i.e Richard Pryor, Jimi
Hendrix
Health clinic offering to treat blood condition sickle cell disease by 1974 there were 200
free clinics across the USA which treated over 200,000 people a year
BP genuinely popular amongst young AAs working class, 5,000 official members in 1968
but their newspaper circulation 250,000 and readership of a million
By end of 1960s Eldridge Cleaver, Newton, Seale had a 70% approval rating among AAs
serving in Vietnam
Decline of BP
Gov authorities suspicious, FBI used techniques such as bugging offices and homes of
leading members of BPP, FBI extremely damaging, BP spending money on legal fees to
detriment of ‘survival programmes’
Disagreements of leaders of BP led reduction of influence (tension between Newton and
presidential candidate Eldridge Cleaver, 1968 Newton argued the party should play
down the use of force and emphasise ‘survival programmes’, Cleaver remained
committed to militancy)
 Female members of BP objected to the macho image of party (conflict; original male
members who joined a defence force and the new female recruits who were essential
for the health/education aspects of ‘survival progs’
BPs followed the path of Malcolm X, shared desire to stand up to racist authorities, utilise
resources within AA communities to improve their lives. Programmes i.e ‘patrol the pigs’/
survival prog, effective but the parties aims were top ambitious and fell victim to paranoid
attacks of FBI under Nixon

Freedom cities:
o Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, BPs shared vision for AAs to control their own communities
o SNCC’s Free D.C Movement (headed by Marion Barry) was successful at bringing the ‘home
rule’ to the AA community of Washington D.C, starting in 1966 with demonstrations against
the way local schools were administered, by the end of 1966 AA citizens of D.C won the right
to elect their own school boards, Barry also set up a ‘Model Police Precinct’ controlled by a
police board partly elected by the local AA community
o SNCC’s work gained $3million worth of government funding to improve community policing
o SNCC pioneered similar projects across US, in New York a SNCC campaign saw AAs take
control of the Intermediate School 201 in Harlem
o The ‘Freedom city in Mississippi also enjoyed success w/ SNCC, working with local churches
to set up Child Development Group of Mississippi, the group raised $1.5million from the
churches and federal government to set up 85 Head Start centres to support young children,
improve the lives of thousands of black people in Mississippi
o Black Panther Initiatives
o Educational/health initiatives
o helped thousands of people in late 1960s, best known campaigns sickle cell anaemia
(medical condition that predominantly effects AA), by end of the decade there were 49 Black
Panther clinics across the US
o Illinois People’s Free Medical Care Centre set up by Black Panther Party, treating 2000
people in its first two months alone
o Prior to the BP campaign there was little known about the illness, but they brought it to the
nations attention, w/ the government having no strategy to deal w/ it previously, the gov
passed the National Sickle Cell Anaemia Control Act (1972) which committed gov money to
research and treatment

Black identity
o Remade black identity, w/ slavery uprooting AAs from homeland and separating them from
their history, enslavement stripped independence, pride, identity
o Malcolm X: ‘the worst crime the white man has committed has been to teach us to hate
ourselves’
o Radicals, especially in SNCC/ BPP, recognised need for AA to forge independent identity
o Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton emphasised the study of black history to connect
AAs w/ their past, giving examples of powerful AA figures
o SNCC, BPP and Malcolm X also stressed the need for AAs to recognise African heritage, full
of radical groups overthrowing oppressors
o New identities developed; Afro hairstyle became a popular symbol of black identity –
associated w/ the black radical Angela Davis, altered vocabulary, changed from ‘negro’/
‘coloured’ to ‘black’ and ‘AA’
 Jazz composer Miles Davis, at the same time as CORE and SNCC excluded white
members, formed an all black band, using more non-Western instruments, incorporating
ideas from traditional African music as well as modern black styles (pioneered by black
artists i.e James Brown and Jimi Hendrix)
Media portrayal was changed by black power, televisions Star Trek broke new ground by
including a competent black character, she spoke Swahili, featured an interacial kiss
causing media storm as the second inter racial kiss in US history
Bill Cosby played a Pentagon spy, black actor, comedian, writer and CR activist
Black athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos kept black power in the news, giving the
‘power to the people’ salute during 1968 Mexico City Olympics while receiving medals
for 200 metres race,
the Olympic Committee suspended both athletes

Black power had enormous impact on American culture and society, activists Malcolm X,
Stokely Carmichael, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale helped forge a radical new identity for
AAs, changing race relations
Emphasis on self-help, pride led to ground-breaking democratic experiments such as the Free
D.C movement and sickle cell campaign
However, high profile campaigns of SNCC and BP drew attention of racist opponents such as
Senator Stennis who used their influence to stop community projects