Huey p. newton shot12/28/2023 Judas and the Black Messiah has all the trappings of a genre movie - it’s a gritty crime thriller that unfolds on the tense stage of an anti-police revolution - but it shouldn’t be underestimated as a history lesson. Morrison, a native of Oakland, is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. News researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed. Phillip Agnew, a Florida-based activist and early organizer in the Black Lives Matter movement, co-founded Black Men Build, a national group focused on the empowerment and political education of Black men. Protesters adopted tactical confrontation with law enforcement and elected leaders, in response to the deaths of Black boys, men and women at the hands of police and vigilantes: Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. That has carried over to the Black Lives Matter movement. It was a clear contrast to the “respectability politics” of the nonviolent civil rights movement. The Panthers also pushed society to deal with Black people as they are, not as racists see them. And while armed self-defense is still considered extreme, that has not stopped some whites on the far-right from embracing the concept. The Panthers were radical for their time, but their positions are less so today, when social activism based on race or ethnicity, religious faith, queer and transgender identity and political ideology is common. For better or worse, they helped launch the America we see today, broken up into tribes by sex and race and creed. They tilled the ground and made it fertile for activism against police brutality, mass incarceration, generational poverty and racial wealth gaps. In many ways, the old Panthers say, we now live in the Black Panthers’ world. Whenever the FBI shared intel with police departments, members say, it preceded the assault, torture, arrest, imprisonment and deaths of Panthers across the country. It sowed paranoia, distrust and violence within the party. Panthers were aggressively surveilled by the FBI, and the agency’s infamous and illegal COINTELPRO effort included infiltration and intimidation of Panthers groups across the country. Also among its 65 programs were pioneering sickle cell disease testing research, free food and clothing distribution, transportation service for families visiting incarcerated loved ones, and escorts for seniors who needed assistance getting to a supermarket or a pharmacy. and abroad where it had chapters, opened offices, provided free health care clinics to residents and free breakfast programs for schoolchildren, and published Black Panther newspapers. Largely due to its “Survival Programs,” the party was embraced in nearly 70 communities across the U.S. But those words also meant nutrition, health care and political education for the Black community, said Erika Huggins, who was the first woman to lead a chapter of the Panther Party. The party eventually dropped “for Self Defense” from its name. In interviews, former Panther members acknowledged that the party’s very name drove perceptions that it only operated by force and intimidation. And there were the Panther formations, marches and patrols, meant as a show of discipline and strength. The party became famous in its early years for its men and women in matching black berets and black leather jackets, sometimes accessorized by long-barrel shotguns. Among their demands: Freedom to determine the destiny of the Black community, economic empowerment through full employment and wealth redistribution, an educational system inclusive of the Black experience, and an end to brutality and fatal encounters between Black people and police. ![]() Together, they wrote the party’s Ten Point Program, laying out the party’s beliefs. Newton was the party’s minister for defense and Seale was the party chairman. _Īfter meeting at a community college in Oakland, Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966. “You’re hearing more about the Black Panther Party, and Huey’s contributions to (Black) liberation as a thought leader, than you’ve ever heard before,” she said. Among her goals: recognition of Panther sites by the U.S. She said the bronze bust is just a start of a larger effort to see the Black Power movement take its place in history with other, less confrontational actors of the civil rights movement. Newton Foundation in Oakland, is among those who want to retell the Panthers story for a new generation. Some of the party’s biggest accomplishments, like its community service programs, helped transform public education and health care.įredrika Newton, who co-founded the Dr. ![]() Yet over its 15 years of operation, the party and its politics were a training ground and an inspiration for a generation of Black, Latino, Asian, Native American and white people who hold public office or public platforms today.
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