The Black Panther Party was first formed in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland California but effects and calls for Black nationalism soon spread to all corners of the country and which settled within the big cities of America; Chicago and New York in which a large population of minorities were deprived and in which they felt unwanted and uncared for, by their own country and its policies.
The Black Panther party pushed their socialist programs and a call for social change within the cities and African American communities. This was attempted through their Ten Point Program in which the need for better housing, the end to poverty, black on black crime, the exemption from military service, police brutality and the need for a better social structure within African American communities. What started out as a need to supply only African Americans with the services and needs of their efforts, was soon labeled as black racism, not only by the white establishment but from within the leaders of the Black Panthers as well.
English: 40th Reunion of the Black Panther Party i...
Original six members of the Black Panther Party (N...
English: Black Panther Convention, Lincoln Memoria...As a result, the Black Panthers soon expanded their circle of influence to previously deprived white groups, usually Communist and other socialist groups which had been set on the fringe of society by America. ÃÂThe focus in the latter years of the Black Panthers was on social issues as their Ten Point Plan will attest. Even though the reign of influence within the Black Panther party, as it related to a national movement, lasted less than a decade, in that time, positive social change eventually sprang up from its origins and efforts of the masses.ÃÂ (Robinson, S. 2007)The Panthers assumed a Robin Hood type roll of distributing money and services to the community. Through legal and illegal money the BPP was able to improve...