Fred Hampton was the Chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Party and the deputy chairman of the national BPP.Īfter growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and graduating from Proviso East High School with Honors, charismatic Hampton became politically active. The party also organized free breakfast programs, medical clinics, and classes on figures like Franz Fanon. Although the original plan makes direct reference to the Black struggle, the BPP did embrace a multi-racial coalition to fight capitalism globally. Published in the organization’s issue of their newspaper, Black Panther, under the title “What We Want Now! What We Believe,” this list advocates for improved housing, education, and employment opportunities together with the end of police brutality and depopulating prisons. Shortly after the BPP was formed, they released a Ten-Point Program, which outlined the goals they had in mind for Black communities. Known for their slogan “power to the people,” the group recruited men and women of all ages who grew tired of incremental change and wished to make an immediate difference. While the Black Panther Party is well known for their tactics of armed self-defense in black berets and leather jackets, their political goals went beyond policing the police. The party’s political platform advocated for housing, economic and social justice for Black people. By 1982, the last of its chapters dissolved. Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966, the anti-imperial, anti-fascist organization sought to empower their community through aggressive tactics aimed at combatting police brutality and adopting socialist policies.Īt the party’s height between 19, they operated chapters in cities across America, the United Kingdom, and Algeria. Founded by Oakland college students and devoted activists Huey P. One of the groups to gain a foothold was the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, later known simply as the Black Panther Party. (Image credit: Ted Streshinsky Photographic Archive) For his blistering portrayal of Hampton, Daniel Kaluuya earned an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 2021 Oscars. The movie is blistering in its portrayal of the conspiracy between the federal government and the local police department to silence Hampton. Filmmaker Shaka King tells the true story of Hampton and Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), the car thief turned FBI informant forced to undermine the organization from the inside and participate in Hampton’s assassination. The film Judas and the Black Messiah follows the rise of Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the head of the Illinois chapter of the party. While these associations generally pursued their goals through civil disobedience and the courts, it was the Black Panther Party that eschewed the establishment in favor of leftist community organizing, a focus on Black power, and military tactics. In the 1960s alone, there were a number of organizations working to secure civil rights and economic justice for African-Americans–including MLK’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( SCLC) the NAACP the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC) and the Congress for Racial Equality ( CORE). The struggle for Black liberation doesn’t begin and end with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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