Legacy

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY:

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY'S IMPACT ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

LEGACY

Despite COINTELPRO hindering the party’s rapid expansion, the Black Panther Party marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. By rejecting nonviolent protest and adopting a more radical approach, directly disrupting American society: racist social institutions, denouncing wage disparities, advocating for armed self-defense against police brutality, and emphasizing self-determination.

"The Revolution has always been in the hand of the Young. The young always inherit the revolution."

–Huey P. Newton: Co-Founder of the Black Panther Party

"There is an entire generation of young people who know nothing about how viciously the FBI attacked The Black Panther Party, and why."

-Bobby Seale: Co-founder and Chairman of the Black Panther Party

Additionally, the American Indian Movement, Young Lords, Brown Berets, and other racial justice movements were inspired by the party’s political agenda and radical opposition to social injustice, Laying the groundwork for changes in how minorities are portrayed in American history curricula. 

"Students at the Black Panther Party's Intercommunal Youth Institute, the organization's first full-time elementary school: And like its Bay Area predecessors, the IYI employed a pedagogical model founded on the principles of experiential learning. At the Oakland alternative school, administrators built a curriculum that coupled traditional subjects, such as mathematics, English, science, and language, with activities that exposed students more directly to the nature of class struggle and systems of racial inequity. In some classes, for example, four to twelve-year-olds developed writing skills by penning letters to political prisoners, while others were imbued with a sense of community service through their participation in BPP-sponsored food giveaways.”"

[Source: The Alliance for Networking Visual Culture]

"Members of the Young Lords marched in the Puerto Rican Parade in June 1970."

[Source: The New York Times]

"We are opposed to violence--the violence of hungry children, illiterate adults, diseased old people, and the violence of poverty and profit. We have asked, petitioned, gone to courts, demonstrated peacefully, and voted for politicians full of empty promises. But we still ain't free. The time has come to defend the lives of our people against repression and for revolutionary war against the businessman, politician, and police. When a government oppresses our people, we have the right to abolish it and create a new one."

-Jose Cha Cha Jimenez; Young Lords

"Brown Beret insignia"​​​​​​​
[Source: nomadicborder]

"Button used at the American Indian Movement pow-wow, Dec 29, 1990."

[Source: Ditigal Public Libary Of America]


“We are opposed to laws that do not protect our people, we are opposed to laws that actually kill our people.”

-Dr. David Sanchez; The Brown Berets

"All European tradition, Marxism included, has conspired to defy the natural order of all things. Mother Earth has been abused, the powers have been abused, and this cannot go on forever. No theory can alter that simple fact. Mother Earth will retaliate, the whole environment will retaliate, and the abusers will be eliminated."

​​​​​​​-Russell Means; The American Indian Movement

Other pivotal turning points were the community service programs recognizing the significance of attending to the immediate needs of the black community, even though local, state, and federal governments had traditionally overlooked these glaring issues. Inspiring welfare initiatives like Women, Infants, and Children. (WIC) As well as igniting the first debates over the Second Amendment, contributing to the implementation of strict gun laws in California.

"WIC: Women, Infants & Children"

[Source: USDA]

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”

–Martin Luther King Jr. ​​​​​​​