Black Panther Party
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The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a revolutionary, Black nationalist organization in the United States that formed in the October 1966, and grew to national prominence before falling apart due to a combination of internal problems and suppression by state actors, especially the Federal Bureau of Investigation (whose methods included assassination (allegedly), arrests and stirring-up of factional rivalries via infiltration).
The organization was founded by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Richard Aoki in 1966, in the city of Oakland, California. The party was created to further the revolutionary movement for black liberation, which had been growing steadily throughout the sixties thanks to the prominent civil rights movement, and the work of people like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.. The party rejected the integrationist stance of King, and made it clear from the beginning that it sought no compromise with the "white power structure". The party similarly rejected King's 'nonviolent' creed, and specifically chose to organize around a platform of self-defense (which became part of the party's original name, "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense"). The party received funding and training in arms and explosives from Fidel Castro.
As a Marxist-Leninist party, the Black Panthers focused their rhetoric on revolutionary class struggle. Although the party was characterized by varying degrees of black nationalism, Newton and Seale rejected cultural nationalists as "black racists". Contrary to popular perception, the BPP was not a separatist organization, and worked closely with many white activists (for example, California's Peace and Freedom Party, and the paramilitary Irish Republican Army). Indicative of this was the BPP's use of the slogan "All Power to the People!", which represents a more internationalist (and Marxist) perspective than the famous slogan, "Black Power!"
Above BPP information from Wikipedia.
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