okay it's like 3 am and i'm probably gonna have to boost this later but i'm bored so time for a thread on what the black panther party did for black communities nationwide.
a lot of this is going to be coming from my memory of various readings/documentaries - i'm passionate about the bpp as probably the most effective and organized leftist organization in american history - but i'll do my best to cite at the end of the thread
i don't feel i should need to address this with y'all, but nevertheless, to be clear: the bpp started out as a violent organization, yes. some ppl like to say that it doesn't count as violence, but i find it useful to consider it as such. violence for the sake of self-defense is still violence.
the bpp platform from 1966 states, "We will protect ourselves . . . by whatever means necessary . . . . We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves for the sake of self-defense."
obviously, during this period, police brutality against black ppl in america was nigh-ubiquitous. this was the spark that started the bpp: the urgent need for protection against violence that could strike anywhere, at any time.
for this reason, many of the founders of the bpp took to simply carrying guns with them wherever they went, watching over black people going about their lives, and making it known to police that they were there and prepared to defend their people.
this is, imo, part of the heart and soul of the bpp, and disregarding it does nothing but vindicate them. it was a fiercely *independent* organization that said to the forces supposedly arraigned to "protect" them, "fuck you; we'll care for ours."
it was also a HUGELY powerful PR move, in my opinion. why? well, check out this photo.
the rest of the details of the backlash are also outside the scope of the thread; much more interesting to me is where the bpp took their programs after this.
having effectively put themselves in the public eye, the panthers did not make the mistake of maintaining a reputation as a purely military organization, which would've been very easy to do.
others have expressed that *this* was the part of the party that really terrified the government, and it's true - this is when COINTELPRO under lbj and richard nixon started to come after the black panthers, NOT when they were following cops around with guns.
the idea of the black population becoming radicalized en masse through the fact that the bpp was providing for their basic needs was SHOCKING.
it was for this reason that i genuinely think there might have been mass revolution in the united states if the bpp had survived. their community programs made a major difference by simply putting the vast resources *of the people* to work *for the people*
the bpp is honestly one of my favorite refutations to tired shit from capitalists about how no one can make anything without ~the profit motive~ - they're solid historical evidence otherwise.
AW SHIT Y'ALL CITATIONS!! i conked out after finishing this bc i wanted to get some sleep before doing housecleaning today
so a lot of the stuff i cited from memory comes from the docu The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, which is a really good primer on the bpp's history
also for a better understanding of their philosophy Bobby Seale's Seize the Time, written by a former panther, talks abt how important their methods for radicalizing the common people were
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