The Fall of Black Panthers

[Vargha Poralli]

What is the reason behind the downfall of Black Panthers ? I learned from wikipedia that their demise is carried out by FBI and the American Police through an operation called COINTELPRO. did the black panther's popularity seriously challenged the republicratics so they unleashed the fbi against them ?

also why did the police and fbies are sucessfull in eliminating them ? their food to children is really a progressive idea and their rainbow alliance is also a good signal to end racism considering their own racial background. and did the white people didn't oppose fbi for their truly destructive and undemocratic behaviour ? or did racism is behind the axns of fbi ? wat is the reaction to fbi from ACLU and martin luther king ?did they oppose black panthers for their self defense policies ?

how much did the life of black Americans today is improved compared t the days of Malcolm X,MLK and Black Panthers ? are there any political party/group today which has a potential black panthers had ? finally is there any possiblities in near future for a political party to seriously change republicratics like the Black Panthers did?


P.S : Do you guys like my petname for your ruling class ;) ?

[Sadena Meti]

IMHO, all the movements of the 60's and 70's fell because the Vietnam War ended. Each movement had their own agenda, but they were united in opposition to the war. When the war ended, they all went off in their own directions. Socialists, feminists, black nationalists. They stopped being revolutionaries and became purely black nationalists.

You can't have a revolution on your own.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I don't have alot of time at this second, but there's basic info here: The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense: A model for revolution today (http://www.freepeoplesmovement.org/ry/rysu6a.html)

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Oh, and the BPP never stopped being internationalist, or took up "pork chop nationalism" (as the BPP called it) as rev-stoic claims.

It's also important to note that according to a poll (don't have the source, but it's a respected one, I made a post about it several months ago), 70% of the black population of the U.S. supported the BPP. That's probably the widest support any communist group has had in the history of the U.S.

[bolshevik butcher]

I'd always thought the main reason the black panthers party fell was due to the CIA/FBI going on an all out offensive agianst them, planting cocaine inside the BPP, and taking out their leaders, let's also not forget the attempts by the state to dismantle support for the BPP by introducing small concessions to black communities.

To my knowlege, which admitadley is quite poor in this area, the black nationalist movement has unfortuantley demised in recent times and the nation of islam is the only reasnobly big group left? There is also the new bpp which appears to be little better.

[Jhé]

The black panthers gained alot of publicity but only peaked at about 5 000 members. They performed armed patrols of streets and neighbourhoods to protect blacks against police terrorism.



There could be other parties such as the black panthers in any society where there is inequality and oppression, however to my knowladge the black panthers did not have much of a political presence more of a media and rioter based one.



I suppose people could argue that black americans lives are of a better standard today than then due to the successes of the civil rights movment, for example...

- the civil rights act of 1964 outlawed racial discrimination and segregation in all walks of american life

- the voting rights act of 1965 outlawed minimum literacy and wealth levels from being a bar to voting

- the supreme court ruled that state laws which criminalised interracial marriages were illegal

- in 1968 the civil rights act was extended to outlaw unfair distribution of welfare housing




These achievements of the civil rights movement were mainly due to organisations such as the...

SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Commitee),

worked with CORE and SNCC,
MLK was their leader

believed in achieving goals by peaceful means, direct action and intergration they went out in search of their goals by non violent protests, passive resistance, sit ins, boycotts and marches...


organisations like the CORE and SNCC started off as non violent groups accepting white and black members... but when Stokley Carmicheal first used the words "Black Power" and it started to become a common phrase in society they converted to this, expelling all their white members...

this contributed to the increasing popularity of non-violent groups such as the SCLC


**CORE ( Congress of Racial Equality), SNCC ( Student non violent coordinating commitee)






People believe the civil rights movment had also alot of failures,


- revived violent and racist groups like the KKK, which had previously peeked at about 5 million members during the 20's

- in the late 1960's race riots broke out all over the USA, in the first nine months of 1967 more than 150 US cities reported racially motivated violent disorders

- even by 1966 most blacks lived below the poverty line

- civil rights movment and MLK became increasingly unpopular amoung sections of the black community who believed his methods did not produce real benefits



Of course when laws are set they are not always followed by, even today we can see the racial discrimination that goes on in the US towards blacks, the corrupt justice system etc etc...

[RevolutionaryMarxist]

A important contribution to their fall was also how a extremely large percentage of their leadership was assasinated by either paramilitaries, gangs, or the state.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

There is also the new bpp which appears to be little better.


Not at all. They are "pork chop nationalists" to the fullest extent. There are known government agents in their ranks. They are anti-semitic and non-communist.

See: There Is No New Black Panther Party: An Open Letter From the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation (http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm)

[Pirate Utopian]

they oppose influence by Marx & Mao (wich the original BPP did read/follow) simply because they are not black

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 04, 2006 11:57 pm

There is also the new bpp which appears to be little better.


Not at all. They are "pork chop nationalists" to the fullest extent. There are known government agents in their ranks. They are anti-semitic and non-communist.

See: There Is No New Black Panther Party: An Open Letter From the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation (http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm)
No he means "little better" as in; "the 'new' black panther party is just a tiny bit better than the nation of islam, which is a horrible organisation."

I've always seen the BPP as a pretty concrete argument for democratic socialism, turned me off any other kinda of intra-perty democracy reading how their leaders were so easily turned against each other by the cops.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

That's a much deeper issue, that has alot to do with the class backgrounds of certain people involved, and models adapted from certain periods of time in certain countries. I think that should, and needs to be discussed.


No he means "little better" as in; "the 'new' black panther party is just a tiny bit better than the nation of islam, which is a horrible organisation."

Oh. It appears you're right. I thought it said "a little better," not "little better".

[rebelworker]

The Centralised leadership defenitly left the panthers open to manipulationby the state.

The turningof the membership against the LA chapter and the faction fighting which lead to the split and dissintigration of the east coast, particularly NYC, could have been avoided with a more equal and democratic structure.

The Panthers did have a mass base in many areas, particularly Oakland, where the leadership was infultrated and internal divisions where created, Chicago where Fred Hampton, possibly the most popular panther leader was assasinated, LA, where there were many assasinations and the offices where destroyed by police/military assault, and NYC, where a large number of key militants where falsely imprisoned while the west coast leadership was tricked into thinking the east coast was infultrated (the oposite was true) which lead to internally ordered hits leading to the branch dissinigrating or going underground as the BLA.

COINTELPRO was almost solely responsible for the fall of the Panthers, although serrious internal problems relating to sexism and hierarchical leadership did not help the situation.

A great movie to check out is, All Power tothe People: the Black Panther Party and beyond. Single best resource on the Panthers I have seen. If your in the New York Area,I also recomend looking up Ashanti Alston, his first hand verbal history helped me lar ome things you wont find in other places, and hispersonal story is increadible, did 20 for the cause and is still fighting.

[bolshevik butcher]

Yes, sorry for any confusion my post caused, I was saying that indeed the new BPP is little better than the nation of islam, a horrible reactionary organisation.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p993fs5pR4U

a short movie on COINTELPRO and the panthers in general

[VenceremosRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2006 04:42 am
The Centralised leadership defenitly left the panthers open to manipulationby the state.

The turningof the membership against the LA chapter and the faction fighting which lead to the split and dissintigration of the east coast, particularly NYC, could have been avoided with a more equal and democratic structure.

The Panthers did have a mass base in many areas, particularly Oakland, where the leadership was infultrated and internal divisions where created, Chicago where Fred Hampton, possibly the most popular panther leader was assasinated, LA, where there were many assasinations and the offices where destroyed by police/military assault, and NYC, where a large number of key militants where falsely imprisoned while the west coast leadership was tricked into thinking the east coast was infultrated (the oposite was true) which lead to internally ordered hits leading to the branch dissinigrating or going underground as the BLA.

COINTELPRO was almost solely responsible for the fall of the Panthers, although serrious internal problems relating to sexism and hierarchical leadership did not help the situation.

A great movie to check out is, All Power tothe People: the Black Panther Party and beyond. Single best resource on the Panthers I have seen. If your in the New York Area,I also recomend looking up Ashanti Alston, his first hand verbal history helped me lar ome things you wont find in other places, and hispersonal story is increadible, did 20 for the cause and is still fighting.
The Centralised leadership defenitly left the panthers open to manipulationby the state.

No. The centralized leadership was probably the only structurally real thing going for them. Which is why they over used it, and neglected inner-party democracy. They never had a congress of members stand for election -- ever.

That isn't to say it wasn't democratic -- obviously line struggles still emerged despite the formal arena for them to be contested. You can see clearly the different methods, objectives, and goals of say Angela Davis and Fred Hampton.

They did not fall a part from external reaction. That certainly played a heavy handed role. But the Soviet Union didn't collapse because of external reaction either (ie: U.S. invasion etc.) but because if INTERNAL contradicitons.

The faction fighting, I blame the lack of real democratic centralism on - the cult of Huey only worsened things, in the sense that Huey's image created a superficial unity. Any Panther could envoke Huey's name and it would authority. The same with Mao or Stalin's cult. That's what they do - create artificial unity. And that's why they fail everytime.

COINTELPRO only attacked the Panthers. The Panthers, essentially, self-destructed in the face of it.

[Janus]

COINTELPRO only attacked the Panthers.
The Panthers were one of the many groups that were targeted by COINTELPRO. They suffered from it so badly due to their group structure as rebelworker said, which when combined with some of the problems that the top leadership were going through led to their demise at the hands of COINTELPRO.

[Hampton]

I finished reading Flores A. Forbes autobio about a month ago about being in the Panthers and some one of the things that struck me as intresting was when he said that towards the end people were so busy fighting each other and doing whatever Huey said that they lost sight of what the Panthers were about in the begining, which was helping the community, which in a sense made them acceptable to a lot of people. Owning nightclubs wasn't necessary but when you've got the money and hooked on cocaine it doesnt matter.

[Vargha Poralli]

thanx for all those posts comrades !!! i owe all of you !!! they are the links provided are very much helpful !!!

and i thank you all again

[Jhé]

a pleasure to help