Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally known as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP-SD), was a Marxist-Leninist party, and arguably vanguard party, in the United States (US) that was founded upon the principles of Black Power, a movement largely built by Malcolm X. The organization was founded in October 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, existing until its effective destruction in the 1980s due to the work of the US government's COINTELPRO operations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Background

Civil rights movement (1942-1965)

Since the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the institution of chattel slavery was formally abolished in the United States. However, it effectively continued to exist in the form of neo-slavery until 1942. Neo-slavery allowed for White Southerners to continue a process of enslaving African-Americans by debt peonage, indentured servitude, and unfair labor contracts. However, following the entry of the US into the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) began a new series of programs to combat the neo-slavery issue. By mid-1942, the practice had been successfully eliminated, becoming the first major victory for what would become the civil rights movement.

Despite this new victory for African-American rights, the institutions of Jim Crow continued to be upheld by the Democratic Party. "Jim Crow laws" permitted racial apartheid that benefitted White communities at the expense of Black communities, while also restricting Black access to literacy and voting. Another example of Jim Crow laws were the so-called "Black codes," restricting where Black people were allowed to work, where they were allowed to live, and how much they were allowed to be paid in the system of wage labor.

On July 26, 1948, the second major victory of the civil rights movement came. President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981 into law, officially desegregating the United States Armed Forces and allowing for racial integration in the US military. The order became a major economic victory for Black communities given that the United States Armed Forces had become the largest employer for African-Americans following the Second World War.

After the victory in Executive Order 9981 in 1948, the civil rights movement became far more organized, mobilized, and united. In 1952, Malcolm X was released from prison and began organizing Black nationalist activities for the Nation of Islam (NOI). Malcolm X quickly became embroiled in the Black Power movement, moving beyond the original civil rights movement. Meanwhile, the murder of Harry and Harriette Moore on December 25, 1951, by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) triggered massive civil rights protests. In 1953, the Baton Rouge bus boycott saw the United Defense League (UDL) and civil rights organizers protest racial apartheid in public transportation.

Foreign relations

Algeria

In the 1970s, members of the Black Panther Party began taking refuge in Algeria in order to escape state-sponsored US repression by the FBI, an organization that was attempting to arrest BPP members on alleged charges of terrorism. In order to escape the capital punishment awaiting them as Black people facing criminal charges, they fled to Algeria with permission from their socialist government.