America Dreaming by Laban Carrick Hill

Author:Laban Carrick Hill [HILL, LABAN CARRICK]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316078832
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2009-06-30T04:00:00+00:00

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At its height, the Black Panther Party had chapters in twenty-five cities including New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Oakland, Des Moines, and Jersey City.

Regardless of the eloquence or reasonableness of most of these claims, the Black Panthers took such an intimidating approach to black justice that they were quickly villainized in the white media. The FBI director J. Edgar Hoover described the Panthers as “hoodlum-type revolutionaries.” Even though the Panthers provided many social services in black communities, including free breakfast programs, welfare counseling, free medical clinics and other social services in several cities, their insistence on heated rhetoric (“offing the pigs”), carrying guns, and donning military attire overshadowed any good they were doing.

A confrontation between the Panthers and the police was inevitable. In October 1967, Panther leader Huey Newton went to jail for killing a police officer. In April of the following year, thirteen Panthers ambushed an Oakland police car, hitting it with 157 shots and badly wounding the officer. By 1970, the Panthers had killed eleven police officers. With each confrontation, the Panthers drew more recruits. Many of these recruits, however, were ex-convicts who had a beef against the police and delighted in being at war with America. As time passed, the Panthers seemed to devolve into a criminal organization. The party platform became a front to rip off and terrorize their own black neighbors.

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