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How Did The Black Panthers Impact The Civil Rights Movement

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The Black Panthers and their Impact on the Civil Rights Movement
The Civil rights movement was a time in history when African Americans fought to gain equality in society. In 1966, the Black Panther Party was formed under Huey Newton as one way to do this by patrolling streets to protect African-Americans from police brutality. The group would branch out, creating aide programs for children and families. (Garrett Duncan) As time went by and the Party grew, however, they became more militant. The group and its members were involved in several gun battles with police and became viewed as a terrorist group. During the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party’s influenced public view mainly through the violent actions that they took, but they were able to benefit society for the better through the many aid programs they would come to enact.
The source of the Black Panther’s violence mainly stemmed from the fact they felt a passive and peaceful approach to equality would take too long. (C N Trueman). In the early 1960s, 65 African Americans had been killed by police in Los Angeles alone, leading to the Panther’s ideologies (Brandon Harris). The Panther’s responses to actions like these, however, did not gain much sympathy. The group was becoming more and more of a symbol of hatred that was feared unlike the respect …show more content…
In the 1968 through the 1970s, the Panthers continued to have conflicts with the police and FBI. In May of 1969 several members were arrested for murder and later in the year a panther member hijacks a plane to Cuba(UC Berkeley). With many events like these, the overall public opinion would of the Panthers would decrease and would also earn them titles such as terrorists and radicals. The dislike of the Panthers still exists even today, and it is possible that by taking a more extreme approach that they were detrimental to the Civil Rights

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