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Research how culture changed as a result of your movement. How does this movement impact how members of the community live today? What changes still need to be made? Find 3 news articles that respond to these questions. Add your findings here.

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Research collective actions taken by your group. Research the who, what, where, when, why of these actions and add them here. What role did cooperation play in these actions?

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What role did the government/law enforcement play (positive or negative) in your movement? What laws were changed as a result of your movement? Add significant events, Supreme Court Cases, or new laws here.

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What challenges did your community face? Did they experience de facto or de jure discrimination? If so, how? Record your findings and sources here.

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Find three important figures from your movement. Add images. Find biographical details. What qualities made them a strong leader? Include a quote from each leader that exemplifies their beliefs.

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Lack of Self-determination for Black communities

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Lack of Self-determination for Black communities

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The Black Panther Party felt the lack of control of the institutions in their communities for example the schools and the banks. This was a form of de facto discrimination through the disempowering of the black people. The first point on the 10 point program is: " We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities."

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The main challenge that the Black Panther Party faced was police discrimination. The Black Panther Party was hated by and discriminated against. They thought that MLK Jr's thought process of nonviolent protests was not working, so they took the protection of the Black people into their own hands. The police discriminated against them by committing police brutality against any Black person wearing a beret, which was an obvious indicator of them being apart of the Black Panther Party.

https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/black-panther-party-challenging-police-and-promoting-social-change

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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The Black Panther Party: Challenging Police and Promoting Social Change

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Founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was the era’s most influential militant black power organization. Its members confronted politicians, challenged the police, and protected black citizens.

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He co-founded the Black Panther Party with Bobby Seale

Born February 17, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana

Moved to Oakland in the 1940s.

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He was born September 13, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois but moved to LA as a youth. He grew up very impoverished but with family that emphasized self-respect and black pride. During his teenage years, he had many encounters with the law climaxing in his sentencing of 1 year to life for stealing $70 at a gas station. In prison, he became a communist revolutionary. He also met Huey Newton and agreed to organize a prison movement tied to the BPP. He advocated for a People's War against amerikkka involving urban guerrilla warfare and the decolonization of the continent. He was framed for murdering a prison guard and became a well-known political prisoner. He was assassinated on August 21st, 1971 by prison guards.

George Jackson ultimately brought lot of attention to the prison movement and organizing prisoners as a key part of black liberation. He helped inspire many militants to take up arms and form guerrilla undergrounds such as the Black Liberation Army, the Weather Underground, and the May 19th Communist Organization.

"Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying who could be saved, that
generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution." - George Jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlATI1BzRtc

Jackson, George. Blood in My Eye. Black Classic Press, 1990.

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Born October 22, 1936, in Liberty, Texas.

Moved to Oakland during WWII.

He co-founded the Black Panther Party with Huey P. Newton. Throughout the movement, he led as a prominent figure in the Black Panther Party.

"Our position was: If you don't attack us, there won't be any violence; if you bring violence to us, we will defend ourselves."

-Bobby Seale.

This quote shows how Seale agrees with Malcolm X's ideology of "By any means necessary."

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Robert George Seale was born in Liberty, Texas, the first of three children. After relocating to several cities in Texas, his family finally settled in Oakland, California during World War II. After a stint in the Air Force, Seale attended Merritt College where he joined the Afro-American Association, a student group that promoted Black separatism, and there he met Huey Newton.

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The Black Panther Party did many collective actions to really help and engage with the black community. One of those things is opening up Community Health Clinics. This really helped with the community because they were pretty much neglected and treated unfair by the government and the health care in the US.

Who: The Black Panther Party

What: They opened free health clinics for people without access to doctors.

Where: Clinics opened in cities like Oakland, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Boston.

When: Started in the early 1970s.
Why: Black communities had poor healthcare and high rates of illness.

How cooperation helped: Medical professionals volunteered, and Panthers helped run and organize the clinics.

Pien, Diane. “Black Panther Party’s Free Medical Clinics (1969-1975) •.” Black Past, 10 July 2020, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/black-panther-partys-free-medical-clinics-1969-1975/. Accessed 23 Apr. 2025.

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Even after the March on Washington and the "I have a dream" speech, America was still country built on the unmarked graves of the native people of this land, and the brutal enslavement of Black people. The police or pigs as they were referred to in the Black Panther Party, reflected this reality. Black people were constantly harassed, imprisoned, and murdered. Their crime itself was being Black in amerikkka. So Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale formed patrol cadres watching the police insuring the safety of their community. The patrols matched the violence of the police. If the police had their guns drawn, so did the Panthers. If the cops shot, so did they. The patrols were never just one person and thus took the form of a real militia or army. This way, if the police shot at the Panthers, it would turn into a shoot out instead of a one-sided tragedy. This was really effective in mobilizing the community against the Police and the government and for the freedom of their communities. When Malcolm X said "we need a Mau Mau", of course referencing the organization behind the anticolonial uprising in Kenya, the Black Panthers answered in part with these patrols.

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The Black Panther Party started this program for the children of the Black community. The Free Breakfast for Children Program was started so that the children of the Black community could have a well-nourishing breakfast every morning, consisting of milk, bacon, eggs, grits, and toast. About 20,000 school-aged children in 19 cities across the United States benefited from and were fed by this program. This program. This program lasted from January 1969, responding to the widespread poverty that left many kids going to school on empty stomachs, and ended at the end of 1969. This project was full of cooperation because it brought the community together.

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The Black Panther Party (BPP) is often remembered for its militant stance and its prominent role in the civil rights movement. However, one of its most impactful and enduring contributions was its array of community programs designed to support and uplift African American communities. Free Breakfast for Children Program One of its most notable programs…

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While many would like to think that the 1968 occupation of "Hamilton's Hall" was purely student driven without connection to Harlem political organizing outside the gates of Columbia University, this is just not true. There were many factions within the occupation that were connected with the Panthers or Panthers themselves. The same is true of the group of students that occupied the same hall last year. This more left-wing, radical faction took direct inspiration from the more radical segments of the 1968 action and have directly invoked the legacy of multiple Panthers including George Jackson in their different press appearances. The legacy of the Panthers and the movement they created lives on today in hearts and minds of the brave students that chose to show true solidarity with Palestine last year.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Tu9UXZEeqBg0uGKPTqm08?si=noB4pIKcShia6GSYpKtnJw - An interview of one of the organizers.

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A takeover of Columbia University's South Lawn by pro-Palestinian students last week is drawing comparisons to 1968 - another time when police were called to clear protesting students from the campus.

There are parallels between the two high-profile events, most starkly the proliferation of similar protests around the country, as students call for an end to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

But there are also differences. Here's a quick guide:

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Several issues were at stake in 1968

For many Columbia students in 1968, their protest was motivated by anger over the Vietnam War - and changes to the military draft that were chipping away at students' deferments, particularly in graduate schools.

The radical group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) also opposed Columbia's links to the Institute for Defense Analyses - a think tank researching and analyzing weapons and strategies to use in Vietnam. They also wanted the CIA and military services barred from on-campus recruiting.

But others, especially the Society of Afro-American Students (SAS), were also upset that Columbia University was moving ahead with plans to take over part of a public park in Harlem, to build a gym that critics said would give only limited and second-class access to the local community.

"They were building it in Morningside Park, one of the few green spaces in Harlem," former Columbia student and current SUNY law professor Eleanor Stein told NPR's Michel Martin. "And we felt that it couldn't be business as usual, that the university itself was engaging in an indefensible takeover of Harlem land and an indefensible participation and complicity with the Vietnam War effort."

White and Black students coordinated a protest against the gym - and then hundreds of students moved from there to take over office and classroom buildings, enforcing a strike against the school.

The current president cited a "clear and present danger"

Pro-Palestinian students set up tents to hold a demonstration on campus on the same day that Columbia University President Minouche Shafik testified in Congress about reports of antisemitism on Columbia's campus - a session that school newspaper the Columbia Spectatorfollowed with live coverage.

Her testimony followed months of debate and argument over free speech on campus. The school's response to antisemitism is the subject of an investigation by the House Education Committee.

One day after the campus protesters took up their position on the South Lawn, Shafik asked police to remove them.

"I have determined that the encampment and related disruptions pose a clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the University," Shafik said last week, asking the New York Police Department to remove protesters one day day after.

"All University students participating in the encampment have been informed they are suspended. At this time, the participants in the encampment are not authorized to be on University property and are trespassing," Shafik said.

"With great regret, we request the NYPD's help to remove these individuals."

When the police were called onto campus in 1968, officers were blamed for violently arresting hundreds of students, using nightsticks and horses in a chaotic scene.

In contrast police and city officials said last week that the removal of the demonstrators from Columbia's campus was peaceful, and no injuries were reported.

But after the wave of arrests, many students returned to the campus, setting up tents once again.

The 1968 protest occupied 5 buildings and included a hostage

Reporters for Columbia's college radio station WKCR (including longtime NPR host Robert Siegel), were present when Henry Coleman, acting dean of Columbia College, sought to confirm his status as he stood among a crowd of students in the lobby of Hamilton Hall.

"Am I to understand then, that I am not allowed to leave this building?" Coleman asked, in an archival recording.

"Let me ask," a male student replies. He then yells, "Is he to understand that he's not going to leave this building?"

"Yes!" the crowd roars in response.

Why did the university delay calling police in 1968?

Part of the reason seems to be race.

The morning after students occupied Hamilton Hall, Black students aligned with SAS asked white students led by the SDS to leave.

"SAS leaders later explained that the spontaneous, participatory, and less-defined politics of SDS-led white students interfered" with the Black students' goals that centered on racial justice and equity, according to an online history exhibit assembled by the Columbia's library system.

Conditions inside Hamilton Hall were calm and quiet compared to the "boisterous" atmosphere elsewhere, the exhibit states. But university leaders viewed the Black-held hall as a powder keg - fearing that if police were called in against the students there, Harlem's Black community would mount a violent reaction.

"In fact, when the police entered barricaded Hamilton Hall in the early hours of April 30, the occupying students avoided struggles with the police, calmly marched out the main entrance of the building to the police vans waiting on College Walk," according to the library's online exhibit.

What is the legacy of the 1968 campus protest?

"Although the war in Vietnam continued for seven more years, the protesters were, in many ways, successful," wrote historian Rosalind Rosenberg of Columbia-affiliated Barnard College. "They persuaded Columbia to put an end to classified war research, cancel construction of the Morningside Park gym, ask ROTC to leave, and stop military and CIA recruitment."

But some divisions emerged among the students: Black protesters asked their white counterparts to leave a building due to their different approach and focus, for instance. And women who were part of both groups cited their disillusionment with being left out of positions of power, spurring their embrace of the feminist movement.

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In Columbia University's protests of 1968 and 2024, what's similar - and different

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There are parallels between the two high-profile events, most starkly the proliferation of similar protests around the country. But key differences set them apart.

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The government and police treated the Black Panther Party in a negative way. The FBI started a program called COINTELPRO to spy on the on them, spread lies, and cause problems. They even helped plan a raid that had caused the death of Fred Hampton, a young leader, in 1969. Police often raided their offices and homes with a lot of force. The government made the black panthers look dangerous and bad and ignored the good things they did, like giving free breakfasts to kids and running health clinics. Even though some leaders noticed the problems the black panthers talked about, most of the government just tried to stop them instead of listening and helping.

PBS. “A Huey P. Newton Story - Actions - COINTELPRO | PBS.” Pbs.org, 2019, www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/actions_cointelpro.html. Accessed 2 May 2025.

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The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has changed culture and how people live in many communities. It started because people were upset about how Black people were being treated unfairly by the police. (police brutality) Over time, BLM grew into a big movement that made more people talk and be more open about racism and want to change things. Schools, businesses, and even TV shows started to show more Black voices and stories. In some cities, police rules were changed to make things safer for everyone. Today, people feel braver to speak up for what’s right. Even though everything isn’t perfect or equal yet, BLM helped people understand each other better and work toward fairness for all.

Ray, Rashawn. “Black Lives Matter at 10 Years: 8 Ways the Movement Has Been Highly Effective.” Brookings, 12 Oct. 2022, www.brookings.edu/articles/black-lives-matter-at-10-years-what-impact-has-it-had-on-policing/?

Accessed 2 May 2025.