THE BLACK PANTHERS The Black Panthers were a paramilitary organization fighting to improve conditions of the black community. They adopted the black panther symbol from The Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an independent political party established in 1965 by black residents in Alabama. As the antithesis of the nonviolence approach to the civil rights movement, advocated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the original Black Panther Party for Self-Defense advocated weaponry use against police aggression. Armed with …showed first 75 words of 1271 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1271 total…party. By the late seventies most of the party’s original leaders had left or been expelled from the group. The Black Panther Party lost much of its support after newspaper articles appeared describing the illicit activities of party leaders, including extortion schemes directed against Oakland merchants. By the end of the 1970’s, weakened by external attacks, legal problems, and internal divisions, the Black Panther Party was no longer a political force in American society.