BLACK-AMERICANS are predominantly descendants of West Africans who were shipped from their homeland as slaves to the West Indies and the US.
There are also black-Americans who are descendants of indigenous or native blacks who lived in the Americas before the coming of Christopher Columbus and the rest of the Europeans into that land.
Both groups have undergone centuries of enslavement in the West.
They have had their history and identity systematically deleted and consequently many of them believe their history began with slavery.
This has had devastating effects on the black communities of America who have been conditioned over hundreds of years to fear the whiteman and tolerate his lifestyle.
According to the Negro Acts of states like South Carolina, the ancestors of the black-Americans were the ancient Berbers and West Africans who were called Moors and were enslaved as Muslims.
Now their descendants are taken to the whiteman’s vices and have been made to accept inhumane traits like homosexuality.
This is because they have forgotten their roots and identity.
Since the time of Marcus Garvey, there have been a series of saviours who have come to deliver these blacks of the West from ignorance of their past and restore their identity.
Marcus Garvey came from Jamaica and told the blacks of the US they were once great people who founded and ruled the earth long before the whiteman existed.
He told them they were Africans and that black is beautiful.
After him came Wallace Farra Muhammad from Arabia, who enlightened Elijah Muhammad and began the Nation of Islam.
Wallace and Elijah taught the blacks of the US that they were God’s people of the Shabbaz tribe who have been taken into captivity by the devil.
The Nation of Islam also taught that the blackman was the original and complete man, who has the independent capacity to produce the brown, yellow and white races, but the other races cannot produce the blackman.
Malcolm X or Malik El Shabbaz was a product of these teachings.
He was a descendant of a devout Garveyite and became Elijah Muhammad’s top minister until he eventually left the Nation of Islam.
Malcolm X was outspoken, fearless and proud to be black.
He sacrificed his life to teach his people the truth about their history and potential.
He also exposed the whiteman’s lies, crimes and hypocrisy.
Even after his assassination, Malcolm X’s influence was great, especially among the black youths; thus he died unconquered.
His life, which he lived selflessly for the cause of his people, inspired a generation of free-minded blacks who were ready to walk in the same path as Malcolm X.
Malcolm X once said: “The dark people are waking up and they are losing their fear of the whiteman.
“There is no place right now where the whiteman is fighting and winning.
“Nowhere on this earth does the whiteman win in a guerilla war.
“It’s not his feat.
“A guerilla is on his own and all you have is a rifle, some sneakers, a bowl of rice and a lot of heart.
“I’m just giving you a briefing of guerilla warfare because before you know it (we shall be fighting a guerilla war against the whiteman here in America).”
It is such words that inspired the youth of the 1960s to take a revolutionary and militant stance against the white power structure of the US.
Death was always imminent for the black youths because of the unfavourable system which keeps them in a vicious cycle of poverty and crime.
But after knowing Malcolm X and heeding his teachings, the black youths of the 1960s were prepared to live and even die for the cause of their deliverance, rather than perish for miniscule reasons.
The Black Panther Party was founded in October of 1966 in Oakland California. Initially the group had six members; Huey P. Newton (co-founder – defence minister), Bobby Seale (co-founder – chairman), Elbert Howard, Sherman Forte, Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton (treasurer).
The Black Panther Party would eventually grow and achieve many accomplishments in the black communities of the US.
While Black Panther ideology was mainly based on the example of Malcolm X, their revolutionary tactics were based on Maoism and Mao Ze Dong’s Red Book was a key reference book.
Thus they aimed to establish a united front of blacks and other minority groups across the US so as to gain strength and secure victory.
Their economic principles which sought to replace Western capitalism were based on Marxism.
Thus they aimed also to establish dialectical materialism, whereby the working class takes over the means of production.
By May 1967, the authorities began to clash with the Black Panthers.
It was about a month after the revolutionary party had issued its first news organ called the Black Panther.
The articles in their first issue encouraged blacks to protect themselves by carrying arms because they were time and again shot defenselessly, mostly by the police. The state of California then attempted to outlaw the carrying of loaded weapons in public.
Some Black Panthers, about 30 in number, decided to protest as they saw this as a means for authorities to arrest them for possession of arms yet they were for much needed self-defence.
Besides crimes such as robbery and murder, blacks in the US could be victimised in many ways.
Some were lynched by racists, beaten or shot by cops or had dogs set on them during police raids and riots.
Until the time of Malcolm X, many would take this victimisation without fighting back because they feared the whiteman.
Malcolm X once said: “I think that if white people found themselves the victims of the same type of brutality that black people in this country currently face and they saw that the government was either unwilling or unable to protect them, that the intelligence on the part of the whites would make them get some rifles and shotguns and protect themselves.
“Now Negros are developing some kind of intellectual maturity too.
“They’ve seen that waiting for the government to protect them has been a wait that has been in vain.
“So any of them who live in areas where the government is not able to do its job, then we do have to get together and do the job of protecting ourselves.”
Bobby Seale was among the 30 Black Panther protestors who came armed with weapons and he read a statement similar to the above quoted.
Before finishing his statement, Bobby and the rest of the protestors were arrested by the police.
Their fears of being persecuted for arming themselves for self-defence were justified and confirmed by their arrest.
Hypocritically, the US claims to be the leader of the free world when they practise white supremacy to this day.
It was, and is blacks, Mexicans and Latinos, who are prone to abuse even by the authorities and for this reason they wanted to bear arms.
After this repression, minority workers, besides blacks, took up carrying arms in defiance of the new state laws that were being passed.
The movement started drawing in all minority groups with similar interests of establishing equal rights and justice in the US.
Blacks from outside California and as far as New York also began joining the ranks of the Black Panther Party.