Research On The Development And Evolution Of The American Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party was born in Oakland in the western United States in 1966 and dissolved in 1982.In these 16 years,the Black Panther Party developed from a small regional party to a national party with more than 60 branches,and became a political force that could not be ignored in the African-American movement.However,after a short period of prosperity,the Party gradually went into decline.During the existence of the Black Panther Party,it was good at breakthrough and innovation in both theoretical proposition and practical action,and became famous in the black society for a while,leaving precious political wealth for the American left-wing political history and even the American society.Looking back on the development process of the Black Panther Party from prosperity to decline,1971 was a key point when the party’s theory,policy and practice changed.Before 1971,the party opposed the democratic road of parliamentary struggle,held high the banner of "political power comes out of the barrel of a gun",and advocated the complete overthrow of the American political power through violent revolution to truly realize the freedom and equality of the black people.Guided by this philosophy,the party has launched a number of armed self-defense operations against police injustice.During this period,the Black Panther Party not only showed a radical trend in theory and practice,but also had a strong color of black nationalism in its theoretical thought.It regarded the black community as a colony of the United States,advocated the realization of black national self-determination,and called for the combination of black liberation with the liberation of the people of the Third World internationally.After 1971,the Black Panther Party realized a great change and adjustment in its theoretical proposition and practical action.The party modified its platform in 1972,and began to criticize capitalism on the basis of opposing racism,adding the meaning of socialism.At the same time,the party,with the concept of"survival before the revolution",shifted the focus of its development to the practice of community-level self-government and electoral politics,and gradually moderate its measures.The overhaul of the party has both advantages and disadvantages.On the one hand,through community-level service practices,he worked hard to solve the urgent needs of the black community in housing,employment,education and other fields,won the support and respect of the black community,improved his image of violence,and increased his influence among the black people.On the other hand,the change of the core idea caused severe ideological division within the party and intensified factional disputes.At the same time,the appeal of the gradually moderate ideology and theory to the youth group has declined,and the scale of the Party has been shrinking.The external living environment of the Black Panther Party deteriorated,and the federal government increased its repression against the Party,which was regarded as "the greatest security threat to American society".In general,the Black Panther Party constantly tried to adjust and reform in the development process,and adopted many creative policies,which not only improved the strength of the Party,but also had a positive impact on the promotion of the left wing in the United States and the development of the black civil rights movement.However,the eventual disintegration of the Black Panther Party was the result of multiple subjective and objective factors.The changes in domestic and foreign political,economic,cultural and social environments could not be ignored,but the fundamental reason was that the Party had multiple contradictions and problems and failed to solve them in the right way.