Both attitudinal and institutional racism grossly intertwined in U.S. society and government finally led to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. (Winters, 1994) One of the many organized forces demanding quality and respect for Blacks in the United States of America was The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The Party was organized by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, both of whom were college students at the time. The party spread eastward across the country and flourished throughout the 1960's. The Black Panther movement was known for its radical and frequently violent tactics; however, these tactics often overshadowed the many positive contributions that the party made to the Black Liberation Movement.
             The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale and later led by Eldridge Cleaver, started in Oakland, California, in 1967. The Black Muslim leader, Malcolm X, who had called on the black people to defend themselves, influenced both Newton and Seale. The Panthers dressed in uniforms of black berets and leather jackets, and were heavily armed-a look that reinforced their militant policies. (Foner, 1995) The Party's original purpose was to patrol black ghettoes to protect black residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all blacks, the exemption of blacks from the draft and from all sanctions of so-called white America, the release of all blacks from jail, and the payment of compensation to blacks for centuries of exploitation by white Americans. (Myers, 1999)
             Newton and Seale articulated their goals in a ten-point platform. The platform was divided into "What We Want" and What We Believe". "What We Want" were the practical, specific things that blacks needed and that should exist. At the same time, they expressed philosophically, but concretel...