tour 3 of 13
Badges: symbols of identity
Black Panther Party badge
The slave trade displaced enormous numbers of
people from the African continent, cutting them off from their
ancestral heritage. In the United States, the Black Power movement
of the 1960s aimed to reclaim African roots. Its origins lay in
Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association of
the 1920s and many of its followers wanted a separate black nation
for African-Americans.
The
Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self
Defense) was formed in Oakland, California, in 1966. The founding
members were Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale. The
Party's original aim was to patrol black ghettoes and
provide black communities with armed protection from police
oppression. It later adopted more revolutionary goals, including
the arming of all black people, their exemption from the Vietnam
War draft, and financial compensation for slavery and
exploitation.
The Black
Panthers had over 2000 members at the height of their activity,
operating in several major cities. Violent conflicts between
members and the police in California, New York and Chicago resulted
in the imprisonment of several of the leaders. Robert Rush made
badges for the Black Panthers during their most militant period,
between 1967 and 1970. Later they turned their attention to
electoral politics and child nutrition programmes but the Party had
ceased to exist by the early 1980s.