Black Panther Party

Black Panther Party, U.S. black political movement founded in Oakland, Calif, in 1966, advocating self-defense of the African-American community and revolutionary change in the United States. Under the leadership of Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and others, the Panthers opened community centers and bookshops as well as doing legal battles with the authorities. Their often violent rhetoric was used to justify armed attacks that resulted in the death of many Panther leaders, such as Fred Hampton in Chicago. The influence of the party was weakened by internal factional disputes in the early 1970s, and by the 1980s its influence in the black liberation movement had ended.