“Sometimes if you want to get rid of the gun, you have to pick the gun up.”- Huey Newton
The Black Panther Party

Several centuries after the institution of slavery was abolished, black people in the United States were still unable to assimilate into American society. The violent post-emancipation white backlash that resulted in the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Codes (laws passed in the United States after the Civil War with the effect of limiting the civil liberties of black people), the lynching of black people, and the neglect of the president and congress, all created an environment where blacks in the United States struggled to survive (civilrightsteaching.org).  In response to these injustices, citizens of the United States formed the Civil Rights Movement—a political movement during the 1960s to protest for the equality, justice, and freedom of African-Americans. After years of civil disobedience, many black people became frustrated with the lack of success and began to trade non-violent action for a more militant approach (blackpanther.org). As a part of this militancy, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party, originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, on October 1966 in Oakland California (marxists.org).