Social Influence of the Black Panther Party

Social Influence of The Black Panther Party

Shital Karki

University of Mary

Abstract

Most people prefer group membership to isolation, but once they join with others they find that they must sometimes do what is best for the group rather than what benefits them personally. Social influence is the interpersonal process that produce directly or indirectly changes in other people. The Black Panther Party was a group of African American people who’s founding reflected a major shift in the African American struggle for equality and justice. The Party reflected the new kinds of organizations, which were formed at that time and influenced by world, national, and local events and personalities. The main philosophy of the party was self-defense in order to differentiate from the dominant diplomatic theme of the civil rights movement, at the same time to pay respect to other civil rights group.

Formation of the Party

When Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party for self-defense in 1966, they believed that they needed a new Black political party to help improve the conditions of the Black community. So Newton and Seale started searching for as many African Americans for the organization. While they recognized the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement, they felt that the basic socio-economic political system for African American had not changed. Many were still at the bottom in low paying, low-skill jobs and sub-standard housing. Local governments were unresponsive to their needs, giving them poorly funded schools and little access of services. The Black Panther Party tried to address these concerns and organize people to bring about fundamental change to this unjust and inequitable system (Smith, 1999).

When identifying the fundamental psychological processes that drive human’s action across a range of situations and setting, most theorists include a need to belong on their list (Maslow, 1970; Pittman & Zeigler, 2007). Group membership fulfills a generic need to establish positive, enduring relationship with other people. Due to the growing intolerance towards the way black people were treated, especially in 1960’s when the civil rights movement had begun, Newton and Seale decided to establish the Black Panther Party. It reflected the need to change the fundamental structures of government and its associated institutions, which were not effectively meeting the needs of the majority of African Americans. They believed that people must be organized and mobilized the most effective way to bring the change in socio-economic political system (Forsyth, 2010).

Vision of the Party

The strength of the need to belong is seen even more clearly