[philwelch]

MLK would never have been listened to had there not been black men willing to fight for their freedom. The idea that freedom must be won peacefully, by the consent of one's oppressors, would have been alien to George Washington, to the French revolutionaries, to the slaves held in bondage in Southern plantations freed only through a bloody war.

It takes a very biased viewpoint to blame the Black Panthers for being violent when they only arose after decades of police brutality and lynchings and KKK terrorism. It's more likely that the threat of armed and organized black militia forced the white population to fold. King just gave whites an out--let's pretend we're going along with the nonviolent civil rights movement rather than admit we're terrified of all the black people who are giving up on the civil rights movement and buying rifles. So Malcolm X and the Black Panthers are marginalized and demonized to this day while King is venerated.

[Zimahl]

It takes a very biased viewpoint to blame the Black Panthers for being violent when they only arose after decades of police brutality and lynchings and KKK terrorism.

Based in California. I'm not saying that there wasn't oppression in California but if you are going to fight the war wouldn't you got to the front lines? MLK sure did.

So Malcolm X and the Black Panthers are marginalized and demonized to this day while King is venerated.

There are many ways to accomplish the same goal. How the history is remembered is decided by those who were the most successful in their pursuit. It's hard to deny that white folks - the ones who's support was needed to get the CRA passed - were not more interested in MLK's message than the Black Panthers and Malcom X.

[philwelch]

> I'm not saying that there wasn't oppression in California but if you are going to fight the war wouldn't you got to the front lines?

The Black Panthers drove around with guns shouting legal advice to blacks who were pulled over by the notoriously racist Oakland PD. Is that not "on the front lines" enough for you?[1] Can't people fight racism in their own communities without having to move to the South--which, incidentally, King never did, he was born there?

> There are many ways to accomplish the same goal. How the history is remembered is decided by those who were the most successful in their pursuit.

Not true. History is remembered by what the majority of people choose to believe, not by what actually happened. This is especially true when it comes to assigning credit or blame.

> It's hard to deny that white folks - the ones who's support was needed to get the CRA passed - were not more interested in MLK's message than the Black Panthers and Malcom X.

Of course white folks were more interested in the nonviolent civil rights movement than in black nationalism. But if they weren't scared as hell of the black nationalists, they wouldn't have given enough of a shit to care about anyone seeking to end the oppression of black people. Up until then, white folks were most of all interested in continuing to oppress black folks! That's what I mean when I say MLK gave white folks an out. He made it look respectable and noble for them to fold in the face of a black population that was increasingly refusing to accept being oppressed any longer, because he helped them uphold the illusion that nonviolent, democratic change was still possible. And this illusion is the history that we teach our children.

[1]"...groups of armed Panthers would drive around following police cars. When the police stopped a black person, the Panthers would stand off to the side and shout out legal advice."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secr...

[Zimahl]

The Black Panthers also admittedly murdered cops. All the kudos go out the window at that point.

The militarism makes an easy excuse for a crackdown. If you think scaring the shit out of people, threatening their very existence with violence, is a good way to affect change, I think you are very uninformed. Find me one example where that worked.

[philwelch]

The Republic of Ireland's independence from the UK and the end of apartheid in South Africa are the first two examples that come to mind.

Hell, just look at this country's own history: KKK terrorism was tremendously effective in preventing a civil rights movement from even existing for close to a century.

Cops murder black civilians to this day. If Nelson Mandela is a hero for bombing government buildings and killing government officials to resist apartheid in Africa, why are the Black Panthers villains for killing cops to resist apartheid in America?

Fear is a tremendous weapon if people can save face by pretending they never caved to it. Without the fear of more militant black nationalist groups, whites would have never given King the time of day.