http://www.pntonline.com/news/reading-19944-morris-black.html
February 06, 2010
By Clarence Plank
Doug Morris, a professor of reading at Eastern New Mexico University,
will be presenting "The Rise and Fall of the Black Panthers" 6 p.m.
Monday at Ground Zero.
"I'm interested in history and what the Black Panthers were
attempting to contribute," Morris said. "I think we'll try to talk
about the rise and fall of the Panthers. What were the conditions
that produced the Panthers and the responses to those conditions by
the Panthers."
Morris said the Black Panthers Party for Self-Defense was an
African-American organization that promoted Black Power in 1966. The
group started in Oakland, Calif., before spreading nationwide to
include 67 chapters, Morris said.
"What are the myths and lessons that can be learned from the Black
Panthers and their struggles?" Morris asked. "The myths were that
they were only interested in violence, taking up arms to fight back
and (Panthers) often get put into a fairly narrow corner that way."
Morris said Black Panthers were made up of mostly teenagers and young
men who started responding to police brutality, poor housing
conditions and other injustices in African-American neighborhoods.
African-American Affairs Director Jordan Anderson said the Black
Panthers fall along the same lines of aggressiveness in Black History
as Malcom X.
"This week I wanted (the tone) to be a little darker," Anderson said.
"You need both sides to make the train move...you need the passive
and the aggressive for progression."
The Black Panthers started out on a positive note and while they
became aggressors, they were about community, said Anderson
"They wanted everything that Martin Luther King Jr., envisioned,"
Shani Morris, African-American Affairs student assistant said. "They
just went about a different way of getting it and then they turned
against themselves."
--
Fast Facts:
What: Rise and Fall of the Black Panthers
When: 6 p.m. Monday
Where: ENMU's Ground Zero
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment