You can read it right in these pages: Black History Month, as its name clearly implies, is a celebration of black history, not black accomplishments. If Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale University wants to doff its figurative hat to the Black Panther Party, the group is perfectly within its rights, if not the boundaries of good taste.
As Campus Reform reminds readers:
The Black Panther Party has been notably associated with violence since its founding, starting with the arrest of Huey Newton, the group’s defense minister, for murdering an Oakland police officer. In 1970, 21 members of the Panthers were charged with plotting to assassinate police officers and bomb buildings, and eight more members were later arrested on murder and conspiracy charges.
The somewhat emasculated spinoff, the New Black Panthers, have adopted the credo of the original movement but so far have been more bark than bite. Their biggest claim to fame was posting a couple of goons in quasi-military garb outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 to intimidate voters who might pull the lever for a candidate not named Barack Obama. Once installed in the presidency, Obama returned the favor by permitting his attorney general, Eric Holder, to drop the charges against them that had already filed by the outgoing Justice Department.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
As for the Yale shindig, Campus Reform goes on to mention that a group of students who flew to Oakland for a fiftieth-anniversary commemoration of the Black Panthers’ legacy will give a presentation on the subject. Sounds boring.
