In recent decades, scholars have praised Portland as a model for urban planning and citizen participation. This thesis complicates Portland's rose-colored image by situating it within recent histories on the long civil rights movement in the West, the Black Panther Party, and civil rights and metropolitan space. The history of Portland's Black Panthers represents an important moment for the black freedom struggle in Northeast Portland's Albina district and for the city's approach to urban planning. Excluded from politics, spatially confined, and subjected to destructive urban renewal projects by the 1960s, blacks in Albina experimented with innovative forms of political participation. These approaches ranged from moderate demands for neighborhood involvement with urban planners to radical, separatist opposition. Although the Panthers' vision of socioeconomic uplift and community control declined, a citywide revolution in politics co-opted their approach, responded to moderate voices, and dismantled much of the undemocratic planning structure in the 1970s. / 2016-02-01

This comparative analysis explores the state repression experienced by The Black Panther Party, which was active mainly during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the currently biggest movement for racial equality in the US, the Movement for Black Lives. Using Conflict Theory and Critical Race Theory the research asks two research questions: How has state repression changed from the Black Panther Party to the Movement for Black Lives? and What are possible explanations for this change? This thesis aims to shed light on state repression in relation to movements focused on black rights and equality. The findings of this research are in line with conflict theory, and supportive of racial threat perspective as a theoretical framework. The thesis concludes that state repression of black dissent has changed in multiple aspects, such as police violence, legislative measure, surveillance, and media framing, yet is still prevalent and harmful to social movements.

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The following essay analyzes Marvel blockbuster Black Panther with an intersectional lens, discussing relations of power, oppression and discrimination through the fictive society of Wakanda. The findings present similar factors of intersectionality to that of most western societies, with gender, sexuality, aptitude and tribal affiliations as the main factors of identity. The essay argues for the inclusion of culturally loaded films in the EFL classroom, with the intention of introducing students to intersectionality through a fictive society, in an effort to promote better understanding of relations of power, oppression and discrimination, whilst also including education on different types of language usage

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Abstract The ultimate goal in the South was to end segregation, but nationwide equal-rights were the common goal of all African-Americans. Nonviolent protests and over aggressive police departments became the norm within the African-American community. Understated in the history of the Civil Rights Era is the role of armed resistance and Black Nationalism. Marcus Garvey, Stokely Carmichael, Huey P. Newton, and Malcolm X were Black Nationalists that led the charge of Black Nationalism worldwide. The Deacons of Defense, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense transformed the social makeup of the country and became major causes of the militarization of police departments across the United States. Many police departments across America began to create SWAT teams and use military-style weaponry following an outbreak of riots and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In New Orleans, Louisiana, stand-offs and shoot-outs with Black Panther members warranted a call for military backup, but it was the acts of Mark James Robert Essex that totally militarized the New Orleans Police Department.

American Political Thought has presented somewhat of a challenge to many because of the conflict between the ideals found within the "American Creed" and the reality of America's treatment of ethnic and social minorities. The various forms of marginalization and oppression facing women, blacks, Native Americans, and Asian-Americans have been as much a part of the story of America as have been natural rights and the Constitution. Taking this into account, this thesis is an effort to argue that the radicalism on display in the Black Panther Party, a group that emerged in the turmoil of the 1960' s, was a direct descendant of the ideas found within the Black Power movement. It will be argued that these militant critiques of American society were radical, but were not so radical as to be viewed as outside of the context provided by the ideals found in the American Creed. In order to do so, it will be necessary first to present and analyze the various approaches toward explaining the content and nature of the American Creed. The Creed will be presented as separate from American political reality, as an ideal type. As a result it appears to be a rather amorphous tool which can be used both by supporters of a more robust realization of the Creed's ideals and those who wish to limit the scope of these ideals. Having discussed these approaches toward the American Creed, a discussion of radical political ideas will serve to introduce the Black Power movement and the later Black Panther Party. It will be argued that the radical ideas on display were born out of a frustration with American society, but were at the same time an endorsement of the American Creed. It will be concluded that the American Creed is a powerful force acting upon American political thought, so powerful that even those who should rationally reject the Creed forcefully embrace it.