Were the Black Panthers a terrorist organization

https://www.fbi.gov... As agreed to in the comment section Terrorism in this debate will be defined as: "Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics: `42;Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law; `42;Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and "Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. Were the Black Panthers a terrorist organization? Clearly they were not but white washed media would have you believe that they were indeed on par with Al-Qaida or ISIS. Quick history lesson The Black Panther Party (BPP) was created in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale to counter act the rampant police brutality that were going on in the Oakland California community. Originally titled Black Panther Party for Self-Defense the party had a focus on self-defense, political and judicial education. Eventually the self-defense part would be dropped from the name but the core tenants would largely stay the same. Newton and Seale decided on the Panther as their symbol for the part since the Panther was known to use "violence" only when violence was used against it. In this regard they too took the same approach to "violence" as Malcom X who had been assassinated earlier in the previous year. The BPP are largely remembered (in the media) for open carrying weapons while following police officers in their daily duties. Many may characterize this as terrorism but in reality that was not the case. In every instance of the BPP"s activities they vigorously stayed within the confines of the law. When a police officer pulls someone over the BPP would not interfere but would rather stay at a safe distance as to allow the officer to do his job which was perfectly legal. Abiding by the law was paramount to every panther and legal advice was printed in all most every copy of their Black Panther News Paper. Why the BPP was not a terrorist organization The BPP party was not a terrorist organization simply because they followed the law. Given the definition provided the BPP were not involved in acts that violated law in conjunction with being dangerous to human life. In just about every case that involved the injury or death of any human life the BPP was acting out of self-defense. Every American has the right to self defense and can even take the life of an officer in the event of their negligence. http://www.constitution.org... This is shown by the various attempts to frame the BPP buy local and federal agencies. http://archive.lib.msu.edu... pg. 13-14 show some of the empty handed attempts the government took to bring charges against the BPP only to have many members freed of all charges in 1968 and 1969. These raids on the BPP put at risk the lives of the members at the behest of racist police officers. One of the bigger and most famous cases is the Panther 21. https://en.wikipedia.org... in this case 21 members of the BPP were "accused of planned coordinated bombing and long-range rifle attack on two police stations and an education office in New York City." This was an attempt to disrupt leadership of the BPP. All of the Panther 21 were acquitted of all 156. I don"t think one could find any better example of what many people would define as terrorism today than this. Why was the BPP even considered a terrorist organization to begin with? To put it bluntly racism was the driving factor. Regardless of the rights black people were supposed to have under the constitution many people in power did not like them. They were a group of black people who refused to stay "in their place." The FBI (who advised many local authorities that raided the homes of the BPP) was run by J. Edgar Hoover (https://en.wikipedia.org...) who made a name in the early 20th century by helping destroy the life of Marcus Garvey who was a "staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements." Hoovers job was to find a reason as to which to deport Garvey (who was Jamaican) https://en.wikipedia.org... . At one point Hoover wrote to a fellow BOI "Unfortunately, however, he [Garvey] has not as yet violated any federal law whereby he could be proceeded against on the grounds of being an undesirable alien, from the point of view of deportation." This brief bit of history is very important because Hoovers direct involvement in the BPP shapes the way in which the laws were bent or broken to delegitimize the BPP. http://www.history.com... . The FBI was also involved in monitoring Malcom X as well as Martin LK jr and it is alleged the the FBI also had a hand in killing or providing aid to kill both men. Using the media to frame the BPP as violent and racist was the perfect condition for the FBI to blatantly disregard the rights of the American people.