Journal Article free essay sample

The whole paper embodies author’s broad scope, exquisite writing skills and clear logic in analyzing a controversial topic. Black Nationalism is an ideology that aims at liberating the black from oppression and setting up self-determination for the black. Basically there are two forms of Black Nationalism, Classical Black Nationalism and Contemporary Black Nationalism. Classical Black Nationalism is almost simply in the form of slave revolts. However, Contemporary Black Nationalism can be divided into four parts: educational, religious, cultural as well as revolutionary nationalism.Black Panther Party, one of the most famous revolutionary nationalist organizations, held the belief that the government at that time needed to be reformed to meet the demands for the black. Under the understanding of â€Å"socialist perspective†, two young black militants, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party fundamentally for self-defense from racist police oppression and brutality. Their force was expanding ceaselessly. On Jan. 1st, 1967, they set up the first official headquarters and after that, they recruited clan members and started to bear arms.When Cleaver joined the party in 1967, this party was in its prime time. Under the leadership of the three, the party moved forward tremendously and developed many other programs that benefited the black. However, the change in fundamental ideology from â€Å"liberation† to â€Å"class struggle† finally leads to the doom of the party. The party had close relations with other Third World revolutionary groups in the United States and became a threat to our country. FBI (COINTELPRO) took actions to systematically destroy the party both externally and internally.On one hand, FBI took advantage of the conflict between Black Panther Party and Karenga’s US Organization to let these two clans fight with each other. On the other hand, FBI divided the key leaders by setting them up in a hostile position. Finally, the party met its end in the year of 1974. To discuss the aftermath, we should analyze it in two aspects. Black Panther Party actually contributed to black American society and black rights struggle in several ways; meanwhile, it also made serious errors that cannot be tolerated.People should be alert and have a full understanding on what led to its demise. The author has a broad scope for describing a certain topic and researched thoroughly on it. For example, in order to describe the Black Panther Party, the author first clearly states the original ideology of the party. Then she introduces the background information of key leaders in detail to make a relation to why they would found such a party. After that, she discusses the whole process of development for the party, from the beginning to the end.She did research so well that she even provides information such as how the leaders raised money for weapons (by selling Mao Tse-Tung’s book) and how FBI destroyed the party and so on. These kinds of anecdote-liked facts delight the whole article. First, the facts broaden the readers’ horizon. Readers are able to picture better how a revolutionary party works and gain a bunch of knowledge of the certain topic. Second, these facts will absolutely attract the reader and add some amusing elements.That is, they make the academic article less doctrinal. The author did an excellent job in writing skills and clarity of expression. She uses clear language for the whole article. There is no ambiguity in concepts. Every technical term follows with elaborate explanations to avoid misunderstandings. For example, at first part of the article, the author explains thoroughly what two kinds of Black Nationalism are. After all, these are the key terms we should master to understand the whole article.The author also gives detail explanations for four kinds of Contemporary Black Nationalism, especially the revolutionary one to coincide with the thesis, which is talking about how the revolutionary party (the Black Panther Party) develops. Last but not least, the author’s logical analysis astonishes the readers. One of the main purposes of this article is to convince the readers that every coin has two sides, here, although the Black Panther Party made some intolerable errors, it still contributed to the free struggle for the black people in America. That is, the author tries to lead us to ponder what the contributions they made and what negative aspects they were involved. In the last part of the article, the author proposes a set of convincing evidences and analyses to articulate her cogitative thoughts on this issue. These logical analyses almost cover every aspect: for the positive side, she proposes five points: advancing the idea of self-defense, leading a direction for further freedom movement, aiming at serving the people, advocating women rights and excellent propaganda.These five points cover both ideological as well as practical benefits for the black people at that time. The author also provides comprehensive analyses on the negative aspects: leadership corruption, underground activities of the party’s members, their rhetoric surpassed their capabilities, undisciplined mannerisms and tendencies, rigid radicalism, failing to organize economic foundations and failing to persuade members to prepare for long time s truggle. These seven points cover administration problems, economy crisis, exaggerated propaganda as well as personnel management issue.Therefore, these analyses indeed highlight the author’s exquisite skill of combining factual information and logical thinking seamlessly. Just as Jessica C. Harris discusses in her paper, the development of the Black Panther Party is like a drama. It seemed to be prospective and voiced on behalf of the black people at first; however, during the whole process, some immature actions indeed ruined everything and defamed the essence of its original ideology, â€Å"self-defense, and fight for the inequality†.