That’s because people younger than that organization’s height have learned whitewashed history. For a long time. I’m 46. They never covered the Black Panthers in school for me. I had to learn about them myself.
I’m a bit older than you, and IIRC (admittedly it’s been a long time) they did mention them at some point, but essentially as if they were a sort of black analogue to the KKK. That’s what I thought they were until well into my twenties, if not later.
I think it depends a lot on your school district. I’m 44 and I leaned of the Black Panthers. There wasn’t much detail but IIRC the portrayal of them wasn’t entirely negative. This was despite my district being extremely white.
I can thankfully say in my kids’ bay area public schools (west contra costa unified and berkeley unified over the years) they learn a whole lot of positives about the BPP, including directly tracing their free lunches today back to them. Berkeley High has a bunch of plaque type things honoring famous alum and one of them is for Bobby Seale. Way different than my own upbringing for sure.
I grew up in the Bay Area (Silicon Valley), and my AP US History class in 2006-2007 included Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and in-depth discussions of groups like the Black Panthers. Our teacher was open about being a socialist and when we talked about things like the Red Scare, he made a point to really humanize the victims of the politics of the time like the Rosenbergs.
(Edit: It is important to note that our discussions of the Rosenbergs in class pre-dated the release of the classified information regarding their actions. Our teacher’s approach was to include information about who they were as people instead of the boogeymen they were presented as in the standard textbook.)
That’s because people younger than that organization’s height have learned whitewashed history. For a long time. I’m 46. They never covered the Black Panthers in school for me. I had to learn about them myself.
I’m a bit older than you, and IIRC (admittedly it’s been a long time) they did mention them at some point, but essentially as if they were a sort of black analogue to the KKK. That’s what I thought they were until well into my twenties, if not later.
I think it depends a lot on your school district. I’m 44 and I leaned of the Black Panthers. There wasn’t much detail but IIRC the portrayal of them wasn’t entirely negative. This was despite my district being extremely white.
Learned more from Hollywood than I ever did in school.
I can thankfully say in my kids’ bay area public schools (west contra costa unified and berkeley unified over the years) they learn a whole lot of positives about the BPP, including directly tracing their free lunches today back to them. Berkeley High has a bunch of plaque type things honoring famous alum and one of them is for Bobby Seale. Way different than my own upbringing for sure.
I grew up in the Bay Area (Silicon Valley), and my AP US History class in 2006-2007 included Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and in-depth discussions of groups like the Black Panthers. Our teacher was open about being a socialist and when we talked about things like the Red Scare, he made a point to really humanize the victims of the politics of the time like the Rosenbergs.
(Edit: It is important to note that our discussions of the Rosenbergs in class pre-dated the release of the classified information regarding their actions. Our teacher’s approach was to include information about who they were as people instead of the boogeymen they were presented as in the standard textbook.)
Yeah, I wanna say the first time I learned about the Black Panthers was in Forrest Gump.