Power to the People: How Crypto’s Rise Mirrors Black Civil Rights History
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense coined (pun intended) the phrase “Power to the People” as a rallying call for Black mid-1960s youth to combat racism, police brutality, and to improve Black people’s socio-economics through job training, academic self-study, and providing free health clinics plus, breakfast and lunch programs for school children.
Decentralized cryptocurrency is like the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, and other Civil Rights organizations, in that freedom and equality are yoked to economic betterment and sustainability. Opportunities to improve and safeguard wealth draw followers.
From his lens in 1965, Black Panther founder Bobby Seale saw Black Americans had fewer than 50 elected officials nationwide while Black people suffered from hunger, poor health, and disproportionate death or injury from encounters with police while living in majority Black municipalities. No political power meant no control of government-funded programs within Black communities.
There was limited employment since area corporations within Black communities rarely hired Black workers; notably, early 1960s Wonder Bread near Oakland, California. Seale, an engineering design student at Merritt Community College in Oakland, California, and an employee at Kaiser Aerospace…