ed openly in the BPP offices, or organized openly in the community, by day might very well have been the same people who carried out armed operations at night. This provided the police with a convenient excuse to make raids on any and all BPP offices, or members homes, under the pretext that they were looking for suspects, fugitives, weapons, and or explosives. It also sucked the BPP into taking the un-winnable position of making stationary defenses of BPP offices. However there were still few members who kept the organization alive. Even though the BPP got corrupted, it still had its benefits and made contributions to the community. Self-Defense is one of the fundamental areas in which the BPP contributed to the BLM. It's also one of the fundamental things that set the BPP apart from most previous Black organizations and which attracted members (particularly the youth), mass support, and a mass following. All history has shown that this government will bring its police and military powers to bear on any group, which truly seeks to free African people. Any Black "freedom" organization, which ignores self-defense, does so at its own peril. Then Revolutionary Nationalist Ideology: The BPP was a nationalist organization. Its main goal was the national liberation of African people in the U.S., and it restricted its membership to Blacks only. It was also revolutionary. The BPP theories and practices were based on socialist principles. It was anti-capitalist and struggled for a socialist revolution of U.S. society. And finally Mass Organizing Techniques: Another fundamental thing that attracted members and mass support to the BPP was its policy of "serving the people". This was a policy of going to the masses, living among them, sharing their burdens, and organizing the masses to implement their own solutions to the day to day problems that were of great concern to them. Since Richmond was a small town, most peoples lives were more opened tow...
