ot necessary when trying to find the complex reasons behind the BPP and its beginnings. Just back as far as the Second World War where black Americans experienced "the most profound Americanization of their collective social conscience since the beginnings of the Civil War..." (Robinson 123). Black men and women were entering the work force as white men fought a war. Two million blacks left the south for north and west states, and another million left southern farms for southern cities. The number of blacks working in the manufacturing business rose 135 percent in six years by 1946. The automobile union found loyalty among the black workers; and with the joining of hundreds of thousands of black workers to unions everywhere, change was inevitable. Labour unions were looking to end racial discrimination in jobs, public housing, law enforcement, and wanted to register black voters. This is seen again twenty years later with Huey P. Newton's ten-point plan for the BPP and in other black activist programs.
             Those black men not working were probably enlisting in the military. 1.2 million blacks were enlisted, and of them thousands went off to fight for and defend their country. Upon returning from the war, the black soldiers were met with race riots and lynchings. These men were the grandfathers, fathers, and uncles to those who eventually furthered the black power movement. The threat that black men could be equal to the white soldiers was fearful to white men of the time. "Let me tell you something about them you don't know. Up until George [black veteran lynched] went in the army, he was a good nigger. But when he came out, they thought ere as good as any white people" (Robinson 133). A study proved this thought to be psychologically sound when in The American Soldier of 1949 reported that black soldiers felt more optimistically about their future after service than the white soldier; this wa...