THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
Ten Point Platform & Program
October 1966
WHAT WE WANT
WHAT WE BELIEVE
1.
WE WANT freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
WE BELIEVE that black people will not be free until we are
able to determine our destiny.
2.
WE WANT full employment for our people.
WE BELIEVE that the federal government is responsible and
obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed
income. We believe that if the white American businessmen
will not give full employment, then the means of production
should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the
community so that the people of the community can organize
and employ all of its people and give a high standard of
living.
3.
WE WANT an end to the robbery by the CAPITALIST of our Black Community.
WE BELIEVE that this racist government has robbed us and now
we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two
mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago
as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black
people. We will accept the payment in currency, which will
be distributed, to our many communities. The Germans are now
aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish
people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American
racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million
black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest
demand that we make.
4.
WE WANT decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.
WE BELIEVE that if the white landlords will not give decent
housing to our black community, then the housing and the
land should be made into cooperatives so that our community,
with government aid, can build and make decent housing for
its people.
5.
WE WANT education for our people that exposes the true
nature of this decadent American society. We want education
that teaches us our true history and our role in the
present-day society.
WE BELIEVE in an educational system that will give to our
people knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge
of himself and his position in society and the world, then
he has little chance to relate to anything else.
6.
WE WANT all black men to be exempt from military service.
WE BELIEVE that Black people should not be forced to fight
in the military service to defend a racist government that
does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people
of color in the world who, like black people, are being
victimized by the white racist government of America. We
will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the
racist police and the racist military, by whatever means
necessary.
7.
WE WANT an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black people.
WE BELIEVE we can end police brutality in our black
community by organizing black self-defense groups that are
dedicated to defending our black community from racist
police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear
arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm
themselves for self- defense.
8.
WE WANT freedom for all black men held in federal, state,
county and city prisons and jails.
WE BELIEVE that all black people should be released from the
many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair
and impartial trial.
9.
WE WANT all black people when brought to trial to be
tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from
their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of
the United States.
WE BELIEVE that the courts should follow the United States
Constitution so that black people will receive fair trials.
The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a
right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from
a similar economic, social, religious, geographical,
environmental, historical and racial background. To do this
the court will be forced to select a jury from the black
community from which the black defendant came. We have been,
and are being tried by all-white juries that have no
understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the black
community.
10.
WE WANT land, bread, housing, education, clothing,
justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a
United Nations supervised plebiscite to be held throughout
the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will
be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining
the will of black people as to their national destiny.
WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have
connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the
laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
WE HOLD these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. **That, to secure
these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed; that,
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it,
and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on
such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as
to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness. ** Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
governments long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath
shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils
are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed. **But, when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
such government, and to provide new guards for their future
security. **
Power to the People!
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