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            THE BLACK PANTHER PARTYTen Point Platform & Program
 
 
            October 1966WHAT 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. **
             
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