Black Panthers Program

[Panamarisen]

Yep, not history at all, but a very actual necessity. Maybe a very actual proposal...:


BREAKFAST PROGRAM: Every Panther chapter has set up free breakfast programs for young children. They are presently feeding somewhere over 5,000 children per week. The food is pressured out of businessmen raking the profits from the ghettoes and from contributions to the Party from residents and friends.
FREE MEDICAL CLINICS: Clinics are being set up by every chapter. Some, as in Chicago, and Kansas City, are already operating. These clinics are a necessity in black communities which are desperately in need of the most elemental care.

LIBERATION SCHOOLS: For children of all ages, these schools counter-balance the racist, stultifying education that black children encounter everyday in the public schools.

COMMUNITY CONTROL OF THE POLICE: The Panthers in numerous cities are engaged in petition drives seeking community, local control and decentralization of the police force.

FREE CLOTHING DRIVES: just getting started. The Panthers hope to distribute old but still good clothing to the neediest of Black families.

ARMED SELF DEFENCE: The Panthers teach all their members the use and necessity of armed self defense, not only of themselves but for the entire Black community Thus, if a family is threatened, or young kid beaten up, the Panthers can be immediately called.

POLITICAL EDUCATION: PE for ad members and some community members is heavily stressed by Panthers in ad chapters.

PANTHER PAPER: Most Panther revenue comes from the sales (75.000) of their weekly paper, which they see as becoming a national Black community news. In all their programs, the Panthers stress putting socialism into practice, meeting people's real needs, and educating them to the necessity and possibility of revolution.

Source: Old Mole 9/26/69


¡HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

[Hampton]

Still imperative as it was back in 1966? I think so.

October 1966 Black Panther Party
Platform and Program

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 white man 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 was promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black people. We will accept the payment as 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 twenty million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.

4. We want decent housing, fit for 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 a 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 brutalityand murderof 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 bands 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 unalienable 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 to 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 supper, 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 invariable 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.

(Edited by Hampton at 3:33 pm on Feb. 8, 2003)

[Just Joe]

damn right!

fair play to those black panthers. despite all the talk, America is still quite a racist place. i don't reckon the solution comes with reverse racism, but the Black Panthers are more militant anti-racists than reverse racists.

Black civil rights, Irish civil rights, Palestinian civil rights, Kurdish civil rights- one struggle!

(Edited by Just Joe at 12:12 am on Feb. 9, 2003)

[Umoja]

I'm still pretty iffy on the Malcolm X way, Black Unity, before total unity. The idea makes the most sense to me personally, besides the Islamic part.

[Iepilei]

all cultures are expoited in capitalist society. at times, some more than others. however, all oppressed people must work to point out the injustice.

i believe the panthers are working well for their communities - however i do not believe they should organise for the benefit of the black community ONLY. charity should not be a culture-specific activity.

[BOZG]

all cultures are expoited in capitalist society. at times, some more than others. however, all oppressed people must work to point out the injustice.

Exactly. There is a constant danger of some people putting more emphasis on their own struggle which in my opinion actually undermines it. For example, over here a fathers' rights parade was using slogans like "Father rights before gay rights" which actually brought some of my support for them down.

Though I do agree with the african unity struggle but I think there does have to be an emphasis on human unity pointed out at the same time.

[Umoja]

But that's the entire reason I support it, and am sort of iffy on the typical Communist approach. I'm somewhere with modern day Amiri Baraka, and Eldrige Cleaver on my beliefs I guess...... I really shouldn't be arguing this so early on a Sunday.

[Panamarisen]

Thanks a lot for the site, Paris!

¡HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

[Hampton]

Hey now, while the Panthers were an exclusively black organization, they did work with many other progressive parties during that time.

Before the BPP was basically destroyed by COINTELPRO they had ongoing relationships, albeit at different times, with SNCC(Stokely Carmicheal was honorary BPP Prime Minister and H. Rap Brown was Minister of Justice), CORE, RAM(Bobby Seale was a former member), and with SDS(radical white group) Cleaver and Seale along with SDS co-founder Tom Hayden created the Peace and Freedom Party which planned to put Cleaver on the ballad in Cali as a presidential candidate.

There was also the emphasis on unity for all oppressed people. Huey P. offered to send members of the BPP to Vietnam in support of North Vietnam and he also visited an meet with Mao's wife and also Yasser Arafat, Cleaver in Algeria began to build a truly international support and recognition for the Party, and all over the globe there were groups who took on the BPP for their struggle like:

Black Panther Movement in England, Black Beret Cadre in Bermuda, White Panther Party in England, Black Panther Party of Israel, Black Panther Party of Australia, and the Dalit Panthers in India.

As Fred Hampton said: "We say All Power to the People-Black Power to Black People and Brown Power to Brown People, Red Power to Red People and Yellow Power to Yellow People. We say White Power to White People"

[CheViveToday]

It is unfortunate that the Black Panthers want unity in the african american community first and foremost, however it is impossible to blame them. They have little reason to trust whites. I am sympathetic to their struggles. Just look at Trent Lott and you'll see that many Americans are still very racist. It's a shame....

[Umoja]

How is it a shame? The Black community is much more fragmented then people think, so until their is black unity there will always be problems.

[Hampton]

Until the black community gets educated and stops voting for people like George Bush or Al Gore, nothing is going to change.

[Umoja]

Seriously. I mean, it's hard to see if their is a problem when I've seen my parents look at the two choices for President, and actually vote. We have the Republicans "Hey poor darkies, vote for us, so the rich can benefit." And then the Democrats who I hate even more "Hey Niggaz, we're all Niggaz right?, how about you vote for me, and we'll give you the government housing (Read- projects) we promised to you, but never gave you, the last 100 times you've elected us!"

I'm pretty angry right now though, so I'm ranting.

[Hampton]

I think that's why I admire what the BPP did and wish that they were still around or something with the power and reach that they had at their height. Those two choices will never do us good, the only reasonable answer is to create a third option which is where the gap is right now.

[Umoja]

Hampton, have you heard of John Farely. He's some really rich Black guy who went to Harvard and Oxford, and ran for Senate, I believe, as a Green. He claimed that is the "promised third party" since it's only structured by the people in itg. It's an interesting theory, and the picture of Che in the background further confuses me.

[Hampton]

I've heard of him and saw his website when it was still up with the picture of Che, and it also confused me. The little that I do know about him is pretty positive. I've heard him say that that he turned to the Greens because they were for reparations and want to end the death penalty. He also said something like he wanted to turn the green party black, which I thought was pretty cool. I found an interview he did with NPR

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/tavis/20021031...31.tavis.02.ram

From another site:http://www.greenoxford.com/students.htm

Jonathan Farley is a mathematics professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He is spending this academic year as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar at Oxford's Mathematical Institute. He has appeared on television and written for many magazines, including Time. He has been named a "Leader of the Future" by the leading African-American magazine Ebony.

I really don't have any political party affiliation, but if I had to choose between the three parties when it came time to go to the booth, I would vote green.

[CheViveToday]

Umoja, I understand your great dislike for the republicans and democrats, because I am the same way. However, even though democrats aren't great, they're at least 10 times better than the republicans. Our country would be a lot better off right now if Al Gore was commander in chief. However, I don't really like Gore. Clinton was decent though. There's always Ralph Nader, he's for African American reperations which are greatly deserved.

[Umoja]

No, I hate the Democrats more, because they need Black people to vote for them. Apparently most whites vote Republican, so the Democrats need to lure the minorities into posistions telling them things will get better if we just vote for them. But things haven't got better, and Democrats have grown spineless recently.