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THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
Platform & Program
October 1966
WHAT WE WANT
WHAT WE BELIEVE
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 was 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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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