• Anonymous

    Loved the BPP. My brother was picked up and taken to jail just for wearing a beret back in the day. My father was connected enough to get him released but it was a difficult time.  The media portrayed the BPP as rough neck thugs. The Panthers scared the crap out of so called authorities because they did have a positive program and a place for young black people to do something good in the community.  Meanwhile back in the day when people suspected of being Panthers were routinely harassed by the cops,gangs were allowed to flourish in black neighborhoods across the country.  I’m still saying “Power to the people.”

    Thanks or this one sistah Nancy.  Damn time flies.

  • Still Roight On Time…

    BPP Ten Point Platform & Program

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    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!http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/home/bpp_program_platform.html