The Black Panthers! (Continued)

  Vision                                                    

·                           Serve the needs of the oppressed people in their communities and defend them against their oppressors.

·         Raise the consciousness of the people and motivate them to move more firmly for their total liberation.

·         Expect repression in a country that has become one of the most repressive governments in the world.

“We realized at a very early point in our development that revolution is a process. It is not a particular action, nor is it a conclusion.” - Dr. Huey P. Newton

Ten-Point Program

• We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
• We want full employment for our people.
• We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our Black Community.
• We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
• 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 want all black men to be exempt from military service.
• We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.
• We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
• 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 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.

The Black Panthers believed that the non-violent campaign of Martin Luther King had failed and any promised changes to their lifestyle via the 'traditional' civil rights movement, would take too long to be implemented or simply not introduced. Therefore, their language  was violent as was their public stance. The two founders of the Black Panther Party were Huey Percy Newton and Bobby Seale. They preached for a "revolutionary war" but though they considered themselves an African-American party, they were willing to speak out for all those who were oppressed from whatever minority group. They were willing to use violence to get what they wanted.

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