two resources

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 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.**

Republished in 1995 by the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM). Reprint and redistribute freely.