Goals and Politics

It was 1966 when college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton formed the Black Panther Party in Oakland. The party was founded on Marxist-Leninist principles for Black Power to prevent police brutality against black communities. Seale and Newton wrote a set of guidelines that showed the Party’s ideals and commitment to leading a revolution that would finally address the needs of the black community. Published on May 15, 1967 see below for The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program.

What We Want Now! What We Believe

To those poor souls who don’t know Black history, the beliefs and desires of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense may seem unreasonable. To Black people, the ten points covered are absolutely essential to survival. We have listened to the riot producing words “these things take time” for 400 years. The Black Panther Party knows what Black people want and need. Black unity and self defense will make these demands a reality.

What We Want

1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community.
2. We want full employment for our people.
3. We want an end to the robbery by the White man of our Black community.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter [of] human beings.
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.
6. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people.
8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county, and city prisons and jails.
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.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.

On April 16, 1968 Bobby Seale gave a speech in Los Angeles in outlining the beliefs of the Black Panther Party and in support of his fellow co-founder Huey P. Newton who was incarcerated at the time. To Seale and the other Black Panthers, their efforts were a concrete action in politics towards establishing their own narrative away from the one established by white supremacy ideology. Due to their efforts members would be consistently jailed and incarcerated with little to no evidence.

"And what is that desired manner? Politics, what is politics? What is politics? You think politics start witha seat in the assembly, no it doesn’t. It’s related to it but it doesn’t start there. Politics starts with a hungry stomach. Politics starts with a pig crushing us across our skull and murdering our people. Politics starts with the fact that we get a rotten education and we get brainwashed and fooled in a trick notion and trick knowledge and everything else that goes on in terms of the exploitation that goes down" (Bobby Seale)