Out In The Black Liberation Night- The Black Panthers And The Struggle For The Ten-Point Program- Fourteen -“Lord, Lord They Shot George Jackson Down”

 

 

 

…he, nameless, he legion, he young restless mischievous roamer of those mean, as the 1950s “beat” saint poet called it, negro streets, name the city, Chi town, Beantown, the Big Easy, Frisco town, New Jack City, those hard corner boy, homeboy (before homeboy name stuck) streets, he doing a little of this a little of that, a jack roll here a clip there, just enough to keep body and soul together, later some whack here some heist there, the stuff of lumpen legend, the stuff that kept the corner boys, uh, the brothers, on their toes, and playing hopscotch with the law. He, George Jackson, to name him, to take him out of the nameless numberless savage lumpen night (yes, savage, those old time 1871 Paris Communards were right to hang the slogan “Death to Thieves” very high on their democratic tree of liberty) went toe to toe with the law, went toe to toe one too many times and thus played the hopscotch into stir, the lumpen world in big print, the, as someone explained it all in sociological terms, the “prison-industrial complex,” and later, a later sociologist called it “the new jim crow,”  Mister James Crow for modern times. He, they just called it stir, and counted the days, the freedom days.       

Then he, George Jackson, fully named now removed from savage lumpen nights, got “religion.” No, not some hocus pocus stuff, some Nation of Islam stuff very hip in negro-filled jails back then, back on those mean negro streets, but looking around him, around his world, his whole world (and with time, plenty of time to read and think), he saw how he was part of  big fellahin (although he would not know that word, not know that dark dirt from some ancient soils word, and need not know it) world that was exploding out against the Mister imposed rules, the “hey, fellaheen (or fellaheena if that is the way to express the female part of the ordering but not so noticeable) sit here, walk there, eat across there, stand in the next lane” rules. With arms in hand. The mighty thump of Africa up and down (except blighted South Africa fight), bleeding Algeria twisting in the wind, armed success in China and Cuba, hell, little island Cuba, for god’s sake, and rumbles, plenty of rumbles at home.

So, he, George Jackson immersed himself in his new simpatico fellahin world, began to organize, organize the brothers, the hermanos, the blancos, whoever wanted to breakout of the six by twelve desolate nights. And he imbibed, hell, inhaled, Father Fanon, latched his kin name to that father, began to speak of heroic revolutionary acts, began to speak of the cleansing, soul cleansing, revolutionary acts of purifying violence, the struggle to regain Mister-taken manhood, and began to link the dots, prison, courts, lawyers, cops, no dough, mean streets, down presser man streets, and the need, the desperate need to push back, to spring like a panther, and take back the night, the day too.                 

But all that wisdom, all that righteous wisdom, ran smack against the hard reality that he was in a box, a prison box, yes, a court-imposed box, yes, a lawyer pushed box, yes, a cop- cuffed box, YES, a no dough box, yes, a still mean streets box, yes, and down presser man streets, box, yes, and so he, he who liked to take a chance or two, fell before he could find some way, some way to spring like a panther and take back the night, and the day too. Lord, lord they shot George Jackson down, and so others would, will have to wake up the fellahin world…     

 

The Ten Point Program

 

The original "Ten Point Program" from October, 1966 was as follows:^[39][40]

 

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 white man 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 as 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 50 million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.

 

4. We want decent housing, fit for 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 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.

 

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 bands 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 unalienable 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 to 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 invariable 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.