Out In The Black Liberation Night- The Black Panthers And The Struggle For The Ten-Point Program-Three-The Sons Of Franz Fanon

Click below to listen to Stanley Nelson speak about his latest documentary –The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution on the Terry Gross show Fresh Air on NPR (Sept 24, 2015)  

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/23/442801731/director-chronicles-the-black-panthers-rise-new-tactics-were-needed

  

…he took the lashes, took the bitter lashes, the sable slave lashes in Pharaoh times, he took the ocean swells to the bottom unnoticed, Mister unnoticed, in Middle Passage times, he took the ebony lashes again in Mister Mississippi goddam plantation black code times, times to make him studied ignorant, or else, ignorant of his history, of his past, of his kin except for hot sun cotton fields, and more hot sun cotton fields, he took the rope, he took the no hope, he took the Mister walk here, not there, sit here, not there, stand here, not there in Jim Crow times, he took his down-turned head in “talented tenth” times when he was not of the better sort, hell, he even kept that head down in “new negro” times when they were separating out the small pie portions. He, hell, he had had enough, enough of broken down internal rages, enough of unchallenged Mister hurts, enough of okie/arkie nobodies jim, get backs, enough of every kind of glad hand indignity. Enough.

And then he found his way out, or a way out, then he remembered, if he remembered rightly, that all over the world in the old days Russia places, red guard arms in hand, when he was just a kid in China places, people’s army arms in hand, right now, right this minute now, in Vietnam places where they were raising holy hell with Mister, with arms in hand, some of Mister’s own too, and above all in great Mother Africa, arms in hand, they were shoving Mister to the sea, if they let him get that far. Above all he remembered Algeria struggle, Algeria which he knew about from some brother telling him that this West Indian guy, this doctor, this head doctor, said that in the end if you didn’t pick up the gun, if you did not make a sacrificial act, if you just waited around for Mister to give you bread and butter that you would never right Pharaoh wrongs, Middle Passage wrongs, Mister plantation wrongs, Mister James Crow wrongs, hell even talented tenth and new negro wrongs (who were they to decide anyway). That anything that he was given without a righteous cleansing struggle would turn to ashes in his black-skinned mouth.

And so he picked up the gun, picked it up easily, laughingly (Mister laugh) held it barrel to the blue sky in public, learned to shoot the damn thing, and felt himself purified, slave purified for once in his down presser man life, and walked with a certain swagger, an angel swagger, and when some Johnny Reb okie transplant tried to take his measure he just showed “the colors.” Beautiful to see that white ass turned, turned way around. And funny too others also picked up the gun to avenge ancient hurts and they formed a brotherhood, solid, and declared, declared among themselves at first, until Mister heard it through the grapevine, that stinking new negro grapevine, war on that foreign country that he lived in, that Algeria in America country, like that head doctor talked about. And then things, thing started to get interesting, and bloody…
**********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.