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BLACK
PANTHER PARTY
The Black Panther Party (BBP) is a militant black
organization originally known as the Black Panther party for Self-defense.
The organization was founded in Oakland, California, by Bobby Seale and
Huey Newton in October 196 and soon recruited members across the nation.
The BPP advocated balk self-defense and reconstructing American society
to make it more politically, economically, and socially equal.
In the summer of 1968, Davis Brothers established a BPP branch in
Brooklyn, New York, and few months later Lumumba Shakur set up a branch in
Harlem, New York. The party's
radical Ten-Point program:
PANTHERS
10 POINT PROGRAM
2
We want full employment for our people.
3
We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists 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 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. 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 Party monitored police activity with bears's arms in
the inner-city areas, to make sure African Americans were safe from police
brutality. When a police
officer was killed, which led to Newton's arrest, the FBI launch COINTELPRO
(short for the counterintelligence program) designed to disrupt efforts to unify
black militant groups.
During the 1970's, the Black panthers became deeply involved in Oakland's
electoral polities, playing an important role in the election of Lionel Wilson
as the city's first African American mayor. Even though the Black Panther
decline after the FBI program, it regain some power by shifting their focus from
political confrontation to community organizing, which included free lunch
programs for children and other programs.