Bobby Seale - SEIZE THE TIME

The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King is manifested in moving to eliminate institutionalized racism in America. From the moral standpoint to the practical community organizing standpoint, it was about nonviolence and rightfully so. It was about the first amendment to the Constitution which gives all of us the right to peacefully assemble and address our grievances. At that time the power structure began to attack, murder, shoot, kill and brutalize peaceful demonstrators. In other words, they were violating their constitutional, democratic, civil and human rights to organize, unify and educate the people.

When I went to hear Dr. King speak at the Oakland Auditorium in 1962, he was the first black leader to inspire me. I was a student with a full-time night job on the Gemini missile program. In that auditorium, I sat in a sea of seven thousand people who had come to hear Dr. King speak about what we had to do about people of color being discriminated against by companies all across America. It was a time when I had just begun to digest material about our historical struggle for civil-human rights. Dr. King went on to explain America’s rampant discrimination telling us how we had to organize to boycott many different companies, specifically bread companies who refuse to hire people of color. He went on to say that we were going to boycott Lagendorf and Kilpatrick bread companies here in the San Francisco Oakland bay area and the Wonder Bread Company. We were going to boycott them so consistently and profoundly that the Wonder bread company will wonder where their money went. All seven thousand of us stood up applauding and raving.

A few years later, I worked with and gave the original Black Panther Party support to Dr. King on his Poor People's March. Dr. Ralph Abernathy called me personally and said "Mr. Seale, Dr. King would like to know if you would be willing to participate in a broad roundtable of organizations across the country working together in the struggle to end institutionalized racism." I said, "Yes, the Black Panther Party will definitely work with you and Dr. King on anything you want to do." People don't know that we crossed those lines.

King helped change America’s conscience, not only about civil rights but also about economic justice, poverty and war. As an inexperienced young pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, King was reluctantly thrust into the leadership of the bus boycott. During the 382-day boycott, King was arrested and abused and his home was bombed, but he emerged as a national figure and honed his leadership skills. In 1957 he helped launch the SCLC to spread the civil rights crusade to other cities.

He helped lead local campaigns in Selma, Birmingham and other cities, and sought to keep the fractious civil rights movement together, including the NAACP, Urban League, SNCC, CORE and SCLC. Between 1957 and 1968, King traveled more than 6 million miles, spoke more than 2,500 times and was arrested at least twenty times while preaching the gospel of nonviolence.

King’s birthday is a national holiday and his name adorns schools and street signs. But in his day the establishment considered King a dangerous troublemaker. He was harassed by the FBI’s COINTELPRO and vilified in the media. The struggle for civil rights radicalized him into a fighter for economic and social justice.

During the 1960’s, King became increasingly committed to building bridges between the civil rights and labor movements. He was in Memphis in 1968 to support striking sanitation workers when he was assassinated. In 1964, at 35, King was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. Some civil rights activists worried that his opposition to the Vietnam War, announced in 1967, would create a backlash against civil rights, but instead it helped turned the tide of public opinion against the war.

When I look at Dr. King's legacy and what we stood up for, the amount of people that were killed in the civil rights protests and later in my organization where 28 original Black Panther Party members were killed in attacks from the police who were trying to terrorize us out of existence, when I look at that, I have a very great affinity for Dr. King and everything he inspired me to be.

The Free Breakfast for Children Program was the first Survival Programs the original Black Panther Party created. It was started on January 1969 at a small Catholic church in the Fillmore district of San Francisco, and spread to many cities in America where there were Black Panther Party chapters. The Program became so popular that by the end of the year, the original Black Panther Party set up kitchens in cities across the nation, feeding over 10,000 children each and every day. Through this program, the Black Panther Party under this program provided a free breakfasts for thousands of children before they went to school. The Black Panther Party believed that "Children cannot reach their full academic potential if they have empty stomachs." Thousands of poor and hungry children were fed free breakfasts every day by the original Black Panther Party.  In addition to the Free Breakfast for Children Program of the Black Panther Party created and provides several other Survival Programs such as:

People’s Free Ambulance Service

The service provided free, rapid transportation for sick or injured people without time-consuming checks into the patients’ financial status or means. The People’s Free Ambulance Service operated with at least one ambulance on a 24-hour emergency basis, and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a nonemergency or convalescent basis.People were transported to and from the hospital or doctor’s office in a modern, comfortable ambulance by courteous, efficient and knowledgeable attendants.

Free Food Program 

This program provided free food to Black and other oppressed people. The intent of the Free Food Program was to supplement the groceries of Black and poor people until economic conditions allowed them to purchase good food at reasonable prices. The Free Food Program provided two basic services to the community: 1. An ongoing supply of food to meet their daily needs. 2. Periodic mass distributions of food to reach a larger segment of the community than can be serviced from the ongoing supply. The community was provided with bags of fresh food containing items such as eggs, canned fruits and vegetables, chickens, milk, potatoes, rice, bread, cereal and so forth. A minimum of a week’s supply of food was included in each bag Seniors Against a Fearful Environment (SAFE) 

SAFE, a nonprofit corporation, was started by the Black Panther Party at the request of a group of senior citizens for the purpose of preventing muggings and attacks upon the elderly, particularly when they go out to cash their Social Security or pension checks. Prior to approaching the Black Panther Party, the seniors had gone to the Oakland Police Department to request protection. There the seniors were told that they “should walk close to the curb” in the future, according to a Panther report by David Hilliard, who served as the Party’s chief of staff. The program offered free transportation and escort services to the residents of the Satellite Senior Homes, a residential complex for the elderly in Oakland, California. 

In addition to these Survival Programs, the original Black Panther Party developed a series of social programs to provide needed services to the people. Their intent was to promote "a model for an alternative, more humane social scheme." These Survival Programs, of which there came to be more than 60, were operated by Black Panther Party members under the slogan "survival pending revolution." Their intent was to promote "a model for an alternative, more humane social scheme."

The thousands of Sisters & Brothers in the Party, who made our Survival Programs work successfully, were the real heroes of the original Black Panther Party.

The original Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, California by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October of 1966. Black Panther Party membership reached a peak of 10,000 by early 1969, acquiring 90% support from Black people in major cities in America. The organization is well known for advocating self-defense against police brutality. The Panthers also organized dozens of community programs such as free breakfast for children and free health clinics.

The Black Panther Party advocated self-defense of the black community against the racist murder and brutality of the Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond and San Francisco Police through armed patrols of police activities. The purpose of the armed patrols was to capture the imagination of the people for broader community electoral purposes as Huey and I observe the police making arrest of black people. The Party also fought to establish greater peoples' empowerment via community control politics, through mass organizing of more than twenty different community based survival programs. 

Black Panther Party, was an "All Power To All The People!” organization. The Black Panther Party worked for self-determination and social justice for All People.

The Black Panther Party was one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for ethnic minority and working class emancipation - a party whose political electoral agenda was the revolutionary establishment of real economic, social, and political equality across gender and color lines, aligning itself with other people of color organizations including Cesar Chavez's Farm Workers Movement, AIM The American Indian Movement, The Asian Red Guard [I Wor kuen] {Righteous Harmonious Fist}, Puerto Rican The Young Lords Movement and The Peace and Freedom Party, SDS, Young Patriots, etc. 

The Party's effectiveness as an organizing vehicle lead it to grow quickly starting with me leading an armed delegation of Party members to the California state capitol building on May 2nd 1967 to read Executive Mandate No. 1: protesting the state legislatures passing of the Mulford Act, a new law that was designed to keep the Party from legally patrolling the police in the streets of Oakland CA.

The original Black Panther Party developed a series of social programs to provide needed services to the people such as free breakfast for children, health clinics and shoes for children. Their intent was to promote "a model for an alternative, more humane social scheme." These programs, of which there came to be more than 60, were eventually referred to as Survival Programs, and were operated by original Black Panther Party members under the slogan "survival pending revolution."

 The first such program was the Free Breakfast for Children Program, which began in January 1969 at one small Catholic church in the Fillmore district of San Francisco, and spread to many cities in America where there were Party chapters. Thousands of poor and hungry children were fed free breakfasts every day by the Party under this program. The Program became so popular that by the end of the year, the original Black Panther Party set up kitchens in cities across the nation, feeding over 10,000 children every day before they went to school. The original Black Panther Party believed that "Children cannot reach their full academic potential if they have empty stomachs."

 Many social programs today go back to the Survival Programs of the original Black Panther Party.

The real heroes in my original Black Panther Party were all the thousands of sisters and brothers who made the many our Survival Programs work.  In the original Black Panther Party they learned all the fine particulars and methodology of effective community organizing. They ran Survival Programs such as: the giving away of groceries, food, and clothing; educational programs in political education; criminal justice programs and health programs; health related survival projects included free health clinics, sickle cell testing, and a free ambulance service.

The original Black Panther Party opened 20 Chapters for east coast to the west coast from New York to Los Angeles  by December of 1968. The Party had Chapters in 68 cities across the country from Seattle to Winston-Salem by 1970.

The city Winston-Salem was not the Winston-Salem of today, When the original Black Panther Party founded a Chapter there:

 Facing persecution, harassment and often, imprisonment, just for being Black Panther Party members, the Winston-Salem Black Panthers worked fought for better conditions, services and treatment for the people in their community and for all the people. The Winston-Salem Black Panther Party Chapter will always be remember for the challenges it posed to police brutality, hunger, disease, ignorance, and the oppression of not only Black people, but for all the people. However, many members of the Winston-Salem Black Panther Party Chapter as they served the people, would have never thought that they would see a day in which the would be applauded and thanked for their service to the community. But that day happen in October 2013 when the Forsyth County Historic Resources Commission unveiled a historic marker in honor of the Black Panther Party’s contributions before an enthusiastic crowd of supporters. Winston-Salem Black Panther Party chapter held free-food rallies. The Joseph Waddell Free Food Program, named in honor of a beloved comrade who had died under suspicious circumstances in a state prison. At the rally held at the Kimberly Park Housing Project over two thousand people came to receive free food and shoes for children given out by the Winston-Salem chapter of the Black Panther Party.

There was not an satisfactory ambulance service available in Winston-Salem for the Black community. Black Panther Party members study emergency medical technician (EMT) and first-aid classes at Surry Community College, and got their ENT’s certification. The Winston-Salem Black Panther Part chapter operating its own ambulance, named the Joseph Waddell People’s Free Ambulance Service. Joseph Waddell left his life insurance death benefit ($7,000) to the Winston-Salem Black Panther Party chapter and the money to subsidize their free ambulance program. The ambulance offered twenty-four-hour service and had twenty certified EMTs who were Party members. It was granted the chapter a franchise to operate by the Forsyth County commissioners.

 Winston-Salem has now honored the work of the Winston-Salem Black Panther Party chapter with a historical marker. On corner of Fifth Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, not far from where the Winston-Salem Black Panther Party chapter’s first headquarters was established, stands a historic marked honoring the Black Panther s commitment and work done to improving the lives of the people of Winston-Salem through providing Survival Programs such as the Free Food Distribution Program, the Free Clothing Program, Free Shoe Program, Free Ambulance Service and Free Breakfast for Children Program.

The plaque reads:

 In 1969, the city of Winston-Salem, NC became the first southern city with a chapter of the Black Panther Party. Nationally and locally, the Black Panthers sought to protect African-American neighborhood from police brutality: the volatility of the times often lead to confrontation with the police. Later the chapter offered community service programs; including free breakfasts for children, sickle-cell anemia testing, and the Joseph Waddell People’s Free Ambulance Service, which received national attention. These programs brought meaningful change to Winston-Salem during a time of social and political upheaval and lent validation to the Chapter’s slogan, “Power to the people – right on.” Members of the Winston-Salem Chapter would later serve the community as ministers, teachers, politicians, and community organizers.

 The unveiling of the historic maker began with a symbolic march from the site of the organization’s original Winston-Salem Black Panther Party chapter’s headquarters, just a few blocks away. Their fists held high in the air, marchers where led by African drummers. Joining a crowed that had already assembled, marchers hear reflections from city leaders and some of the Party’s original members.

In the words of Winston-Salem City Council Member Derwin Montgomery “The Black Panthers did great work in our community and deserve the recognition and so today, we salute the Black Panthers…They paved the way and left a tradition and a rich history and heritage that we continue today with this dedication.”

On the Winston-Salem Black Panther Party’s most active members, Former City Council Member Nelson Malloy, was one of the speakers who regaled the audience with insight into the history of the Winston-Salem Black Panther Party’s. Malloy said, “We had a lot of support in this community. They many not have been a part of the Black Panther Party, but they played an integral role in the success of community.”

Praising Winston-Salem Black Panther Party’s members for refusing to accept the status quo, State Rep. Earline Parmon, the Democratic candidate for North Carolina Senate District 32, also spoke at the unveiling of the historic marker: “They dared to stand up and say, ‘We’re fed up and we’re not taking it anymore. Because they had courage, today I stand as … the first African American ever to represent Forsyth County in the state Senate. It didn’t start in 2012; it started (with the Panthers’ founding) 43 years ago. I’m grateful for this day and I’m grateful to all of you. Power to the people.”

Director of Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Triad Region, attorney Hazel Mack address the issues of passing the torch on to the next generation: “Really, I want to talk to the young people,” said Mack. “We were nothing but children. We were 16, 17, 18 years old, but, like many of you, we had a desire to see things be different than what they were. I want the young people to understand that that was our time and this is your time. There is nothing you see that cannot be changed. Whatever it is that you think you can do to make yours lf better, to make your community better, you can do it.”

Forsyth County Historic Resources Commission putting up this historic marker honoring the contributions of the Winston-Salem Black Panther Party. It is important to preserve and convey the true history and value of the Black Panther Party, providing current and future generations an awareness of the Black Panther Party true history, as an example of how one should never give up the struggle for true liberation and freedom. Instilling and inspiring in them the realization that one should never give up the struggle for true liberation and freedom and that it is up to the People to protect and preserve their constitutional rights.

 All Power To All The People! Bobby Seale

A Salute To Our Comrades, the Brown Berets!

The Brown Berets is a group of revolutionaries from the barrios of the Southwest, that emerged during the Chicano movement of the 1960s. The Chicano movement, or El Movimiento (Chicano Civil Rights Movement) was an extension of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1940s. Like the Black Panther Party, the Brown Berets were involved in community projects in their struggle for self-determination and social justice. 

The Brown Berets became a national organization having opened chapters in California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illiniois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, and Indiana. They also participated in organizing the first free medical clinics and free breakfast programs. They also came to be known for their direct action against police brutality, protesting murders and abuse by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. They supported the United Farm Workers movement and the Land Grant Movement in New Mexico, and even participated in the first Rainbow Coalition with the Black Panther Party, Young Patriots (white anti-racist organization), and the Young Lords (Puerto Ricans), and in the Poor Peoples Campaign. 

The Black Panther Party, was an "All Power To All The People!” organization! The Black Panther Party worked for self-determination and social justice for all People. This is the true history of the original Black Panther Party, it’s true legacy, and an example of how we, the People, must continue the work together as the Black Panther Party did with its allies through coalitions to proactively preserve our constitutional rights.

At this time, more than ever, we need activists who are motivated and dedicated to organizing people, raising consciousness and instilling self-respect. We especially need creative youth who know our true history. We need socially conscious activists who will work toward the economic empowerment of all People. We need activists who cross all ethnic and religious backgrounds and color lines, who will work to achieve true freedom and justice and establish civil and human rights for all. We must create a world of decent human relationships where revolutionary humanism is grounded in democratic human rights for every person on earth. 

From August 26 to August 29, 1968, the Democratic National Convention was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois. The convention was held during a year of violence, political turbulence, and civil unrest, particularly riots in more than 100 cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4.The convention also followed the assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, who had been murdered on June 5. Both Kennedy and Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota had been running against the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

When Americans sat in front of their televisions in August of 1968 to watch Democrats in Chicago nominate a candidate for president, they were instead riveted by a different kind of spectacle: police clubbing, kicking and gassing thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters near the convention hall.

Chicago's mayor, Richard J. Daley, intended to showcase his and the city's achievements to national Democrats and the national news media. Instead, the proceedings became notorious for the large number of demonstrators and the excessive use of force by the Chicago police during what was, in the words of the Yippie activist organizers, “A Festival of Life.” Clashes took place between demonstrators and the Chicago Police Department who were assisted by the Illinois National Guard. The violence unleashed upon demonstrators by the Chicago Police was well publicized by the mass media, with even some journalists and reporters being caught up in the violence. Network newsmen Mike Wallace and Dan Rather were both roughed up by the Chicago police while inside the halls of the Democratic Convention.

What resulted was the great "Chicago Seven" conspiracy trial, which was originally "Eight,” with myself as the pivotal, most defiant of all the defendants in demanding my six amendment rights. The other defendants and lawyers were Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, William Kunstler and Leonard Wineglass and Lee Weiner.

All were charged with the RAP Brown law of … “conspiracy to use interstate transportation with the intent to incite riots" related to protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois on the occasion of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. And one year later and after seven weeks of knock-down drag-out conflict with Judge Julius Hoffman, I was severed from the trial and sentenced to four years in prison for contempt of court during the proceedings, lowering the number from eight to the "Chicago Seven" defendants. During the trial proceedings, I was denied an attorney of my choice. My attorney of record was Charles R. Garry who was in the hospital recovering from a surgical operation.

When I consistently protested that I was being denied my sixth amendment constitutional right to either have an attorney of my choice or to represent myself, Judge Hoffman silenced me by having me chained, shackled, bound and gagged for three days in the courtroom. The "Chicago Eight" became the "Chicago Seven" when I was separated from the others and tried alone.

Judge Hoffman sentenced all of the defendants and their attorneys to unprecedented prison terms ranging from two-and-a-half months to four years for contempt of court. The convictions were eventually reversed on appeal, and the government declined to bring the case to trial again.

“Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers” by Stephen Shames & Bobby Seale

 “Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers”, a new book soon to be published during the Black Panther Party’s 50th Anniversary Founding year - October 22nd, 1966 through Oct, 1967, also my birthday - comes at a time when the nation is once again roiled by the consequences of racial injustice and debating the persistent legacy of racism and poverty.

 “Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers” is a window into the lives and times of Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, and their comrades in the party’s vital years. Stephen Shames camera captured the charisma of the young Newton; Seale’s focused energy; Eldridge Cleaver’s intensity; the disciplined style of Kathleen Cleaver and Angela Davis; Emory Douglas laying out the Panther newspaper; George Jackson’s and Bobby Hutton’s funerals; and Panthers marching at rallies and feeding children. Virtually all of the major figures are portrayed, with accompanying commentaries by me, Kathleen Cleaver, Ericka Huggins, and many others that touch on everything from politics to style. In words and photographs, “Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers” tells the story of this revolutionary political organization, which was founded on October 15, 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. Written in my own words, with contributions by other former party members; the photographs, including many icons of the 1960’s, are by Stephen Shames, who also provides an introduction.

 Once “Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers” has been published it will be available on my website.

 All Power To The People! Bobby Seale

We, the peaceful protesters, DO NOT ASSASSINATE POLICEMEN. And those who do, and those who chant to support such negativity are stooping to the low level of a racist fascist mentality. Real peoples constitutional democratic civil-human rights revolution is not about a need for violence. Grass roots, middle working, poor and low income peoples revolution is about evolving and re-evolving more progressive politics, i.e., better economic parity, greater environmental ecological standards and practices, and broad social justice empowerments into the hands of the people via legislative policies and practical economic jobs programs that make humane sense. That is what peoples empowerment revolution is about. The fact that some mentally deranged young person who shot his girlfriend, left Baltimore for New York and then stupidly shot and killed two police officers and himself has little or nothing to do with the peaceful protester's right to demand and call for justice and indictments of specific policemen or others involved in the killings of the unarmed Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and others including black killings in Cleveland Ohio, Milwaukee Wisconsin and many cities across our USA. Nor should the killer of the two police officers in New York be any reason for that small group of protest chanters to call for cops to be killed. They are dead wrong to chant that. Such a chant begins to confuse the real social justice goal objective of the Black Lives Matter protest movement. Months before the beginning of my Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966, I remember meeting at Merritt College a Black Police officer, Sargent Williams who was recruiting young black and brown male students for the Oakland Police Department. Conversationally befriending him, I remember he gave us information about the thirty five percent white racist policemen in the Oakland P.D., how most other policemen were just doing their jobs. {Read my book SEIZE THE TIME] Later, when we went out to “legally” observe the Oakland, SF, Richmond, and Berkeley, California police, because of the unchecked rampant police brutality and murder of Black People in those communities, not to mention their brutality on peaceful protesters, our patrolling of police was our BPP tactic. A tactic to capture the imagination of the people to better organize their electoral voting power bringing the community together. I never thought in terms of just running out and killing policemen. Never. Not me. In fact our Black Panther policy was that we will take the arrest if a policeman formally demanded it. We were not scared of the court. The courts would be a forum for us as I demonstrated in the Great Chicago Seven Conspiracy trial in 1969 of which I was the eighth defendant. And later we defendants won that case. After the last big shootout on December 8th 1969 in Los Angeles which we won in the courts with nationwide public support, there was a young white Berkeley policeman who stole the POLICE-FBI plans to attack out Berkeley BPP headquarters and gave the plans to our Lawyer, Charles R. Garry. The young policemen lost his job, but it gave us an edge when we printed these POLICE-FBI planned attacks that later was fed into the US Senate investigation against the FBI’s COINTELPRO fascist tactics. This political move stopped all the racist Fascist attacks on our BPP offices across the USA. Actually of all the Black Panther Party members who went to trial, we actually won ninety-five percent of all our court room trials. Over the years I have become friends with many policemen beginning with some thirty odd policemen who supported and voted for me when I ran for Mayor of Oakland, CA in 1974. These were the days after the 1969 year of cross country police-FBI attacks on our BPP offices where we did defend ourselves when we were literally attacked. After my BPP era, and living in Philadelphia, PA, I became friends with some eight different police and state troopers in Philadelphia while organizing socially responsible programs at Temple University and running, yet again, youth Jobs programs (my real original forte’) in the Germantown community in Philadelphia in the 1980’s. Today I have a Black Panther Party person who is an Honorary Deputy Sheriff complete with his badge. We, you and I, the peace loving people protesting for justice, do NOT stoop to the level of the racist mentality of indiscriminate killings and murder. And we find and support those policemen who help us get the justice we demand. All Power To All The People Bobby Seale: 1966 Founding Chairman & National Organizer of the original Black Panther Party, USA. http://bobbyseale.com/ ======= #bobbyseale #blackpanthers #blackpantherparty ===

A Salute To Our Comrades, the Brown Berets! The Brown Berets is a group of revolutionaries from the barrios of the Southwest,  that emerged during the Chicano movement of the 1960s. The Chicano movement, or El Movimiento (Chicano Civil Rights Movement) was an extension of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1940s. Like the Black Panther Party, the Brown Berets were involved in community projects in their struggle for self-determination and social justice. The Brown Berets became a national organization having opened chapters in California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illiniois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, and Indiana. They also participated in organizing the first free medical clinics and free breakfast programs. They also came to be known for their direct action against police brutality, protesting murders and abuse by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. They supported the United Farm Workers movementand the Land Grant Movement in New Mexico, and even participated in the first Rainbow Coalition with the Black Panther Party, Young Patriots (white anti-racist organization), and the Young Lords (Puerto Ricans), and in the Poor Peoples Campaign. 

The Black Panther Party, was an "All Power To All The People!” organization, whether you're black, white, blue, green, yellow, or polka dot. We believed in black unity, but only as a catalyst to help humanize the world. The Black Panther Party worked for self-determination and social justice for all people.  Righteous down home peoples power is what I advocated in the sixties, and what I say today. That is, "...toward a future world of co-operational humanism!" All Power To All The People!

A Retrospective: Black Panther Party The Ten Point Program "You don't fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity." --Bobby Seale The original “Ten Point Program” from October, 1966 was as follows: 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 sJewish 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. ===== Through BobbySeale.com, LLC {Independent Film Production Division} I am raising development funds to produce “SEIZE THE TIME: The Eighth Defendant,” a feature length film dramatization that chronicles my life experiences as the founding Chairman and national organizer of the Black Panther Party and in turn the true history of the Black Panther Party. “SEIZE THE TIME: The Eighth Defendant,” will tell the my true 60’s protest movement history and the true history of the Black Panther Party, giving those now and in the future an awareness of our history, as an example of how one should never give up the struggle for true liberation and freedom. Instilling and inspiring in them the hope that change is a possible and that, we the people, must proactively work to preserve our constitutional rights. With the help of people like you, that we will succeed and get an honest film about my sixties protest movement history and the history of the Black Panther Party produced. By purchasing books, posters, DVDs and memorabilia from my website you can help support my efforts get an honest film about my sixties protest movement history and the history of the Black Panther Party produced. Here is the link to that page: http://bobbyseale.com/html/orderform1.htm All Power To All The People! Bobby Seale === #blackpanthers #blackhistory #blackpantherparty #bobbyseale