The Ten Point Plan

1. WE WANT FREEDOM. WE WANT POWER TO DETERMINE THE DESTINY OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.
We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until we are able to determine our destinies in our own communities ourselves, by fully controlling all the institutions which exist in our communities.

2. WE WANT FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR OUR PEOPLE.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every person employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the American businessmen will not give full employment, then the technology and 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 CAPITALISTS OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.
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 were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of our fifty million Black people. Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make.

4. WE WANT DECENT HOUSING, FIT FOR THE SHELTER OF HUMAN BEINGS.
We believe that if the landlords will not give decent housing to our Black and oppressed communities, then housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people in our communities, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for the people.

5. WE WANT DECENT 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 the self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in the society and in the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else.

6. WE WANT COMPLETELY FREE HEALTH CARE FOR All BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE.
We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventive medical programs to guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research programs must be developed to give all Black and oppressed people access to advanced scientific and medical information, so we may provide our selves with proper medical attention and care.

7. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER OF BLACK PEOPLE, OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR, All OPPRESSED PEOPLE INSIDE THE UNITED STATES.
We believe that the racist and fascist government of the United States uses its domestic enforcement agencies to carry out its program of oppression against black people, other people of color and poor people inside the united States. We believe it is our right, therefore, to defend ourselves against such armed forces and that all Black and oppressed people should be armed for self defense of our homes and communities against these fascist police forces.

8. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO ALL WARS OF AGGRESSION.
We believe that the various conflicts which exist around the world stem directly from the aggressive desire of the United States ruling circle and government to force its domination upon the oppressed people of the world. We believe that if the United States government or its lackeys do not cease these aggressive wars it is the right of the people to defend themselves by any means necessary against their aggressors.

9. WE WANT FREEDOM FOR ALL BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE NOW HELD IN U. S. FEDERAL, STATE, COUNTY, CITY AND MILITARY PRISONS AND JAILS. WE WANT TRIALS BY A JURY OF PEERS FOR All PERSONS CHARGED WITH SO-CALLED CRIMES UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY.
We believe that the many Black and poor oppressed people now held in United States prisons and jails have not received fair and impartial trials under a racist and fascist judicial system and should be free from incarceration. We believe in the ultimate elimination of all wretched, inhuman penal institutions, because the masses of men and women imprisoned inside the United States or by the United States military are the victims of oppressive conditions which are the real cause of their imprisonment. We believe that when persons are brought to trial they must be guaranteed, by the United States, juries of their peers, attorneys of their choice and freedom from imprisonment while awaiting trial.

10. WE WANT LAND, BREAD, HOUSING, EDUCATION, CLOTHING, JUSTICE, PEACE AND PEOPLE'S COMMUNITY CONTROL OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds 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 most 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 usurpation, pursuing invariably 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.

http://www.blackpanther.org/TenPoint.htm

The Young Lords

Picture this.

You reside in a country where racial oppression, if not sanctioned and protected by law, is tolerated and encouraged by attitude. You not only look different than the majority, but speak a different language. Public services and institutions ignore you, police harass, beat and kill you, employers refuse to hire you and society as a whole views and overtly treats you as a second class citizen. This is the atmosphere in which the Young Lords came into existence.

The Young Lords were a Puerto Rican radical group active in numerous cities in the late 60’s to early 70’s. The point of my speech is to briefly inform you of their formation, actions and decline. I am focusing on the New York and Chicago chapters, because that is where, arguably, they made their largest impact. That said, they also made important contributions in Philadelphia, Hartford and in Puerto Rico itself.

After the 1966 Division Street riots in Chicago, political organizations began to form to express the concerns of the Puerto Rican community. The influence of these groups, in addition to contact with Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers, led a turf gang called the Young Lords to become radicalized.

Inspired by the Chicago group, the Young Lords Party in New York formed, comprised mostly of college educated individuals and students, in 1969. They adopted much of the Chicago group’s outlook, but with more intellectual Marxist-Maoist analysis of capitalism, and the Puerto Rican situation.

The Young Lords established breakfast programs for children, dental clinics, community daycare, health clinics, testing for TB and lead poisoning, clothing drives, and cultural history events and education. They used whatever space and money they could get their hands on to provide these services without cost to the people in the neighborhoods.

The city governments, police, and some churches were quite hostile to the Young Lords and would refuse them space for their community programs. When and if that happened, they simply took the matter into their own hands. A TB testing vehicle that had been avoiding the Puerto Rican and black neighborhoods was simply hijacked, brought to those areas and put to use. Churches that refused to allow their empty basements to be utilized as free breakfast centers for poor children were occupied until they agreed. Another one of their many direct actions was to gather all the garbage the city neglected to pick up and pile it into a busy street, where it was burned in broad daylight. Trash collection problems soon became a thing of the past. They were willing to do whatever it took to establish their rights and protect their self dignity.

It was precisely because of this do it yourself attitude of direct action, that the Young Lords came under heavy FBI and police infiltration and repression. Add youth and standard left wing factionalism to the mix, and disintegration and implosion were unavoidable. By the mid-70’s, they were basically nonexistent.

But even though they dissolved, their commitment for equal rights, services for the poor and willingness to lay their bodies on the line for a worthy cause hold lessons for us today, a time when we’re supposed to funnel out hopes and beliefs through almost indistinguishable wealthy candidates and politicians who care little about what happens to the average person. The Young Lords demonstrated that important, vital and beneficial programs could and can be implemented outside the sanctioned system by the people themselves. Many of the original members are still politically active today, from stopping the U.S. Navy’s bombardment of Vieques to struggling for Puerto Rican independence, they have shown they are in for the long haul.