Atlanta, GA | October 7, 2025

The Black Panther Party, founded in 1966, was a Black nationalist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist party. It continued to evolve within its political ideologies through its set foundation of the Black Panther Party’s “Ten-Point Program.” When the Black Panther Party was established in October of 1966 they constituted these ten points highlighting their mission of what the party wanted and exactly what they believed. This program was showcased throughout the publications of the Black Panther Party’s newspaper “The Black Panther: Black Community News Service” then updated into the “The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service,” which ran from 1967, ending around the 1980s. Before reformation in 1972, on October 15 of 1966, written by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party constituted: 

October 15, 1966

(I) 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. 

(II) 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 business men will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the business men and places 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. 

(III) We want an end to the robbery by capitalists 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 retribution 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 Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered 6,000 Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over 50,000 Black people; therefore, we feel that is a modest demand that we  make. 

(IV) We want decent housing fit for the 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. 

(V) 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 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. 

(VI) 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. 

(VII) We want an immediate end to police brutality and the 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 of the Constitution of the United States gives us a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self defense. 

(VIII) 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.

(IX) 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. 

(X) We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. 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 separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable 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 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 shewn, that mankind are more dispose to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to write themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, 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. 

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March 29, 1972 Platform 

(I) We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black and oppressed communities. (II) We want full employment for our people. (III) We want an end to the robbery by the capitalist of our Black and oppressed communities. (IV) We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings. (V) 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. (VI) We want completely free health care for all Black and oppressed people. (VII) We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside the United States. (VIII) We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression. (IX) We want freedom for all Black and poor oppressed people now held in the U.S. Federal, State, Council, City and military prisons and jails. We want trials by jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country. (X) We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace, and people’s community control of modern technology. 

On March 29, 1972, revisions were made to the Black Panthers Party Ten-Point program. While some of the points remained the same, a few points such as one, three,  seven, and nine extended the party’s demand for advocacy to reach all oppressed communities as well as the Black community. There were distinct changes when comparing the sixth points of the programs, instead shifting attention and need to free health care and acknowledging the role oppressors play in the health and wellbeing of Black and oppressed communities. When highlighting the interrelation between community oppression and community health, Panthers further demanded health education. This enlightenment would serve as a means to becoming self-reliant in proper medical care. Point eight of the reformed program calls for an end to all wars of aggression, while it had been an initial exemption of Black men from military services, it only now after revision further showcased their war opposed philosophy. For the Panthers final order, adding the people’s control of modern technology was a crucial declaration during this era. When the management of modern technology is only in the hands of capitalist institutions, the organization detected the threatening themes of state production exclusively being controlled by an oppressive body. Instead, such as the entirety of the Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point program, in both the initial and improved versions, it is conveyed that there shall be a promotion of serving the public good. There shall be no programming. 

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