Who were the Black Panthers?

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THE BLACK PANTHERS

The Black Panthers were a group of African American men who took violent measures to gain freedom. The Black Panthers stood for liberating their people from the oppression and inequality that the government and police made them face. Many black people responded to their message, because they felt that they could relate to what the Panthers were saying and supported their ideas.

The Black Panthers had 10 main beliefs. They  created a ten point programme, which listed all of their demands, which were:

(1) we want freedom.

(2) We want full employment for our people.

(3) We want an end to the robbery by the white man 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 the present-day society.

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(6) We want all black men to be exempt from military service (the Black Panthers felt that they shouldn’t fight for a racist government that didn’t support them).

(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, ...

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