$32.00 donated in past month
|
"What We Want, What We Believe: The Black Panther Party Library" DVD Release Screening at AK Press in Oakland
Black Panther Party Celebrating 40th Reunion in Oakland: http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/19/18312559.php "What We Want, What We Believe" is a four-DVD collection chronicling the Panthers and their supporters. The DVDs — released to coincide with the Black Panther's 40th anniversary events — include three acclaimed Newsreel films, and a massive quantity of rare and exclusive materials culled from Roz Payne's extensive collection of FBI documents, correspondence, and interviews. DVD set is available at http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/whatwewantwhatwebelieve With equipment acquired from the US army, TV stations, and wealthier members, Newsreel shot numerous films on 16mm and some hi-8. "No more pigs in our community. Off the pigs." Screened for release event first was the film "Off the Pig", produced by SF Newsreel. On a personal note, it was kind of surreal to see original footage of the Panthers chanting "off the pig" on the same Alameda County Courthouse steps that surviving Panthers were chanting the same thing just the day before ( http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/15/18320514.php). It was on those steps that the Black Panther Party really took off as an organization, setting itself on a mission to assure the release of Huey Newton, who was being held at the time. This film includes an interview with BPP founder Huey from jail, BPP founder Bobby Seal reading the Panther's 10-Point Program, and several Emory Douglass drawings (a style that still pops up today in things like Oakland hiphop group The Coup's red-star logo featuring the woman with the baby and the gun). The film "Repression", from the LA Newsreel group, was screened next. Then an interview with Donald Cox who remains in exile today. Donald discussed Huey being in jail leading to the formation of the Panthers, shootouts and publicity leading to a nationwide explosion of Panther membership. Then more organization as a group led to breakfast programs to combat malnutrition. Puerto Ricans and Appalacians later organized with the Panthers as their model, with all the groups sharing resources. The Brown Berets formed in LA as well. Roz noted that lawyers requested she cut some of the Donald Cox interview and some of the jailhouse interview with Huey Newton for the DVD release. What was cut is not exactly clear. An interview with the Falk family, relecting on the Panthers, was screened next. They were a part of New York Newsreel, shared mutual aid with the Panthers, from sharing vehicles to deliver papers, housing and more.
Explained how there were SF, NY, Chicago, Atlanta and other Newsreel groups producing documentary films. These films were made for activists to use for educational purposes and to be used for recruiting, etc. All together Newsreel made about 40-50 films. Started in New York in 1967, they set out to try to cover events everywhere. Roz Payne possesses the largest collection of Newsreel archives, as well as many other 1960's-related materials. These DVDs have a large selection of original copies of FBI files in PDF format that were "borrowed" years ago and position papers of various groups Newsreel and Roz worked with.
Spoke of the spread of the Panthers like wildfire and his own involvement largely due to appeal of Newsreel film of Huey Newton that rapidly worked its way across the US.
What We Want, What We Believe: The Black Panther Party Library presented by the Roz Payne Archives and Newsreel Films
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
Ten Point Platform & Program
October 1966
WHAT WE WANT
WHAT WE BELIEVE
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
See:
It's About Time: Black Panther Party Legacy & Alumni
The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation
|
