I have many things I would like to share with you all, so I am not going to spend too much time with opening remarks. The main reason for me providing the information in this article is to get people to see that despite the fact we all may have different philosophies and strategies in our approach to gain independency and freedom, we can all be united under the idea that none of us want to live in a country were we are oppressed and mistreated. We all want economic enrichment and educational opportunities, and we want our kids and grandchildren to have more opportunities than we have and than or parents had, and for them to have a kitchen to bake pies, and not just a plate handed to them with a piece of the pie on it. I’m not sure where I heard that from, but I do not take credit for that phrase, LOL. So many people have put their lives on the line for us, and many are currently being tormented the prisons all across the US, and across the world. It’s very important that we do not forget the contributions of these individuals and that we understand, no man, or woman, is perfect. We all have our faults, but we all are striving for the same goals in the end. No matter what religion or economic background, let’s embrace the information below, and let’s share it with our children and other youths, as we educate them and give them a sense of pride and discipline to lead our future.
Organizations of Impact For Blacks In the Fight For Liberation and Freedom In America
“The Niagara Movement”, later resulting in the formation of “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People” (NAACP)
Declaration of Principles
Progress: The members of the conference, known as the Niagara Movement, assembled in annual meeting at Buffalo, July 11th, 12th and 13th, 1905, congratulate the Negro-Americans on certain undoubted evidences of progress in the last decade, particularly the increase of intelligence, the buying of property, the checking of crime, the uplift in home life, the advance in literature and art, and the demonstration of constructive and executive ability in the conduct of great religious, economic and educational institutions.
Suffrage: At the same time, we believe that this class of American citizens should protest emphatically and continually against the curtailment of their political rights. We believe in manhood suffrage; we believe that no man is so good, intelligent or wealthy as to be entrusted wholly with the welfare of his neighbor.
Civil Liberty: We believe also in protest against the curtailment of our civil rights. All American citizens have the right to equal treatment in places of public entertainment according to their behavior and deserts.
Economic Opportunity: We especially complain against the denial of equal opportunities to us in economic life; in the rural districts of the South this amounts to peonage and virtual slavery; all over the South it tends to crush labor and small business enterprises; and everywhere American prejudice, helped often by iniquitous laws, is making it more difficult for Negro-Americans to earn a decent living.
Education: Common school education should be free to all American children and compulsory. High school training should be adequately provided for all, and college training should be the monopoly of no class or race in any section of our common country. We believe that, in defense of our own institutions, the United States should aid common school education, particularly in the South, and we especially recommend concerted agitation to this end. We urge an increase in public high school facilities in the South, where the Negro-Americans are almost wholly without such provisions. We favor well-equipped trade and technical schools for the training of artisans, and the need of adequate and liberal endowment for a few institutions of higher education must be patent to sincere well-wishers of the race.
Courts: We demand upright judges in courts, juries selected without discrimination on account of color and the same measure of punishment and the same efforts at reformation for black as for white offenders. We need orphanages and farm schools for dependent children, juvenile reformatories fox delinquents, and the abolition of the dehumanizing convict-lease system.
Public Opinion: We note with alarm the evident retrogression in this land of sound public opinion on the subject of manhood rights, republican government and human brotherhood, arid we pray God that this nation will not degenerate into a mob of boasters and oppressors, but rather will return to the faith of the fathers, that all men were created free and equal, with certain unalienable rights.
Health: We plead for health—for an opportunity to live in decent houses and localities, for a chance to rear our children in physical and moral cleanliness.
Employers and Labor Unions: We hold up for public execration the conduct of two opposite classes of men: The practice among employers of importing ignorant Negro-American laborers in emergencies, and then affording them neither protection nor permanent employment; and the practice of labor unions in proscribing and boycotting and oppressing thousands of their fellow-toilers, simply because they are black. These methods have accentuated and will accentuate the war of labor and capital, and they are disgraceful to both sides.
Protest: We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic before insults. Through helplessness we may submit, but the voice of protest of ten million Americans must never cease to assail the ears of their fellows, so long as America is unjust.
Color-Line: Any discrimination based simply on race or color is barbarous, we care not how hallowed it be by custom, expediency or prejudice. Differences made on account of ignorance, immorality, or disease are legitimate methods of fighting evil, and against them we have no word of protest; but discriminations based simply and solely on physical peculiarities, place of birth, color of skin, are relics of that unreasoning human savagery of which the world is and ought to be thoroughly ashamed.
"Jim Crow" Cars: We protest against the "Jim Crow" car, since its effect is and must be to make us pay first-class fare for third-class accommodations, render us open to insults and discomfort and to crucify wantonly our manhood, womanhood and self-respect.
Soldiers: We regret that this nation has never seen fit adequately to reward the black soldiers who, in its five wars, have defended their country with their blood, and yet have been systematically denied the promotions which their abilities deserve. And we regard as unjust, the exclusion of black boys from the military and naval training schools.
War Amendments: We urge upon Congress the enactment of appropriate legislation for securing the proper enforcement of those articles of freedom, the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments of the Constitution of the United States.
Oppression: We repudiate the monstrous doctrine that the oppressor should be the sole authority as to the rights of the oppressed. The Negro race in America stolen, ravished and degraded, struggling up through difficulties and oppression, needs sympathy and receives criticism; needs help and is given hindrance, needs protection and is given mob-violence, needs justice and is given charity, needs leadership and is given cowardice and apology, needs bread and is given a stone. This nation will never stand justified before God until these things are changed.
The Church: Especially are we surprised and astonished at the recent attitude of the church of Christ—of an increase of a desire to bow to racial prejudice, to narrow the bounds of human brotherhood, and to segregate black men to some outer sanctuary. This is wrong, unchristian and disgraceful to the twentieth century civilization.
Agitation: Of the above grievances we do not hesitate to complain, and to complain loudly and insistently. To ignore, overlook, or apologize for these wrongs is to prove ourselves unworthy of freedom. Persistent manly agitation is the way to liberty, and toward this goal the Niagara Movement has started and asks the cooperation of all men of all races.
Help: At the same time we want to acknowledge with deep thankfulness the help of our fellowmen from the Abolitionist down to those who today still stand for equal opportunity and who have given and still give of their wealth and of their poverty for our advancement.
Duties: And while we are demanding, and ought to demand, and will continue to demand the rights enumerated above, God forbid that we should ever forget to urge corresponding duties upon our people:
-The duty to vote.
-The duty to respect the rights of others.
-The duty to work.
-The duty to obey the laws.
-The duty to be clean and orderly.
-The duty to send our children to school.
-The duty to respect ourselves, even as we respect others.
This statement, complaint and prayer we submit to the American people, and Almighty God.
The Universal Negro Improvement Association And African Communities League (UNIA-ACL)
The motto of the organization is: “One God! One Aim! One Destiny!” Therefore, let justice be done to all mankind, realizing that if the strong oppresses the weak confusion and discontent will ever mark the path of man, but with love, faith and charity towards all the reign of peace and plenty will be herded into the world and the generations of men shall be called blessed.
Mission Statement
The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League is a provisional government lead by a spiritual ruling governing body that is established for the purpose of the general uplift of the Black race.
In keeping with this purpose our goals involve activities aimed at relieving the sufferings of the Black race and include the following:
- Education and Training
- Nutrition and Healthcare
- Housing
- Arts and Humanities
- Agronomy and Applied Sciences
- Building and Trades
- Manufacturing
- Economic Development
The three Pan-African colors on the flag represent:
-Red: The blood that unites all people of Black African ancestry, and shed for liberation.
-Black: Black people whose existence as a nation, though not a nation-state, is affirmed by the existence of the flag.
-Green: The abundant natural wealth of Africa.
The flag goes by several other names with varying degrees of popularity:
-The UNIA flag, after its originators;
- The Marcus Garvey flag;
- The Universal African flag;
- The International African flag;
- The Black Liberation flag;
- The Pan-African flag;
- The Black Nationalist, African Nationalist, or the New Afrikan Liberation flag.
Nation of Islam
What Muslims Want
1. We want freedom. We want a full and complete freedom.
2. We want justice. Equal justice under the law. We want justice applied equally to all, regardless of creed or class or color.
3. We want equality of opportunity. We want equal membership in society with the best in civilized society.
4. We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own--either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years--until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.
Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by white America, justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.
5. We want freedom for all Believers of Islam now held in federal prisons. We want freedom for all black men and women now under death sentence in innumerable prisons in the North as well as the South. We want every black man and woman to have the freedom to accept or reject being separated from the slave master's children and establish a land of their own.
We know that the above plan for the solution of the black and white conflict is the best and only answer to the problem between two people.
6. We want an immediate end to the police brutality and mob attacks against the so-called Negro throughout the United States. We believe that the Federal government should intercede to see that black men and women tried in white courts receive justice in accordance with the laws of the land--or allow us to build a new nation for ourselves, dedicated to justice, freedom and liberty.
7. As long as we are not allowed to establish a state or territory of our own, we demand not only equal justice under the laws of the United States, but equal employment opportunities--NOW!
We do not believe that after 400 years of free or nearly free labor, sweat and blood, which has helped America become rich and powerful, so many thousands of black people should have to subsist on relief or charity or live in poor houses.
8. We want the government of the United States to exempt our people from ALL taxation as long as we are deprived of equal justice under the laws of the land.
9. We want equal education--but separate schools up to 16 for boys and 18 for girls on the condition that the girls be sent to women's colleges and universities. We want all black children educated, taught and trained by their own teachers. Under such schooling system we believe we will make a better nation of people. The United States government should provide, free, all necessary textbooks and equipment, schools and college buildings. The Muslim teachers shall be left free to teach and train their people in the way of righteousness, decency and self-respect.
10. We believe that intermarriage or race mixing should be prohibited. We want the religion of Islam taught without hindrance or suppression.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Objectives
:
-To promote spiritual principles within our membership and local communities.
-To educate youth and adults in the areas of personal responsibility, leadership potential, and community service.
-To ensure economic justice and civil rights in the areas of discrimination and affirmative action.
-To eradicate environmental classism and racism wherever it exists.
We at SCLC challenge all people of good will, of every persuasion, who believe in the principles espoused by Martin Luther King, Jr. to join us in our mission.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Founding Statement
-We affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of our purpose, the presupposition of our belief, and the manner of our action.
-Nonviolence, as it grows from the Judeo-Christian tradition, seeks a social order of justice permeated by love. Integration of human endeavor represents the crucial first step towards such a society.
-Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear. Love transcends hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice; hope ends despair. Faith reconciles doubt. Peace dominates war. Mutual regards cancel enmity. Justice for all overthrows injustice. The redemptive community supersedes immoral social systems.
-By appealing to conscience and standing on the moral nature of human existence, nonviolence nurtures the atmosphere in which reconciliation and justice become actual possibilities.
-Although each local group in this movement must diligently work out the clear meaning of this statement of purpose, each act or phase of our corporate effort must reflect a genuine spirit of love and good-will.
Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE)
CORE seeks to establish, in practice, the inalienable right for all people to determine their own destiny--to decide for themselves what social and political organizations can operate in their best interest and to do so without gratuitous and inhibiting influence from those whose interest is diametrically opposed to theirs. CORE feels that the most important fundamental freedom for all people is the right to govern themselves. Once this simple ideal is realized, other necessary freedoms will automatically follow.
In essence, CORE's aim is to bring about equality for all people regardless of race, creed, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic background. In pursuing its aim, CORE seeks to identify and expose acts of discrimination in the public and private sectors of society. When such an act is uncovered, CORE, with its many multi-service departments, goes into action.
Organization of African American Unity (OAAU)
Basic Unity Program
-Restoration: "In order to release ourselves from the oppression of our enslavers then, it is absolutely necessary for the Afro-American to restore communication with Africa."
-Reorientation: "We can learn much about Africa by reading informative books."
-Education: "The Organization of Afro-American Unity will devise original educational methods and procedures which will liberate the minds of our children. We will ... encourage qualified Afro-Americans to write and publish the textbooks needed to liberate our minds ... educating them [our children] at home."
-Economic Security: "After the Emancipation Proclamation ... it was realized that the Afro-American constituted the largest homogeneous ethnic group with a common origin and common group experience in the United States and, if allowed to exercise economic or political freedom, would in a short period of time own this country. We must establish a technician bank. We must do this so that the newly independent nations of Africa can turn to us who are their brothers for the technicians they will need now and in the future."
Black Panther Party For Self Defense
Every member of the Black Panther Party throughout this country of racist America must abide by these rules as functional members of this party. Central Committee members, Central Staffs, and Local Staffs, including all captains subordinated to either national, state, and local leadership of the Black Panther Party will enforce these rules. Length of suspension or other disciplinary action necessary for violation of these rules will depend on national decisions by national, state or state area, and local committees and staffs where said rule or rules of the Black Panther Party were violated. Every member of the party must know these verbatim by heart. And apply them daily. Each member must report any violation of these rules to their leadership or they are counter-revolutionary and are also subjected to suspension by the Black Panther Party. The rules are:
1. No party member can have narcotics or weed in his possession while doing party work.
2. Any part member found shooting narcotics will be expelled from this party.
3. No party member can be drunk while doing daily party work.
4. No party member will violate rules relating to office work, general meetings of the Black Panther Party, and meetings of the Black Panther Party anywhere.
5. No party member will use, point, or fire a weapon of any kind unnecessarily or accidentally at anyone.
6. No party member can join any other army force, other than the Black Liberation Army.
7. No party member can have a weapon in his possession while drunk or loaded off narcotics or weed.
8. No party member will commit any crimes against other party members or black people at all, and cannot steal or take from the people, not even a needle or a piece of thread.
9. When arrested Black Panther members will give only name, address, and will sign nothing. Legal first aid must be understood by all Party members.
10. The Ten-Point Program and platform of the Black Panther Party must be known and understood by each Party member.
11. Party Communications must be National and Local.
12. The 10-10-10-program should be known by all members and also understood by all members.
13. All Finance officers will operate under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance.
14. Each person will submit a report of daily work.
15. Each Sub-Section Leaders, Section Leaders, and Lieutenants, Captains must submit Daily reports of work.
16. All Panthers must learn to operate and service weapons correctly.
17. All Leaders who expel a member must submit this information to the Editor of the Newspaper, so that it will be published in the paper and will be known by all chapters and branches.
18. Political Education Classes are mandatory for general membership.
19. Only office personnel assigned to respective offices each day should be there. All others are to sell papers and do Political work out in the community, including Captain, Section Leaders, etc.
20. Communications--all chapters must submit weekly reports in writing to the National Headquarters.
21. All Branches must implement First Aid and/or Medical Cadres.
22. All Chapters, Branches, and components of the Black Panther Party must submit a monthly Financial Report to the Ministry of Finance, and also the Central Committee.
23. Everyone in a leadership position must read no less than two hours per day to keep abreast of the changing political situation.
24. No chapter or branch shall accept grants, poverty funds, money or any other aid from any government agency without contacting the National Headquarters.
25. All chapters must adhere to the policy and the ideology laid down by the Central Committee of the Black Panther Party.
26. All Branches must submit weekly reports in writing to their respective Chapters.
8 Points of Attention
1. Speak politely.
2. Pay fairly for what you buy.
3. Return everything you borrow.
4. Pay for anything you damage.
5. Do not hit or swear at people.
6. Do not damage property or crops of the poor, oppressed masses.
7. Do not take liberties with women.
8. If we ever have to take captives do not ill-treat them.
3 Main Rules of Discipline
-Obey orders in all actions.
-Do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the poor and oppressed masses.
-Turn in everything captured from the attacking enemy.
10 Point Program
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 Jewish 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.
Principles:
-That we are anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti racist, and anti sexist.
-That we must of necessity strive for the abolishment of these systems and for the institution of Socialistic relationships in which Black people have total and absolute control over their own destiny as a people.
-That in order to abolish our systems of oppression, we must utilize the science of class struggle, develop this science as it relates to our unique national condition.
The Black/New Afrikan Creed
1. I believe in the spirituality, humanity and genius of Black People, and in our new pursuit of these values.
2. I believe in the family and the community, and in the community as a family, and i will work to make this concept live.
3. I believe in the community as more important than the individual.
4. I believe in constant struggle for freedom, to end oppression and build a better world. I believe in collective struggle: in fashioning victory in concert with my Brothers and Sisters.
5. I believe that the fundamental reason our oppression continues is that We, as people, lack the power to control Our lives.
6. I believe that the fundamental way to gain that power, and end oppression, is to build a sovereign Black nation.
7. I believe that all the land in America, upon which We have lived for a long time, which We have worked and build upon, and which We have fought to stay on, is land that belongs to Us as a people.
8. I believe in the Malcolm X Doctrine: that We must organize upon this land, and hold a plebiscite, to tell the world by a vote that We are free and Our land independent, and that, after the vote, We must stand ready to defend Ourselves, establishing the nation beyond contradiction.]
9. Therefore, i pledge to struggle without cease, until We have won sovereignty. I pledge to struggle without fail until We have built a better condition than man has yet known.
10. I will give my life, if that is necessary. I will give my time, my mind, my strength and my wealth because this IS necessary.
11. I will follow my chosen leaders and help them.
12. I will love my Brothers and Sisters as myself.
13. I will steal nothing from a Brother or Sister, cheat no Brother or Sister, misuse no Brother or Sister, inform on no Brother or Sister and spread no gossip.
14. I will keep myself clean in body, dress and speech, knowing that i am a light set on a hill, a true representative of what We are building.
15. I will be patient and uplifting with the deaf, dumb and blind, and i will seek by word and deed to heal the Black family, to bring into the Movement and into the Community mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters left by the wayside.
New Afrikan Declaration Of Independence
We, New Afrikan people in America, in consequence of arriving
at a knowledge of ourselves as a people with dignity, long deprived
of that knowledge; as a consequence of revolting with every decimal of our collective and individual beings against the oppression
that for three hundred years has destroyed and broken and warped
the bodies and minds and spirits of our people in America; in
consequence of our raging desire to be free of this oppression, to
destroy this oppression wherever it assaults humankind in the world;
and in consequence of our inextinguishable determination to go a
different way, to build a new and better world, do hereby declare ourselves forever free and independent of the jurisdiction of the
United Stated of America and the obligations which that country’s
unilateral decision to make our ancestors and ourselves paper-
citizens placed on us.
We claim no rights from the United States of America, other
than those rights belonging to human beings anywhere in the world,
and these include the right to damages/reparations due Us for the
grievous injuries sustained by Our ancestors and Ourselves by reason of United States lawlessness.
Ours is a revolution against oppression - Our own oppression
and that of all people in the world. And it is a revolution for a better life, a better station for all, and a surer harmony with the forces
of life in the Universe. We therefore see these as the aims of our
revolution:
-To free black people in America from oppression;
-To support and wage the world revolution until all people everywhere are so free;
-To build a new Society that is better than what We now
know and as perfect as We can make it;
-To assure all people in the New Society maximum opportunity and equal access to that maximum;
-To promote industriousness, responsibility, scholarship, and
service;
-To create conditions in which the freedom of religion
abounds and one’s pursuit of God and/or the destiny, place
and purpose of humankind in the Universe will be without
hindrance;
-To build an independent New Afrikan nation in which no
sect or religious creed subverts or impedes the building of
the New Society, the new state government, or the achievement of the aims of our revolution as set forth in this Declaration;
-To end exploitation of human beings by each other and end
environmentally unsustainable practices by humans;
-To assure equality of rights for the sexes;
-To end color and class discrimination, while not abolishing
salubrious diversity, and to promote self-respect and mutual
understanding among all people in the society;
-To protect and promote the personal dignity and integrity of
the individual and his or her natural rights;
-To place the major means of production and trade in the
trust of the state to assure the benefits of this earth and our
genius and labor to society and all its members; and,
-To encourage and reward the individual for hard work and
initiative, and for insight and devotion to our revolution.
In mutual trust and great expectation, We, the undersigned, for ourselves and for those who look to Us but are unable personally to fix their signatures hereto, do join in this solemn Declaration of Independence; and to support this Declaration and assure the success of our revolution, We pledge, without reservation, ourselves, our talents, and all our worldly goods.
African people Socialist Party (The Uhuru Movement)
1. We want peace, dignity, and the right to build a prosperous life through our own labor and in our own interests.
We believe that the U.S. North American government and society were founded on the genocide of Native people, the theft of their land, and the forcible dispersal, enslavement, and colonization of millions of African people. We believe that the present condition of existence for African people within current U.S. borders is colonialism, a condition of existence where a whole people is oppressively dominated by a foreign and alien state power for the purpose of economic exploitation and political advantage. We believe further that this colonial domination is the primary basis of the problems of African people within the U.S. and that we shall know neither peace, prosperity, nor human dignity until this colonialist domination is overthrown and the power over our lives rests in our own hands.
2. We want the rights to economic development and creative and productive employment which promote the needs and well-being of our entire people.
We believe that colonialism is a blood-sucking system which causes all economic development to benefit the colonialist ruling class state and society at the expense of our colonized people. We also believe that the massive, habitual unemployment and underemployment of our people benefit the U.S. colonialist ruling class and capitalist system and that a struggle by African people for jobs must be combined with a struggle for socialism and independent economic development.
3. We want an end to all local, state, federal, and other taxation of black people by the U.S. government and any of its agencies.
We believe that such taxation is illegitimate, that black people have no real or meaningful authority within the U.S. government, and that U.S. taxation of African people is therefore taxation without representation. We believe that in the absence of such real or meaningful authority we have nothing to say about how such monies are used, and that therefore the taxes taken from black people are often used against us and other oppressed and exploited peoples within the U.S. and around the world.
We believe that the use of taxes extracted from the African population to build more prisons to stuff us in and to hire more police to kill us with is criminal, as is the use of these taxes to hire soldiers to intimidate and plunder peoples oppressed by this same system internationally. We also believe African people must refuse to pay taxes to a government which uses such taxes to prop up and support brutal dictators around the world who keep their own peoples oppressed and living in squalor in order to maintain U.S. and Western imperialist economic and political domination.
4. We want the right to free speech and political association, a guarantee of the right to work for the betterment and emancipation of black people without fear of political imprisonment and the loss of life, limb, and livelihood.
We believe that the liberation of African people throughout the world will come primarily as a result of our own efforts. We believe it is our duty to our mothers and fathers, our children and ourselves, to organize ourselves to overcome our oppression. We believe that the rights to organize and speak out against our oppression are basic human rights and that the U.S. government must discontinue its attempts to smash these rights and must discontinue criminal attacks on those African patriots who work for the betterment and emancipation of our people.
5. We want the right to international political and economic association with Africans and all other peoples anywhere on the face of the Earth.
We believe that all black people are African people and are a part of a single national entity. We believe that the genuine freedom of African people everywhere is irreversibly linked to the creation of an independent, united, and socialist Africa. We believe the struggle of African people within the U.S. represents the U.S. front of the worldwide movement of African people for African liberation, political independence, and socialist democracy. We believe that the worldwide struggle for African liberation is in unity with the struggles being waged by the majority of the peoples of the world to end the oppression of nations by nations and to create a new world, within which the toiling masses will end the system of workers and bosses and slaves and masters and will own and benefit from the means and products of our labor and will have political authority over our own lives. We believe that the natural, objective friends of our struggle for African liberation, independence, and socialist democracy are all the toiling masses of the world — the people of the Middle East, the Asian and Latin American peasants and workers, the democratic forces throughout Eastern and Western Europe and the U.S., and the truly socialist states of the world, and that we must therefore have the absolute right to free political and economic international association.
6. We want the immediate and unconditional release of all black people who are presently locked down in U.S. prisons.
We believe that all the African men and women who are locked down in the U.S. concentration camps commonly known as prisons are there due to decisions, laws, and circumstances which were created by aliens and foreigners for their own benefit and as a means of genocidal colonialist control. We believe that these decisions, laws, and circumstances were created and are enforced without our consent and are therefore illegitimate. We believe that the African men and women who are locked down in these concentration camps are victims of U.S. colonialist ruling class justice which maintains our enslavement and terrorizes our people, and that they should therefore be released immediately to the just representatives of our struggle for liberation, independence, and socialist democracy.
7. We want complete amnesty for all African political prisoners and prisoners of war from U.S. prisons or their immediate release to any friendly country which will accept them and give them political asylum.
We believe that U.S. prisons are also used as the illegitimate tool for torturing, murdering, and holding captive those courageous daughters and sons of Africa who through their patriotic deeds or spoken or written words in support of the cause of our liberation have become political prisoners and prisoners of war. We believe, along with the majority of the peoples of the world, that it is the duty of the colonized and enslaved to resist slavery and colonialism and to fight for socialism and those who do so are patriots and heroines and heroes and should be held in the highest esteem.
8. We want the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. police from our oppressed and exploited communities.
We believe that the various U.S. police agencies which occupy our communities are arms of the U.S. colonialist state which is responsible for keeping our people enslaved and terrorized. We believe that the U.S. police agencies do not serve us, but instead represent the first line of U.S. defense against the just struggle of our people for peace, dignity, and socialist democracy. Therefore, we believe the U.S. police is an illegitimate standing army, a colonial army in the African community and must withdraw immediately from our community, to be replaced by our liberation forces whose struggles in defense of our community and against our oppression demonstrate their loyalty to our community and their willingness to serve in its interest.
9. We want an end to the political and social oppression and economic exploitation of African women.
We believe in the absolute, unequivocal, political, social, and economic equality of African women and men. We believe that a fundamental test of the progressive or revolutionary character of any organization, party, movement, or society is its commitment, confirmed in practice, to the destruction of the special oppression of women and the elevation of women to the rightful place as equal partners and leaders in the forward motion of the development of human society and as leaders, makers, and shapers of human history.
10. We want the right to build an African People's Liberation Army.
We believe that true freedom, although often taken away, cannot be given to a people. We believe that African people are our own liberators, and that we have a right and obligation to build an African People’s Liberation Army to defend our political gains, our freedom fighters and communities, and to win our actual freedom from our oppressive colonial slave masters. We believe that neither meaningful freedom, nor guaranteed political and social gains, nor genuine liberation are possible without the assuring existence of an African People’s Liberation Army. We believe further that the only legitimate wars are wars of national liberation, and wars to oppose imperialist aggression, and that therefore, the only legitimate military forces for black people to serve with are military forces which defend liberty and repel imperialist aggression. Such a force would be the African People’s Liberation Army.
11. We want the U.S. and the international European ruling class and states to pay Africa and African people for the centuries of genocide, oppression, and enslavement of our people.
We believe that U.S. and European civilization were born from, and are presently maintained by, the horrendous theft of human and material resources from Africa and its people. We also believe that this theft of human and material resources is responsible for the present underpopulation and underdevelopment of Africa and her people and the political servitude, material impoverishment, and cultural discontinuity and disintegration of African people throughout the world. We believe that Africa and African people are due reparations, just economic compensation, billions of dollars which must be paid to the Organization of African Unity or any other legitimate international organization of African people, for equitable distribution for the development of Africa. We also believe that reparations must be distributed to the various independent African states dispersed throughout the world, and to the legitimate representatives of African people forcibly dispersed throughout the world who have not yet won liberation.
12. We want an end to the vicious, self-serving U.S. and Western European political, economic, and military interference in the affairs of Africa and African people throughout the world.
We believe that African people in Africa and elsewhere have a right and responsibility to solve our own problems, free from the unwanted, and self-serving interference of U.S. and Western imperialists. We believe that the U.S. and Western imperialist interference in the affairs of our people is designed to maintain the continuation of the theft of our human and material resources and our oppression and impoverishment.
We believe that African people must be free to organize and struggle for an end to colonialism and neo-colonialism without interference from U.S. and Western imperialism which supports neo-colonialism and colonialism in Africa, the U.S. and elsewhere, and which has deposed progressive and revolutionary African leaders and replaced them with neo-colonialist stooges.
13. We want an end to U.S. colonial domination of African people within the U.S.
We believe that the primary struggle of African people within the U.S. during this period is to throw off the alien U.S. colonial domination which is responsible for virtually every hardship imposed on black people by this government that is identifiable as a “black problem.”
We believe that our problems with education — from our inability to control our own schools and determine the education of our own children, to the inferior and racist quality of the education we do receive — are caused by colonialism.
We believe that our problems with health care — from the absence of black controlled and operated health clinics and institutions throughout our communities to the hazardous health conditions imposed on us by poverty and callous government decisions — are caused by colonialism.
We believe that our problems with housing — from the unavailability of decent and adequate housing for the majority of our people, to the dilapidated and vermin-infested housing we are forced to live in — are caused by colonialism.
We believe that our problems with food and clothing — from the terrible quality and quantity which are imposed on us by blood-sucking merchants, to our inability to produce and distribute them for and among ourselves — are caused by colonialism, where our whole people is dominated and oppressed by a foreign and alien state power for the purpose of economic exploitation and political advantage.
14. We want the total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African socialist government.
We believe that “the total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African socialist government must be the primary objective of all Black revolutionaries throughout the world. It is an objective which, when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and people of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution, and the onward progress toward communism, under which every society is ordered on the principle of — from each according to his (her) ability, to each according to his (her) needs.” — Kwame Nkrumah
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