The Black Panther Party's Ten Point Program Analysis

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The readings for the week of April 12th were The Black Panther Party’s Ten Point Program a primary source and and Robyn Spencer’s Merely One Link in the Worldwide Revolution. The Black Panther Party’s Ten Point Program is a list of demands that ways of operations for the party. The second reading links the Black Freedom Struggle to international events such as the decolonization of African countries and the Cold War. Throughout the texts and our in-class discussion we see the themes of communism, internationalism, racial capitalism and the human rights, civil rights struggle and their relationship with the Black Freedom Movement.
The Black Panther Party’s Ten Point Program was a radical list that exemplified the physical needs and philosophical …show more content…

Black people should have rights because they are respectable human beings, not animals. Secondly, the party appeals to the internationalist struggle for civil and human rights, inside and outside of the United States. The sixth point of the program demonstrates the internationalist nature of the struggle. The Party demands that all black men be exempt from military service because they should not be forced to defend a country that does not respect or protect their own civil rights. Moreover, they should not be forced to fight against other persons of color who are a victim of the US’s racist government. They should not infringe on the human rights of global citizens. This notion emphasizes the domestic nature of civil rights and its connection between global human rights. By including that aspect, the party appeals to internationalism. While the United States is promoting capitalism across the world, there still remains an unpaid debt to people of color who were exploited by the capitalist system. The duality of what is promoted abroad and what exists domestically is apparent in point of the of the program, “We Want An End To The Robbery / By The Capitalists Of Our Black Community.” The Ten Point Program challenges the Mad Men era of unquestioned white supremacy. Similar themes of internationalism apparent in Robyn Spencer’s Merely One Link in the World-Wide …show more content…

It became apparent of the impact of the Black Civil Rights Movement on Cold War politics and ideologies. The US believed that the problem of racial discrimination should be viewed in a global context of the struggle between freedom and tyranny. In addition, they added that, “racial discrimination furnishes the grist for the Communist propaganda mills” (215). The racial discrimination in the United States furnishes the communist ideology among the young black radicals. The capitalist system in the US has taken advantage, exploited and mistreated black people. Therefore, many took a linking towards communism due to its lack of racial discrimination and inequality. The contradiction between what the United States promoted overseas with the intention to sway the world towards capitalism and the sentiment became apparent as black radicals began to focus on an internationalist perspective. Black activists realized the international stage they had and began to utilize it to advance the civil rights of people of color in the United States. In Martin Luther King’s letter from Birmingham Jail, he writes that Black Americans “creep at a horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at the lunch counter”, while “African nations move “with Jet like speed towards independence”. James Lawson states that that, “all Africa will be free before the American Negro

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