Black panthers visit campus: speak of ten-point program

Black panthers visit campus: speak of ten-point program

Black Panther party, NAACP

Account of visit made by Black Panthers

Maureen Morley

Quad Angles

West Chester University of Pennsylvania

November 18, 1969

Marlene Miller

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https://digital.klnpa.org/digital/collection/wcnp01/id/13833

Newspaper Article

English

Black Panthers visit campus; speak of ten-point program By MAUREEN MORLEY and ED ISSELMANN The Black Panthers discussion with guest speaker Edgie Schell was held Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 12, in the Lawrence Center Commuter Lounge. Schell was sponsored by NAACP, Pi Lambda Phi, SDS, and The New University Conference of West Chester State College. The audience, of well over 300, was given a ten-point program of the Black Panthers. The following are some of the points that were made. Want Freedom The Black Panthers want the power to determine the destiny of the Black people. This they consider freedom. They also strive for full employment for their people, with a gauranteed Income. If corporations can't do this, then they believe that the power should be changed to the community. Decent housing is asked for. The slum homes, states Schell, could be taken over by the community to improve it rather than to let them remain slums. Reparations The speaker wants reparations for Blacks because of the White theft of the Black man and bis labors, similar to the German reparations made to Israel for Jewish atrocities. Education and Exemption The Panthers desire better education of people and the teaching of true history and the Blacks' role in present day society. Not just George Washington Carver should be spoken about, but Nat Turner and other such freedom fighters. Their idea is to exempt the Black man from military service because he shouldn't be made to protect the "racist Government" of the United States. Also, they have a right, he explained, to be freed from Federal prisons and Jails because they haven't received a fair trial. Many on trial are convicted by a Black and White middle-class jury. Instead, the Idea Is to try them by their peer groups Instead of bourgeois Black or the middle ranking Whites. This is due to the fact that a jury comprised of the same kind of people as the defendent would be better qualified to judge his crime because they would better understand his predicament. Police Brutality Schell called for an immediate end to police brutality and Black killings. All Blacks, he stated, should arm themselves for self-defense under the second amendment, the right to bear arms. In his last point, this speaker quoted the segment of the Declaration of Independence which expresses the right of the people to alter or abolish the government when it doesn't meet the needs and desires of the people It governs. They want land, "bread," education and peace. The purpose of the Panthers was stated as that of freeing all people from all forms of slavery. Let the people be their own determining factor, quoted the speaker - white slaves as well as Black. One War The Vietnamese, as the Blacks, should be able to determine for themselves their future, but neither war Is being waged this way, admits the Panther spokesman. It is rather controlled by the power structure In America. Both are wars of self-determination and should be considered one war not two separate ones. These comments typified the idea of the Blarv rentiers and Edgie Schell was the one to do It.

Newspaper Article