Join the Panther Solidarity Organization! (2021)

The Panther Solidarity Organization Belongs To The People

The Panther Solidarity Organization (PSO) is a democratic mass organization that operates under the leadership of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party (RIBPP). It is an organization composed of the people to serve the people. It belongs to the oppressed communities, not to the wealthy and privileged like the established political parties and so-called charity organizations. The purpose of the PSO is to empower the people to bring about real change to their own communities, with the RIBPP’s 10 Point Program as a guiding tool.

The people have been taught to vest their belief and trust in the established political and economic system, and have seen only the same cycles of the communities and their members being drained of their wealth and resources from one generation to the next.

These material losses are pocketed by a tiny few who are enriched at the expense of the many, and divide and play us against each other in a million ways, while these predators who live at all our expense are glorified as heroes to emulate. Our communities, families, and quality of life have only suffered as a result.

Political power has always been monopolized by the wealthy to benefit only the wealthy, while the working people and poor have been left out in the cold. They will never liberate us! We must liberate ourselves!

The PSO is an organization of the people through which we can achieve this. It relies on legal and aboveground work, with an emphasis on Serve the People (STP) Programs. Collectives should be based wherever there are poor and oppressed people, especially the urban centers and surrounding oppressed communities. Its focus is also on the rural poverty pockets like Appalachia.

Creating and Joining PSO Collectives

PSO collectives can be created anywhere in the world (in any community—Black, Brown, or white—or place of confinement). A minimum of three people are required in a community or place of confinement to create a new PSO collective.

Collectives must have unity with the RIBPP’s 10 Point Program, and their members must not be members or agents of, nor otherwise work for, the government.

Collectives should create basic ground rules such as: all members will uphold the RIBPP’s 10 Point Program, carry out decisions of the collective, pay dues, and have the right to speak, vote, elect, and be elected, and the right to criticize and replace elected leaders; and will not gossip nor be divisive of the unity of the organization nor use intoxicants nor be intoxicated while performing organizational work.

The PSO is compartmentalized according to the community it is organizing in: PSO collectives based in Black communities are PSO-BP, in white communities they are PSO-WP, and in Brown communities they are PSO-BrP (‘Brown’ includes all peoples who are neither Black nor white). Although the organization is compartmentalized in this way at the community level, it is one organization to be linked together intercommunally, allowing the communities to mutually support each other and share information, resources, experience, and personnel in their work, and thereby create liberated base areas of cultural, social, and political revolution in the context of building a worldwide united front against capitalist-imperialism, racism and repression.

Collectives should act and organize according to their local conditions while building intercommunal unity and structure.

The aim of the PSO is to keep growing and spreading to more communities and link them together, rooting itself in the masses and winning them to support and identify with and as Panthers.

As soon as practical, new PSO collectives should hold elections to select qualified people for secretary positions, which are modeled after the RIBPP’s ministries. There should also be a General Secretary and a Membership Coordinator, which are elected positions as well.

There are nine secretary positions. They are:

Culture
Defense
Education
Finance
Health and Welfare
Human Rights
Information
Justice
Labor

More information on the Secretary positions can be found in the article titled, “The Political Division of Labor: What are the Roles and Functions of the Party’s Ministries,” http://rashidmod.com/?p=2834 (This article was written before the split and reconstitution of the NABPP into the RIBPP; readers should therefore substitute RIBPP for references to the NABPP in the article).

Committees should be created within each secretariat through which the collective can make decisions and perform its work collectively and democratically.

An intercommunal Secretariat which is elected by the General Secretaries of the local collectives, should operate to help facilitate sharing resources, communications, and labor between the local collectives, develop new collectives, or bring in new members. It should not in any way impose criteria on people to create, join or validate the local PSO collectives.

PSO and RIBPP Relationship

The relationship between the PSO and RIBPP is a symbiotic one. One supports, develops and sustains the other. The RIBPP provides political, strategic, and ideological guidance and support to the PSO by providing political education and participating in the PSO’s STP programs, and democratic activities, debates, and discussions.

The RIBPP also conducts social investigations to determine the conditions, needs, and interests of the people, through engaging with the PSO collectives and working alongside the people in the communities and places of confinement.

Unlike the PSO, people cannot freely join and create RIBPP collectives. One can only be recruited into the RIBPP by RIBPP members based upon one’s proven commitment to serving the people and understanding of the RIBPP’s ideological and political line and strategy.

The PSO is the main organization through which the RIBPP serves and provides political education to the people and recruits new Party members. The PSO however is an autonomous organization, and is not bound to accept the Party opinions.

No PSO collective or leadership body may have more than 1/3 RIBPP membership, and RIBPP members have no more decision-making power than any other PSO member. They have one vote and are not required to submit to nor defer their opinions to the majority.

The RIBPP reserves the right to withdraw its members, sponsorship, and support from any PSO collective, and to publicize its decision, should any such collective develop rules that conflict with the Party’s rules or what the RIBPP believes is appropriate for the mass level organization.

How to Get Involved

Notify the PSO intercommunal organization of the creation of new PSO collective and be added to the network, or for more information contact:

Join.PSO@RIBPP.org

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!

The Ten Point Program and Platform – Revolutionary Intercommunal BPP

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 Amerikan 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 Amerikan 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 ourselves 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.

All members and potential members must study and memorize our Ten Point Program and Platform.