"This pamphlet is an attempt to provide you with the basic working documents of the Black Panther Party. These basic documents are the foundation from which all the theory and practice that flowed from the Black Panther Party outward was produced. It is impossible to receive a clear and undistorted picture of what the Black Panther Party was truly about without an understanding of the politics that guided it ...This pamphlet, though not all inclusive, will lay open under one cover, the basic tenets of the Black Panther Party and ask you to read them and try and understand them. These documents, on the most part, were written during the years 1966 through 1971"--'By way of introduction.'