In search of the Black Panther Party : new perspectives on a revolutionary movement

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In search of the Black Panther Party : new perspectives on a revolutionary movement

Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams, editors

Duke University Press, 2006

  • : pbk

Available at  / 6 libraries

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Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Controversy swirled around the Black Panthers from the moment the revolutionary black nationalist Party was founded in Oakland, California, in 1966. Since that time, the group that J. Edgar Hoover called "the single greatest threat to the nation's internal security" has been celebrated and denigrated, deified and vilified. Rarely, though, has it received the sort of nuanced analysis offered in this rich interdisciplinary collection. Historians, along with scholars in the fields of political science, English, sociology, and criminal justice, examine the Panthers and their present-day legacy with regard to revolutionary violence, radical ideology, urban politics, popular culture, and the media. The essays consider the Panthers as distinctly American revolutionaries, as the products of specific local conditions, and as parts of other movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. One contributor evaluates the legal basis of the Panthers' revolutionary struggle, explaining how they utilized and critiqued the language of the Constitution. Others explore the roles of individuals, looking at a one-time Panther imprisoned for a murder he did not commit and an FBI agent who monitored the activities of the Panthers' Oakland branch. Contributors assess the Panthers' relations with Students for a Democratic Society, the Young Lords, the Brown Berets, and the Peace and Freedom Party. They discuss the Party's use of revolutionary aesthetics, and they show how the Panthers manipulated and were manipulated by the media. Illuminating some of the complexities involved in placing the Panthers in historical context, this collection demonstrates that the scholarly search for the Black Panthers has only just begun. Contributors. Bridgette Baldwin, Davarian L. Baldwin, David Barber, Rod Bush, James T. Campbell, Tim Lake, Jama Lazerow, Edward P. Morgan, Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Roz Payne, Robert O. Self, Yohuru Williams, Joel Wilson

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix Editors' Note xi Introduction: The Black Panthers and Historical Scholarship: Why Now? / Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams 1 Part I. The Panthers through the Historian's Lens The Black Panther Party and the Long Civil Rights Era / Robert O. Self 15 Part II. The Panthers as American Revolutionaries Introductory Comment: The Panthers and the Question of Violence / Rod Bush 59 In the Shadow of the Gun: The Black Panther Party, the Ninth Amendment, and Discourses of Self-Defense / Bridgette Baldwin 67 Part III. From the Bottom Up and the Top Down: Personal Politics and the Black Panthers Introductory Comment: The Panthers and Local History / James T. Campbell 97 "A Rebel All His Life": The Unexpected Story of Frank "Parky" Grace / Jama Lazerow 104 WACing Off: Gossip, Sex, Race, and Politics in the World of FBI Special Case Agent Williams A. Cohendet / Roz Payne 158 Part IV. Coalition Politics: The Panthers as a "Revolutionary Vanguard" Introductory Comment: White Tigers, Brown Berets, Black Panthers, Oh My! / Yohuru Williams 183 Invisible Cages: Racialized Politics and the Alliance between the Panthers and the Peace and Freedom Party / Joel Wilson 191 Leading the Vanguard: White New Leftists School and Panthers on Black Revolution / David Barber 223 Brown Power to Brown People: Radical Ethnic Nationalism, the Black Panthers, and Latino Radicalism, 1967-1973 / Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar 252 Part V. Revolutionary Politics: The Black Panthers in the American Imagination Introductory Comment: "Culture Is a Weapon in Our Struggle for Liberation": The Black Panther Party and the Cultural Politics of Decolonization / Davarian L. Baldwin 289 The Arm(ing) of the Vanguard, Signify(ing), and Performing the Revolution: The Black Panther Party and Pedagogical Strategies for Interpreting a Revolutionary Life / Tim Lake 306 Media Culture and the Public Memory of the Black Panther Party / Edward P. Morgan 324 Contributors 375 Index 377

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