In Search of the Black Panther Party

by Lazerow, Jama; Williams, Yohuru

• ISBN13: 9780822338901
• ISBN10: 0822338904
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-30
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

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 revolutionary violence, radical ideology, urban politics, popular culture, and the media, as well as their present-day legacy. 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 accessed 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 a 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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Editors'

Note

Introduction: The Black Panthers and Historical Scholarship: Why Now?

The Panthers through the Historian's Lens

The Black Panther Party and the Long Civil Rights Era

The Panthers as American Revolutionaries

Introductory Comment: The Panthers and the Question of Violence

In the Shadow of the Gun: The Black Panther Party, the Ninth Amendment, and Discourses of Self-Defense

From the Bottom Up and the Top Down: Personal Politics and the Black Panthers

Introductory Comment: The Panthers and Local History

"A Rebel All His Life": The Unexpected Story of Frank "Parky" Grace

WACing Off: Gossip, Sex, Race, and Politics in the World of FBI Special Case Agent Williams A. Cohendet

Coalition Politics: The Panthers as a "Revolutionary Vanguard" Introductory Comment: White Tigers, Brown Berets, Black Panthers, Oh My!

Invisible Cages: Racialized Politics and the Alliance between the Panthers and the Peace and Freedom Party

Leading the Vanguard: White New Leftists School and Panthers on Black Revolution

Brown Power to Brown People: Radical Ethnic Nationalism, the Black Panthers, and Latino Radicalism, 1967-1973

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

The Arm(ing) of the Vanguard, Signify(ing), and Performing the Revolution: The Black Panther Party and Pedagogical Strategies for Interpreting a Revolutionary Life

Media Culture and the Public Memory of the Black Panther Party

Contributors

Index

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