Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Black Panthers and their Legacy

by Cleaver,Kathleen

• ISBN13: 9780415927840
• ISBN10: 0415927846
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-03-20
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

While the story of history may be most often defined through its winners, long forgotten, "defeated" movements and their ideals sometimes reemerge with renewed popularity, offering perhaps a better glimpse into society's future. So argues this unique collection, which gathers reflections by scholars and activists that reconsider the historical impact of the Black Panther Party (BPP)-the most significant revolutionary organization in the US in the later 20th century. Compared with more entrenched organizations like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) or the NAACP, the 14-year existence of the Black Panther Party seems brief indeed. Yet the BBP gave organizational expression to a tendency in the revolutionary movement that long predated it-the idea that the entire system is corrupt and needs to be reconstructed. Dozens of groups dedicated to revolutionary change appeared in the US in the 1960s, but only the BPP was able to develop a mass following and appeal to a broad constituency. These articles offera fresh and realistic recounting of the Party's tumultuous history and its reverberations through modern politics, including Chicano movements, international labor movements, and the campaign to free Mumia Abu Jumal. Counterbalancing hypercritical attacks and fawning glorifications, this anthology offers a more reasoned perspective and features previously silenced voices.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
George Katsiaficas
Part One: Revisiting the Liberation Struggle	1	(68)
Repression Breeds Resistance: The Black Liberation Army and the Radical Legacy of the Black Panther Party	3	(17)
Akinyele Omowale Umoja
Global Solidarity: The Black Panther Party in the International Arena	20	(20)
Michael L. Clemons
Charles E. Jones
A Life in the Party: An Historical and Retrospective Examination of the Projections and Legacies of the Black Panther Party	40	(11)
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mobilizing for Mumia Abu-Jamal in Paris	51	(18)
Kathleen Neal Cleaver
Part Two: Understanding the Fight for Freedom	69	(70)
Every Nation Struggling to Be Free Has a Right to Struggle, a Duty to Struggle	71	(7)
Geronimo Ji Jaga
``To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy'': The FBI's Secret War against the Black Panther Party	78	(40)
Ward Churchill
The Split in the Party	118	(5)
Donald Cox
Women, Power, and Revolution	123	(5)
Kathleen Neal Cleaver
Black Fighting Formations: Their Strengths, Weaknesses, and Potentialities	128	(11)
Russell Shoats
Part Three: Envisioning the Imagination of the Movement	139	(56)
Organization and Movement: The Case of the Black Panther Party and the Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention of 1970	141	(15)
George Katsiaficas
The Influences of the Black Panther Party (USA) on the Vanguard Party of the Bahamas, 1972-1987	156	(8)
John T. McCartney
Cuba, the Black Panther Party, and the U.S. Black Movement in the 1960s: Issues of Security	164	(11)
Ruth Reitan
``Revolutionary Art Is a Tool for Liberation'': Emory Douglas and Protest Aesthetics at the Black Panther	175	(13)
Erika Doss
White Radicals, Black Panthers, and a Sense of Fulfillment	188	(7)
Stew Albert
Part Four: Continuing the Resistance	195	(42)
Shadow of a Clue	197	(11)
Errol Anthony Henderson
Rediscovering the Black Panther Party	208	(4)
Victor Wallis
Tracking Down the Empirical Legacy of the Black Panther Party; or, Notes on the Perils of Pursuing the Panthers	212	(15)
Claudia Dahlerus
Christian A. Davenport
Remembering King's Assassination	227	(2)
Kathleen Neal Cleaver
Lockdown at Angola: The Case of the Angola 3	229	(8)
Scott Fleming
Notes	237	(48)
Appendices	285	(16)
About the Authors	301	(4)
Index	305