In Search of the Black Panther Party

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. The 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.

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"Researchers have uncovered more useful information on the Panthers in the past ten years than in the preceding thirty. This wide-ranging collection contains some of the finest examples of today's exciting new scholarship. It tops the list of required reading for those seeking to make up for lost time."--William L. Van Deburg, author of New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975 "Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams have assembled a superb, timely, and significant anthology that historicizes one of the most controversial groups of the 1960s. Wide-ranging in scope, provocative, and deeply insightful, In Search of the Black Panther Party is a major contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Black Panthers and the wider Black Power era."--Peniel E. Joseph, author of Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America

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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

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