In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement

Published by Duke University Press 2006

In Search of the Black Panther Party

New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement

Edited by: Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams
With contributions by: Robert O. Self and Rod Bush

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822388326

Overview
Contents

About this book

Interdisciplinary essays reevaluate the Black Panthers and their legacy in relation to revolutionary violence, radical ideology, urban politics, popular culture, and the media.

Author / Editor information

Jama Lazerow is Professor of History at Wheelock College. He is the author of Religion and the Working Class in Antebellum America.

Yohuru Williams is Associate Professor of History and Director of Black Studies at Fairfield University. He is the author of Black Politics/White Power: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Black Panthers in New Haven.

Reviews

“Collectively, the essays raise important questions about the Panthers that demonstrate the organization’s complexity, and should stimulate an energetic scholarly discussion and reevaluation of the Panthers’ historical significance. . . . Highly Recommended.” - M. Cachun, Choice

“These diverse and insightful essays, drawn from many untapped sources, collectively highlight the importance of local studies in complicating historians’ understandings of the BPP, which, as the authors point out, must be a key element in creating a historically rich narrative about this era.” - Beth Slutsky, Journal of American Ethnic History

“Recent scholarship is well represented, resulting in a collection of essays that treat their subject in a scholarly, yet sensitive manner. . . . Lazerow, Williams, and the contributing authors are to be commended for producing a collection of essays that compels scholars to reexamine the Black Panthers and their true impact on U. S. and African American history.” - Oscar Williams, Journal of African American History

"Taken as a whole, the essays offer a critical evaluation of the BPP and do not hesitate to challenge the shibboleths and assumptions that heretofore have dominated scholarship on the Panthers. . . . [A]n important contribution. . . ." - Gregg L. Michel, Journal of American History

"In Search of the Black Panther Party makes a valuable contribution to the field of Panther historiography." - Paul Alkebulan, The Historian

“[In Search of the Black Panther Party] avoids a weakness common to collected conference papers, as each of the chapters refers to the other essays and flows clearly into the next piece. Although the general outline of the birth, rise, and collapse of the Panthers is common knowledge, this volume shows the complexity and debatable heritage of the group.” - Thomas J. Noer, Histoire sociale/Social History

“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

“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

“[In Search of the Black Panther Party] avoids a weakness common to collected conference papers, as each of the chapters refers to the other essays and flows clearly into the next piece. Although the general outline of the birth, rise, and collapse of the Panthers is common knowledge, this volume shows the complexity and debatable heritage of the group.”

-- Thomas J. Noer Social History

“Collectively, the essays raise important questions about the Panthers that demonstrate the organization’s complexity, and should stimulate an energetic scholarly discussion and reevaluation of the Panthers’ historical significance. . . . Highly Recommended.”

-- M. Cachun Choice

“Recent scholarship is well represented, resulting in a collection of essays that treat their subject in a scholarly, yet sensitive manner. . . . Lazerow, Williams, and the contributing authors are to be commended for producing a collection of essays that compels scholars to reexamine the Black Panthers and their true impact on U. S. and African American history.”

-- Oscar Williams Journal of African American History

“These diverse and insightful essays, drawn from many untapped sources, collectively highlight the importance of local studies in complicating historians’ understandings of the BPP, which, as the authors point out, must be a key element in creating a historically rich narrative about this era.”

-- Beth Slutsky Journal of American Ethnic History

"In Search of the Black Panther Party makes a valuable contribution to the field of Panther historiography."

-- Paul Alkebulan The Historian

"Taken as a whole, the essays offer a critical evaluation of the BPP and do not hesitate to challenge the shibboleths and assumptions that heretofore have dominated scholarship on the Panthers. . . . [A]n important contribution. . . ."

-- Gregg L. Michel Journal of American History

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Editors’ Note Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: The Black Panthers and Historical Scholarship: Why Now? Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART ONE. The Panthers through the Historian’s Lens
The Black Panther Party and the Long Civil Rights Era Robert O. Self Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
PART TWO. The Panthers as American Revolutionaries
Introductory Comment: The Panthers and the Question of Violence Rod Bush Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
In the Shadow of the Gun: The Black Panther Party, the Ninth Amendment, and Discourses of Self-Defense Bridgette Baldwin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
PART THREE. From the Bottom Up and the Top Down: Personal Politics and the Black Panthers
Introductory Comment: The Panthers and Local History James T. Campbell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
‘‘A Rebel All His Life’’: The Unexpected Story of Frank ‘‘Parky’’ Grace Jama Lazerow Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
WACing Off: Gossip, Sex, Race, and Politics in the World of FBI Special Case Agent William A. Cohendet Roz Payne Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
PART FOUR. Coalition Politics: The Panthers as a ‘‘Revolutionary Vanguard’’
Introductory Comment: White Tigers, Brown Berets, Black Panthers, Oh My! Yohuru Williams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Invisible Cages: Racialized Politics and the Alliance between the Panthers and the Peace and Freedom Party Joel Wilson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
Leading the Vanguard: White New Leftists School the Panthers on Black Revolution David Barber Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Brown Power to Brown People: Radical Ethnic Nationalism, the Black Panthers, and Latino Radicalism, 1967–1973 Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	252
PART FIVE. 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 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	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 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	306
Media Culture and the Public Memory of the Black Panther Party Edward P. Morgan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	324
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	375
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	377

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 408

eBook

Published: October 31, 2006
ISBN: 9780822388326