Read complete books and articles on: Black Panther Party

Black Panthers - U.S. African-American militant party, founded (1966) in Oakland, Calif., by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Originally espousing violent revolution as the only means of achieving black liberation, the Black Panthers called on African Americans to arm themselves for the liberation struggle. In the late 1960s party members became involved in a series of violent confrontations with the police (resulting in deaths on both sides) and in a series of court cases, some resulting from direct shoot-outs with the police and some from independent charges. Among the most notable of the trials was that of Huey Newton for killing a policeman in 1967, which resulted in three mistrials, the last in 1971. Bobby Seale, one of the "Chicago Eight" charged and convicted of conspiracy to violently disrupt the Democratic National Convention of 1968 (conviction later overturned), was a codefendant in a Connecticut case charging murder of an alleged informer on the party. He was acquitted in 1971. A third major trial was of 13 Panthers in New York City accused of conspiring to bomb public places. They were also acquitted in 1971. The results of these trials were taken by many observers as confirmation of their suspicions that the Black Panthers were being subjected to extreme police harassment. Another incident that supported this view was the killing in a raid by Chicago police of Illinois party leader Fred Hampton and another Panther in 1969; review of this incident revealed that the two Panthers had been shot in their beds without any provocation. While controversy raged over the civil liberties issue, the Panthers themselves were riven with internal disputes. A major split took place, with Newton and Seale (who in 1972 announced their intention of abandoning violent methods) on the one side and Eldridge Cleaver (formerly the chief publicist for the party, who continued to preach violent revolution) on the other. Cleaver headed the so-called international headquarters of the party (until 1973) in Algeria. In 1974 both Seale and Newton left the party; the former resigned, and the latter fled to Cuba to avoid drug charges. During the late 1970s the party gradually lost most of its influence, ceasing to be an important force within the black community. The New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded in Dallas, Tex., in 1989, is not related to the old group.

See H. Pearson, The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America (1994).

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13 of the Best Books and Articles on: Black Panther Party

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Revolutionary Black Nationalism: The Black Panther Party, in The Journal of Negro History » Read Now
by Jessica Christina Harris. 13 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
2.

Minority Politics and Ideologies in the United States ("The Black Panthers" begins on p. 48) » Read Now
by Jane H. Bayes. 130 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
3.

Takin' It to the Streets: A Sixties Reader ("The Black Panthers" begins on p. 164) » Read Now
by Alexander Bloom, Wini Breines. 636 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Takin' It to the Streets is a comprehensive collection of primary documents covering political, social and cultural aspects of the 1960's. Drawn from mainstream sources, little-known sixties periodicals, pamphlets and public speeches, this anthology brings together representative writings many of...
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Takin' It to the Streets is a comprehensive collection of primary documents covering political, social and cultural aspects of the 1960's. Drawn from mainstream sources, little-known sixties periodicals, pamphlets and public speeches, this anthology brings together representative writings many of which have been unavailable for years or have never been reprinted, from the Port Huron Statement and Malcolm X's "The Ballot or the Bullet" to Richard Nixon's "If Mob Rule Takes Hold in the U.S." and Ronald Reagan's "Freedom versus Anarchy on Campus." Introductions and headnotes by the editors help highlight the importance of particular documents while relating them to each other and placing them within the broader context of the decade. While paying particular attention to civil rights, anti-war activity, Black power, the counter-culture, the women's and gay/lesbian struggles for recognition, the authors also take into account the conservative backlashes these sparked and thus present a balanced portrait of a tumultous era. Covering an extremely popular period of history, Takin' It to the Streets stands out as a thorough and accessible collection of documents, an authoritative reader for a decade such as America had not seen before or experienced since.
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4.

Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement » Read Now
by Ward Churchill, Jim Vander Wall. 509 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
5.

American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists & Others (Chap. 6 "The Black Panther Party") » Read Now
by John George, Laird Wilcox. 443 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Literally an encyclopedia of hate, paranoia, & terror, this book closely examines the purposes & goals of each movement & debunks much of their racist & anti-government propaganda.
6.

The Troubles: A Jaundiced Glance Back at the Movement of the Sixties (Chap. Five "Black Mischief, White Skin Privilage") » Read Now
by Joseph Conlin. 426 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...untenable by the experience of black soldiers in the armed forces and...segregationists fought like bayou panthers, obstructing and deflecting court...like Stokely...
7.

Blacks and Reds: Race and Class in Conflict, 1919-1990 (Discussion of the Black Panther Party begins on p. 263) » Read Now
by Earl Ofari Hutchinson. 338 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

In this important new study, Earl Ofari Hutchinson examines in detail the American Communist Party's efforts to win the allegiance of black Americans and the various responses to this from the black community. Beginning with events of the 1920s, Hutchinson discusses at length the historical forces...
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In this important new study, Earl Ofari Hutchinson examines in detail the American Communist Party's efforts to win the allegiance of black Americans and the various responses to this from the black community. Beginning with events of the 1920s, Hutchinson discusses at length the historical forces that encouraged alliances between African Americans and the predominately white American Communist Party. He also takes an indepth look at why, and how, issues of class, party ideology, and racial identity stood in the way of a partnership of black leaders and communists in the United States. Blacks and Reds addresses landmark events surrounding associations between communists and black activists. Hutchinson examines, among other things, how Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois's support of party activities affected their lives and how the Communist Party used the trial of Angela Davis to promote its own interests. His scope ranges from oft forgotten signs of misdirection, such as how communists' efforts to express racial sympathy in the early 1950s contributed to their own near destruction during the McCarthy era, to a thorough discussion of how the Party's effort to gain a foothold in Stokely Carmichael's SNCC, Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, Martin Luther King's SCLC, and Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver's Black Panthers shook up the civil rights movement by triggering the FBI's secret war against King, Malcolmi X, and others considered to be black radicals.
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8.

The 60s Experience: Hard Lessons about Modern America ("The Black Panther Party" begins on p. 80) » Read Now
by Edward P. Morgan. 357 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
9.

Spying on America: The FBI's Domestic Counterintelligence Program (Chap. 5 "The Black Nationalist Hate Group COINTELPRO") » Read Now
by James Kirkpatrick Davis. 198 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

"COINTELPRO"--an acronym for "Counterintelligence Program"--is the code name the FBI gave to the secret operations aimed at five major social and political protest groups: the Communist party, the Socialist Workers party, the Ku Klux Klan, black nationalist hate groups, and the New Left movement...
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"COINTELPRO"--an acronym for "Counterintelligence Program"--is the code name the FBI gave to the secret operations aimed at five major social and political protest groups: the Communist party, the Socialist Workers party, the Ku Klux Klan, black nationalist hate groups, and the New Left movement. Spying on America, the first book to chronicle all five of the operations, tells the story of how the FBI, from 1956 until COINTELPRO's exposure in 1971, expanded its domestic surveillance programs and increasingly employed questionable, even unlawful, methods in an effort to disrupt what amounted to virtually our entire social and political protest process. Violations of citizens' constitutional rights were rampant, and the secret operations actually resulted in a number of deaths. At the time, neither the public nor the news media knew anything about COINTELPRO. In vivid detail, Spying on America demonstrates that the system of checks and balances designed to prevent such occurrences was simply not functioning--until an illegal act uncovered the secret activities. The book opens with the daring raid on a Media, Pennsylvania, FBI office by a group that adeptly used its booty--about 1,000 classified documents--to make COINTELPRO operations public. The burglars, who called themselves the Citizen's Commission to Investigate the FBI and with whom the FBI never caught up, used sophisticated techniques releasing copies of incriminating documents to the media at carefully timed intervals. Spying on America draws on newspaper and magazine articles, interviews with many of the people involved, and FBI memos to trace the historical beginnings and operating methods of COINTELPRO against each of the fivetargeted groups. In vivid detail, the author re-creates the reactions of the bureau--including the subsequent policy changes--as well as the response of the news media and the resulting shift in public attitudes toward the F
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10.

American Political Trials (Chap. 12 "The Chicago Conspiracy Case") » Read Now
by Michal R. Belknap. 323 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

An updated and expanded revision of a popular book published in 1981, American Political Trials examines the role of politicized criminal trials and impeachments in U.S. history from the early colonial era to the late twentieth century. Each chapter focuses on a trial representative of a particular...
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An updated and expanded revision of a popular book published in 1981, American Political Trials examines the role of politicized criminal trials and impeachments in U.S. history from the early colonial era to the late twentieth century. Each chapter focuses on a trial representative of a particular era in the American past. The emphasis is on cases that resulted from political persecution, but the book also shows how defendants have exploited the judicial process to advance their political objectives. All of the chapters appearing in the earlier book have been updated. In addition, the volume includes new chapters on the 1637 trial of Anne Hutchinson and the 1989 trial of Lt. Col. Oliver North for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. The book also includes an updated bibliographical essay.
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11.

Huey P. Newton: The Radical Theorist ("Out of the Ashes of Despair Rises a Militant Phoenix: The Birth of the Black Panther Party" begins on p. 3, and "The Party Line: The Ideological Development of the Black Panther Party" begins on p. 63) » Read Now
by Judson L. Jeffries. 195 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Huey P. Newton's powerful legacy to the Black Panther movement and the civil rights struggle has long been obscured. Conservatives harp on Newton's drug use and on the circumstances of his death in a crack-related shooting. Liberals romanticize his black revolutionary rhetoric and idealize his...
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Huey P. Newton's powerful legacy to the Black Panther movement and the civil rights struggle has long been obscured. Conservatives harp on Newton's drug use and on the circumstances of his death in a crack-related shooting. Liberals romanticize his black revolutionary rhetoric and idealize his message.
In Huey P. Newton: The Radical Theorist, Judson L. Jeffries considers the entire arc of Newton's political role and influence on civil rights history and African American thought. Jeffries argues that, contrary to popular belief, Newton was one of the most important political thinkers in the struggle for civil rights.
Huey P. Newton's political career spanned two decades. Like many freedom fighters, he was a complex figure. His international reputation was forged as much from his passionate defense of black liberation as from his highly publicized confrontations with police.
His courage to address police brutality won him admirers in ghettos, on college campuses, and in select Hollywood circles. Newton gave Black Power a compelling urgency and played a pivotal role in the politics of black America during the 1960s and 1970s.
Few would deny that Newton's life (1942-1989) was strewn with incidences of violence and that his police record was long. But Newton's struggles with police took place in a rich and troubled context that included urban unrest, police brutality, government repression, and an intense debate over civil rights tactics.
Stripped of history and interpretation, the violence of Newton's life brought emphatic indictments of him. Newton's death attracted widespread media attention. However, pundits offered little on Newton as freedom fighter or as theoretician andactivist.
Huey P. Newton: The Radical Theorist dispels myths about Newton's life, but the book is primarily an in-depth examination of Newton's ideas. By exploring this charismatic leader, Jeffries's book makes a valuable con
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12.

Let Freedom Ring: A Documentary History of the Modern Civil Rights Movement ("Huey P. Newton, 'In Defense of Self Defense,' The Black Panther, June 20, 1967" begins on p. 184) » Read Now
by Peter B. Levy. 276 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This book traces the story of the civil rights movement through the written and spoken words of those who participated in it. It includes both classic texts, such as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and lesser-known gems, such as Robert Moses'...
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This book traces the story of the civil rights movement through the written and spoken words of those who participated in it. It includes both classic texts, such as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and lesser-known gems, such as Robert Moses' "Letter from a Mississippi Jail Cell" and James Lawson's address to SNCC's 1960 founding meeting. "This is a documentary collection that has been needed for a long time. The burgeoning interest in the civil rights movement argues for such a work, and the need to have the experience of the movement in the participants' own words demands it. Words counted during the civil rights movement, and Levy's collection . . . is the best and most accessible." Randall M. Miller Professor of History Director of American Studies Saint Joseph's University
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13.

Africana Womanism in the Black Panther Party: A Personal Story, in The Western Journal of Black Studies » Read Now
by Regina Jennings. 7 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library