The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in Oakland, California, in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. It was perhaps the most visible of the Black Power groups in the late 60s and early 70s, not least because of its confrontational politics, its rejection of nonviolence, and its headline-catching, gun-toting militancy. Important on the national scene and highly visible on college campuses, the Panthers also worked at building grassroots support for local black political and economic power. Although there have been many books about the Black Panthers, none has looked at the organization and its work at the local level. This book examines the work and actions of seven local initiatives in Baltimore, Winston-Salem, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. These local organizations are revealed as committed to programs of community activism that focused on problems of social, political, and economic justice.

The grassroots activities of the Black Panther Party in seven American cities

About the Author

Judson L. Jeffries is Professor of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University and Director of the African American and African Studies Community Extension Center. He is editor of Black Power in the Belly of the Beast. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Reviews

Seeking to move beyond the usual media stereotypes, condemnations from the Right, and romanticization on the Left, this book follows the story of local Black Panther Party chapters in Baltimore, Winston-Salem, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. While the party "as an organization is often reduced to Oakland, and Oakland is often reduced to Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and perhaps Eldridge Cleaver," this book deliberately ignores Oakland (as well as Chicago). It follows Panthers in other communities who resisted police brutality, "participated in broad coalition politics," and "demanded self-determination for oppressed and improverished residents in urban as well as rural areas." Each chapter's authors follow a similar format, first by establishing the history of black activism in the local communities to which they are assigned, and then following the rise and fall of the Panthers in their selected areas. In most cases, the local BPP's legacy was that some members "continued the socially deviant activities that had caused the group's descent," while others "continued the evolution to respectability that the Party had experienced in the 1970s." Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

* Choice *

Judson L. Jeffries and his contributors have done the Black Panther Party a great service by highlighting perhaps the most important, yet least studied aspect of the organization-its community survival programs. Comrades is a must read for any serious student of the Black Panther Party.

-- James N. Uptoneditor * Encyclopedia of American Race Riots *

. . . this is an important contribution to an underdeveloped topic in the scholarship on the party. . . . offers original and important research on the subject, broadening the scope of the field in essential ways, while adding to the scope of postwar ubran history.December 2008

-- Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar * University of Connecticut, Storrs *

. . . move[s] beyond the usual media stereotypes, condemnations from the Right, and romanticization on the Left . . . Recommended. January 2009

* Choice *

[T]his collection of essays skillfully situates seven rarely examined chapters of the Black Panther Party (BPP) within the larger scope of African American urban migration, civil rights activism, and the Black Freedom Struggle.

* Indiana Magazine of History *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253219305
Author Judson L. Jeffries
Format Paperback
Page Count 336
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press