About book The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered] (2005)
If it hasn’t been stolen from your local library yet, check out this book edited by Professor Charles E. Jones. Published in 1998, it’s still one of the best collections of academic essays on the subject of the Black Panther Party (BPP), in my opinion.Jones sifted through much of the collected Black Panther Party writing, and found it wanting. “The literature on the Panthers is beset with deficiencies… and often riddled with inaccuracies” he complained, noting that the BPP is characterized as a “criminal gang” too often, and “these negative assessments of the Panthers vastly undermine the historical significance of the BPP.” Though Jones feels these accounts, by David Horowitz and others, are part of an campaign of anti-leftist revisionism, he still takes care to criticize overzealous works like the late 1990s film Panther, which strip the panthers of their politics and flaws alike, and look through too narrow a lens.Omissions are even more upsetting, to both Jones and myself. In spite of the BPP’s influence as “the most influential revolutionary nationalist group in the U.S.” in the late 1960s (according to Manning Marable – channeling G-man Hoover’s description of the Panthers as public enemy #1) the encyclopedia of the American Left had only one entry for the Panthers. There really didn’t seem to be much decent academic writing on the subject. Many studies only follow the BPP until 1971, “a limited time frame,” says Jones, well short of the official demise in 1982.The book opens with an Jones essay that aims to debunk various myths about the Panthers, and it is a welcome start. For me, particular treats within the volume are Chris Booker’s a critique of the Panther’s lumpen strategy in “Lumpenization”, Kathleen Neal Cleaver’s memories of the International Section in “Back to Africa”, and Akinyele Umoja’s rumination on New Afrikan prisoners in “Set Our Warriors Free”.This far into the 21st century, most anti-Panther writers seem to have abandoned the subject, and it is being kept in print by its allies. I don’t mind that most modern writers on the subject appear to to be pro-Panther. Although replacing the government’s bias with another slant doesn’t do the movement full justice, the wounds from the party’s collapse are still too fresh for complete objectivity. Most importantly, however, not enough has been written. The semi-sequel to this volume is Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy.[Documentation on the Black Liberation Army, my primary subject of interest as of late, is even scanter, so I’ve been going over various Black Panther histories with an eye to extracting any mention of the BLA and its activities.:]
Do You like book The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered] (2005)?
