The Black Panthers Speak [Paperback]

Philip S. Foner (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 1995

From its founding in 1966 to contemporary attempts to censure its history and revise its significance, the Black Panther party has aroused fear, hope, pride, vilification, and government-sponsored oppression. The trials of Huey Newton, the Chicago Eight, and the Panther 21 made it enormously difficult for many Americans to distinguish the propaganda from the philosophy; the media's indifference to the Panthers' free breakfast programs, neighborhood clinics, and liberation schools only complicated the problem.This is the first and only collection of the most vital, representative writings of the party. Here are Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, David Hilliard, and Fred Hampton; Kathleen Cleaver and other Panther women; the party's court battles and acquittals; its positions on black separatism, the power structure, the police, violence, and education; as well as songs, poems, and political cartoons. This book explains exactly what the Black Panthers stood for and what issues they confronted, almost all of which remain unresolved today.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 21, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306806274
• ISBN-13: 978-0306806278
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #805,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true synopsis of the Panthers, that should be read by ALL, March 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Black Panthers Speak (Paperback)

The Black Panthers Speak is the BEST book out for Americans who want to know what the Panthers stood for. Nobody's interpretation of what the Panthers were about, but only the speeches, letters, and court transcripts of Black Panther members. This book should be read by Americans of ALL ethnicities. Use it to understand that the Black Panthers were a party for ALL people in the struggle for freedom.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Introduction, May 2, 2002

By 

JB (Sandy, UT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Black Panthers Speak (Paperback)

Knowing absolutely nothing about the Black Panthers I picked up this collection one day and read nearly straight through it. I came away with what I think is a fairly good idea of the goals of the Black Panther Party, not the same one I had generally heard or been taught growing up. Instead of them being the black racists many tend to think they are, what would be the equal opposite of the KKK (who, versus the Panthers' few years of existence, have been operating for more than 100 years), I learned that they could be more adequately labeled as classists, in the Marxist-Lenin tradition. As Eldridge Cleaver, one-time minister of information for the Black Panther Party, "You speak of an 'undying love' for black people. An undying love for black people that denies the humanity of other people is doomed. It was an undying love of white people for each other which led them to deny the humanity of colored people and which has stripped white people of humanity itself." I don't see a lot of "hating whitey" there, as Horowitz and other conservatives would have you believe, but more of a gelling together of the dregs of humanity in an attempt to alter its condition, the stance that Malcolm X eventually evolved to, and, later, the Panthers.

Perhaps we as humanity have come a ways, maybe thanks to them, since the Panthers first took up arms, defying the police to beat, shoot or incarcerate them. I say this because eight years ago a similar movement began in the southern highlands of Mexico, another marginalized group taking up arms in order to say,"Take notice, we're not taking it anymore." Instead of being branded thugs and criminals, the Zapatistas captured the hearts and minds of the world and continue their quest for equal rights and protection under the law.

According to their own writings (the real beauty of this book), these guys are not the black KKK or black neo-nazis, contrary to some opinion.

I found the writings of Eldridge Cleaver, a one-time candidate for president, to be some of my favorite.

I'll close with a citation from Julian Bond, which I think sums up what the Black Panther Party was really about: "What the Panthers do more than anything else is they set a standard that young black people particularly want to measure up to...It's a standard of aggressiveness, of militance, of just plain forcefulness, the sort of standard we haven't had in the past. Our idols have been Dr. King who, for all his beauty as a man, was not an aggressive man." Even Dr. King began to take a more aggressive approach before he was gunned down. It's not hate or intimidation, but standing up for oneself as a man.

I recommend complementary readings of the Autobiography of Malcolm X and the Wretched of the Earth.

6 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE!!!, October 27, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Black Panthers Speak (Paperback)

This is a really good book, and I recomend it to all, this book really does capture the spirt of the black panther party