From Publishers Weekly
Forbes wasn't the first 16-year-old boy to be smitten by the romance of revolution, but he is among the handful in recent American history who became top-ranking members of the Black Panther Party. His autobiography reads like a modern-day
Crime and Punishment, tracking Forbes's evolution from a comrade who thought he could "do almost anything" to achieve a revolutionary objective to a prisoner in existential crisis. Unlike Dostoyevski's protagonist, Forbes does not generally regret his past, but reproaches himself for his vulnerability to "years of ideological and philosophical conditioning," despite the worthiness of the Panther cause. A survivor above all, Forbes straddles passion and cynicism with equanimity, and is as willing to demythologize major figures as he is to canonize them. He treats Huey P. Newton with particular subtlety, alternately revering the Black Panther founder and cult hero as a genius of realpolitik and criticizing him as a cocaine-snorting, iron-fisted gangster. When Newton is accused of murdering a 17-year-old prostitute and Forbes risks assassinating the star witness to save him, one realizes that Forbes's story is really a case study of power's allure and attendant moral compromise, no matter how righteous its origin. Photos.
(July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–Forbes joined the Black Panther Party as a 16-year-old in 1968. Within eight years, he had become a member of the inner circle that gave him access to cofounder Huey Newton. During the following 10 years, Forbes made a tactical error that killed a close friend and turned him into a fugitive before returning to California to face sentencing. During the past 20 years, he has completed college and graduate school, and has worked as an urban planner and small-business developer. Less scholarly than David Hilliard and Lewis Cole's
This Side of Glory (Chicago Review, 2001), but no less authentic and insightful, this book intertwines the author's life story with aspects of the Black Panthers' development and denouement, using street talk that both befits Forbes's youth and makes his story a compelling nonfiction read for teens with a taste for urban fiction. The author portrays himself as analytical and thirsty for ideas even at a time when he spent his days drinking and smoking pot, and his nights protecting Oakland and Berkeley neighborhoods against incursion by non-BPP gangs. Two dozen photos are included, and a chronology provides a larger historical context for the time period. Rough language will keep this title from some school library shelves, but students will find it a valuable research tool and, for some, welcome leisure reading.
–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
