"If one would look closely, and check this three year history, he will find that in damn near every rebellion a racist cop was involved in the starting of that rebellion. And these same pig cops, under orders from the racist government, will probably cause 50 or more rebellions to occur the rest of this year alone, by inflicting brutality or murdering some black person within the confines of one of our black communities. Black people will defend themselves at all costs. They will learn the corre

"If one would look closely, and check this three year history, he will find that in damn near every rebellion a racist cop was involved in the starting of that rebellion. And these same pig cops, under orders from the racist government, will probably cause 50 or more rebellions to occur the rest of this year alone, by inflicting brutality or murdering some black person within the confines of one of our black communities. Black people will defend themselves at all costs. They will learn the correct tactics to use in dealing with the racist cops. . . . The racist military police force occupies our community just like the foreign American troops in Vietnam. But to inform you dog racists controlling this rotten government and for you to let your pig cops know you ain't just causing a "long hot summer", you're causing a Black Revolution."


It is impossible I suspect to read a history of the Black Panthers now without feeling the weight of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the murders which make it necessary, settling over you as you read. You wonder how these young revolutionaries would react to thousands of people chanting: "Hands Up, Don't Shoot", and the depressing reality that despite the fact that Black kids play on the White House lawn, most of their peers live with endemic poverty, more Black boys will go to jail than university; Black kids die in wars overseas in disproportionate numbers in wars whose gains they will never see; and Black men and women are gunned down by police with regularity. Of what the originators of the Black Pride movement, the young Panthers who patrolled police, would think of parents teaching their children how to be polite to cops at all times, how to keep their hands away from their pockets, how to stay safe through compliance. (There is no implied criticism here, just a musing on what changes, and what doesn't). Of course, the Panthers themselves, the authors contend, faced dilemmas over militancy vs mass support at mobilisations, choosing increasingly to hold fire to conserve support and stay alive, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.


This history itself is fairly straightforward - there is some broad theses about the reasons for the rapid growth and rapid decline woven through - but mainly the authors have produced a dense-but-readable, roughly-chronological-while-grouping-themes-and-locations history of the Panthers (no small feat given the diversity to cover). It's not a ripping yarn. The authors are more concerned with dynamics than personality, accuracy than anecdote, and if the writing remains unmemorable, the book is still the more thought provoking for the approach.


While some things - the focus on police violence as a key mechanism of Black oppression - remain familiar, others contrast to current politics. In particular, the book places a strong emphasis on the importance of Third World Liberation struggles in formulating the Panthers critique, particularly the experiences of Cuban, Algerian, Chinese and Vietnamese revolutionaries. Far from adopting terms like African-American, the Panthers' overtly identified the interests of Blacks with these struggles against the USA, and rejected an identification with the US as a whole. Their use of the capitalised Black chose to emphasise the commonality with people of colour (African-American wasn't in use till the 80s). This broader, global perspective, a rejection of nationalist rhetoric, or the underlying idea that Black people should be fighting for incorporation into the American state is evident throughout their approach. From the formation of alternate sources of community organisation - from schools to health clinics to law enforcement - through to a strategy of intense alliance building. The Panthers described in this book certainly weren't seperatists, quite the opposite, they saw the Black struggle as part of something much larger, global in scope but also taking in the struggles of others whose interests were not aligned with the State, from other racial groups like the Young Lords, through to the emerging LGBTI movement and the women's liberation movements. Working with peace organisations was a natural for the Panthers, as they saw common cause with the Viet Cong, and the entire Third World Bloc. One of the biggest, and most welcome, surprises for me in this book was the extent to which the Panthers helped, funded and underpinned other movements, including those dominated by white activists, while maintaining clear leadership and focus on Black liberation.

This may not be an accurate comment - coming as it does from an Australian librarian - but it felt is stark contrast to current US politics, where the Black Lives Matter movement seems largely self-contained, a struggle others have