Certainly, after the quick rise and
repression of the Occupy Movement, this study on an earlier radical faction who
advocated more violent urban occupation and resistance merits reflection.
Joshua Bloom (UCLA) and Waldo E. Martin, Jr. (UC Berkeley) collaborate to
present a study which relies not on oral interviews or "retrospective
accounts" tainted by bias or filtered through idealism, but a sober
analysis. They base their work on five years of Bay Area archival research: first
to assemble nearly all of over five hundred copies of the Party's
newspaper, and then to investigate audio recordings from radio stations aired
in the 1960s and 1970s about social movements. Bloom and Martin apply an
academic approach over four hundred pages of carefully organized and accessibly
phrased text that combines a contemporary perspective from which to approach
the material with a way to revive the voices in print and on the air--the
latter otherwise (perhaps) evanescent.
As other reviews on Amazon have
covered this testimony, my overview will offer a quick nod to the sections.
"Organizing Rage" tracks what had started in May 1967 for black
anti-imperialism and "policing the police." This led in "Baptism
of Blood" to the very quick eruption of the Black Panther Party to national
prominence. In 1968, armed self-defense, self-determination, and armed
opposition emerged as Party platforms and programs. While as one interested in
a parallel time when Irish republicanism revived to rally another nation of
"internal exiles" across the world, I found no direct correlation
made by Bloom and Martin to the Irish struggle, certainly (as Brian Dooley's
"Black and Green" documents), parallels to a First World as well as
the many Third World liberation movements of the late '60s on point to the
continuing inspiration that the Party's leaders and their revolutionary
rhetoric--combined with efforts such as the famous Oakland free breakfast
programs--left in nations at first sight far removed from the ghettos of
Northern California.
Part three looks at
"Resilience," and part four, "Revolution Has Come!" Rebels
burst onto the scene, internationally, happened as the 1960s gave way to the
1970s. Accidentally or symbolically, the transfer in the methods for social
change advocated for urban guerrillas to actively fight the state led to
understandable media and increasingly (un-)popular attention. The role played
by informants, provocateurs, and dirty tricks has often been featured in
coverage; this volume collects such FBI COINTELPRO factionalism as an object
lesson in how the growth of a grassroots movement creates its own increased
repression.
For instance, when I attended UCLA
decades later as a grad student, I heard about the Black Studies Program and a
fatal shootout by the US organization against the Panthers in the building next
to the one where I took most of my courses. As the authors note in the type of
aside showing the scope of their survey, under the leadership of Ron Karenga,
US can be credited for starting the holiday of Kwanza. (141) As Kwanza
illustrates in miniature, the advances made by black activists can be seen
around us in education, culture, politics, and employment in the nearly fifty years
since the Party's power.
Ramifications of the divide and
conquer strategy cynically employed by the government demonstrate the fear that
many Americans had, stoked by media coverage, of the Party. "Concessions
and Unraveling" as the final section speaks for itself. It reminds me of
the Occupy Movement if in less hard-headed fashion, as groups split and
individuals watched as conflicting agendas and mutual dissension weakened,
frayed, and then dissolved under the relentless forces of law-and-order
crackdowns, political disdain, and popular caricature. (Slightly edited 4-15-13 for Slugger O'Toole; as above 4-10-13 to Amazon US.)
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