"Writing from the barren confines of his death row cell, Mumia Abu-Jamal provides a remarkable testament about the Black Panther Party. . . .an amazing book that illuminates the truth of what his membership in the Party was about, and reveals the extreme price extracted from him for having learned, and for now telling the truth."— Kathleen Cleaver , from the Introduction Mumia Abu Jamal, America’s most famous political prisoner, is internationally known for his radio broadcasts and books emerging “Live from Death Row.” In his youth Mumia Abu-Jamal helped found the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party, wrote for the national newspaper, and began his life-long work of exposing the violence of the state as it manifests in entrenched poverty, endemic racism, and unending police brutality. In We Want Freedom , Mumia combines his memories of day-to-day life in the Party with analysis of the history of Black liberation struggles. The result is a vivid and compelling picture of the Black Panther Party and its legacy. Applying his poetic voice and unsparing critical gaze, Mumia examines one of the most revolutionary and most misrepresented groups in the US. As the calls that Black Lives Matter continue to grow louder, Mumia connects the historic dots in this revised/updated edition, observing that the Panthers had legal observers to monitor the police and demanded the “immediate end to police brutality and the murder of Black people.” By focusing on the men and women who were the Party, as much as on the leadership; by locating the Black Panthers in a struggle centuries old—and in the personal memories of a young man—Mumia Abu-Jamal helps us to understand freedom.
Оглавление
Mumia Abu-Jamal. We Want Freedom
Cover
Praise for We Want Freedom
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Dedication
Reflections—Introduction to a New, Revised Edition
Introduction, by Kathleen Cleaver
1. The Beginnings of the Black Panther Party and the History It Sprang From
2. The Deep Roots of the Struggle for Black Liberation
3. A Panther Walks in Philly
4. The Black Panther Party
5. “Huey’s Party” Grows
6. The Empire Strikes Back: COINTELPRO
7. A Woman’s Party
8. A Panther’s Life
9. The Split
10. One, Two, Many Parties
Afterword
Photos and Documents
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Supporter Information
About Common Notions
More From Common Notions
Отрывок из книги
praise for We Want Freedom
Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title
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In a study of the radical underpinnings of Black thought it is not sufficient to provide a kind of caramel-colored, sepia-toned version of US history. Consider that these rebellions occurred but a few decades before the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent American Revolution. In those battles for liberty it is perhaps unremarkable to note that some 5,000 Blacks were eventually integrated into the Army of the Continental Congress, although General George Washington, a slaveholder from Virginia, initially opposed their enlistment. The First Rhode Island Regiment, an elite regiment of Black enlisted men and white officers, carried the day against the British at Yorktown, playing a pivotal role in forcing the surrender of Cornwallis.27
What is less well known is that well over ten times that number, some 65,000 Africans, joined the British cause. They joined not because of any craven loyalty to the Crown, nor any disloyalty to the colonies, but rather because of the age-old impetus of self-interest. Britain’s Lord Dunmore offered freedom to all “negroes” who would fight for the Crown, and tens of thousands leapt at the opportunity. Dunmore organized a corps of Black former slaves into the Ethiopia Regiment, who wore the motto “Liberty to Slaves” on their tunics. This regiment helped the British capture and torch Norfolk, Virginia, on New Year’s Day, 1776.
